Ascendancy Trials are honestly just terrible.

I just don't like that the 3rd trial is rng

WE have so many new issues in 0.2.0 that we all forgot how much trials suck

Pay for a carry - it's worth every exalt (about 30ex to get all 8 points)

I just want them considerably shorter, like halved for Sekhmas and just remove the keys requirement entirely from chaos. Make them more difficult to compensate if needed.

1st Sehkema trial might as well not exist as it posesses zero danger (yet it takes so much time) but the 3d one is too long and balanced around having honour resist relics (essentially forcing you to do multiple runs, which is bad design imo).

Totally agree. I stopped even trying them. Such a slog, loot is worthless trash (like all loot in the game) and half the time you’ll die at the end to some insane mechanic. Thanks again GGG.

What's up with the 4th trial of Sekhema?

I'm level 89, and I can blitz through T16 maps no problem. But for some reason the mobs in that final zone, and the boss seem like they are way harder than last season.

Oh boy, the PoE1 players are seething when they can't brute force something with numbers? Color me surprised!

Seemed easy enough too me. Why do bad people think the whole gamer should be catered to them. Always trying to ruin gaming. Just go play mobile games and stop ruing everything else.

It really is just a balance issue, which is the whole game in a nut shell, and will be for a while. Like the whole, nerf everything, but don't change monsters at all.

If you nerf/buff one side, balance the other.. anyway

My issue with it is, nothing should complete brick or bust a build. The afflictions should be bad, and a hindrance, sure, but you're right about that RNG. Like I played a trial of chaos yesterday, and was pretty much forced to gimp my character right off the bat (I don't remember all the choices, but they were all terrible, it wasn't a choice lol). I died to the shitty tornado bird, but that's beside the point.

I wish the options were more balanced across the board. Some builds might do better or worse, but nothing that's end running, while also being forced. I think that's the end goal, but with everyone chirping about every single aspect of the game, who knows when they'll get to it.

The end game is considerably better than last patch, imo. The recent patches have been a W. Focus on the positive, and leave good feedback for the devs so they can hopefully take your opinions into consideration. I leave feedback often myself.

It's just something you just have to get good at.

Even bad rng runs i still beat the boss. Just get your relics and plan your route smartly

As a Sekhemas fan, I disagree there at least. I know the trial seems super hard because of Honour but if you try to see it you'll realize they specifically chose mobs for it that have a ton of counterplay. The clay warriors, spiders, snake things, jars, etc. Everything is well telegraphed, and the monster density is even lower vs maps. Any time you die, you know it's your fault.

You're meant to play skillfully, not just have a good build that can soak damage. I bet that's why most people hate it-- suddenly mind-off map blasting doesn't cut it. Your cookie cutter 20k ES suddebly isn't worth salt if you can't dodge roll or spot telegraphs.

Is it TOO hard? Ton of players run it so it's obviously a learnable challenge. Knowing how to pick rooms goes a LONG way towards surviving. Getting better relics incrementally improves your odds with EVERY run, not just the ones you succeed at. Sometimes a bad affliction bricks your run, tough luck, but most people who run Sekhemas can get to the end consistently.

Trials of Chaos, I don't like. it's just another build check like every other wall in end-game.

But Sekhemas? Skill-based, incrementally rewarding, never gets mindless. Very tightly designed if you care to notice it.

The honor system is also totally bugged in coop so that it stops the trial with still having honor left ( and you have to alt/f4 out of the game) Also needing to be many levels higher means it it useless for leveling and items are also lower level. Especially if you have to survive three whole (!) runs in the end game trial….

they are awesome

3rd trial shouldn’t be RNG. But the 1st and 2nd are drastically improved (easier at that their respective level)

There definitely is randomness to it which is just a preference imo. I do like the trials myself.

May I ask which you're having troubles with?

Both have styles that benefit different approaches and both have ways to make them 1000% easier.

Sekmas is a joke once you farm a couple Honor resist + max honor. With 75% resist and armour a trap goes from chunking you to doing like 6 dmg.

And Chaos is easy if you practice the different choices and figure out which combos you can easily push without losing. It takes practice but is very very repeatable once you understand it. Much less randomness in this mode.

Sekhemas was nightmare when I first tried it. Then they dropped enemy health by 25% and reduced minion health, too. They still need to be shorter. The others, not so sure yet, but they don't feel great.

I just paid 10ex for 3 and will wait a couple weeks until people start doing the 4th for free lol

This. Honestly Ascendancy trials are going to be the reason I don't start up every new league, not the campaign. Yeah the campaign needs adjustments, but the idea of doing ascendancy trials makes me not want to play, and I actively avoid doing them if I do play, but then I'm pretty gimped so...yeah that sucks.

