Forbidden Rites League Start: Your First Night, Hour by Hour

It’s 10 p.m. this Friday, September 4, 2026, and the character creation screen for Forbidden Rites is blinking in front of you. Three months after the launch of Runes of Aldur, Path of Exile 2 resets everyone to zero for this 0.5.5 event league. The league start (the launch of a new league, where every player begins without gear or currency) is approaching. The real question isn’t which build to run anymore, but in what order to tackle the first few hours.

What 0.5.5 changes, why the old builds still hold up, Fubgun’s tier list of sixteen league starters, all of that is already online. What was missing was the order of operations, campaign Rituals, Ascendancy, challenges, so you don’t waste a minute on this first night.

Before 10 p.m.: The Forbidden Rites Plan for Your Build and League Choice

Launch is set for 10 p.m. Paris time (1 p.m. Pacific, 8 p.m. UTC), as confirmed by the official Grinding Gear Games FAQ on X. Three ways to play await you afterward. The Standard league mixes everyone on a shared market. In Hardcore (HC, a character that dies once is lost), death moves your character to Standard, without the Hardcore banner. SSF (Solo Self-Found, with no trading between players) is checked at character creation. You can leave it later, but never enter it afterward. Runes of Aldur, the previous league, remains playable alongside it.

No gem or Ascendancy (the subclass unlocked by clearing a Trial) was touched in this patch, as confirmed by Grinding Gear Games on its official forum. Build choice therefore comes down to the current tier list. Fubgun sets one simple rule for a league starter. It has to kill pinnacle bosses (the final boss of an endgame zone) for 10 Divine Orbs (a sought-after crafting currency) or less, ideally in SSF.

• The Grim Pillars Oracle Druid by @Palsteron drops a high-damage totem, the best budget Expedition farmer according to Fubgun, but demanding on PC performance.
• The Ice Shot Deadeye by @Fubgun starts very fast thanks to Tailwind, a speed buff that offsets slow bow leveling.
• The Twisters Gemling Legionnaire by @Goratha is the most complete pick on the tier list, from the first act to the last pinnacle boss.
• The Martial Artist Falling Thunder by @FGKorbyn21 starts slow as a Monk before the first Ascendancy, then becomes explosive.
• The Flameblast Oil Grenade Mercenary rounds out the S-tier picks with area damage that clears campaign Rituals fast.

Our PoE2 0.5.5 League Start Tier List: Fubgun’s 16 Builds breaks down the sixteen picks, with budget and alternatives for each. One last thing before you dive in, the very first days carry the league’s highest prices, an item sold on day 1 often fetches three times more than on day 10. A build that’s viable in SSF isn’t dependent on that.

Acts 1 to 3: Campaign Rituals and Boss Clusters

Ritual (a mechanic that summons waves of monsters around an altar) already existed in the endgame. Forbidden Rites adds one to every campaign zone. These campaign Rituals hand out gear useful for leveling, crafting currency, and “a bunch of equipment,” as Cptn Garbage sums it up on Maxroll on September 2, 2026.

Twice per act and once per interlude, a cluster of Ritual effigies appears on the map, placed on the zone’s boss. Beating that boss in a Ritual makes it reappear in the next Ritual, with more dangerous waves at each stage. Finishing the series lets you spend Tribute (the currency earned during a Ritual) on unique items.

In PoE2, the real leveling bottleneck in acts 1 to 3 has always been the weapon. Without currency to upgrade it, a melee build struggles against zone bosses. Rituals that pay out crafting currency starting in act 1 flip that priority order. Don’t skip a single campaign Ritual on this first night. Every change is detailed in our article Forbidden Rites: Everything That Changes on September 4.

Boss clusters in a Ritual chain their waves without a break, that’s where a fragile build dies while leveling. Keep an active defensive layer up before you go in, and fight the zone boss outside the Ritual first if you don’t know its patterns (its attack sequences) yet.

