[PoE 3.20] Comprehensive Forbidden Sanctum Guide - How to Win EVERY Run! 

Thanks man, after a lot of frustration, bricked sanctums and failed attempts, by following your tips I was able to clear my first Sanctum today! Having some decent artifacts definitely helps a lot, but after a lot of tries I feel like decision making is the most important factor in this league mechanic, and your tips helped a lot

Awesome video! Thanks for all the efforts in putting this together.

This is the best sanctum video I've seen by far. Well done man!

Amazing guide. Very well done, thanks for that.

Excellent guide, thank you!

I appreciate all the work you put into this. I shared it with my guild and am slowly putting it into practice.

This is such a great and detailed video, thanks a lot :)

Great guide! Thanks a lot

damn i wish there was a written guide of this. just watched couple of min but then was actually able to finish my first floor with ease. congrats on the great guide man!

Awesome video man, subscribed!

Huge amount of great advice! My starter build was Boneshatter which made the Sanctum impossible but since I created by EA Ballista build it has become more doable

Really great video mate, thanks a ton!!

Excellent guide, top content!

📖A written version of this guide is now available on PoE-Vault: www.poe-vault.com/guides/the-forbidden-sanctum-league-mechanic ▶3.22 Sanctum Updates: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cvb-l2xHQhw.html ▶Challenge Runs Follow-up: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IEctFbbsHyg.html A lot of you requested a written version you could refer back to, so here it is! It's up-to-date with a few updates and corrections, and will continue to be updated over time.

This is in my opinion the ONLY good Sanctum guide that I have seen. Never heard of you but you got my thumb and sub.

OMG finally an actual guide on the mechanics!!!! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you dude, what a impressive guide, insta subbed

Bruh what a guide! Best one I've seem!

Nice work!!

This really is an amazing guide, you missed one thing, the quests in act 2 and 7 which unlock a lot of the sanctum. But this is by far the best guide i've seen. Subbed!

Excellent video, a lot of usefull information.

WELL DONE PATRICK

Super helpful, thanks.

Thanks for this very informative. ✌

Followed this guide and got 6div on my first complete run. Thanks!

damn awesome guide, thanks!

Solid guide and now I'm running 75+ reliably. Not quite to 83 yet, but that's me needing gear upgrades. Thanks for your work!

Still trying to process some stuff but by far the most helpful video and I watched a ton of videos and there wasn't one that would even come into a close second place video. Everyone thinks everyone that plays Poe has a Poe graduation degree. That's the main problem with the game and everyone that covers it. So at least you actually attempting to explain your knowledge on what you know bc that's better than most. I'm gonna sub and like so thanks my dude you deserve more likes.

I am thankful to Kitava that algorithm shown me this video, thanks man!

My gratitude, quite a detailed guide that enlightened me on some matters. Kinda disagreeing on value of damage against monsters relics/boons/afflictions, but i do agree that they are a crutch, however would argue that it's quite a useful one. Also didn't find "increased monster speed and can't be slowed" that hard, in certain guards cases i found it even beneficial.

nice video, i wanted to add aswell that "monster drop double aureus coin relic% " work for bosses, and getting double on boss is usually very good

That divine thumbnail killed me bro

I found it helpful so I subscribed

Insanely good content

Amazing, thank you

Dude. Thank you.

Sanctum makes sense now - much appreciated

great content

hey dude. good job

This was a very informative video and it will definitely improve my success in sanctum moving forward. Something I found funny was I only have a handful of not-so-great relics right now and you more or less put the major affliction that makes relics have no effect in the "run ending" category, so my normal sanctum gameplay is run ending by default by your definition. One of the things you failed to mention in much detail is the importance of your build on sanctum success, cause let me tell you my experience with vaal smite is not the same as your minion build. Just eyeballing it I think my single target dps right now is similar if not higher than the dps you had when you made this video, but in order to deal damage I need to walk up reasonably close to the enemy and stand there and manually attack until it dies. This obviously puts me at much greater risk of taking damage compared to a build like yours that can just hide around a corner. You talk about afflictions that decrease your damage or raise monster hp like they don't matter and I was just sitting there thinking "yeah, easy for you to say." Those afflictions represent a longer amount of time I need to put myself at risk, they're very significant. You are correct that I can more or less negate these by just sufficiently upgrading my character, but I'm not there yet and the mountain I need to climb is much higher just by nature of my skill being bad for sanctum. Regardless, ive already made it to the secret boss once prior to watching this video and now I think I'll be able to get there much more consistently, so thank you.

Good video, could also bring topas flask for last fight and maybe insta life flask

Good guide. Gotta say though the last five sanctions had only run-ending or dangerous afflictions in the second or third row for selection and that's at the very start. Don't know about winning every time but I rerolled the sanctums.

