Ascending is horrible. These mechanics for Ascendancy is horrible.

Got my third point at level 90, lmao. Vastly over-leveled and over-geared. I guess I suck. In PoE 1 I'd be already fully ascended on several characters by now, on the first iteration of Lab.

Tried to do ultimatum for the 3rd point, but failed three times in a row on the same f!#*$ bird... Then did the sanctum run which is easier, since the required zone levels are lower. Helps when you can oneshot things and/or perma-freeze / stunlock bosses.

I can't deny that eventually you learn and get better, especially at sanctum - chaos trial is a complete cluster#@#$@#. But it is very frustrating - especially if you are not into this kind of gameplay.

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ApostuMihai#0296 wrote:

This has to be a shitpost. The trials are fairly easy if you're overleveled (as in trying to get your 3rd ascendancy as a LEVEL 80 CHARACTER). The 3 floor Djinn Barya is around level 67, you should be able to almost delete out of existence the 3rd boss if you would "clear maps and kill bosses like a wind of death".

I am running Sekhemas or however you spell it for currency right now with a pretty cheap build (spent at best 3 divs for the whole gear). Might be a bit more expensive now due to inflation (so about 5-6). The trial is more than fine as a ranged character and okay as melee if you know what you're doing.

If you can't beat a level 67 boss as a level 80 character who said "I clear maps and kill bosses like a wind of death". then maybe is time to take a long look at your build instead of blaming the game.

The only thing I agree with is the annoyance of running all the floors over and over again. The trials should each have 1 floor.

Trial of chaos is a bit more RNG so you don't stack really bad buffs or get only bad choices, but it's still doable with a semi-decent build.

Take a look at your build, watch some guides and good luck. Or you can just buy a boost for 4th ascendancy if it's so hard, it's about 40 exalts.

Nah i sympathize with OP.

Im soloing t15 maps with breaches and map bosses but will run out of honor in the 3rd trial.

Killing mobs and playing an obstacle course isnt hard, its the RNG penalties that put you at a disadvantage, even with relics.

They should remove honor in the boss arenas at the very least.

I still havent gotten 3rd ascendancy and im nearly 90.

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ApostuMihai#0296 wrote:

This has to be a shitpost. The trials are fairly easy if you're overleveled (as in trying to get your 3rd ascendancy as a LEVEL 80 CHARACTER). The 3 floor Djinn Barya is around level 67, you should be able to almost delete out of existence the 3rd boss if you would "clear maps and kill bosses like a wind of death".

I am running Sekhemas or however you spell it for currency right now with a pretty cheap build (spent at best 3 divs for the whole gear). Might be a bit more expensive now due to inflation (so about 5-6). The trial is more than fine as a ranged character and okay as melee if you know what you're doing.

If you can't beat a level 67 boss as a level 80 character who said "I clear maps and kill bosses like a wind of death". then maybe is time to take a long look at your build instead of blaming the game.

The only thing I agree with is the annoyance of running all the floors over and over again. The trials should each have 1 floor.

Trial of chaos is a bit more RNG so you don't stack really bad buffs or get only bad choices, but it's still doable with a semi-decent build.

Take a look at your build, watch some guides and good luck. Or you can just buy a boost for 4th ascendancy if it's so hard, it's about 40 exalts.

this seems crazy to have to buy something as simple as a main progression point

It's insane how you can build a leech build to have it completely negated by your main progression point.

how does this create a space for fun different builds?

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LVC1FR#4407 wrote:

It wasn't the scorpion that killed me. It was some random darts that shot out of every single wall for a long time. That didn't do any damage to me, weren't telegraphed, and didn't stop. The scorpion was at around 10% health.

I am not failing because my build is bad. I am failing because my build receives hits by enemies now and then. My build is bad at Sanctum. This game is not Sanctum. My build isn't built to avoid 100% of hits by all enemies, but I do manage to get to each of these bosses with nearly full Honour. Regardless, after only being grazed by a handful of attacks that did little to no damage, because of the mechanics of these systems, I fail.

This right here tells me two things. The first is you have completely misunderstood the design of the boss if you think things are happening completely without warning. Those "random" darts are triggered by you when you step on the giant metal plates, which are identical to the ones found through the trials to teach you the mechanic. You are failing to ascend because you kill yourself setting traps off during the fight. The bosses all integrate some variation of the traps you see. They are meant to be a more technical fight built around the idea that you need to avoid being hit, think of it as a gauntlet boss. This is exactly what Izaro's final fight was as well in POE 1, the mechanics just got more intense.

And I get it, its really frustrating to have a build where you are inherently at a disadvantage. It means you have to play the mechanics of the fight even more attentively, you will have plenty of times where you can't attack because you need to play it safe to get to your next damage window. Its a real boss, and I'm sorry your build doesn't fit the situation. Thematically this 100% holds water though. Trials like this are supposed to be about proving yourself. If through being overwhelming in strength, tactical/methodical, and adaptable if need be. Maybe you need to change how you approach the fight, integrate a new skill or support that might change how you fight. You need to pay attention to what is happening and try to learn something when you die. POE 2 was not intended to be a one solution fits all kind of game (even if that's where most players have landed already sadly). In this regard I find the trials to be the most engaging of content in that it takes the most amount of thought to do the content.

