Sworn: Quick Tips & Tricks Guide for Knights to Conquer Camelot

Part I: The Squire’s First Steps – Foundational Sworn Tips

Every legendary journey begins with a single step. Before you can challenge the Knights of the Round Table, you must master the fundamentals. These foundational tips for Sworn will build the good habits necessary for survival and, eventually, victory.

Understanding the Core Loop of Sworn

1. Embrace the Cycle. Your quest in Sworn follows a clear pattern: you will enter a chamber, defeat all the enemies within, and then choose a reward which leads to the next chamber. This loop continues until you face the area’s boss. Victory allows you to proceed; defeat sends you back to the beginning, but stronger for the attempt.
2. Carmarthen is Your Sanctuary. The hub world is your base of operations. Here, between runs, you will spend the resources you’ve gathered to unlock permanent upgrades, switch characters, and prepare for your next quest into the heart of Camelot.
3. Death is Not Failure, It’s Progression. You will die. A lot. Do not be discouraged. Every run, win or lose, grants you currency for permanent upgrades. Think of each death not as an end, but as an investment in your future strength.

Your First Priority: Meta-Progression at the Beacon of Avalore

The single most important factor determining your success in Sworn is the permanent upgrades you purchase at the Beacon of Avalore, also known as The Source. Your skill can only take you so far; the rest is earned through persistence.

4. Prioritize Survival Upgrades First. A new player’s primary goal is to make each run last as long as possible. Therefore, your first unlocks should always be the extra life/rez tokens and the additional dash charges.
5. Longer Runs Equal Faster Progress. The logic is simple but crucial. Survival upgrades lead to longer runs. Longer runs mean you clear more chambers. More chambers yield more currency. More currency allows you to buy more powerful upgrades, faster. This is the central feedback loop of progression in Sworn.
6. Hunt Down Mini-Bosses. Defeating the mini-bosses located partway through the first three areas is incredibly important. Each one you defeat unlocks an entirely new passive ability tree for meta-progression, dramatically expanding your build options.

Combat Fundamentals for Every Sworn Knight

7. Master the Dodge. Your dash is your lifeblood. Learning enemy attack patterns and timing your dodges is the core defensive skill in Sworn. It is your primary tool for avoiding damage.
8. Read the Red. Enemies telegraph their attacks with red lines and shapes on the ground. These are not suggestions; they are warnings. When you see red, your immediate priority is to move. Mastering this reaction will save you countless times.
9. Use the Environment as a Weapon. The chambers of Camelot are filled with traps like spikes and arrows, as well as obstacles like walls and rivers. These can hurt you, but they will also damage your enemies.
10. Lure Foes to Their Doom. Actively pull enemies into the path of environmental traps. This is free damage and a great way to control crowds without expending resources or taking risks.
11. Lock-On is Your Friend. If you are struggling to land your attacks, especially spells, use the lock-on feature. It keeps your aim true and lets you focus entirely on movement and dodging.

Making Smart Choices in Your Sworn Runs

12. Read the Chamber Doors. After clearing a room, you get to choose your next reward by walking through a door. Each door shows an icon representing the reward inside. Learn what each icon means.
13. Prioritize Survivability Early. When given the choice, especially in the first area, a chamber that increases your maximum health or offers healing is almost always a better choice than one that just offers gold. You can’t spend gold if you’re dead.
14. Don’t Fear the Skull. Chambers marked with a skull icon contain a more difficult encounter. However, they also grant more powerful rewards. Once you are comfortable with the basic combat, you should start tackling these challenges to accelerate your progress.

Part II: Choosing Your Blade – A Guide to Sworn’s Champions

Once you have gathered enough resources, you can unlock new heroes at the Beacon of Avalore. Each of the four champions in Sworn offers a completely unique playstyle, with their own set of weapons, spells, and stats. Finding the one that clicks with you is a major step toward mastery.

15. Experiment with All Four Heroes. Don’t commit to one character immediately. Play a few runs with each to understand their rhythm and flow.
16. Try Every Weapon. Each character has multiple weapons that can drastically alter their playstyle. Be sure to try all of a character’s available weapons before deciding they are not for you.

