Hot (?) Take. Trials of Sekhema is one of the best parts of the game.

It wasnt at first. I felt entitled to my subclass, it was frustrating to loose and doo it all over again. But now, after trying Chaos and Endgame maps- Sekhema feels very nice.

Every run feels quite different depending on your boons/afflictions and map choices. Bosses actually feel like bosses and its hard to beat them. Puzzles, combat, random things.

I understand some people may have problem with the fact that your ascention is locked behind it but i think that is the point. You are not guaranteed to get your subclass, it is an achievement. It kinda reminds me of that good feeling you have in Souls games when you finaly defeat a boss. But here you finaly beat all the trials and the boss and then you see that there is more, even harder. And you can't wait for that time you beat new challenges too.

A lot of it comes to mindset. If you just want a subclass without additional bullshit - just pay for it. 1-2 ascentions are very cheap and some players can even carry u for free.

That said, i think there can be improvements. Sometimes i feel like it would be great to start from the last floor and not the whole trial all over again.

What are your thoughts on the thing?

I really hope this was sarcasm

Honour going to 0 should not kick you out, just disable all rewards, sans ascension, from the end. You could even tie remaining honour as some sort of a bonus reward at the end of a run to encourage not taking excessive honour damage.

It's a great endgame farm once you get your relics set up, but so is every other farm in the endgame.

very hot take. Its my least enjoyable part of the entire game and if i never had to run it again that would be ideal.

this is a very hot take indeed.

I like that not every ascendancy point is brain-dead free to get. I also like Trial of the Sekhema, but is does need some re-balancing here and there.

I find it weird that it's so heavily balanced around honor resistance relics more than anything else. Honor resistance is lame and dis-proportionally mandatory compared to all the other interesting relic options.

A few of the Afflictions really need to get re-examined as well.

Builds that rely more on trading hits and sustain unfortunately are innately at a disadvantage with the honor system too.

Over all a fun challenge and very interesting game-mode that suffers from a few fundamental balance problems that will hopefully get smoothed out over early access.

Once you learn it its not as bad. Honor still wrecks melee and the boons/afflictions are wildly imbalanced. Its also reaaaaally long and tedious. Each floor should be 5 rooms max.

They should just have honor only for bosses or no honor at all when trying to get ascension points.

Getting 3rd ascension was not fun and Ill probably do chaos for 4th.

I strongly disagree. There are fundamental issues with Trials of Sekhema as an Ascension mechanic, both from a game design perspective and player experience standpoint.

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MadSheo#0280 wrote:

Every run feels quite different depending on your boons/afflictions and map choices. Bosses actually feel like bosses and its hard to beat them. Puzzles, combat, random things.

This highlights one of the core problems: excessive randomness. In ARPGs, class choice and progression are fundamental gameplay elements that should never be gated behind RNG. This creates frustration rather than meaningful challenge.

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MadSheo#0280 wrote:

I understand some people may have problem with the fact that your ascension is locked behind it but i think that is the point. You are not guaranteed to get your subclass, it is an achievement.

This directly contradicts established ARPG and RPG design principles. Ascension represents core class progression - it shouldn't be a potential roadblock that drives players to quit. Making essential character development an "achievement" rather than guaranteed progression undermines the game's fundamental systems.

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MadSheo#0280 wrote:

It kinda reminds me of that good feeling you have in Souls games when you finaly defeat a boss.

This comparison misses crucial differences in game design. Souls games implement a tight feedback loop: you can retry immediately after failure with minimal cost, allowing players to learn and improve. The Ascension trials, however, require randomly found items and significant time investment for each attempt. The randomized nature of each run actually hinders the learning process, making it poor game design.

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MadSheo#0280 wrote:

But here you finaly beat all the trials and the boss and then you see that there is more, even harder. And you can't wait for that time you beat new challenges too.

You're conflating two separate concepts: Ascension progression and optional challenges. Players seek Ascension points for character development - the challenge itself isn't the primary goal but rather an obstacle to necessary progression.

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MadSheo#0280 wrote:

A lot of it comes to mindset. If you just want a subclass without additional bullshit - just pay for it. 1-2 ascentions are very cheap and some players can even carry u for free.

This suggestion is particularly problematic. Recommending that players skip engaging with a core game mechanic by paying for carries fundamentally undermines your earlier arguments about meaningful achievement. It also tacitly admits that the current system is poorly designed if the suggested solution is to bypass it entirely.


I've made a thread a while ago on why I think the current Ascension system is such a baffling design decision:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3628115

Surface of the sun take.

It can be best part of the game for some people, if they remove ascendancy interaction.

As long as it is required for core game progression and doesn't receive a redesign, it will be the worst part of the game for most people.