Mageblood and Headhunter are the two most hyped chase belts in Path of Exile 2 0.5.2 "Return of the Ancients" — and players are pulling both out of the same Ritual map. A viral r/PathOfExile2 post showing a Mageblood and a Headhunter dropping from one Ritual encounter kicked off the obvious question: if you want these belts, is Ritual the way to farm them? Short answer: yes, Ritual is the most targeted path to either belt — and once you understand the Tribute economy, you can deliberately fish for them instead of praying for a global drop.
This guide covers what each belt actually does in 0.5.2 (no Path of Exile 1 leftovers), why Ritual is the best mechanic to chase them, exactly how Ritual's Tribute and Favours system works, the Atlas-and-tablet setup that maximizes belt odds, the Orb of Chance alternative, and a realistic read on what they cost. Every mechanic is checked against poe2db and the PoE2 Wiki.
Quick answer (TL;DR): Both belts appear as unique rewards on the Ritual Favours page — the targeted, repeatable way to chase them. Run Ritual maps, bank Tribute by killing the revived monster waves, then Defer an expensive belt (costs 15% of its Tribute, and it reappears 10% cheaper in your next Ritual) while you stack reroll-cost reduction to keep refreshing the Favours page. Juice Ritual with the Mysterious Rites Atlas cluster (Queen's Rituals) and Ritual Precursor Tablets in Towers. Headhunter = Heavy Belt, requires Level 50, "When you kill a Rare monster, you gain its Modifiers for 60 seconds." Mageblood = Utility Belt, requires Level 55, the 0.5 Mage's Legacy / charm-slot belt. Both are worth hundreds of Divine Orbs — always check the live rate on poe.ninja. The pure-RNG alternative is an Orb of Chance on a white Utility Belt (Mageblood) or Heavy Belt (Headhunter).
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What are Mageblood and Headhunter in PoE2 0.5.2?
These are the two endgame "win the game" belts — the items that change how your whole character plays, which is exactly why they sit at the top of the economy.
Headhunter is a Heavy Belt with a Level 50 requirement. Its signature line, verbatim from poe2db, is: "When you kill a Rare monster, you gain its Modifiers for 60 seconds." On top of that it rolls (20–30)% increased Stun Threshold, +(40–60) to maximum Life, +(20–40) to Strength, and +(20–40) to Dexterity. In practice, every Rare you kill in a juiced map stacks temporary buffs — speed, damage, defenses — turning a mapping character into a snowballing monster. It is the iconic "map blaster" belt.
⚠️ PoE1 trap: old Headhunter screenshots from early access show a 20-second buff. In current 0.5.2 the duration is 60 seconds (confirmed on poe2db and the PoE Wiki). If you buy a legacy copy, a Divine Orb updates it to current values.
Mageblood is a Utility Belt with a Level 55 requirement, and it was reworked for PoE2 — it is not the Path of Exile 1 "magic flasks are always active" belt. The 0.5 version (per poe2db) grants 1–3 Charm Slots, "20% of Flask Recovery applied Instantly," and four random Mage's Legacy effects, with the kicker: "All Mage's Legacies have (25–50)% increased effect per duplicate Mage's Legacy you have." Roll into duplicates of the same Legacy and the effect scales hard — which is why players "target" a Mageblood with specific Legacies rather than settle for the first one they get.
Both belts are chase-tier: extremely rare global drops, so the smart play is to farm a mechanic that puts them in a known reward pool. That mechanic is Ritual.
Why is Ritual the best way to farm Mageblood and Headhunter?
The reason the "both from one Ritual map" clip went viral is that Ritual is one of the few mechanics where high-value uniques like Mageblood and Headhunter show up directly as purchasable rewards instead of relying on a raw global drop. When a Ritual rolls one of these belts onto its Favours page, you get to decide whether to buy it now, push it to a future map for a discount, or reroll the page hoping for something better. That element of player control is what makes Ritual the targeted farm for chase belts — you're not just hoping the loot goblin smiles, you're working a market.
If you want the broader currency-and-Omen version of this farm, see our PoE2 Ritual Farming Guide and the full breakdown of every encounter in PoE2 Ritual Types Explained. This guide stays laser-focused on the two belts.
How does Ritual farming work in 0.5.2?
A map can roll 3–4 Ritual altars. Clearing and activating an altar seals the area in darkness (you can't leave) and revives the monsters you just killed — kill them again inside the circle to bank Tribute. Tribute is per-map currency: it's spent at that map's Favours page and lost when you leave the map, so you spend it before you exit.
The Favours page (the screen in the hero image above) gives you four levers on each reward:
- Buy — pay the listed Tribute and take the item now.
- Defer — push an item to a later Ritual for a discount. The PoE Wiki states it plainly: "Deferring an item costs 15% of its Tribute, which makes [it] appear on the next Ritual encounter in a different map for 10% cheaper." This is repeatable, so you can keep shaving the price of an expensive belt across multiple maps.
- Reroll — refresh the entire Favours page for new offerings (the cost drops as you stack reroll-cost reduction — more on that below).
- Offer Tribute to the King — dump leftover Tribute into the Audience bar, the path toward Ritual's boss content.
For chase belts, the workflow is: spot a Mageblood/Headhunter on the page → if you can't afford it this map, Defer it so it returns 10% cheaper → keep running Rituals, banking Tribute, and Deferring until you can Buy it. That's the deliberate, repeatable way to land a specific belt.
