Path Of Exile 2 Carry Run

As you explore Path of Exile 2 Early Access, you will encounter a side quest in Act 2 called Trial of Sekhemas. Although this quest is optional, once you pass this trial, you will choose Ascendancy Classes, which will completely change or customize your build.

So all players should try Trial of Sekhemas so that you can maximize your character’s potential. However, given that there is a very complex Honor System in this trial, the difficulty of the entire trial has increased dramatically. Because of the difficulty of this trial, it is very important to understand how Honor System works and some precautions in this guide before starting to explore, which will make it easier and faster to pass this very difficult trial.

How Does Honor System Work?

When you first enter Trial of Sekhemas, you will have a new health bar at the bottom of the screen. This is Honor bar, which acts as a secondary HP bar here. It will show you how much Honor you currently have, the maximum Honor you can get, and which Trial Keys you currently have. You will start your Trial of Sekhemas exploration with a full Honor bar. It is important to note that the maximum Honor you have is determined by the sum of your Life and Energy Shield stats. For example, if your two stats are 250, then the maximum Honor you can use will be 500.

Given this mechanism, you should try to improve these two key attributes in your build as much as possible before starting this trial. For example, you can spend some POE 2 Exalted Orbs to give defensive gear some new affixes to ensure maximum gains. However, it should be noted that your Honor Bar and health are two different increase and decrease mechanisms, so your health will not be greatly affected if your Honor is used up.

During your trial, your Honor will be reduced bit by bit as you take damage from enemies. It can be explained here that the honor damage you take depends on the type of damage the enemy inflicts on you and your resistance to damage. For example, if your character has very little Chaos Resistance and the enemy casts poison, lightning or fire damage on you, your Honor will be greatly reduced because they are all the same type of elemental damage.

In addition to the elemental damage type, the Honor you lose is also related to the distance between you and the enemy. The closer you are to the enemy, the less damage your Honor will suffer. So whether you are using a Sorceress that focuses on long-range attacks or a Warrior that emphasizes melee attacks, try to get as close to the enemy as possible to avoid more Honor from being damaged. But don’t get too close, otherwise you will be more likely to be hit by the enemies in the trial and cause greater damage.

During the entire exploration process of Trial of Sekhemas, Honor will not be restored as often as health points, so each damage is very serious. Once your Honor reaches 0, your journey in this trial ends immediately. Since Trial of Sekhemas is a one-life dungeon, if you run out of health or lose all Honor, you will lose your chance to explore Trial and can only enter Trial by resetting the map and fighting Balbala.

How To Recover Honor?

Although Honor is difficult to recover during exploration, it is not impossible. The first way to recover Honor is to use specific Djinn Boons that you can apply to your character during Trial of Sekhemas. You need to find Balbala in Trial Room and exchange Sacred Water for these Boons.

Boons provided here are divided into Minor or Major according to their effects. Minor Boons require less Sacred Water than Major Boons, but the effects are also weaker than those of Major Boons. They all provide some benefits to your build so that you can more easily obtain POE 2 Currency and other loot in subsequent explorations.

The most noteworthy Major Boon is Earned Honor, which requires you to deliver 600 Sacred Water. Earned Honor will restore a certain percentage of Honor for each Trial Room you complete, so that you can continuously complete all challenges. In addition, you can also restore some Honor at fountains in some public areas, but it should be noted that it does not appear after each room is completed, so you can’t rely on it too much.

Besides this external factor, you can also gain some Honor by upgrading your character during Trial of Sekhemas, because during your upgrade, the main sources of Honor, Life and Energy Shield, will be enhanced to a certain extent, so Honor will also be increased and restored to a certain extent.

How To Reduce The Damage Taken By Honor?

Now that you know how Honor system works, you might be thinking about it in relation to health and wondering if there is a way to increase Honor’s resistance in POE 2 Early Access. In fact, there is.

First, you can equip some Relics in your build that can increase Honor’s resistance. You can get them from Balbala. Relics not only reduce the damage taken by Honor but also increase the maximum Honor value. But it should be noted that when you first start Trial of Sekhemas, you can only place one Relic in your build. But as you go deeper into Trial, you can add more and more Relics, and the boosts and rewards you get will increase accordingly.

That’s all the details of Honor system you are experiencing in the current Trial of Sekhemas in POE 2 and some strategies you can use. Hopefully, this guide will keep your Honor value in this Trial stable and within a safe range, and make it through this difficult Trial with ease. Have fun!

As you explore Path of Exile 2 Early Access, you will encounter many side quests that are generally closely related to the story of the entire game and will provide you with some permanent attribute rewards. This Slithering Dead Quest that this guide will introduce to you is one of them.

In this side quest, you will be asked by Servi, a local guide in Ziggurat Encampment, to help her uncover the secrets hidden by the rival tribe and the fate of her son Apus. Although the tasks to be completed in Slithering Dead Quest are very simple, once you figure out the ins and outs of things, you will complete it in a brief time.

