I feel like Trials are a bit Overtuned in PoE 2

[@GhazzyTV]

The SUBATHON IS STILL LIVE! Swing by and check it out, I'm going to be doing some crazy subgoals in the next couple of days.. like.. .surströmming...... www.twitch.tv/ghazzytv

[@kcaddej2955]

I have farmed mageblood in Settlers doing sanctum 4 days straight 12 hours a day, thought you needed to know that

[@0Ceress0]

I have an easy solution for your problem. Play bloodmage, you don't need to do your first ascendancy, because it's detrimental to your progress.

[@asluckdespairs]

Both mechanics are famously known for *needing a specialized build* Why would ANYONE think it was logical to lock *BASE* player power behind needing a special built character. 😂

[@amethonys2798]

The idea is fine if it wasn't tuned like 10 area level higher than what is listed. It can be slightly difficult (doing the first ascendancy in PoE1 before end of A3 was also kind of sketchy), but this is absurd. Also, the Sanctum is just too long. It should be like 4 rooms and the boss instead of the 8 or whatever it is now. Just lower the honor to compensate since taking 20 minutes (you HAVE to play super safe) to brick the run on the boss is so unbelievably frustrating. At least with ultimatum if you die in room 2 or whatever you're only out like 3 minutes.

[@Vael221]

@@amethonys2798 Yeah I was pretty peeved last night trying to run the double Sanctum for the third ascendency and spent like 40 min only to have an adhd moment mid death race and get blown up

[@Barewell]

Because you can dodge now. It’s not poe1. I can do it on melee character in a couple tries lol

[@crystalmaiden4433]

Ultimatum is overturned as all hell and literally every 4-mod combination is toxic af

[@theMisfit81]

exactly my thought, its beyond me why they pick the 2 most specialised activities for that. at least ultimatum isnt that small circle anymore, but still not a fun mechanic. i hated the lab trials, but i would rather do them then ultimatum and sanctuary

[@daemoszythaer]

Flawless logic between psychopaths and sanctum enjoyers

[@danielkadiri2378]

Lmao I do like sanctum 😂

[@Zemlja_je_ravna]

@@danielkadiri2378 you psychopath

[@sklipnoty]

Hahah! Yes spot on!

[@Granulomacure]

Which is odd because Ghazzy is ranged ... and minions. In POE1 sanctum with SRS is ... hilariously easy. The new sanctum is so forgiving that I dont know how he hates it. I think its probably he cant see that well with all the minions on his current setup.

[@arjunratnadev]

hey! I'm on my tenth attempt now, I will finish this DAMN! frist Sekekma's trial by any means necessary

[@YooKevvv]

I like the trail construction but the honour system can disappear.

[@xue_ming]

make monster stronger but remove honour and Sanctum would be fun.

[@Zanbatoss]

True

[@beesh8702]

i just want to know who proposed the idea that honor should be added to the first and third trial. in poe 1, the majority of the community hated the honor mechanic and yet ggg thought it was a great idea to add it back. and not shocking at all, no one likes the honor mechanic in poe 2. why couldn't have they just learned from their lesson?

[@barely_awake]

Fully agree on all of your points. When they did the reveal, and it was clear one of the trials was Sanctum, I was like „oh shit please no“. Then they showed the alternative, Ultimatum, and I was like „eh, still better than Sanctum I guess“. Now I played the game, realized how far apart Sekhema and Chaos are in the campaign, and I’m back to „oh shit please no“. It feels quite weird that they insisted so much on wanting to give people choices, just to force them into one of these choices by spreading the choices out so much in a game where every bit of character power feels important.

[@Yoonoh]

yea, it would have felt a little better if the trials of sekama was on the later half of act 2. as it is now it feels like im leaving too much power on the table for too long by waiting til the ultimatum trial

[@TheExplodingCore]

help me understand this please. Never had contact with sanctum. Just got into PoE with Settlers. The ascendancy with sanctum is really, really easy tho? I think you can even kinda cheese it by slapping on some ES gear before entering..? And you just have to do a few of those challenges and a very basic boss. I'd agree that a smaller trial map, so half the rooms would be enough but other than that.. idk. The Ultimatum trial was much worse. Like those mods.. holy. I'd argue one or two of them at most would be challenging enough for the boss fight. Although the multi head bird is insane, the other bird is better and the chimera has broken AI in that large arena. I want my one round challenger poison clouds back.. :L

[@barely_awake]

I fundamentally don’t like Sanctum because I think having a secondary, insta-fail health pool is kind of dumb. Just not fun to me. The ascendancy is easy… depending on your class. Go in there as a melee character, and you will know why so many hate it with a burning passion. It’s also very random, i.e. you can have easy modifiers, or very hard ones for your build. All of this just doesn’t add up to fun for me personally. It was also infamous for being a mechanic that required a specific build to really farm it back when it was a league… so I hope you can now see why many PoE1 players dislike that mechanic being tied to something as important as your ascendancy.