One of the best vids ever

Ty for the info

great video

the ghastly scythe major affliction (losing resolve ends your sanctum run, last for X rooms) is fine if you're using inspiration because of the wording, and it's usually a great pact to take since it gives a bunch of boons, I'm not sure where else this wording matters but this one works for sure since I have used it my last run

The video would have been PERFECT with a complete run gameplay. Thanks for the guide tho!

very very very very gooooooddd!!!!!!!!!!!! thanks so much!

if you want to win every single sanctum just play SRS they will go to the location of your cursor when you summon them allowing you to stand far behind a wall and offscreen the large majority of the sanctum.

I don't really agree that "x% chance to avoid an affliction" is something that you'll ever want to get rid of. While you don't get the inspiration from "gain inspiration when you get an affliction" it makes the more dangerous afflictions less likely to appear simply because there's a bigger pool to draw from. So when you avoid an affliction that doesn't affect you it not only makes the room you enter completely free but might also turn a run-ending affliction into the affliction that you just avoided effectively granting you another free room. You'll have plenty of opportunities to get more inspiration but as the affliction pool gets smaller you'll have to take some not very ideal afflictions which could screw you more than a bit of extra inspiration. Especially since maximum inspiration is 1000 so if you get +100 when you're already close to 1000 it does nothing

Minor Correction: The "Gain XX Inspiration at the start of each Floor" actually DOES trigger at the start of the first floor, making it even BETTER. This doesn't change my conclusions, as I already thought of it as one of the best affixes on relics, and I still believe the "Gain XX Inspiration when you receive an Affliction" affix is slightly better. -Additionally, there is currently a bug related to gaining Max Resolve. In a recent patch it was changed so that you're SUPPOSED to gain that much resolve whenever your max resolve increases, however, it is currently bugged. Visually you will see it go up, but the moment you zone out or enter the next room, you will see that your resolve didn't actually increase. This makes effects that increase your max resolve during the run significantly worse than they ought to be, until this is fixed.- -Given that this strategy doesn't care about max resolve anyways, it doesn't really affect the strategy I outline in this video, but it's definitely something you ought to know.- (This has been fixed)

Thank !

GJ man

thank you

Appreciate the help with Sanctum. I definitely need to practice more for sure, but I noticed your build might be similar to mine. Do you have a link to what your build is (or an archetype that's similar) that might help improve mine? Appreciate any help.

I hope sanctum goes core. Like heist you get some kind of blueprint from maps and do a full floor with that. Remove character power relics but keep the sanctum only relics

I didn't plan on watching this entire video but here I am 52 mins later thanks

Do you know when the rewards for a floor are generated? I've been running the first 2 floors in low tier maps then switching over to high tier to get better rewards, it seems like that worked after I beat the boss in a white map but only start the next floor in a red one, but I'm not sure how far I can push it.

This is awesome, is there any chance you can make the presentation downloadable so I can pull it up and refer to it at any time?

here, you got my suscription kind sir

I was able to nab some divines in yellow maps, but ive had horrible luck since then. Not being able to see what youre picking or being brought to random rooms really does make a huge difference.

Well biggest tip is [re-] roll a build that can do dmg while being safe/moving so brands, minions, totems, persistent aoes... Can you do sanctum when good enough on other builds sure but you have to do more work than others.

Hi nice guide! Can you make a guide for the unique relic challenge? Thanks

thanks for this guide, what is the minimum level to expect, to beat normal sanctum?

hey, are you able to explain the 'storing' mechanic and how that can be used? or is it worthless to think about

At about 30 seconds, I thought this was going to be a 51 minute meme video that just consistently teased "GET GUD!" ... Pleasantly surprised.

Great guide, inspiration is definitely king in general, just not for all the unique ones so it is useful to collect resolve gear for the no inspiration challenge. Something to add regarding the crap reward options. Take the option now regardless of if the end of room/floor options are worth a tiny bit more. The reason is that you can get the boon/pact that doubles an existing reward you have and if you make sure you never have crap rewards in your list it will always double one of the expensive ones youve chosen. E.g. If I had get 10 alterations at the end of the floor/sanctum and I took it. I then got get 10 chaos at the end of the floor/sanctum and took it. I then get the double random reward boon and it has a chance to either give 20 alterations or 20chaos. If I never took the alteration reward I would 100% double my chaos. Even more important when you get divine rewards :) Also to add you can get divines even pre-maps (although rare) so a good way to practice is to run the story areas quarry or reliquary and pop into every sanctum portal for free, unlock slots and build up some of these inspiration relics before moving onto map level sanctums

This is helpful I’m doing rf and I can’t get past floor 2 so maybe I can now 😅 also making another build tho so maybe that also do something better

Thank you so much for this! You say that if we have 1 resolve and take the 50% less resolve pact, we die. But what if we have 1 resolve and we have Spiked Exit?

finally found the 3rd build... you know a week after league start. I didn't have a way of contacting you though.

