From hating Sanctum to wanting to farm it

This morning I dreaded that I had to try yet again my 4th ascendancy in Sanctum. Tonight, I plan to keep farming this puppy. This is not a "skill issue" post. Rather, I want to share some less-obvious points for fellow gamers.

1. Unlike PoE1, where you could expect to win the trial in the first try, here unless you are super good, the Trial is designed with the intent that you fail it a number of times, during which you accumulate relics to slot in the Relic Chest. These relics help tremendously. For example, because of the stacked relics, I have 12K Honor and 75% honor resistance, which makes running out of honor nigh impossible.

2. Look for relics that have both % Increased Honor and % Honor Resistance. You can 3:1 them in your hideout. Relics are level dependent, like gear, and at higher levels you get better rolls. Keep updating your relics.

3. All active pressure plates are traps. Some are meant for you to step on to activate a switch. You must roll away immediately after.

4. Movement speed is key. You may want to put +30 Movement boots even with crappy stats just for the run.

5. You will have to fail a number of times to get familiarity with the rooms. This is also true for the "Escape" room. You don't have to deactivate the crystals in any particular order. Sometimes you "know" that a nearby area must have a crystal and you pick it on the way.

6. Beware the "enemies remove 5% of health, mana, and energy shield on hit." This makes the Cannon-like guys "vopral" against you because they can fire a million pellets. This is an issue on the 4th floor where they can launch in a modified way all their projectiles at you in a second.

7. The second boos (Terracotta Pair) - have huge AoE, especially in the second phase. I noticed that if you shield charge past the guy after he is at the center, he won't turn around and will still slam in your former direction.

8. The Scorpion fight (3rd floor) has several variants. In one, the Lady tells you to step on a plate in which case you can do. Other times, stepping on a plate triggers shooting traps.

9. The final boss (4th floor) does relatively low damage, and you can focus on avoiding his most dangerous slow attacks and ignore chip damage. Watch a video on how to run over the 6 white spots ASAP when he changes phase before the arena explodes (if you see 5, kiss you run goodbye).

10. The keys that drop open chests are full of junk. After the 4th boss, there is a much larger chest room, with specialized chests that encourage farming.

11. Unlike PoE1 when you had to do a hitless run to win special rewards latger, here the condition says "can't restore honor." If you arrive well padded . . .

12. The merchant is your friend to get strategic "boons" and offset, if possible, debilitating conditions. Pay attention for shrines that grant boons for free.

Happy hunting!

Nice list of tips. Thanks for the knowledge.

awesome post ty

To add on, if you see random Minor Affliction and you're running CI, don't take it. You have a good chance of getting No Energy Shield.

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Auralysist#4050 wrote:

To add on, if you see random Minor Affliction and you're running CI, don't take it. You have a good chance of getting No Energy Shield.

Agreed. "Minor" afflictions can be debilitating, including "worn sandals" which slows you down 25% and puts you at risk during "Escape" trials or the "cheese" phase of the 4th boss.

i would add, something not too obvious is that anything that causes you to take damage, also will make you lose honour.

of course it does why wouldnt it?

the problem is this also applies to stuff like afflictions that say make you lose 5% hp.

this extends to afflictions that cause you to take "physical damage". such as getting hit with 100 damage everytime you complete a room, or taking 100 damage if you open a chest.

i was oblivious to something "that obvious" as i felt like MEH i can take the hit. i ll just potion up. but nope, it all hits your honour as well.

I honestly do kind of enjoy sanctum on my ranged characters. It's on melee that I just find it very unfair and unbalanced.

NGL, now that I know how to sanctum, I get better t15 map sustain in there than I do in maps.

That said, I was very mad when presented with the "dont get the gentle poke of turbodeath" phase in the final floor. Very unpleasant learning experience.