Path Of Exile 2: How To Ascend

Unlocking your Ascendancy subclass in Path of Exile 2 is a little different from the first installment. You'll need to complete a fairly difficult trial during your campaign to reach your full potential. But unlike the first game's Labyrinth, the trials you undergo in PoE2 are much more difficult and based on older league mechanics like Sanctum and Ultimatum.

If you can handle a fairly difficult dungeon and come out alive, you'll unlock access to a powerful subclass tree that offers build-enabling benefits, ranging from new skills to massive bonuses to your damage. Today, we'll be looking at how to unlock your Ascendancy class in Path of Exile 2 and briefly explain how Ascendancy Trials work.

How To Ascend

You'll gain access to your Ascendancy upon completing the "Ascent to Power" quest in Act 2, which you'll unlock shortly after you reach the hub town. You'll be tasked with completing the Trial of the Sekhemas, a variant of PoE1's Sanctum dungeon but tuned for a low-level PoE2 character. Use the desert map in the hub town to reach the Trial. Once there, use the quest item you received to start the trial. Defeat the boss without dying to claim your new Ascendancy class.

Trial Of The Sekhemas

If you've played Path of Exile, this works exactly like Sanctum league; you just need to clear one floor.

In essence, the Trial of the Sekhemas is a one-life roguelike dungeon. You must clear the gauntlet and defeat the final boss without dying or losing your Honor. That second stipulation is important because this roguelike dungeon isn't just a simple build check. You'll have a new resource to juggle in here: Honor. This acts as a secondary health pool that is tracked throughout your entire run. If your Honor hits zero, your run immediately ends.

Fortunately, the Trial of the Sekhemas has some unique mechanics that will help you beat it. The first notable addition is the inclusion of Relics, similar to Charms in Diablo 2 but with their own inventory space. Relics offer powerful bonuses that augment your next run. For your first attempt, you'll be given a starter relic that reduces Honor loss. Be sure to equip it in your Relic Altar before you start your run.

The Trial of the Sekhemas is broken up into multiple floors, but for the purposes of Ascending, you just need to kill the boss at the opposite end of the floor. To get there, you'll need to chart a path through a labyrinth of nodes. At the end of each chamber will be a map you can interact with to plot your course. You'll be able to move to any adjacent room to your current position, moving diagonally or horizontally to your right; you can't backtrack.

Each room will have a main objective, denoted by the room's name. For example, an Hourglass Trial requires you to survive an onslaught of enemies for a set duration, while the Chalice Trial forces you to kill every rare monster in the area. Here is a rough breakdown of each possible encounter:

Chalice Trial	Defeat every rare monster in the zone.
Hourglass Trial	Survive for the listed duration. Killing rare monsters reduces the timer.
Ritual Trial	Eliminate enemies and their spawn portals.
Escape Trial	Activate death crystals in the chamber before they explode.
Gauntlet Trial	Navigate a tileset that's littered with traps.

Clearing these rooms will award you with some sort of bonus, usually a key or Sacred Water fountains. Sacred Water is a currency you can use to purchase boons during your Trial of Sekhemas run. You can purchase these boons from a merchant, which appears in any room marked with a vendor icon, or from Balbala directly at the end of each floor. Since you only need to clear one floor to unlock your Ascendancy, focus on finding a merchant.

Once you've charted a path to the boss, it's time to finish the run. You'll have to face a fairly tanky final boss who deals massive Honor damage. The good news is that these Trial bosses are fairly slow and have highly telegraphed attacks. Take it slow, fight from a distance if possible, and use environmental cover to avoid AoE attacks. With enough patience, you'll kill the boss and unlock the reward chamber. Interact with the Ascendancy Altar within to pick your new subclass.

Once you choose an Ascendancy, it cannot be changed. If you want to try a new Ascendancy, you'll need to make a new character.

You can respec Ascendancy nodes, however. Speak with The Hooded One in any hub town to respec your allocated passives for a moderate Gold fee.

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