ESPHOME Athom Smart Plug flashing to Tasmota

With the highly anticipated Path of Exile 2 on the horizon, Grinding Gear Games has unleashed a series of POE2 Currencynew Ascendancies as part of the Dawn of the Hunt expansion. This expansion not only introduces exciting new gameplay mechanics but also radically alters how players approach character customization and strategy. These new Ascendancies offer players fresh options to build complex, synergistic characters that fit into the current Path of Exile meta in ways never before possible. In this article, we will dive into the five new Ascendancies introduced in Dawn of the Hunt, breaking down their mechanics, synergies, and how they can transform gameplay.

1. Ritualistic / Spiritual Ascendancy: Ritualist

The Ritualist Ascendancy is a dark and mysterious path, tied closely to the forbidden Azmerian rituals that involve blood, beasts, and sacrifices. The Ritualist, hailing from the Huntress base class, uses the power of forbidden blood magic and corpse manipulation to empower herself in battle. Thematically, this Ascendancy taps into Azmerian tribal spirituality, bringing dark rites and sacrifices to the forefront of combat.

Key Mechanics:

Blood Magic: The Ritualist uses her health as a resource to cast powerful abilities, sacrificing her own vitality to fuel devastating attacks.

Plague Effects and Lifeforce Corruption: Ritualists can spread deadly plagues, inflicting chaos and bleed damage while manipulating lifeforce to strengthen themselves and weaken enemies.

Corpse Consumption: The Ritualist can consume corpses for powerful buffs and modifications, including enhancing her abilities or even triggering powerful area-wide explosions.

Signature Skills:

Corrupted Lifeforce: Blood boils spread upon death, causing enemies to suffer damage in a wide area.

Ritual Sacrifice: Absorb rare corpse modifiers to gain significant buffs or abilities.

Mystic Attunement: Ritualists can equip an extra ring, boosting jewelry effects and offering flexibility in stats.

Build Synergy:

This Ascendancy is ideal for players who love to build around plague, bleed, chaos damage, and corpse-interaction mechanics. It excels at clearing large areas quickly, thanks to the ability to spread status effects and manipulate the battlefield with lifeforce corruption.

2. Elemental / Martial Ascendancy: Amazon

The Amazon Ascendancy blends elemental power with martial prowess, giving the Huntress base class a unique set of abilities that make her an elite warrior in battle. As a spear-wielding master of elemental energy, the Amazon combines fast melee combat with precise elemental strikes. The Amazon is perfect for players who want to dominate both melee and ranged combat, while leveraging elemental synergy to gain an edge.

Key Mechanics:

Weak Point Targeting: Amazon attacks are more effective when targeting weak points on enemies, allowing for devastating critical strikes.

Elemental Synergy: The Amazon excels in combining elemental damage with critical strike scaling, enhancing her overall damage potential.

Flask Utility: Amazon's abilities also revolve around efficient flask usage, restoring both life and mana to keep her fighting for longer periods.

Signature Skills:

Predatory Instinct: This skill highlights enemy weak points, boosting accuracy and damage dealt to those spots.

Critical Strike: Converts accuracy into crit chance, allowing the Amazon to take advantage of her high hit rate for powerful critical hits.

Azmeri Brew: Flasks restore both life and mana, giving the Amazon unmatched sustain in combat.

Build Synergy:

This Ascendancy is best suited for crit-based spear builds that use cold, fire, or lightning damage. The Amazon's fast-paced combat mechanics make her effective in solo or party play, with her elemental abilities providing substantial crowd control and area damage.

3. Crafting / Physical Power Ascendancy: Smith of Kitava

The Smith of Kitava Ascendancy is a powerful choice for those who want to forge destruction on the battlefield. With the ability to summon weapon phantoms and anvils, the Smith of Kitava is a forgemaster who channels the destructive powers of fire and steel. This Ascendancy, based on the Warrior class, allows players to craft their own weapons and armor to suit their combat style.

Key Mechanics:

Weapon Phantoms: Smiths of Kitava can summon weapon clones that mirror their attack patterns, increasing their damage output.

Smith’s Masterwork: This mechanic restricts armor to normal types but grants custom passive abilities, allowing players to tailor their defensive stats.

Armor Enhancements: The Smith can craft and equip powerful armor with enhanced resistances and other stats, making them incredibly durable in battle.

Signature Skills:

Smith’s Masterwork: Grants access to unique armor passives that boost physical damage and resistance.

