Ultimatum Isn't Fun, Is Too Hard, And Has Poor Risk/Reward

So I'm level 92, I'm trying to do challenges, so I'm spamming ultimatums at the lowest level possible with the easiest ultimatum modifiers I can on a T11/T12 map with 0 modifiers.

I have about 1.8mil DPS-ish, being conservative before conditional modifiers, on pinnacle bosses which is enough to clear T16s and Elder guardians and such with relative ease, but I'm also a flicker build.

Despite all this damage I have I still can't even really stand up to the enemies in Ultimatum because they are WAY too tanky in the last few rounds, it's actually absurd, so I can't do 'kill all the enemies'. I have to stand in place, in melee to fight them, so way too many of the modifiers (which just add floor is lava type troublesome things) just prevent me even fighting, so that one's out.

Standing in one place to activate the stone circles is absolutely out because I cannot afford to ever not be moving.

Fighting off enemies trying to destroy the altar also is out because as above, I somehow don't have the DPS to fight them all nor the survivability to even survive just attacking them. Even if there's one troublesome thing on the floor like the frost bombs, it'll probably just kill me.

So my only option is to do 'survive' which with like 6 frenzy charges and leap slam is not too bad but if I get the wrong modifiers, I'm just screwed. But I have to keep going, don't I? Because of the challenge. To do full ultimatums.

The challenge has put me into an awkward position. I have to do ultimatums. I have to do them in red maps. And if I don't do them myself, forcing myself to do them, I'm never going to clear the challenge, because...

As for all the above reasons, the cost of failure, is usually death. So I lose 10% of a level which for my build, at this point in time, is... a lot.

I'm also paying 10c each run (which yeah granted is not going to be that much next league maybe, but right now when it's important it sucks) so I'm just running at a loss here.

And even IF ultimatum spawns naturally (at ONLY a 45%(?) chance - which if you're just an unlucky person like me, this is more like 1 in every 5 maps instead of near-ish to 50/50) if the ultimatum spawns with any 3 of the ultimatum types that I simply cannot do, then I may as well not even bother. For that reason I just wasted my 10c or the map item itself.

My reward too, for clearing ten rounds? A handful of catalysts, maybe, and an assortment of other useless trash. And 0 inscribed ultimatums, which supposedly drop from maps if you have an ultimatum in the map (never seen it) and supposedly also are found as rewards in the ultimatum itself (also never seen it even though I have the atlas passives for it).

And, to add to the difficulty of it, even though you ostensibly get three options each round, some options seem significantly more common than others. It's just up to random chance whether you are forced into taking something that bricks your run or not.

The per-modifier balance is also completely baffling. Some modifiers are basically 'free' as they say, like the blades which seem to do nothing but inflict corrupted blood on you. Every single sane person who doesn't already have immunity from a jewel implicit, has a bleeding/corrupted flask on their belt, so no matter what build you are it's not going to do anything to you.

Maybe I shouldn't have said that because next league I bet that one's going to be removed and replaced with something even more annoying to deal with...

Anyway, to add onto all of this I just want to stress the final point: no part of ultimatum is 'fun'. There's nothing enjoyable about it. Winning doesn't feel like an accomplishment either because it's so rooted in the luck of what mods you get.

And, unlike most other 'content' I have to run to do challenges THIS one is at least twice as costly to even attempt and you might get absolutely nothing out of it, wasting your time completely and utterly. There isn't even a pity handful of rares that pop out of the altar if you clear at least a few rounds before dying.

At least if I fail a blight I probably will get at least one of the rewards or SOME random spiral of loot. At least with harbingers, ambush, abyss, breach if I die I can come back and keep fighting or just be happy with what happened to drop as I was doing it. Delirium is like, even if you die doing THAT you keep your progress and get whatever amount you happened to earn murdering stuff.

Ultimatum just gives you nothing back but frustration.

EDIT: Oh and to make matters worse, the Trialmaster himself is extremely aggravating. It was kind of interesting that he manages to keep track of your victories/losses etc but being forced to hear him make snide remarks at you every time you so much as PASS him in a map, is none too pleasing. I guess that's not something the team would ever imagine changing but I don't like it so I'm going to say so here in my feedback thread.

I think if they make rare items less common reward types by default and boost Trialmaster spawn rate a little it'll be fine. It really pops off with some atlas tree investment / scarabs

Well first you can buy a bunch of rusted ultimatum scarabs from trade, they're 1 chaos each and its way cheaper to spam them than use the 10c map device craft.
Inscribed Ultimatums have dropped for me from mobs with the mechanic active in the map, but that probably also depends on the quantity you have and I was running them with lots of packsize which adds more monsters, so more loot. And with that 2 mil dps it is gonna be pretty hard to clear ultimatums yeah, the fully complete waves challenge isn't even the worst part, its killing the boss in a rare t16 map and he's ridiculously hard to find. I did ultimatums pretty well with Ice Spear of Splitting at 23 mil dps on my totem build, any time the objective was kill enemies or defend altar every round would take 1-2 seconds because everything insta-died,spawned more waves and insta-died again so the bar just kept filling up. Stand in stone circles is what kills me a lot too, but you can move out and in of the circles as many times as you want and you don't lose progress for standing in them. Don't know how you're gonna survive and kill Trialmaster in a rare t16 map but gl, just remember to buy rusted scarabs.

I think it would be fun on a tanky build but on a bow build it was really annoying doing the challenges.

Catalyst drops supposedly scale with map quant so you probably make 3x the currency doing it on juicy maps.