[@joefurious732]

I completely agree, and now get this: If you hate both Sanctum and Ultimatum with a passion (like me) and they finally get the 3rd option in (Trial of the Ancestors) you have to wait until act 4 until you can do your ascendancy! Such an amazing and highly intelligent idea. I really dont understand how that ever got implemented into the game like that. I hold Chris, Jonathan, Neon and all the other GGG guys in very high regard, but damn... they shit the bed with this one...

[@JohnTCampbell1986]

Yeah if acts took half hour like in PoE 1 it'd be fine. When a just about every zone from act 2 onwards is so mindblowingly massive that it takes longer to run than an entire poe1 act it's insane. You're not delaying power for 30-40 minutes, you're delaying it for ~10+ hours

[@Steph1]

My main gripe is how many levels you have to do. Just make it 2-4 stages, and give us half the honor pool

[@StormySilent]

or at least let the boss encounter have no honor pool anymore,

[@Barewell]

Idk after the first attempt learning things, I got to the boss in like 8-10 minutes my second try. One level higher.

[@Steph1]

@@Barewell my comment has nothing to do with difficulty, it’s just super annoying. I’d prefer a more condensed experience, so I can choose to run it more often rather than having to commit for a long haul process that potentially leads to nothing. If it’s meant to feel “rogue like”, which the system seems to be set up for, the gameplay itself should be the reward. But that’s not the case IMHO, because going through those traps is a chore, not a fun gameplay experience. With games like Hades you don’t care as much about failing because the levels themselves are fun and you are rewarded along the way already

[@Zemlja_je_ravna]

In Trial of Chaos bosses are just too much with all the buffs.

[@stephenswinehart]

The sanctum runs take way too long. I’m all about difficulty, but at least let me fail fast, dust off and try again. This trial is excruciating.

[@archzillla]

Sanctum is a build check, its basically impossible for some builds and trivial for others. Ultimatum is similar but not as extreme. Why you would force the entire playerbase to do one of these in place of lab is baffling

[@jakkrit6910]

you can say that for ultimatum when you try to finish 4 trial one maybe even 7. but 10? if you not tanky and in this case have enough damage to kill boss too. you will face literally steel wall. and it not fun to run head first into it and hope for the best.

[@Valkaneer]

Because they think the player base loved these mechanics due to very loud vocal reddit users.

[@Snarbalax]

Cause Lab sucks.

[@philllllllll]

Why not?

[@TheRealValdil]

Its called skill issue. That is unfortunately the fact. You can dodgeroll now.

[@rocksfire4390]

ain't no way anyone tested Ultimatum before EA lmao that shit is so grossly overtuned it's fucked up that it's released in that state.

[@JasielMartini]

They tested it. Everything is tuned exactly to how GGG wants it to be. Literally every time they release some heniously difficult crap (this, Tier 17s... and every other bit of content they've had to nerf because the community complains about how unfair it is).... it's done on purpose. The only reason they nerf things is because people cry. They WANT the game to be extremely difficult.

[@Sidewinder84x]

@@JasielMartini I disagree. I think they want the game very hard, but fair. Difficulty alone does not make a game great.

[@ahmedbadreddinemoucouf3662]

@@JasielMartini people who cant defferenciate between hard and tedious are really sick xD dude somethings are not hard in poe, they are just tedious, and the patch of yesterday is a clear slap to all of you gaslighters who want to act like the game is perfect.

[@MartinWoad]

Skill issue

[@JasielMartini]

@@ahmedbadreddinemoucouf3662 I mean, i never said y he game was perfect. I just said that the game was released at the difficulty that GGG wants us to play it at lol. Almost every bit of new content they’ve released lately has been difficult and tedious with the exception of the Kingsmarch. The graveyard? Tedious AF. tier 17s? Aids before they nerfed them. I’m just saying that they want their game to frustrate and occasionally demoralize because thats how they think the perfect version of PoE looks like. It’s also easier to release new stuff super hard and then nerf than it is to release easy rewarding content and then reign it in.

[@swiftbow2110]

Totally agree with the hate for Sanctum and Ultimatum. They chose the two most unpopular mechanics in POE 1 for this important gameplay feature. I knew this would be a problem. As well as not having scouring orbs in game. I’ll save that take on crafting for another time to stay on topic.

[@Valkaneer]

True, but on Reddit they were very popular.

[@JURITO1000]

Sanctum wasnt unpopular lol wtf you talking about

[@xWhackoJacko]

i have to bite: removing scours and alterations is diabolical work, GGG. and the rune system is not a good replacement for the bench. not even close. maybe when they expand the rune system, sure, but right now? nah

[@Uelibertiga]

@@JURITO1000 They are both polarizing mechanics. You either love them or you hate them. There is no inbetween. So forcing 2 mechanics that have no middle ground ton players that want to ascend seems like a bad idea.