Weapon Clone Summon: Summons a phantom weapon that mimics the player's attacks.

Padded Plates: Adds significant cold resistance, making this Ascendancy a tanky option for high-damage, physical builds.

Build Synergy:

The Smith of Kitava is best suited for tanky or damage-over-time physical builds. The forgemaster's ability to craft powerful weapons and armor, combined with fire-infused attacks, makes this Ascendancy a dominant force on the battlefield.

4. Tactical / Control Ascendancy: Tactician

The Tactician Ascendancy brings strategy and battlefield control to Path of Exile 2. The Tactician, based on the Mercenary class, is a military mastermind who commands the battlefield with suppression tactics, banners, and reinforcements. Perfect for those who prefer tactical gameplay, the Tactician is excellent in both solo and party play, offering strong crowd control and support abilities.

Key Mechanics:

Pinning Enemies: The Tactician can pin enemies down, preventing them from acting and giving allies the upper hand.

Summoning Archers: The Tactician has the ability to summon off-screen archers, providing a unique ranged support role.

Buffing Allies: The Tactician can share weapon damage with allies, enhancing group play and increasing overall team effectiveness.

Signature Skills:

Suppressing Fire: Pins enemies in place, rendering them unable to act.

Right Where We Want Them: Prevents pinned enemies from performing actions, further controlling the battlefield.

Watch How I Do It: Shares weapon damage with allies, boosting their overall effectiveness in battle.

Build Synergy:

Ideal for projectile builds, banner stacking, and crowd control strategies, the Tactician excels in both solo and cooperative play. With powerful debuffs and offensive support, the Tactician is a master of battlefield control.

5. Undeath / Chaos Ascendancy: Lich

The Lich Ascendancy, tied to the Witch base class, is a master of undeath and chaos. Manipulating souls and corrupting energy, the Lich can curse enemies and unleash devastating chaos explosions on death. This Ascendancy is ideal for players who enjoy high-risk, high-reward gameplay, with powerful chaos damage-over-time (DoT) builds and energy shield hybrids.

Key Mechanics:

Dual Curses: The Lich can apply two curses at once, amplifying her damage output and weakening her enemies significantly.

Chaos Explosions: Upon death, enemies can trigger chaos explosions, dealing massive area-of-effect damage.

Phylactery: The Lich uses a special jewel socket, increasing the effectiveness of her curses and chaos abilities.

Signature Skills:

Dominion over Flesh: Allows the Lich to apply an extra curse, amplifying her offensive power.

Cursed Detonation: Triggers chaos explosions upon enemy death, dealing damage to nearby foes.

Phylactery Socket: Doubles the effect of jewels socketed into the Phylactery, amplifying her chaos abilities.

Build Synergy:

The Lich is ideal for chaos DoT builds, energy shield hybrids, and curse layering. Her ability to manipulate enemies' souls and trigger devastating chaos explosions makes her a high-risk, high-reward Ascendancy with the potential for massive damage output.

The Impact on POE 2 Currency and the Meta

As these new Ascendancies reshape the Path of Exile 2 gameplay, they also influence the game’s economy, particularly in terms of currency farming and crafting. Ascendancies like the Ritualist, with their corpse-based mechanics, and the Smith of Kitava, with its armor enhancements, can create valuable items that fetch high prices in trade. Chaos-focused builds, like the Lich, often rely on specific currency types for crafting and curse stacking, making the Ascendancy choice critical for currency generation.

The introduction of new Ascendancies also creates new opportunities for crafting and trading in the Path of Exile 2 economy, giving players even more ways to build unique and powerful characters while also contributing to the game's thriving marketplace.

Conclusion: The Dawn of the Hunt

The new Ascendancies in Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt offer players exciting new options for character customization, gameplay, and strategy. With unique mechanics, thematic depth, and powerful synergies, these Ascendancies open up new possibilities for crafting diverse and complex builds. Whether you're drawn to the dark rituals of the Ritualist, the elemental mastery of the Amazon, or the tactical precision of the Tactician, there's something for every playstyle in this expansion. These Ascendancies not only enrich the lore of Wraeclast but also deepen the gameplay experience, creating endless opportunities for exploration, combat, and innovation.

Path of Exile 2 is shaping up to be an unforgettable experience, and with the addition of these new Ascendancies, players will be able to cheap POE2 Currency push the boundaries of what's possible in the game.

​