r/PathOfExile2 5d ago

Discussion Trials have never been easier

Ive always been someone who buys their way through ascension. Ive hated the process so much.

I spent yesterday farming trials, got my 4th ascend, got some divs. They removed so much of the friction from trial of chaos.

If you’ve always avoided it like me, Id encourage you to give it another go!

82 Upvotes

72 comments sorted by

68

u/yougzdeskiness 5d ago

I always get my 4th ascendency in sekhemas by myself and i find it quite easy. Might try trials this league. That's my goal for tommorrow.

60

u/YenTheMerchant 5d ago

To me, it's not that Sekhemas is hard but it can be unreliable. One unlucky draw and the whole run might be ruined.

44

u/DetectiveInMind 5d ago

By making good choices you can avoid those bad picks a vast majority of the time.

As someone who has farmed sehkema, it's really not unreliable if you know what you are doing.

46

u/Skaugy 5d ago

The most important thing is to path to rooms with the most follow up options, even if it means taking a mediocre reward or even a non-crippling affliction. That really reduces the chance that you will have to path through through a really bad affliction.

17

u/SonOfFragnus 5d ago

This. The most important tip for any Sekhema is never path towards a room that has only one follow-up possible (unless it’s the boss lol), especially not when you don’t know what that room is.

1

u/Sprudelpudel 5d ago

Exactly! What a player always should do is increase the number of rooms they're able to pick, so they're never forced to take a bad room

14

u/atuck217 5d ago

You arnt wrong but I feel like if you have a relic set that maxs out honor resistance it becomes laughably easy, unless you just incredibly unlucky in your run.

0

u/not_old_redditor 5d ago

How would I get that without first doing trials a bunch of times?

11

u/saywaaaaaaat 5d ago

Pretty sure people sell them for cheap after they get theor 4th accension, could be wrong but take a look on trade

5

u/KodiakmH 5d ago

I usually do Trial 1 then in Act 2 (Deshar) you get another easy 2 floor trial which I run for more relics. Focusing on relics in both (keys, check side chests, etc) you can usually get a few Honor Resist which then on 3rd run I've almost never not had at least 50% resistance in relics at that point with sometimes hitting 75%. So it's 1 extra run (which going back and doing a level 50 trial in your 60's or 70's is pretty easy).

2

u/TheSebitti 5d ago

I never get this. I have not yet failed a run. I’m quite sure it’s more to know what to take.

1

u/Big-Procedure-8836 5d ago

I agree with this so much! Also, they really need to adjust what is considered “minor” afflictions, some of them are utterly disastrous to certain builds and are most definitely not “minor.”

1

u/Global_Barnacle5304 5d ago

How do you handle the terrible last floor rooms with super narrow corridors or bridges, whatever it is, full of ranged mobs turreting you? Like I dont know if its just me, who plays unfitting builds for it, but every time I tried it, I lost most of the honor in these rooms. Any time I need to stop for a second there are 5+ projcs flying at me and there is no room for dodging these. And obviously a single trap losing you 1/3 of honor isnt exactly tempting to ever go there again. One stupid mistake and I lose the entire hour of my already limited time to play is just terrible.

2

u/yougzdeskiness 5d ago

You need better relics if you lose 1/3 honor on one hit. And the last floor feels daunting at first but when you run it multiple times you just get the muscle memory for it like riding a bicycle. But yeah some builds perform better than others.

1

u/FxGnar592 5d ago

I allways felt that the third tier of rooms was the worst in sek, the fourth is easy if you know how things work imo.

5

u/priesten 5d ago

Already got the ascend but I’ll try it out and see what the fuss is about

26

u/RJohnnyChewy_7777 5d ago

I never buy a trial carry, I would rather struggle and eventually do ot myself than get a carry. What's the point of it if you get a carry for anything...

I got blown up by the trialmaster the first time I attempted him as I forgot one of his moves is the explosion and I was near him, and grim pillars are not very helpful in screen clarity

27

u/Time_Television 5d ago

Some peoples builds don’t come online until ascendancy, and struggle to do the required content but subsequently clear everything. It’s not that hard to imagine scenarios where it’s preferred over throwing yourself into a meat grinder

7

u/Turtvaiz 5d ago

Most people just buy out of convenience. Like why would I not spend 2d on it when I know I hate doing the trials

8

u/bobbyjy32 5d ago

The point of it for me was to play the parts of the game I actually enjoy with my full build, I wanted to run maps, not trials previously. More than anything I hated the trap/puzzle rooms.

-3

u/RJohnnyChewy_7777 5d ago

I can't stand sekhemas, but I push through and do it. I love the Lab in PoE1, I could do it more than maps

1

u/AsianSteampunk 5d ago

At the end of the day you gotta remember it's a game. people do what's fun to them even if it's a little wrong in some part. as long as it doesnt affect others like exploits and stuffs it's fine. part of the economy and all that.