[@macduff8389]

Feels like melee characters have a huge disadvantage over ranged, all because of the honor system. Like warriors with the slow attack animations, you will lose honor in the middle of the animation upon performing a slam or etc,

[@Frubeling]

Almost had my thrid ascendancy done in Sanctum, 800 honor left with two rooms and a boss to go. Finger twitches, walk into a flamethrower trap, take 700 honor damage

[@Darcwayv]

Same here😂

[@SilverWoIf77]

I completed my third ascendancy but then wasn't able to claim the ascendancy points...

[@philllllllll]

Feels like old lab. I love it.

[@Frubeling]

@philllllllll not really. Lab I would have gone "oops that was a close one" while in Sanctum that's the entire rest of my run crippled

[@0Blaki0]

@@SilverWoIf77do you know what Level your trial was ? Did a 69 sehkema Last Night and it gave me my third ascendancy

[@AdamMPick]

The trials killed the game for me. Forget that I get headaches from the engine. The trials show what GGG is doing with PoE2 and I am not up for it. Not being forced into seasonal mechanics is the best part about PoE.

[@GrindinRyan]

True, my first year of playing POE I ignored "current league mechanic" every league as I was just trying to comprehend the base game while learning what builds are good and how to push into endgame

[@ericposey-vt5ej]

GGG really loves making people do things they hate.

[@Jaguar2kicks]

That’s because exile players are masochist and think it makes them manly lol

[@adiddevil]

POE 2 BAD

[@Bandit-do4ko]

I just really dislike the honor system and the total length. I wish the length was cut in half and honor was removed, but you always get a combat affliction then you have to beat the boss with the debuffs you accumulated.

[@amethonys2798]

The other issue with Ultimatum is for some insane reason you start (almost) every run with an elevator ride straight into like 30 enemies spawn camping you. Oh you need to kite enemies to survive? Tough luck buddy you're stuck in melee with no way out of the corner.

[@crazy-tommy]

This catched me off guard as a minion player. I took the elevator down while my minions stayed up there, so I was alone with these 30 enemies. So now I always use the direct minions hotkey to try sending most of them on the elevator before I set my foot on it.

[@sachiel123]

@@crazy-tommy happened to me too. Was unable to beat it yet, they need to make the elevator bigger

[@TheExplodingCore]

I mean does it really matter when 3 rooms later you're fighting a boss with a batshit crazy 4 mod combo? You have to stomp those trash mobs anyways.

[@gamestoshowmyfriends]

As a Merc I did just fine in Sanctum surprisingly after doing very poorly in Sanctum in PoE1, but Ultimatum? That just fucking sucked, no fun whatsoever getting one tapped by monsters when im having no issue with monsters in other areas that are higher area level

[@Krendoss]

Ffs just give me izaro

[@Nosferatu-BE]

yup i rather do the labs again :(

[@jayson546]

YES… where there’s a silver key there must be a silver door.

[@dalebandalan9312]

Izaro legit reminded me of Olmec from legends of the hidden temple

[@benjiwallace9082]

Yes both sanctum and ultimatetium are over kill ultimate debuffs are way to high

[@thold6044]

I'd like ultimatum more if my minions took the damn elevator

[@MirridonOnslaught]

You can command them to go in front before you step on the elevator. This worked for me.

[@ryandugan9176]

Fun thing I learned while doing my first ascendency on console; if you map an ability to your interact button(which you realistically will have done by this point) then you cannot interact with the stupid crystals in the time trial unless there is no targetable enemies within the 12 meters around your character. Sanctum was a wall until I actively reduced my character power because of this.

[@guitomito6793]

You can use the right stick to look at the crystal, then you will be able to interact even if there are enemies around, took me a while to discover this aswell

[@asgrimsuncaller6300]

"Don't tell me if you disagree with me" based af, sanctum blows.

[@MirridonOnslaught]

Everyone is saying honor in sanctum is the issue. I must also agree.

[@randomfeg4141]

Same I dropped a 3 floor sanctum but I got one-tapped by a trap on the 3rd floor like 1-2 rooms before the last boss, I then bought a 7 trial ultimatum thinking its easier, my game crashed right before the last boss room, so it got deleted, bought another rolled insane modifiers between rooms, sweat my balls off killing the last boss only to find out I can't click the ascendancy altar. I just alt f4-d and watched a movie. I was so pissed.

[@YTacc-n4]

Pretty much the same experience, they need to be more clear how you ascend

[@ouroboros4664]

Same for me.. some trap rooms are fking broken.also afliction rng.

