Putting this out there for hopefully the devs to see and for fellow players to throw in their 2 cents. TLDR is at the end.

I decided to use my trial of sek tokens for my 4th ascension because I ran out of my trial of chaos tokens that were high enough level. I got to the 9/10th round in ToC so I figured why not?

1) Round One: Spent 35 ish minutes getting to the end of the third trial but had so many debuffs because early on I rolled the inability to see trial awards/afflictions. Ended up with no energy shield, minus -25% move speed on a build that's already slow unless you have 10-30 div, minus 40% damage, and a few other debuffs. Got killed by 3rd boss because I couldn't move fast enough, feels bad but restarted it.

2) Round Two: Got back to 3rd trial map but had a few afflictions that made it impossible to make it out alive: damage on room completion, lose all sacred water on room completion and gain 50% less sacred water. So I was taking damage even during a good run, couldn't get the water to buy out of the affliction and even when I got to the merchant it wasn't an option. Dang. Ok let's try again.

3) Final Attempt for the night: Got absolutely stellar roles for the most part! I essentially had to make a choice between going for water/honor that I didn't need or get keys and try for bad loot. So I went the former and got some buffs out of it. I mean I was winning, had negative 40% damage but countered with gain 50% damage so I was at 10%, max honor, 30 to relics, - to monster damage. I was winning.

I was on a high as I got to the 4th trial boss. Super stoked but I watched the fight on YouTube just to make sure I didn't waste the opportunity. Got him down to half health, doing fine with pace and got to the clock mechanic. 2 feet before the final orb I hear the boss say time has ran out....comes down and touches me and I died.

I had full life, honor, everything. Literally a perfect run, best odds I could have had. I messed up, even after watching the mechanic.

But here's the point of all this. I SPENT 45 MINUTES GETTING THERE. AND DID IT 3 TIMES. So 2 hours of my life wasted with a sour taste in my mouth.

Not to consider the other times I attempted the previous trials. It's just not fun anymore. I don't mind failing whatsoever so I don't want this misunderstood. But in Poe 1 you could actually enjoy the trials and get stoked about ascending, the good gear you'd see and the new found power you were gonna get. You could do them in about 15-20 minutes no problem.

TLDR

-Now that people have figured out the recipe to blasting, these take far too long. -Mostly Trivialized Loot unless you have magic find -Punishing afflictions with rng opportunity to counteract them -Was fun ish at first but now they feel like a chore. -with the right build, the challenge doesn't come from the bosses and mobs. It comes from the rng afflictions.

Edit: I thought I was the only one but then I watched raxx's video: https://youtu.be/j_j-SUxfQrk?si=mcQtKTFlI1ru9j2m