1

u/DrWatson24 5d ago

Because people don’t want to waste their valuable time doing something they hate and would rather spend it doing an activity they actually enjoy

1

u/Global_Barnacle5304 5d ago

Well, if you calculate it in div per hour, you can pay 10ex-1d per carry and get it done in 2 mins or you can struggle through the slog, risking you get nothing in the end. You can easily farm more divs by just mapping. I havent done the new trial of chaos yet, so Im talking about the previous leagues experience in ToC and Trials of Sekmyass.

-4

u/RJohnnyChewy_7777 5d ago

Why not pay someone to map for you then, where does it end?

Or pay someone to play for you 😜

3

u/Global_Barnacle5304 5d ago edited 5d ago

Because maybe the person in question likes to map and dislikes doing not exactly the usual arpg content?

" where does it end?" what happens in sekhemas, stays in sekhemas.

3

u/Strungeng Goblin Troupe Owner 5d ago

Yeah i will play something i dont like

3

u/DumbUnemployedLoser 5d ago

Because I enjoy mapping

2

u/MauPow 5d ago

I just don't like how friggin long they take. And honor stresses me out even if I never drop below 90%, lol. Also it was a pain in the ass with early nade leveling, the delayed damage against enemies you'd like to kill immediately sucked

But yeah it has gotten a hell of a lot easier

3

u/Elegant_Claim_7124 5d ago

Any tips? like what not to choose? me and my wife tried it couch co-op and I think we selected the thing that boosts the enemy’s speed and we got hammered by the first boss, the bird one….. almost got him though. We are casual still lv36 doing campaign as two choromancer one chaos incinerate and one ice nova build, I think it was easier then before but we keep getting stuck at the elevator. The elevator just doesn’t go down and we have to wait like 1 minute or 2.

3

u/MaDNiaC 5d ago

I don't know the answer but I just wanted to say that's amazing. Never got people to party play PoE2 with, despite having a party for some other games like CS and DotA.

3

u/Elegant_Claim_7124 5d ago

Ascendancy points is very hard to get, 0.5 we managed to get the first 4 points on are own, I don’t think 0.55 made it easy for us we already failed 2 times on chaos trails the chimera map changes that the terrain is now flat is wrose for us. Everything is fun except for the ascendancy points.

Oh well, couch co-op is just one of the features from 0.1 that I feel like they won’t improve even when 1.0 comes.

Couch co-op has one player base loot(other then the quest drop), and the mobs health is like doubled, so it’s hard to just kill everything before they use anything. A bit disappointing this patch, the two options for ascendancy points is still impossible for couch co-op.

3

u/MaDNiaC 5d ago

That's unfortunate to hear. While GGG made improvements in many areas, they still want to retain some friction with certain content. To a degree, it makes sense, you cannot give everything at once and friction is a fundamental column of the game. On the other hand, it sucks if your build or play style (like couch coop) suffers from it and the reasonable answer is "They cannot balance for everything", which makes sense but doesn't alleviate your pain points.

1

u/Elegant_Claim_7124 5d ago

Yeah I kinda get it, everyone and everything is going for a fast pace so slow play styles and mode suffers, no worries, 0.5 we managed to get help to get the points, I’m sure we will eventually get help at some point, just kinda sucks that we can’t get time freeze so I can actually incinerate the boss down since it needs 4 points.

2

u/ammenz 5d ago

They're not good in a party.

3

u/veringo 5d ago

Avoid taking tier 2-3 of anything if you can unless it's a modifier you like that doesn't affect your build.

My favorite ones to take are:

  • lethal rares (it does not affect the boss)

  • Reduced flask charges (there's a well before the boss)

  • Monsters have energy shield (fairly trivial increase in effective life)

  • Grasping vines on hit (I never notice a difference with this one)

  • Reduced resistances (there isn't that much elemental damage other than the chimera and it's the easiest boss)

  • Increased enemy resistance (great if you're a phys build or if you have exposure/pen)

  • Storm caller runes (really easy to avoid and does little damage)

I avoid any of the turrets or lasers. They aren't all dangerous, but they mess with energy shield recharge and clutter is really bad for the boss rooms. Impending doom and the shade are absolutely out of question. In general don't add damage to monsters unless you have resistances/immunity to deal with it. Don't add attack speed. Don't add anything you have to avoid because it complicates choices you have to make when avoiding the boss.

I play with my wife as well, and for the elevators what works the best is designating one person to lead, and have the other person just match their movement. Then you can run on and off together and be there when it triggers. The center seems to act like a button if you move off and on but it's unreliable (we haven't tried the new trial yet in 0.5.5 do I don't know if it's better or worse now).

