Source: Grinding Gear Games (official Path of Exile key art via Steam)
Path of Exile 3.30, Covens of Umbra, launches on November 13, 2026 at 11:00 AM PST, free on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. This Covens of Umbra guide covers everything you need for day one: how Fates work, what the Wickerman does with boss body parts, why Scarabs are gone, and how the rebuilt Atlas changes the way you plan your endgame. Grinding Gear Games revealed the expansion at ExileCon 2026, and it is the biggest shakeup the original game has had in years, landing just four weeks before Path of Exile 2 leaves early access.
The short version is this. You fight witch covens, you collect Fate cards, you use those cards to make bosses harder and more rewarding, and you harvest body parts from those bosses to power up your own character. Around that loop sits a fully rebuilt Atlas, a new map-juicing system, and a loot rework that changes what drops are worth picking up. Here is how it all fits together.
Covens of Umbra guide: how Fates work
The league mechanic starts with covens. As you clear areas, including campaign zones from as early as Act 1, you will run into covens performing rituals to summon their queen. Beat the ritual, with help from Moira, a witch trapped by the covens' magic, and you get to pick a Fate card from a cauldron.
A Fate is a modifier you invoke on the boss of the area you are in. Each card adds something to the fight, a new attack, a new mechanic, a new behavior, and in exchange the boss drops better rewards. You can invoke up to three Fates on a single boss, and the more you stack, the harder the fight and the bigger the payout. Duplicate Fates triple the reward of the first one, and specific combinations trigger bonus effects, so there is a real decision in every cauldron: take the safe Fate, or gamble on a combination that could pay off.
Early on, do not overthink it. Click Fates quickly, fight the boss, and learn what each card does by feel. The system is designed to be light touch in the campaign and to get serious in maps, where you can collect four or five Fate cards in a single area. The rewards scale with the risk, and the risk is yours to choose, which is the whole point. If your build is cruising, stack three Fates and farm. If you are barely surviving, take one and move on.
The Wickerman and Viscera
Fates are only half the loop. The other half is the Wickerman, a twisted wooden effigy you bind your character's soul to. When you kill a Fate-empowered boss, it has a chance to drop Viscera, a body part harvested from that boss. Viscera come in four slots, head, arms, torso, and legs, and you can equip up to four pieces on the Wickerman at once for permanent character buffs.
Every campaign boss and every Atlas map boss has its own unique Viscera, in three tiers, with the strongest tier only available in the endgame. That gives you a reason to go back and fight bosses you would otherwise ignore. Want a specific buff? Find the boss that drops it and farm that boss. It is a collection system disguised as a power system, and it will drive a lot of trade and target farming in the first weeks.
In the endgame, the system goes further. Fate-empowered bosses in high-level Atlas areas can drop Grim Fates, which persist on your Wickerman until you use them. A Grim Fate rewrites a pinnacle boss fight at a mechanical level. Sirus gets a Meteor Maze filled with swirling ravens. Uber Elder's portals fire beams of dark energy. Beating a Grim Fate-empowered pinnacle boss drops far stronger Viscera, and it is also the only way to reach the final encounter with the Coven Queen herself. If you want to see the end of the league's story, Grim Fates are the road there.
Threads of Creation replace Scarabs
The biggest endgame change has nothing to do with witches. Scarabs are gone, completely removed. Their replacement is Threads of Creation, items you slot directly into the Map Device instead. Each Thread applies one of ten league mechanics to your maps: Abyss, Blight, Legion, Breach, Incursion, Betrayal, Bestiary, Expedition, Ultimatum, and Ritual. You can use up to eight Threads of a single mechanic and run up to three mechanics at once.
If you spent years building a Scarab stash and a Scarab strategy, that knowledge is now history. The new question is which Threads to run, and the answer depends on what you are farming. Threads scale monster rarity and difficulty along with the mechanic, so juicing a map is now a direct choice in the Map Device rather than a separate currency to manage. Expect the economy around Threads to be chaotic in week one while everyone figures out which ones are worth the most.
The Atlas Passive Tree has been rebuilt alongside this, moving from its old structure to a spiderweb layout that radiates outward from the center. Many effects that used to live on Scarabs have moved onto the tree. Do not plan your Atlas around old guides. The tree is new, the combinations are new, and the first players to map it properly will have a real edge.
The Atlas and loot rework
Two more changes deserve your attention before launch. First, the loot rework. Grinding Gear Games promises a fundamental overhaul of how loot drops, with tiered magic and rare items, and player rarity no longer affecting currency drops. The full numbers are not public yet, since the patch notes are landing very late, right around launch, so treat any specific farming advice you see before then with suspicion. The direction is clear though: rarity stacking is less important, and the base quality of drops matters more.
Second, existing mechanics are getting reworked in the shuffle. Atziri replaces the Vaal Omnitect as the boss of the Temple of Atzoatl, and she can drop Soul Cores, used to corrupt a level 20 skill gem and imbue it with a random support gem effect. The campaign itself has been rearranged with more than 20 new bosses. This is not a league layered on top of the old game. It is a new version of the old game.
Day one checklist
Here is the practical version. Do not lock in a build based on 3.29 logic. Wait for the full patch notes, which Grinding Gear Games is publishing just before launch, and check them against your plan before you commit. Pick a league starter that is flexible, because the first week will be full of surprises. In the campaign, engage with every coven you see and learn the Fate cards as you go. In maps, start experimenting with Threads early, and keep an eye on which Viscera your build actually wants before you start target farming bosses.
And if you are new to the original game, this is a good league to start. The mechanic is simple at its core, fight a coven, pick a card, fight a harder boss, get better loot, and the Wickerman gives you a clear goal from your very first map. Our Path of Exile 2 beginner guide covers the sequel's basics, and our Path of Exile 2 starter builds will help when the sequel launches in December. For now, though, the original game has the spotlight. Grinding Gear Games has the full rundown on the official Covens of Umbra page, and the league goes live November 13 at 11:00 AM PST. See you in Wraeclast.
