Wildwood Ascendancies

Encounter Azmeri Wanderers within the Viridian Wildwood to gain access to special Wildwood Ascendancies! This mechanic was added as part of the 3.23 Affliction League patch. In addition to each Wildwood Ascendancy, the Azmeri Wanderers have their own unique and fully tradable vendor items!

Azmeri Wanderers

Explore the Viridian Wildwood to obtain a Wildwood Ascendancy in addition to your normal Ascendancy class. This isn't obtained from the Eternal Labrynth, and instead requires you to enter the Viridian Wildwood and cleanse the Affliction lurking there.

To obtain a Wildwood Ascendancy you need to meet one of the 3 Azmeri Wanderers. The Warden of Eaves, the Breaker of Oaths, and the Primal Huntress. Like with Path of Exile's normal Ascendancy classes, you need to obtain 8 Ascendancy points. Completing questlines grants 2 Wildwood Ascendancy points. The first 6 are relatively easy to obtain, but the last 2 require you to defeat Affliction League's new boss the King in the Mists

You can swap your Wildwood Ascendancy at any time by speaking to an Azmeri Wanderer, but if you haven't used the Ascendancy before you'll still need to complete that Wanderer's quests to get your points. Furthermore, you don't need to have the ascendancy active to complete the quests. So you can defeat the King in the Mists once to unlock the final 2 Ascendancy points for all 3 Wildwood Ascendancies. The Azmeri Wanderers can be encountered from level 1 but subsequent quests require level 20, 50, and 80 zones respectively.

Wildwood Ascendancy Quests:

• Warden of Eaves / Warden of the Maji - Vivid Wisps - Vivid Empowered enemies gain an Item Quantity bonus.
  • Encounter the Warden of Eaves to become a Warden of the Maji.
  • Collect 4,000 Wisps.
  • Defeat the Bile Trio, 3 Unique enemies channeling a Ritual found by following Vivid Wisps.
  • Defeat the King in the Mists.
• Breaker of Oaths / Warlock of the Mists - Wild Wisps - Wild Empowered enemies gain an Item Rarity bonus.
  • Encounter the Breaker of Oaths to become a Warlock of the Mists.
  • Kill 500 Cultists.
  • Interrupt the King in the Mists' Ritual by following Wild Wisps.
  • Defeat the King in the Mists.
• Primal Huntress / Wildwood Primalist - Primal Wisps - Primal Empowered enemies have increased Currency drops.
  • Encounter the Primal Huntress to become a Wildwood Primalist.
  • Kill 500 Nameless.
  • Defeat the Black Morrigan, found by following Primal Wisps.
  • Defeat the King in the Mists.

Warden of the Maji

The Warden of the Maji offers bonuses to Attack builds in the form of Tinctures, along side powerful defensive bonuses like Barkskin.

• Oath of the Maji
  • The most useful bonus here is +30% Movement Speed for leaving all of the sockets in your boots empty.
• Wildwood Blessing
  • Gain 1 Bark each second if you haven't been Hit by an Enemy Attack Recently
  • Lose 1 Bark when Hit by an Enemy Attack
  • 15% increased Armour per Bark
  • -15 Physical Damage taken from Attack Hits per Bark
  • 2% more chance to Evade Attacks per Bark below maximum
  • Maximum 10 Bark
• Lesson of the Seasons
  • This provides two bonuses which scale based on number of active or missing Bark charges. Since the bonus constantly shifts as you get hit, and you normally want full Ailment immunity this isn't a reliable defense.
• Coated Blade
  • Only Attack skills benefit from Tinctures. However, they are applied to the attacks of your remote skills like Ballistae and Blade Trap.
• Nature's Concoction
  • You can use this to sustain Flasks with a high usage cost.
• Enduring Suffusion
  • Enhance your Tinctures by leaving Flask slots empty, this has some synergy with the Timeless Keystone The Traitor.
• Detect Evil
  • Ignoring enemy Block and Suppress makes your damage more reliable against a wide range of foes.
• All small nodes: Vivid Wisps found

Tinctures

A Warden of the Maji can put Tinctures in their Flask slots to apply permanent bonuses to their weapons. Only 1 Tincture can be active at a time, but activating the Tincture swaps between different effects. The Warden of Eaves sells Tinctures in exchange for Vivid Wisps. These are tradable, so be sure to check the shop whenever it refreshes even if you aren't playing a Warden of the Maji!

