Sanctum and Ultimatum to ascend...

...is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in PoE's history, and I've been playing since Abyss league. I know PoE 2 is a new game, but what were you thinking? Sanctum was fine in PoE 1 because first of all, it was optional, but secondly you could make fast characters that could clear the entire area without ever seeing a single enemy, having 0 chance of being hit by anything other than traps. People spent days farming relics to make the perfect sanctum setup, and made builds specifically to run sanctum. Now you want to force every single character to go through sanctum? When it comes to ultimatum, most of the mods are incredibly detrimental to alot of builds, so forcing everyone to go through 10 trials for the last ascendancy points, doesn't make any sense. Most builds would make it through by sheer luck, not skill. Is that really what you want for such an important part of character progression? Lab was the only thing I truly disliked in PoE 1, and I never thought I would say I would rather have lab back, than having to do sanctum or ultimatum for ascension.

I completely agree, Sanctum is just ... work and not fun for me.
Sadly, I don't have much feedback on how to fix that. I did Sanctum only once and that's when the league started in PoE 1.

Ultimatum is somewhat doable with some crazy doge skills and I'm burned out after a run.

I won't activate Ascendary for my class because I won't do this Sanctum.. It's buggy, too hard and easy for Melee, next to impossible.. It's the worst mechanic I've ever experienced in POE

I second that 100%.

It is so unfathomably stupid that it felt like a joke at first.

GGG What are you doing to your game and audience?