PoE 2 Ritual Guide

Ritual is a core mechanic in Path of Exile 2 and can be found on any Map once you reach the Endgame. It can be an extremely profitable farming strategy when utilized correctly and is worth doing passively if you are running another strategy.

This guide was written by FearlessDumb0 and updated by Lolcohol

Ritual Mechanic

The Ritual mechanic consists of at least three runed circles with totems in your map. These circles spawn packs of monsters and as you kill them, their blood will drain into the totem. Once a threshold is reached it will become clickable and you can run the encounter.

When activated the monsters you killed originally will be revived and attack you again but this time in an enclosed area slightly larger than the runed circle. The Ritual itself will also attack you with a special mechanic.

An important note: Only monsters that naturally spawn under the Ritual will be revived. You cannot drag monsters from elsewhere in the area to attempt to have them revive within your Ritual encounters

As you kill monsters within the Ritual encounter, you will generate Tribute, and each consecutive Ritual completed will add to this Tribute. But what is Tribute used for?

Tribute

Tribute is used to purchase items from the Ritual Favours Window, which offers Unique Items and Ritual Omens. The higher quantity and difficulty of the monsters, the more Tribute you will receive. You can access the Window by clicking the Ritual itself, or the small icon at the bottom right hand side of the screen that appears after completing your first Ritual in the area. The number above the Ritual box shows how many Rituals are still remaining in the area, and the number that appears above your XP bar shows the amount of acquired Tribute so far in the Map.

Completing a Ritual also releases a stream of purple mist that will direct you toward the other Rituals in the area

As you complete more of the Ritual encounters in your map you will accrue more tribute to spend in the Favours window. Any left over Tribute can be offered to the contribute toward acquiring an Audience with the King

Favours

After your first Ritual you will see a square "Show Ritual Rewards" button you can click that will bring up the Favours window.  Be careful, it DOES NOT pause the game and you are still vulnerable while looking. 

 If you’ve only done one Ritual some of the more valuable contents will be hidden and you’ll need to complete more before the items are revealed.

Your Tribute is spendable in several ways

1. Purchase an item that is not greyed out: Each item has a price in Tribute underneath it and if you have enough tribute you can retrieve it from the favours window.
2. Defer Item(s):  This button on the bottom will charge a small Tribute fee to partially pay for an item. This is useful for more expensive items. As a general rule, items that are good will cost a lot. When you Defer something it will show up in a future Ritual Map and can then be purchased at the discounted amount. Your Deferral strategy plays an important part in maximizing the value from this mechanic, more on this towards the end of the guide.
3. Reroll Rewards.  This button is on the upper right and will flush the contents of the current window and give you a new set of rewards. This costs 1000 tribute and can be lowered by stacking Tablets or acquiring Ritual Atlas points. You can only reroll once per Ritual Map.
4. Offer Tribute to the King: any leftover Tribute you have can be used to Offer Tribute to the King, and once enough has been acquired and the bar at the bottom is filled, you will be awarded with an Audience With the King

Ritual Types

Each of the Rituals you encounter will attack you in some way. Many of them do Chaos damage, so make sure you have decent Chaos resistances before attempting them.

• Infested: Insect Tornado which will chase you around, this one is the most lethal
• Sapping: Purple fog that slows you
• Smothered: Purple chaos orbs from flowers will chase you and explode periodically
• Contaminated: Blood waves with knockback
• Tainted: Small purple chaos balls grow from the floor and will pop when you walk over it
• Queen's: Can be found after allocating Mysterious Rites on the Ritual Passive Tree. These grant more Favours to choose from, 10 additional Omens in the first set of Favours and an additional Idol from the Queen

After reaching Path of Exile 2's Endgame, players will need to seek out Caer Tarth, the endgame hub for Ritual within the Atlas Overworld. This is currently located to the Southwest in relation to the Ziggurat Refuge, but may move in future leagues. The location of this area will be revealed after first discovering a random Ritual Encounter within any endgame Map

After entering Caer Tarth, players will can speak to Aoife and begin the Legacy of the Maji questline. The Quest will have players complete a sequence of Rituals in nearby Maps, and requires them to offer Tribute to acquire an Audience With the King item. Each Map completed in these Maps will grant a Passive Point for the Ritual Atlas Tree.

King in the Mists

After collecting an Audience With the King, players will need to travel to the Crux of Nothingness where they can begin the fight with The King in the Mists. Future Crux of Nothingness can be found on the Atlas, but only when players have an Audience with the King in their inventory

Rite of the Nameless

After defeating The King in the Mists, he will drop a Head of the King, which can be placed on the Effigy in Caer Tarth to begin the Rite of the Nameless. Speaking to Aoife in this area will also explain this part of the questline.

Immediately after placing the Head of the King, the Atlas overworld Map will appear, allowing players to select several Maps. The first Map that is clicked will then offer another set of attached Maps to be clicked, along with an option of a Foretold Bounty on each - a guaranteed reward for completing the Ritual in that area.

After clicking the final Map, a chain of Ritual effigies will appear on the selected Maps. These Maps will need to be completed to continue with the next part of the Quest in which players will need to collect five body parts to present to the Effigy in Caer Tarth. One of these items will drop in each of the Maps part of the Rite of the Ritual chain. The five items are:

• Tangled Torso
• Mossy Arm
• Frayed Cloth
• Brittle Arm
• Ragged Cloth

These Maps can be quite hard. Unlike other Ritual encounters in Maps, in which only monsters within that Map are revived, in the Rite of the Nameless chain, monsters from previous Maps within the chain will be revived too, including Bosses.

After acquiring each of these items, they can be placed in the Effigy found within Caer Tarth to perform the final Rite of the Nameless, opening the way to the true Pinnacle Boss of Ritual: The Bodach.

Completing Maps as well as The King in the Mists and Bodach Pinnacle fights will grant additional Ritual Atlas Passive Points.

Tablets and Map Modifiers

The number of monsters that spawn in your map directly affects how much Tribute you will have available to you. This means that modifiers that improve your % of Magic monsters, % of Rare monsters, % P1ack Size and similar all indirectly improve your Tribute available when doing a Ritual.

There are also special Tablet modifiers that can reduce the cost to reroll your Favours or improve the quantity of Tribute that monsters give in the map. For a full list of Ritual Tablet modfiiers, you can see the list here on PoE2DB: Ritual Tablet Modifiers

To learn more about Path of Exile 2's endgame, check out some of our Endgame Guides below:

• Abyss Guide
• Delirium Guide
• Breach Guide
• Simulacrum Guide