After taking a break during the disappointing 3.19 Kalandra expansion, Zizaran's Gauntlet is back in The Forbidden Sanctum league and kicks off on February 10th, 2023. In this guide, we put together a couple of tips for those of you that might be playing in your first Gauntlet or that are competing against your own personal best in previous gauntlets.
What is Gauntlet in Path of Exile?
Its Path of Exile in extremely hard mode, monsters are faster and more deadly than normal and the magnitude of the buffs that they get scales up the further that you progress through the game additionally the hardcore rule set is in play by the solo self-found will set is in play, so this is definitely no joke - monsters are going to be much more dangerous than in the normal game and in particular, a number of abilities that you might be able to just endure in the base game are going to kill you in Gauntlet if they connect with you, so those abilities are things you're going to have to dodge.
The Prize Structure For Both Elite And Non-Elite Players
There are significant cash prizes available for people who can clear all of the Uber bosses and be one of the first two people to do so on any particular class. Although it is worth reminding people that these are definitely only going to be won by people who have spent the last week practicing and who are already among the games Elite. The main appeal for many people though is the more accessible competition that's taking place on the side that there are minor prizes that are available for reading level 90 or for other Milestones, or also just competing against your own personal best, or competing for fun.
POE 3.20 Sanctum Gauntlet Boss Killing Guide
Now if you're new to Gauntlet, there are a few things that are much more dangerous in Gauntlet than they are in the core game. Here we give you useful tips on killing them easier and faster!
Early Game Nasty Monsters: Brutus, Ledge Zone, Weaver, A4 Doedre, A4 Shavronne, A4 Piety, A5 Innocence, A5 Kitava
A lot of the earlier gauntlets had absolutely brutal acts 1 and 2, but this is no longer really the case you definitely can die in act 1 and act 2 and Brutus is nasty, the ledge Zone can be quite nasty and in particular, the Weaver in Act 2 can be very nasty, but these are nowhere near as bad as they were in some previous editions of the Gauntlet.
In Act 1 you want to be very careful of Brutus
In Act 2 you still want to be careful of the Weaver
In Act 3 we don't think there's anything truly terrifying
In Act 4 you want to be terrified of Dodre and also Chevron
In Act 5 it's Innocence and Guitarva
The Nastier Monster Mods From A6 Onward
In the back half of the ax, monster mods get nastier - 25% increased idamage, 15% increased action speed, plus one projectile still, and 10% increased AOE, this makes a couple of fights particularly deadly. And the one we really want to call out is pretty much the whole back half of Act 9. Act 9 contains one trash mob and several bosses that really scale in terrifying ways with these mods.
Stygian Revenants
The trash mob is Stygian Revenants. Stygian Revenants are found in the Blood Aqueduct and also in the belly of the Beast, you want to be very afraid of those monsters. But when it comes to bosses, the real dangers are Shavronne, Doedre, and Depraved Trinity.
A9 Shavronne
Shavronne in particular can be very dangerous because she's someone that you are not used to taking seriously. In the base game for experienced players Shavronne is a very easy fight. In Gauntlet she definitely is not and you really want to be careful, she's going to fire additional projectiles which is going to make her projectile barrage much more unpredictable than it is in the base game, she's also going to have increased AOE which means you need to sidestep things by a bit more than you used to and of course being faster makes her more dangerous. Because she does so much lightning damage, 25% increased damage means that you will suffer larger shocks than you otherwise would. In short Shavronne is truly terrifying.
A9 Doedre
Doedre is also very nasty and very easy to underestimate. The key thing you need to be aware of is that she will go into a shrieking mode. You never want to not have a portal that you can escape through during this fight, if Doedre starts her shriek you want to run to your portal as quickly as possible use your move skill and use everything you can to get into that portal ASAP. Otherwise you can easily die to that shrake, especially because it is possible to very easily accidentally kill the pillar you are hiding behind.
