Path of Exile 3.28 launches the Mirage Challenge League on March 6, 2026, and it brings one of the most content-rich seasonal experiences the game has seen in years. At its core, the league asks you to hunt down captive Djinn, enter twisted mirror-copies of your maps called Astral Mirages, and break the chains holding these ancient beings prisoner. Beyond the core mechanic, you are looking at a full Atlas of Worlds rework, 40 new Exceptional Support Gems, a brand-new Scion Ascendancy, and a slate of fresh builds ready to carry you from campaign to endgame. Here is everything you need to hit the ground running.
What Is the Mirage League Mechanic?
As you clear campaign zones and endgame maps, watch for a large purple shimmer marking the border of a Mirage-affected area. Inside this border, Afarud monsters (desert-dwelling necromancers) appear alongside the zone's regular enemies. At the center of the Mirage area sits a small ritual where several Afarud hold a Djinn captive.
Defeating these Afarud ritualists is straightforward, and doing so causes Varashta, an ancient Maraketh Sorceress, to appear. She offers you a choice of three Wishes before opening the portal into the Mirage zone itself.
Freeing the captive Djinn
How Do You Complete a Mirage Encounter?
Once inside the portal, you find an altered copy of the outside zone. Your objective is to break the Astral Chains by locating and killing a second set of three Afarud ritualists. The gigantic chains extending skyward make these enemies easy to spot. Breaking the chains completes the encounter and reveals a bonus loot chest.
Importantly, Mirage is designed to be pressure-free:
- There is no timer forcing you out of the zone.
- You can fully clear the Mirage even after breaking the chains.
- You can leave at any time through the portal without completing the encounter.
- A UI button (with a bindable hotkey) teleports you back to the starting portal instantly.
Learn to spot the sandy purple shimmers scattered throughout Mirage zones. Walking over these mini-Mirages spawns additional packs of Champion and Rare monsters, and can reveal hidden loot chests. Hunting these adds significant extra monsters to your runs, which matters a lot for endgame juicing strategies.
How Do Mirage Wishes Work?
Before entering, Varashta presents three Wishes to choose from. Wishes apply only inside the Mirage portal, not in your regular map. They fall into three broad categories:
- Raw power buffs while inside the Mirage (such as Adrenaline, Onslaught, or Shrine buffs).
- Specific guaranteed rewards for breaking the Astral Chains (a stash of Rare Helmets, a Unique Body Armour, or a specific Currency Orb type).
- Additional content inside the Mirage zone (extra monster packs, 100% increased Currency found, additional Gold Jewel Caches, or even Frogs).
Early in the league, pick Wishes that offer enticing guaranteed rewards like Unique items or Currency. At endgame, your strategy shifts toward adding more monster packs to maximize Delirium or other mechanic interactions inside the Mirage.
What Are Wish Sigils and Coins?
At endgame, each Wish displays a Sigil at the bottom linked to one of three powerful Djinn: the Sand Djinn, Fire Djinn, or Water Djinn. The Sigil determines which Coin currency can drop from monsters inside that Mirage.
There are three Coins, one per attribute type:
Using a Coin on a Level 20 Skill Gem permanently imbues it with a random Support Gem effect matching the Coin's attribute. This Corrupts the gem, so you must choose between a Coin imbue or a Vaal Orb corruption for +1 Level. You can only have one imbued Active Skill Gem per link, which is an important restriction to plan around when sharing supports across a 4-link.
Skills can only gain Supports they are technically compatible with, but compatibility does not mean the result will be useful. Nothing prevents Brutality Support from appearing on an Elemental Hit gem, so budget Coin use carefully before committing to high-value gems.
Choosing your Mirage Wish
How Does Mirage Interact with Other Content?
This is where Mirage gets genuinely exciting for veteran players. Mirages created inside endgame maps inherit all Scarabs, Atlas passive bonuses, and map modifiers applied to the parent map. Essentially, you replay a portion of your juiced map a second time inside the Mirage.
Content That Gets Duplicated
Simpler content duplicated with minor twists:
- Strongboxes: Type may differ, but each gains a bonus Implicit that spawns extra Afarud monsters.
- Shrines: Location mirrors the outside zone, but Mirages often feature an exclusive Afarud Shrine that improves Buff/Debuff mechanics and drops extra Gold.
- Rogue Exiles and Essence Monsters also appear.
Major league mechanics with unique Mirage bonuses:
- Ritual: Duplicated with its own monster set and shop. The shop reveals fully even from a single Ritual, and the encounter counts as a full 3-4 encounter set for Tribute calculation. New Mirage-specific corpses like the Perfect Astral Lich can appear for Raise Spectre builds.
- Blight: One lane gets replaced by Afarud enemies. Clearing it rewards the new Cord Belt base type, which can be Anointed as if it were an Amulet, granting a Passive Tree Notable of your choice.
- Delirium: If the parent map has a Delirium Mirror, the Mirage gets its own fully independent Mirror with a separate reward track, even if the Mirage portal is nowhere near the original mirror.
- Legion: Can be duplicated. Hunt for the new Heroic Tragedy Timeless Jewel through Mirage Legion encounters.
- Abyss: Nearby Abysses generate a special encounter inside the Mirage, with new Stygian Vise modifiers like "100% Increased Effect of Magic Searching Eye Jewels."
- Ultimatum: Features new challenge modifiers exclusive to Mirage, with rewards including new Sinistral and Dextral Catalysts that increase the effect of Prefix or Suffix modifiers on jewelry.
What Does NOT Work in Mirage?
Not everything gets duplicated. The following content cannot spawn inside Mirage zones:
- Master Mission content: Niko's Sulphite piles, Alva's Incursion zones, Einhar Beasts, Jun's Betrayal encounters.