Ascendancy: Trial of Sekhemas or Trial of Chaos, and Act 4

Two Trials (trial dungeons that unlock Ascendancy once cleared) lead there, the Trial of Sekhemas and the Trial of Chaos. The latter changes a lot in 0.5.5.

You can now leave a Trial of Chaos and resume it at the same room. A reward chest waits at the end of every room, so dying halfway through no longer loses everything. Bonuses scale with the zone level cleared, more magic and rare monsters, better boss drops. Rewards are limited to currency and Soul Cores (runes that modify a character mechanic once socketed), with no corrupted items.

• Completing an inscribed 10-trial Ultimatum lets you continue twice more without a new item, with a different Trialmaster fragment each time you succeed.
• The Uxmal boss arena has been redone, with clearer modifiers spread across more tiers.
• The Survive trial now chains its waves faster, and killing rare monsters shortens the timer.

Seventeen new Soul Cores join the Trial of Chaos, thirteen by Jiquani and four by Atziri, their exact effects remain to be discovered in game. Several older Soul Cores were also buffed, the Atmohua’s Soul Core of Retreat now grants 40% more maximum energy from Focus once socketed into a body armour.

That pause between rooms matters a lot on the first night. A guaranteed chest per room makes the second Ascendancy far less risky this Friday, without costing you the whole night if a pull (a group of monsters aggroed all at once) goes wrong. And since no gem or Ascendancy moved in 0.5.5, your 0.5 Ascendancy plan still holds.

Expedition (a mechanic where you place explosives on a dig site, then fight whatever the blast wakes up) becomes permanent with this patch. It’s available starting in act 4, in both Standard and this event league, unlocked after the Runeseeker quest at the Verisium Anvil. Expedition tablets (map modifiers that intensify a mechanic) now stack with each other. Legacy of Aldur no longer drops, its effect now shows up in Grand Expedition reveals, with Aldur’s Saga staying exclusive to Runes of Aldur.

Forbidden Rites: Challenges, Totem, and What Awaits in Endgame

Eight challenges pace the league, with cosmetic rewards at 2, 4, 6, and 8 challenges completed.

• At 2 challenges, you unlock Locust Footprints, footprints left behind your character.
• At 4 challenges, the Locust Swarm appears, an effect that plays when rare monsters die.
• At 6 challenges, a Wildwood Guardian pet follows you around.
• At 8 challenges, the Wildwood Affliction transforms your level-up effect.

From your first completed challenge onward, and with every challenge after that, you earn a piece of the Forbidden Rites Totem, a hideout decoration (your personal hideout, a private instance where every player displays their trophies) that shows how many challenges you’ve finished. These rewards are league-exclusive. According to Game8, one of the eight challenges requires reaching level 90, a goal that takes far more than one night.

In endgame, the Ritual changes too. In a group, every player now earns their own Tribute instead of one shared pool. The new Sacred Bloom reward adds the Viridian Wildwood to a cluster of Atlas maps (the world map that structures the endgame), with trails of Wisps (collectible will-o’-the-wisps) that strengthen the monsters they pass through. The existing Viridian Wildwood unique map is disabled for the duration of the league. The new Royal Lenience notable lets you reuse Tribute you’ve already spent to defer an item, at a cost of 500% more.

The rest of the endgame evolves too. Abyssal Ravines join the Atlas with guaranteed Abysses. The Arbiter of Ash loses cold resistance but gains fire resistance, the Arbiter of Divinity does the reverse between fire and lightning. Unstable Breaches now release their rare monsters in waves, an Abyss tablet spawns 2 to 3 rares instead of 1 to 2, and the Trial of Sekhemas offers growing bonuses starting at zone 65.

For players discovering this level of complexity, our Path of Exile 2: The Beginner’s Guide for 2026 covers the basics before you tackle the Atlas.

A realistic goal for this first night, launch at 10 p.m. included. Clear act 3, first Ascendancy in hand, two boss clusters in Ritual cleared, a piece of the Totem hanging in your hideout. The rest can wait for the weekend.