In the past anytime I've looted any books for the Forbidden Sanctum I'd just sell them off. Prices are now at a point where it’s not worth my time unless I sell them in bulk. Instead, I thought why not try one out?

I went into this knowing almost nothing. It quickly became apparent that I was not playing the right kind of build for this sort of activity. That was not to be unexpected I'm playing quite a delve-heavy setup and it turns out you more or less need the opposite of that for running Sanctums.

Since I've never done any before not only did, I not have any relics to use to make the run more interesting. I also did not have any unlocks that allow even further relics to be used. I thought maybe with some pure dumb luck I'll end up unlocking a new slot by mistake.

While my character is quite a tank it turns out this is more about ranged and agility than tanking damage. Taking any damage can reduce your resolve unless you have some protections in place which I do not. So, this run ended up not going far.

In Sanctum as you progress forward you have to select which room you want to go into next. They all have different kinds of challenges, rewards, and even negative effects. With the right kinds of relics, you can even see further out on the board. Since I don’t have anything like that, I could only see the next room I can select. As you can see many rooms don’t connect to others. So here hoping I don’t take the wrong path and end up missing out on some huge reward down the line.

From my limited understanding I thought if you only take damage on your shield, you did not lose any resolve. You might notice for a part of this run I have no shield as one of my gems I use for quite a boost in damage causes me damage over time.

Thankfully that self-damage over time was not losing my resolve. This run would have been over quicker than I would have realized my mistake.

I also have another gem in my skill tree that gives me damage reduction in exchange for rooting me down. Making it slower for me regularly walk around regularly. That as well was not ideal for a place where I need to be dodging attacks. I however kept it in.

You could say I did not have a great start. After making it through the first room that had enemies to deal with, I had already taken a few hits and was down to just 255 resolve out of the total of 300 you start with.

While there is some benefit to having quite a lot of armor like I have. This kind of activity was not worth it. I’d be better off not taking any damage at all than taking some. Any damage taken is costing me resolve.

Along the way I was looting coins called Aureus whenever I could. I even went over floors that I did not fully clear just to get them. I wanted to make sure I had enough. Turns out I would not be lasting long enough for it to matter if I fi collected as many as I could or not.

The next area my choices were not that huge. I could pick a room that had a negative affliction. My other choice was could go for a minor treasure reward. At least I had an option that was not going to cause me a disadvantage for the remainder of the run.

That would end up not being the case for long. In the next room, I ended up getting an affliction that caused the monster's actions to be 50% quicker. I had a feeling this was going to cause my run to be shorter than I was hoping it would be.

I then got hit with a 40% movement speed reduction in the next room. So not only were creatures attacking and moving faster. I was now slower. The only good news is I went from being under 150 resolve back up to over 200. I was hoping that would be useful enough to keep me going for a little longer.

At this point, I was also not getting much in terms of loot. The path I kept selecting was not always the best. Sanctum also has several floors and with me just being on the lowest there is not much in terms of loot other than the coins I was collecting hoping to spend on things while inside.

The next room had some traps that I ended up avoiding. However, since my damage takes a bit to wind up, I was not able to kill things fast enough since I have quite a short range. I ended up making it to some cache for more coins with only nine resolves remaining.

It was not a shock to me when I entered the seventh room that things would end shortly after. I almost made it to the next room. I however had something nasty spawn that my damage just could not take out quickly enough. I attempted to avoid some incoming damage but not quick enough.

Final Thoughts

For now, I'll just keep saving any books I loot for this activity. Perhaps I'll end up making another alt whose sole purpose will be for running these. I would not mind learning more about these by running them further. For now, however, my current build is not great for something like this.

It was at least fun to try something new. It's kind of crazy to think with how long this game has been around I still have so many things I've never done or have only attempted a couple of times.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Path Of Exile.