What is the best Ritual setup for chase belts?
To see belts often enough for the Defer-and-buy loop to pay off, you need Ritual density and quality. Three levers do the heavy lifting:
- Atlas passive tree — the Ritual cluster. Allocate the Ritual notables, including Mysterious Rites, which gives each Ritual an 8% chance to become a Queen's Ritual — a richer encounter with extra rewards. The 0.5.2 patch notes buffed it directly: "Queen's Rituals from the Mysterious Rites Atlas Passive now have 10 additional Omens in the first set of Favours." (Source: PoE2 0.5.2 patch notes.) Stack reroll-cost reduction nodes too — pushing the reroll cost toward zero lets you refresh the Favours page repeatedly each map to fish for belts.
- Ritual Precursor Tablets in Towers. Slot Ritual tablets into a completed Lost Tower to force/boost Ritual encounters across every map in that Tower's radius. Overlap multiple Towers so their radii stack. (Full mechanics in our PoE2 Tablets & Towers Guide.)
- Run higher-tier maps. The reward pool and monster density scale with map tier, so push the highest maps your build clears comfortably — more revived monsters per Ritual means more Tribute, which means more Buys and Defers per map.
Then it's a grind loop: juice maps → run every Ritual → reroll for belts → Defer the expensive ones → bank Tribute → buy. The Omens you pick up along the way (see our PoE2 Omens Guide) are pure bonus currency you can sell to fund the chase.
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Can you get Mageblood and Headhunter without Ritual?
Yes — but the alternatives are far less reliable:
- Orb of Chance. An Orb of Chance "unpredictably either upgrades a Normal item to Unique rarity or destroys it." Used on a white (Normal) Utility Belt it can turn into a Mageblood; on a white Heavy Belt it can roll into a Headhunter. This is pure RNG with a brutally low hit rate and a real chance to vaporize the base — fun gambling, not a farming plan.
- Global boss/rare drops. Bosses and Rare monsters with unique modifiers have a higher chance to drop uniques in general, but neither belt is locked to a specific boss, so you're back to praying for a chase-tier global drop.
Compared to those, Ritual's see-it-then-Defer-and-buy loop is the only method where you can actually target the belt you want. That's why the community treats Ritual as the Mageblood/Headhunter farm.
How much are Mageblood and Headhunter worth in PoE2?
Both belts sit firmly in chase-tier territory — hundreds of Divine Orbs each, with Mageblood typically the pricier of the two and "pre-rolled" copies (good Legacies / good rolls) commanding a premium over a base copy. Exact prices swing daily and per-league, so always check the live rate on poe.ninja before you buy or sell — never trust a static number.
The honest math most players run: farming a specific belt from Ritual can take many hours, while the Omens and currency you bank along the way are sellable. A common shortcut is to buy the base belt when one shows on the trade site, then spend a modest pile of currency rolling toward your preferred Mageblood Legacies — far cheaper than buying a perfect pre-rolled copy outright. Whether you farm it, chance it, or buy it, the bottleneck is the same: Divine Orbs.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is Ritual the best way to farm Mageblood and Headhunter in PoE2? Yes — Ritual is the most targeted method because both belts can appear as buyable rewards on the Ritual Favours page. You bank Tribute by killing the revived monster waves, then Buy the belt or Defer it (15% of its Tribute) so it returns 10% cheaper in your next Ritual. No other mechanic lets you deliberately fish for a specific chase belt like this.
What does Headhunter do in PoE2 0.5.2? Headhunter is a Heavy Belt (requires Level 50) that grants, verbatim, "When you kill a Rare monster, you gain its Modifiers for 60 seconds," plus increased Stun Threshold, maximum Life, Strength, and Dexterity. Killing Rares in a dense map snowballs temporary buffs, making it the premier mapping/clear-speed belt.
What does Mageblood do in PoE2, and is it the same as PoE1? No — it was reworked for PoE2. The 0.5 Mageblood (Utility Belt, requires Level 55) grants 1–3 Charm Slots, 20% of Flask Recovery applied instantly, and four random Mage's Legacy effects that scale up to 25–50% per duplicate Legacy you have. It is not the PoE1 "magic utility flasks always active" belt — don't quote the old text.
Can I get Mageblood or Headhunter with an Orb of Chance? You can try. An Orb of Chance on a white Utility Belt can become a Mageblood, and on a white Heavy Belt can become a Headhunter — but it's pure RNG with a very low success rate and can destroy the base item instead. Treat it as a lottery, not a farming strategy; Ritual is the reliable route.
How much do Mageblood and Headhunter cost? Both are chase-tier items worth hundreds of Divine Orbs, with Mageblood usually the more expensive and well-rolled copies costing more. Prices move daily and per-league, so check the live value on poe.ninja before buying or selling.
How do I afford an expensive belt from Ritual? Use Defer. Deferring a belt costs 15% of its Tribute and makes it reappear 10% cheaper in your next Ritual encounter, and it's repeatable — so you keep Deferring and running Rituals, banking Tribute each map, until the price is low enough to Buy. Stack reroll-cost-reduction Atlas passives so you can refresh the Favours page cheaply while you hunt.
Sources: poe2db (Headhunter, Mageblood, Orb of Chance), PoE Wiki, and the official PoE2 0.5.2 patch notes. Prices via poe.ninja — always verify live, currency rates move daily. Guide by the timesaver.gg team.
