The Forbidden Sanctum League Mechanic (PoE Trial of the Ancestors)

Introduction

Knowing the correct Afflictions to take and which to avoid is critical to a successful Sanctum run. Some can effectively end your run on the spot, while others do basically nothing.

Note that you cannot get duplicates of an Affliction – Afflictions you already have are removed from the pool of potential Afflictions. This means that debilitating Afflictions become harder and harder to avoid the more Afflictions you have.

In this section of the guide, I go through every Minor and Major Affliction in detail, and rate how deadly it is. This tier list is based on my recommended strategy of going all-in on Inspiration – if you are doing a challenge run or attempting a different strategy, how dangerous these afflictions are may differ. The rating scale is:

• 💀Run-Ending: Afflictions that have the potential to single-handedly end your run. These should be avoided at all costs.
• ⚠️Dangerous: Afflictions that make it much more difficult to successfully complete the Sanctum. These can be taken if there are no other easier Afflictions as options, but you will have to be mindful that you have them for the remainder of the run.
• ✔️Manageable: These Afflictions pose little threat, and can be safely taken.
• ✔️Freebie: These Afflictions do literally nothing – or very close to it. The only downside to taking one of these Afflictions is that you remove a freebie from the pool of potential Afflictions.

How dangerous an Affliction is can vary wildly depending on a number of factors – for example, many Afflictions which are very dangerous early on in a run pose little-to-no threat if taken later. For Afflictions with huge swings in how dangerous they can be, I’ve given them secondary ratings, and noted the circumstances in which they are more/less dangerous.

The Sanctum League has gone Core with 3.22, and this guide has been updated to reflect all known changes to the mechanic. However, parts of this guide may be inaccurate until 3.22 is actually out.

Minor Afflictions

Deceptive Mirror

“You are not always taken to the room you select”
💀Run-Ending

This is, by far, the single worst Minor Affliction you can get. It completely removes your ability to have any sort of control over your Sanctum run, leaving your ability to succeed up to pure chance. It can send you straight into a series of Run-Ending and Dangerous Afflictions, and even if you CAN survive the worst the Sanctum can throw at you, it prevents you from being able to visit the Offer rooms you want.

So even if you succeed in spite of this affliction, odds are you will be unable to get any rewards for your successful run. Avoid this one at all costs.

Fiendish Wings

“Monsters’ Action Speed cannot be slowed below base, Monsters have 30% increased Attack, Cast and Movement Speed”
💀Run-Ending

This one is deceptively dangerous. 30% may not seem like a large number, but it makes it SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult to dodge enemy’s attacks – while disabling any Chill or Temporal Chains effects you may be using to make the Sanctum more manageable.

Liquid Cowardice

“Lose 10 Resolve when you use a Flask”
(This affliction affects your Inspiration)
💀Run-Ending

The entire point of the Sanctum is avoid losing Resolve – so an effect that causes you to repeatedly and consistently lose Resolve without even getting hit is devastating. Flasks are an important part of character power, and not only will you probably have to remove them if you get this affliction (as you probably have them set up to be used automatically), but you’ll miss out on effects that are extremely relevant to Sanctum success – such as your Quicksilver Flask.

Accursed Prism

“When you gain an Affliction, gain an additional random Minor Affliction”
💀Run-Ending

You want to be avoiding Run-Ending and Dangerous Afflictions, so therefore, an affliction that can give you Run-Ending Afflictions is, itself, a Run-Ending Affliction.

Purple Smoke

“Afflictions are unknown on the Sanctum Map”
💀Run-Ending

For the same reason as Accursed Prism, anything that can cause you to gain Run-Ending Afflictions is, itself, a Run-Ending Affliction.

Golden Smoke

“Rewards are unknown on the Sanctum Map”
💀Run-Ending

Not only does this make your run harder by rendering you unable to follow a strategy for picking Merchant/Pact/Fountain rooms, but this also completely disables any rewards for your run. If you can’t see the room rewards on Floors 3 and 4, you will be unable to take the ones that offer Divine Orbs – which is the vast majority of the rewards from a Sanctum run.

Floor Tax

“Lose all Aureus on floor completion”
💀Run-Ending // ✔️Freebie (Floor 4)

If you take this Affliction, you’re effectively gambling on finding a Merchant and being able to spend all your coins before the current floor ends. As finding a Merchant isn’t guaranteed – and you may end up earning excess coins that you’d really like to save for future merchants – this one ends up being quite a gamble.

