Dear Exiles, today I will show you an exclusive reveal of Path of Exile: Mirage, coming out one week from now on March 6. Now, let's find what GGG said in their announcement.
Path of Exile: Mirage Trailer
The Djinn, they were bound to serve. But not to suffer. The Afarud assault our lands, trapping my Djinn in an Astral Plane. Break their chains. Rescue them. And you will be granted a wish. An ancient evil yearns for his freedom. We must keep him in the dark. Zarokh will be freed.
Mirage Deepdive
Introduce
In Path of Exile: Mirage you will be taking on the Afarud, a sect of desert-dwelling necromancers who have lingered in the shadows who have lingered in the shadows for centuries. They are outcasts of outcasts, with no home or Promised Land. Instead, they seek their sovereignty through darker means. The Afarud have captured the souls of Djinn throughout Wraeclast. They are killing them, sapping their energies for purposes unknown. You must fight your way past the Afarud's necromantic creations to find the captive Djinn. Here, Varashta, an ancient Maraketh Sorceress, has been doing what she can to protect the Djinn, but she needs your help to free them. After successfully defeating them, you will then be asked by Varashta to enter the Astral Realm and break the tether trapping the Djinn there. This gate to the Astral Realm is a Mirage, an imperfect copy of the area around the captured Djinn. Now, when we say an imperfect copy, we mean that quite literally. Hold tight because this League mechanic has some serious implications for juicing areas. We'll get to that in a moment!
Wish
Varashta can augment the magic of the Mirage further, as she allows you to enter, giving you the option to choose one of three Wishes before you do so. These Wishes are modifiers that will apply to the Mirage area and have some pretty potent outcomes.
There are Wishes that grant extra rewards, such as the Wish for Glyphs, which causes all portal and wisdom scrolls in the Mirage to instead drop as other currencies.
Or Wishes that will spawn rewarding enemies, such as the Wish for Avarice, which replaces a number of packs in the area with Gilded enemies that convert their equipment drops to Gold.
And Wishes that can grant you extreme power while inside the Mirage, such as the Wish for Souls or the Wish for Godhood, which allow you to consume the souls of your enemies or make you completely unkillable, while within the Mirage, of course.
Each Wish is also marked with the sigil of one of three powerful Djinn: the Sand Djinn, Fire Djinn, or Water Djinn.
Depending on the sigil chosen, monsters within the affected Mirage will have a small chance to drop one of three new Coin currencies: a Coin of Knowledge, Coin of Power, or Coin of Skill. Each of these Coins can be used on a max-levelled skill gem, corrupting it and augmenting it with a random support that matches the colour of the coin used.
Only one skill that is imbued this way can be socketed into a given equipment PoE item at a time. Meaning you cannot have two imbued Skill Gems in your Body Armour, as an example.
That's one of the rewards, but let's get back to the area-to-area mechanic. Once you've made your choice of Wish, enter the Mirage and fight your way through the monsters and astral hazards to find the tether holding the Djinn. Shatter this chain to free the Djinn, step by step, weakening whatever dark plans the Afarud may have for Wraeclast.
Wishes are not the only value a Mirage has to offer to an enterprising Exile. As we mentioned earlier, Mirages are an imperfect copy of the area the Djinn occupies in Wraeclast, and they will copy almost anything, as long as it's within the domain of the Djinn.
League Mechanics
Mirages created from an Endgame Map, for instance, will have all Scarab, Atlas, and map modifiers the area had. Mirages created next to a strongbox will have a new strongbox ready for you to open. Blights can be defended against. Legions fought once more. And so on.
Effectively, you get a portion of your Map to play a second time, and everything you did to enhance the content of that Map applies in the Mirage too. These recreated copies of league mechanics, however, have been warped into reality by the power of the Mirage, and this has some side effects. For one, a recreation may not be perfect - the factions of a Legion may differ from the one the Mirage copied, or the variety of strongboxes may change.
More importantly, the mechanic may be empowered, with new threats and rewards that are customised to each mechanic and only available when doing that mechanic in the Mirage. For example, Ultimatums recreated in Mirages will have new threatening modifiers added to the usual pool. Restless ground can raise slain enemies to fight again. Or quicksand will grasp at your ankles.
