Path of Exile Mirage League Guide: Atlas overhaul & Skill Imbue Explained

Path of Exile's "Mirage" expansion launches March 6th. It brings an Atlas overhaul (maps are no longer region-locked), a Skill Imbue system (your gems can gain an extra support), 40+ new Exceptional Support Gems, and a new Mirage league mechanic where you enter Djinn projections and make a wish.

If you thought new leagues were just about swapping mechanics and adding a few skills, "Mirage" is here to challenge that assumption. This article provides a comprehensive breakdown of every core module and analyzes how these changes will impact your mapping experience and character development.

Table of Contents

PoE Mirage League Story Explained

How Mirage and Wish Mechanics Work

PoE Skill Imbue System

PoE Atlas Overhaul: New Map System Explained

PoE Shaped Regions and Memory Vaults

PoE 40+ New Exceptional Support Gems

PoE Mirage QoL Changes

Conclusion

PoE Mirage league story explained

In the "Mirage" league, we face an extremist faction called the Afarud. They are described by an ally as "the pariahs of the outcasts, the violent, the sadists, and the evil"—a corrupted offshoot of the Faridun people.

The Afarud have formed a pact with a powerful necromancer named Saresh, building an army of undead. Their goal: capture and drain the power of ancient spiritual beings—the Djinn—to fuel a final act of revenge against the Maraketh people.

We will assist a legendary Maraketh Sekhema frozen in time for eons—Varashta. She will fight alongside us to end this ancient war once and for all.

Pro-Tip: The narrative strength lies in the "villain + ally" dynamic. The Afarud aren't just barbaric enemies; the lore about them "stealing and corrupting Maraketh artefacts" sets the stage for the "Artefact Restoration" mechanic. Varashta's existence as a Djinn herself provides logical narrative support for the "Wish" mechanic.

How Mirage and Wish mechanics work in PoE

Entering the Mirage: Rescuing imprisoned Djinn

While exploring maps, you'll encounter Djinn imprisoned by the Afarud. To free them, you must enter the Mirage they project—an imperfect copy of the surrounding area generated from reality.

Inside the Mirage, you'll fight through monsters, astral hazards, and Afarud mages. Your goal is to fight your way to the heart of the Mirage and destroy the tether binding the Djinn. Successfully freeing them grants generous rewards.

Three Wishes: Controlled difficulty and rewards

Before entering the Mirage, your ally Varashta offers you a choice of three wishes. Each wish is a powerful modifier that changes the rules, difficulty, and rewards of the Mirage you're about to enter.

This makes every Mirage experience customizable—do you want a higher challenge for better loot, or a safe and steady clear? The choice is yours.

Mirage's "Empowerment" of other league mechanics

A detail worth noting: the magic of the Mirage will empower any other league mechanics that appear within its domain. These encounters, warped into existence by the astral realm, behave differently and can sometimes drop strange and powerful rewards.

Pro-Tip: The "Three Wishes" mechanic feels like "controlled currency"—players can dynamically adjust the difficulty curve of the Mirage based on their build's strength and goals. The "empower other mechanics" aspect is particularly intriguing—we can expect interesting synergies when running Breach or Beyond inside a Mirage.

PoE Skill Imbue System: How it works

This might be the most exciting mechanic of the entire expansion.

Defeating enemies in Mirages occasionally drops three types of Maraketh magical currency:

• Coins of Power
• Coins of Skill
• Coins of Knowledge

These currencies can be used on a Level 20 Skill Gem—corrupting it and imbuing it with a Level 1 Support effect. In simple terms, your skill permanently gains an additional support link.

What does this mean for your build?

Take a 6-link skill, for example. Through Skill Imbuement, it effectively becomes a "6+1" link skill—the extra support is inherent to the gem and doesn't require equipment.

For min-maxed endgame builds, this could become standard practice. It also opens up possibilities for builds that "wanted to use a certain skill but couldn't fit in a crucial support."

Note: Corruption means the process is irreversible and carries inherent risks. But high risk brings high reward—a Level 21, 20% Quality skill gem with an extra implicit support could become a new form of endgame currency.

Looking to optimize your endgame setup? Once you've crafted your ideal skill gems, you'll need the right currency to round out your gear. Check out our Path of Exile Currency Page to get everything you need for your build.

PoE Atlas overhaul: New map system explained

If the league mechanic is the "dessert," this Atlas overhaul is the true "main course."

