Trial of Chaos — Stacking Trial Modifiers Across Rounds
The Trial of Chaos is, alongside the Trial of the Sekhemas, one of the two Ascension Trials that grant ascendancy points. Where the Sekhemas is about protecting Honour, this one is about stacking an unfavourable modifier every round and surviving without dying.
0.5.5 reworked this content substantially. You can leave and resume from the same room, each room now ends with a reward chest, and the route to the Trialmaster has changed. Everything below is written to 0.5.5; the full change list is in the 0.5.5 patch notes.
For the full ascendancy-point picture across both trials, see the Ascension Trials section of Pinnacle Bosses.
Getting in
At the Temple of Chaos near the Chimeral Wetlands in Act 3, insert an Inscribed Ultimatum into the Temple Offering to start.
The Inscribed Ultimatum reads:
Area Level: # Number of Trials: # Mortals spend their lives wondering which fate shall be theirs. Chaos takes amusement in knowing the answer: all of them. Take this item to The Temple of Chaos to participate in a Trial of Chaos.
During the campaign you get a quest key, the Chimeral Inscribed Ultimatum, dropped by Xyclucian, the Chimera in the Chimeral Wetlands. It’s returned to you if you fail.
You can leave and resume (0.5.5)
Previously, starting a run locked you in until you finished or died. Now you can leave at any point and resume later from the same room — trading or stopping for the night no longer means abandoning a run.
The key’s level sets the round count
The most important rule. The Inscribed Ultimatum’s area level determines how many rounds you run.
| Area level | Rounds |
|---|---|
| 39–59 | 4 |
| 60–74 | 7 |
| 75–80 | 10 |
Area level 75–80 Ultimatums also display Deadly, Victorious, or Cowardly beneath the round count — that tells you the final boss and its corresponding Fate key.
Since 0.5.5, area level also brings inherent bonuses: chance and pack size of Magic/Rare monsters, how many modifiers Rare monsters can roll, Quality and Quantity of boss drops, and whether the area can drop Exceptional items. Atlas Passives don’t apply inside the Trial, and these bonuses exist to fill that gap — so the same 10 rounds pay better at a higher area level.
Structure — rounds and the modifier choice
This is what defines the trial. Before each round, the Trialmaster appears and offers one item reward plus three modifiers.
- The modifier you pick applies to every subsequent round.
- Complete a round and the choice appears again. You continue with more dangerous modifiers, or end the run and take the accumulated rewards.
- Since 0.5.5, between-room difficulty modifiers always also increase the quality of drops from slain monsters. There’s no longer an option that adds difficulty and gives nothing back.
Round objectives include Defeat all, Survival (until the dais fills), Escort (a statue), Soul Cores (carry cores to an altar), Sacrifice (kill within blood circles), and Boss. Rounds 4, 7, and 10 are boss fights. In 0.5.5, Escort, Sacrifice, and Implant the Soul Cores appear less often than Defeat all and Survival.
Trial modifiers
The trial’s downsides are called Trial modifiers. Each round you pick one of three offered and it accumulates. There are close to thirty, some spanning several tiers — buffing monsters, empowering traps, cutting resistances or recovery, and more.
For example, Stalking Shade sends an invulnerable shade after you that inflicts Ruin on melee hits, and reaching 7 Ruin fails the trial. Many modifiers carry their own failure condition or threat like this.
0.5.5 overhauled this system:
- More modifier tiers, and a significant reduction in the difficulty they apply.
- Descriptions now show actual values. Where Shielding Monsters once just said monsters are protected by Energy Shield, it now states what percentage of Maximum Life they gain as Extra Maximum Energy Shield.
- Turrets and Petrification Statues are no longer mutually exclusive — picking one no longer removes the other from the pool — and both are placed more evenly and fairly.
- Burning and Shocking Turrets now fire a single projectile at a fixed frequency at all tiers, starting at 3 per encounter; Petrification Statues start at 2, with higher tiers adding more of each.