[@vampocalpyse]

I despise Sanctum with all my being. Even though it wasn't as bad as POE1 as an SRS build I will not be interacting with this again until the next league, and maybe not even then as the campaign takes so long to do idk if I want to repeat that slog.

[@GrenadeBoB]

Way over tuned. Sanctum sucks so much as a melee character but with minion build it was quite easy (but still ass)

[@TheKingpool7]

Totally agree with you. There is zero reason to pick ultimatum or sanctum from poe 1 to bring to poe 2. Those two would be first I would cut from poe 1 as it just useless bloat.

[@ouroboros4664]

I my opinion both should be deleted

[@Kasgaatvaaknaarbuiten]

They thought: people dislike PoE1 Ascendancy Trials, they will love these.

[@2fat4airborne44]

I agree regarding the overtune and the confusing implementation - also i really do hate RNG decides if you can actually / realisticly win.

[@wilburtshnookums]

played warrior and ultimatum trial felt like i was the server getting swarmed by players on launch hour

[@jfd4706]

🤣

[@kaex7097]

Sanctum 1 = first ascendancy (quest) Sanctum 2 or ultimatum 4 = second ascendancy (you have all done probably the ultimatum 4 because is in act 3 and sanctum 2 item drop randomly) Sanctum 3 or ultimatum 7 = third ascendancy Sanctum 4 or ultimatum 10 = fourth ascendancy. You can mix, for second ascendancy you can done sanctum 2 and for the third ascendancy you can do ultimatum 7 for example.

[@TheDontbeEvil]

I hate forced sanctum. It was supposed to be "optional". Some of the stuff in the game is so tedious and unnecessary hard that made be burn out after a day of gaming.

[@Alloran]

Labyrinth was just a better way to ascend. Traps to check your defenses and decision making, a "maze layout" that actually isn't as much when you get used to it, an ethical boss encounter to test your power, and boom, you get to claim your ascendancy points. Sanctum doesn't even test your build power, it's straight up binary: can you avoid being hit or not. Your sustain, your resists, none of it is important in sanctum, can you dps things to avoid being touched or is your build ranged and you can dodge mob mechanics/spam, that's all that matters. Ultimatum is simply cancerous nonsense. Half the mods in ultimatum spawn shit that follows you around the map or occupy enormous pieces of the screen and kill you if you stay inside them.

[@YTacc-n4]

The ring of doom mod is insane, literally covers 80% of the area and one shots

[@kekplexis]

Yeah I was upset too when I found out during the reveal stream that the new way to ascend is the two most hated by me and most punishing league mechanics

[@shidoumezawa]

The trial should be just the boss fight (or they should let have a checkpoint at the boss)

[@MegaFeFi]

A checkpoint on that stupid bird boss could make me enjoy more the struggle, but I have to do 4 rooms and screw my mental health with some choices. I hate you Vaal drone!!!!

[@the1onlynoob]

sanctum's whole honor mechanic shits on melee, I played with a warrior friend and he was too scared to get near mobs and still died due to honour running out.

[@philllllllll]

I play single-target melee with no defenses and I EASILY cleared sanctum on my first try without being overlevelled. It's not that bad.

[@the1onlynoob]

@@philllllllll Look out guys, we have a badass over here!

[@trad5479]

Sanctum is perfectly doable as melee man, stop spreading misinformation please.

[@ouroboros4664]

​@@phillllllllldo the lvl 70 one buddy

[@ٴٴٴ-ظ4ذ]

​@@philllllllll homie confuses the tutorial when you strand with sanctum 😂

[@Insane_Power]

It seems like GGG was so insanely cautious giving us anything that relates to player power. A lot of the early ascendancy nodes are just trash to get to the ones behind them some classes feel like you only get 2 ascendancy nodes. That plus the hilarious drop rates and the amount of skill tree nodes that have substantial down sides. I feel most of this is built in to fight the inevitable power creep but its too high for the game right now and feels bipolar cause it is not even the same acrossed the board.

[@kingfisher1638]

Yeah I'm getting to the point where I'm likely not going to play this game unless player power/agency improves DRASTICALLY during campaign. If it survives its first 2-3 leagues I'll revisit it. Just not having fun.

[@Adromelk]

the honor system is the dumbest thing ever thought up for trials. it's completely weighted for ranged classes and even then it's not fun.

[@Piper0185]

Sanctum changes- gain honor when kill a rare. Remove honor for boss room. Remove -40% damage on self and minions, its an instant quit.

[@Darkspawn6666]

I understand that when i sweat other people are probably failing but it was kinda alright, ultimatum RNG can fist you hard though. I would just lock ascendancies behind specific zone + kill zone boss (specific for those 2 ascendancy points).