As a reward for these new threats, Mirage Ultimatums can provide the new Sinistral or Dextral catalysts. These catalyse jewellery with increased effect of either Prefix or Suffix modifiers. As you can imagine, there's a lot of potential here. Another example is that Kalguuran Ore recreated in a Mirage has a chance to be replaced by a Thaumaturgic Hourglass, a powerful magical device that your Kalguuran friends can mine - in order to obtain vast quantities of Thaumaturgic Dust!
Blight Encounters recreated in Mirages have one of their lanes replaced by Afarud enemies, infested with Blight. This lane can reward a new base type: the Cord belt! The implicit of this Belt allows it to be anointed, causing it to grant a Passive Tree notable of your choosing.
As a quick note, Imprisoned Djinn will generally be near content they can empower in the Mirages, so you don't need to worry too much about getting lucky with where your content generates in an area. As the campaign doesn't generally contain too much additional league content for the Mirages to empower, we've gone and added a whole bunch that will force spawn near the Djinn, so your campaign experience will double down on being more action-packed and rewarding.
New Uniques
Now, of course, if you're travelling through Mirages, encountering new enemies, and slaying them, you can expect to find some new uniques. The Afarud are not only torturers, but thieves, and have over the centuries stolen away priceless Maraketh artefacts. Using their powers of rot and disease, they have twisted these items to suit their own purposes.
Fleshrender is one such artefact, an ancient and exquisite Maraketh blade that has been tarnished and befouled. Its rusted and jagged edge is perfect for poisoning and withering your enemies. However, Varashta has in her command the power to restore these once-lost Maraketh treasures to their former glory. Acquiring a Coin of Restoration by slaying monsters in Mirages allows any unique obtained from the Afarud to be transformed into its Maraketh counterpart. It's glorious original form. Fleshrender, for example, transforms into Skysunder: the original Maraketh blade that radiates with the glowing heat of the desert sun. When you ignite monsters, Skysunder reflects that ignite back to you, which proliferates to nearby enemies in a massive area. If you meddle with the affairs of the Afarud for too long, though, you may draw the ire of the Mirage league's new Endgame Boss—Saresh, of the Weeping Black. Saresh also has a set of powerful, exclusive items. Yours for the taking, if you are able to defeat him.
Holy Skills
Now, to face all the new evils, you might want some righteous skills. Some holy skills. In 3.28, you will have access to a slew of new options to bring divine devastation and return the faithless to their rightful graves. We're also introducing some supports to go with them, as well as some new transfigured gems. Let's go over a few examples.
With Holy Hammers, you slam the ground to call down a hammer of justice from the sky. If this hits an enemy, an additional holy hammer will cascade forwards, which itself can further cascade, and so forth. Expending a power charge when using the skill will call down an additional two hammers, which can also cause cascading slams—the more numerous your foes, the more instruments of holy judgment.
Sweep is an old skill. In fact, it is so old that it's one of the very first skills ever implemented in Path of Exile, over fifteen years ago. It's been long overdue for some attention. With 3.28, it has been reworked into Holy Sweep! This skill converts some of your physical lightning damage, with shiny new effects to match. Some enemies struck by the initial sweep will be battered by hammers of light from above. These hammers cause area damage where they land, so clustered enemies are demolished by repeated impacts. When successfully hitting an enemy with Holy Strike, you'll summon forth a floating holy armament, a glowing mace that follows you closely. These weapons are minions and will attack with Holy Strike themselves whenever you do. These Holy Armaments will copy the stats of your main hand weapon to deal their damage.
Stand against your foes with Shield of Light, a retaliation skill which will allow you to unleash a cone of holy light upon enemies after blocking a hit with your shield. Additional cones of light will also pour forth from your nearby allies when you hit with this skill, allowing you to recruit your holy army to create purging light.
Divine Blast emits a beam of holy light from your shield, coalescing into a hovering ball of energy. A few moments later, this unstable orb bursts, exploding outward with divine power.
Hallow supports melee attacks, causing them to inflict a new debuff: Hallowing Flame. Hallowing Flame builds up as charges on enemies, getting consumed when attacked. Consuming a stack of Hallowing Flame gives the attack that consumed it a significant amount of extra fire damage - but only those who did not inflict the Hallowing Flame are able to consume it.
