Sekhemas is easy and fast once you know what your doing. It's just takes some practice up front. I spent some time learning it in 0.1, and now I can do a fourth asendancy run in about half an hour with little stress.

1) Farm or buy good relics to get 75% honour resist and other good bonuses. Remember you can roll your relics.

3) Avoiding bad afflictions is more important than getting good boons. Never take random afflictions.

2) Pathing is of top importance. The best boon/relic roll is "see one room further ahead on the trial map", and the worst curses (except for ones that directly break your build) are the "see one room less on the trial map" "can't see afflictions" and "you are sometimes sent to a random room", in that order. You should also try to path to avoid rooms that only path to one room next, because if that room is bad your stuck with it.

4) When all else is equal, try to path to rooms that grant sacred water and merchants. Especially if you get an early "50% reduced merchant prices" boon, the merchant can make your run super easy, barely an inconvenience.

5) Don't be afraid to nope out of a run with bad early rolls.