Path of Exile 2 Trial of Sekhemas Guide

Hello, Exiles, and welcome to the PoE 2 Trial of Sekhemas guide! This is one of two thrilling Ascension trials awaiting you during the three campaign acts. These trials are key to unlocking one of two incredible Ascendancy subclasses for your character, making them a pivotal part of your journey. Even after you conquer them for the first time, these trials remain relevant as challenging endgame content packed with exciting rewards. This guide will break down everything you need to know about the Trials of Sekhemas—what they entail, how to tackle them effectively, and how to farm them in the endgame. Ready to learn the ropes? Let’s get started!

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Read our other PoE 2 guides:

• Beginner's Guide
• Endgame Guide
• Gearing Guide
• Leveling Guide
• Classes Tier List
• Best Builds
• Trading Guide
• Divine Orb Farming Guide

What Are the Trials of Sekhemas?

Let’s start by explaining what is the Trial of Sekhemas. Located in the Vastiri Plains are the Maraketh – a culture of rich tales and brutal traditions who must do whatever it takes to survive the desert. The highest position in Maraketh culture is Sekhemas, and it is not a title given freely. All aspirants must complete the Trial of the Sekhemas, a grueling gauntlet that will test their strength, will, cunning, and patience. To enter, a warrior of the Maraketh must prove their worth by trapping the soul of a Djinn in a coin, and you are no different. Once you have earned your coin, it may be placed in the Relic Altar to begin the Path of Exile 2 Trial of Sekhemas.

How to Unlock the Trials of Sekhemas?

You will unlock the Trials of Sekhemas through a side-quest in Act 2. It all starts with Shambrin, the vendor at the Ardura Caravan, who will ask you to locate the long-lost location of the prison of Balbala, the Traitor. Somewhere in the Traitor's Passage, Balbala has been imprisoned for a thousand years as a Djinn. Her sentence has long ended, but the knowledge of her prison's location has been lost with time.

Anyway, as you make your way through the Traitor's Passage, explore the map, and you will come across the doors that lead to where Balbala is. If you find the "Decree of Imprisonment" pillar on your way, it means you're close to that door. Go ahead and open the door while having that sub-quest active and fight Balbala the Traitor. There's going to be a checkpoint right in front of the boss arena, so you won't have to run too far to replay the fight.

Balbala The Traitor Boss Tactics

This is not an easy boss fight. In fact, it might be your most difficult boss fight after the Act 1 final boss. There are a couple of Balbala's attacks to be mindful of:

1. Fire Seal - Balbala leaves a fire seal on the ground that burns you if you stand in it. It sounds not too dangerous, but as you keep dodging away from her attacks, you're bound to end up inside the seal, so be careful.
2. Invisibility - Balbala goes invisible and hides near the edge of the arena, usually on the northern or southern side. At the same time, the poisoned cloud appears in the center hole and slowly fills the arena. So, as soon as Balbala disappears, find her.
3. Spirit of Balbala - sometimes Balbala summons 1-2 spirits as adds that will keep harassing you along with the boss.

She also has other attacks, particularly where she uses her magical knives that she plants into the ground like spikes and detonates them. Or she summons about a dozen knives in the air and then launches them at you at the same time. All of this makes the fight unpleasant whether you're a ranged or a melee class. Keep rolling around and try to stun the boss to give yourself a few seconds to use your full combo. You might not get her on the first try, but you'll get there.

Once you defeat Balbala, she will promise to help you pass the Trials of Sekhema as your advisor, as it is now your duty to cleanse her honor. The Trials of Sekhemas location will be added to the world map, and you'll be given the Coin, which activates the trial.

Trials of Sekhemas Walkthrough

In every PoE 2 Trial of Sekhemas walkthrough, each room has its own challenges to overcome. Every time you play, the order in which rooms are going to be completed is different, as well as the objectives. For example, there might be a room where killing certain enemies adds blood to a chalice, and the goal is to kill enough monsters to fill out the chalice to the max. BLOG20

Other rooms might apply a debuff that will persist for the entire trial. One of these debuffs could give you the Spiked Shell upon entry, which gives all enemies in this trial 50% more health. Some rooms will have all kinds of traps in them in addition to the monsters. If you don’t like this type of challenge, it would be possible to select an alternative, which may include surviving waves of monsters or a time trial where you have to locate and deactivate the crystals on the map.