Perfect for those of you who enjoy a more supportive playstyle with your army of Holy Sentinels, or friends, when they're online. We've also added sources of this debuff to a number of other places, such as unique items, cluster jewels, and the Guardian ascendancy class.
New Transfigured Gems
We also have another batch of new Transfigured Gems, with many of these being variants for gems that previously had none. One example is the Shockwave Totem of Authority, which casts its higher damage-dealing nova at your location instead of its own.
You might also enjoy Orb of Storms of Squalls; these storms warp directly to targets when you use lightning skills, and arc lightning upon doing so. This gives you a mobile storm of destruction that follows you as you dive into battle.
Balance Adjustments
GGG has done a bunch of balance adjustments to a few other things as well, such as a pass on Bloodline Classes, expanded the passives available in the Templar section of the Passive Tree, and various improvements to existing holy-themed skills such as Static Strike, Holy Flame Totem, and Dominating Blow. We're also doing our usual improvements to some of the least played Ascendancy Classes, this time with a focus on Guardian and Warden.
Reliquarian Ascendancy
Speaking of Ascendancies, let's talk about the Scion and her new Reliquarian Ascendancy class. For those who have played the Legacy of Phrecia events, this class will seem familiar. The Reliquarian is a learned Scion who has studied history at the Oriath Academy. She is part of a secret society of Oriathans dedicated to collecting and discerning the strange properties of Unique Items.
All of her passive powers come from these Unique Items, found throughout Wraeclast. After ascending, first select the power of a Unique Armour.
Victario's influence increases the level of all your Auras and gives them a much larger area of effect. Or instead take Kiloava's Bluster, giving you a chance to have extreme Elemental Resistance against incoming hits.
Next, pick from a Unique Weapon power. Widowhail greatly increases the bonuses gained from your Quiver. Or Maata's Teaching, which causes your Minion's Critical Strike Chance with attacks to be equal to your Main Hand Weapon's.
Lastly, pick your crown jewel, a Unique Jewellery power. Astral Projector causes Nova spells to cast from enemies rather than from yourself. Or take Astramentis, simply giving you a huge boost to all your attributes.
Due to all the ways you can mix and match Unique powers, the Reliquarian has more flexibility in how you build it compared to any other Ascendancy class in the game. Our plan for the future is for the Reliquarian not to be a static Ascendancy class, and for the Unique powers offered to change between expansions. If you don't like what she offers this expansion, hopefully, she'll have the power of your favourite Unique item in the next one.
Endgame Changes
The Core of the New Endgame
Time to move on to the Endgame. With this expansion, we aim to liven up the Endgame, giving players new experiences and strategies to leverage, and streamlining or removing the more frustrating tasks. Extensive changes will be coming to the Atlas and how you engage with Maps, without interfering with the beloved core experience that has made mapping so successful.
In the last few endgame updates, you experienced Zana's story. How she helped defeat the Elder, tried to stop exiles from going mad in the Atlas, and faced new threats pouring forth from it. In the most recent expansion, she eventually realized that there was only one way forward: to destroy the Atlas. Zana's recent actions have now weakened the already-strained and tattered edges of its realities, reshaping how we interact with the Atlas entirely.
To explain how this changes your interactions with the Atlas, we first want to establish some context and take a bit of a trip down memory lane. 27 expansions ago, back in Path of Exile 3.1.0, the War for the Atlas, we had a mechanic on the Atlas where the Shaper and Elder were engaged in War. This manifested as influenced regions on the Atlas that affected specific maps. The ever-changing influenced regions made the Atlas feel more like a physically connected space, rather than just a fancy way of visualising a checklist of completed maps. However, one of the main frustrations with this mechanic was that you constantly needed many different, specific maps to manipulate the influenced regions.
We realised we'd love to have mechanics manifest physically on your Atlas again, but we'd have to address the issue of always needing those specific maps.
The first major change we will make to solve this is to divorce map items from specific areas. As an example, instead of having a Mesa Map, you will now find, say, a Tier 10 Map. To open a Mesa map now, locate and select Mesa on your Atlas, enter your Map item, click Activate, and you're good to go.
