Trial of Sekhema 4th Trial Boss NEEDS to be looked at

Is that good design that leads to interesting gameplay though; having an affliction that makes the mechanic basically impossible, and then a boon that completely trivialises it? Not a rhetorical question, am asking for genuine opinions/discussion.

Personally I think in a game like this the most interesting effects are ones which cause you to play slightly differently in some way without being either trivial or utterly brutal. I feel like the Chaos trials do this better, since many of the affliction adjacent modifiers cause you to have extra things to react to and play around rather than just making you drastically worse or better at X thing.

The trial concept is ok, but it is riddled with bad decisions and needs to be changed.

- The honour system has to go as well as the relics. It shouldn't be dependent on your build type/class and your ability to collect/trade items that have no other purpose to complete the ascendancy trials.
In return, the difficulty needs to go up.

- There should always be at least 4 or 5 choices of rooms/arenas with more varied options that suit different builds/playstyles and e. g. allow the player to go through a much harder room in exchange for an affliction. A boss room for example. The current situation that you HAVE to take an affliction and either one can be a huge problem is unacceptable. Less RNG is better.

- Getting boons should be less RNG dependent, you should be able to buy them after each room or at least after a fixed number of rooms if you got the water. There'd be still more than enough RNG in that trial.

- You should be able to get way more water in the rooms, not just from the fountains. Again, less RNG is better.

- No affliction should be build-breaking and also no boon should be so OP it trivializes the content. Tone that shit down.

- There should only be one "floor" for each ascendancy. The floors can and probably should have different numbers of rooms, but having to do all the previous floors for each trial is a huge waste of time. Just imagine if you had to do all previous labs each time you want to attempt the next higher one in PoE.

I couldn't possibly agree with this more. This is another one of those fights only enjoyable if you out gear the content to the extent you can avoid the problematic mechanics entirely.

With 35% movement speed and a 40% movement boon, having orbs for the time trial phase spawn across the platform is certain death to a one-shot mechanic that just isn't enjoyable.

Yes, a bad layout is a bad layout, but it seems like a problem that just shouldn't exist.

Please look at this fight from the perspective of the average player reaching it.

I think the time stop orbs need to be somewhat coded to appear within a certain distance of each other. I say this as i have on 2 occasions run into quite possibly the worst case scenario on this boss. 1 hourglass in each corner of the room, even with 30% boots and the movement speed boon, its not doable without shield charge or blink, which i run neither of. The distance needs a maximum, because 4 corners and then 2 randomly kinda scattered isn't even a skill issue, thats a game issue.

Actually the boss is somehow buggy. If u success to stun him while he is about to channel the lighting spell, then he will literally get frozen. U can kill him easily with several clicks. I am pretty sure GGG have not fixed the bug yet.

Equip Blink spirit gem, set it to be enabled only on 2nd Weapon set. While in this boss phase, switch to 2nd weapon set and u have 2 blink charges.

Problem solved. (at least thats one solution). Shield charge also exists(another solution). Just giving examples.

Equip Blink spirit gem, set it to be enabled only on 2nd Weapon set. While in this boss phase, switch to 2nd weapon set and u have 2 blink charges.

Problem solved. (at least thats one solution). Shield charge also exists(another solution). Always look for the vendor and buy +40% movement speed Boon also. Just giving examples.

4th Trial didn't meant to be easy so it can be completed with character in its 80s

Prepare, gear up, get better relics

The only change I would make is to remove honor from the fight. Chaos trials don't have you suffering from the afflictions against the Trialmaster. Trialmaster is probably the best feeling boss fight in the game for me.