The Path of Exile 3.29 Curse of the Allflame introduces Scion's third Ascendancy class - Luminary, whose core mechanics revolve around mercenaries. The entire ascendancy passive tree of Luminary is dedicated to enhancing its mercenaries. Players can permanently recruit, equip, and customize mercenaries, making them true combat allies. Mechanics Explained Noble Blood - The Core Starting Point To master Luminary, you must first unlock the starting node of the ascendancy skill tree: Noble Blood. Only with this node can players permanently hire mercenaries encountered in the wild. Without this node, mercenaries are merely temporary regional allies. A Luminary can retain a maximum of three permanent mercenaries simultaneously, but only one can fight alongside the player; the other two will remain in town or hide out. It's important to note that switching mercenaries must be done in town or hideout; it cannot be done in the wild or on the map. Mercenary Equipment System Permanent mercenaries have full equipment slots, allowing players to replace their mercenaries' equipment with their own items. However, by default, mercenaries cannot equip unique items - this requires unlocking through an ascendancy skill. By selecting Legendary Arms node, your mercenaries can equip unique weapons, shields, and quivers. It's worth noting that there are no nodes in the entire Luminary ascendancy skill tree that allow equipping unique body armor. This might be intentional - to prevent certain body armor affixes from having overly powerful effects on mercenaries. Mercenary Combat Order When a mercenary accompanies you, you gain a skill called Order: To me!, which recalls the mercenary to your side and restores 25% of their health. The cooldown is 4 seconds. This skill is crucial in boss battles, effectively preventing mercenaries from dying due to mispositioning. Furthermore, mercenaries can be brought into any area of ​​Path of Exile, including pinnacle boss fights, meaning Luminary's gameplay is effective throughout the entire game. Key Ascendancy Passive Nodes Luminary's ascendancy passive tree revolves around several directions: link skill enhancement, survivability, and damage output. Link Skills Route: Oath of Fealty + Golden Glory Oath of Fealty is the core node of the link skills route, with effects including: Overall link skill costs reduced by 50%. Link skill connection duration becomes infinite. If the linked mercenary dies, the link holder will not die with them. This means players can permanently apply link skills like Soul Link and Vampiric Link to mercenaries without needing to repeatedly cast them, and without worrying about being dragged down by the mercenary's death. Golden Glory further amplifies the effects of link skills: increases and decreases in Light radius simultaneously affect the link skill buffs on the mercenary. By stacking Light radius, the benefits provided by link skills to mercenaries can be greatly increased. Survival Path: Loyal Bodyguard + Bestowed Knighthood These two passives transform the mercenary into a solid tank and aura provider: If your mercenary's health is higher than yours, 20% of the damage taken will be deducted from the mercenary's health first. If your mercenary's health is lower than yours, 40% of the damage taken will be converted into health regeneration. The mercenary taunts enemies upon hit. The mercenary's Non-Curse Auras from skills are increased by 50%. This path allows Luminary herself to play a relatively fragile support or Aurabot role, while the mercenary assumes the front-line damage-absorbing role. Damage Path: Legendary Arms Besides allowing the equipping of unique weapons, shields, and quivers, Legendary Arms has a powerful effect - for every unique item equipped, the mercenary and their summoned creatures deal 8% more damage. This means that three unique items can provide a total damage increase of 24%, which is quite considerable. To maximize the value of these three unique items, the attributes they add are also crucial. If needed, you can buy POE currency from IGGM.com, so you don't have to worry about not getting your ideal affixes. Mainstream Gameplay Kineticist DPS Build Currently, the most popular and effective Luminary build in Path of Exile community revolves around the Kineticist mercenary. Specifically, in this build, the player acts as a support or Aurabot, providing the mercenary with a significant amount of Fire Damage through Flame Link. Flame Link's damage is based on 5% of the caster's maximum life. Combined with the permanent link from Oath of Fealty and the amplification from Golden Glory's Light radius, it can provide the mercenary with nearly 2000 points of Fire Damage. Regarding equipment, after selecting Legendary Arms, the mercenary can equip unique weapons, shields, and quiver. Since each unique item provides an 8% damage increase, Kineticist DPS build prioritizes equipping the mercenary with three unique items for a 24% damage boost, rather than focusing on the character itself. Of course, if you want to further increase your mercenary's damage, follow IGGM POE Facebook group; we'll be hosting giveaways from time to time. Following and participating gives you a chance to win key orbs that will boost your build's power for free. Bestowed Knighthood Aura Build Another approach is to utilize Bestowed Knighthood's 50% Non-Curse Auras bonus, turning the mercenary into a mobile Aurabot, while the player focuses on summoning or other DPS methods. This build is typically paired with Loyal Bodyguard, improving the player's survivability by having the mercenary absorb damage, taunt enemies, and provide Aura effects. Compared to Kineticist build, Aura build has lower gear requirements and is more suitable for early-season progression. Overall, Luminary brings more than just a new Ascendancy to Scion; it brings a completely new gameplay experience, allowing players to truly build around a long-term, nurtureable ally for the first time. Whether mercenaries are used as the main damage dealers or as mobile auras, Luminary offers an alternative gameplay direction beyond the traditional PoE minions system.

