Ascendancy Trials in POE2 make the game completely unbearable and unfun.

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Devs, please consider making Sanctum and Ultimatum optional for end game only. No amount of nerfs will make it fun. You can see the numbers from POE1 and the interest in this type of content. Most players simply avoid engaging with it because it's the most boring of the end game content.

Im level 71 socc. this is my feeling about this 2 stupid trial after several failed attemps on 3rd accendancy.

- Trial of shakhema: completely trash. the trial is long and boring, force ppl to evade attack rather than optimize the build themself.
- trial of chaos: less worst, but the boss mechanic is fucking a mitstery cuz random boss. for example. chimera is easy because u have encounter it act. but the bird and raven, i dont know what skill, and i die without knowing reason (tornado) and there is no way for me to know the mechanic unless i sacrifice a ton of attemp

Back in poe 1, when ppl is just grind enough to pass trial, the maze also provide buff to help it better. it power up char for end game content. but in poe2, ppl have to play endgame content to gear up, then play trial, then stil fail cuz sshity mechanic

Get honor and nonsense boss buffs in chaos put of the game

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WizardofVoid#5398 wrote:

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Excellus#2314 wrote:

So until this is patched I'm done with the game. I have other things in my life that demand my attention more than mindlessly grinding entry items.

Kind of curious about the percentage of people doing Sanctum in PoE. What made GGG add that into the 2nd game for ascendancy?

I just uninstalled because of this too. Back to Stalker I guess. Will check back on the 2nd game in 2026.

Personally wouldn't even mind it as much if it were poe 1 sanctum tbh. Not going to uninstall over it but it is really frustrating the amount of RNG that is behind ascending now, whether you pick ulti or sanctum. Lost my 3rd ascend to a random affliction (Lose all ES -> insta fail 1 room before boss lul) and then again to chain petri on last room of trial of chaos, as other option bricked my build. Hopefully there is some revision coming before full release.

I totally agree those ascendancy trials are so stupid ! It is getting on everybody's nerves.

I just failed at the final sekhema's boss because I didn't have enough speed to get those Time bubbles, I had almost all my honor, I was destroying the boss, but no GGG decided that we would get one shot because you are 2 Meters short, because you know they want so much us to do over and over this shit for nothing, like we have days to loose.

Now that I know I will succeed for sure within few tries, but most of thé players will never be able to get their fourth ascendancy by themselves.

How can you make such bad decisions and stick with it ?
Right now because of your trials I don't feel like I played, mostly feeling like I wasted my Time, this is such an unpleasant feeling, I really don't thanks you for this really bad experience GGG.

I'm not even able to get my third after hours of trying and I play Souls Games regularly.

I've just given up and play without ascending. Although I'm not sure if I even want too, because most League Mechanics are unbalanced bullshit as well

I couldn’t agree more with the frustration with these trials. The negatives significantly out way the positives on each room roll for both trials. Sole builds/classes are just breezing through while others completely struggle. I’m a titan warrior.

My skills are soooo slow and sluggish. This is my biggest pain point as the warrior. The cast times are so slow which leaves you completely vulnerable. Even with the adjustment to how close you are means you lose less honor. But that’s still insignificant since you STILL have to take damage almost consistently. Not every warrior is a totem build to keep you out of harms way. If cast times for skills were faster I could maybe give this a pass. But when a monsters attack while doing your attack and they have to “charge” up. You’re just a doting duck and have to take the hits. You can try and use relics but they do not offset much. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.

My build isn’t totem, so end game is getting harder and I need to ascend in order to finally use better weapons because the cost of giants blood is astronomical. I’m also low on gold because I have been rolling on gear to try and improve stats. Since that’s the name of the game now with improving yourself. Did they even play this game? I know it’s early access but did they not se this problems down the line when they themselves play tested? It’s like they’re trying to make this a too difficult of a game and can’t find the balance. Because it’s always more downside than up.

Like that new tremors skill gem sounds awesome in theory. But a 40% dmg reduction for so little chance of aftershock is poor design. That cost isn’t worth it at all. Let alone how is there only two nodes to improve aftershock on the entire passive tree? Aftershock is an after thought. I don’t get why there isn’t more. So if anyone wanted to build around aftershock I don’t see how. Unless again you ascend and are titan for the double passives. Which is so frustrating because you can’t beat trials and even when you do want to trial, it’s one and done. I have been playing for 15 hours in T2/3 end game and not a single coin drops. I have to save up exalted and buy coins to just try. This is just a bad experience for some and awesome for others because of the imbalance and hate keeping of so many things.

Sorry, rant over. Good luck Exiled!

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Shadowedknight#7816 wrote:

I couldn’t agree more with the frustration with these trials. The negatives significantly out way the positives on each room roll for both trials. Sole builds/classes are just breezing through while others completely struggle. I’m a titan warrior.

