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The Trial of the Sehkemas is your gateway to ascension in Path of Exile 2.
The trial tests your strength against seven challenges and a boss that must be completed back-to-back. As you’re progressing, rooms will become increasingly difficult as you’re afflicted with curses and running low on honour. However, the trial must be completed to increase your strength to the next level, so let us help with some tips.
Here’s how to unlock the Trial of the Sehkemas in Path of Exile 2, what you can expect inside, and its rewards.
How to unlock Trial of the Sehkemas in POE2
To unlock the Trial of the Sehkemas, you must first defeat Balbala, the Traitor in the Traitor’s Passage in Act 2. Once defeated, they’ll drop Balbala’s Barya coin, which will be used as the key to enter the trial.
Images: Grinding Gear Games via Polygon
Return to the Ardura Caravan and use the Desert Map to travel to the Trial of the Sehkemas at the top of the map. Head inside to find Balbala waiting for you to start the trial.
All Trial of the Sehkemas challenges
The Trial of the Sehkemas is a gauntlet where you must complete seven challenges in a row only to face off against Rattlecage, the Earthbreaker in the eighth and final room. The Trial of Sehkemas is at level 22, so the monsters you’ll face off against will be the same level. However, you can take on this challenge at any point, so you can be extremely overleveled and overgeared if you’d like to have an easier time.
Prior to starting the trial, there are a few things you should know:
- Relics — After you speak with Balbala, she’ll give you a relic, an item making your time in the trial a bit easier by providing you with a buff. Place the relic into the Relic Altar after you’ve inserted Balbala’s Barya coin. These relics can provide you with a multitude of buffs like increasing your total honour, maximum life, or the total amount of sacred water you gain from fountains.
- Honour — Honour acts as a unique life total that is used for the entirety of the trial. Any time you get hit or take damage, you’ll lose honour depending on how much damage was taken. If your honour reaches zero, you will fail and have to start over. To prevent your honour from reaching zero, you’ll need to choose a room that rewards you with honour.
Image: Grinding Gear Games via Polygon
- Trial map — After you complete the first room and each subsequent room, you’ll encounter the trial map. The trial map allows you to select what challenge, reward, and modifier will await you in the next room. If you’re trying to have the easiest time, avoid the rooms that afflict you with curses. If you’re trying to receive the most rewards, try to enter the rooms that award you with keys.
- Death — If you die or run out of honour, your trial will end, but you can still try again at no cost. Interact with Balbala and ask to try again. However, this will only apply to Balbala’s Barya coin. If you use a Djinn Barya coin, the trial will be over once you fail, and you’ll not be allowed re-entry.
To start the Trial of Sehkemas, you’ll need to place Balbala’s Barya coin inside of the altar along with any relics of your choosing. Complete the challenge in the first room to find the trial map, which will allow you to choose between one of five trials:
1/5Image: Grinding Gear Games via Polygon
- Chalice Trial — Defeat all rare monsters to fill up the chalice and progress to the next room.
- Escape Trial — Disable every Death Crystal in the room. After you disable on crystal, a line will shoot out in the direction of the next crystal, so follow the line to easily progress to the next room.
- Gauntlet Trial — Find and interact with levers hidden around the room while avoiding traps and enemies lurking about. After you interact with one lever, gates will open and close forcing you to find a new route to the exit, so keep your eyes peeled for any open gates!
- Hourglass Trial —Activate the hourglass and survive until the time runs out to succeed. If you kill a rare monster the time will go down, but your main focus here is to survive.
- Ritual Trial — Shut down every portal by defeating the lich summoners on the sides of the portal. There are a few variants of this room where the portals can be huddled together near the center of the room or scattered around the edges. Focus on the casters as enemies that appear from the portals will instantly perish once the portals close.
If you’re having a hard time with the Trial of the Sehkemas, the best tip I can give you for these trials is to stick to the trial’s objective. Go for the objective and avoid doing anything unnecessary that could lower your honour.
How to beat Rattlecage, the Earthbreaker
Image: Grinding Gear Games via Polygon
Rattlecage, the Earthbreaker is a giant rock golem that emerges from a rock cluster in the center of the room when you get close. Here are the moves to look out for:
- Rattlecage slams the ground creating a large shockwave around their fists. This attack has a somewhat slow wind up animation and there will be an audio cue from Balbala telling you to watch out, so make sure you can hear her!
- Rattlecage hits the ground, creating mini volcanoes and fissures in the ground. Avoid standing around the volcanoes as they’ll spew out rocks that will chip away at your honour.
- Pockets of wind will appear on the floor indicating that a stalactite will drop in the area, so make sure to move away!
Ranged users can use the rock cluster that Rattlecage emerged from to avoid their attacks for a majority of the fight. Melee users will have to keep a keen eye on Rattlecage’s animations and pull Rattlecage away from the volcanoes and landing zones to keep your honour level high.
Trial of the Sehkemas rewards
Once you’ve defeated Rattlecage, the Earthbreaker, you will enter a new room full of chests and altars.
Image: Grinding Gear Games via Polygon
If you’ve racked up a hefty amount of keys, you can open chests of the corresponding key. Bronze keys can only open bronze chests, silver keys and silver chests, and gold keys and gold chests. There are four bronze and silver chests and two gold chests, with each chest having a different reward. The chests will be random every time you complete a trial, but they can specialize in anything from class items, relics, gold, and armor pieces. If you have leftover sacred waters, you can either purchase items from Balbala or exchange them at the Keth Forge for more keys.
The biggest reward for completing the trial has to be from the Altar of Ascendancy. Interact with the altar to choose your Ascendancy class, which will give you an additional skill tree full of power abilities.
Next, check out how to get more spirit to summon more minions and use more buffs, and learn how to use Path of Exile 2’s official trading board.
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