Path of Exile 2: A Complete Endgame Activity Guide

Rituals are one of the four core endgame Activities you'll encounter in Path of Exile 2. They offer a unique and challenging gameplay loop where you sacrifice monsters to dark gods to earn powerful rewards called Favours. Mastering Ritual encounters is essential to progress through the Atlas and acquire top-tier gear and crafting materials. This guide will cover where to find Rituals, how to complete them, the rewards you can earn, and the Ritual passive skill tree to help you optimize your journey.

Where to Find Ritual Encounters

Ritual encounters are scattered throughout the Atlas of Worlds, appearing in maps marked with a distinct Ritual symbol. The distribution of Rituals across the Atlas is random, with no biome showing a higher frequency of Ritual encounters than others. This randomness means you might have to explore a variety of maps to find them.

However, if you want to increase the likelihood of Ritual encounters in your maps, you can use a Ritual Precursor Tablet in a Lost Tower. This item acts as a catalyst, increasing Ritual spawn rates for the current map, making it easier to farm Ritual content if you're aiming for Favours and Tribute farming.

Once you enter a Ritual map, your goal is to locate the Ritual circles scattered throughout the area. These are the focal points of each encounter. Typically, maps have three Ritual circles, but maps affected by Corruption will have four, increasing the challenge and the potential rewards.

How to Complete Ritual Encounters

Completing a Ritual encounter involves a cycle of preparation, combat, and survival. Here's how it unfolds:

Find and Clear the Ritual Circle

When you find a Ritual circle, you must clear the surrounding area of monsters to “charge” the circle. This means you need to slay a certain number of enemies inside the circle before it becomes active.

Activate the Ritual Circle

Once charged, you can activate the Ritual. This triggers the core mechanic: the monsters you sacrificed will revive and attack you in waves. The fight becomes a gauntlet of surviving relentless enemy onslaughts.

Fight in a Restricted Space

The area immediately around the Ritual circle will close off, leaving you with a small, confined space to fight in. This makes positioning critical, as cramped spaces can easily trap you, leading to overwhelming damage.

Stacking Waves Across Rituals

The challenge intensifies with each Ritual you activate. After the first Ritual wave, activating the second will revive all monsters from the first Ritual and the new sacrifices from the second. By the third Ritual, you're fighting every enemy from the previous two Rituals, plus the new wave. This stacking mechanic tests your crowd control, survivability, and damage output.

Ritual Rewards and Tribute System

The primary currency earned through Rituals is Tribute, which you gain for every enemy you defeat during the encounter. Tribute is spent at the Ritual altar, a special vendor-like interface where you can purchase Favours.

What Are Favours?

Favours are valuable items that can include:

Powerful weapons and armor

Rare jewelry with useful affixes

Crafting materials for upgrading your gear

You can select the Favours that best suit your build and goals, or reroll the list of available items using Tribute if the offerings aren't appealing.

Deferring Favours

If you encounter an item you want but don't have enough Tribute to buy immediately, the Ritual system allows you to defer the purchase by paying 15% of its Tribute cost upfront. This deferral moves the item into a future Favours list, where it will appear again at a 10% discount. This mechanic lets you save up Tribute across multiple maps for high-cost items without losing access to them.

Audience With the King

On high-tier maps (level 10 and above), Ritual Altars have a chance to offer a unique item called Audience With the King, which costs roughly 5,000 Tribute-a significant amount that typically exceeds what you can earn in a single map run.

Audience With the King allows you to challenge the King of the Mists, the pinnacle Ritual boss, and a massive step up in challenge.

Because of its high Tribute cost, you will likely need to defer it multiple times, steadily saving Tribute until you can afford the fight.

Defeating the King of the Mists rewards you with rare loot and Ritual passive skill points, which help you grow stronger and unlock new benefits in the Ritual passive skill tree.

The Ritual Passive Skill Tree

Every time you defeat The King of the Mists, you gain passive skill points that you can spend within the Ritual section of the Atlas passive skill tree. These points enhance your capabilities in Ritual encounters, but the tree is a double-edged sword: it contains both useful bonuses and difficulty scaling nodes.

How the Tree Works

The passive tree alternates between nodes that improve your damage, survivability, Tribute gain, or Favours and nodes that increase the difficulty of Ritual encounters.

Spending points on difficulty nodes will make The King of the Mists fight harder, but grant more passive skill points when you defeat him.

Conversely, investing in useful notables will make Ritual runs more manageable and increase rewards, but the encounters will be easier and yield fewer points.

Key Notable Passive Skills

Here's a sample of notable nodes you'll find on the Ritual passive skill tree:

Tribute Efficiency: Increases the amount of Tribute earned per enemy slain.

Favours Discount: Reduces the Tribute cost of Favours, making it easier to acquire powerful items.

Damage Bonuses: Boosts your damage against Ritual enemies and bosses, helping you clear faster.

Survivability: Provides bonuses to resistances, life, or armor while inside Ritual encounters.

Difficulty Scaling: Increases enemy health, damage, and mechanics complexity, rewarding more points for completion.

Balancing these nodes according to your playstyle and the current difficulty of Ritual encounters is vital for sustained success in Ritual farming.

Tips for Success in Rituals

Prioritize Mobility: Avoid getting trapped in small spaces, especially as enemy waves stack. Movement skills and positioning are key.

Optimize Your Build: Include damage over time, crowd control, and survivability to handle the increasingly difficult waves.

Use Ritual Precursor Tablets: To farm Rituals more efficiently by increasing their spawn rate.

Manage Tribute Wisely: Defer expensive Favours to save Tribute and buy the most impactful items when ready.

Prepare for The King of the Mists: Build up your Ritual passive points steadily and invest carefully to take on the pinnacle boss.

Conclusion

Rituals in Path of Exile 2 offer a challenging and rewarding endgame experience focused on skillful combat, resource management, and strategic decision-making. From finding Ritual maps and clearing stacking waves of enemies to managing Tribute and climbing the Ritual passive tree, mastering this activity will greatly enhance your power and progression in Wraeclast. Whether you're hunting for powerful Favours or aiming to conquer The King of the Mists, understanding Rituals is essential for any serious PoE 2 player.

If you're looking to acquire Path of Exile 2 currency or Path of Exile 2 items, you can either farm them through gameplay activities like Rituals, map farming, and boss kills, or trade with other players using the in-game trade systems.