Honour Management Guide: Surviving Test of Will Barya Levels

[Uriah]

Surviving the Test of Will Barya trial in Path of Exile 2 hinges on effective Honor management, as Honor acts like a secondary life bar that depletes with damage and does not regenerate easily.

1. Understand How Honor Works
Honor is your secondary HP bar, calculated as the sum of your character’s Life and Energy Shield. For example, if you have 1000 Life and 500 Energy Shield, your max Honor is 1500.

Taking damage reduces Honor in addition to your normal health. If Honor reaches zero, the trial ends immediately, regardless of your actual HP.

Honor does not regenerate frequently, so every hit matters.

2. Optimize Your Resistances and Defenses
Damage to Honor depends on the type of damage and your resistances. For example, low chaos resistance means poison or chaos damage will drain Honor faster.

Prioritize balanced resistances—fire, cold, lightning, chaos—to minimize Honor loss from elemental and chaos attacks.

Armor and evasion reduce damage, which indirectly protects Honor by reducing the damage you take.

Energy Shield-heavy builds tend to lose Honor faster because damage to Energy Shield counts fully against Honor.

3. Stay Close to Enemies but Avoid Getting Hit
Interestingly, the closer you are to enemies, the less Honor damage you take per hit. However, staying too close increases the frequency of hits, which can quickly drain Honor.

For ranged builds, try to maintain a distance that balances fewer hits with reduced Honor damage per hit. For melee, prioritize dodging and blocking to avoid excessive Honor loss.

4. Use Relics and Boons to Boost Honor and Survivability
Certain relics increase your maximum Honor or restore Honor on completing objectives within the trial. Seek these out to extend your survivability.

Boons can provide movement speed, reduce enemy health, or increase Honor regeneration, helping you avoid damage and recover some Honor during the run.

5. Manage Your Combat Approach
Avoid unnecessary damage by learning enemy attack patterns and positioning yourself to dodge or block attacks.

Prioritize killing enemies quickly to reduce the number of attacks you face, as fewer enemies mean less Honor loss.

Use crowd control or defensive buffs like Fortify or Molten Shell to mitigate damage.

6. Be Cautious with Melee Builds
Melee characters face a tougher challenge because they naturally take more hits, which drains Honor rapidly.

Consider investing in high armor, block chance, and life regeneration to offset Honor loss.

Use movement skills and defensive buffs to avoid sustained damage.

7. Monitor Your Honor Bar Closely
Keep a constant eye on the Honor bar at the bottom of your screen.

If Honor is dangerously low, consider retreating or using defensive cooldowns to mitigate further damage.

Avoid starting boss fights or difficult rooms without near-full Honor, as low Honor puts you at high risk of instant failure.

Honor is a non-regenerating secondary health bar based on your Life and Energy Shield combined.

Damage to Honor depends on your resistances and proximity to enemies.

Maximize resistances, use relics and boons to increase Honor or restore it, and adopt cautious combat tactics.

Melee builds must be especially careful due to higher exposure to damage.

Constantly monitor Honor and avoid risky engagements when it is low.

By mastering these Honor management strategies, you can survive the Test of Will Barya’s punishing levels and unlock the powerful rewards that come with completing the Trial of Sekhemas.