Love the game. Ascendancy is a bad experience.

Agree with O.P

In that state trials are a pain to deal with.
I'm not that far in the game, just got my 4 first ascendency points, but I can't imagine trying the 4 last points until being at least lvl 8x or 9x

Plus, sanctum and ultimatum are the worse mechanics POE1 has to offer.

Agree it's not much fun to do and to get. Labs in poe1 were already terrible and annoying, no idea why they come up with a similar concept in poe2 which barely anyone liked.

In the Chaos trials, each selection should come with a Boon and a Debuff. That way you can play a jigsaw puzzle to pick benefits that would compensate for the Debuffs, and even a bad Debuff might be survivable if you pick something to shore up your weaknesses.

Sanctum is not that bad if you stack the right relics. You can find crazy good +honor resilience and +maximum honor relics very cheap. 2-3 exalts each, and they are permanent. You can use them over and over. Get to 75 honor resilience and 80+ maximum honor increase and the trial becomes much, much easier. Make sure to complete a 2-floor key to unlock additional relic slots before attempting a 3-floor run.

Ultimatum needs far less punishing options. It feels like every choice just sucks, and when you stack 10 of them up, it becomes ridiculous.

I feel like I have to this disclaimer on every post and it's so annoying BUT

If you disagree with OP and think it's easy... Have you completed the 5th and 6th, and 7th and 8th ascendancy point, or are you still in the acts and only completed the first or second trial?

That's kinda what I thought there, chief...

It's such a slogfest. Nobody loved the lab experience for the most part, but it wasn't horrible. This is just atrocious and I honestly don't think most players will be able to get their last ascendancy points. I would be worried that most players won't be able to get past their second set of ascendancy points, which is crazy because most of the big ascendancies come together from having at least 3/4th of them filled in, or 4/4 trials done.

It doesn't need balancing, it needs an entire overhaul. It needs to be way more accessible for people to get their builds online, unless they expect random players to get carried every single time.

I feel like I have to this disclaimer on every post and it's so annoying BUT

If you disagree with OP and think it's easy... Have you completed the 5th and 6th, and 7th and 8th ascendancy point, or are you still in the acts and only completed the first or second trial?

That's kinda what I thought there, chief...

It's such a slogfest. Nobody loved the lab experience for the most part, but it wasn't horrible. This is just atrocious and I honestly don't think most players will be able to get their last ascendancy points. I would be worried that most players won't be able to get past their second set of ascendancy points, which is crazy because most of the big ascendancies come together from having at least 3/4th of them filled in, or 4/4 trials done.

It doesn't need balancing, it needs an entire overhaul. It needs to be way more accessible for people to get their builds online, unless they expect random players to get carried every single time.

It's the only thing I truly hate about the game.

Balance stuff, overtuned bosses, it's all whatever and will sort itself out, but Trials are fundamentally unfun as a core concept to me in every way. If they were facerollingly easy I wouldn't like them, but of course they're not.

It worries me because I feel like including stuff like this is a guarantee. I didn't like Lab and they somehow made Worse Lab. At no point do I have fun with any of it. Even if you respawned at the point you died I'd hate it, but at least you could just brute force it and get it over wit. But no, you get to do that whole, long, unfun thing from the beginning again.

Gatekeeping Ascendancy behind such an Mechanic is harassing.
Honor... what the Heck were they thinking?
Combine this with the Aspect, that you only have 1 Try for normal Maps where you cant even revive a Teammate, it all leaves a bitter Taste.

It´s like forcing the People to waste Time without any Progress.

I just finished the third ascendency with warrior at lvl 74. Here are my thoughts.

It isn't actually impossible, but it really feels that way. The first time I got to the second boss, I had no idea what the mechanics were and just died. It feels so bad to lose the token and have to restart the whole thing. I persevered, got to the third boss, and the same thing happened. I was having an amazing run, great buffs, and the boss seemed to do nothing but jump around. I stepped on platforms not knowing what they did and set off traps and died without even harming the boss.

Difficult bosses with trial and error mechanics, I find it a fun challenge when you can just respawn and try again, but it is the definition of grueling, almost heart breaking when it's one chance, go through 24 levels, and win in 1 try or lose the token and return to start, feels like back to square one. That is a hard mechanic to swallow, very discouraging.

I don't want the challenge of the game to be nerfed into oblivion, because I generally like the difficulty. The trials though just seems too harsh to me. Maybe if they still offered better rewards even on failure, or if the bosses were more straightforward considering a single failure is so painful, or even if there was just a little more direction from the game to let you know that even failure is leading you to eventually persevering, such as getting a good honor resist, plus max honor relic or even permanent honor resist or additional honor for every failure that stacks until you are able to succeed on the ascendency.

So what looked impossible actually wasn't because as I did multiple runs, I got tons of relics that pretty quickly brought me to 75% honor resist and double or more max honor. This mechanic is great, but it's just not clear to players when they're running it. So when you die at the second boss, it feels like you'll never be able to not only beat that boss but then run through 8 more levels and kill another boss.

My advice to those struggling: keep farming relics. Even though failure seems like you get nothing, pretty quickly the relics will make you about 10x or more tankier, and then it will be doable.

The first boss took me 4 attempts, the second boss 3 attempts, and the last boss 2 attempts. If I had initially understood better that the relic bonuses would add up and help so much, I wouldn't have been so discouraged. I think the best way to improve it is a consolation prize on death that buffs honor and stacks then is removed when ascendency is accomplished.

In one trial, you're tasked with protecting your honor while facing suicide bombers and traps that drain 500 honor. Even if you manage to avoid these, you're still hit by an ability that comes out of nowhere, or monsters with massive AOE attacks in cramped spaces where dodging is nearly impossible. In the other trial, you're constantly dealing with blood traps or other frustrating challenges, such as faster monsters or enemies that deal higher critical damage. Both trials are genuinely unenjoyable. In the honor trial, even if you outlevel the content, you still might not make it to the boss. To top it off, there’s a yellow enemy that drops your FPS to 20. Additionally, most of the mobs seem to be designed to counter melee, making it incredibly difficult. I somehow made it to the boss without losing honor as a Monk, only to get hit by one ability and lose all of my honor, despite still having full health.