Changes to the Labyrinth

This does nothing to address the fact that Ascendancy, and the full complement of points, is a non-optional part of a build, while the endgame Labyrinth is unfeasible for all but a narrow subset of builds. I want endgame content to be hard, but I also want it to be doable by a wide variety of builds with practice. The Labyrinth is not, in part because it's such a pain in the ass TO practice, and in part because Izaro does an unreasonable amount of damage. I'd really like to be able to enjoy the Labyrinth, instead of grudgingly slogging through it once per difficulty and paying someone or asking a guildie to help me get my last two points while I stand outside the Izaro room every time because he one-shots everything life-based. (No, I don't want to play CI. I tried it and hated it. I want to fight things that DON'T DEAL OVER 5500 DAMAGE PER HIT.) Everything up through the Merciless lab can be fun if I'm playing the right build, but once I get to the last one, nothing I find even slightly fun is the right build, and the fact that almost NO ONE is doing ANY of the newer late-endgame content with the builds I like to play will probably be the thing that drives me away for good someday.

So... you thought that 3 play-throughs of the game (4 acts) was too repetitive... but the lab should be run 4 times?

mmmkay.

Thats real neat-o but if you don't actually balance this game(making it so ES/LIFE are the same and that there isnt only 3 good builds) then who cares?

sigh when will the trials ever go away... I don't mind lab at all i just find the trials nothing but cancer, having to do that many i guess at least you don't have to do AS many now...but i mean there hasnt been any new traps or mechanics in lab, and even then you can skip literally every single trap in the lab with movement skills...

hell with enough HP regen you can literally stand in them or walk through them.

I like lab. It's a nice break from the standard grind. I don't run it all the time because it's simply not efficient but I still enjoy it when I do. I do wish there were more reasons to explore though because my typical lab run is sprint as fast as possible to the end. Maybe put additional helmet enchant shrines around or something. Or some sort of mechanism to roll particular helmet enchants at the final shrine. Like only strength gems, only dex gems, only minion gems, attack gems. You could stack them so you could set it to roll strength minion mods so you would only get mods for animate guardian and stone/fire golem.

After trying a handful of times and only getting past the first Izaro encounter a single time, I quit the league that introduced it. I actually stopped playing PoE for several months afterwards because of the Labyrinth.

For me, the Lab is frustrating and tedious because it resets every time you die. Perhaps if they got rid of that penalty (which I know they won't) I might consider it the challenge GGG intended it to be and try my hand at it again.

I would also add that I'd prefer to both see Ascendancy points separated from the Labyrinth (or at least separated from the process of having to run it FOUR DAMN TIMES not to mention what is still an obnoxious number of trials) AND to see the Labyrinth fixed so that it becomes something that's fun to test yourself against instead of a way to throw money down the drain (because unlike sac sets, which I can easily farm for myself because the common frags drop plentifully and can be used to farm the uncommon ones, lab keys are few and far between AND all-or-nothing). Again, I WANT to enjoy the lab. I'd prefer not to have a necessary part of my build tied to it, and let it be something for people who want to do it or who want the rewards it can give, but if it's fixed so that it's actually playable by the same build I use for the rest of the game, then I would be one of those people. But right now I resent it every time I have to set foot in anything related to it.

I take a little sadistic comfort looking at all the new complaints to remove the lab knowing they won't do it.

Always feel that people complaining about the 1 try mechanic of the lab blow it way out of proportion. I won't deny it sucks ass for people with bad internet connections and stuff like that, but when I was part of that group, I dealt with it in game mechanics like this in the past. But in general, dying on accident once out of a blue moon outside of uber lab seems like a fine counterbalance to the power you gain from it. They are making it easier and easier to do the first 3 where most people consider uber points pretty irrelevant to "finishing" a build. Yet the immediate response is "doesn't matter- REMOVE IT!!!"

EIGHTEEN FUCKING TRIALS?

-1 why are we still running 4 different labs with only one difficulty? Will you just let me fucking leave the thing to do a trade and not lose my progress?