Trials of Ascendancy Guide

Completing the Trials of Ascendancy allows you to choose an Ascendancy Class and gain additional Ascendancy Passives. There are multiple Trials hidden throughout the campaign and you can choose in which to gain your Ascendancy Class and additional Passive skill points. Ascendancies are powerful, build-defining subclasses that grant you an additional passive tree in which you can spend Ascendancy Passives. In Path of Exile 2 your build is defined by the combination of your Character Class and Ascendancy Class. Each of the 12 classes (6 in early access) has a choice of 3 Ascendancies (2 in early access).

There are 3 Trials of Ascendancy and you can unlock your Ascendancy Class through a Trial of your choice. In order to Ascend you must locate a quest item key, travel to the Trial's entrance and then complete the trial by navigating through its challenges and defeating the final boss. Your first completion of any Trial of Ascendancy unlocks your Ascendancy Class and grants you 2 Ascendancy passive points.

There are three Trials of Ascendancy:

• ACT 2: Trial of the Sekhemas
• ACT 3: Trial of Chaos
• ACT 4: Unknown (Currently not in Early Access)

If you completed the Trial of Sekhemas in Act 2 your first completion of the Trial of Chaos in Act 3 grants you 2 additional Ascendancy Passive points. You unlock additional sets of 2 Ascendancy Passives through completions of higher difficulty level versions of the three Trials until you have a total of 8. These higher difficulty level Trials come with a greater level of challenge, more encounters and more bosses, but reward you with more loot and character power.

To access these higher difficulty level Trials you need to find Trial Keys. From questioning developers here is what is currently known:

• Higher Difficulty Level Trial Keys are Random drops.
• Keys begin dropping after specific character level thresholds (likely tied to monster level).
• Each Key is tied to a specific Trial. For example, you use an Inscribed Ultimatum to enter the Trial of Chaos.

Once you obtain one of these keys you can choose whether you wish to attempt that Trial to claim your next 2 passive points (or whether you wish to wait for another key to a preferred Trial). You can complete any combination of Trials to get your set of 8 Ascendancy Passives — provided they are a higher difficulty than what you have already completed. You could choose to do all 4 runs in the Trial of the Sekhemas, or you could choose to do a mixture of the available Trials.

During the Trial of Sekhemas in Act 2 you face a series of challenge rooms and bosses in a Roguelike dungeon. Each room has a challenge you must overcome such as navigating traps, surviving waves of enemies or completing a time trial. Rooms also feature boons to aid in your survival, opportunities to heal or keys for a treasure trove at the end of the Trial of Sekhemas. Your primary goal is to reach the final boss, defeat it and claim your Ascendancy Class or passive unlocks. But the Trial of the Sekhemas, like all Trials, also has the potential to provide long term loot and endgame content.

How Honour Works

In the Trials of Sekhemas you have a unique addition to your character — a new health-bar called Honour. Honour is based on your combined total Life and Energy Shield but it is separate from them. Whenever you take damage to your Life and Energy Shield you also take damage to your Honour. If you lose all of your Honour, you fail the Trial. You can fail by dying normally or by losing all of your Honour, which removes you from the Trial.

Honour is unique in that it cannot be recovered or healed through normal means such as life flasks, regeneration or life leech. Honour can only be restored through special Artifacts and Boons or room reward Shrines. Honour is what reinforces the Roguelike nature of this Trial: you try to avoid taking too much damage because restoring it is difficult. If your Honour is low avoid taking risks, potentially even passing up great treasures to try and survive.

The good news is that the Trial of the Sekhemas is carefully designed with monsters that have slower, well-signaled attacks and traps that are all doable without getting hit. Play carefully and assess your current Honour level and room for error when deciding which room you take on next to survive with your Honour intact.

Should You Ascend in Act 2?

You gain access to the Trial of the Sekhemas earlier in the campaign, making it the best choice for getting your Ascendancy class and first 2 passive points as soon as possible. Waiting until a later trial in Act 3 or 4 would leave you without that notable power for a considerable length of time. Outside of the (perfectly legitimate) reason of personal preference, not claiming your Ascendancy in Act 2 is only advisable if you have reason to fear the Trial of the Sekhemas. In the case of an underperforming build it may still be better to attempt the Trial of the Sekhemas but to do so later in Act 2 — after you have gained some levels and gear improvements to make the Trial considerably easier.

