New Path of Exile Expansion Trial of the Ancestors

Trial of the Ancestors is the new Path of Exile Expansion and it launches on August 18th. During ExileCon 2023 they gave quite a few sneak peaks into what can be expected, let's go over what they covered while we wait for more to be unveiled in the near future!

Trial of the Ancestors

The Trial of the Ancestors is a Auto-Chess style tournament where you enter the afterlife, to battle Chieftains and earn valuable rewards. Collect Silver Coins as you play through the new League, these are used to enter the tournament. You'll assemble a team of 3 warriors and compete against 10 other Tribes in a double elimination format. After each round you are able to choose which team you want to battle against next and after a second loss your tournament run is over!

Auto-Battler Style

When you start a match you'll see the configuration of the enemy team and get to place you warriors on the battlefield to fight against theirs. Unlike other Auto-Battle style games you get to simultaneously fight alongside your chosen warriors the entire time, this rewards players who build powerful characters. You spawn into battle at your designated totem and have the goal of destroying the other teams totems. When a warrior dies they respawn at their totem after a short time, once the totem is destroyed the warrior is instantly killed and can't respawn (Don't worry, Hinekora protects your hardcore character, preventing you from dying in the afterlife).

Warriors

Strategy and tactics are very important to win matches. Different warriors have different strengths and should be placed wisely on the battlefield for best results. Here's what we know about the available warriors so far:

Turtle (Tank) - Slow and hard to kill, perfect for defense or for tanking the enemy front liners. The turtle's low movement speed means you need to place him where he'll have easy access to enemies, or where enemies will have easy access to him.

Tuatara (Balanced) - Quick, deceptive and well balanced for all positions. The Tuatara looks like an ideal warrior to slip past enemy defenses and take out their totems before they have a chance to rally.

Goliath of Night (Disruptor) - the Goliath can be placed in the center to intercept enemies chasing after you and disrupt enemies going for your totems. His control effects help give you enough time to deal with an enemy push.

Favour

At the end of a match you gain Favour and other special rewards. Favour is gained individually with each Tribe and is used to purchase Warriors, Field Items and Equipment for the upcoming battle. Each Tribe has their own specialty and they can be mixed and matched to grant the perfect team.

Field Items

Field Items are placed on the battlefield and can be activated during a match to enable their special effect. If not activated they'll persist into the next match. All Warriors, Field Items and Equipment are all wiped entirely between each tournament leading to a fresh start and experience in each one.

Tournament Rewards

Success in a tournament increases your ranking with the associated Tribe. Each round won grants a unique reward, which is visible as you're selecting which Tribe to play against next. One new exclusive reward is Passive Skill Tattoos, these allow you to enhance your Passive Tree by replacing your basic attribute nodes. Each Tribe has their own unique passive tattoos as well as an exclusive unique item! There are also additional exclusive Unique Items and Passive Skill Tattoos for winning the whole tournament. Here are some examples;

• Ngamahu Firewalker replaces small Strength Passive Skills with +8% to Fire Resistance.
• Loyalty Tattoo of Utula replaces a small Strength Passive Skill with Trigger Level 20 Summon Spirit of Utula on taking a Savage Hit from a Unique Enemy.
  • (limit 1 Loyalty Tattoo)
• Ramako Scout replaces small Dexterity Passive Skills with 2% Increased Movement Speed.
• Valako Storm Conduit replaces small Intelligence Passive Skills with Adds 1 to 7 Lightning Damage.
• Honoured Tattoo of the Hatungo replaces small Attribute Passive Skills with 1% Increased Reservation Efficiency of Skills.
• Honoured Tattoo of the Wise Man replaces a +30 to Intelligence Notable Passive Skill with +1 to Level of All Intelligence Skill Gems.
  • (Limit 1 Notable Tattoo per Attribute)

If this wasn't enough the Trial of the Ancestors also rewards a new item on full completion called an Omen.

Omens

An Omen sits in your inventory and is activated once a certain condition is met. In one example given, the Omen of Fortune guarantees an item will become Unique (if possible) when using an Orb of Chance. Only 1 Omen can be consumed per battle area allowing you the relief of not having to carry an inventory full of Omens everywhere you go. Omens are single use, here's what we've seen so far:

• Omen of Return: On death, this Omen is consumed and a Portal to town is created.
• Omen of Refreshment: Upon reaching 25% Life, this Omen is consumed and Flasks recover all Charges.
• Omen of the Soul Devourer: On leveling up, this Omen is consumed and you gain Soul Eater.
• Omen of Fortune: On using an Orb of Chance on an item, it will become Unique if possible and this Omen will be consumed.

Chris confirmed that the Omen of Fortune functions similarly to the Trash to Treasure Prophecy. They are not adding junk Uniques to block you from deterministically creating high rarity items.

Hinekora's Lock

A new currency item that allows you to see the result of the next currency item used on a craft. For example, you can see the result of Exalting an item before actually doing it!

