So........Soul Sanctum.

[crab.king274]

Is it just me or is this place a major kaizo trap? I was saving 1800 geo for the lantern, but went down to the City of Tears because I thought it would just be a quick pit stop like all the other towns. And then I lost it all to those freaking random, twitchy, teleporting guys. I mean, when you spawn 3 minibosses in narrow passageways, there's something wrong. I nearly ragequit, and it probably took me 10 tries before I could open that door on the other side of the giant room. And what was my reward for sacrificing literally everything? A giant boss one of those guys that instant killed me. And to add insult to injury, the closest bench is right at the beginning of that long linear path. It's stuff like that where I feel people stopped playing. I knew I should have bought that lantern.

[Gray]

how many ugrades do you have? i had the same problem where i got to the soul sanctum and had almost the bare minimum. i'll get the upgrades and go back, after that it's super easy imo

[Boksha]

Just be more careful. If enemies are kicking your ass, don't foolishly push on but instead fall back until you figure out how to beat them. I'd say that's common sense, and I'm at a loss why you think the game would "reward" you for being reckless.

[scub]

you aren't gonna want to hear this, but uuuh look for mask shards and git gud

[crab.king274]

Originally posted by 花:

how many ugrades do you have? i had the same problem where i got to the soul sanctum and had almost the bare minimum. i'll get the upgrades and go back, after that it's super easy imo

Yeah, I didn't buy anything besides a bunch of map markers, so I had the bare minimum health.

Originally posted by Boksha:

Just be more careful. If enemies are kicking your ass, don't foolishly push on but instead fall back until you figure out how to beat them. I'd say that's common sense, and I'm at a loss why you think the game would "reward" you for being reckless.

I eventually got lucky with their path finding and picked them off one at a time, and was even able to crush one with an elevator in the room before. I then went to face Soul Master and came up with the lamest strategy that somehow worked, I would dodge every one of his attacks and get two strikes in when he would dash towards me, and then spam heal right after while he wastes one turn doing nothing but teleporting. Still pretty salty I lost my money though, but I just found the relic collector guy and instantly got it back. I just got the dream nail now.

[sekai]

There should be a bench right next to the Soul Sanctum. Just before you head in the room to encounter your very first "random, twitchy, teleporting guys", ie the spacious room with nothing but 3 jumping platform to go up that spawned the first teleporting spell guy that once killed no longer respawns, there should be another way towards the upper left with a pointer signalling a bench. It is also the bench where you would meet Cornifer to buy the map of the whole City of Tears.

As for the Soul Sanctum itself, I must admit, I also find that place a hellhole when I just started the game. The teleporting spell guys are some of the worst nightmare for newbies.

Lucky for you, there is an easy solution for them. It's called Thorns of Agony, a charm found in Greenpath. It is in an area full of thorns and iirc, some lightning things. It looks intimidating but it's entirely do-able after completing just the Greenpath and getting the dash ability. You just need to go past the lightning thing when it dies down periodically and complete a series of somewhat simple platforming to get the charm.

What does Thorns of Agony do? It does AoE attack around you when you're hit.

And what reasons to use it against the "random, twitchy, teleporting guys"? Because you can run at them spamming attack and get rid of them quickly with your attack spam and Thorns of Agony.

You don't have to worry about souls too much since as the name suggests, Soul Sanctum is filled with glass bottles containing soul. So you can always just heal the damages done in your suicidal attacks against them later.

I'm not sure if you've made it to the boss already since your post suggests that you have. The trip back to him shouldn't be too bad since once you've unlocked the shortcuts properly, the trip to the boss room while indeed somewhat long, you should really only encounter 1 or 2 enemies; though admittedly one of them should be the teleporting spell guy. Feel free to use Thorns of Agony to rush to the boss room too since it always have a few bottles of soul at the entrance.

As for the boss himself. You more or less need to trial run a few times to see what he does and then formulate counter strategy for each of them. Once you do, you can do them without being hit. I'll do a quick advice rundown in the following post.

But yeah, Soul Sanctum is generally not friendly to new players primarily because of those teleporting spell guys and the fact the area boss is pretty trial-and-errory.

[sekai]

For the area boss, ie Soul Master, some of the things to watch out for include:

1. For your first few attempts, focus on dodging than actually killing him. You need to know their attacks and ways to dodge them safely.
2. When Soul Master surrounds himself with energy balls and fly across the map, search for a window in which you can simply jump across as they come through without touching both the boss and the energy balls. Finding that timing is key to dodge the attack.
3. Soul Master likes to do drop attacks, and what's more, he often FAKES his drop attacks to bait your jump and then slams it when you are vulnerable. To counter this, ALWAYS dash to the side when he is attempting to drop attack BEFORE you jump to avoid the shockwave. This is important.
4. Dash towards Soul Master when he's using the homing bolt attacks. The homing attacks can follow you up when you jump, but if you simply dash under it then it will home itself into the ground. There will still be bolts coming from low that force you to jump but if you can, try to pass under as many as you can.
5. If you get hit, DON'T PANIC. After all, the fights are mostly canned and so long if you can reliably dodge the attacks, there's always opportunities to heal. But if you're just getting hit and going to die, then use the rest of your HP to look for ways to dodge his attacks. After all, while the path to the boss takes a little bit of time, but you face just about 2 enemies on the way if you were to have the shortcuts opened. You can throw away a few retries to make sure you get the moves nailed down.
6. The boss fight is noticeably longer than any you have faced so far. Be PATIENT and find windows of opportunity to slowly and calmly chip him down. Do NOT rush. Once you know his moves, you can chip him down without taking any damage; it just takes a bit long.
7. There is a NASTY SURPRISE even when you "beat" the boss. Be vigilant and keep your health as much as possible before you get there.

Good luck.

[sekai]

I forgot, you would normally face about 3 enemies on your way to the Soul Sanctum's boss if you only just open the visible shortcuts in it.

But there is a rather obscure shortcut right next to the bench where you find Cornifer. The wall to the right of the bench is actually breakable, which breaking it leads to an elevator shaft going up to a currently locked door that you can't open at the moment.

Simply move the elevator up by making a one-time trip to hit the up button and leave immediately. Afterwards, you can use that shortcut to get into Soul Sanctum.

It's pretty obscure and saves you only 1-2 rooms worth of walking and skips 1 single enemy (the large guard guy), but I guess the numbers can add up and also delays the frustration overload a bit.

[MADE IN IRON]

Those teleporting guys are some sort of a training for the next boss.

Were you able to recover your geo? I don't remember exactly, but by that time you should have met Confessor Jiji, so can go to her if you fear you might not retrieve your shade. She's a good option.

Another thing, if you have lots of geo and you are about to get killed, quit the game before you die. Just like that. You don'l loose what you got between the last bench and the moment you quit the game, because it is automatically saved once you quit. You just go back to last bench.