Honour in trials punishes non-ranged classes

The honour system in trials is poorly thought out and needs a re-work. If it was optional content that had no real effect on the game then I wouldn't mind as much, but to have it as a requirement for ascension in the current state is just poor design.

Ranged classes have a significant advantage in the trials because they have a much easier time avoiding damage compared to a more tanky melee class which needs to be closer to enemies and therefore at greater risk of taking damage to kill them.

If you're going to keep the honour system, it should be tied to something that is fair to all classes and playstyles, such as having it tick down slowly through each challenge meaning you have X time to complete the objective, with it restoring to full after each challenge. You could even remove the fail on 0 and instead have it tied to something like better drops, so you are incentivied to take more risk and clear them quicker, but don't get punished with failure as long as you don't die.

I only managed to do the trial in the end on my monk because I was lucky enough to have my first tier 7 skill gem drop from 1 of the enemies I killed, giving me access to storm wave so I could kite while doing some ok damage from range. I shouldn't need to switch to a ranged playstle on a melee build just because doing it as full melee without exceptional luck as to the nodes / debuffs it gives me is basically impossible.

I did the trial easily on my 2nd attempt as sorcorer and only lost the first time due to not realising initially how honour worked, meaning I took too much damage early on to make it all the way through. My 2nd attempt as sorcorer I reached the boss with 488/488 honour. On my 6th / 7th atempt with monk I was down to 340/868 and got lucky with the merchant before boss selling me the buff to take no damage in the boss room, otherwise there's every chance the boss would have taken my last 340, meaning I'd have had to start all over again.

It's like whoever designed the honour system has never played a melee class.

Another to having it linked to time or better loot would be to remove the honour system and just make the enemies harder, the only way I should fail is if I die.

At a push, you can always wait until you reach the Temple of Chaos in act 3. The game doesn't do a good job of telling you can do that, but you can choose either the trial of the Sekhemas *or* the Temple of Chaos to get your ascension points from. That said, it really sucks having to wait an entire extra act to get your ascension points.

IMO, if they were going to offer the option of either/or, you should get that option given to you in act 2, and not have to wait an entire act before getting it.

At least it's not *shudder* Lab from PoE1.

"

KreldinFoxclaw#2687 wrote:

At a push, you can always wait until you reach the Temple of Chaos in act 3. The game doesn't do a good job of telling you can do that, but you can choose either the trial of the Sekhemas *or* the Temple of Chaos to get your ascension points from. That said, it really sucks having to wait an entire extra act to get your ascension points.

As you said, you shouldn't have to wait a whole other act just because you choose to play a certain class or playstyle.

I haven't progressed past act 2 yet myself (22 sorc, 23 monk both just past the trial). I really didn't mind the trials on my sorcorer, but it was that frustraiting as my monk I've just lost all interest in playing the game right now after completing it, which is a shame because I'd been having fun on both characters up to this point.

If I'd rolled a melee first and attempted the trial, I'd probably just quit to be honest, especially if I was a F2P player trying it once it's out, opposed to someone who's invested money into the game giving me an incentive to keep playing to make sure I get my moneys worth.

In the rest of the game up to this point, it doesen't matter if I take damage on my monk as much since I have more sustain then I do as my sorcorer, but in trials it doesen't matter whether you have more sustain / tank because honour can only be restored if you are lucky enough to get the right nodes and I had to pass up loot like keys and fountains so I could restore my honour at ever opportunity, where as with my sorcerer I had more freedom to pick my path as I didn't need to pick up ever restore node offered just to reach the boss.

I think making these two very build-specific mechanics the only option to "unlock your full power" was a huge mistake, probably the biggest one they did. But that means I am not worried, they will fix it eventually.