So, how to complete Trial of Sekhemas in PoE 2? The main mechanic in this trial is Honor. This is like a secondary health bar. Any damage taken from the enemies will deplete your character’s health and some Honor. If you run out of Honor, the trial will fail, even if your character didn’t die. To restart, you will need to find another coin to try again.

An additional Trial of Sekhemas mechanics PoE 2, called Djinn Boons, provides all sorts of bonuses during your run. Examples:

• Sekhema’s Cloak – Upon reaching 0 Life, revive once with full Honor.

These boons can be found at Honor Orbala – altars that give random boons and restore a percentage of Honor you’ve lost up to that point.

You can expect to get a key after completing each room that can be used to unlock chests later in the trial. After claiming a reward, you can view the full Trial Map to choose how you want to proceed. As you can see, there are 8 rooms, including the first and final rooms. You can also preview what kind of reward you’re going to get. There are different types of keys. Some of them unlock chests with better rewards, but that also means that the room that it’s in is going to be more difficult. The Honor is retained throughout the entire challenge, so you have to evaluate your risks.

The honor can be restored if the chosen room has a fountain at the end that does that. There are relics and boons that can increase both the maximum honor you can have and the amount that can be restored. Restoring honor at the fountain costs 5 Sacred Water.

Types of Challenges in the Trials of Sekhemas

When looking at the trial map of rooms, you might get confused as to what to expect from the next challenge and what those rewards mean. Let's break it down for you:

• Escape Trial - the goal is to disable 5 Death Crystals scattered around a large room. You'll be given 20 seconds to reach the next Crystal. The room is full of enemies that start chasing you as you run by them, but you won't have time to deal with them. If you don't make it on time, you'll die instantly.
• Hourglass Trial - you'll see a giant hourglass in the room. Activate it to start the survival trial. Your goal is to stay alive until the time runs out. The enemies will continue to spawn, and there'll be normal and elite enemies, so be careful.
• Ritual Trial - in this trial your goal is to find all portals and kill two monsters that keep them active. As long as these monsters live, the portals will continue to spawn new enemies. There are two variations of this trial: in one, you need to shut down 5 portals, and in the other version, you need to disable one big portal with 4 summoners.
• Gauntlet Trial - this trial includes both monsters and traps. Your goal is to open the final door by activating two levers. Each lever is located on the opposite sides of a map, and to reach both, you'll need to go through both monsters and traps.
• Chalice Trial - this trial is about filling a massive chalice with blood by killing 2-3 elite enemies. Usually, you would take the right or left paths that will lead you to one or the other elite. On your way and between those elites, you will encounter regular monsters and possibly another elite (if you're unlucky).
• Boss Trial - the eighth room will have the boss encounter: Rattlecage, the Earthbreaker.

Trial of Sekhemas Vendor and Currency

The Djinn is going to play the role of a vendor with whom you can trade by spending a special currency called Sacred Water. He will always have a random collection of items that will help you get to the final room without losing your health or Honor. 

You can expect to see items at the PoE 2 Djinn vendor that:

• Recover lost Honor
• Gain new Boons
• Remove debuffs (afflictions)

When you select which room to tackle next, you’ll have to decide whether you want to get a key for a chest at the end or get more Sacred Water so that you can spend it at this merchant to increase your chances of success.

Trial of Sekhemas Bosses

At the end of the floor, you’ll encounter a powerful boss who will put your skills to the test. Most likely, it will be the Rattlecage, the Earthbreaker, at least for your first completion. He has high armor values and resistance to fire and lightning but a weakness to cold damage.

The boss looks like a lava golem that often stands in one place and does an AoE attack by making the ground under his feet tremble.

The other possible boss mechanic for this trial is the duo – Hadi of the Flaming River and Rafq of the Frozen Spring.

