Saros Guide – 15 Early Game Tips and Tricks

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If you enjoy bullet hell rogue-lites like Enter the Gungeon or Carcosa, you know they’re challenging games where you’ll die a lot. Learning the ins and outs of Housemarque’s Saros can take a while, even if you’re familiar with the genre. But don’t worry – death isn’t a full reset! This guide will help you survive the beginning of the game and start mastering its systems.

Check Your Minimap

It might seem silly, but the minimap is surprisingly helpful. Enemies can appear unexpectedly in certain areas, often catching you off guard. While the fast-paced music lets you know a fight is happening, the minimap pinpoints enemy locations, giving you crucial seconds to move to a safer spot and dodge attacks. It’s also useful in complex environments with lots of hills and obstacles, helping you understand how far away enemies are.

Grapple Frames

If you’re a Soltari enforcer caught in a tough spot – shield down, dash unavailable, and no escape – the grapple is your best friend. You unlock it after reaching the third area, and it’s a surprisingly fun way to avoid damage. During the grapple animation, you become completely invulnerable, letting you safely pass through enemy attacks. Use it to quickly move to a better position or simply survive a dangerous situation!

DoT and Power Generator Perks

Generally, maximizing a weapon’s Proficiency is a good strategy, and we’ll discuss that shortly. However, some weapon perks are more effective than others, especially those that inflict damage over time. Standout examples include Razor Edge, commonly found on saws and crossbows, incendiary rounds often seen on shotguns, and the Dispiritor Power weapon. The real benefit of these perks is that you don’t have to constantly attack; you can focus on defense, like dodging or using a shield, while the enemy’s health slowly decreases.

Don’t forget to grab weapons that work with the Power Generator perk! It fills up your Power meter as you damage enemies, letting you use your powerful weapons more often. Combine that with a Soltari shield, and you’ll be able to unleash devastating attacks on your foes.

How to Check Weapon Perks

Want to know what a weapon perk does? While playing, open your map by pressing the touchpad. Go to the weapons section, and you’ll see a screen showing your weapons and Artifacts. Just move your cursor over each perk icon to read its description. It’s not the easiest way to compare perks, but it’s a start.

Crossbows are King

Crossbows in Saros are excellent, though your experience might differ. There are three types: the Repeater fires bolts continuously, the Bifurcator launches multiple, homing bolts (with more firing the longer you charge it), and the Impactor shoots a spread of bolts in a line after charging. These crossbows deal a lot of damage without needing any special effects, and they don’t require reloading, unlike most other weapons. I recommend the Repeater Crossbow because its ability to rapidly fire bolts constantly is a major advantage.

More Artifact Slots and Rerolls

At the beginning of the Armor Matrix, you’re mainly focused on collecting anything that helps – things like better health pickups, longer-lasting ground effects, and stat boosts. As you advance and unlock more options, you’ll be able to get extra Artifact Slots, some purchased with Halcyon and others with Lucenite. This is beneficial because once an Artifact is equipped, you can’t remove it without using reroll currency. While you can find more reroll currency or unlock upgrades to start with more, it’s also needed to reroll weapons and Power weapons. There’s a strategic way to manage rerolling for weapons, though.

When to Reroll

As you get better at the game, your weapons will improve, giving you better stats, more special abilities, and a stronger shield. Sometimes, you might not like the options you’re given, even if they seem powerful, and that’s where reroll items come in handy. If you want to save them, it’s a good idea to hold onto your rerolls until you face the next enemy, as you’ll usually have several weapons to choose from then. Just don’t use them all up before you get there!

Armor Matrix

As the Armor Matrix expands, it’s tempting to quickly grab any available upgrades instead of planning carefully. Don’t bother checking every single option and the materials needed – just focus on the nodes that visibly sparkle. You can also zoom out to spot these sparkling nodes from a distance, making it easier to reach them.

Enter the Nightmare

As you advance in the game, you’ll encounter challenging optional areas called Nightmare Strands. These areas are packed with enemies and also have unique, extra-tough modifiers – even if you haven’t activated any modifiers yourself. Despite being very difficult, these areas offer great rewards, including a large amount of Lucenite and, importantly, the ability to restore your Second Chance.

No Third Chance

Just so you know, finishing a Nightmare Strand won’t give you an extra chance to continue if you haven’t already used the Second Chance feature. Also, if you’ve disabled Second Chance in the game’s settings, you won’t receive it from completing a Strand either. Think carefully about the benefits and drawbacks before you start.

When to Quit a Run (and When Not To)

Saros now lets you pause and quit a run, which is great! However, be careful: if you try to quit during a battle to get an advantage, you’ll be sent back to the beginning and lose any temporary progress, like Lucenite.

Running Man

I initially thought that once you finished a biome and defeated its enemy, you wouldn’t be able to immediately return and keep playing. Thankfully, that’s not true – you can still keep going through multiple biomes in a single run, except during key story sections. Just be aware that you won’t be able to go back to certain teleporters later on, so you need to be sure of your choices. The good news is your weapon keeps its upgrades and abilities, making it easier to defeat enemies and collect resources. However, you’ll likely run out of rerolls, meaning you won’t be able to get every useful artifact. And if you die before finishing a biome and then return to The Passage, you’ll face a significant penalty that reduces your resources.

Effectively Parrying Nova Projectiles

After playing games like Sekiro that focus on parrying, you might assume waiting for attacks and then parrying is the best strategy. However, in Saros, it’s a bit more complicated, especially with Nova projectiles – those red bullets come at different speeds and heights. I’ve found that a surprisingly effective tactic is to dash directly into the Nova projectile while repeatedly pressing the melee attack button. It still takes some practice to get the timing right, but this method has worked much better for me than just standing and waiting to parry.

What You Can’t Parry (or Shield Against)

Even though you have Nova-based abilities, you can’t deflect red beams because they aren’t launched like typical projectiles. Similarly, you can’t block energy attacks like rings or sweeps with your shield. These attacks will disable your shield, causing you to lose any built-up power and forcing a brief recharge time, leaving you vulnerable to further damage.

Revisit Previous Biomes With New Abilities

Once you gain a new ability, such as the grapple, it’s a good idea to return to areas you’ve already explored. This will open up new routes, give you more chances to collect Lucenite and Halcyon (which is especially helpful if you’re stuck), and let you find audio, video, and text logs that reveal more about the story and what happened in the past.

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2026-04-28 17:53