It's been a while since we've had a fan art competition for community artists, so we're very excited to bring it back! We're launching a fan art competition themed around the Secrets of the Atlas expansion and everything introduced in it. The prize pool includes Path of Exile merchandise and in-game microtransactions.

Prizes

Top Three Winners

• Forum avatar based on the winning submission
• Path of Exile 1 Art Book
• Your choice of one signed Path of Exile poster
• Your choice of two Path of Exile T-shirts
• Chaos Orb Socks
• A random Path of Exile Pin
• Your choice of an Armour Set (an Armour Set from the list below)
• Your choice of a Portal Effect (a Portal Effect from the list below)
• Your choice of Footprints Effect (any Footprints Effect from the

3.26.0d Hotfix 3

• Fixed a bug where Eldritch Exalted Orb would incorrectly prevent usage on items with Searing Exarch dominance and full suffixes, stating there is no more room for additional modifiers.

You will need to restart your client to patch the client-side of this hotfix.

Phishing Emails Warning

Some players have recently reported that they're receiving phishing emails impersonating our Support team members. We would like to remind everyone to carefully check that the email address you are receiving emails from is [email protected] before replying, and to never click on any suspicious links without checking the link's location (such as previewing the URL it's directing to or searching the link location through Google).

If possible, our Support team will usually suggest using the verification process located on the Contact Support page of the website, which should be available as long as you have access to your account in game. They will only do more thorough verifications if this is not available to you.

If this is not available to you and you require a more detailed verification via email, you are welcome to send a fresh email to [email protected] to check that they are the ones you are in contact with.

3.26.0d Hotfix 2

• Fixed the macOS Steam client failing to launch.

3.26.0d Hotfix

• The Reanimator Mercenary no longer has Minion Instability while in the Enemy state.
• Fixed a bug where, under very specific circumstances, Ultimatum encounters could unintentionally generate the same encounter.

3.26.0d Patch Notes

Mercenaries League

• Lowered the damage of the following skills on Enemy Mercenaries (not when allied): Shield Crush, Intimidating Cry, Tempest Shield, Purifying Flame, Meteor, Flame Dash, Scorching Ray Totem, Reap, Corrupted Blade Vortex of the Scythe, Vaal Reap, Exsanguinate, Static Strike, Frost Blades, Vaal Burning Arrow, Burning Arrow, Absolution, Raise Spectre of Transience, all Reinforce skills.
• Fixed Mercenaries aligned with all three attributes (Str/Dex/Int) being unable to equip items with all three attribute requirements.
• Gilded Beam Width can no longer spawn on Mercenaries as a support for Unnerving Blast. It did not do anything and was mistakenly a valid option.
• Fixed a bug where the "Cross Contamination 6" Challenge was only counting Ore Deposit Encounters completed in Delirium Maps. It now also counts those completed in Delirium encounters created by Delirium Mirrors.
• Fixed a bug where completing an Abyssal Depth at level 8

We'd like to provide an update on a few important things that have been happening in Path of Exile.

Server Issues

We've been very focused on improving DDoS protection for our servers. Unfortunately, some of the protective measures have blocked legitimate traffic, causing instances to unexpectedly close. We're working closely with our server providers to finish setting up protection and resolve these issues as soon as possible.

Compromised Accounts

There have recently been an increased amount of reports regarding players having their accounts compromised. We've looked into as many reports as we could, and will continue to do so, however we have found no evidence of any kind of security breach on our end. If you're not already, we strongly recommend using secure and unique pas

No expansion is complete without a soundtrack to set the tone, and the score for Path of Exile: Secrets of the Atlas certainly doesn't neglect this. Check out the tracks for the Secrets of the Atlas Original Soundtrack by Kamil Orman-Janowski and Michael James Collier in today's news post!

These tracks, along with the rest of the Path of Exile Extended Digital Soundtrack, are available for download with the purchase of any Supporter Pack here.

The Secrets of the Atlas Boss Kill Event for PC has now concluded! The race for the top 10 was close, and all bonus boss kills have been claimed!

Top 3 Placings - PC:

Congratulations to the top 3 racers, who will each get a Godslayer's Pride Amulet, a Divination Card design, and a Unique Item design for the newest bosses: The Incarnation of Dread, The Incarnation of Neglect and The Incarnation of Fear!

• Ben_#4007
• allexpleblord#4962
• nickexile11#5507

Top 10 Placings - PC:

Congratulations to the rest of the top 10, who will also get a Godslayer's Pride Amulet as well as a Divination Card design!

