Abyss league

"Before Solaris graced Wraeclast, a race of repulsive beings, fearful of light, populated the gloomy wastes. They were thought to be long dead, with few traces and no mentions in historical accounts. That is, until the earth itself was torn asunder.

For aeons, in the deepest, blackest reaches, they have festered and multiplied. Now, they're clawing their way back to the surface in unprecedented numbers; a hateful swarm of hungering horrors hellbent on reclaiming Wraeclast. Push them back, or be swallowed by the abyss."

- Description on the official Path of Exile website

The Abyss league and Hardcore Abyss league were a pair of  challenge leagues. The leagues started on December 8, 2017 alongside the release of the War for the Atlas expansion and ended on 2018-02-27 New Zealand time or 2018-02-26 US time.

This league introduces Abysses, cracks and pits on the earth that spawn monsters when approached, and abyss jewels, a special type of jewel with new mods that can be equipped in generic Skill tree slots or in Abyssal sockets found on specific gear pieces.

All characters and stashes were moved to Standard league and Hardcore league respectively when the leagues ended. Characters that died in the Hardcore Abyss league were immediately moved to the permanent Standard league.

Modifiers
All areas have:

Mechanics
The league mechanics are Abysses, which can spawn in almost all areas of the game. Abysses are marked with a green dot on the minimap. They are triggered by walking over the green, glowing area. This opens a crack in the ground that can be followed to a gaping pit. Enemies spawn along the crack, and a rare enemy spawns from the pit. If enough enemies are defeated in a short time - particularly, but not necessarily, the rare enemy - a second crack opens and the process repeats once or twice. From the last pit, an Abyssal Trove may spawn, which usually contains one to three Abyss items listed below. At higher levels, a portal to the Abyssal Depths may open instead.

Abysses in this league can spawn from the first act, and Abyssal Depths can spawn as early as level 40 zones. Stygian Vises could also drop from Abyssal Troves.

Items
These items are exclusive to the Abyss encounters:

Challenges and rewards
The Abyss leagues include 40 optional challenges. Completing them awards the following microtransactions:

Version history

 * Introduced to the game.
 * }