Where is the Trial of the Sekhemas?

During the quest The Trail of Corruption you find yourself Ascending the Traitor's Passage. Within this zone filled with interconnected caves is a sealed door, plastered with warding glyphs. Imprisoned within you can release a character that grants you access to the Trial of the Sekhemas — for a price.

If you are struggling to find the sealed door there is a pillar of stone with relevant lore explaining the imprisonment nearby which you may be able to see on your minimap. Within you can claim a key, check the spoiler below for more information on obtaining it.

SPOILER - The Ancient Seal Mechanics and Encounter

Balbala, the Traitor is a Djinn who is imprisoned within the Ancient Seal. In order to truly release them and earn their assistance in locating the Trial of the Sekhemas you must first defeat them in combat. This boss fight can be a challenging test of cunning as Balbala is a fast rogueish boss with a lot of tricks up their ethereal sleeves.

Tips for Defeating Balbala, the Traitor

• Balbala deals a lot of Chaos damage through poison, improving your Chaos resistance this early in the game is difficult but if you can it makes certain attacks much easier.
• Balbala is resistant to Fire damage but vulnerable to Cold. Use this to your advantage.
• Slower attacks such as big slams or grenades may struggle to land because of the Balbala's mobility, limit their use to when the boss is stunned, frozen or otherwise rendered less mobile. Being weak to cold makes building up freeze particularly effective.
• Balbala appears to disappear and flood the room with poisonous gas, in order to stop this you must locate the boss hiding in plain sight.

Once you have defeated Balbala, the Traitor you can claim the Quest item Balbala's Barya. This coin is the key to the Trial of the Sekhemas.

With the coin key you are able to travel to the location of the Trial of the Sekhemas and you can do so via the Desert Map in 'town'.

How Relics Work

Before your first attempt at the Trial Balbala gives you a Relic. These are special gear pieces exclusively for the Trial of the Sekhemas — giving you their buffs only while you are within the Trial. Relics provide general benefits like extra health (which also gives extra Honour) and also trial-specific buffs like ways to recover Honour or obtain additional Sacred water. Relics can be crafted the same way as regular gear, so if you have a spare Orb of Augmentation you could add another affix to a single affix Magic Relic. Once satisfied you can place your relic in the Relic Altar — it remains here permanently empowering you in the Trial. You can remove, replace and rearrange your Relics here anytime you want before you begin an attempt.

While not majorly impactful on your first attempt, Relics are an important tool for later attempts to gain additional Ascendancy passives. You are able to obtain more from Merchant encounters and drops within the Trial of the Sekhemas itself. Long-term, you want top tier Relics when farming the Trial of the Sekhemas in the endgame.

Navigating the Map

After each room the map is used to navigate the Trial of the Sekhemas. To beat the Trial you travel from the left-most room to the right-most and defeat a boss. In higher level difficulties of the Trial there are additional floors with more rooms and bosses.

On this map you can choose your next room and can see information such as the nature of the challenge, the rewards and any potential Afflictions (Trial specific debuffs) in each room. You can see a room ahead and can note any paths between each room from left to right. The map contains critical information to your success in the Trial such as:

• The Room Type: the type of challenge you face such as traps or waves of monsters.
• The Reward Type: such as treasure keys, Honour-restoring wells or Boons.
• Afflictions: some rooms have a purple highlight that shows an Affliction you are debuffed with upon entering.
• The Next Set of Rooms: you can see one column of rooms ahead to plan a path.
• Connections Between Rooms: not all paths connect and you need to choose rooms that connect to your desired route.

Note that there are various Afflictions, Boons and Relic effects that can change how the map functions. Afflictions that hide the next column of rooms or hide room types can make planning ahead difficult. Boons or Relics that show additional rooms can be extremely powerful for improving your chances at success and for increasing your potential loot at the end of the Trial.