However, in this guide, we will not only introduce you to the specific steps to complete this quest but also help you choose the reward given to you after completing the quest, because here you can only choose one of the three permanent rewards, which may make some players very difficult to choose. Without further ado, let’s start our exploration of this Slithering Dead Quest!

Steps To Complete Slithering Dead Quest

First of all, we need to make it clear that Slithering Dead Quest is located in Jungle Ruins map in Act 3 of POE 2 Early Access, and because the game content in Cruel difficulty is the same as the normal difficulty, this quest will also appear in Act 3 Cruel.

However, I have to remind you that the difficulty of the game content in these two acts is completely different, so you can use the previous common builds before entering Act 3 Cruel, but spend as much POE 2 Regal Orbs as possible to upgrade some of the defensive or offensive gear and add some affixes. This will make you have a more relaxed gaming experience in this more difficult game content.

Once you reach Jungle Ruins map, you can start looking for the entrance to Venom Crypts, which is located near Jungle Ruins Waypoint and may require your careful search. In addition to this exploration area, this map has another exit, which is Infested Barrens, which is very easy to find as a must-explore area in the main quest Legacy of the Vaal.

Once you have successfully found the entrance to Venom Crypts and entered, you can explore the area thoroughly. It is important to remind you that because of the new map mechanics in POE 2 Early Access, you may find that some furnishings on the map will change during the second day of exploration. Please do not panic, this is the effort made by the developers to keep players fresh in their exploration.

When you explore Den of Serpent Priestess, you may encounter a corpse, which you need to interact with, and then you will receive Corpse-Snake Venom. Then you need to teleport back to Ziggurat Encampment with this important item and give it to Servi, and your mission is complete.

How To Choose The Rewards Offered By Slithering Dead Quest?

As mentioned earlier, this Slithering Dead Quest is a repetitive quest that will appear twice in Act 3 at different difficulties. The rewards offered to you are different each time, but what remains unchanged is that you need to choose one of the three rewards as your permanent attribute reward. Next, we will introduce you to the rewards that will be offered to you in the two game contents one by one, and how to choose.

Act 3

In Normal Difficulty, Servi will provide you with a dialogue after receiving Corpse-Snake Venom you brought back, and you need to choose one of the three rewards. The specific effects of the three rewards are as follows.

• Venom Draught of Stone: It can increase Stun Threshold of your build by 25%.
• Venom Draught of the Veil: It can increase Elemental Ailment Threshold of your build by 30%.
• Venom Draught of Clarity: It can increase Mana Regeneration Rate of your build by 25%.

In the nearly one-month period since the release of POE 2 Early Access, most players choose Venom Draught of Clarity here, because it can better help your build gain better defensive capabilities, ensure that you can safely survive some difficult battles and easily obtain the final POE 2 Currency reward.

Especially for classes that emphasize melee attacks such as Monks and Warriors, Venom Draught of Clarity can solve their shortcomings of too little and too slow mana recovery at critical moments, and is the best reward choice.

Next, Venom Draught of the Veil will be your second choice if you use Witch and Sorceress classes. This Elemental Ailment Threshold buff can greatly reduce the degree of damage caused by Bleed, Poison, Chill, Freeze, Ignite, Electrocute, or Shock caused by the enemy for these classes that do not worry about mana problems, and increase the defensive capabilities of the build.

Finally, Venom Draught of Stone is the least appealing choice of the three bonuses, as Stun Threshold only works against enemies that can cast Stun, which is rare in later game content.

Act 3 Cruel

After you finish exploring Act 3 Cruel, you will also have three more Venom Draughts to choose from, each with a different effect. Here are their names and effects.

• Venom Draught of the Lost: Increases your build’s Chaos Resistance by 10%.
• Venom Draught of the Sky: Increases all of your character’s attributes by 5.
• Venom Draught of the Marshes: Reduces the effect of Slow debuffs by 15%.

The choices here are much simpler than those in Act 3. Chaos Resistance-increasing Venom Draught of the Lost is your best choice, because after you complete this act, you will enter the endgame, where enemies that deal Chaos damage will increase, making exploration in the endgame much safer.

Another very important reason is that Chaos Resistance you can gain from gear in a build is very low, regardless of what type of build you use. Another reward worth your attention is Venom Draught of the Sky, which improves your character’s overall attributes and makes your entire build more balanced so that you can explore various game content. As for the reduced slowing buff provided by Venom Draught of the Marshes, any higher rarity boot in the game will do the trick, so it's not some rare permanent bonus.

The above is how to complete Slithering Dead Quest in POE 2 Early Access and the rewards you can get. Hopefully, this guide will help you complete this super-rich side quest faster and allow you to choose the right effective rewards that will help your character’s build the most. Have fun!