Saros – 15 Advanced Tips and Tricks

Saros isn’t exactly the easiest game to get into, but as you gain a foothold on Carcosa, the sheer number of tactics and systems opens up in some fascinating ways. This is especially true during the late game, where certain abilities allow for unique builds or when you fully begin to harness the game’s movement.

Here are 15 advanced tips to take your gameplay to the next level — from parry energy and Overdrive to Corruption management and endgame modifiers.

1. 🌀 Dashing in Mid‑Air While Shielding

When you’re not shielding, dashing, or jumping over projectiles, you’ll often end up having to do all three at once. Enemies in the Ancient Depths, for example, disperse waves of blue projectiles that you need to jump over — while absorbing yellow bullets if you’re willing to take on Corruption. There are benefits to Corruption (we’ll cover that later), but mastering this triple‑movement dance is essential for surviving the later biomes.

2. 👀 Perk Effects and Their Duration

Not all weapon perks are just about different kinds of damage. Some have specific requirements — like weapon damage directly generating Power. Others are less obvious, and it can be easy to miss their effects in combat. Pay attention to the upper left of your screen — a small icon will indicate their activation and how long it lasts, allowing you to time your attacks for maximum benefit.

3. 📊 Attribute Volatility – Breaking the Cap

As you approach the endgame, you’ll start noticing Attribute Volatility on different Artifacts. These let you break the cap on different stats — allowing, say, Integrity to go much higher than intended. There are drawbacks, however:

• Integrity Volatility: You can’t see enemy health bars — they’ll appear grey until fully depleted.
• Drive Volatility: All Lucenite is lost if you die. No exceptions.

Use these carefully — the rewards are high, but the risks are equally steep.

4. ⚡ Parry Energy and Aiming

Parrying is more than just a defensive mechanism. The energy from a parry travels in a straight line toward your target, obliterating them through red shields. You can aim it with the reticle. If an enemy launches red projectiles at you, simply aim directly at them to send the parry energy their way. It may not deal the most damage, but it’s excellent for building stagger — even on Elites.

5. 🔥 Overdrive – Your Ultimate Weapon

Overdrive is your Ultimate, built up over time. It unleashes a powerful area‑of‑effect attack that can outright kill Elites and heavily damage bosses. You’re invincible while casting it, and any enemies slain by it drop Aether — making it a perfect snap response when overwhelmed.

Upgrade it: Spend Halcyon on upgrades that increase its damage, blast radius, and even build‑up from damage dealt.

6. 🟡 Turning Corruption into Damage Resistance

Yellow isn’t the nicest colour on Carcosa — especially when you’re taking on too much Corruption. The risk‑vs‑reward aspect is obvious, especially after taking the upgrade that lets you absorb yellow projectiles to feed your Power weapon.

If you find an Artifact that increases damage resistance based on Corruption, it becomes a valuable survival tool. Just don’t go overboard — you can’t die from Corruption, but no amount of damage resistance will save you at 1 HP.

7. 🛡️ Shield Upgrades

Whether you’re adamant on tanking damage through Corruption or not, scope out the Armor Matrix for upgrades to your Soltari shield — including those that reduce damage taken. Parries reducing Corruption is also highly recommended, especially in later enemy fights when you’re facing a barrage of different colours.

8. ⚡ Quick Shield Activation

The Soltari shield is tied to your melee button, and you can activate it at the last second to absorb projectiles. With such a low activation time, it’s not difficult to:

1. Absorb a wave of blue projectiles.
2. Unleash a Power shot at the enemy.
3. Immediately absorb the next wave.

These windows become tighter in later fights — learn to juggle between activating your shield and quickly transitioning to damage.

9. 🗡️ Staggers and Executions

Pistols and shotguns aren’t all they’re cracked up to be — but they’re great at building stagger, especially with perks like Cover Fire. Once you obtain the upgrade that allows teleporting to staggered enemies, you can initiate gory executions that also regen health (especially if you increase Aether drop chances)

10. 📈 Weapon Stats Scale to Attributes

Attributes don’t just dictate your health, shield, or Lucenite gain — they influence weapon stat scaling. Check this whenever you pick up a new weapon. If you want to spec into higher clip size or damage accumulation, it helps to plan your build — especially when prioritising which Artifacts to grab.

11. 🎯 Weak Points and Turning Off Auto Hit

Auto Hit is great if you want to focus on dodging while ensuring consistent damage. But turning it off has benefits — especially for weapons that rely on precision. All enemies have a blue weak spot that takes more damage from direct hits. There’s no better way to exploit this than with weapons that turn off Auto Hit. If you want to up your damage potential, give it a shot.

12. 📉 When to Reduce Lucenite Gain

The Carcosan Modifiers allow for highly customised difficulty. Picking higher damage dealt and reduced damage taken is ideal, but balancing the appropriate Trials can be tricky.

If you’ve hit a wall — which usually happens because you need to kill an enemy — enable reduced Lucenite gained when returning to The Passage. It cuts back on Lucenite earned, but it’s worth so much as a Trial that it offers enough wiggle room for protection modifiers.

13. ♾️ Unlimited Protection Modifiers

If you don’t want to bother with the balancing act, good news: you can enable all protection modifiers without any consequence. Just go to Settings → Gameplay and enable Unlimited Protection Modifiers. Is it essentially Easy Mode? Yes. But for those who simply want to get on with the story and surpass a super difficult enemy, it’s always an option.

14. 🔄 Choosing Your Favourite Weapon

Returning to The Passage — be it through death or teleportation — means Arjun keeps his current weapon. It won’t have all the unlocked perks for balancing reasons. But if you enable the Weapon Symmetry protection modifier, the next found weapon is more likely to be similar to the current one. Wait for a better version with the desired perks, then resume slaughtering at a leisurely pace.

15. 🌑 Optional Eclipse

The Eclipse is a game‑changing effect that transforms Carcosa and spawns more corrupting projectiles. While it’s mandatory for the first few biomes (or depending on the story), you don’t always have to enable it.

If you’re just looking for a stroll by the coast, feel free to ignore the outstretched hands. You’ll miss out on Corrupted weapons and Artifacts — which are worth pursuing despite the negative effects — but sometimes, a peaceful run is exactly what you need.

That’s our complete advanced guide for Saros. Apply these 15 tips, and you’ll go from surviving Carcosa to dominating it. Now get out there, Soltari — and show Carcosa what you’re made of. 🔥