Carcosa, Atropos, the Gungeon – for any fan of bullet hell rogue-lites/likes, they’re all fancy names for a shifting playground of pain, where death is one of two constants. Whether you’re used to the genre or not, getting a handle on the various mechanics and twists that Housemarque’s Saros offers can take some time. But remember the second constant: Death is never the end. Here’s how to survive the early hours of Carcosa and perhaps even bend it to your will.
Check Your Minimap
As ridiculous as it sounds, the minimap can be invaluable. Certain sections can have enemies spawn out of nowhere, sometimes sneaking up on you. The music’s high tempo is enough to indicate ongoing combat, but the minimap can show their exact position, and those few seconds can be essential for repositioning and maybe avoiding a few projectiles. It’s even useful in areas with lots of elevation and cover, if for nothing else than knowing your relative distance from threats.
Grapple Frames
Shield broken, dash on cooldown, nowhere to run or hide – what is a lone Soltari enforcer to do? Grapple, naturally. Once you unlock it by the third biome, the grapple will become one of the more hilarious ways to cheat death. That’s because during the animation, you’re completely invulnerable, letting you pass through projectiles and suffer no damage. So, whether you’re repositioning or just trying to survive, try grappling.
DoT and Power Generator Perks
It may seem like choosing the highest Proficiency for a weapon is ideal, and that’s usually the case for weapons (which we’ll get to later on). However, some perks are clearly better than others, including those that deal damage over time. Razor Edge, which often appears on saw-based and crossbow weapons; incendiary rounds, which I’ve mostly seen on shotguns; and the Dispiritor Power weapon are the most notable examples. The best part about this is not having to constantly shoot an enemy, focusing instead on dodging or shielding while their health whittles away.
Of course, you’ll also want to pick up weapons with the Power Generator perk, which charges your Power meter by simply dealing damage, meaning more Power weapon usage. Couple that with the Soltari shield and rain destruction on your enemies.
How to Check Weapon Perks
But how would you know what certain perks can do? Equip a weapon, then press the touchpad to open up the map. Navigate over to the weapons tab, and you’ll find a loadout screen, which displays your Artifacts and weapons. Simply hover over each perk’s icon to learn what it can do. Not the most intuitive method, especially when comparing weapons, but it’s better than nothing.
Crossbows are King
Your mileage may vary, but the crossbows in Saros are simply top-tier. They come in three varieties – Repeater, which constantly fires bolts; Bifurcator, which fires multiple homing bolts (the number depending on how long it’s charged); and Impactor, which essentially fires a spread of bolts in a straight line after charging. Alongside dealing significant damage, even without a damage over time perk, they don’t need to reload like other weapons. As such, I would go with the Repeater Crossbow since it can just spam bolts constantly at a rapid clip.
More Artifact Slots and Rerolls
Early on in the Armor Matrix, you’re kind of just grabbing whatever you can. Increased Aether effectiveness (which means more HP from health pickups), Lucenite remaining on the ground longer, stats, etc. But as you progress further and the tree branches out some more, you’ll have the opportunity to pick up some extra Artifact Slots (some costing Halcyon, the others requiring Lucenite). Which is good because, aside from being able to stack more stats and passive benefits, you can’t remove Artifacts in your inventory without reroll currency. And while you can find more of the latter, or unlock upgrades that provide more at the start of a run, they’re also used for rerolling Artifacts, weapons or Power weapons. Of course, there is a somewhat economical way to approach rerolling for weapons…
When to Reroll
As your Proficiency increases, so too will your weapons, which means higher stats in certain categories, more perks, and, of course, Power (which affects your shield). But you may not always enjoy certain choices, even if they’re higher Proficiency, which is where the reroll items come in. If you want to be more conservative, try hanging on to your rerolls before the next enemy, since there are often a few weapons to choose from at that point. Just try not to spend all of them before that.
Armor Matrix
When the Armor Matrix begins to open up some more, you probably just want to grab whatever unlocks are available rather than strategizing. Instead of checking every potential node and whether you have enough of the required material, look for those that periodically twinkle. You can even zoom out and see them from afar, making it that much easier to navigate to a node.
Enter the Nightmare
Upon progressing further through the story, optional high-difficulty areas called Nightmare Strands will emerge. These carry a hefty amount of enemies, and also have a negative modifier separate from whatever you’ve enabled. So if you didn’t enable enemies to spawn projectiles on death and it’s present in a Nightmare Strand, then it will be enabled in that instance. With how difficult it can be, what are the benefits? Aside from how much Lucenite they can provide, they’re rife with other rewards, including perhaps the most notable – replenishing your Second Chance.
No Third Chance
Now that being said, if you haven’t used Second Chance, then completing a Nightmare Strand won’t give you another charge (or a Third Chance, if you will, or won’t, in this case). But more importantly, if you’ve turned off Second Chance in the Carcosan Modifiers, you won’t get one from completing a Strand. So make sure to weigh the pros and cons before diving in.
When to Quit a Run (and When Not To)
Being able to suspend a run by quitting is a very welcome addition in Saros, although there are some caveats. If you try quitting during a enemy fight, maybe to try and game the system, then you’ll be back at the starting area, and even worse, all non-permanent progression (read: Lucenite) is lost.
Running Man
When Housemarque spoke about how you can return to The Passage after slaying a enemy and completing the biome, I had the impression that this meant no longer being able to marathon them in a single run. Well, good news – you still can (except during major story moments when you must return). Be warned that there’s no way to double back to some teleporters past a certain point, so you really have to commit. The upside of this is that your weapon will retain its Proficiency and perks, making it that much easier to slaughter enemies and farm Lucenite. However, you’ll probably run out – or at least not have enough – rerolls, thus making it impossible to pick up every worthwhile Artifact. Plus, if you die without completing the biome and its enemy, and then return to The Passage, the death penalty, which undercuts your Lucenite, will be severe.
Effectively Parrying Nova Projectiles
You would think after playing Sekiro, or really any game with parrying, that simply waiting for the attack and parrying is best. But it can be a little trickier in Saros, especially when Nova projectiles (the red-colored bullets) have different speeds, elevations, and so on. One method that I found to result in successful parries more than not is to dash straight into the Nova projectile and mash the melee button at the same time. It still requires a bit of timing, but I’ve had far more success doing this than simply standing and waiting around.
What You Can’t Parry (or Shield Against)
However, despite having Nova properties, you can’t parry red beams. Obviously, because they’re not projectiles. In the same vein, you can’t shield against energy patterns like rings or swipes. They’ll break your shield, which resets the Power accumulated and requires a short cooldown to activate again, exposing you to more damage.
Revisit Previous Biomes With New Abilities
Whenever you unlock a new ability like grapple, try revisiting a previous biome to explore other paths. Besides granting more opportunities to farm Lucenite and Halcyon – which is all the more valuable if you hit a wall – you’ll discover audio, holo and text logs to provide more context on what’s happened