That Mesa may drop a Tier 11 Map. You can then immediately return to your Map Device, which will default to the last map run, and then run it again, or choose a new map to use it on; it's your choice.
This is one of the many benefits of this change, which is that if you are the type of player who enjoys chaining the same Map over and over or the type of player who prefers to jump around, it is equally easy to do either strategy or even switch between them at a moment's notice. For example, if one day you are farming Burial Chambers hoping to get a Headhunter from Divination Cards eventually, and you decide you need a change of rhythm, you can seamlessly swap to your boss-farming Atlas Tree, and spam Mesa for peak boss-killing efficiency.
Up until now, this would have required having some Mesa Maps stashed, setting all your Favoured Maps to Mesa, or doing a whole bunch of Trading.
You'll also notice that the structure of the Atlas has changed. If you haven't played in a while, here's a look at it before and after. You will now begin at the centre of the Atlas, with each corner housing one of four Voidstone slots. In addition, all content accessed from your map device now exists physically on the Atlas, so you can see everything available in the Endgame as you reveal the fog of War.
This also means that all Unique Maps are now present on the Atlas, including some old favourites that are appearing for the first time. Don't worry, though, you don't need to complete Hall of Grandmasters every league. You now gain 1 Atlas Skill point per Unique Map completed, up to a maximum of 10. Given there are around 20 Unique Maps, you only need to complete the half you want, if you can get your hands on them. Note, you aren't losing any Atlas skill points. These have been moved to new places, and actually, you can get more than before.
Due to Zana's actions, Eagon now has a new goal and is determined to stop Zana's destruction by making use of a mysterious discovery: Arcane Astrolabes. Zana is currently traversing the threads that weave the Atlas together, severing them. With these new Astrolabes, Eagon can trace her movements, but using them causes dangerous side effects.
When you use an Astrolabe on a Map on the Atlas, a Shaped Region will manifest itself in that quadrant, affecting many of the Maps within it. There are many different kinds of astrolabes, and they apply different types of Shaped Regions. For example, an Abyssal Region, which causes all the maps to have an additional Abyss. Or a Blighted Region, which adds a Blight Encounter.
Completing the content added by the Astrolabe will remove the Shaped Region's influence from that Map. Upon doing so, every other Map remaining in the Shaped Region will gain an additional modifier. This means that as you progress through the Shaped Region, maps you run will become more and more intense, with the relevant mechanic getting more and more juiced.
Finally, at the end of the region of maps, once you have successfully rid the Atlas of the Shaped Region, Eagon will take you to one of four Memory Vaults, where there are powerful rewards to be had. He cares only for the knowledge hidden within that Vault, so any items are yours for the taking. Each Vault is associated with a specific quadrant on the Atlas, so you're able to target a certain Vault if you want to try to get a specific type of reward.
One such Vault is the Arkhon's Vault, where you will be rewarded with powerful Unique Items. Or the Zealot's Vault, to acquire valuable PoE Currency items.
This new Shaped Region system lets players run many different Maps, but for those who want to engage with it while still running the same Map over and over again, the Synthesised Stability Keystone on the Atlas Tree enables exactly that.
With all the new Endgame changes, we thought it would also be good to mention some handy tips and tricks for quickly navigating the new Atlas. When using the Map Device, the Atlas defaults to your previously run Map. So running the same Map over and over is as few clicks as possible.
You can right-click Unique Maps or Map Fragments in your inventory to automatically open your Atlas to that location with the Map already placed and ready to run.
When you select a special area that requires multiple items, such as to fight Atziri, or open the Domain of Timeless Conflict, if you have the fragments to access that in your inventory, it will automatically add them to the Map Device, in the right spot.
Streamlining the Endgame Experience
That's the core of the new Endgame, but there's a lot more Endgame changes coming in 3.28. Let's blast through them. Over the last few expansions, we've been working on streamlining the mapping experience, and we wanted to continue to minimise busy-work so you can spend more time doing what you love: Killing monsters and getting loot. To that end, we've made a number of changes. We won't get into too much detail, but here's a quick summary of what you can expect to receive an adjustment.
