Covens of Umbra is Path of Exile 3.30, free on PC and consoles from 13 November 2026 (PST). Grinding Gear Games announced it on 1 November and revealed it on the ExileCon 2026 main stage on 6 November. This guide sets out what the reveal showed, with the source beside each part, and what holds for every league start. The official patch notes were not published by 7 November; where a detail below comes from coverage of the keynote rather than from Grinding Gear Games’ own text, it says so.
The facts
- Name and version: Covens of Umbra, Path of Exile 3.30, the expansion after 3.29 (Grinding Gear Games, ExileCon 2026 announcements, 6 November).
- Launch: 13 November 2026 in Pacific time. The announcement gives no hour; the previous league started at 13:00 Pacific according to the official league list, which is what this site’s countdown uses until the league list publishes the real start time.
- Platforms: PC and consoles, free to play. The current league, Curse of the Allflame, ends on 9 November at 13:00 PST (Grinding Gear Games’ 3.30 timeline).
- Four weeks later: Path of Exile 2 version 1.0 on 11 December 2026, with the Shadow and the Duelist.
The league: Fates and the Wickerman
Every area has a coven cauldron. Defeat the Coven Queen’s coven at its rite and you choose a Fate from the cauldron. You can invoke up to three Fates on the area’s boss; each makes the fight harder and adds a reward of currency, gear, uniques or maps. Combinations pay more: one pair drops the unique Basalt Flask Dreadmaidens’ Sacrament, a set of three grants an exceptional support gem, and two copies of the same Fate triple the first one’s reward. Mora, a witch trapped by the Coven Queen, holds the boss in an umbral storm while you invoke them.
Fate-empowered bosses drop Viscera trophies. You impale them on the Wickerman for permanent character buffs, in four slots (head, arm, body and leg) and three tiers, the highest from the endgame only; every campaign and map boss has its own. At higher Atlas tiers, Grim Fates make each pinnacle fight harder and drop Pinnacle Viscera, the strongest buffs, and beating them is the only way to the final boss, the Coven Queen. The campaign’s layouts were also rearranged so area bosses are easy to find. Sources: OutputLag’s keynote report of 6 November and PCGamesN’s of 7 November; Grinding Gear Games’ own page for the expansion, pathofexile.com/covens, carries the trailer.
The endgame and loot changes
- Scarabs are removed. Threads of Creation drop for ten mechanics (Abyss, Blight, Legion, Breach, Incursion, Betrayal, Bestiary, Expedition, Ultimatum and Ritual); up to eight can be spent on one mechanic at the map device, and finishing the Atlas quest line opens three thread slots, so up to three mechanics can be guaranteed per map. Thread setups carry over between maps (OutputLag, 6 November).
- Scarab effects move into a rebuilt Atlas passive tree with new wheels and notables, and coloured Atlas regions decide which mechanics appear. Mirage becomes a core mechanic, mechanics interact (a strongbox beside a Blight encounter is infected), and the Wildwood, Sentinels and Beyond can spawn in maps of any tier.
- Harvest’s Sacred Roots replace the Grove; Bestiary recipes no longer need yellow beasts; the Temple of Atzoatl can corrupt an already corrupted item again. Blight, Ritual, Ultimatum, Expedition and Betrayal each gain new options (PCGamesN, 7 November).
- Magic and rare drops roll tiers, with better modifiers, links and bases at higher tiers; tier-five magic items can drop fractured. A monster’s rarity bonus now drives drops, item quantity no longer counts, and the hardest rare and unique monsters become the main source of Divine Orbs (OutputLag, 6 November).
What the coverage did not report: new classes, new ascendancies or a list of balance changes for 3.30. Those belong to the patch notes, which this guide will follow rather than guess at.
Before launch
- Read the patch notes when they are published, and plan a build from them rather than from last league’s tier lists: the loot and Atlas changes above move what is worth farming, and balance changes routinely move the strongest starters.
- Pick a starter you can play without trading if you want to race or play Solo Self-Found; the trade economy is empty in the first hours.
- Plan for bosses: the league rewards killing area bosses with Fates invoked, and the campaign was rearranged around them, so a starter that kills single targets safely gains more than usual.
- Choose your ladder deliberately: Hardcore characters that die move to the Standard-side league and leave the Hardcore ladder, which the race board shows as a dead character.
The race to 100
Level 100 takes 4,250,334,444 experience, as the official ladder reports it. The race board reads the ladder every 15 minutes from launch, shows each leader’s XP/h and an estimate to 100, and marks Hardcore deaths as the ladder reports them. Until the new league exists it shows the current league’s ladder.
Sources
- Grinding Gear Games: ExileCon 2026 announcements (forum, 6 November 2026), the launch date announcement (1 November) and the 3.30 timeline (12 October).
- OutputLag: the league mechanic, the Threads of Creation rework and the loot changes (6 November 2026).
- PCGamesN: the ExileCon 2026 round-up of 3.30 (7 November 2026).