[@felixsimon2]

One thing i like about this whole mess, is that all these problems are just numbers game and its just 3 days after early access launch. Im sure they will tune down the Ultimatum, and probably Sanctum as well. Less dmg to the enemies and traps, less rooms, more loot, etc, its all just numbers that they can fix easily. So far nothing fundamental is broken and thats what really matters for me.

[@oLaudix]

Sanctum is a flawed mechanic by itself and there is no fixing that unless they completely redesign it. If they just lower the numbers itll trivialise it like lab was.

[@ProfWollhoven]

Yeah but isn't it awesome how they have nerfed multiple things already in terms of Player power but did nothing in terms of stuff like this, despite more people complaining about it?

[@basedcringe9000]

I just think 95% od people hate Sanctum way too hard for it to be this mandatory

[@DimkaTsv]

​@@ProfWollhoven hadn't you thought that literally changing few numbers on skill multipliers is a lot easier that tuning mechanic? Changing number is way easier to do, and that fix basically takes few seconds at most (after appropriate number is found out) They needed to nerf this skills fast (especially gas ones), as they really were massively overtuned and abused (did it myself with Gas Grenades, but Gas Arrow was even stronger as it had no cooldown). So they nerfed them to ground until they change mechanic for those. Changing Ascendancy requires a lot more time and internal discussions on how to do it properly.

[@ruorick]

I kinda also just miss the good old fashioned trials we had in POE1 with Izaro.

[@Valkaneer]

I have no problem with the Trial of the Sekhemas if they removed the Sanctum league mechanics. Can your build pass the floor and live? That is all that should matter. No curses, no honor, ETC. If you wan to do the Trial of the Sekhemas with the Sanctum mechanics it should just reward you more loot options, kind of like choosing to get Treasure Chest keys and Alters in Labs.

[@GrindinRyan]

Good idea, ascendancy behind beating the combat encounters, Sanctum rewards for doing honor nonsense

[@stueyman2099]

Part of it is tuning, and part of it is also information overload. I spent a bunch of time trying to clear 4 rounds of ultimatum last night. In that time I had to learn what every affix does, how it affects my particular character, how monsters interact with it (vines on the chimera and vulture bosses are excruciating, I got locked into a dodge roll for 2s a couple times) AND I have to learn how 3 bosses work since I don't know which I'll get. These bosses /might/ be a fair challenge without the ultimatum abilities, and it really feels like the intended design didn't include them. This is fine for end game content, but not leveling. I never played Sanctum, but it was obvious from the start that it's something you'd want to build around to be successful, and my leveling strategy of tank hits and passively regen life is completely invalidated by it. Horrible design to funnel all players through it.

[@coachbrandon7512]

In POE1, Sanctum and Ultimatum are two of the mechanics I hate the most. This is not good news for me.

[@derspielmann4158]

Sanctum made me quit PoE 1 for 6 Months. I don't think I will be playing PoE 2 much if I feel forced to do Sanctum on EVERY Character

[@brunobejuk6350]

and the monsters in sanctum are crazy. rolling bugs, digging snakes. shit hits you that you dont even know could hit you behind a wall. losing so much honor on spikes and stuff its crazy.

[@vincentFGC]

sanctum/sekehma is legit VERY hard for a minion build, srs/firewall being prevalent, visual clarity is a pretty big problem, you legit cant see shit

[@Ben-iv4yb]

I did it as srs at lvl 24 and thought it was super easy

[@vincentFGC]

@Ben-iv4yb normal is easy wait until you do the 5 floor one

[@alexandrebuttercat6019]

Really Hate sanctum too, don't understand why they brought it in there, in POE 1 ppl would bury themselves in there non stop only because it was the most div rewarding mechanic, but it's really a niche gameplay that, I can bet, most of us don't like.

[@InfoRanker]

Sanctum, I don't like it. It's shit

[@Sigma2_YT]

Both "options" are cursed OP and by far way too overturned. I don't like either mechanic but I am forced to interact with at least one. There is no FUN in this. Forced "choice" is no choice.

[@ArticulateArena]

If I were to try and get get to endgame instead of just go back to poe 1, it would only be after they remove sanctum

[@legrimm83]

Both of these poe 1 mechanics I hated and would always skip. They force you to play a build that might not be your cup of tea to do a required mechanic/system. At least the original PoE 1 was cheese-able both of these mechanics aren't. I wasn't happy when they announced these during the preview trailers and after feeling the games hardness factor of content with crap RNG Gear might just wait until further in EA to continue idk. Not fully enjoying so far.

