Basics

Welcome to Sworn speedrunning! This guide will focus on the solo category, but a lot of the information can also be useful for coop runs.

We run using the in-game timer (there's an option in the game settings to see it on-screen) which starts when you enter a room and pauses when you kill the last enemy in said room, meaning you should optimize to clear rooms as quickly as possible, but you don't have to hurry when picking a blessing, going over the room to collect extra rewards or selecting which room to go next.

You can either clear the game in Casual & farm the resources to unlock everything that's needed yourself, or use the provided save which contains all of the necessary unlocks and a lot of the permanent resources.

Our fastest build to clear rooms so far is based on Vigilante and its Bo Staff weapon plus the Assasin's Dagger spell. We'll use Bone Collector (Gogmagog + Babd Duo) and the Veteran Blade then the Ricochet Blade upgrades (Sword in the Stone) to stack damage on the spell, making it capable of one-shot kills on every non-boss in the game. The next choices are all designed to maximise spell uptime & damage.

The Core Build

Before getting in the runs, you should fully upgrade your Staff in Nimue's Forge and select the following nodes: Regenerating Strike (+100% mana regen for 3 seconds after a heavy attack hit) and Coursing River (+20% move speed & 40% damage on a Light Dash Attack perfect hit). The heavy attack mana regeneration boost is crucial for your spell uptime, and the move speed & damage bonus on Light Dash helps with clearing the room faster.

In The Source, you should also make sure to have the following nodes: Channeler (+1 mana charge) in both the Life and War trees. You can also pick Shady Deals (-25% in secret shops) in the Wealth tree, Purifying Embers (-curse when collecting embers) in the Treasure tree and Chaos (+damage for each different Fae) in the Devotion tree.

If possible, do not unlock Ultimate Blessings or Fae Companions from Guinevere, as they will only add more clutter in your blessings choices.

Faes & Blessings choices

The key Faes for this build are Gogmagog, Babd and Beira. After these key picks, you can get extra damage from Titania, Oberon and Lugh.

The game currently locks some faes away from you at the start of the run. If you do not see any of the core required Faes on the first room, you'll have to reset and try again.

The first two blessings you absolutely need are Gogmagog's Mighty Flourish (bonus damage on the Spell + stun) and one of Babd's Ability Blessings to unlock Bone Collector (Gogmagog + Babd Duo). We tend to prefer Shadow Touch (Light Attack) for Babd if possible as it helps with room clear but it's not a hard requirement.

Once you have Bone Collector, your next priority should be to get either Gogmagog's Press the Attack (bonus damage if you have not dashed in the last 3 seconds), Giant Slayer (+spell damage on Major Foes & bosses) or Beira's mana & spell damage blessings. The priority for Beira is usually the following: Spell Thief (light/heavy attacks give mana) > Mana Well (+1 mana charge) > Spell Caster (bonus damage on the spell) > Arcane Engine (improves mana regen). Arcane Engine's value is relatively low if it's low level/rarity but increases on higher end.

Other Faes have blessings that help boost damage output, which you can pick as you see fit based on your RNG. Titania's Dying Spark (+damage when health is low) and Oberon's Approaching Storm (+damage based on the number of enemies around) are key picks.

You can also try and get some of the following:

Relentless (Gogmagog, +damage on stunned enemies)
Greed (Lugh, +damage for every 50 gold)
Collector (Lugh, improves gold rewards)
Unmatched Power (Gogmagog, increases all stagger)
Swift Killer (Oberon, +damage when you dash)
Opportunistic (Gogmagog, longer stuns)
As The Wind (Oberon, increase dash distance)
Guiding Breeze (Oberon, gain movement speed when you do damage)

Please note that some of these can be counter-synergies, like Press The Attack and Swift Killer. We tend to use Press The Attack's bonus on bosses and the Swift Killer in regular room clear.

Rooms choices

Rooms follow a "spawn budget", with each mob costing a certain amount of that budget, and spawns continue until the budget has run out.

For room choices, follow the following tips:

Shops are free time-wise as the timer pauses in them.
If you can 3-4 shot the Major Foes, their rooms will save you a lot of time as long as you focus on killing the Major Foe first, then clear its adds.
Event rooms are a massive waste of time, avoid them at all costs.
Morgana is always worth if you can get a spell damage bonus out of it: Impoverished Wisdom or Lethargic Wisdom.
Merlin's Pure Wisdom can be worth the time loss if you get it in the first three rooms of the run. Avoid it later on.
Trials of Combat for gold can also be worth if you're low on cash to buy blessings in the next shop, especially early in the run if your spawn budget is still very low.
Trials of Corruption are always worth taking.
Altars of Exchange can be used to try and fix some sub-optimal blessings you might have picked due to the capricious RNG, while Altars of Sacrifice can help you secure more gold if you have a blessing that you can get rid of.

If you encounter Secret Shops: enemies dropping more gold is always worth it. If you have some extra cash you can also use the temporary damage boosts or extra mana charges to help you clear the next few rooms faster but be mindful of your gold as picking these could lock you out of buying a blessing in a shop or paying Lancelot if you're trying to go for the Morgana ending.

Extra Tips

Be mindful of enemy pathing so you can line up enemies and kill more of them in a single shot of your Assasin's Dagger.
The mana regeneration on your Heavy Attack can be triggered on bombs, which dramatically helps with your spell uptime. Triggering a bomb that's close at the start of a room can help you clear a room much faster.
Adds on bosses will not count for stacks on Veteran Blade / Bone collector if you kill them, but killing the boss will despawn them and count towards your stacks.
Taking a "main skill" (light/heavy attack, spell, dash) will unlock more blessings from the same fae and should be avoided in most cases. The only "safe" fae is Mab, as we don't get a duo from Gogmagog which avoids flooding Gog choices