How to Optimize Your Gear for the Test of Cunning Barya
To optimize your gear for the Test of Cunning Barya challenge in Path of Exile 2, focus on maximizing mobility, survivability, and damage output to handle the trial’s traps, puzzles, and the final boss effectively. Here’s how to tailor your gear:
1. Prioritize Movement Speed and Mobility
Equip boots and accessories that increase movement speed to quickly navigate trap-heavy rooms and avoid damage.
Consider gear with cooldown reduction or bonuses to movement skills like Blink or Dash to maintain high mobility.
Lightweight armor or evasion-based gear helps maintain fast movement and dodge chance.
2. Enhance Survivability
Stack life and energy shield to build a large Honour pool, since Honour acts as your health in the trial and cannot be restored by flasks.
Look for gear with resistances to elemental damage (fire, cold, lightning) to reduce incoming damage from traps and enemies.
Armor or evasion combined with energy shield hybrids provide balanced mitigation against physical and elemental hits.
3. Boost Damage Output
Choose weapons and gear that increase your primary damage type (physical, elemental, or chaos) to clear rooms efficiently.
For trap builds, prioritize affixes that increase trap damage, trap throwing speed, or cooldown recovery.
For minion or ranged builds, focus on minion damage, projectile damage, or attack/cast speed.
4. Use Utility and Defensive Mods
Gear with modifiers that grant dodge chance, block chance, or damage avoidance can be lifesavers in trap-heavy environments.
Look for affixes that increase life regeneration, life leech, or energy shield recharge rate to improve sustain.
Consider gear that reduces status effect duration or grants immunity to curses and ailments common in the trial.
5. Relics and Jewels Synergy
Equip relics that complement your gear by increasing maximum Honour, movement speed, or damage.
Use jewels that enhance your build’s core mechanics, such as trap damage or minion survivability, to further boost performance.
6. Balance Between Offense and Defense
While high damage helps clear rooms faster, prioritize survivability to avoid Honour loss from traps and boss attacks.
Efficient clears reduce time spent in dangerous areas, indirectly improving survivability.
By focusing on fast movement, strong defensive layers, and build-specific damage enhancements, you can optimize your gear to survive and excel in the Test of Cunning Barya challenge.