We've removed Cartographer's Chisels and Map Device Crafts entirely. The loss of content and loot here has been compensated for in other places. Voidstones now grant special global bonuses while socketed on your Atlas, including adding the new Originator Voidstone, which enables specific Atlas Bosses to drop Exceptional Supports. We'll elaborate more on that in the next section.
T17 Maps, as you know, have effectively been removed, the bosses have been kept around, and they better fulfill their original purpose of being a gateway to target farm Uber Pinnacle bosses. The most annoying Modifiers on Originator Maps have been removed or replaced. No more getting turned into a slug for simply using skills, and no more will you be incapable of dealing damage periodically.
Memory Tears, instead of adding a Memory Thread to your Atlas, will now drop an itemized version of that Thread, allowing you to save it for later or trade it at your leisure.
We've added new Scarabs, such as this Expedition Scarab of Infusion, which can generate some truly tempting Logbooks. And for those of you looking to take on the ultimate 1-on-1 fight, the Anarchy Scarab of the Exceptional will place a true antagonist-level Rogue Exile threat in your Map. Empowered by every type of Wildwood Wisp, possessed by a Tormented Spirit, augmented with rare monster modifiers, and affected by a shrine, this exile is not to be trifled with.
Alongside that, we've also changed some, such as the Beyond Scarab of Resurgence, which now causes all three Beyond bosses to appear when a Beyond Boss would spawn in your Map.
On top of that, we've made improvements to a number of weak Atlas Tree passives, such as "Pillage and Plunder," which now grants a chance for items dropped by Syndicate Members to have a Fractured Veiled Mod. Check out the new "The Paths Not Taken" Keystone, which means your Maps on average drop twice as many Divination Cards, but which ones can drop will be a mystery.
And last, but not least, we've also made some changes to Kingsmarch Shipping, such as swapping the rewards for sending Ore and Crops. I wonder what this new port will send back? Ports will now give more rewards for favoured resources, and you can even reroll them for Gold if they're not offering what you're after. Specific ports will now reward specific Tattoos and Runegrafts, making it easier to target the ones you want.
Not to mention, the Kalguurans have discovered for you to get your hands on. Such as the Runegraft of Fury, which causes you to gain Rage on using a Life Flask. And the Runegraft of Resurgence, which causes Arcane Surge also to grant Life Regeneration.
Exceptional Supports System
We mentioned the Originator Voidstone, enabling access to Exceptional Supports, so let's get into that, as there's a decent amount to cover. After defeating the Incarnations of Fear, Neglect, and Dread, you will obtain the Originator Voidstone. As mentioned earlier, this Voidstone allows new Exceptional Support Gems to drop from many bosses across the Atlas.
These new Supports are an improvement over the old Awakened Support system, which is being phased out. Awakened Supports have long been a capstone investment for a character, but there has existed a gulf between the more interesting ones, such as Awakened Spell Cascade, which has some additional transformative effect as opposed to some of the simpler Awakened supports, which have a slightly higher numerical value.
Exceptional Supports will all be transformative, serving as an additional late-game tool to customise your build around, and extending character customisation and creation even later into a build's life.
One of the goals here is to provide interesting build choices even at later levels and deep into the Endgame. However, we are certainly not aiming to reduce the power of top-end players with these changes.
Exceptional Supports will still be super-strong. If used well, they will catapult your character even further than before. So, how many are there? And what exactly do they do? There are over 40 new Exceptional supports to discover, additional enticing drops to bosses that may otherwise have felt not as worthwhile to run, giving players extra reason to take on those challenges.
For instance, from the King in the Mists, we have Hextoad Support. This support creates areas of swampy Cursed Ground, which spawns toads that bounce towards enemies and then explode, dealing chaos damage. From the Uber Elder, we have the Voidstorm Support, which causes your raining attacks to create celestial storms of energy that grow over time, detonating as you approach for massive damage.
Defeating the Incarnation of Neglect may win you the Frostmage Support. Similar to the existing Archmage support, you are rewarded for stacking Mana to enhance your spells with extraordinary Cold Damage. We'll tease some more of these before launch, but there will be many, many more for you to discover.
Keepers to Core
Keepers of the Flame is coming back. However, we do know that many players have issues with the walls in Hive encounters. To address these concerns, we'll be making several changes.
