PoE 2: How to Respec / Change Ascendancy

Picked the wrong Ascendancy? Want to change your build? This guide contains all of the information you need to respec into a different Ascendancy!

Important note: You can only choose to ascend into an Ascendancy Class that is part of your base Class. For example as a Ranger, you can choose to change from a Pathfinder to a Deadeye, but you cannot become a Ritualist as that's a Huntress Ascendancy. You can only respec your Ascendancy, not your base Class.

How it Works

Ascendancy respecing requires you to redo an ascension trial. However, the difficulty of the required trial is based on how many Ascendancy Passive Points you've already unlocked on your current Ascendancy. To respec your Ascendancy, you must complete the trial that would award you with the amount of Ascendancy Passive Points that you've already unlocked.

By default you'll unlock your first 2 Ascendancy Passive Points upon completing the Act 2 quest 'Ascent to Power' by clearing the first floor of the Trial of the Sekhemas. You then unlock a further 2 Ascendancy Passive Points upon completing the Act 3 quest 'The Trials of Chaos' by slaying the fourth trial boss in the Trial of Chaos. You'll typically finish the campaign with 4/8 Ascendancy Passive Points, with the remaining 4 unlocked via non-quest entry and completion of higher-level ascension trials.

Djinn Barya tokens are required to enter the Trial of the Sekhemas, while you'll need an Inscribed Ultimatum to enter the Trial of Chaos. The Area Level and specified content on the token is important to understand if completion will reward Ascendancy Passive Points or allow you to respec your Ascendancy.

• Act 2 quest 'Ascent to Power' (Floors: 1) - 2 Points (2/8 total)
• Act 3 quest 'The Trials of Chaos' (Trials: 4) - 2 Points (4/8 total)
• Djinn Barya (Area Level 60+, Floors: 3) OR Inscribed Ultimatum (Area Level 65+, Trials: 10) - 2 Points (6/8 total)
• Djinn Barya (Area Level 75+, Floors: 4) OR Inscribed Ultimatum (Defeat the Trialmaster*) - 2 Points (8/8 total)

*see this guide for more information on how to access the Trialmaster boss encounter.

What You Need

To respec your Ascendancy you'll need a few things:

• Know how many Ascendancy Passive Points you currently have (navigate to your Passive Skill Tree to view the amount of Points invested in your current Ascendancy)
• Find or trade for a Djinn Barya OR Inscribed Ultimatum with the correct Area Level and content equivalent to the total Ascendancy Passive Points that you currently have unlocked. For example if you currently have 6/8 Ascendancy Passive Points, you'll need a Djinn Barya of at least Area Level 60 with at least 3 Floors OR an Inscribed Ultimatum of at least Area Level 65 with 10 Trials
• Ensure that you have enough Gold to respec your Ascendancy Passive Points* - to respec your Ascendancy, your current Ascendancy must be completely cleared of any spent points before interacting with the Altar of Ascension. Don't worry though - Balbala or the Trialmaster will offer the option to respec your Ascendancy Passive Points in the final Chamber of the trial so you don't need to complete the trial without points spent.

*to make sure you have enough Gold, you can check in with The Hooded One in the campaign, or Doryani to see how much Gold it costs to refund each of your Ascendancy Passive Points without committing to the refund.

Step 1: Enter and Complete the Trial

Place the token in the Temple Offering or Relic Altar to gain entry

To gain access to the trial you'll need to use your token; go to the Trial of Chaos and place your Inscribed Ultimatum in the Temple Offering, or go to the Trial of the Sekhemas and place your Djinn Barya in the Relic Altar.

Make sure it's the right Area Level and content for the amount of points you have! For example, the character played in the above screenshot had 4/8 Ascendancy Passive Points unlocked and therefore only required an Inscribed Ultimatum with 4 Trials to be able to respec Ascendancy. Alternatively I could have ran the Trial of the Sekhemas with 2 Floors instead. See the list in the 'How it Works' section above for the exact Area Level and content you need for the amount of Points you have.

Step 2: Speak to the Trialmaster or Balbala

Click on the NPC and select 'Refund Passives'

Speaking to the Trialmaster or Balbala in the final chamber of an ascension trial after completing it will provide an option to be able to refund your allocated Passive Skill Points. Select 'Refund Passives' and proceed to refund all of your Ascendancy Passive Points so that your Ascendancy has no points allocated.

Note: you do not need to speak to the Trialmaster or Balbala if your Ascendancy points have already been unallocated.

Refund all of your currently allocated Ascendancy Passive Points

Step 3: Click the Altar of Ascension

Locate the Altar of Ascension in the final chamber of the trial

Click on the Altar of Ascension - if you've unallocated all of your Ascendancy Passive Points, you'll be offered the option to change your Ascendancy selection.

Click Change to select a different Ascendancy from your available Class options

You'll be offered all of the available Ascendancy options based on your base Class. Select the Ascendancy that you wish to change to.

Step 4: Choose your Ascendancy

Choose your desired Ascendancy and click Ascend

That's it, your new Ascendancy is good to go! Don't forget to allocate your Ascendancy Passive Points into the new Ascendancy!