Path of Exile's 3.30 update, "The Umbra Witch Convening," is scheduled for release on November 14. Grinding Gear Games confirmed that this update will bring one of the largest overhauls to the endgame system in recent years, with Mirage becoming a core mechanic.
The new season revolves around a conflict among shadow witches that has lasted for centuries. Players will encounter witch rituals early in the campaign, allowing them to seize power and combine up to three "Fates," thereby increasing the difficulty and rewards of major boss fights. Special "Grim Fates" will also alter the attack patterns of top-tier bosses.
Characters can also bind with the "Wickerman," storing head, body, arm, and leg loot dropped by Fate-empowered enemies within it. Up to four items can be used simultaneously, granting different buffs based on their tier.
The endgame section will reorganize the Atlas of Worlds regions. Consecutively completing maps in the same region stacks mechanic intensity and rewards; the new "Threads of Creation" will replace Scarabs, allowing players to invest threads corresponding to major league mechanics such as Abyss, Blight, Legion, and Breach into map devices, with up to three categories enhanced simultaneously in the late game. The Atlas passive skill tree will also be completely refreshed, introducing crossover events between different mechanics.
Mirage, introduced in season 3.28, will become a core mechanic and cover the entire area of affected maps. The update will also adjust the tiers of ground Magic and Rare equipment, item rarity, and treasure hunting yields, concentrating more valuable currency on Unique enemies and bosses while improving the appeal of common drops.
Trailer Description:
"In Path of Exile 1: The Umbra Witch Convening, disrupt dark magic and end the powerful sorcery of the Witch Queen. Our November expansion introduces a brand-new challenge league, implements fundamental changes to the game's endgame content, optimizes existing endgame systems, and brings new unique items and more! Play Path of Exile: The Umbra Witch Convening for free on all available platforms starting November 14."
Detailed report from foreign media:
Although the sequel may be preparing for a December launch, the original Path of Exile is not just quietly staying in the background—quite the opposite. Grinding Gear Games has promised that both games will continue to operate simultaneously, alternating seasonal leagues between them to ensure care for all possible player types. After all, Path of Exile 2 is carving out its own very distinct path, so why let one of the best RPGs in history exit the stage? I am on-site at Exilecon, learning exactly what we can expect from the PoE 3.30 update "The Umbra Witch Convening," launching in just one week.
Path of Exile 3.30 throws us directly into a "conflict among Umbra witches that has lasted for centuries." Meanwhile, it brings what Game Director Jonathan Rogers calls one of the largest endgame overhauls in a long time, with most systems being reworked. Even more excitingly, the Mirage mechanic, initially introduced with the 3.28 league and bringing huge changes, is now ready to join the core game. In addition, there is a fairly large-scale loot overhaul, which should mean a significant reduction in item quantity stacking, while rewards up for grabs become more valuable, including items dropped on the ground.
Starting with this league, we will encounter the minions of the Witch Convening Queen from the opening area. When encountering witch rituals, you will have the opportunity to turn their power to your own use, stealing their power to invoke various Fates, thereby increasing the challenge and potential rewards of major boss fights. The deeper you progress, the more Fates you encounter, eventually collecting four or five Fates in a region and combining up to three in a single battle. Some even have special combination effects that trigger when you meet additional conditions, and stacking duplicate Fates significantly enhances their effects.
Another addition in "The Umbra Witch Convening" is the Wickerman, onto which you can bind your character's soul to gain power from fallen enemies. Defeating Fate-empowered enemies has a chance to drop various gruesome loot, such as their limbs, which you can then infuse into the Wickerman to capture a fragment of their essence, thereby empowering your character. You can impale up to four items simultaneously—head, torso, arms, and legs—and they come in three rarity tiers with progressively increasing potency, so you'll want to farm for the best buffs.
The core mechanic of "The Umbra Witch Convening" indeed requires you to encounter all major area bosses to function effectively, so GGG has rearranged the layout of campaign areas "where necessary" to ensure you always encounter them without needing to excessively scour the map. What about locations without bosses? More than twenty new bosses distributed throughout the campaign will fill these gaps, and once you reach the endgame, all bosses can be farmed repeatedly through their endgame variants.
There is one final aspect to note during farming: Grim Fates. These are special modifier variants tailored specifically for each pinnacle boss, changing or enhancing many of their attacks to challenge you in new ways. Each Grim Fate you collect is stored in a special slot in the Wickerman for use when the time is right, and after defeating pinnacle bosses empowered by Fates, you will have the chance to seize their own visceral loot, which promises to provide some of the most powerful buffs in the league. When you feel strong enough, go challenge the Witch Convening Queen herself.
Although the league content itself is rich enough to keep us busy, PoE 3.30 also brings "a far-reaching and comprehensive endgame overhaul, with changes to almost every core league mechanic." The recently reshaped Atlas of Worlds maps now feature regions of different colors, allowing you to decide which mechanics you will encounter; layers continuously increase as you consecutively challenge multiple maps within a region. As expected, increasing these layers means additional danger, but also correspondingly increased rewards.
"We tried to create novel and interesting mechanics for every major league mechanic you can find in the Atlas of Worlds," Rogers pointed out. Blight has added new modifiers, such as Mycotic paths, more infected Blight cores, or paths entirely occupied by rogue exiles carrying legendary items. In Ritual, you will encounter the option to invite Bodach's gaze, reigniting the ritual and adding extra phantom attacks to increase challenge difficulty; alternatively, you can invest excess offerings to summon a servant of the King of Mist.
Ultimatum may now offer a "Double Down" opportunity, allowing you to gamble on double the number of rounds with no option to exit throughout. Alternatively, you might find Soul Cores that can be strapped to your back, accelerating the pace of encounters but at the cost of monsters stealing those souls when attacking you to empower themselves. Or, you might encounter the Trialmaster's beating heart; knocking it down grants your character a massive adrenaline burst.
Suppose you want to play Expedition. "Sometimes you might discover an expedition of astonishing scale," Rogers said. Other possible options include Rune Obelisks, which can be detonated to revive all previously defeated Magic and Rare monsters for a second round of combat; or glowing Monster Markers, which spawn only Rare enemies. How can you maximize the probability of encountering both synergistic mechanics simultaneously? One way is to increase the tier of that mechanic, but you can also use a new system in 3.30 called "Threads of Creation," which will replace Scarabs.
Each major league mechanic has a corresponding Thread of Creation, found in regular loot: Abyss, Blight, Legion, Breach, Incursion, Betrayal, Harbinger, Expedition, Ultimatum, and Ritual. Placing them into a map device enhances the respective specific mechanic; if you truly want to push potential trouble and rewards to the extreme, you can insert up to eight threads. As you progress deeper, you will eventually be able to do this for three mechanics simultaneously. Your Atlas of Worlds will also remember the last used Thread of Creation configuration, allowing you to quickly reuse the same setup when challenging each map.
For example, if you do this for Betrayal, you might find Catarina's corpse sculpture, which summons all Syndicate members from your prison at once, with Catarina potentially joining them. Defeating her rewards jewels with Veiled modifiers and specialization attributes. Veiled modifiers on Syndicate items can also drop in Shaper-influenced states.
However, all old Scarab mechanics will not disappear—they will be dispersed into other systems, most notably the refreshed Atlas of Worlds passive skill tree. "Our intention is for average players to achieve a level of enhancement similar to using Scarabs in the past, relying solely on the foundation of the passive skill tree," Rogers explained. "Then, the additional layer of Threads of Creation stacked on top will introduce many other new random outcomes, bringing interesting jackpot moments to keep the experience fresh."