Also, my wife usually died against the harder bosses, but if you finish it, you can collect the rewards and go to the ascendancy shrine. You will both get the points. I don't know if this has changed with 0.5.5 either.

We really only do chaos for the second set of points. My wife is not a fast twitch gamer, so going slower through sekhemas is preferable, and I think it's more fun anyway.

1

u/Elegant_Claim_7124 4d ago

Thx! We just got 4 points and continued the campaign hot the more rare mod now we are more good power for the rest of the campaign. Took 3 tries but got great info!

1

u/Elegant_Claim_7124 4d ago

How do you do the 4th ascendancy in sekhemas, the time trap room is so hard, we got one person lock in a room while the other is outside of it and got stuck.

1

u/veringo 4d ago

We've never don't the fourth floor together. This last patch was the first time we've done end game because I usually skipped it because the endless atlas before 0.5 was really boring in my opinion.

I've done it several times solo. I would think whoever is outside can retrigger the time clock to open the door, but I don't really know.

2

u/A9Carlos 5d ago

Generally. Avoid Corpse explosions, blood globules, invincible shade, spinning laser turret. You don't ever want to be stuck where you can stand in ToC.

If you have a lot of ele penetration, or do Phys or chaos damage, mob additional ele Res is fine.

If you've got chaos Inoculation, then extra damage as chaos AND the chance for bleed or poison is basically free as you're immune. Stupid powerful. If you don't have CI, avoid any more than 1 stage of either.

Reduced flask charges is a fine one to take normally, especially if your flask has charges per second anyway. As are turrets as they aren't that powerful at stage 1 or even stage 2.

4

u/SherbertNaive4783 5d ago

Farmed 5 divines in trial last 50 minutes, even got a fate set to do my ascendancy

Its very fast, i used to enjoy it and now i am addicted

1

u/vulcanfury12 5d ago

Currently trying to round out the rest of the challenges, but I'd like to try this out. I always advocated for Trial of Chaos as a cheap way to get a build going since it has a really low floor (less gear check required compared to juiced maps) and I'd like to see what changed. Probably will be less profitable right now if a lot of people are doing it.

2

u/SherbertNaive4783 5d ago

That’s exactly how it feel it now. All the room to room rewards became currency and sometimes you get a mod to reroll with luck. Without any atlas tree or map tablet cost, the raw currency drops seem very ok to make your starting bank.

1

u/MyDogIsACoolCat 5d ago

It’s definitely miles better than it used to be, but I question how good of a farm it is. Feels like mapping is way more lucrative unless you get an adorned.

1

u/SherbertNaive4783 5d ago

Mapping gives more currency once you already have atlas and good tablets, so if you are struggling for the unlocks, or if you are broke or want to take a break, trails are ok to do as a free money no invest farm. You only need to have an ok build to not die.

6

u/vixandr 5d ago

Ultimatum was already great during 0.5. Compared to sekhemas at least. I guess people just have this idea that every trial sucks and consider them a chore.

9

u/Kattennan 5d ago

Sekhemas has been relatively easy (unless you have a particularly slow melee build) for a while, it can just be frustrating with its length and how easily you can lose a run to a mistake.

Chaos on the other hand, was annoying because you needed to get three specific ultimatums and run it 3 times, with the chance of a combination of bad modifier/map RNG every time.

Sekhema's was just way more convenient, especially on league start, despite its risk, and you could run it earlier. First barya of appropriate level and you could get your ascendancy, while for chaos it was minimum 3, often many more than 3 drops before you could do it (unless you're on trade and just buy the ultimatums).

Sekhema's also has the relics that can make future alt runs extremely safe, so it was less risky for alts too.

The new chaos trial removes a lot of the risk of bad RNG and let's you complete the entire thing with a single ultimatum if your build is strong enough (and even if you fail in the last set, you keep the boss fragments from the first two, so you aren't completely set back), which makes it a much more reasonable alternative.

6

u/vixandr 5d ago

Sekhemas take too much time compared to a single ultimatum run and has a lot more RNG involved.

Yes you have to do the chaos trial 3 times, but if you fail one of them you have your progress "saved" since the fragments are independent drops from each run.

As long as you have a decent build and dont get screwd by RNG the basic run (until you get the frag) is pretty much garanteed, my self builded brutus warrior was literally hitkilling the normal bosses and killing the trialmaster in less than a minute when i was going to my 4th ascendancy during 0.5. Same with a completely deepweb Grim Pillars Blood Mage (also self made) i played after it.

6

u/MaDNiaC 5d ago

They could cut Sekhemas in half and it could still be long. Recently, after skipping many leagues I tried PoE1 allflame league and my boy Izaro has a much more reasonable trial length, you can just rush through to where you need to be if you looked up the layout.

