Complete Guide to Ritual Farming in Path of Exile 2: King in the Mist and Loot Optimization

Ritual Farming Guide

This guide explains the basics of Ritual farming in the Path of Exile 2 Early Access. It also provides a strategy for facing the pinnacle encounter, The King in the Mist. The guide includes recommendations for the most effective Atlas Passive Nodes to optimize currency generation.

How It Works

While completing Waystones on your Atlas, you may come across maps containing the Ritual mechanic. In these maps, 3 or 4 Ritual Sites will spawn, and you'll need to clear out the monsters inside before starting the encounter.

Once activated, the Altar will respawn any enemies that were previously defeated within the Ritual Site. Defeat them again to earn Tribute, a special resource you can use to claim items from the ritual pages. Note that your Tribute DOES NOT carry over to the next Ritual Map, so make sure to spend it.

Ritual-exclusive rewards include: Omen of Dextral Annulment, Omen of Dextral Erasure, Omen of Sinistral Annulment, Omen of Whittling, and many more Omens. Some of these rewards are highly valuable to other players and can be sold for a significant amount of Divine Orbs.

Favour Rewards

"Ritual Page featuring a deferred, An Audience with the King"

After completing all Ritual encounters, click the Ritual icon (or press the League Mechanic key on PC, default "V"). You'll be presented with a rewards page that includes everything from completely useless items to valuable Omens, An Audience with the King, or valuable Currency.

Here are the 3 ways you can spend your Tribute:

Take items from the Ritual Page.

Defer rewards.

This requires spending a smaller amount of Tribute to lock a reward. The price will be reduced the next time it appears on the page. You can do this any number of times until you decide to claim the item. Use this option for expensive items you can't take right away.
Deferring an item guarantees it will appear in a future Ritual at a lower price.

Reroll Rewards

It's crucial to see as many Ritual pages as possible due to the wide range of loot quality on each page.
IMPORTANT: Try to have at least 1000 Tribute remaining after your final reroll so you can defer even the rarest items. While the chance of this happening is low, it's better to reroll rather than waste your Tribute on worthless items. Be mindful of your Tribute count, especially on early pages (Don't make the same mistake I did and miss out on a Mirror because I ignored this step!)

How To Run

"Look for a map with the Ritual hand icon to find Ritual encounters!"

Maps have a chance of containing a Ritual encounter, which is indicated by the icon shown above.

To guarantee a Ritual encounter in nearby maps, use a Ritual Precursor Tablet on a Watchtower. This will add a Ritual encounter to the number of maps specified by the implicit modifier of the item. Any explicit modifiers will apply to all uncompleted maps within the tower's radius.

Pinnacle Boss

"The King in the Mist"

Ritual, like all Atlas Mechanics in Path of Exile 2 Early Access, features a Pinnacle Boss encounter. While completing Ritual Encounters and viewing the Favour Rewards, you may obtain An Audience with the King. This item can then be placed into the Realmgate at the center of your Atlas to open a portal to The King in the Mist's realm.

Abilities

The King in the Mist encounter is similar to the one you face in The Freythorn during Act 1. Here are the most dangerous mechanics you should be aware of:

Stop

The King of the Mists inflicts the Ritual of Meditation on you. While affected, avoid excessive movement. Moving for too long will stun your character for an extended period.

Go

The King in the Mist afflicts you with the Ritual of Dance. While affected, keep moving. Staying still for too long will stun your character for an extended period.

Slam

The King in the Mist briefly glows red, signaling that this attack cannot be avoided. Move away from him to avoid the large area-of-effect slam.

Purple Orb

In Phase 2, the King in the Mist channels a purple orb to a targeted location. After a brief delay, the orb flies toward the player and explodes, dealing massive damage. Bait the orb to your location and then run out of its radius.

The Maze

After reducing the King in the Mist's health to 25%, you are sent into the Wildwood Maze. Follow the Wisps to find the portal back to his arena to continue Phase 2 of the fight. If you take too long, you'll be overwhelmed by the swarm.

Atlas Passives

The Atlas Passive nodes are obtained by defeating the King in the Mist at different difficulty levels, with 2 nodes awarded per kill.

Promised Devotion

Reduces the cost of deferring rewards and causes them to reappear more quickly. While this node is generally not very useful, it can be worth taking if you have many deferred favours.

From the Mists

Adds 2 packs of Wildwood Monsters. These packs provide a significant amount of Tribute and are a good source of Ritual Precursor Tablets.

Reinvigorated Sacrifices

Greatly increases the amount of Tribute earned during Rituals. However, due to the lack of rewards that you actually want to take from the Ritual pages, this node isn't very strong at the moment.

Spreading Darkness

Guarantees 4 Ritual Altars on each map containing a Ritual encounter. Similar to From the Mists, this node adds a lot of Tribute and provides more opportunities to obtain Ritual Precursor Tablets.

Ominous Portents

Increases the chance to receive Omens in your Favour Rewards. This is an excellent node, as Omens are the big-ticket items that can significantly boost your profits.

He Approaches

The best node in the Ritual Atlas Tree. It increases monster rarity, which in turn boosts the amount of Tribute and loot dropped at the end of the encounter. It also increases the chance to receive An Audience with the King.

Tempting Offers

Due to the lack of valuable rewards in most Ritual pages, this node is essential. Seeing more pages is almost always better than taking low-value rewards from earlier ones.

Recommended Atlas Nodes

"Ritual Atlas Tree"

Allocate the nodes in the following order of importance:

Ominous Portents

Increases profitability by granting more Omen rewards.

He Approaches

Increases profitability by improving the chance to see An Audience with the King in the Ritual pages. It also boosts the loot and tribute you get from completing each Altar.

Tempting Offers

Allows you to see more Ritual pages. This is essential because most pages don't offer high-value rewards, and it's better to see more pages in the hopes of getting a big-ticket item than repeatedly taking low-value items.

Spreading Darkness

This can be swapped freely with From the Mists (requires further testing).

Loot

Omens

Omens are rare and powerful crafting tools that are highly valued by players aiming to craft top-tier gear. This makes some Omens extremely valuable.

1. Omen of Amelioration
2. Omen of Corruption
3. Omen of Dextral Alchemy
4. Omen of Dextral Coronation
5. Omen of Dextral Exaltation
6. Omen of Greater Exaltation
7. Omen of Refreshment
8. Omen of Resurgence
9. Omen of Sinistral Alchemy
10. Omen of Sinistral Coronation
11. Omen of Sinistral Exaltation

These are the most valuable Omens you should always take:

1. Omen of Sinistral Annulment
2. Omen of Sinistral Erasure
3. Omen of Greater Annulment
4. Omen of Dextral Annulment
5. Omen of Dextral Erasure
6. Omen of Whittling

Basic Currency

The Ritual Pages frequently offer Basic Currencies. Take these when no better options are available:

• Chaos Orb
• Exalted Orb
• Vaal Orb

Always take or defer these items for future Rituals:

• Divine Orb
• Mirror of Kalandra

Pinnacle Boss

The King in the Mist has a Unique Loot Table that increases the number of items as you raise the difficulty of the encounter. To fight the boss, you need to obtain An Audience with the King from the Ritual Pages.

Here is a comprehensive list of Unique Items that can drop:

1. Ingenuity
2. From Nothing
3. Pragmatism
4. Beetlebite
5. The Burden of Shadows