Tincture Modifiers

• Tinctures have a single implicit modifier.
  • Oakbranch Tincture: Culling Strike.
  • Ironwood Tincture: Damaging Hits always Stun Enemies that are on Full Life.
  • Poisonberry Tincture: All Damage can Poison.
  • Ashbark Tincture: All Damage can Ignite.
  • Fulgurite Tincture: All Damage can Shock.
  • Rosethorn Tincture: +25% to Critical Strike Chance against Enemies that are on Full Life.
  • Borealwood Tincture: All Damage can Freeze.
  • Bloodsap Tincture: Bleeding you inflict on non-Bleeding Enemies deals 30% more Damage.
• They then roll 1-2 explicit modifiers, (up to 1 Prefix, 1 Suffix), including;
  • #% chance to create Consecrated Ground when you Hit a Rare or Unique Enemy, lasting 8 seconds.
  • Melee Strike Skills deal Splash Damage to surrounding targets, with #% reduced Area of Effect.
  • #% chance to gain 1 Rage when you Hit a Rare or Unique Enemy.
  • Killing Blows have a #% chance for Enemies to Explode, dealing a tenth of their maximum Life as Fire Damage.
  • Projectiles have #% chance to be able to Chain when colliding with terrain.
• Tinctures are Unmodifiable!

Builds

The Warden of the Maji is a great choice for attack builds. You exchange 1 or more Flask slots for the powerful Tincture bonuses. The Barkskin buffs offers a powerful defense which gives you Armour and Evasion when you need them the most.

Warlock of the Mists

The Warlock of the Mists has new ways to scale your maximum Life, several exclusive Curses and the powerful Ravenous skill.

• Warlock Power - choose one of 3 powerful Curse skills:
  • Black Mass - This Curse puts a ramping Physical degeneration effect on your minions, healing you proportionally to the damage done and causes them to explode when they die.
  • Creeping Lobotomy - Does nothing initially, but prevents the Cursed enemy from dealing any damage after 60% of the Curse's duration has expired.
  • Choir of the Damned - Spawns 3 hostile Phantasms when you strike the Marked enemy.
  • In a level 83 area they have roughly 20,000 life.
  • They can be exploded, or used to proliferate poisons.
  • Penance Mark spawns Phantoms every 1 second, and the number is scaled by Mark Effect.
• Foul Pact
  • Greatly enhances the effects of your Warlock Curses.
• Sanguimancy
  • This is similar to the Blood Magic on steroids.
• Crimson Power
  • This allows you to lean into Life stacking even harder by applying the local Energy Shield bonuses to your Life.
• Cannibalised Faith
  • A passive which grants massive amounts of Physical Spell damage based on the skill's Life Cost.
• Blood Hunt
  • Consume a Corpse to gain a damage bonus against enemies of the same type.
  • You take less damage from monsters in the same category.
• Soul Splitting
  • Damage you take from enemy Hits is taken from the Effigy's Life before yours and damage the Effigy takes from enemy hits is taken from your Life at double the value.
• All small nodes: Wild Wisps found

Blood Hunt

Mouse over a corpse and Ravenous identifies the type of monster, then use the skill to consume the corpse and gain a bonus against that type of monster. You can only have one damage bonus at a time and consuming another corpse will swap the bonus. Some monsters like Bosses have the "Eldritch" subtype, which doesn't naturally occur on Corpses. To obtain Eldritch Corpses, purchase them from the Breaker of Oaths.

Special Corpses

The Breaker of Oaths sells various rare corpses for Wild Wisps. These include monsters which occur rarely, or whose corpses cannot be obtained through normal gameplay. So even if you aren't planning to play a Warlock of the Mists check his shop for valuable dead to sell to other Exiles.

