Feedback on the Experience with the Third Ascension Point in POE 2:

The experience of reaching the third ascension point in POE 2 has been extremely frustrating. I'll try to explain why.

Firstly, having to drop or buy the "Djinn Barya" under the right criteria in order to progress, only to then spend time on the first trial, reach the second trial, and die due to lack of honor in the boss fight — despite having arrived at the boss with full honor — is incredibly exhausting and frustrating. This happens because of a mechanic in the boss fight (the final boss of Act 2) that i am still learning. It's simply too draining and discouraging.

The difficult and interesting part of the game is being delayed by a forced and boring grind. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy grinding when I choose to do it, but when the game forces an unnecessary grind, it's just not fun.

What makes it worse is that Sanctum has always had specific builds to either burst bosses or avoid damage, but now these are required to achieve Ascension. If I already didn’t like this in the normal mode and had to be "overleveled" to progress, now, in the endgame, I like it even less. Being overleveled at the end of the game just to reach an Ascension is a horrible feeling, as if your progress is being locked simply because you chose a more tanky build and are being punished for it.

To put it into perspective, imagine that after every death against a boss in Elden Ring, the game sends you all the way back to the start just to force you to redo the entire path to the boss before you can try again... It would be a drag.

And don’t give me the "just watch a video" argument. Learning the fight by watching a video is not fun or satisfying.

Here are some suggestions that could improve the experience:

First, I’m not saying that all of these need to be implemented, but any one of them would make the process less frustrating.

- Remove the honor system during boss fights.
- Introduce a set number of "lives" — like, if you die 3 times, you're out. You could even apply a random debuff every time the player respawns.
- Allow the use of the "Djinn Barya" more than once. This would eliminate the need to drop or buy a "Djinn Barya" under specific criteria and allow players to retry without the frustration of repeating the entire grind process.
- Allow simulations against bosses. This would give players the chance to practice the boss mechanics before using an actual attempt in the Sanctum.
- Make more positive buffs available during trials.
- Reduce the damage that bosses do to honor. This way, the system would still be in place, but it wouldn’t punish players too much. You could even buff the bosses' attacks slightly to compensate.
- Buff relics with honor resistance.
- Increase the drop rates for challenges with the correct criteria. You could even add this to the rotation of the NPC that sells maps.

These are just a few suggestions to improve the frustrating and tedious aspects of the game.

It is not the Act 2 boss, it is the Trial 2 boss. My mistake sorry.

if i may:
OP makes great points. it's especially punishing for melee. especially the they hit like fuggin semi trucks, and if you gotta go fisticuffs with em, its just a countdown to the inevitable 1 shot death. whether it be hp or honor.

if i were king of poe. heres how id fix sekhemas.
ill do chaos another day.

1 - infinite HP - remove honor - everyone is allowed a set number of HITS. lets call it .... 30?! if you get hit 31 times you fail. traps, monster love taps, arrows, boss 1hitKO slams. whatever. just 30 hits. (obviously 30 is just an example)
give melee 1.5x or 2x the allowed hits that you give the ranged and casters (if you can find a way to determine that without us being able to fool/fix it)

2 - remove the afflictions - especially start of floor forced to pick 1 of 3or4 - cuz there are very few ones that are tolerable, most are devastating - thus theres a good chance all your options will be devastating, and thats a hard way to start floor 1 room 1 of potentially 3 or 4 floors.

3 - half the length to completion
1 floor for 1st and 2nd ascend
2 floors for 3rd or 4th ascend.
3rd ascension = 3 floors is really really askin a lot.
floors 3 and 4 should be exclusively for loot runners / builds designed for sanctum. like OP said.


all that said - GGG -
amazing game, i legit have no complaints aside from the NASTY NASTY ps5 lag. fix that first,
dont touch tempest flurry.
game itself is solid, and the only problems ive run into are definitely due to a1-3 repeat. if a4 came after a3 none of my problems would have happened.

love,
matt

ps:
im only writing here cuz your analogy was amusing.
''would be like if elden ring made you start over after dying to a boss.'' im paraphrasing.
that is EXACTLY how elden ring already handles death to bosses, lol.
placcidusax comes to mind.