Izaro was the goat, but this isn't thaaaaat bad.

I like the Trials, they are engaging, challenging, forces you to think about hat to choose. Meanwhile Lab in PoE1 is utterly brainless and boring. This week I leveled a character to 60 in the Phrecia event because I forgot I didnt claimed the free MTX, and jesus christ, the game was insanely boring and numb, like by the time I reached Merveil I was shitstomping everything with my gigajank fire spell "build". In Lab I could easily ignore all of Izaro's "mechanics." It was the same in previous Leagues too even with higher tier Labs. They are insanely underpowered especially considering the amount of power they give to your character.

The trials are fine. The problem is the final bosses. They are trying to balance them around being both an endgame grind. And a necessary step in (relatively early) character progression. These two things cannot exist simultaneously. And they need to decouple them.

For example: 10 rooms in Temple of Chaos should get you 8 ascendancy points. And the optional extra boss of the Trialmaster behind the "secret" door at the end should be purely an endgame grind thing. You should not have to ever interact with that boss.

For Sekhema, the 3rd floor should be the last 'mandatory' floor for ascension. And again, the 4th floor be an optional challenge for people farming boss drops.

Obviously this would require some slight shifting in the earlier ascension points as well, but that's all details.

We should have two more options to earn ascendancy points. Let people choose how to ascend

I wait until I outgear/out level and can face roll the content.

That is the first sign of bad content.

The honour system is the most annoying thing to me. Being cramped into small spaces as enemies do aoe attack whilst there's traps is annoying because of the honour system.

Relic of the unwilling

• “removes all honor, death is now the only way to fail the trial”
• “removes all boons and afflictions”
• “removes all keys and merchants”
• “areas and monsters drop no loot” -“The weary traveler draws close to the end of the path”

There now we get lab back essentially

I allways buy a rush. it's so lame that does not worth my time.

Trials of the sekhemas is fine as a mechanic. The honor mechanic is fairly trivial with the right relics. The only reason it feels bad is because trade feels bad. We need an instant buyout mechanic for gear and relics. Once that is in place, trial of the sekhemas will be fine for the last six ascendency points.

The only place it might be a problem is the first trial on league start where some builds might not have the currency to fix flaws and get through it. However, that isn’t the case with many meta builds. I would argue that even most non meta builds probably feel worse to level in other parts of the campaign than in trials. That would be fixed by making more builds feel better to league start with.

I miss lab man. Poe1 lab just feel like the right kind of thing fit my preferences. I'd love fir it to somehow be the gibak ascendency, updated and defined as needed.

I don't mind the traps but the back tracking for levers if your going to make it hard make the later stages much harder and more of a puzzle otherwise just having a gauntlet of traps is much more fun. Also one hit kill poison has zero place in ascendancy maybe put it for higher trial tiers above the ascendancy amount

Just did 3 runs and got my 3 pieces to do trial master and get my 4th on warrior. Got one shot by the trial masters initial attack. Fun design.

They should've imported the Lab wholesale. Or maybe come up with something new. But GGG loves reusing assets.

I don't like Chaos, but Sekhemas is such a nice breeze of fresh air compared to mindless mapping etc.

Sekhemas is fine. I like it more than Lab. Lab was just too easy. Sekhemas honestly isn’t that hard either, just requires a little bit of knowledge. I first try every trial on all my characters now . It makes sense because ascending is incredibly powerful so I think it’s fair.

Can we stop entertaining suggestions from people who are just dog shit at the game? Sanctum is ridiculously easy with some relics. People are STILL making it out to be something incredibly difficult and time consuming when it is not.

It's time to stop taking shitters seriously.

Most people don't dread it.

Trials are literally the biggest frustration in this game for me. Both seasons have been bricked failing a trial on the last boss with it being way harder than the trial after investing over an hour on them.

That's the vision

This whole genre is RNG. Of course the trials are about RNG.

Yep and it's not even challenging when you can just buy the right relics and win. Whole concept is in need of work to be fixed. But the changes they would need to make would be more than I expect they would be willing to.

I miss Izaro and the whole lab, it was a better system.

The added bonus of the game/servers being super unstable has really added to the fun of the trials

I dread doing Sekhemas. It's not hard anymore, I just don't enjoy it at all. I do everything in my power to avoid any gauntlet trials because playing frogger with my dude who's built for monster slaying is lame as hell.

Honor system is trash. Debuffs are fine if only applies to that specific room, i.e., not permanent throughout the run. Buffs should be more creative if it’s intended to be a roguelike mode. Of course monsters towards the end can deal more damage and have more health to balance it out.