[@andrzejsiwek8182]

Im agree, i hate Sanctum ... and Ultimatum is OMFG crazy

[@Saranio]

Take this with a grain of salt but this is my experience with the trials so far. Im currently in the middle of act 3 with a Minion Infernalist. I didnt have any problems with the first sanctum until I reached the boss.. Trying to kill that fire resistant golem that keeps spawning more and more volcanos that eventually drain all your remaining honor and make you lose with SRS as my main damage source was too hard for me. Not being able to do any meaningfull damage while the boss keeps snowballing made it impossible to beat him. Couldnt do it and ~20 minutes to run through the rest of sanctum just to get bodyblocked by that boss really felt awfull. Had to quit and level until I got the -fire res curse to have a chance to beat it. The stages leading to said boss felt fair and (on the first few runs) fun to me. Well, im playing a minion build so that makes it kinda easy to just hold back and try to not get hit by the mobs while my minions clear the stage. Wouldnt want to imagine trying that with a melee class tho. Ultimatum on the other hand, no chance.. There are just some modifiers that make the bosses borderline unbeatable. But my biggest gripe is that my minions always get stuck on that bridge when I take the elevator down into the trials so the first thing I always have to do is to panic run through the spawned mobs to try and despawn my minions and wait for them to respawn. Could be a little bit of retribution for having easier sanctums with the minions but it just makes the Ultimatums needlessly tedious and dangerous for me.

[@shaneful375]

Command your minions to run to the elevator. A bit finnicky, but you can get many of them on. Alternatively I think you can weapon swap to make them despawn and respawn.

[@Vael221]

I do wonder if the system is just legitimately broken right now (tuning issues not withstanding). Despite what they say about there being a choice, it seems to me that the baseline intention of the system is that you do each of the three trials once on the "normal" mode to get your first three ascendency point sets, and then choose whichever one you want to do again as an "Uber" variant for your fourth set of points. Given this as the expected baseline, I wonder if the system is actually just broken because they stopped work on Act 4 (and 5/6) to work on the endgame, and the ascendency system just got caught in the crossfire. So the reason you can't get the last set of nodes is because you are actually getting points 1/2/4 and are missing the third points you would get from Act 4.

[@Vepar90]

I think It was bugged. According to Ziggy's video, we should NOT have gotten points 3 and 4 from completing the 1st Ultimatum. Ziggy Explained (and this was explained to him by GGG staff), you can choose between Sanctum and Ultimatum. Points 1 and 2 given by Sanctum floor 1 OR Ultimatum 4 (or the green quest ones) Points 3 and 4 given by Sanctum floor 2 OR Ultimatum 7 Points 5 and 6 given by Sanctum floor 3 OR Ultimatum 10 Points 7 and 8 given by Sanctum floor 4 OR Ultimatum 13? (not sure exactly)

[@Vael221]

@@Vepar90 That does make some sense, although given the way they talked about it I didn't think they were going to gate ascension behind high levels of either. Either way there definitely seems to be something screwy going on and I maintain my theory of it being borked because they had to pause the implementation of Act4 (it's definitely Trial of the Ancestors from poe1 btw) ascension and do an emergency restructuring of it.

[@howrelaxing]

Making Sanctum the first ascendancy trial is the worst thing for POE2. It's boring, hardcore, and very limited to those specialized, high-DPS, and hit-and-run builds. GGG even made a hotfix on the sanctum difficulty, making it much less likely to give you afflictions. BUT, THE REAL PROBLEM IS: Why would anyone lock the base need for all players behind this build-specific mechanics?

[@zatch01]

Two of my least favorite activities in POE now required to unlock my character flavor. Calling it right now, since they recently love squaring up for a kick to the nuts on content I’m forced to do that no one liked. Act 4/5 ascendancy will be trial of the ancestors. When they were a league I felt I had to build my character around doing them. Ok, that can have its own appeal. Forcing whatever build you’re currently leveling and to make it work. not fun.

[@flawed1]

The choice to lock build enabling passive behind a legitimate challenges is baffling to me. The best way to improve my build is to unlock my ascendancy, but my build isn’t good enough to beat the trials. It’s silly. There’s no reason for ascendancy to be tied to what’s clearly an endgame mechanic for farming loot.

[@Aisaaax]

I personally found it not too hard but definitely confusing. The rooms are placed in a grid that makes you expect certain number of options, but that's not always the case. The timed running trial can easily be failed if you miss where the spark flew off. Needs better navigation. There's no explanation what keys are for, what water is for, etc. No explanation of Honor. Some debuffs are way overturned. I feel it really needs a tutorial. A quick 4-5 room linear run where you are "opening the maze". No challenges there, an almost auto-clear encounters with easy mobs and explanation of mechanics.

[@XxYannis]

Agreed, just a heads up about the grid, there's arrows pointing to which rooms you can and can't go from a specific room

[@ganknshank]

Thank you for making this. when I saw sanctum was the first option for trials I was very disappointed. I absolutely detest it as a mechanic and I am glad they give you the “option” to progress through ultimatum but it is a false choice because it not available until much later.