Soul Cores and rewards
Soul Cores are the signature reward of this trial.
0.5.5 changed the reward structure in two places:
- Each room now ends with a reward chest. Dying used to forfeit everything banked in the run; now you collect as you go, so death costs far less.
- Run rewards consist of Currency and Soul Cores only. Corrupted items are no longer a reward outcome — the “corrupted rare/unique” entries from the old per-round reward table are gone.
- The more significant elite monsters are more dangerous but more rewarding.
Soul Cores still come from the boss rounds (4, 7, 10), but the per-round drop quantities after 0.5.5 are not confirmed — the official notes describe the reward chest and the changed composition without publishing per-round numbers.
Soul Cores are socketed into gear to grant power. 0.5.5 added 17 new Soul Cores and rebalanced many existing ones; usage and the change list are covered in Trial of Chaos Crafting.
Ascendancy points — round tiers
| Points | Requirement | Boss |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Area level 39+ · 4 rounds | Random trial boss |
| 4 | 60+ · 7 rounds | Random trial boss |
| 6 | 75+ · 10 rounds | Fixed trial boss |
| 8 | 75+ · 10 rounds + kill the Trialmaster | Fixed boss + Trialmaster |
There are 8 ascendancy points total, and repeating either this or the Trial of the Sekhemas alone can supply all eight.
“Key area level” and “character level” are different numbers. The 10-round tier needs an Ultimatum of area level 75+, but the character level requirement is 65 (55 for 7 rounds). These two get conflated constantly.
The Trialmaster — one Ultimatum now carries the fragments (0.5.5)
The Trialmaster is the Trial of Chaos’s final boss. Unlike the other ascension-trial boss, completing 10 rounds alone is not enough to reach him — three Fate keys go into the door in the final room to open his tower.
| Fate key | Kill |
|---|---|
| Deadly Fate | Bahlak, the Sky Seer |
| Victorious Fate | Chetza, the Feathered Plague |
| Cowardly Fate | Uxmal, the Beastlord |
What changed is how you gather them. One Ultimatum used to mean one Fate, so you needed several Ultimatums or the trade market. Since 0.5.5:
- Completing an Inscribed Ultimatum with 10 Trials lets you continue immediately, without supplying another Inscribed Ultimatum.
- You can continue twice per Inscribed Ultimatum — so one Ultimatum covers up to three 10-round runs.
- Each successful continuation awards a different Trialmaster Fragment.
- Modifiers and reward quality carry over, making this a deliberate trade of difficulty for better rewards.
- When offered the continuation you may also take an optional double-or-nothing currency wager.
The patch notes describe the reward only as “a different Trialmaster Fragment.” Whether that is the same item as the three Fates above or a separate one isn’t determinable from the official wording — what is clear is that carrying a single Ultimatum through its continuations fills out what the tower needs. Fate keys can still be obtained by trade.
Also in 0.5.5: the Trialmaster can no longer drop Magic rarity Inscribed Ultimatums, and he only stops time at the very start of the run rather than in nearly every room (he still shows up to talk). Uxmal, the Beastlord’s arena was redesigned entirely and no longer flies around.
The Trialmaster drops his own uniques on death (a jewel, shield, mask, belt, gloves, and more). Item details are on the equipment pages.
Preparation
- Choosing modifiers is your difficulty dial. Each round, take the one that’s least lethal to your build — some (reduced recovery, reduced resistances) are far more dangerous depending on your setup. With 0.5.5’s lower difficulty scaling and explicit values, this is easier to calculate than it used to be.
- Decide in advance where you’ll stop. Per-room chests soften death, but modifiers still accumulate and the run ramps sharply toward the end.
- If you’re running 10 rounds, plan around continuations. One Ultimatum carries three runs, so overloading modifiers in the first makes the next two that much harder.
- For defensive fundamentals, see The Basics.