Door Tax

“Lose 30 Aureus coins on room completion”
💀Run-Ending // ✔️Manageable (Late)

30 Aureus coins is a significant amount to lose every single room. If you have this affliction, you’ll find it extremely difficult to have enough coins to buy out Merchants and use Benevolent Fountains, which will make your runs much harder. Not only that, but if you’re not careful, you could end a room with 0 coins, and be unable to accept Offers (which cost 5 coins each).

Late in a run after you’ve collected a large number of boons already, this affliction does very little to you – as long as you make certain to collect 5 coins in each room after completing it to be able to afford Offers.

Empty Trove

“Chests no longer drop Aureus coins”
💀Run-Ending (Early) // ✔️Manageable (Late)

Treasure Rooms are responsible for the majority of the Aureus coins you will find over the course of a run. Disabling all of those (along with the small chests you find in rooms) is BRUTAL, and like Door Tax will significantly reduce your ability to use Merchants and Benevolent Fountains.

However, if you’ve already built up a significant number of coins – or it’s very late in the run – this affliction is more manageable. You can simply spend the remainder of your coins over the rest of the run, and avoid Treasure rooms.

Worn Sandals

“40% reduced Movement Speed”
⚠️Dangerous // ✔️Manageable (High MS character)

Mobility is king in Sanctums – being able to get out of the way of attacks will lead to you losing FAR less Resolve. 40% Reduced movement speed is a significant amount – and will cause most characters to have a MUCH more difficult time not getting hit.

Having said that, some characters stack movement speed to RIDICULOUS extremes. If your character has so much MS that you’ll barely notice the hit of 40%, then this is far more manageable.

Rusted Coin

“The Merchant only offers one choice”
⚠️Dangerous ✔️Freebie (Late)

This Affliction makes the Merchant borderline worthless. You can at least get something, but… instead of getting multiple Boons, you’re only getting a single one. This Affliction will render you unable to spend all your Aureus coins, and leave you significantly weaker.

Additionally, for players stacking “The Merchant offers 1-2 additional options” on their relics, this Affliction completely disables them.

However, if you get it late in a run, after you’ve done most of your Merchant visits, this does little to nothing to hurt you.

Poisoned Water

“Gain a random Minor Affliction when you use a Fountain”
⚠️Dangerous // ✔️Freebie (Late)

A random Minor Affliction would be considered “Run-Ending”, but you can just choose to skip Fountains (even if you choose a Fountain room), by just running past them. So in effect this Affliction is “You cannot use Benevolent or Radiant Fountains”. This hurts you somewhat, as it cuts off one of your sources of boons.

However, the later in the run you get this, the fewer Fountains you miss out on, making it a lot less harmful.

Unhallowed Ring

“50% increased Merchant prices”
⚠️Dangerous // ✔️Freebie (Late)

You end up with significantly fewer boons from Merchants with this Affliction… but at least you get to pick the very best ones she has on offer! What makes this one bad compared to other afflictions that reduce your Aureus Coins acquisition is that this affects your ability to spend coins that you already have.

Like many other Afflictions that affect your ability to get boons, this is less harmful the later in the run you get it.

Black Smoke

“You can see one fewer room ahead on the Sanctum Map”
⚠️Dangerous

Knowing what you’re getting yourself into is CRITICAL for success in the Sanctum. This one can cause you to head straight into Run-Ending Afflictions with less notice, as well as miss out on powerful reward rooms (and Divine Orbs!)

Spilt Purse

“Lose 20 Aureus coins when you lose Resolve from a Hit”
(This affliction counts loss of Inspiration)
⚠️Dangerous

Unlike Door Tax, you can go multiple rooms without getting hit, to keep all your coins. While you will probably inevitably get hit a few times, this should on average be far less dangerous – you’re already trying to avoid getting hit, anyways!

If you’re low on coins and have this Affliction, be sure to save some coins in the room to collect after you’ve completed the Room. If you collect all the coins, and then get hit a few times and go down to 0 coins, you may find yourself unable to accept an Offer or Radiant Fountain!

Rapid Quicksand

“Traps are faster”
⚠️Dangerous // ✔️Manageable (Boulder-blocking Skill)

This affects Traps in the Sanctums such as the floor lightning traps, and the rolling boulder traps. It does NOT affect the skulls that shoot lasers at you – those count as enemies, not traps.