[@a2daj83]

i dont like sanctum or ultimatum in poe1... i'd rather run labs all day than this nonsense (and i dont like lab either, but at least i can get through it with any character i make)

[@Valkaneer]

Trial of the Sekhemas needs the Sanctum mechanics (especially honor) removed so that every class has an equal chance to get though the game at the same speed. The game is hard and slow, therefor the game needs to be balanced. PoE is a game of efficiency and speed, every class should be able to the trials at the same time, not melee having to wait till act 3 while casters get to plow through at level 22. These league mechanics required special builds just to do them, you tailored your build for the league mechanic.

[@julianB93]

I think they should either drop the honour completely or replace it with a timer. So people who are fast and strong can get more keys and slower people can refill the timer with the room rewards.

[@HaPKoMaTo3]

This sanctum shit being mandatory is giga-ass. Like i'm playing tanky slow slam build and white mobs just eat through my entire honor pool before i can reach lvl3 boss... I usually oneshot bosses with 1 ignite, but whit mobs just dodge all my attacks and i'm gigaslow. So yea, i can go try ultimatum thing right? Well,you usually endup having to turn off your defences or mobs get too strong or you get all the ruin in the world and fail before the boss... Also monsters there are much more annoying to deal with. While i was winding up my 2second slam thos charging fuckers pulled my character off the screen and sold him into salvery.

[@oleg.helgwar]

I very much hope GGG will tune down the trials. These are simply not fun. I'm not talking about difficult. It could be difficult AND fun. But this is simply difficult AND NOT fun

[@erickraudi8661]

while I don't like sanctum, I feel like they at least try to be true to their words on that you can dodge almost all of the damage, but in ultimatum you are gonna get hit and you are very likely to be stunlock or just oneshot

[@Zhyrez]

The Sanctum trials Affliction and Boons are super unbalanced. I got a run where the first 3 Afflictions where 50% monster dmg / -15% player dmg / -25% honor and I managed to get 3 Boons which here 7 Honor on Room completion / 34 honor when interactin with a shrine / 55 honor when entering the boss room. You get hit with so many Afflictions that have massive downsides but rarely any good upside ones. And Rattlecage and his enemy type has the WORST hitbox for melee characters ever since for some reason that enemy type has their fists/front feet as the hitbox not their body so you end up in very weird positions and often just not hit the enemy since their actually hitbox moves around so much. All in all Sanctum is just a boring RNG fest where you hope you get Afflictions that either doesn't nerf you too much or buff enemies too much.

[@pierrenoel6878]

I believe you are completely right. Sanctum is the only content in POE that I really dislike. And ultimatum trial has not be properly tested it is clear as day.

[@DarkParadeHF]

The trials are the only thing I absolutely hate about the game right now. I really don't like sanctum or ultimatum

[@ClusterDSA]

Agreed across the board. I don't like Sanctum, but did it anyway at 22 because there was no way I was waiting to ascend. Was sure I was going to do Ultimatum for all future ascendancy points but then when I got the first Ultimatum token it is so ridiculously over tuned that I gave up and just continued on after a while. All the negative effects you can pick in Ultimatum are tuned like you have a character with really good defenses when it seems like gear is universally hard to get and so getting defenses is like hitting the lottery. Which makes Ultimatum ridiculously hard.

[@MikeTsa7]

Big agree, as someone who builds defensively , with slam type skills being my favorite and dislikes fast movement builds from PoE 1, sanctum and the honor system was something I never wanted to interact with. I went in the act 2 trial at lvl 21 when it opened and while I'm very hard to kill I couldn't finish the trial because I kept losing my honor points, had to come back at a higher level. Really wish they follow their promise to make them actually optional so I don't have to bother with it again.

[@ktsu8627]

I hate both, but Ultimatum was worse for me. Ignoring the over tuned part, my minions kept getting stuck on the platforms and then off themselves once i was too far away, triggering the full resummon timer.

[@HArryvajonas]

The debuffs in the Chaos trials are way way to overtuned.

[@echovisor7485]

For Ultimatum, if 4 gives you your 2nd ascendency, 7 gives you 2nd as well, and 10 is 3rd ascendency, then it is only depressingly natural that the ultimatum pinnacle boss encounter where you are (I'm assuming) supposed to fight the trialmaster himself is where you get your 4th and final ascendency.

[@thomasdomke4131]

Ok I’m glad it’s not just me having issues…. I thought I was just terrible. Maybe I am but it seems way overtuned.

[@ouroboros4664]

I wasted 5 hours today to try to ascend as a warior..and still failed .. and i am lvl 76 .. i also hate sanctyn si nuch i never touched it in poe1

[@BoringLoginName]

Dealing with Ultimatum was excruciating, even as I improved and ultimately managed to beat it. Also GGG needs to at least make it more clear that you don't need to run all 10 ultimatum trials to get the ascendancy, because while I was in wallowing in pain trying to deal with everything, the UI showing that were still 7 more to go made me feel miserable. I gave up twice and returned to grinding before I actually managed to beat it.