A9 Depraved Trinity
The Depraved Trinity has a number of abilities that scale nicely with these mods, but on top of all of that Depraved Trinity also has something else that you probably underestimate because it is not very dangerous in the base game, and that is the Scorpion phases. When the Depraved Trinity is brought below two-thirds life for the first time and again when it falls below one-third life for the first time, it will start a scorpion phase unless it is killed by burst damage before this phase starts, when this happens it will disappear from the arena for a bit and it will spawn six scorpions that are heavy hitters that move pretty fast. These are much more dangerous than you're expecting and they can really rip you apart. Especially if one of them is able to leverage its increased movement speed and increase damage in order to land a stun on you, if you get stunned by one of these it is lights out but even if you're not stunned it's still pretty dangerous. What we suggest you do to counter this is to level a decoy totem, at least from the time that you get to act six pick up a decoy totem and just start leveling it. When you get to Act 9, you will be a reasonably high level Deco totem and you'll be able to plop it down in this fight when the Depraved Trinity hits about 70 or 68 or so, and then when the Scorpions are spawned you can just use this to get yourself a very quick breather. But if you do make a bit of a mistake and one of them is able to get over to you and stun you, you've got much more of a chance if the other five are distracted by a decoy totem and also while they're distracted by a decoy totem you can easily enough kill them.
A10 Vilenta - hold off until you are very powerful
Another boss that you want to be really terrified of in Act 10 Vilenta, this is a fight you probably want to come back to much later in the game but it's also not a boss you have to kill before you can take on Kitava.
A10 Avarius Reassembled - mechanically easy but unforgiving, and A10 Kitava
The next one you want to be very careful of is an Avarius Reassembled, this fight is very mechanically easy but don't let that fool you, just the damage output on this boss is enormous. So this is in the chambers where you would fight innocence in Act five in Act 10, you'll fight Avarius Reassembled there instead and some of his abilities do a lot of damage. Most notably his frontal AOE cone cleaves attack, this sits in a larger area than you're expecting and it can one-shot players very easily, so watch out for that it is much more dangerous than you think it is.
Merciless Lab & how Izaro scales so much (triple skeleton spawns, body blocking)
Finally, there are two things at monster level 68 that are really terrifying, there are two additional projectiles fired by monsters that are Level 68 plus. Merciless Labyrinth is terrifying when he's firing two additional projectiles. The reason that plus two projectiles is such a dangerous mod on Izaro is that it also applies to the goddess of Justice the green thing on Izaro's back. And when she fires her projectiles at you, those projectiles after they impact the ground they rise as skeletons, now instead of the goddess of Justice, firing one projectile waiting a couple of frames, firing another projectile waiting a couple of frames, firing one projectile waiting another couple of frames, each of those instances of firing a projectile is replaced by firing three projectiles. So there are three times as many skeletons that spawn. These skeletons aren't particularly dangerous themselves, the key thing is that they can body block you into a situation where you're checkmated by Izaro's traps and desaro's own attacks, this can be very very dangerous. If you're in a situation where your character can just obliterate those skeletons as soon as they spawn you are definitely killing them with non-critical strikes from your main attack, and your main attack is hitting a large area of the screen. Then in that situation, you don't need to worry. But generally speaking, when you just get to the Merciless Labyrinth for the first time, you're probably not in that position and so you should really fear the Merciless Labyrinth for that reason.
T1 Lava Lake - Overwhelming Trash During The Boss
Finally, also in Monster level 68 zones is Lava Lake, the tier 1 map that is far more dangerous than it has any right to be. The stats of the actual Catawba monster are much lower than the stats of the Catawba monster in Act 10 but don't let that fool you, this is a wrecking ball encounter. The reason for that is the trash mobs that are spawned will be far more dangerous than the ones that you fight in the Act 10 version of Catawba and many of them will be Catava's Heralds, they fire projectiles with an AOE ability on them. As a result, these monsters are going to be firing three projectiles instead of one, they're going to have increased AOE, increased attack cost, and move speed, and they're going to have massively increased damage. In short, these things are going to be wrecking balls. We would suggest that you hold off on doing the Lava Lake map until you feel comfortable doing tier 8 tier lineups, and then at that point come back and just use your overwhelming power in order to get it down fast, otherwise, this is going to be one of the more deadly encounters that you will fight in Low T maps, and it's something that you want to put off at all costs. Otherwise, you might find yourself back on the Twilight strand.
How To Practice Dangerous Act Bosses?
One last tip, if you want to get a little bit of practice with any of these bosses what we would suggest you do is take one of your high-level characters in either standard or in the Sanctum league, remove your boots, and remove any other extreme sources of movement speed that your character has. So if you're lucky enough to own a mage blood remove that, and then go and do these fights again, but do them with a different mindset, don't try to kill the boss Instead try to just stay in the arena for two full minutes without being hit. That is a useful practice that will serve you well when the gauntlet comes around and you're trying to repeat the same fate under much more pressure.
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