Soulfire Bastion is a Dungeon that lies north of Lake Liath, in the Felled Wood, in the Imperial Era. A fierce battle occurred there ages ago, and the site is now littered with damaged and destroyed Solarum-made war constructs. It is also known to contain a lot of potent elemental fire still. Cremorus, a Fire Lich in the service of the Immortal Empire, has taken residence there and is now repurposing the constructs and conducting dangerous experiments with elemental fire to create Soul Embers, a threatening force that can potentially spread fire and destruction. Your task is to venture deep into the Soulfire Bastion, collect as many Soul Embers as you can, and defeat the Fire Lich Cremorus. Are you up to the task? 

Farming Soulfire Bastion Keys

• Arena Champions are known to have modifiers that improve the chance of obtaining Soulfire Bastion Keys from them. This means that farming The Arena is one of the most consistent ways of farming Keys, especially if you don't want to build up a lot of Corruption. 
  • The modifiers you're looking for, to increase Key drop chance, appear after wave 20. Just keep in mind that there's no guarantee that you'll get the key you actually need (you might also get  Lightless Arbor, Temporal Sanctum, or Arena Keys, for example). 
  • After Wave 30, you can choose a modifier that will guarantee an Arena Key.
  • The most efficient way of farming Lightless Arbor Keys in the Arena is to do 30 wave runs repeatedly. This way you can potentially get infinite Arena Keys (so, infinite Souldife Bastion Key Arena Runs). If you have spare keys, you can do 20 Wave runs instead. 
• Running Monoliths is another good way of farming the Keys. This will, however, require high Corruption to be efficient. 
  • Bosses have a high chance to drop Keys. The higher the Corruption, the higher the chances! At high Corruption levels, you can even get multiple keys from a single Boss. 
  • On high Corruption Levels, Shades also have a solid chance to drop Keys. 
  • Your Build matters! Builds designed for Speed-Running through content will yield much more Keys/hour than slow and steady ones! It's all about the speed at which you can clear. 

You'll need a special Key to enter Soulfire Bastion

Soulfire Shield Mechanic

Soulfire Bastion is not a welcoming place. It's teeming with deadly elemental fire that can easily scorch you to death in mere seconds. Moreover, Immortal Empire's vile necrotic energies spread along its chambers and corridors after Fire Lich Cremorus took residence there.

No one can survive a combination of all-consuming fire and necrotic fumes. Luckily for you, have been granted a special Dungeon-specific ability that should help you survive. Soulfire Shield, because that's the ability's name, was designed by the Cremorus himself. it can be tuned to deflect either Fire or Necrotic energies, but not both at once. The Shield is impenetrable to the element it's deflecting, no matter its strength. You will have to re-tune the shield depending on the current situation. However, it's not as simple as clicking a button - you will need Soul Embers to change attunements between fire and necrotic. This Shield Mechanic is especially important during the encounter with Fire Lich Cremorus, so better get used to using it! 

Be aware that the more Soul Embers you spend on re-tuning the shield, the safer you'll be, but also the fewer Embers you'll have, to trade with the Soul Gambler, at the end of the Dungeon. 

Soulfire Shield is a powerful tool, use it wisely

Soul Embers

Fire Lich Cremorus uses Soul Embers to power the Construct He re-purposed. You can retrieve them by destroying various automatons within the Soulfire Bastion. The more powerful the defeated enemy, the more Soul Embers power it, and so the more of them will drop after its slain. 

Soul Embers are a valuable resource. You not only need them to survive inside the dungeon, but also to rip the rewards at the end of it. The more of them you save up, the more chances for getting powerful rewards you'll have! A word of advice; don't be too greedy as dying is far worse than wasting a few additional Embers. 

Fire Lich Cremorus Strategy

Cremorus uses two types of abilities: Fire and Necrotic. You can disregard one type at a time, thanks to the Soulfire Shield mechanic. However, the Boss has ways to force you into picking one Shield or the other. The fight takes place in a circular arena with a grated floor. The floor is very important here... 

• The boss will periodically cast an arena-wide AoE that can't be avoided and must be nullified with the use of Soulfire Shield. This AoE has two types: Fire and Necrotic. You can easily see which AoE is currently active by simply looking at the grating - if there's fire under it, use Fire Shield. If there are necrotic fumes under it, use Necrotic Shield. 
  • The tricky part is that this ability overlaps with other hard-to-dodge Cremorus abilities. Because of this, you might be forced to tank one of them. 
  • Metal sheets in front of doors at the edges of the arena are safe spots, but other Boss' abilities can easily corner you there. 
• One of his deadliest attacks is Wall of Fire/Collapsing Decay. Wall of Fire travels from one side of the Arena to the other and Collapsing Decay starts at the edge of the Arena and travels to its center. These deal very high Damage and can't really be dodged (unless you have immunity frames). Luckily, they have a rather long Cooldown. 
  • The damage type of these two abilities will often be different from the currently active floor, so you might be forced to pick your poison and tank one or the other. 
• Boss can summon Thralls and Skeletons that will get into your way. You should deal with them quickly. Both types of summons are melee fighters. 
  • His Summon Skeleton Spell summons 8 Imperial Guard Skeletons at once. 
  • His Summon Thrall Spell summons a single Thrall of Cremorus. 
• Cremorus will create Fire and Necrotic Orbiters that will circle around him - don't run into these. 
• Sometimes He will do a ground-based telegraphed attack. This will be indicated by a rather large circle on the ground. Step out of it. 
• Boss can fire a flamethrower at you. Standing in its AoE is a very bad idea, so just side-step it. Boss won't follow you with it. This is Telegraphed by a big fiery rectangle. 
• Cremorus also uses Fire and Necrotic homing projectiles that can't be dodged reliably. You'll be forced to tank these.
• He will also apply a debuff, called Marked for Death, which will reduce your Resistances by 25%. This is a Curse effect. 