It's normal to encounter a plateau in your progress when adjusting Passives or catching up on gear by referencing high-level builds in Torchlight Infinite SS13. This is usually because of misunderstandings about the character's stage-specific goals and overall progression logic. In fact, to effectively develop a Rosa 2 build, a clear, phased plan is essential. Recording and differentiating Rosa 2's state at different tiers of Netherrealm map is key to steadily improving it. For example, the so-called "entry-level build" refers to the character's state when first entering Timemark 7, representing only the minimum survival and damage output requirements at that difficulty. We must clearly distinguish between being able to enter the map and efficiently clearing it, avoiding frustration in Torchlight Infinite because of unrealistic expectations. So, let's work together step-by-step to steadily improve Rosa 2 in Torchlight Infinite SS13! Impact of Season Progress on Equipment The economic environment within Torchlight Infinite, especially the timing of the season, has a decisive impact on the cost and acquisition methods of gear in Rosa 2. Generally, towards the end or mid-to-late stages of the season, Auction House will see a large number of high-value transitional gear items. This is because top players have progressed to deeper content and tend to sell their outdated gear at lower prices. For example, many weapons with excellent performance at the current stage were quite expensive at the beginning of SS13, but by the mid-to-late season, they may only cost a very low amount, sometimes even as little as 50 Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium. Therefore, if you enter Torchlight Infinite SS13 relatively late, you can consider giving up on crafting your own gear from scratch, as you will have a cost advantage over players who enter the season earlier. In this case, obtaining ready-made gear from Auction House is our primary choice. Gear Affix Selection Players must understand that the choice of affixes on gear must be closely integrated with the character's skill mechanics and passive abilities, rather than simply stacking high stats. For Rosa 2, because of the core passive Tradeoff, a character's Strength and Dexterity must be perfectly equal to activate their effect. Therefore, any affix that only increases Strength or Dexterity will disrupt this balance and is an ineffective attribute that needs to be avoided or removed. More importantly, Rosa 2's weapon affix selection has a strict distinction between main and off-hand weapons. Because of Tradeoff, characters only use their main-hand weapon for attacks, which results in: Main-hand weapon: To maximize Rosa 2's core output frequency and damage ceiling, we should prioritize Attack Speed ​​and Critical Strike Rating on our main-hand weapon. At the same time, physical damage and elemental damage are also very important damage-boosting affixes for main-hand weapons. Off-hand weapon: Attack Speed ​​and Critical Strike Rating affixes are completely useless because off-hand weapon is not involved in the actual attack. Therefore, Rosa 2's off-hand weapon should focus on defensive or general damage-boosting attributes, such as additional physical or elemental damage percentage. Passive Synergy To bring about a qualitative change in Rosa 2's strength, deep integration of Passives, equipment, and Skill Gems is essential. By allocating talent points to Lich effect, we not only address healing capabilities but also fulfill the conditions for Sealed Mana Compensation, further activating the crucial Off The Beaten Track talent. Off The Beaten Track reduces Mana retention rate of aura skills for each Support Skill equipped on Rosa 2, specifically increasing Support Skill Mana Multiplier by 95%. This mechanism allows our character to have lower Mana retention costs when equipping four bid auras compared to normal, thus enabling the activation of multiple powerful auras within a limited Mana pool. You can simultaneously activate Precise Projectiles, Weapon Amplification, Fearless, and Cruelty Passives, resulting in a massive damage boost for Rosa 2 - a key breakthrough from Timemark 7 to Timemark 8. Timemark 7 Fund Accumulation For players new to Timemark 7, the primary concern is accumulating initial Torchlight Infinite Flame Elementium to unlock the necessary gear for Rosa 2. A crucial and effective point is that you shouldn't just focus on a single high-value drop, but rather concentrate on monetizing all kinds of tradable resources. First, you can allocate points in Passive Skill Tree specifically to acquire Embers to sell for Flame Elementium, or choose to acquire Energy Cores and then sell them. Alternatively, another effective way to accumulate Flame Elementium in Timemark 7 is to list all non-binding items obtained during dungeon runs in Auction House. The Need to Reach Profound If you want your Rosa 2 to have a smaller damage gap when entering the endgame content Profound and to have a decent gameplay experience in Profound, you typically need to raise your character's damage to the 200-300 billion level. Achieving such a massive number directly through Mana Stacking would require extremely expensive gear. Therefore, a more rational approach is to consider Berserking Blade or Spectral Slash as transitional options for Rosa 2. These builds can act as an intermediary, helping our characters accumulate enough resources to eventually achieve the ideal Mana Stacking ultimate configuration - because their cost threshold is relatively low, we can increase our characters' damage more quickly. When making decisions, you can also refer to the build strategies of other high-level players on the leaderboard to assess their difficulty and cost in achieving their desired builds. This is also an effective way to formulate the next step in your Rosa 2 progression plan. In short, remember to clearly plan your Rosa 2 progression path in Torchlight Infinite SS13, ensuring each upgrade is based on your current resources and proceeds gradually!