Class ascensions
An ascension takes a class you already understand and commits it to one of its own extremes. It is not a class change and it is not a numeric upgrade with a name: each path makes the class better at one way of winning fights and quietly worse at the others, which is why it arrives late enough that you already know which way you win.
How it works
Each class has its own paths, gated behind trials rather than sold outright. A path reshapes how the class solves a fight - which of its skills carries the damage, whether it wants the fight short or long - so it changes the stat priority and gearing that were correct before it.
Best practice
Choose for the content you actually play, not for the strongest-sounding description. A path built for long boss fights is a real downgrade on a character whose day is dungeon farming, and the class pages' stat reasoning is the right thing to re-read before committing.
The common mistake
Picking the path that fixes the class's weakness. Ascensions sharpen rather than round off, and the paths that read as patches to a class's problem generally deliver less than the ones that lean harder into what it was already doing well.