The Four Heroes of Sworn

• The Vigilante: The Swift and Agile Assassin.17. The Vigilante is a balanced, agile fighter who excels at rapid strikes and hit-and-run tactics. They are perfect for players who value speed and adaptability.18. Starter Tip: The Vigilante’s Chakrams are excellent for learning the game, as their bouncing attacks can clear rooms with ease while you focus on dodging.
• The Rook: The Unbreakable Frontline Guardian.19. The Rook is the party’s tank. They are slow but incredibly durable, capable of shrugging off blows and delivering devastating, high-impact attacks.20. Starter Tip: The Rook’s “Counter” spell is one of the best in the game. It functions as both a perfect parry and a powerful counter-attack, rewarding aggressive, well-timed defense.21. Starter Tip: The Halberd gives the Rook much-needed range and its heavy attack can be charged for immense damage.
• The Monk: The Master of Balance and Flow.22. The Monk is a hybrid warrior who can adapt to any situation, seamlessly blending close-quarters combat with deadly ranged abilities.23. Starter Tip: The Monk’s “Crystal Turret” spell is a fantastic “set it and forget it” ability that allows you to focus on survival while the turrets deal consistent damage.24. Starter Tip: The Monk’s Chimes offer a unique attack pattern that can hit enemies from unexpected angles, making them a strong choice for backstab builds.
• The Spectre: The Fragile Glass Cannon.25. The Spectre is a master of arcane power. They are extremely fragile but can unleash overwhelming magic damage from a safe distance.26. Starter Tip: The Spectre’s “Blink” spell is a vital survival tool. Use it to instantly teleport out of danger and reposition for your next volley of attacks.27. Starter Tip: The Armillary Sphere is a great starting weapon for the Spectre, as its heavy attack is simple to use and builds into a powerful spell-like ability.

To help you choose, consult the table below for an at-a-glance comparison of the four heroes of Sworn.

Character	Playstyle Archetype	Key Strengths	Key Weaknesses	Recommended Starter Weapon
Vigilante	Agile Assassin	High mobility, fast attacks, versatile	Lower base health, relies on combos	Chakrams
Rook	Heavy Tank	High durability, immense single-hit damage, powerful counter	Slow movement and attack speed	Halberd
Monk	Hybrid Spell-Fighter	Adaptable range, strong spell builds, battlefield control	Can be complex to build effectively	Chimes
Spectre	Arcane Glass Cannon	Highest spell damage, excellent mobility spells	Very fragile, requires good positioning	Armillary Sphere

Part III: The Fae’s Favor – Mastering Blessings in Sworn

The heart of buildcrafting in Sworn lies in the blessings bestowed upon you by the Fae Lords. With over 200 unique blessings to discover, understanding how to combine them effectively is the true key to unlocking god-tier power.

28. Understand Your Six Slots. During a run, you will be offered blessings that augment six aspects of your kit: Light Attack, Heavy Attack, Spell, Dash, Pet, and Ultimate.

The Golden Rule of Sworn Builds: The Power of Stacking

29. The Golden Rule: Never Build a Hybrid. This is the most important principle for dealing damage in Sworn. Do not spread your upgrades across your light attack, heavy attack, and spell.
30. Focus Your Fire. Pick one attack type at the start of your run—and only one—to be your primary damage dealer. Every upgrade you find, from Fae blessings to the Sword in the Stone, should be funneled into that single ability.
31. Embrace Multiplicative Scaling. The reason for this focus is that damage buffs in Sworn apply multiplicatively. Stacking five +10% buffs on one attack doesn’t just add 50% damage; it creates an exponential power curve that results in colossal, screen-clearing damage numbers. A balanced build is a weak build.

Meet the Fae Lords

Each Fae Lord offers blessings centered around a specific theme or status effect. Knowing their specialties is crucial for planning your build.

32. Beira (Frost): The queen of crowd control. Her blessings apply Chill, which slows enemies and eventually Freezes them solid.
33. Gogmagog (Stagger): The master of disruption. His blessings inflict Stagger, which builds up to Stun enemies, leaving them helpless and vulnerable to increased damage.
34. Mab (Venom): The poisoner. Her blessings apply Venom, a potent damage-over-time effect, and offer some of the best healing abilities in the game.
35. Babd (Backstab): The shadow assassin. Her blessings enhance Backstabs, Bleed effects, and Invisibility for high-risk, high-reward gameplay.
36. Titania (Ignite): The pyromancer. Her blessings focus on Ignite, a powerful effect that adds a massive burst of fire damage to an attack on a cooldown.
37. Oberon (Fury): The berserker. His blessings grant Fury stacks for attacking, increasing your attack speed and unlocking the powerful “Flow” state.
38. Lugh (Fortune): The gambler. His blessings improve your Critical Hit chance and often scale your power based on how much gold you are carrying.
39. Cliona (Weakness): The debuffer. Her blessings apply Weakness to enemies, reducing the damage they deal and making them more susceptible to other effects.