• Sarge2#0184
• Dsfarblarwaggle#7862
• Wyrm_GG#3008
• akuryo#0061
• Kunagi_JP#6612
• CARNDARAK#3163
• 김겨울#7178

Bonus Prizes - PC: The following p

3.26.0c Hotfix 7

• Mercenary's Lot Unique Gloves can no longer appear on Mercenaries.
• Mercenary's Lot Unique Gloves are now capable of dropping as part of the global drop pool.
• Further reduced the damage of the following monsters in Memory Influenced Maps: Despair Remnant, Twisted Recollection, and the Screaming Loneliness.
• Fixed a bug where Johan could fail to offer the option to Visit Kingsmarch when another player was standing near him.
• Fixed a bug where the "Glorious Gemstones 4" Challenge was only counting quality from socketed Skill Gems. It now also counts quality from socketed Support Gems.

Yesterday, Game Designer Octavian joined CardiaDarkhill, Jousis and Balormage to talk about his role at Grinding Gear Games. If you missed seeing it live, you can check it out in the video below.

Video: The Laboratory: Ft Octavian (GGG Game Designer), Jousis and Balormage!

We hope you enjoyed Octavian's unique insights.

3.26.0c Hotfix 6

• Temporarily lowered the damage from Apparition Shrine Buffs until a more definitive fix can be done to ensure the non-player version isn't dealing more damage than intended.
• Fixed a bug where the chance to apply additional Poison modifier on Betrayal's Sting Unique Ring was not scaling correctly with Noxious Catalysts. The client display for this will be updated in a later patch.
• Fixed the vendor search filter being cleared when rerolling Expedition vendors.
• Fixed 2 client crashes.
• Fixed an instance crash.

You will need to restart your client to receive the client changes in this hotfix.

The Mercenaries of Trarthus edition of Kirac's Vault Pass has an exclusive cosmetic armour set as a reward from the premium track, themed around Path of Exile's first ever Pinnacle Boss - the Shaper. Check out some concept art for this set below!

![](https://lazysoci.al/api/v3/image_proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Flemmy.zip%2Fapi%2Fv3%2Fimage_proxy%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fw

3.26.0c Hotfix 5

• Fixed a bug where the Crafting Bench option "Reroll the rarity of a non-Unique item" could be used on Synthesised items.

3.26.0c Hotfix 4

• Mercenaries now have the same Damage Reduction as with release when at Level 83 and 84, and higher Damage Reduction at the vast majority of levels.
• Overall we've put Mercenaries back to the position where they have equal, or better Damage Reduction at almost all levels, notably in Early-game where they are significantly more durable, especially from level 40+.

In Endgame, they had a level threshold where their Damage Reduction doubled, this caused an issue where Mercenaries within that threshold felt immortal (up to a point) whereas Mercenaries one below that threshold were dying constantly. We've smoothened this progression so that each level of Mercenary matters more, this has resulted in a few levels where they are taking more damage but not a significant amount.

This is all on top of the change to make them even more resilient to Damage over Time.

3.26.0c Hotfix 3

• Allied Mercenaries now take 80% less damage from Damage over Time effects.

3.26.0c Hotfix 2

• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.26.0c where the Mistress of Sacrifice Ascendancy Notable was causing existing Offering buffs on you to be removed when re-casting Offering Skills.

3.26.0c Hotfix

• Fixed a client crash introduced in 3.26.0c that could occur during the tutorial.

3.26.0c Patch Notes

This patch contains balance changes to Mercenaries, notably adjusting the tankiness of allied Mercenaries, reducing the damage of their skills when fighting them in encounters, as well as a number of other improvements and bug fixes.

Mercenaries League

• Adjusted the inherent Damage Reduction on allied Mercenaries, so they take less damage at lower levels and more damage at higher levels. Enemy Mercenaries do not have hidden Damage Reduction with the exception of the Damage Reduction fall-off applied to unique monsters.
• Mitigation Ignore Support (and greater and lesser variants) can no longer appear on Mercenaries. Those on existing Mercenaries will be retained.
• Fixed Rain of Arrows of Saturation on Mercenaries firing far fewer arrows than intended.
• The following changes only apply to Enemy Mercenaries:
  • Critical Strike Multiplier Modifiers on Mercenary Equipment now apply at 50% of their value.
  • Power/Endurance/Frenzy char