16 New Atlas Passive Keystones

The Atlas Passive Tree lets you alter your endgame experience by allocating Skill Points to customize the League Mechanics you encounter and increase their rewards. By adding 16 new Passive Keystones they've changed up the endgame drastically opening up even more ways to play Path of Exile. They'll be showing us the rest over the next couple weeks but let's take a look at the ones they've shown us so far :

Cassia's Pride

Auto-Battler League with Tower Defense in Blight, what more could we ask for?

Destructive Play

More difficult = more rewarding

Extreme Archaeology

Instead of placing a series of explosives you now place a giant explosive. Every chest or monster in the blast radius is effected by every Remnant in that Radius

Lucid Dreams

Vaal Side Areas in your maps are no longer Corrupted. This allows you to use currency items to craft their modifiers. Because of this they've increased the rewards as well the effect of negative mods. You may also now encounter a Unique Vaal side area!

Speaker of the Dead

Absorb Tormented Spirits into yourself, your stats are boosted and you can touch monsters just like a Possessed creature to increase their strength and rewards.

14 New Support Gems

The META is changing a lot and 14 new Support Gems will be altering the way many skills are used. Here are seven of the ones they've shown us so far.

Corrupting Cry - Turns Warcry skills into damage dealing skills by making them inflict Corrupting Blood on enemies in the Warcry's radius, or hit by attacks your Warcry exerts.

Returning Projectile - Causes projectiles from supported to return to you, piercing all targets but dealing less damage.

Fresh Meat - Minions gain Adrenaline, Critical Strike Chance and Damage for a short duration after being summoned. Keep refreshing those Minions!

Flame Wood - Causes Totems to shoot mortars at enemies that hit them. Works well with taunt totem.

Frigid Bond - Supports Link Skills and causes a Cold Mist to come over them, enemies caught in the beam are dealt cold damage over time.

Locust Mind - Supports Attack Skills usable with bows and wands. You now throw mines that shoot your projectiles at your target when detonated.

Sacrifice - Supports Spells that you cast yourself or by your totems. Sacrifices a portion of your Life or your Totem's Life to gain additional Chaos Damage depending on the amount sacrificed.

14 New Unique Items

Each of the 10 Karui Tribes reward a unique item that embodies their essence. These items are only earned by defeating that Tribe through the Trial of the Ancestors tournament. Hinekora, the Goddess of Death, offers 4 additional Uniques to tournament winners.

Bound Fate

A Cloth Belt which has Life, Dexterity, and Intelligence plus a unique effect. Every 5 seconds the belt randomly chooses between 6 options (spending 5 seconds on each). Half are beneficial, and half are detrimental encouraging players to build around negating the downsides while optimizing for the upsides. While the effects are potent they are wildly inconsistent.

Arohongui's Tending

This unique Coral Amulet allows your Life and Mana flasks to apply instantly when you are on Low Life or Mana. Players can capitalize on this by forcing themselves into a Low Life or Low Mana state with reservations, or use it as a backup plan.

Kitava's Hunger

A Majestic Plate that provides a large bonus to Maximum Life if there are no Life modifiers on other equipped items. This means no Maximum Life, Life Regeneration, or even Life penalties. The Life bonus is quite significant, many builds only have 400-500 Maximum Life on gear , and using Kitava's Hunger frees up Prefixes on the rest of your items for other stats!

Sanctum to Core!

Sanctum is back this Expansion and it's better than ever! Sanctums are now tradable items in the form of Forbidden Tomes. A Forbidden Tome represents a floor of a Sanctum, when a floor is complete the next floor is generated as a tradable item that keeps all your progress, Resolve, Boons & Afflictions. You can choose to play your Sanctum or Trade it away depending on the rewards or dangers ahead.

The entirety of Sanctum has been re-balanced, including the difficulty in later floors as well as adding new floor and monster variety to runs. New Boons and Afflictions were added, and many existing ones have been adjusted. Your Primary Defenses now protect your Resolve loss as well.

• Armor grants a % Resolve Mitigation from enemy hits and scales with your armor.
• Evasion now grants a chance to avoid Resolve loss entirely.
• Energy Shield grants Energy Aegis which acts just like Energy Shield does for Life.

Relics

Relics are now tradable and have been rebalanced around this. Sanctified Relics have not returned yet but may in the future and Unique Relics have been reworked and replaced as well. A complete Sanctum run requires you to kill the final boss in both her first form Lycia, Unholy Herald and her second form Lycia, Herald of the Scourge.

All New Chieftain

The Marauder's Chieftain Ascendancy got a full redesign. The old version hasn't seen much use in recent Leagues, so it was time for a bit more than a fresh coat of paint.

Guardian Revamped

The Templar Ascendancy Guardian also got a revamp and some much needed buffs. Once known as the tankiest Ascendancy in Path of Exile he's seen low play rates in recent Leagues.

Video Recap

If you haven't already, head over to our Discord and select the Path of Exile role in #roles to stay up to date with our content development. Stay Sane Exile.

Written by: Facefoot, Tenkiei