My skills are soooo slow and sluggish. This is my biggest pain point as the warrior. The cast times are so slow which leaves you completely vulnerable. Even with the adjustment to how close you are means you lose less honor. But that’s still insignificant since you STILL have to take damage almost consistently. Not every warrior is a totem build to keep you out of harms way. If cast times for skills were faster I could maybe give this a pass. But when a monsters attack while doing your attack and they have to “charge” up. You’re just a doting duck and have to take the hits. You can try and use relics but they do not offset much. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.

My build isn’t totem, so end game is getting harder and I need to ascend in order to finally use better weapons because the cost of giants blood is astronomical. I’m also low on gold because I have been rolling on gear to try and improve stats. Since that’s the name of the game now with improving yourself. Did they even play this game? I know it’s early access but did they not se this problems down the line when they themselves play tested? It’s like they’re trying to make this a too difficult of a game and can’t find the balance. Because it’s always more downside than up.

Like that new tremors skill gem sounds awesome in theory. But a 40% dmg reduction for so little chance of aftershock is poor design. That cost isn’t worth it at all. Let alone how is there only two nodes to improve aftershock on the entire passive tree? Aftershock is an after thought. I don’t get why there isn’t more. So if anyone wanted to build around aftershock I don’t see how. Unless again you ascend and are titan for the double passives. Which is so frustrating because you can’t beat trials and even when you do want to trial, it’s one and done. I have been playing for 15 hours in T2/3 end game and not a single coin drops. I have to save up exalted and buy coins to just try. This is just a bad experience for some and awesome for others because of the imbalance and hate keeping of so many things.

Sorry, rant over. Good luck Exiled!

Sanctum, after the changes, as melee is pretty damn easy. Use the relics correctly and it's a cake walk. I was doing them under leveled and just walking through most of it.

Trial of Chaos needs to get a similar tweak, just the quest token IMO. Remove some of the more nasty mods, or give them a stage 0 starting place if using the quest token (so a weaker version than the standard). Tornado boss also needs some bit of warning before he starts spinning.

I gave up on Trial of Chaos on my warrior, even 10 levels over and it's just not working for me... so sanctum for the 2nd one.

Why do people feel the need to announce their departure, as if it's going to have some kind of impact on the game or get an enormous amount of people to follow suit?

Listen, the game is in early access. This is not the full release. It still has more depth and content than D4 does, even after they released an expansion. PoE 2 hasn't even released all of their classes or content yet.

I can't stand the mechanic of Sanctum ONE BIT either. I hate that the ascendancy path is locked behind this mechanic, and wish it was something different. Am I going to either actually quit the game, or announce in the forums that I'm going to quit the game? Nope. This iteration of the game is not final, so people need to quit acting like they're being forced to play a game that they had to take a second mortgage out to pay for. Experience the game for what it is currently, give input about things you notice need work. That's actually the whole point in playing in a beta. Don't like the ascendancy mechanic? Neither do I. Level another character while some changes might be taking effect. If you're that hateful and mad at the game over it, I'd recommend definitely go play D4 or something else. GGG is NOT Activision/Blizzard and out to make a game that pleases everyone. That can't be done.

GGG, in my opinion, have made the absolute best ARPG in the history of the genre. There isn't a more robust and full-feature ARPG out there that can compete overall. Period. I have faith that they will continue to make changes, and create another fantastic game.

Try and have that same attitude about it. If you can't, then you don't need to be playing in the beta anyways because you're not contributing anything positive towards making the game better by threatening that you're going to quit and uninstall because you don't have enough time in your schedule to farm the exact same items that everyone else has to. GGG has no interest or care about your personal time. They have no control over how much time you have to invest into their game. That is your problem and responsibility.

Again, I'm not white-knighting, I'm not a 'fanboy', but you are literally not helping a damn thing by announcing your departure in a fit. Throwing a fit and saying you're not playing the game anymore is not giving helpful feedback. In fact, it's more telling that maybe this isn't the type of game for you. Which is 100% okay too.

I'll repost this here, as the other thread was toxic and likely up for deletion:

My original character was a Chronomancer. Obviously, after having failed the 3rd trial ~10 or so times I concluded that my build was trash and that Chronomancer was a dead-end. So I rerolled.

After leveling my 2nd char to 76 I went to do the 3rd trial again. Having massively overgeared it and invested heavily into the character, I assumed I'd one-shot it no problem.
I instakilled the first boss. Killed the second pair in a few shots and made my way to the last room. The very last room gave me a random affliction.
The random affliction was no energy shield.
That was a Chaos Innoculation character...

~40 divine character, 16 levels overleveled, stacked with nice relics and I still could not complete the 3rd trial.

I am unable to voice my opinion on trials, as there are no appropriate words to describe how I feel about them.

Right now, four things make me reevaluate my decision to play POE2 EA:
- Trials
- Inflation. Economy and wealth (drops) are scewed too heavily in favour of lategame. Dadgamers play for months without finding a single Divine orb - the starting price on decent items
- Lack of item-inspired build diversity. Not enough cool uniques with weird build-enabling features.
- Lack of build diversity. Not enough cool support gems or keystones. Generally, support gems (and skills in general) have too high cost and too many drawbacks to feel good. Use Comet as an example: >500 mana cost, 2 seconds cast time, cannot move while casting