The Ascendancy trials are too difficult

i agree 100% they suck to do. and frankly the game would be more enjoyable if they flat out removed them.

but here's the dirty secret about the trials. it's all about the relics. get yourself a good stack of max honor and its a face roll.

In Path of Exile, the Ascendency trial was essentially a check. "Are you ready for this power" in a sense. The Lab challenged your damage output, survivability, ability to dodge traps and think through gauntlets, etc, finished with a relatively tough boss fight, especially if you were unprepared.

Any build can do these trials, if that build is built well. There is nothing in the Lab that hampers certain build archetypes, with the exception of zero-DPS support builds. If you didn't have good damage, good survivability, you probably couldn't do the Lab. If you did, you could. Full stop.

You ran these trials exactly 4 times. 1 time for each set of Ascendency points.


PoE 2?

Firstly, you have to run these trials 10 times, not four. Every time you advance, you have to complete the previous trials you've already accomplished again too. When you go for your second set of points, you have to do the trial you got your first ones from first, and then do your second one. By the time you're on your fourth, you have to do the first, second, and third again, all the way through, before you can even start it. Oh, and if you fail you have to start over completely from the first one again. This makes them take a totally unreasonable amount of time to complete.

Not only that, but they took the two most build-specific mechanics from PoE, and made them something that every single build that anyone ever levels has to fight through.

Sanctum is a fun mechanic. It's better than it was in PoE. It has no business being an Ascencion trial. To be successful in Sanctum, you usually have to build specifically for it. Sanctum literally removes entire defensive layers from the gameplay. A thorns build? Absolutely not. Block build? Failed on principal. Melee? You better pray.

Ultimatum isn't much better. It's intensely easy to come across a selection of 3 different ways to make your build unplayable. The majority of the rest of the Ultimatum debuffs turn this Ascendency trial into a debuff slot machine. The best strategy to win is to cross your fingers and hope this time you don't get completely fucked over and have to restart.

And again, Ultimatum is fun. It's a cool mechanic, it's in a better state than in PoE, but it has ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS being a requirement for progression.

Neither of them do.

I sure hope Trial of the Ancestors or whatever isn't a total nightmare.

While I'm pretty terrible at Sanctum / Sekemas trials they do seem easier to me when compared to trials of chaos / Ultimatum.

At least with Sekemas / Sanctum even if you're bad at it, like me, you can still farm early versions of it, build up some relics, and make like easier on yourself. Honor resistance, more honor, more honor recovery, etc. seems to be the key (to me) to make things more doable.

I never tried the last Sekemas boss as the "time slow" piece doesn't seem like it would be my jam --- then again I heard that the boss may have been nerfed from earlier so it might be worth a shot now??

I don't like Sekemas. I was thinking of doing a thorns build then it dawned on me that it would be actually impossible to ascend lol.

As for the "choice of trials" I like the idea that the players have some agency in choosing how they want to ascend. I think the biggest problem is that we don't have quite enough choice yet.

I'd like to see FOUR different trial choices as that would give the most flexibility in finding something that works for you:

Sekemas: Good for characters with good speed & burst damage [or great CC]. Any builds that survive on "don't get hit" are already prepared for this trial :)

Chaos: Decent enough for bruisers with great mitigation, recovery, and damage. Debuffs can be brutal but otherwise seems doable.


As for the two other choices I'm certainly open but among the things that I wouldn't mind seeing are:

1. A return of the old lab. Probably would need great ailment thresholds, ailment mitigation, and recovery along with good speed. Mediocre combat abilities would otherwise get you by.

2. A (highly modified?) version of ToTA. Less about what your character can do on the field and more about your ability to pick a team of 10 or so units to attack an enemy base while defending your own base. Theoretically this could test your ability to synergize the units or otherwise buff your guys while debuffing the enemy.

3. Defeating "tiers" of endgame bosses. Maybe just picking your favorite end-game boss to farm and then beating them on multiple difficulties would be sufficient. Obviously this is the "just play the game" ascension unlock.


As for other possibilities I can't think of what other things to test ... We've got speed, burst damage, CC, mitigation, recovery, standard damage, debuff handling, ailment threshold & mitigation, understanding & avoiding boss attack patterns, and battlefield tactics / strategy covered. I'm at a loss as to think of what else to cover.

100% disagree. They get easier as you do them more often. Chaos Trial can have some bad RNG, but thats about all.

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KingAlamar#4071 wrote:

As for the "choice of trials" I like the idea that the players have some agency in choosing how they want to ascend. I think the biggest problem is that we don't have quite enough choice yet.

I'd like to see FOUR different trial choices as that would give the most flexibility in finding something that works for you

They've confirmed in interviews that they are planning to add a 3rd ascendancy trial. What I think is that each trial is planned around the 3 attributes. Sekhemas with dexterity because "don't get hit", Chaos for int I guess because you need determination to beat chaos or something. So the third would be something that fits the str tank archetype.