Trial of Sekhemas Rewards

After defeating the boss, you will earn the right to Ascend if this is your first time playing. In the same room as the Altar of Ascendancy, you’ll find 10 chests with the PoE 2 Trial of Sekhemas rewards:

• x4 Bronze Cache
• x4 Silver Cache
• x2 Gold Cache

You can open as many chests as you want as long as you have enough of the right keys. There are also several types of chests which determine what rewards you’re going to get:

• Hoarder Cache
• Armour Cache
• Arcanist’s Cache
• Mysterious Cache

So, if you’re after a specific type of reward, you can open the cache with the right name on it.

Once again, if this is your first time completing a trial, you’ll also be awarded 2 points to use on any of the two Ascendancy class trees. BLOG20

Trial of Sekhemas as the Endgame Activity

Both trials have much more content and progression systems to offer if you keep doing them after you’ve reached the Atlas. The trial of Sekhemas will offer you the following:

• Progression mechanic
• Unique rewards
• Player power

As you get higher-level coins for Path of Exile 2 endgame trials, you’ll unlock more floors to explore. Just like before, each room on that floor is its own challenge, and at the end of the floor, you’ll fight a boss.

There are 4 floors in total, leading to another pinnacle boss at the end of the last floor, which can only be accessed at endgame.

Trial of Sekhemas Jewels

In Trial of Sekhem, you will also find jewels that you can socket into your tree. These are similar to passives that can be crafted using currency items. They can be really powerful as they allow you to stack modifiers that may not be easily accessible on the tree normally. For example:

• Humming Emerald of Shocking – 10% increased Lightning Damage and 25% increased chance to Shock.
• Greater Time-Lost Sapphire of Potency – upgrades Radius to Medium and gives 25% increased effect of Small passive skills in Radius.

There are types of jewels that don’t provide bonuses themselves but affect other passives surrounding them. So, with careful placement in the tree, you can get significant power from it. There are also unique jewels available with very interesting effects.

Trial of Sekhemas Endgame Progression System

To push further into the trial, you’ll have to use the trial’s progression system, which involves Relics.

Relics are items that can be placed on the Relic Altar as you start the trial. Each Relic gives a special bonus that affects the trial by making it easier and increasing its rewards.

Relics can be crafted and modified with currency items like the Orb of Augmentation, making them even more effective.If you can complete the entire trial, overcoming all four floors, the final boss will reward you with one of many unique Relics. These will be consumed when used on the next run but can reward you with unique and powerful items. For example:

• The Last Flame Incense Relic – This relic imposes a restriction, making it much harder to achieve multiple Honour rewards in the trial. Using this relic in the Trial ensures that Zarokh, the Eternal will drop Temporalis upon completion.

This is one of the PoE 2 best Relics, and it is designed for endgame players aiming for specific loot (Temporalis) from the Trial of the Sekhemas. It adds a strategic challenge while offering guaranteed high-value rewards. None-unique relics include:

• Plentiful Tapestry Relic of the Vanguard – Reduces the incoming damage from bosses, providing a defensive benefit during the trial. Increases the number of item options the Merchant offers during the trial, improving the chance of acquiring useful or powerful rewards.
• Seal Relic of Affluence – 4% chance for Double Sacred Water BLOG20
• Annihilating Coffer Relic of Empowerment – Monsters take 11% increased Damage. Restore 10% of Honour on killing a Boss.

The Relic Altar looks like an inventory window with limited space. If you want to place several Relics on the Altar, you can do so, but you’ll have to think about how to fit them together.

Conclusion

The trial of Sekhemas is Maraketh’s version of the Ascendancy trials. The main mechanic of this trial is that you get Honor as an additional metric to take care of. Being attacked by enemies depletes Honor, and if it reaches zero, the trail is failed. There are many ways to make the run more difficult or easier based on a few built-in systems. First of all, you have a vendor that sells items that can restore Honor. Secondly, there are relics that can provide additional bonuses that will make the run easier in some way. The relics are only available in the endgame version of the trial. This is where you’ll also be able to encounter the trial’s pinnacle boss.

The structure of the trial is pretty simple. At the end of each room, you’ll have a map where you can preview the next set of rooms, as well as their challenges and rewards. Pick any room and progress through it until you end up at a boss encounter. We’ll update this guide with more details about the boss encounters, the best relics, and more as soon as we have more data on our hands.

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