Salt and Sacrifice: Mage Hunts guide

One of the key mechanics in Salt and Sacrifice is called Mage Hunts. These will take place in the game’s zones, leading you on a wild goose chase until you can eliminate your foe. Here’s our Salt and Sacrifice Mage Hunts guide to help you with this gameplay mechanic, as well as what to expect while you’re exploring.

Note: For more information, check out our Salt and Sacrifice guides and features hub.

Salt and Sacrifice – Mage Hunts guide

As you roam various zones in Salt and Sacrifice, you’ll notice ornate doorways that lead to new areas. By default, these will have a red glow and, upon interacting with them, you’re told that you need to “devour” a certain number of named mages in a zone.

Eventually, you’ll come across cursed objects or points of interest, such as lanterns, corpses, and even frozen people. Once you inspect them, the Mage Hunt panel will appear.

This will show the type of opponent you’ll face, as well as their drops.

The Mage Hunt chase in Salt and Sacrifice

Here’s what happens when you start a Mage Hunt in Salt and Sacrifice:

• Doing so acts as an Obelisk rest, meaning you’ll replenish your HP/MP/ammo if you have the basic resources. Naturally, this will cause regular mobs to spawn.
• A black wisp of smoke will appear. This will hint at the general direction of your target. However, this doesn’t include any barriers, obstacles, or walls. As such, you might be going in a certain direction only to find out that you have to enter a different room/corridor.
• Mage bosses will spawn their own mobs. The boss itself, as well as those mobs, will also be hostile toward other enemies. This can work in your favor since they can kill each other. But, it can also be detrimental, especially if you’re caught in the middle of the pack.
• Spawned mobs have a chance of dropping Guiltless Shards that remove the Spellmark debuff.

Mage Hunt bosses in Salt and Sacrifice will continuously teleport to new areas of the zone as long as they’ve taken enough damage or if a bit of time passes. Yes, it can be a hassle to look for them, especially in sections where a lot of platforming is involved. Soon, though, they should reach a particular area. When this occurs, the sides will be blocked, preventing you from leaving. This is the actual boss fight arena.

Here are a few things that you can expect when you’re fighting these foes:

• Melee attacks are often combos.
• They’ll usually have at least one ranged projectile. A select few can cause a status effect.
• There’s a chance that they’d have area-of-effect abilities (i.e., Ground Pound attacks that cause shockwaves or objects that cause explosions).

• When you fully deplete a boss’ HP, they’ll kneel down. Run up to them and press the interact button to “devour” their soul. This is, essentially, your means of unlocking those ornate doors I mentioned earlier (i.e., they’ll have a green glow instead).
• If you fail to devour a mage’s soul in time, they’ll regenerate a bit of health and you’ll need to down them once more.
• Mage bosses and their spawned mobs drop a bunch of crafting materials needed to create weapons, armors, accessories, and even cosmetic items. Non-mage bosses (i.e., unique ones) will only drop artifacts.

Other things you can expect

Here are some other tidbits of information related to Mage Hunts in Salt and Sacrifice:

• Unnamed mages are variants of named mages, but they’re not always required for the tally/devour count to open doorways.
• Other mages in a zone can still appear even if you’re hunting a different target. This can lead to wacky moments where bosses and their adds will attack each other on sight. In some cases, your target might quickly teleport due to a lot of damage taken.
• Mages that you’re not hunting will not leave a trail of smoke behind. They’d be very hard to find, so try to watch the direction that they teleport to.
• Mages that you’re not hunting will also not create a barricaded arena. Likewise, they won’t have an HP bar at the bottom of your HUD. Pay attention to their kneeling animation so you know when to devour their essence.
• If you manage to obtain Fated Tomes, you can give them to Runereader Diadela (i.e., the portal lady) in Pardoner’s Vale. These unlock Fated Hunts in that region, ensuring that you can chase down a specific boss if you need its loot. You can learn more in our Fated Hunts/Fated Tomes guide.

Salt and Sacrifice is available via the Epic Games Store. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.