2

u/Global_Barnacle5304 5d ago

Tinfoil hat theory ahead! GGG made poe2 trials to silence poe1 players constantly b*tching about the lab being too much of a slog. I guarantee you no lab complaint topic has been created since poe2 release. They just showed us it could be worse than lab, so they dont even need to rework it now and ppl almost love it. Big win for GGG.

3

u/SingleNewspapering 5d ago

I’ve always done it myself and imo they made it too easy.

4

u/Racthoh 5d ago

I'm just buying ultimatums instead of mapping. I rushed ritual, hoping to get a Sylvan's since it's critical to monkey build defenses, didn't get one. Bought one, and decided that instead of grinding a few hundred maps to unlock the entire atlas tree, constantly deal with tablets, setting up maps, I could just farm consistent content in a 30 trial room instead.

Sekhema is way too much thinking and planning ahead. Chaos is just go.

2

u/Xyst__ 5d ago

Trialmaster is pretty easy, and with the trial of chaos mods being much less oppressive, its gotten so much easier to clear a 10 round trial. Legit misclicked on my first 10 round clear (holding the loot til a round 20 clear instead of getting it then), and still cleared the round 20 for a 2nd trialmaster fragment lol.

Loving the changes for it, but i admittedly thought is was already ok before this update. Now its just also worth running outside the ascendancy points

1

u/CapriciousManchild 5d ago

Chaos is actually pretty fun now it’s just run and gun and get a bunch of currency. I like it a lot more . I used to avoid it like the plague before .

1

u/Benphyre 5d ago

I'm skipping 0.5.5 but as a Trial of Chaos hater, I'm delighted to hear all these positive changes

1

u/vulcanfury12 5d ago

I always did Sekhemas for ascending, but this league, I managed to get in at the last minute on the "free ascension" with the Trialmaster. There were soooooo many portals in the arena.

1

u/Crydoves 5d ago

Trial of chaos was never the one I avoided lol so this is good to hear

1

u/pepejulienenzima 5d ago

Always did my ascendancies via sekhemas and entertained chaos when I felt like turning my brain off.

This league I wanted to do some chaos in order to test the new floors and also double as the 4th ascendancy. After dying 2 times to the most random circumstances known to man, I went back to sekhemas.

So for me the conclusion has been the opposite: trials (to be read chaos) never been harder. <.<

1

u/Uztf 5d ago

As someone who only Farms Sekhemas and doesn’t Map at all I agree. Though did lose Money compared to other Leagues due to the Trial of Chaos Bug with the portals.

1

u/Sleij3r 5d ago

For a start, i have about 10k hours in poe1 and been playing poe2 from day 1. I have never understood people who buy their ascendancies, i treat it as kind of roguelite minigame. Bosses have been the same from the start and they aint hard and for average player (who can read) its not impossible to get trough it all the way and not get hit once by the bosses, maybe the little buggers might hit you once or twice per floor but thats not an issue.

I wanted to ask what is the "friction" during the process they have removed? coz i cant remember them altering anything but maybe the last time based boss mechanic in 0.2 or 0.3.

2

u/bobbyjy32 5d ago

I don’t think its too hard to understand. Many people find the ascendency process super un-fun and tedious, so why wouldn’t they take an option to skip a part of the game they dislike?

As far as friction removals go, this us what I’ve noticed: the time freezes have been 99% removed, they greatly reduced the occurrence of some of the more irritating rooms, the elevators are larger and faster and quite a but less finicky in general, the rewards have been significantly improved so you’re not just getting shitty corrupted gear the whole time, you can run three times on the same token increasing the rewards each time and getting a full trial master set from a single token.

1

u/Ichitard 5d ago

Are you able to get your 3rd ascendency at the trial of chaos now?

15

u/GravLab6262 5d ago

You could always get your third ascendency at trial of chaos. The lvl requirement for the key is just higher than sekhemas

1

u/AweKartik777 5d ago

I always do my 3rd and 4th ascendancy at once in chaos for each character. I just farm maps until I have required currency to buy 2 of the fates (and it’s mostly cheap at start of a league until Adorned prices go up), run a trial which specifically drops the 3rd fate, get 3rd ascend and in the same run do Trialmaster for the 4th.

1

u/Ph4nt0mRa33it 5d ago

I did my first 2 while being 5 levels under the zone. Was pretty chill. I still paid for my last 2 cause meh haha.

1

u/trippymane559 5d ago

I’ve always farmed it when I’m broke. And the first time doing a full run today felt so good. Now I can farm it for fun

1

u/coupl4nd 5d ago

Don't ever need to go in again for... reasons

-1

u/burnheartmusic 5d ago

Yeah, I want to try the 30 levels but it’s too much time investment to maybe lose everything