My first character was crazy bad for ascension, and it felt like I was hitting my head on the wall. My boss kills were slow because I needed to worry about honour. I won by learning the boss, how to recognized what they did, what I did to myself, the responses needed, and how to recognize opportunities of where defense and offence should be. I adjusted my build without breaking it fundamentally, respec'ed my tree to eliminate waste and enabled my build to function more properly, change supports to better make my skills work in the fight. If you can't learn to do that endgame bosses will be an even bigger issue, especially if your not following guides and designing your own builds.

I'm not saying its designed perfectly, 100% there are tuning issues and balancing that should be made. This is EA, and has never been advertised otherwise. This kind of complaining is pointless imo, you haven't shown you took the time to learn why this was bad. The whole point should be that we are helping to shape the game, find the reasons for disliking something to pinpoint improvement areas. The devs had a vision and now its up to us to show them how they can make their vision feel good to play.

I also hope that the other trials yet to be released will have a better balance for builds not suited to these trials yet. Then it will feel more fair to have this lopsided design.

The trials are the game's way of telling you that you don't have enough movement speed to properly dodge boss mechanics. Your build might function alright in white maps but when it comes to the pinnacle bosses you're gonna need to move quickly so you might as well fix it now before over committing to something thats not gonna pan out in the long run. I would suggest the Sekhema trials are a movement speed litmus test whereas the chaos trials are more of a damage and defenses check. By the way, make sure you max out your honor resist at 75% and also get %increased defenses, movement speed boon if possible.

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TommyBoy1987#2208 wrote:

The trials are the game's way of telling you that you don't have enough movement speed to properly dodge boss mechanics. Your build might function alright in white maps but when it comes to the pinnacle bosses you're gonna need to move quickly so you might as well fix it now before over committing to something thats not gonna pan out in the long run. I would suggest the Sekhema trials are a movement speed litmus test whereas the chaos trials are more of a damage and defenses check. By the way, make sure you max out your honor resist at 75% and also get %increased defenses, movement speed boon if possible.

as someone who has still died with the maximum speed boon.....i would say it helps but not always. theres so much stuff going on and if you eyeball it just wrong....or if the spheres spawn just a tad bit too far away. it just ruins an 30-60 mins of effort

if your suggestion is to let RNG dictate a specific buff that you might not even get every time you run the full length of the trial, then i feel like you are just trolling us

ascendency and progression should not be locked behind RNG buffs. unfortunately it isnt a "skill" issue either because its still just luck and RNG with where the spheres pop

at least with poe1 ascendency you could figure it out and snails pace to properly fight the boss. this one, you cant stop moving....ever....you have literally a few seconds or less to attack...and then keep moving to avoid

plus the unavoidable lightning crap

+1 OP.
The 3rd and 4th Trials are horrifically over-tuned.
The Boss in the Chaos Trial with the Tornado attack is ridiculously over-tuned.

And in reality, the choices for 3rd and 4th Ascendency points are meh.
Especially for Dead Eye Ranger.

All that effort for such minor bumps to my character sheet that I can likely get with gear and skill gem selection?

Now if the Ascendency points were something like: 100% damage increase and +50% Movement speed then maybe. But as it is now, the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

I don't have too much of a problem with choosing your style of ascension nor the mechanics themselves ... I do think some fine-tuning would be good.


Things that come to mind are:

1. A lot of the mechanics seem ported straight from PoE1. In terms of the afflictions / debuffs you get in the trials I think the pools could use re-balancing. I think the idea is no one debuff should be significantly worse than any other debuffs for the majority of builds.

2. In PoE1 the first time you fought the Searing Exarch & Eater of Worlds those fights / quests were low-difficulty versions of the real quests. Doing something similar with the Trials would be good as you can balance for "ascensions" for the first time you're trying the quest AND for people farming the content they could get a harder trial but also more rewards from the trials.

3. Give the players more choice when possible. For example in Sanctum I noticed that at start I may be FORCED to take an affliction. This was fairly common. I would remove the "you're going to get an affliction by room X" no matter what.

With the Trials of Chaos if players could be given some additional choice that would be great. Whether that's more debuffs to choose from [choose 1 of 4 instead of 1 of 3], giving the players a "reroll" of mods if they get 3 "run killers", etc. would be good.

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vincent_vfx#4010 wrote:

analogy i would make

1. you need to do an ascendancy

2. a window opens up and pacman game starts. you must get a certain score in pacman in order to ascend

so this is what i am trying to say . . . the trials are not related to the rest of the game in any way at all as far as i can tell. it seems really stange that progression is gated behind getting a certain score in pacman.

one idea i could go for is if instead the trials rewarded a guarantee orange item each time of completion. or something like that. i still would not do them, but i do not care if others were getting a reward. and i could still get my ascendancy points in some way that actually made sense.

as far as i know they promised that there will be another way to do ascendancy. i hope it is based on the actual rest of the game and not getting a certain score in mrs. pacman instead of pacman.

I take it you didn't pay attention to the story while playing through then? They do have lore connections, so "related to the rest of the game".

They also teach valuable things, Sekhema is focused on attrition (honor) and correct pathing (endgame strategy). Chaos is about consequences for choices, knowing what your build can and cannot handle (Sekhema also has parts of that).

Unlike lab is POE1, these actually require a minimum level of player skill (less so with chaos) and isn't a brain dead "just go right" challenge. The first 2 (and in the future 3) sets of points you have unlimited attempts at (if you do 1 of each type), but you still have player agency to decide which mechanic you want to use to ascend.