If they want to make it hard, make it hard. It just takes so fucking long, then to get right to the end and have some RNG BS fail you out. Temple seems fine until you realize for the 4th ascendency you have to do 3 different runs to get 3 different pieces to finally face the final guy, screw that. It's neat but I always put it off until I get 80+ because of the time sink it turns into.You're not forced to do Sekhemas, but the Chaos trials are higher level so you have to ascend later if you do these instead.
As long as you're ranged with strong damage, Sekhemas isn't that bad if you get some honor resist relics ready before you run. And yeah ES helps a lot too.
Ultimately the biggest issue they BOTH have is they're way too fucking long. It shouldn't take near that long to ascend imo, they need to cut down the amount of shit there is in there, regardless of any other adjustment and hopefully the 3rd trial is also shorter. Sekhemas floors should be like half of what they are in trial 3 and 4, and Chaos needs to speed up the bullshit and cut some rooms too, and probably cut the keys while they're at it(make it like 3/6/9/12 rooms). In PoE1 even when you have dogshit layouts it takes like half the time to run on a normal build and with good layouts it's even faster, it's so tedious even when well prepared it takes so much time.

Na I got mine before I even touched any expedition questline in maps, in fact more than one, it's just RNG. They do spawn more often in expedition maps with big expedition though so you just keep doing some of these and should eventually get one.man i am trying to do the challenge league bits and i STILL have not seen a single 7 rune runestone. i'm mid expedition quest, doing utred's logbook. i've been doing T15 maps basically the whole time i've been mapping. i've finished the atlas tree, delerium, temple. most of breach.
did i miss a quest in the campaign? do i need to finish the expedition questline fully?
man i am trying to do the challenge league bits and i STILL have not seen a single 7 rune runestone. i'm mid expedition quest, doing utred's logbook. i've been doing T15 maps basically the whole time i've been mapping. i've finished the atlas tree, delerium, temple. most of breach.
did i miss a quest in the campaign? do i need to finish the expedition questline fully?
But you can't just blast through any of them, you still have to tediously not get hit through sekhemas 4 times, which is like 40+ fights, rooms whatever or go through 3+1 ten stage trials of chaos, with weird factors every making everything more and more difficult.Most classes the 4th ascendancy point isn't a huge upgrade so waiting until you are 85 and just blasting it isn't an issue.
I had played through the first games campaign before starting out on this one, and the labyrinth was actually something I really enjoyed once I figured out what to do. I just did the two I guess you do during the campaign, but I thought it was a lot of fun, and I don't really care for the new version of it whatsoever. I know a buddy of mine just did his fourth ascendancy last night and he's like 80 something.They had a perfectly "fine" mechanic for ascending with Labyrinth. Sure, it isn't perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than what they replaced it with and at least you can blast through Lab.
Temple has got to be one of the their worst leagues, ever. The fact it went core is just horrible. Not only is it the only content type you aren't really getting anything for while running maps, you then can get completely RNG fucked trying to build the goddamn thing on top of it. I had 4 temple runs in a row where I literally couldn't get to the architect because of the medallions I kept getting, combined with shitty rooms.
I had played through the first games campaign before starting out on this one, and the labyrinth was actually something I really enjoyed once I figured out what to do. I just did the two I guess you do during the campaign, but I thought it was a lot of fun, and I don't really care for the new version of it whatsoever. I know a buddy of mine just did his fourth ascendancy last night and he's like 80 something.
I did see something saying to try to do the ascendency for three and four with the stupid chaos deal versus the labyrinth replacement because it's supposedly easier, but I have no clue if that's true.
I'm on the very last step of the interlude, I guess that will unlock the rest of the game. I'm having a blast though, and can't wait for the rest of the game to come out. Our little group is really enjoying it.