Return of the Ancients: The Auspex and Facebreaker Revealed

Mark Roberts, Game Director at GGG, has just revealed two new unique items coming in the upcoming league Return of the Ancients. The presentation is short — three minutes — but it already gives a glimpse of what’s in store for players.

On the agenda: The Auspex, a body armor designed to drive your enemies completely mad, and Facebreaker, a reimagining of a Path of Exile 1 classic built for beating enemies with bare fists.

Two New Unique Items Announced for Return of the Ancients

Each item brings a distinct mechanic. The following details what The Auspex offers in terms of gameplay, then what changes with the return of Facebreaker.

The Auspex: Becoming the Mist Raven

In ancient times, a lost child was taken in by an Azmeri village. The village’s Auspex marked him as a bad omen: crops rotted, days darkened. Ravens began to follow him. The mist descended. Madness set in, slowly, inexorably. Return of the Ancients offers a chance to turn this curse around — to become the Auspex yourself, and wield that madness as a weapon.

The Auspex is a unique body armor based on the Exquisite Vest. Required at level 90 with 242 Dexterity, its evasion rating reaches 1092 thanks to a 223% increased Evasion Rating bonus. It also provides +109 Maximum Life. The primary defensive feature: Deflect chance becomes Lucky when you are on Low Life. In practice, the game rolls the die twice and keeps the best result. This chest armor also includes a notable downside: attribute requirements are doubled (100% increased Attribute Requirements).

The item’s offensive effect comes through a passive aura: enemies in your presence accumulate 1 stack of Gruelling Madness per second, a slow debuff that amplifies your other slow effects. But the core of The Auspex’s power lies in the skill it directly grants.

The Auspex directly grants the Mist Raven skill at level 20. This Persistent, indestructible companion summons a mysterious raven that follows you at all times. Its command skill is Mirror Breaker: the raven dives onto a targeted location, passes through a supernatural mirror, and triggers an area explosion. The Mist Raven uses your own Culling Strike threshold to finish off enemies. Each culled enemy grants you a Frenzy Charge. The skill’s quality bonus provides a chance to gain an additional Frenzy Charge each time you obtain one.

The defensive dimension of The Auspex should not be underestimated. Lucky Deflect on Low Life can make the difference in critical situations. Furthermore, the Gruelling Madness aura doesn’t just slow enemies. It acts as a multiplier on your other slow sources, making any crowd control-focused build significantly more effective.

Facebreaker: Demolishing with Your Fists

Behind the name « Red Wolf » lies a figure from the Ezomytes, the people who fought the Eternal Empire in combats as brutal as they were personal. The lore inscribed on the item puts it bluntly: where others carried weapons, the Red Wolf pulled his enemies’ teeth out with bare fists. Facebreaker, unique gloves born from this bloody legacy, is the return of a Path of Exile 1 classic, reimagined for PoE 2 with a permanent progression mechanic.

Facebreaker is based on the Stocky Mitts, with 15 base Armor and 56 to 76 Physical Damage. Offensive and defensive modifiers both scale with Strength: +1 Armor per point of Strength, and 1% additional Unarmed Damage per 5 points of Strength. Melee attack range gains +3 while unarmed, and stun buildup is boosted by 47%, opening up interesting synergies for control-oriented builds.

The core mechanic of the gloves is straightforward: both hand slots must remain empty. In exchange, all Mace skills become usable unarmed. The damage of Unarmed attacks that would normally use a One Handed Mace is replaced by the gloves’ own damage. That 56 to 76 base Physical Damage. Your fists become the weapon.

What sets Facebreaker apart from a simple niche item is its ability to grow throughout the campaign. Every boss defeated leaves a mark, literally. The gloves track the bosses you have eliminated via encounter icons on the world map.

Each Boss Encounter icon on the map constitutes a face to break. Defeating a boss permanently grants +3 to +4 added Physical Damage. Rare monster encounters do not count. Only true boss encounters qualify. The further the campaign progresses, the higher the gloves’ base damage grows.

Strength scaling reinforces the build identity: Armor, damage. Every stat points in the same direction. GGG summed up the spirit of the item in one sentence: Hammer of the Gods? No, Fist of the Gods. When divine power flows through your fists, there’s no need for a hammer.

See You on May 29 for Return of the Ancients

The Auspex and Facebreaker both arrive with the Return of the Ancients launch on May 29. The new league thus offers two distinct options: a minion and mental manipulation build via The Auspex, and a Strength-based unarmed build with Facebreaker for mace skills with bare fists. Other reimagined uniques round out the picture, such as Reverie and Hollow Mask on the druid side, and the Olroth’s Legacy rune expected to dominate the meta.

All league information is available on the official website: pathofexile2.com/ancients