One of the biggest problems is that Walls would block your projectiles, meaning that when a Hive randomly spawned in your Map, it would make it harder to clear. To prevent that, Walls in Hive Encounters will now be destroyed by any damage.
But we also wanted to make sure we reduce the visual clutter they cause. Hives and their walls are now smaller. To allow players to engage with Hive Encounters more quickly when they do want to help Ailith, we've added a new Atlas passive that drastically increases the detonation area of Unstable Burrows, causing them to chain-react and destroy the majority of the remaining walls reliably.
For those who don't want to deal with walls at all, there's now a pair of Keystones that allow you to block Hive Encounters or Unstable Breaches, if you want.
Now that this is a core league, we don't want you to have to grow your Genesis Tree from scratch on every league start. So now, each wombgift slot is already usable by default, and access to the Monastery of the Keepers will be gained by finding Ailith starting in Act 6 Mud Flats.
Now with Atlas Tree and Scarab Support, you can have multiple Unstable Breach encounters active in a single area, for maximum ruckus. Speaking of Atlas Tree and Scarab Support, we've added plenty. Here are a few examples: The Massing Forces Atlas Notable grants a chance to have additional Unstable Breaches in your maps. The Breach Scarab of the Marshal guarantees a Breach Boss or Hive Fortress. While the Breach Scarab of the Incensed Swarm replaces all of Ailith's Skills with "Enrage the Hive", increasing the difficulty and reward from Hive monsters in all subsequent waves.
Graft items will no longer exist, but we've moved several of the Graft skills to new Exceptional supports. Such as the Hiveborn support, which summons an army of Breach minions to do your bidding when you use a supported Offering skill. And, the Foulgrasp support, which calls forth a field of grasping breach hands when you recall Brands, exploding for heavy lightning damage when enemies approach them.
We're looking forward to seeing how these improvements and additions are received alongside a lot of what Keepers also has to offer, from the new bosses and their bloodline through to the Genesis Tree and its many different crafting options like Foulborn uniques. Also, with its new narrative, we look forward to extrapolating on all of this and learning more about Ailith, the Hiveborn, and its Breachlords in the future.
Quality of Life
You can now favorite trades on the currency exchange. This consists of selecting two currencies to trade between with a single click and setting them as a favourite trade. Favourite trades will appear by default on opening the currency exchange and will still auto-suggest a ratio based on recent trade data.
A further improvement to the currency exchange is the ability to open and interact with your stash while the exchange window is open.
Divination Cards
Now, when trading a full set of Divination Cards, it will automatically be "handed in" to become the resultant item. If you then turn in another set immediately, the reward from the previous set will be transferred to your inventory directly, assuming there is enough free space to do so.
Transfigured Gems
Labyrinth font crafts that previously gave a random transfigured gem now allow you to choose which transfigured gem of that type you'd like to receive.
Asynchronous Trade
The Asynchronous trade item sale history is now hoverable, with full item descriptions of the sold item.
Divine Orb
When using Divine Orbs, you can now tell exactly which modifiers can be randomised.
Ritual
The Ritual icon will now glow if you've got significant unspent tribute in an area and all rituals are complete, and a pop-up will appear after the final ritual completion. Also on the topic of Ritual, you can now quick-use vessels on completed Rituals.
Shrines
Have you ever tried to click a Divine Shrine surrounded by enemies and find it extremely difficult to click? Well, Shrines now take priority over monsters when clicking an area where they overlap.
Campaign Improvements
Since 3.24, we've been looking to add new ways to improve the campaign experience, and 3.28 is no different. In this patch, we've added over 20 landmark rooms throughout the campaign, scattered across all ten acts. Some of these reward some pretty useful stuff, so keep an eye out for new and unexpected rooms, side passages, chests, and encounters as you progress through Wraeclast. We want most of these to be a surprise, but we'll show you just one. There is now a small central Island in the Karui Fortress, the inhabitants of which will drop a basic tattoo when slain.
Conclusion
The new PoE 3.28 league launching on March 6 is truly an exciting update. I hope all Exiles shine brightly in the game!
https://www.mmogah.com/news/poe/poe-328-new-league-what-we-know