If you're feeling experimental, you can Spectre these corpses (such as the Guardian of the Hydra). These monsters cannot be Desecrated, so if your Spectre dies you'll need another corpse from the Breaker of Oaths or another player. Corpses are divided into 3 rarities. Imperfect, which lack many of the monster's regular abilities, normal, and Perfect where they gain additional abilities including Auras and buffs for the Spectre's owner.

Some Corpses include:

• Perfect Dark Marionette
  • Reforms after being killed.
  • Explodes on death for 5% of Life as Physical, Fire, and Lightning Damage.
  • This explosion Scorches.
• Perfect Naval Officer
  • Nearby Allies have +10 Fortification.
• Perfect Spider Matriarch
  • Owner gains 20% increased effect of Withered.
• Perfect Spirit of Fortune
  • Lightning Damage of Nearby Allies is Lucky.
• Perfect Hydra
  • Casts Hatred
  • This is the Guardian of the Hydra and uses all of her abilities.

Builds

The Warlock of the Mists is a great choice for Minion and Life builds. While anyone can purchase and use the special corpses as Spectres, the Affliction Curse adds a new ways to make your minions explode. Penance Mark enables on kill effects for bosses, since the Phantasms are hostile to the player and can be used to sustain Vaal Souls, or proliferate Ailments. If you're playing a Life build, Cannibalised Faith adds a lot of damage. However, your Aura options are limited by the effects of Sanguimancy.

Wildwood Primalist

The Wildwood Primalist is the most versatile Wildwood Ascendancy. You get extra loot from the corpses of slain foes, a small bag for extra inventory space and the "build your own ascendancy" via the Charm system. Even if you aren't playing a Wildwood Primalist, always check the Primal Huntress's shop for new Charms for future use, or to sell to other Exiles.

• Howl of the Wolf
  • If you're using Warcries in your build anyway, this is a great way to get a bit of extra loot.
• Might of the Bear
  • Required to path to Wildwood Charm sockets.
• Charm Socket
  • The Wildwood Primalist has 3 Charm Sockets, Charms are a new unmodifiable item which grant Ascendancy Effects from any of Path of Exile's Ascendancy classes for you to mix and match.
  • The charms offer less powerful version of Path of Exile's ascendancy bonuses.
• All small nodes: Primal Wisps found

The Wildwood Rucksack is a small extra backpack exclusive to the Wildwood Primalist with a 4x5 grid offering 20 total inventory spaces. In most cases you'll have enough portals to bring all the loot you want back out of your Maps, but if you only need to fit that last item in this can save you some time. What can you bring back to your hideout with 33% more inventory space?

Charms

Purchase Charms from the Primal Huntress for Primal Wisps. Place Charms in the 3 Charm slots on the Wildwood Primalist to combine effects from the regular Path of Exile Ascendancies.

Example Charms

• Wildwood Charms are Attribute-Aligned.
  • Ursine Charms roll Ascendancy effects from the Duelist, Marauder and Templar.
  • Corvine Charms roll Ascendancy effects from the Templar, Witch and Shadow.
  • Lupine Charms roll Ascendancy effects from the Shadow, Ranger and Duelist.
• They then roll 1-2 explicit modifiers, (up to 1 Prefix, 1 Suffix), including;
  • Impales you inflict last 1 additional Hit.
  • #% of Leech is Instant.
  • Your Hexes can affect Hexproof Enemies.
  • Skills fire an additional Projectile.
  • #% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills.
• Charms are Unmodifiable!

You can find a complete list of charms on the Path of Exile Wiki.

Video

What Wildwood Ascendancy will you pick?

Stay Up to Date

Grinding Gear Games revealed a ton of information on Affliction League and Path of Exile 2! The new PoE2 Mercenary Class, Crossbows, and Attachments bring shooter flare to the ARPG Genre. The 3.23 League brings the new Affliction mechanic, Wildwood Ascendancies, Ultimatum and the new Transfigured Gems.

That's everything we know so far about the timeline for Path of Exile's 3.23 Affliction League. The Maxroll Team is hard at work updating our Build Guides, Currency Strategies and Resources for the new League. Are you looking for more news on Path of Exile builds, events, and upcoming patches? Then 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: Tenkiei

Reviewed by: Dredscythe