Sanctum feedback- from someone who didn't play it League
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I want to preface this with me not playing it during the debut league and my experience of it comes in ancestor. My only other point of comparison in rogue likes is Prey mooncrash and Hades. I'm also a cold dot elementalist for those curious about how my build affects my experience.
In my opinion, sanctum suffers a lot of design choices that I struggle to understand. Why are afflictions so heavy when they are often unavoidable? I get it, they shape runs and try to incentivize risk vs reward. Do I go for that juicy divine reward or avoid that crippling affliction? Trouble is, they are gained up choosing a room where you HAVE to go. Not getting an affliction by giving up the reward of that room would be a better choice imo. Why? Some afflictions are downright crippling and run ending and you can get them very early. Opportunities to remove them are few and far between. Sure you can boons that make them non issues but finding boons can be incredibly difficult thanks to the affliction system itself and the limited way forward. Often i know a run is probably bricked due to no boons in floor 1 and 2. Resolve I get trying to bring a rogue like into poe is not an easy task and this seems like a good compromise. However this just messes with builds that are viable. Even I as a cold dot who should have a easier time than most struggle. Some skills are downright hard to see thanks to offscreening. Worst offenders though are rares. Why are they here in sanctum? Why are persistent skill effects and on death effects in sanctum? Traps I'll admit this is largely skill issue but some traps such as the fire gauntlets in floor 4 are downright evil. Meteors are also really hard to avoid for the ground effects of vortex conceal them. TLDR Afflictions too unavoidable, too potent, resolve still needs balancing. IMO floor 1 and 2 should have less reward rooms and more boon rooms. EDIT because someone mentioned this, meta progression could be a bit smoother. First few runs didnt see any relic drops. One cannot help but wonder how such a lust for loot can affect a persons mind. Although these exiles appear to be our salvation, it would not take much for them to turn on us as easily as they fight gods and demons. Last edited by masskillers#5403 on Sep 10, 2023, 9:18:56 AM Last bumped on Sep 19, 2023, 4:06:10 PM
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Hello. I've been farming Sanctum since the start of september so I have some advice.
The trick to being successful in Sanctum is to be strategic in what afflictions you have to choose. Never, under any circumstance unless there's a divine on the line, take offers for a random affliction. You only need 1 to risk getting that Death's Scythe which 1shots your resolve. Barring that, when you reach the part where you have no choice but to take an afflicted room, always take the one that is the least awful of the bunch. A Tattered Blindfold is much better than a Blunt Sword, and Blunt Sword is always better than Worn Sandals, etc. Try and avoid Black Smoke at all costs. Not being able to see further rooms ahead makes it harder to plan your route. Golden Smoke is just as bad, because you can no longer see if there's a possible divine in a room, and that's kinda the whole point of running Sanctum. Conversely, you should be aiming for boons that make the run more profitable first and then taking anything that would compliment your build. Scrying Crystal and All-Seeing Eye are top priority and should be taken before anything else. If you have good DPS or you got Spiked Shell/Blunt Sword, take Sanguine Vial/Ornate Dagger. Don't ignore the potential value of inspiration, because Gilded Lyre and Mellifluous Chorus together turns you into a resolve tank. Accursed Pacts is something you also need to be careful with. In floors 1 and 2, the only time you should take one is if it offers a major boon. For 3 and 4, you can be a lot more flexible, because the item offer you get has the chance of having a divine. Floors 1 and 2 are boon rooms, technically. They can never reward divines, so the whole purpose of them is to be grabbing aureus coins, benevolent/radiant fountains, and merchants. These are the ideal floors you wanna be buffing yourself in before going deeper. And finally there's relics. I believe a lot of your problem with the affliction issue can be easily mitigated by stacking +1-2 merchant choice relics. Remember, relics can be traded now and being able to see 6-12 more boons in the merchant shop can turn your good starts into a god run, or at the very least balance out a terrible one. If merchant choice relics are too expensive, you can try stacking any of the following: - Guards take +15% increased damage (you can stack up to +90%) - Gain +25 maximum resolve on using a fountain (+100 for every fountain when stacked will turn you into a godly tank since they're fairly common) - Gain +15 inspiration when receiving an affliction (+60 per affliction isn't bad, especially considering how many times you're forced to taking one) PoE players: Our game has a wide diversity of builds. Also PoE players: The [league mechanic] doesn't need to be nerfed, you just need to play a [current meta] build! And the winds will cry / and many men will die / and all the waves will bow down / to the Loreley Last edited by Pizzarugi#6258 on Sep 10, 2023, 8:36:48 AM
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Ive managed to clear a few but it is rough. As I said, a run can nearly be decided entirely whether u get saddle with a crippling affliction early on or whether u can find a boon. Ive gone runs where i just cant find any merchant or boon room.
One cannot help but wonder how such a lust for loot can affect a persons mind. Although these exiles appear to be our salvation, it would not take much for them to turn on us as easily as they fight gods and demons.
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Treat your first few runs of the league as throwaway. You're not there to profit in those runs, just to gather a ton of busted artifacts for future runs. Once you have those, your future runs will be cake no matter what you encounter. This is how Sanctum league was as well.
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" It was pretty much the same in original sanctum. The wrong affliction early on and you could just as well restart the run while one of the powerful boons early on would guarantee an easy one. I've never played rougelikes but apparently that's how they work and typical GGG, they took the RNG inherent to the archetype and multiplied it ten times over. If you feel like you've got too many bad afflictions by the end of floor 1 or early second floor, just reset the run. No point continuing if you likely can't finish anyway. |
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" I would argue otherwise. If you have the currency, I strongly recommend getting 6 +2 merchant choice relics and stick out your runs to the bitter end. Trust me, having a massive variety of boons to choose from can offset your bad starts at worse, or give you god runs any other time. I've been farming Sanctum since the end of August/beginning of September and I've only failed 3-4 runs. I've pulled MASSIVE profit doing this, literally quintupled my stash wealth, which is more than I can say for anything else I've ever done in PoE over the years. PoE players: Our game has a wide diversity of builds. Also PoE players: The [league mechanic] doesn't need to be nerfed, you just need to play a [current meta] build! And the winds will cry / and many men will die / and all the waves will bow down / to the Loreley Last edited by Pizzarugi#6258 on Sep 10, 2023, 9:14:08 AM
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Congratulations on discovering one of the many many reasons why people didn't like sanctum in the league.
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" Cause they didn't have a proper build to do it and mindlessly try to zerg without any thought? Yeah of course. Dys an sohm
Rohs an kyn Sahl djahs afah Mah morn narr |
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" Have to agree with this. The thing with Sanctum is that you can't treat it like mapping where you can blitz through rooms without thinking about where you're going. If you blunder through affliction rooms without paying attention to what they do, you're going to fail your runs a lot more than win. PoE players: Our game has a wide diversity of builds.
Also PoE players: The [league mechanic] doesn't need to be nerfed, you just need to play a [current meta] build! And the winds will cry / and many men will die / and all the waves will bow down / to the Loreley |
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" I mean how else do u get through affliction rooms? You cant ignore them, you pick the least bad option and sometimes they are both really bad. One cannot help but wonder how such a lust for loot can affect a persons mind. Although these exiles appear to be our salvation, it would not take much for them to turn on us as easily as they fight gods and demons.
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