- Separate-zone content: Vaal Side Areas, Viridian Wildwood entrances, Labyrinth Trials.
Imprisoned Djinn generally spawn near content they can empower, so you rarely need to worry about generating a Mirage in a barren area. During the campaign, GGG has force-spawned additional content near Djinn to keep early encounters action-packed.
What Are the Atlas Changes in 3.28?
The Atlas of Worlds receives its most substantial rework in years alongside Mirage League.
Tiered Map System
Specific named map drops are gone. Instead, maps now drop as a tier (for example, a Tier 10 Map), which you can use to run any layout of the same or lower tier from your Atlas. This means chaining the same map repeatedly or switching strategies mid-session requires zero setup.
New Atlas Structure
- You now start your Atlas journey at the center, progressing outward.
- Four Voidstone slots sit at the corners of the Atlas.
- All content previously accessed through the Map Device now appears physically on the Atlas, making the full endgame visible as you clear fog of war.
- Cartographer's Chisels and Map Device Crafts have been removed entirely.
- You earn 138 total Atlas Passive Points, with 10 coming from completing any 10 of the available Unique Maps (not all of them).
Astrolabes and Shaped Regions
Astrolabes replace Sextants. Applying an Astrolabe to a map on the Atlas creates a Shaped Region in that quadrant, adding a specific type of content (Abyss, Blight, and so on) to all maps within the region. As you complete content in the region, remaining maps gain stacking modifiers, making the region progressively more intense.
Finishing an entire Shaped Region grants access to one of four Memory Vaults, each offering powerful rewards tied to a specific Atlas quadrant (such as the Arkhon's Vault for Unique Items or the Zealot's Vault for Currency).
What Are the New Skills and Gems in 3.28?
Holy Skills Archetype
The Holy Archetype expands significantly in 3.28 with several new active skills:
- Holy Hammers: Slam the ground to call a hammer from the sky. On hit, additional hammers cascade forward in a chain. Spending a Power Charge summons two extra hammers that also cascade, rewarding you for fighting large packs.
- Holy Sweep: A full rework of the original Sweep skill (one of the oldest in the game). Converts some physical damage to lightning, adds hammers of light that fall on struck enemies and deal area damage, making it devastating against clustered groups.
- Holy Strike: Successfully hitting an enemy summons a floating Holy Armament minion that mirrors your main-hand weapon stats and attacks with Holy Strike alongside you.
- Shield of Light: A retaliation skill that unleashes a cone of holy light after blocking, with additional cones erupting from nearby allies.
- Divine Blast: Emits a beam from your shield that coalesces into an energy orb, then detonates outward after a short delay.
- Hallow Support: Melee attacks inflict Hallowing Flame charges on enemies. Consuming a charge deals bonus fire damage, but only characters who did NOT apply the debuff can consume it, making it a natural support-oriented mechanic.
Exceptional Support Gems
After defeating the Incarnations of Fear, Neglect, and Dread, you obtain the Originator Voidstone. This Voidstone enables specific Atlas Bosses to drop Exceptional Support Gems, replacing the old Awakened Support system. There are 40 Exceptional Supports to discover, all designed to be transformative rather than simple numerical upgrades. Examples include:
- Hextoad Support (from the King in the Mists): Creates cursed swampy ground that spawns toads bouncing toward enemies and exploding for Chaos damage.
- Voidstorm Support (from the Uber Elder): Raining attacks create celestial energy storms that grow over time and detonate as you approach.
- Frostmage Support (from the Incarnation of Neglect): Rewards stacking Mana to enhance spells with extraordinary Cold Damage, similar in concept to Archmage Support.
Exceptional Support Gem tooltip
What Is the Reliquarian Ascendancy?
The Scion gains a new Ascendancy called the Reliquarian, based on the Scavenger from the Phrecia event. The Reliquarian collects and wields the power of Unique Items as passive bonuses, choosing one power from three categories during Ascendancy:
- Unique Armour power (examples: Victario's Influence for increased Aura level and area, or Kiloava's Bluster for extreme Elemental Resistance on hits).
- Unique Weapon power (examples: Widowhail for increased Quiver bonuses, or Maata's Teaching to set Minion Crit Chance equal to your main-hand weapon's).
- Unique Jewellery power (examples: Astral Projector for Nova spells to cast from enemies, or Astramentis for a large attribute boost).
GGG has stated the Unique powers offered by the Reliquarian will rotate between expansions, meaning the options available in 3.28 may differ in future leagues. This makes the Reliquarian one of the most flexible and future-facing Ascendancies in the game.
Best League Starter Builds for Mirage 3.28
Several strong options are available for league start, covering a range of playstyles:
Mirage Unique Items and Upgrade System
The Afarud have stolen ancient Maraketh artifacts and corrupted them over centuries. Many new Mirage Unique Items drop from Afarud enemies, Djinn rewards, and the league boss. These items can be upgraded using Coins of Restoration, transforming a corrupted Afarud version into its original Maraketh form with enhanced effects.
The most notable example is Fleshrender, a poisoning and withering blade that transforms into Skysunder via a Coin of Restoration. Skysunder reflects Ignite back to the player, which then proliferates to nearby enemies in a massive area, opening up powerful Ignite proliferation builds.
The league's Pinnacle Boss, Saresh, the Necromancer Supreme (also referred to as Saresh of the Weeping Black), guards exclusive high-tier Unique Items and endgame rewards. Drawing his attention requires sustained engagement with Mirage content throughout your mapping progression.
Quick-Reference: Mirage Do's and Don'ts
Only one imbued Active Skill Gem can be socketed per equipment piece. If you plan to share supports across multiple skills in a single item, break the links using the Crafting Bench before socketing a second imbued gem.