Change #1: Maps are no longer region-locked

This is the most fundamental change. Previously, you'd have a stash tab full of maps, each corresponding to a specific region. If you wanted to run a specific map, you needed that specific map item.

The new system completely changes this: Map items no longer correspond to specific maps, but represent a "tier." If you have a Tier 16 map item, you can use it to open any Tier 16 or lower map on your Atlas.

Change #2: Select maps directly on the Atlas

You no longer need to put maps into the map device. Open the Atlas screen, click the region you want to run, and the system automatically consumes a map item of the corresponding tier. The Atlas also defaults to your previously run map—the friction for running the same map repeatedly is reduced to almost zero.

Change #3: The Fractured Atlas

The Atlas structure has also changed:

• You now start from the center and explore outward
• Each corner houses one of the four Voidstones
• All map device content (Breach, Beyond, etc.) now physically exists on the Atlas—you need to explore to find them
• Atlas entities provide more skill points than before
• Unique Maps are no longer mandatory: you now only need to complete any 10 Unique Maps to get the maximum related skill points

Pro-Tip: This might be the most player-friendly Atlas overhaul in Path of Exile history. The cost of farming specific maps is significantly reduced, and the frustration of early-league Atlas completion is minimized. The era of "run whatever you want" has finally arrived.

PoE Shaped Regions and Memory Vaults guide

While helping Eagon in his search for Zana, you'll use Arcane Astrolabes to uncover Shaped Regions—unstable areas across the Atlas.

How Shaped Regions work

Every map within a Shaped Region has a baseline effect, and each map has specific completion conditions. Whenever you complete a map within a Shaped Region, every other map in that region gains an additional modifier.

This means: as you progressively complete maps in the region, the remaining maps become increasingly difficult—but also increasingly rewarding. A classic "higher risk, higher reward" design.

Memory Vaults: Endgame treasures

Once you've fully completed a Shaped Region, Eagon can take you to a Memory Vault. There are four Vaults to explore, each holding "powerful rewards" and "scraps of lost knowledge" for Eagon.

Pro-Tip: Shaped Regions feel like "controlled difficulty progression"—you can actively choose your challenge path and gradually "juice" maps to their limit. Memory Vaults, as endgame rewards, could become a major source of endgame items or fragments.

PoE 40+ new Exceptional Support Gems

After defeating endgame Incarnation bosses, specific Atlas bosses will begin dropping new types of Support Gems. These gems belong to the Exceptional category.

How they differ from regular Support Gems

Exceptional Support Gems are more transformative than regular supports. They don't simply provide "more damage" or "faster casting"—they change how skills operate, similar to how Spell Echo or Multistrike fundamentally altered skill functionality when first introduced.

GGG states that these gems will "offer an additional way to customize your build in the late game, extending character customization even further into a build's life."

Pro-Tip: 40+ new Support Gems, all in the Exceptional category—this alone could sustain build diversity for an entire league. It's safe to predict that build forums will be flooded with "new support gem enables new build" posts for weeks after launch.

PoE Mirage QoL changes

The "regular feature" of every league—but this list is genuinely substantial:

Currency Exchange: You can now favorite trades, making repeat transactions one-click simple

Trade History: Hover over your asynchronous trade (e.g., web marketplace) history to see past sales

Campaign Exploration: Over 20 new landmark rooms have been added throughout the campaign, encouraging exploration of hidden passages, side rooms, and chests

Breach Rework: Replaced by the "Hiveblood" system—completing Breach encounters grants Hiveblood, used to grow items on the Genesis Tree. Full endgame passive tree and Scarab support included

Tier 17 Maps: Renamed to Nightmare Maps, adjusted to Tier 16, with their primary purpose now being obtaining Uber Boss fragments

Pro-Tip: The "favorite trades" feature in the Currency Exchange might seem minor, but for frequent traders, every click saved adds up to real time. The 20+ new campaign rooms could make "leveling through the campaign" more interesting—who doesn't love surprise chests?

Conclusion

Looking at the entire "Mirage" expansion, two clear intentions emerge from GGG:

Lowering barriers: Atlas reconstruction, removal of Unique Map completion requirements, trade experience optimization—all designed to get players into the "mapping positive feedback loop" faster.

Deepening endgame: Skill Imbuement system, 40+ Exceptional Support Gems, Shaped Regions + Memory Vaults—providing hardcore players with sufficient late-game depth.

If you've been on the fence about returning to Wraeclast, or hesitating to dive into Path of Exile's complexity, the March 6th "Mirage" expansion might be the perfect starting point.