Cremorus is a challenging opponent. To beat him, you'll have to master the Soulfire Shield mechanic

Once you defeat the Fire Lich Cremorus, you'll get the opportunity to speak with The Soul Gambler, a shady man who's interested in the Soul Embers you've acquired... You can purchase his Items for the Soul Embers you've accumulated during your Soulfire Bastion run. The catch is, that you never know what exactly you're purchasing. 

• All you can see is the type of the offered items, be it Helms, Swords, Chests, etc. 
• Offered Items are usually much more powerful than those any regular gambler would offer. 
  • You can even get Tier V Sealed Affixes, which are not obtainable in any other way. 
• Soul Gambler's Stock won't refresh after you purchase His items; you'll have to complete the dungeon again if you want to keep trading. 
• There are three Uniques exclusive to the Soul Gambler; Burning Avarice, Ashes of Orchirian, and Soul Gambler's Fallacy. 

Soul Gambler Exclusive Unique Items

There are three powerful uniques that can only be acquired by trading with the Soul Gambler. They are all powerful in their own regard and will increase the power level of top-tier builds quite nicely. Sadly they are extremely rare so be prepared for long grinding sessions if you want to get them (especially if you'd like them with Legendary Potential). 

Type: Gloves (Unique Noble Gloves)  +32 Armor  (3-10)% increased Cast Speed  3% of Elemental Damage Leeched as Health  3% of Necrotic Damage Leeched as Health  (30-39)% Increased Leech Rate  +13% Elemental Resistance  (13-19)% Increased Ignite Effect  Flavortext: Have the ambition to know what might be yours, and the conviction to burn those who would keep it from you.

Burning Avarice - These powerful Unique Gloves are perfect for any elemental or necrotic damage-based build that needs some extra survivability. They offer a lot of Health Leech that will help you survive against waves of monsters especially. Furthermore, they increase your Leech rate and offer a solid boost to elemental resistances. Their Ignite Effect, while a bit more niche, is extremely powerful, for certain builds, as well. 

Type: Relic (Unique Overgrowth Bloom)  +3 Attunement  +5% to All Resistances  8% increased Mana Regen  13% Increased Cast Speed with Physical and Fire Spells  21% Increased Critical Strike Chance with Physical and Fire Spells  34% Increased Stun Chance with Physical and Fire Spells  55% increased Health Regen  89% increased Physical and Fire Damage

Ashes of Orchirian - This Unique Relic seems tailored for builds that mix Physical and Fire Damage (a Flame Reave Spellblade, for example). Because of this, it's not as universal as the Burning Avarice, however, it's still very powerful in the right circumstances. It will provide you with a solid Casp Speed, Critical Strike, and Stun Chance increase for Physical and Fire Spells. Moreover, it will increase your Damage done with such spells by 89%! 

Type: Amulet (Unique Ruby Amulet)  +(5-25) Health  +100% Critical strike chance if you have not dealt a critical strike recently  50% less Critical strike chance if you have dealt a critical strike recently (Multiplicative with other modifiers).  (10-15) Ward Gain on Crit  +(10-15)% Critical Strike Multiplier  +1 to Necrotic Skills

Soul Gambler's Fallacy - If you like Critical Strikes, you'll definitely like this Unique Amulet. It offers a powerful modifier of guaranteeing a Critical Hit if you're not dealt a Crit recently, which is extremely powerful for builds that rely on nuke skills. Its drawback can be worked around - there's no need to stack Crit Chance at all if you plan your build around this amulet. A +1 bonus to Necrotic Skills is also very powerful and will let you squeeze a bit more out of your Necrotic damage-based builds. 

END NOTE

Congratulations! You have defeated The Fire Lich Cremorus and gained access to the Soul Gambler! Now, just how lucky do you feel today? Are you prepared to exchange your hard-earned Soul Embers for a chance of getting one of the Soul Gambler's Uniques? Please let us know! If we have missed a piece of information that is especially important to you, please let us know and we will make sure to add the missing data. 

Please note that this is an early version of our guide, and we will be happy to receive constructive criticism, that will help us improve it, so leave your suggestions in the comments section below.