This makes it significantly more difficult to avoid getting hit by traps – however, I would still characterize the lightning traps as easy to avoid. The boulder traps become quite difficult to dodge with this Affliction, however, if you have a skill that can be used to block the boulders (such as a Minion or Totem skill), this Affliction becomes pretty easy to manage.

Tight Choker

“You can have a maximum of 5 Boons”
⚠️Dangerous // ✔️Manageable (Strong Relic Loadout)

Grabbing large quantities of random Boons, in order to improve your odds of getting strong ones, is a very important part of succeeding in Sanctums. This Affliction prevents you from being able to do that – restricting you to just specific Boons from Merchants and Pacts.

Having said that, if you’re running a strong Relic Loadout, you may not even need boons to survive in the first place, in which case this isn’t a very scary Affliction at all.

Weakened Flesh

“-100 to Maximum Resolve”
(This affliction cannot reduce your Maximum Resolve below 1)
✔️Freebie

The Inspiration-based strategy I advocate for doesn’t care about how much maximum Resolve you have, making this a complete freebie.

Note: In the early parts of the Sanctum Challenge league, you would die if you took a Pact that reduced a % of your max Resolve, while your max Resolve was 1. This was changed at some point, and you can now take effects that reduce your max Resolve freely, regardless of your maximum Resolve.

Gargoyle Totem

“Guards are accompanied by a Gargoyle”
✔️Manageable

The Gargoyles are normal enemies that spawn alongside Guards in rooms. They have very little health and die quickly, however, they have a leap slam attack that can be difficult to dodge if you aren’t constantly moving.

Given that you’re going to want both high mobility and the high damage that would cause you to delete these enemies anyways, this Affliction is pretty manageable.

Mark of Terror

“Monsters inflict Resolve Weakness on Hit”
(Resolve Weakness is a debuff that says “Hits against you impact 50% more Resolve”. This affects Inspiration lost as well.)
✔️Manageable // ✔️Freebie

This affliction does nothing unless you’re taking back-to-back hits – which is something you shouldn’t be doing ANYWAYS. This Affliction will rarely do much of anything, but the potential to burst down huge chunks of Resolve from single mistakes makes this one not quite a Freebie.

Chains of Binding

“Monsters inflict Binding Chains on Hit”
(Binding Chains is a debuff that says “You are slowed by Binding Chains. Move to break the chains”. It functions similarly to Grasping Vines.)
✔️Manageable

Movement speed reductions are brutal in Sanctums, but… this one only applies after you’ve already been hit. Ideally that would happen pretty rarely anyways.

This Affliction does threaten to then cause you to take a second hit after getting hit once, but it only slows you by 20% MS, and is cancelled entirely upon using a movement skill, making it significantly less scary.

Unhallowed Amulet

“The Merchant offers 50% fewer choices”
✔️Manageable // ✔️Freebie (Late)

While only having 1 choice was considered a Dangerous Affliction, cutting your options in half is not nearly as bad. Not only does this give you twice as many rewards from the Merchant as that one, but this Affliction does not turn off your Relics that cause the Merchant to have additional items – merely reduces their effectiveness.

Unholy Urn

“50% reduced Effect of your Relics”
✔️Manageable // ⚠️Dangerous (Early) // ✔️Freebie (Late)

You’re primarily using your Relics to grant large amounts of Inspiration – therefore, the later you get this Affliction, the less impactful it is, as you’ve already gained the bulk of the Inspiration you’re going to get from them.

Hungry Fangs

“Monsters impact 25% increased Resolve”
(This affliction affects both Resolve and Inspiration loss)
✔️Manageable

With a proper Inspiration strategy, this does almost nothing – you should have Inspiration FAR in excess of what you need, and 25% increased Resolve loss is only mildly threatening.

Charred Coin

“50% less Aureus coins found”
✔️Manageable // ⚠️Dangerous (Early)

If you find this anytime after the first floor, you will probably be able to coast off of your supply of Aureus coins just fine.

However, if you get this very early in Floor 1, it can be a bit back-breaking, significantly reducing the amount of boons you get over the course of your run.

Dark Pit

“Traps impact 100% increased Resolve”
✔️Manageable

The traps in the Sanctum are pretty easy to dodge, once you’ve completed a few Sanctum runs. All this Affliction means is that you maybe don’t blitz through trap gauntlet rooms, and instead go a bit slower to avoid hits.

