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

I would rather go to work than playing trials.

Yeah, I just encountered the honor system for the first time on my Monk. It feels awful, I didn't play POE1 much so I have no point of reference. As a newish POE player this is the type of mechanic that would cause me to either ditch all melee classes or just quit playing the game.

The trials are horrible on melee i have my damage insanely juiced up first attempt lost to much honor for my 3rd ascendancy 2nd attempt was doing great got to the third floor with 2k honor and this witch took my honor from over 2000 to 100 from 1 attack and i had over 70% honor resistance and then when i died because i lost the rest of that 100 the next hit my game froze and wouldn't let me respawn to collect my relics back from the starting room its absolute garbage

+1

So true. Makes the game unplayable with half an ascendancy honestly.

++1 Im yet to have fun in the trials, im just nervous going in, pissed off when i die, and then angry hoping another entry token will drop. Rest of the game is fun and i wish it could be that as well. Also, PLEASE give us ways to target farm things. 15 exalt minimum for build making jewels is insanity. Give me a reasonable way to farm things myself.

Yeah, I've been forcing myself through the game in general, for reasons described in many other posts on this forum section. (slow, tedious, zero tangible character progression, barely any drops, extremely limiting skills)

I experimented with two characters and after 12 hours total in-game I reached the first trial and found out it's a forced Sanctum. I gave it one try, failed due to losing all honour on the last boss, then I quit. I later read the second trial is Ultimatum, which I find equally horrendous.

I have no desire to come back, and I genuinely cannot recall enjoying myself in those 12 hours. If I paid for the EA I would be upset, but luckily I was invited for free.

For comparison, I have 3569 hours in PoE1, and I don't think I was ever this bored or frustrated with it. Granted, I nope-d out of leagues I didn't like (coincidentally, Sanctum and Ultimatum), but there at least I had the option.

And before someone tells me that PoE2 is not a sequel to PoE1, that it is a different game, and I should go back to PoE1 - PoE1 paid and died for this abomination. It is currently in its death throes, on life support.

I think the trials are okayish, a bit to hard in my opinion.

The main problem i see is the first 2 ascendency are infinitely replayable which is perfect.

After that you need to grind everytime you fail a trial to get another djinn barya.

IMO the firsy 4 ascendancies shoud be infinite tries, after that grind should be okay

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phong08#3706 wrote:

I would rather go to work than playing trials.

That really sums it up in one short concise phrase.

I just fluked my way through a 3 trial encounter and boy, was it ever NOT fun. I now have 6 ascendancy points and won't be going for more.

This has totally put me off rolling a new character as well, what a f**king drag.

The entire trial system needs an overhaul as for me personally it ended up being lucky with vendors where I got my honor doubled and my damage also increased 50%.

Even with those the list of afflictions I had attached to me the entire way was just stupid.

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WizardofVoid#5398 wrote:

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.

I reckon Sanctum was created as an Ascend path for POE2 and then backfilled into POE1 as a league.

Trials are too over-tuned and unbalanced (melee vs. ranged). Banged my head against the brick wall long enough, just glad I won't be able to play till next year hoping GGG will come up with a better approach