[@itsnotpan.]

I just don’t like trials in general. You lose all progress if you die…. That’s just boring.

[@GoranBeviin]

How assendancies work (M thoughts) To get two Acendancy points you either have to do a trial you have not done yet at all or do a trial you have already done woth the apropriate difficulty. Meaning each trial has 4 tiers and you need to do a trial of the tier 1 for points 1+2, tier 2 for points 3+4, tier 3 for points 5+6 and tier 4 for points 7+8. So once the full game is there you usualy get your points 1-6 from the 3 trials you do during campaign, and then in endgame you pock one of them and do at at tier 4.

[@DeedlyDood]

The biggest problem with it is that it seems balanced around having max honor damage resistance from relics. Once I did that, it was much easier. Most things did very little honor damage.

[@janiccain]

Ascendency should not be locked behind any mechanic. I hated Lab as well but at least it was easy

[@michaelyohn5026]

agree 100% way too over tuned and having monsters in trap rooms and unfair mobs with ult is just dumb

[@jewelligan7012]

The trials are far from confusing but it is absolutely such a dogshit mechanic lol. Sanctum and ultimatum too hard u got to be 10 levels ahead before you can complete it

[@rezz5700]

I personally hate both options they fucked us both ways lol

[@robthaham3408]

Vid should edit in Empy's group getting one shot at around level 75 trying to get their 3rd asc nodes.

[@thorveim1174]

my issue with the trials is really that they are best tackled with tailor builds, while here they make it so EVERY character will want to complete them at least once. Sanctum is much easier once overlevelled, but the honor system completely bones melee characters as you want to avoid getting hit at all by the plague, even by otherwise harmless attacks, and ultimatum is somewhere you ideally want top notch resistances if not outright immunities to make the extra mechanics as harmless as possible

[@iancurwood8854]

Lol I also hate sanctum. I always have. I play poe and poe2 to play an ARPG not a roguelike. Anyway, I thought it was just me so am glad someone else out there feels the same.

[@sintheticgaming]

I completely agree with Ghazzy

[@ExcessumGaming]

Agreeed 10000000000000000000000% if you thought PoE1 Trials where bad you will be missing them now lol....

[@TheSilverwing999]

My biggest issue isn't so much sanctum or ultimatum, but more the fact that one can be done from act 2 and one in act 3. It sort of means you are still a bit forced into doing sanctum anyway if you want your ascendancy fast. I think the choice will feel better once the 3rd trial comes out and people who don't like either can skip sanctum or ulti. As long as they make them available at the same spot in the campaign. My own issue is current tuning of ultimatum specifically. It's just way too demanding and only very few specialised characters can do it. That doesn't work for an ascendancy unlock.

[@ryanchau6108]

Yeah, that the overall problem for me is poe2,I feel like I am doing so much thing that I don't want to do from act to end game but I must do it to progress the game, I will keep playing until I see the whole endgame but look like this maybe the only character I would make in this game judging by the current state of the game

[@randomgirl3269]

THANK YOU!!! I hate sanctum so dadgum much, I skipped it every season and now with POE2 its not optional which ... lemme say, it took me 3 tries to finally just get the first one done, and I had to over level the area to get enough upgrades to have the dps for it. The lack of frequent decent gear drops helps make everything god awful.

[@turiel86]

My main gripe with Ultimatum is the soul core room. Here you are constantly assaulted by spawning mobs, you get random shit dropped on top of you every now and then and now you are locked into o 3 second animation droping the fucking stone into a slot with no chance of cancelling it if something bad suddenly happens. Fuckin' ticks me off. It's like, didn't we learn anything from D4?

[@OldGoat-cw8he]

I despise Sanctum and Ultimatum. Requiring them for ascension is probably going to just drive me back to PoE1.

[@simonc586]

"A bit" is a understatement. I was watching you before my Sunday roast was ready, went to eat that, came back and you where STILL doing it. They must of thought, people generally dislike Lab, let's make it even worse.

[@MaxiAkse]

100% agree with Ghazzy on sanctum. This mechanic should not exist. It's overtuned, it's artificially prolonged, your defences doesn't matter, and when you die on the boss - it's a complete waste of your time.

[@darkwinter8]

Gotta love a long trial that ends in a ridiculous boss where you fight him without pots just for two Ascension points.

[@francisstranieri2067]

I always skipped Sanctum and Ultimatum on PoE1, so it seems I need to suffur on PoE2.

[@slawekkostka2483]

I remind myself why i hate sanctum :) Remove honor plz. For melee it's a tragedy

[@Apaclypse]

Trails will kill the new player base and I honestly can’t recommend the game to a new player because of the trails difficultly… it’s brutal