Haemorrhage

“You cannot recover Resolve (removed after killing the next Floor Boss)”
✔️Freebie

You should have no need to ever recover Resolve. In normal runs you should be looking to stack Inspiration instead, and in challenge runs where you can’t recover Resolve… you can’t do this, anyways.

Unquenched Thirst

“50% reduced Resolve recovered”
✔️Freebie

If being unable to recover Resolve is a Freebie, then only half of that must also be a Freebie.

Spiked Exit

“Lose 5% of current Resolve on room completion”
(This affliction bypasses your Inspiration. This affliction CANNOT kill you, even if you have 1 current Resolve.)
✔️Freebie //💀Run-Ending (without Inspiration)

If you have Inspiration, you don’t care how much Resolve you have, making this one a complete Freebie.

Voodoo Doll

“100% more Resolve lost while Resolve is below 50%”
(This affliction only counts Resolve for the 50% threshold, but increases both Inspiration and Resolve lost if you meet that threshold)
✔️Freebie // ⚠️Dangerous (w/ Spiked Exit)

Because you’re going to constantly be sacrificing your maximum Resolve at Pacts, your current Resolve will pretty much always be equal to your maximum, meaning this Affliction does literally nothing.

The only time this Affliction is any kind of threat is if you also have the Spiked Exit Affliction. This will reduce your current Resolve, bypassing your Inspiration, and enable this Affliction to be a threat. If you continually visit Pacts, however, you can just keep lowering your Maximum Resolve, to avoid meeting the threshold.

Rusted Mallet

“Monsters always Knockback, Monsters have increased Knockback Distance”
✔️Freebie

You shouldn’t be getting hit very often anyways, and if you do get hit, the odds that this knocks you into another attack is incredibly slim. Mostly, it just does nothing.

Concealed Anomaly

“Guards release a Volatile Anomaly on Death”
✔️Freebie

If you’ve played PoE for any length of time, you’ve already learned that standing around after killing enemies is lethal. There’s countless on-death effects that you’ve learned to dodge by just continuing to move… and this is no different.

Odds are that you were already playing the way you need to in order to never get hit by these, without even thinking about it. As a result, you’ll basically never get hit by these, and I consider it a complete freebie.

Tattered Blindfold

“90% reduced Light Radius, Minimap is hidden”
✔️Freebie

The Minimap being hidden just makes it a bit harder to spot the shortcuts in Trap Gauntlet rooms… but there’s so few room layouts, that you’ll probably have them all memorized pretty quickly anyways.

And light radius reduction does basically nothing. Chaos Inoculation builds are already playing like that the whole league, anyways!

Red Smoke

“Room types are unknown on the Sanctum Map”
✔️Freebie

Unlike the other “Smoke” Afflictions, which were all run-ending, this one is a complete Freebie. All this does is hide the names of rooms – making you unable to determine room type. Room type is almost never a factor in deciding what room to visit, anyways – the most this can do is make you miss out on some Aureus coins from a Miniboss.

Spiked Shell

“Monsters have 30% increased Maximum Life”
✔️Freebie

Your build ought to be deleting enemies anyways. And if it isn’t, the solution is to invest in making your character more powerful, not to avoid specific Afflictions. 30% isn’t even a very significant amount! Odds are you’ll barely even notice this.

Blunt Sword

“You and your Minions deal 25% less Damage”
✔️Freebie

Similar to Spiked Shell, at endgame, you ought to be doing more than enough damage to melt enemies in the Sanctum. 25% less damage should barely be noticeable.

Honed Claws

“Monsters deal 25% more Damage”
✔️Freebie // ⚠️Dangerous

This Affliction affects the amount of regular PoE damage that monsters inflict – not Resolve or Inspiration damage. Most monsters in the Sanctum do not hit very hard – they’re only dangerous in terms of chipping down your Resolve – and 25% more damage does not change that.

There are a few exceptions, however. The Herald of the Scourge’s intermission phase deals significant amounts of damage – if you can’t burst the Herald down immediately, and struggle in this phase, then this Affliction could prove deadly to you.

Similarly, while well-rounded builds have nothing to fear here, extreme glass-cannon builds may find that this Affliction causes certain attacks to be lethal.

Major Afflictions

Deadly Snare

“Traps impact infinite Resolve”
💀Run-Ending

You really shouldn’t be getting hit by traps, they’re pretty easy to dodge. But am I going to gamble the entire outcome of my Sanctum on not making a single mistake? Absolutely not. And neither should you.