Room Challenges and Rewards

The Room Types determine the nature of the challenges you face within. Learning these helps you plan a strategy and avoid rooms you are poorly suited for when you need to take less risks. Reward types also play a large role in your choices as a good Boon or Honour recovery may save a run and Treasure keys increase the rewards at the end. Check the spoilers below for information on Challenge and Reward types.

Spoiler — Room Challenge Types

• Gauntlet: Rooms with traps and some monsters. The goal is only to reach the end and leave. You do not have to kill monsters but doing so makes it easier to focus on the traps.
• Chalice Ritual: Kill all Rare Monsters in the area to fill the chalice.
• Hourglass Trial: Survive waves of monsters until the timer ends. You do not need to kill the monsters but doing so increases your odds of survival.
• Escape Trial: Disable all of the Death Crystals before the timer runs out. Any Death Crystals left when the timer expires damage you. Each Crystal points to another with a wave of energy. There are monsters and treasure chests to distract you.

Spoiler — Room Rewards Types

• Treasure Keys: Provides the listed Bronze, Silver, or Gold treasure key. These allow you to gain additional potentially valuable rewards at the end of the Trial of Sekhemas. Failing the Trial destroys all currently held keys.
• Sacred Water: Large or small fountains granting Sacred Water a special currency for use exclusively within your current run of the Trial of the Sekhemas.
• Merchant: You can spend your Sacred Water to purchase Boons to assist your current run or Relics to give you benefits in future runs. Relics cannot be used right away as they must be placed in the Relic Altar before a new run to work.
• Shrine to Restore Honour: Allows you to pay a small amount of Sacred Water to recover a fraction of your lost Honour.
• Boon Shrine: Restores some lost Honour and grants a random Boon. Powerful reward types to make a run more likely to succeed.
• Pledge to Kohai: Pledges are tradeoffs of Boons and Afflictions. Choose a specified Boon at the cost of an Affliction, remove a random Boon and Affliction, or gain a Random Boon and Affliction pair. Pledges can be largely run altering.

Bossfights in Trial of the Sekhemas

In the final room of each floor is a boss you must defeat to either complete the Trial or to progress to the next floor. These challenging encounters can be your biggest hurdle so ensure you plan ahead and try to enter with high Honour and Boons that help you succeed — and avoid Afflictions that might cause you to fail. See the spoiler section below for additional information on bosses.

FLOOR 1 - Rattlecage, the Earthbreaker

Rattlecage, the Earthbreaker is a floor 1 boss fight — a hulking magma elemental with large slow slams and lots of Fire damage and area denial abilities. Tips for defeating Rattlecage:

• Fire Resistance: Rattlecage deals predominantly Fire damage, consider increasing your Fire Resistance with gear changes before the fight. A fire Charm is also a good idea, as these can provide some temporary buffs to Fire Resistance when you take Fire damage.
• Elemental Damage: Rattlecage is resistant to Fire and Lightning damage, but vulnerable to Cold damage.
• Physical Damage: Rattlecage has high Armour making Physical damage less effective, use Armour Break skills to counteract this.
• Crowd Control Effects: Rattlecage is slow and large, with big windups on their abilities. Crowd control effects like Stun, Freeze, Electrocute and chill are particularly effective this situation. Vulnerability to Cold makes Freeze easier to apply.
• Large and Easy to Hit: Larger targets are easier to "shotgun", to overlap multiple area of effect skills. This increases the effectiveness of skills like Grenades with the Multiple Projectiles support.
• Fire Rain: At low life Rattlecage can use a slam to begin a rain of fire droplets from the ceiling randomly around the arena. This ability lasts for a long time (about a minute) but does eventually end. This final portion of the fight is the most dangerous: make a choice to either play it safe, dodging while waiting for the rain to end or to aggressively try to finish the kill before the fire rain and other area denial abilities become too much to handle.

Final Loot and Rewards: Time-Lost Jewels

In addition to the boss loot and any extra loot you found along the way you enter the final vault to claim your Ascendancy class or points (if you haven't already claimed them from this difficulty level). In this final reward room, you can use your Treasure Keys to open increasingly rewarding chests in either bronze, silver, or gold variants. Each key opens only one chest so to get more loot you want not only more keys but better keys (silver and gold). Each chest also has a name which indicates the type of loot they can have:

• Mysterious: Unknown (Speculative: randomized anything).
• Armour: All gear is Armour but you can also get Currency and Gold.
• Weapons: All gear is Weapons but you can also get Currency and Gold.
• Royal: Contains Jewels with a chance of Time-Lost Jewels.
• Hoarders: Currency and Gold.
• Gloves, Helmets, Boots etc: Contains the listed gear type.
• Relics: Relics.