I don’t know who designed the honor system but that person should learn why most games use a hp system, as opposed to that bs honor system or a dual hp system.

The new way of ascending makes me wanna go back to be a lab runner. Personally just don't like mechanics like sanctum, ultimatum, heist etc. Always demotivate me to play the game.

The one in act 3 is annoying. The passive aggressiveness of the Trial Master pisses me off.

I know you guys dont want to hear it, but trail sekhamas is really not really ranged based I have reliably cleared it on multiple characters and I am not particularly good, I would argue its easier than 10+ maps if done correctly.

The 1st and 3rd bosses are basically free wins if you have the ability to run in a circle you have bested them.
The wonder twins are a little bit harder but if you can bring them both low, you can double kill skipping the combo phase.
Time boss is now way easier they really lowered his HP. His only really two dangerous phases are the lightning phase (hug the upper right corner until its over) and his sands of time phase which really you need a move skill, decent boots or the hare foot boon, its worth noting you want to go the side with more glyphs first as each one will boost your speed a little.

Tips for relics-
first just try to get to 75 honor res, it will make huge difference.
Then try to get at least 2 more merchant options on relics more is overkill imo (reduce cost is broken if stacked high enough but I consider that more endgame farming).
If you can swing it a relic that gives 26+ sacred water per room clear is nice quality of life and can stop more of the more brutal afflictions (lost 30 sacred water on room completion).
Increase defense and increase max honor both can be good (especially if ES based as more defense will inrease max honor)

Tips for rooms-
escape-first and second floor are pretty easy just run to the next crystal dont even try to kill things, 3rd and 4th can get dangerous to ignore enemies, you can still do it for the most part but watch for checkpoints.
Hour Glass- my favorite kill rares drop loot profit, great source of keys btw, I would always pick this unless you have damage issues (perhaps caused by afflictions)
rituals- boring IMO but easy focus on the guys running the portals.
Chalice-reverse hour glass now you have to go hunt enemies, still good source of loot, im not sure why but I tend to get hit more here than vs hour glass really not sure why.
gaunlets- I am trash at these and avoid them, my little brother is not and loves them. YMMV. its worth noting blink can help cheese some of the rooms. Oddly I find the 1st and 4th floors easiest. That said I still avoid these are the most common for me to take damage.

Boons-

Hare foot, enemies have less life, Merchant cheaper (if on first or second floor) you and minions hit harder. These are the important boons if you can get them do so.
Overrated- Major boons most just are not that good and the bad ones are weighted, that said obvioulsly full map revealed early on can be quite good as well as double sacred water.

afflictions- will depend on build but in my experience protect your damage, your defenses matter less as youa re trying not to get hit, and if you get get the damage boons you are going to melt everything. starting floor 3, I dont really care if the merchant gets ruined and by floor 4 I will roll the dice on limited vision. Most of these just try to game theory which of these are really bad for you. My last run was on an evasion build and I had to choose between bonus afflictions, crippled damage, or no evasion I was not thrilled but I picked evasion since not getting hit is the goal anyway.

Yep pay someone every time to do the last one for me👍

I like ‘em. In PoE1 they were pretty much a guaranteed clear. I don’t mind farming a bit of extra sekhemas to get the relics I need. Chaos one doesn’t feel rewarding enough IMO.

I will gladly pay a div to get all four at once via carry. I avoid the ascendancies at all cost

They need to get rid of all the penalties when you advance rooms. It's not fun at all. 30% reduced movements speed? Enfeeble? Fuck that. Make enemies a little harder and only offer boons so it feels rewarding to progress. I want to enter a boss with 25% movepseed, reducd cool down and shit like that. Make the bosses a little harder to compensate.

The honor resistance relics helped a ton but it's still not fun at all

Just build / hold onto a movement speed buff…

For trial 1) redo it until you keep getting the one you just run through and don’t need to fight. Then when you get to the boss… run circles around the crater and kite him with a ranged attack.

For trial 2) you need 75% lightning resist and 30% movement speed to take on the Murder Chicken.

If you can’t handle murder chicken keep doing the trial till you get the chimera. There is a spot up top you can shoot arrows from that he can’t get you. It’s cheese but who cares.

Oh and walk in and out of the trial till you get a start with drawbacks that dont really matter… like no potion refills (I have the .2 charges per second potions… they refill automatically). If you aren’t running charge / second potions… well sucks to be you 🤷‍♂️.

Manipulate the conditions to improve your chance of success.

Hope that helps.

they are not terrible you just don't like them