Anomaly Attractor

“Rooms spawn Volatile Anomalies”
⚠️Dangerous

This is significantly more dangerous than simply having monsters spawn them on death. They will be constant, and everywhere, and you WILL get hit by some of them.

Death Toll

“Lose 250 Resolve after completing 8 rooms”
(This affliction does NOT bypass Inspiration)
✔️Manageable // ✔️Freebie (with <8 rooms remaining)

The Inspiration strategy that I recommend can cause you to hit the cap of 1k Inspiration fairly consistently. If you have large amounts of Inspiration, losing out on 250 at some point in the future is not all that scary.

Demonic Skull

“Cannot recover Resolve”
✔️Freebie

As with the minor Afflictions, this poses no threat, as you have no need to ever recover Resolve.

Veiled Sight

“Rooms are unknown on the Sanctum Map”
💀Run-Ending

This completely removes all information about rooms on the Floor Map – no rewards, no affliction details, nothing. It’s basically every single “Smoke” Affliction rolled into one. And since most of the “Smoke” Afflictions were Run-Ending on their own, this is probably the single most deadly Affliction in the Sanctum.

Ghastly Scythe

“Losing Resolve ends your Sanctum (removed after 3 rooms)”
(This affliction triggers only on Resolve loss – not Inspiration loss)
✔️Freebie // 💀Run-Ending (w/ Spiked Exit)

As this only triggers on loss of Resolve, and you ideally won’t ever lose Resolve anyways, this is one of the few major Afflictions that does virtually nothing.

…however, Spiked Exit bypasses your Inspiration, and causes you to directly lose Resolve. Therefore if you complete a room with both of these Afflictions, your run will immediately end.

Unassuming Brick

“You cannot gain any more Boons”
⚠️Dangerous (Early) // ✔️Freebie (Late / Strong Relic Loadout)

This one is a bit weird – because I’ve only ever seen this offered in Pacts alongside upsides that grant you Boons. It seems the intent is that those are the last Boons you ever get in the run, however, you pay the cost before you get the reward, meaning that if you accept one of those Pacts, you just get this major Affliction, and none of the boons. This is most likely an oversight.

As a result, the only reason to ever pick this option at a Pact is to gain access to an Offer on Floors 3 or 4 – which you can safely do at that point, as it will be late enough in the run that you should already be set up with Boons.

Cutpurse

“You cannot gain Aureus coins”
💀Run-Ending (Early) // ✔️Freebie (Late)

Aureus coins are essential both in obtaining boons, but also for getting Offer rewards. How bad this Affliction is for you will differ wildly depending on where you are in your run, and how many coins you already have banked. If you choose to take this late in a run (presumably to gain access to a Pact Offer), be certain that you have enough remaining coins to buy all remaining Offer rooms – you don’t want to be offered a Divine Orb, but have fewer than 5 coins remaining!

Orb of Negation

“Non-Unique Relics have no Effect”
💀Run-Ending (Early) // ✔️Freebie (Late)

Like the Minor Affliction that does this at half effect, how detrimental this is will scale with how deep into the Sanctum you are. If you’re on Floor 4 and have already gotten 90% of the Inspiration you’re going to get out of your relics, this does almost nothing. If you’re on Floor 1 and have gotten almost nothing yet, this could cost you 1k+ Inspiration.

Only take this one on Floor 4, with a healthy amount of Inspiration remaining.

Chiselled Stone

“Monsters Petrify on Hit”
💀Run-Ending

This Affliction is absolutely terrifying. You could find yourself chain-petrified, taking hit after hit, unable to do anything, as you’re locked in place. A single mistake could cause a chain-reaction that immediately ends your run – especially on bosses.

Avoid this at all costs.

Glass Shard

“The next Boon you gain is converted into a random Minor Affliction”
💀Run-Ending // ✔️Freebie (Late)

As before, anything that grants you a random Affliction is run-ending. However, this random affliction is avoidable – you simply avoid getting any more Boons. As a result, it’s a freebie late in the run, and can be taken at a Pact on Floor 3 or 4 to gain access to an Offer, if you have no other choices.

Conclusion

Be sure to check out the other pages of this guide, covering even more topics related to The Forbidden Sanctum! This guide will continue to be updated in the future – if you have any feedback, or find something cool you want to share, head on over to the PoE Vault Discord, and let me know!

Good luck, and have fun farming The Forbidden Sanctum!