Time-Lost Jewels are the Trial of the Sekhemas' exclusive reward type. While regular Jewels can be found anywhere in the game Time-Lost Jewels can only be found here. They provide a radius around a jewel socket in which they modify passives. For example: increasing the effect of minor passives in radius or adding an extra modifier such as increased curse effect to all nodes. Like regular Jewels, these can be crafted to customize their effects and provide powerful bonuses to almost any build.

NEW! Spend Sacred Water to Gain More Treasure Keys or Relics

If you have Sacred Water remaining when you complete the Trial of Sekhemas you can spend it on new Relics or convert it to Treasure Keys in the final reward room. Speak to Balbala first to see the Relics she has for sale and buy any that are upgrades for your collection. Then click on the Keth Forge to convert all of your remaining Sacred Water into Treasure Keys. Ensure you speak to Balbala first as once you use the Keth Forge you will have no Sacred Water remaining to spend on Relics.

In Act 3 while exploring the Vaal Jungle you can discover Temple of Chaos. To gain access you must obtain a key from The Trialmaster. In the Trial of Chaos you overcome a series of consecutive challenges and then a randomized boss in order to reach the end and unlock an Ascendancy, gain your Ascendancy Passives and claim the other rewards.

The Trial of Chaos is a combat-focused challenge where in each new encounter you have to make a difficult choice. In each Chamber you must select 1 of 3 Tribulations, negative modifiers that persist throughout the rest of the run. These can add hazards to the encounters, weaken you or empower your enemies. With each successful room you complete, another Tribulation is added to your Trial. You must carefully select those that you think you can manage and beware of powerful combinations of effects that may lead to your defeat.

Final Loot and Rewards: Vaal Orbs and Soul Cores

In addition to claiming your Ascendancy class or points (if you haven't already claimed them from this difficulty level) you also receive your Tribulation rewards. Each round you choose a Tribulation there is also a reward on the line, such as gear or currency. Each reward is added to your final winnings at the end of the Trial.

A major reward of the Trial of Chaos is the crafting currency the Vaal Orb. Following the theme of risk and reward of the Temple of Chaos the Vaal Orb allows you to corrupt an item, modifying it unpredictably in potentially powerful or destructive ways. This could add unique enhancements or extra sockets to regular and Unique items, but it could also effectively destroy it. Corruption also locks an item from being modified further so it can either be the final step in crafting something legendary, or the final nail in a beloved item's coffin.

The other reward type is Soul Cores, which are exclusive to the Trial of Chaos. These are socketable items like Runes with more specific and potentially powerful effects. For example, the Soul Core of Topotante can give weapons Elemental Penetration, a powerful damage increase in elemental damage builds.

While it has been revealed that there will be a third Trial of Ascendancy in Act 4 it is currently not implemented and little is known about it. Early access only contains Acts 1, 2, and 3 so it is likely this third Trial will be added alongside Act 4 at an unknown point in Early Access.

• Getting Your Ascendancy: You can get your Ascendancy by completing Act 2's Trial of the Sekhemas or Act 3's Trial of Chaos but you get it earlier if you do it in Act 2.
• If You're Struggling: You can delay and become more powerful with a few levels and gear upgrades before reattempting.
• Gaining More Ascendancy Passives: To get points beyond the first 2 you must complete higher level difficulties of any Trial using keys randomly dropped as you level up. If you haven't gotten one yet you may not be high enough level for the next difficulty key to drop.
• Each Trial Has Something For You: In addition to Ascendancies and general loot the Trial of Sekhemas has Time-Lost Jewels and the Trial of Chaos has Vaal Orbs and Soul Cores to socket into your gear. These exclusive rewards are all very powerful and potentially useful in every build.

Credits

Written by: ZiggyD
Reviewed by: CoffeeBns, Tenkiei