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Path of Exile 3.28 Trial of the Ancestors Event Guide | It Offers New Ascendancies, Tattoos, and Tournament Play

Category: Path Of Exile Posted: Jun 21, 2026 Views: 16

Path of Exile 3.29 remains roughly a month away, yet the official team has already hinted at a special event to bridge the gap before the next League. That event has now been revealed as Trial of the Ancestors.

Even if you are solely focused on Path of Exile 2 and have no intention of playing the original game, this news still warrants your close attention. Not only does it introduce an entirely new gameplay mechanic, but it also carries far-reaching implications for the future direction of the entire series, along with substantial in-game rewards.

Path of Exile 3.28 Trial of the Ancestors Event Guide | It Offers New Ascendancies, Tattoos, and Tournament Play

Trial of the Ancestors Date

Trial of the Ancestors event has not started yet, and it will run for a full three weeks. Players can join on both console and PC platforms, though you will need to create a fresh character to participate. The approximate schedule is as follows:

  • Start: June 25, 2026, 3:00 PM PDT / 5:00 PM CDT
  • End: July 16, 2026, 3:00 PM PDT / 5:00 PM CDT

After Trial of the Ancestors concludes, your character, gear, and PoE currency will not vanish; instead, they will be transferred into Mirage League. However, certain exclusive rewards from Trial of the Ancestors League will not carry over.

What Is Trial of the Ancestors?

This activity first debuted back in PoE 3.22 Trial of the Ancestors League in 2023. You take the field as your own side's unit in a head-to-head battle. Alongside you, you command a number of allied units, and you must face an opposing team.

Those units spawn from structures you have arranged beforehand, and the gameplay bears some resemblance to Teamfight Tactics or Dota Auto Chess. Before each match, you can position your units and assign tactical roles. For instance, you might set Center units to charge directly into the fray and sow chaos, while Flank units attempt to break through quickly and destroy enemy buildings to halt their unit production. Defense units, on the other hand, are tasked with protecting your own structures.

In addition, two of the largest units on the board are you, the player, and the enemy chieftain. To be honest, some enemy chieftains are quite overpowered, and they can even eliminate you in a single blow.

One uniquely distinctive design of the trial is that you never truly die within this mechanic. Even if you are defeated during the trial, you will resurrect inside the system. This means that, theoretically, a dedicated player could remain within the trial indefinitely by continuously acquiring entry tokens from other players, and they could grind all the way to maximum level, even reaching level 100 in Hardcore mode, because there is no permanent death here. Lore-wise, you are not present in your physical body but rather as a spectral projection, so losing a fight does not cost you your character.

Tournament

The overall framework of Trial revolves around a tournament. In the first round, you choose one opponent from several available options. You can inspect what types of units they possess and what rewards you will obtain for defeating them.

This actually introduces a great deal of strategic depth. You have to weigh the rewards and capabilities offered by each opponent, and you can even deliberately allow certain powerful foes to advance to later rounds so that you can claim their exclusive rare rewards in the later stages. It will take several attempts to fully grasp the nuances.

Rating System

As a player, you have your own Rating. This is not a ranking relative to other players; rather, it is a performance score within the tournament itself. The higher your Rating, the better the rewards you receive, but simultaneously the difficulty of the trial escalates significantly.

At high ratings, the numerical scaling becomes extreme, and many top-tier players opt to abandon direct combat in favor of focusing on destroying enemy structures as quickly as possible. Destroying a building requires a channeling action, and you must avoid being interrupted during that process.

Tattoos System

Trial of the Ancestors introduces a major system that has a profound impact on endgame character optimization: Tattoos. While casual players may rarely engage with them, hardcore min-maxers absolutely adore these modifications.

Tattoos allow you to alter the small passive nodes on Passive Skill Tree that typically provide only basic attributes. Red tattoos can convert Strength nodes into Fire Resistance or Life Regeneration, while blue tattoos can transform Intelligence nodes into Lightning Resistance or Energy Shield Recovery Rate, among other options.

The variety of tattoos is extensive, and some are extremely rare and powerful. Certain tattoos, for instance, can grant you an additional projectile, which is an incredibly potent effect.

In Trial of the Ancestors event of Mirage League, many brand-new tattoos will also be introduced that replaces an original Ascendancy Notable (not Phrecian Ascendancies Notable). Additionally, during the event, tattoos will not be obtainable through Kingsmarch shipping system.

Phrecian Ascendancy Classes

During the event, the original 19 Ascendancy classes in Path of Exile 1 will each have an Alternate Ascendancy version. Among them, Reliquarian Ascendancy does not have a corresponding Phrecian Ascendancy, so it will be temporarily disabled in Trial of the Ancestors.

Scavenger Ascendancy has received minor adjustments in relation to the tattoo system: its Tabula Rasa Notable node allows you to apply one additional tattoo, though the node itself does not provide any inherent bonus.

Trial of the Ancestors Rewards

During the event, players will automatically receive a Return of the Ancients Mystery Box upon completing the final boss of Act 10, Kitava, meaning they have finished the entire campaign. This reward is guaranteed, but each account can claim it only once during this event. Completing the campaign with multiple characters will not award additional Mystery Boxes.

PoE Mirage Trial of the Ancestors also incorporates elements from Legacy of Phrecia activity, so the experience will be quite distinctive. Moreover, the official team has a tendency to port well-received mechanics from PoE 1 over to PoE 2, so we might well see a similar system appear in Patch 1.0 for the sequel.

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