trial talk: about honour and resistance.

So it looks to me that the tougher your build is to cause damage
to, the harder it is to degrade its honour during a trial.

maxed resists, high ehp, damage reduction, natively reduce honour
damage by reciving fewer hps damage. Is this true?

so if thats true than honour resistance stacks on top of native
defences restricting damage, therefore honour damage.

am I accurate and did I miss anything? I need to be able to withstand
as much damage as possible to make it through. (obviously dodging it
is ideal) presume I am also constantly minmaxing dps as well. sooner
the targets dead the sooner im safe.

edit: I've gotten large swaths of honour sniped off
without being killed. im so early in learning how this works
I really could use some advice.

Honor resistance stacks on top of your other reductions. Honor itself is based on your combined life and energy shield.

So, for relics aim for these which grant max honor(or max life if you're life build) and honor resistance, up to 75%. There are also relics which raise max honor resist, up to 90%. The rest is up to you:
- you can pick some which restore a bit of honor after completing a room
- or these which grant sacred water on room completion
- or ones which make bosses/all monsters take increased damage
- or ones with move speed
Whatever you picked, remember the basic is as usual in Path of Exile 1/2, to have capped resistance.

excellent. I've narrowed down what is able to cause me so much damage.
Its lingering in powerful degen fields. its only happened a few times
but some of the rares are doing fat damage. rush over it take a small
hit. decide to attack while standing in it? 10,000 dps.

ive got everything else you recommended. im going for completion,
so forget drops only seek power and defence vs bosses.

but I have a secondary set of relics im accumulating that are all about
getting more keys, getting honour per key with the goal of drops.

I got my 3rd floor kill! 6/8 pts. 4th is HARRRRRD. woa they hit like a truck.
stuff I lauged at on floor 3 is whipping my butt on floor 4.

the loot though! got my first t5 drop on the 4th. worthwhile. good xp too.
guaranteed to die eventually, but gonna get 50% of a bar before hand.

Congratz mate! Keep up the good work of learning the trial :)
As you for sure already seen getting better relics, and learning which affliction is harmless for your build and which one should be absolutely avoided definitely helps.

You didn't mention what level your character is.

Item level 76 Amphora relics can role up to 40% honour resistance.
If you can find or buy some without a suffix that are that level you can use perfect orbs of augmentation to hopefully hit the T1 honour resist.
When you get 2 you can max your honour resistance with just those using only 6 slots. It frees up loads of space to add other bonuses.

Having great defenses really helps in the trials.
Massive armour will give you 90% damage reduction and when combined with 75% honour resistance means you only take 2.5% of the honour damage of hits, with armour vs elemental you can tank enemy elemental hits down to 1 honour damage.
Armour also helps against afflictions that deal physical damage.
You need 100 times affliction physical damgage as armour to get the full damage reduction.

High evasion helps you avoid most of the hits but it's possible to get unlucky.

And a big energy shield just gives insane amounts of max honour.

My character is 85 now, a sorc.

This is my first playthrough of poe2 and
I loved the trials. I got to endgame, tried to run the
trial with a lvl 65 barya and lost.

went searching for a 60 barya holy crap! 150ex!

I realized I should have saved my 65.... whats this?
lbl 80 barya is only 1 ex? im 65 I cant handle a lvl 80 area...

so I bought a 70 for 1ex, did well lvld up tried an 80.
did surprisingly well. leveled up

I've leveled from 65 to 85 in trials! they are cheaper than maps.

I've noticed the farther you get the better the gear that drops.
higher tier rares, perfect augs etc.

Indeed, loot in trial of sekhemas can be very nice for mid level character. Pay attention to gold chest, and always open time lost and grand specturm ones. Arcanist's chests are also nice to choose.

have never seen a timelost or grand spectrum chest. ill open em
when i see em always digging the arcanists tho.

Might be that grand spectrum chest spawns only after defeating Zarokh, the 4th floor boss, but I've seen timelost chest earlier, even on 2nd floor. Rarely though, to be honest.

As for relics, remember you can combine these unusable, or not worth to be sold, on bench, just watch out for item level.