Trials of the Sekhemas: some tips.
I've seen a lot of people struggling to get their third+ ascendancy points.
I figured to share what allowed me to get my third ascendancy point before being done with the campaign.
The key is to farm relics that give honour resistance:
Honor Resistance is incredibly impactful.
Like elemental resist, the more you get the better it is, adding 25% honor res if you have 50% already it will double your effective honor.
I owe my success to getting 75% honor before doing for my 3 floor trial.
I believe that's the cap since after finding the boon that gives +30% effect of relics I didn't feel like it reduced the honor loss any futher (tested on some traps/mobs).
Make sure to complete a 2 floor run before attempting a 3 floor one, doing so unlocks slots in the Relic altar it lets you fit at least 2 more.
Note that your resistances/armour/evasion *work* to mitigate honor loss, honor resistance works multiplicatively with your actual resistances, so don't skimp on them.
Now, how to farm the relics:
The advice is the same for good old sanctum... Honeslty it feels easier.
Farm runs that are 15-20 levels under you.
Took me 2 runs to farm enough relics for 60% honor resistance (it might be luck, but they're fairly plentiful)
For farming relics you want to focus on two types of room:
-
Hourglass, this is the best if you're very overlevelled and/or easily kill rares. This room keeps spawning monsters until the timer is done, I routinely get 1-2 relics here without boosts to relic drop rates.
-
Chalice encounters, these are about rare mobs, so you get 2-3 (based on ilv) rares.
-
Merchant, at the end of the trial Balbala will *always* sell you 3 relics. So, farm water and avoid afflictions that remove your water. If you end with 700-1000 water you'll be able to buy 2 relics from her.
Two things to keep in mind for the relics you already found:
-
You can augment relics, so those that only have one affix/suffix it's always good to slam them, I missed this at the beginning since in PoE1 they're unmodifiable
-
You can 3:1 relics on the "reforging bench", I didn't need to, but it can be useful in a pinch.
If you're curios my setup was something like the following:
Note I had less slots then since I hadn't cleared the third level yet.
Note: please, cite this post if you use this informatoion, thanks :)
Comments
Are relics permanent or do they get consumed if you use them for a run?
great tips, will definitely put this to use.
Thank you, that will help a lot, since I always ignored and hated Sanctum, but I guess I gotta learn now lol
I guess for vendor you mean only at the complete end?
Last night when I finished first floor (of 2) she would still only sell me boons. And I unfortunately did not make it to the end of second floor.
Wait, so how many points you can get right now in the early access state?
it helps, thanky ou for pointing out. the concept is still way below fun
Can you elaborate on the reforging bench? What is this? I have never seen anything that allows anything like a vendor recipe
Nice guide - I actually quite enjoy playing trial of sekhema, though I think something like a damage buff for melee skills would be welcome
Wow, really appreciate the tips!
Nice write-up, but this itself is already the problem:
The key is to farm relics that give honour resistance
Sanctum works in POE1 because it's optional. It's niched, unbalanced and quite frankly, very annoying.
It favors a type of playstyle no new and/or casual player will achieve by themselves through trial and error, the "delete everything before they hit you" style.
It also hinges on RNG. If you don't have enough experience you can very easily corner yourself into a lose lose situation when choosing the rooms.
This is just not a smart choice. The game gates power progression through a now mandatory complex mechanic, with it's own subsystems and it's own mechanic, without having a full season for people to familiarize it at their own leisure, instead of being urged to complete something that is completely different from the rest of the game.
I failed the level 52 trial of sekhmas, how do i get another coin to do it? I killed the boss that drops it the first time and it didnt drop another one.
Does the trial not always give perk points to ascension? Just did my second one in act 2 and only got water
I keep planning on 3rd ascendancy. Definitely gonna try this.
Dont think it applies to traps though. Even with around 70 ish resistance, 1 trap drained over 1k honour in under a second. Floor 3, fun times
Farm relics, craft relics, exchange relics.
Ascension used to be a formality. I feel this is too much work. Otherwise, love the general difficulty
How do you farm keys to keep running the trial?
Honor resistance shouldn't work like elemental resistances. I had like 90 or ~100% and I was still taking chunks. 100% probably makes it so you take half honour damage. Which means you want to combine max hp + max honour + honour resistance + less damage taken + boss takes more damage (single the bossfight is the hardest part). Get a lil bit of all of them, probably get honour res, max honour and max hp the most to make a good buffer for mistakes.
edit: I just did a test with 127% res, and I still took a decent amount of honour damage from mobs.
Ok but where is my option not to do it?