Spiked Exit, for me, is a freebie. If I have a lot of resolve (because I have not taken a pact yet), then once I take a pact and give up Max resolve, I lose all of that empty resolve anyway. and if I have already taken a pact and have less resolve and I don’t lose much from it

The only time I would ever say taking afflictions isn’t a problem is if you get the accursed pact that just gives you like, 150 inspiration every time you hit an affliction. I got that on my first actual high level run and it carried me all the way to the final floor with a terrible build for sanctum by just taking every affliction I saw 😂

Mate.. This is almost an hour long and I am dreading it haha! But I really appreciate the effort you have put in. You get a like and sub from me buddy!!!!!! Thank you so much. :D

Would a ice trapper be good for sanctum? Great guide btw

Amazing thank you! Any chance there is a picture cheat sheet of most of this info? o.O

Do I need to directly go up to the secret boss after finishing the sanctum, or can I first get the loot chest and then go back? Didn't try this yet :)

Personally I consider Black Smoke close to run ending. Not being able to see that room head can make a huge difference. Also, does traps being faster interact with the lightning that the last boss does in her second phase? Is that considered a trap.?

If you are trying to do the hit-less challenge run, the freebies of Monsters have 30% more hp/you deal 25% less dmg can ruin your run if you cant 1-shot Lycias first phase, most dangerous spot to get hit by something imo

The afflictions that reduce my damage, or give the enemy more HP, are imo really bad if they mean you can’t kill final boss before the lightning.

I consider the Sandals run-ending. 40% slower movement is killed. I tried 2 runs with the sandals and got chunked down so hard in the following 2 rooms, forget it.

I have not gone past the first floor/dungeon. What's inspiration?

Love the guide just idk how on the world u dont get hit and lose all resolve, i keep losing all my resolve before i even know it

You also dont lose runs cuz you play minions which trivializes the mechanic 😉. Good tips tho

I regret going back to act 7 to unlock pacts. Pact rooms are now taking up potential reward rooms.

so basically as long as I do t14+ maps I get same rewards even if I don't juice the map is that right?

The 2nd floor boss one-shot me 1 time with his slam attack, haha.

If you buy the boon from the merchant that says 50% reduced merchant prices and you also get the pact that reduces 50% merchant prices, everything at the merchant costs 0. That's pretty good.

what would you recommend for a level 30~ impale duelist?

The detail in your video is amazing, that said this season sucks. There is zero chance I'm attempting an hour worth of "if this than that" stuff because of a garbage season mechanic. Fact is I shouldn't get punished for getting hit, that's asinine, the fact the devs are so lazy they have to punish me for that is beyond insane. I appreciate your work on this and dedication to a game who's devs are so lazy they simply implement a mechanic where if you get hit at all (in a game with horrible lag spikes, invis mobs and the like) is a huge turn off. I struggled with the season mechanic and saw this video and figured okay I'll try. Hell no. 500 different effects that may end my run, may kind of sort of end my run ect ect ect? Nah, that's simply a garbage mechanic.

So..I have tried running sanctums - I haven't ever gotten to a merchant. The most I have cleared is 6 rooms. I really just don't get how to survive until changing from resolve to inspiration. I have a RF Juggernaut, so I am really tanky, but that doesn't seem to matter....

The monsters taking more damage is good early, and you'll want that in no hit runs

what about the belevanet shrine vs pact on side by side u pick?

Yet again with these guides . stary with a disclaimer you need to unlock all the starting stuf before the guide becomes valid

I really love the mechanic, and so far im not that deep into it. However, I do dislike the lose resolve on hit simply because it HEAVILY discourages co-op and thats a big part of why me and my friends are even playing this league. So that is a little disappointing. I just wish it scaled in some way with more players as having more bodies to get hit is quite punishing as your chance of losing even just a little resolve per room is quite higher.

Thank you for the in depth tutorial! It... made everything, clearer. However i just want to add one more addition : If you are running Spiritual Aid (Increases and Reductions for Minion damage also affects you) , for example, i'm running RF Jugg, the 25% less damage becomes 50%... Which, imo in this special case, it takes from Freebie to Manageable.

Keep your Max Resolve and Resolve on Boss Kill or Max Resolve on Fountain relics! Do not reroll them into other things. The No Recovery runs live on raising your max resolve up and then having the Max Resolve on X relics to keep you going.

I just died by rusted mallet at the end of the last room before lycia,because there was a mage,a assassin and a hunter guarding the stairs and i was dodging the mage's attack,but it knocked me back ... accidentally into the attack of the same place of all three of them attack at the same time,so ☠️ 😅

Its cool,but. What if u just CANT avoid "run ending affliction" ? Especially after u entering new floor after defeating previous floor boss

Now do a guide for ruthless hardcore

do you know when the unique items will drop? At which tier map? And do all the bosses drop unique items if you play high enough map tiers?