The Art of the Duo Blessing: Unleashing True Power in Sworn

When you possess blessings from two different Fae, you can be offered an incredibly rare and powerful Duo Blessing that combines their strengths. These are the cornerstones of the most dominant builds in Sworn.

40. Plan Your Runs Around a Target Duo. Do not leave your build to chance. Advanced players identify a target Duo Blessing at the start of a run and actively choose Fae who meet the prerequisites, using re-rolls to hunt for it.
41. Duo Blessings are Game-Changers. A single Duo Blessing can transform a mediocre run into an unstoppable force. The table below outlines the most essential Duos in Sworn.

Duo Blessing Name	Required Fae	Core Effect / Synergy
Bone Collector	Gogmagog + Babd	Killing a foe grants +1% damage for the rest of the run (up to 100%). The ultimate scaling damage buff.
Shatter	Beira + Gogmagog	Hitting a Frozen enemy with a Stagger attack deals massive bonus damage, shattering the ice.
Grave Weakness	Cliona + Mab	Enemies afflicted with both Weak and Venom deal drastically reduced damage (as low as 1).
Flash Freeze	Beira + Lugh	Your attacks have a chance to instantly Freeze enemies. Skips the Frostbite buildup.
Bone Breaker	Cliona + Gogmagog	Weakened enemies take significantly more Stagger, making them easier to stun.
Berserker	Oberon + Gogmagog	Gain massive damage reduction when at maximum stacks of Fury.
Leech	Mab + (Any)	A percentage of damage dealt is returned as health. Essential for high-difficulty survivability.
Critical Opening	Lugh + Gogmagog	Massively increases your Critical Hit chance against Stunned enemies.
Channeled Darkness	Oberon + Babd	During the “Flow” state, your Fury-empowered attacks can also Backstab.
Detonate	Titania + Gogmagog	Enemies you Stun will explode, dealing AoE damage.

More Blessing Tips for your Sworn Journey

42. Always Prioritize Bone Collector. If you have blessings from Gogmagog and Babd, this Duo should be your highest priority. It is universally powerful for every build.
43. Build for Shatter to One-Shot Bosses. The combination of Beira’s Freeze and Gogmagog’s Stagger can lead to astronomical damage numbers, capable of ending boss phases in a single hit.
44. Use Grave Weakness for Ultimate Survivability. On higher difficulties, this Cliona and Mab duo makes you nearly invincible by reducing incoming damage to almost nothing.
45. Get Flash Freeze to Lock Down Rooms. This Beira and Lugh duo removes the need to build up Chill stacks, allowing you to instantly freeze enemies and control the battlefield.
46. Use Bone Breaker to Stun-Lock Elites. Combining Cliona’s Weakness with Gogmagog’s Stagger makes it incredibly easy to keep tough enemies permanently stunned.
47. Take Berserker for Tanky Fury Builds. This Oberon and Gogmagog duo provides massive damage reduction, allowing you to stay in the fight and maintain your Fury stacks.
48. Prioritize Leech on Higher Difficulties. Mab’s healing-on-hit blessing is one of the few reliable sources of sustain in the endgame.
49. Go for Critical Opening in Stun Builds. If you are focusing on Gogmagog, adding Lugh to the mix for this Duo will dramatically increase your damage output against stunned targets.
50. Try Channeled Darkness for a Unique Playstyle. This Oberon and Babd duo allows for some incredible damage potential by combining the Flow state with automatic backstabs.
51. Use Detonate to Add AoE to Your Stuns. This Titania and Gogmagog duo is great for clearing large groups of enemies.
52. Always Enter Merlin and Morgana Chambers. These special rooms (marked with blue or pink portals) offer some of the largest flat damage buffs in the game.
53. Save Re-rolls for Merlin and Morgana. Use your re-rolls in these chambers to ensure the powerful buff is applied to your primary damage-dealing ability.
54. Understand Duo Prerequisites. To be offered a Duo Blessing, you generally need to have at least one standard blessing from each of the two required Fae.
55. Don’t Waste Re-rolls Early. Save your re-rolls for later in the run when you are hunting for specific high-rarity blessings or your target Duo.
56. The Horn of Strength Should Always Buff Your Main Attack. When offered a choice at the Horn, always choose to power up the one ability you are stacking.
57. Fill Your Slots Before Upgrading. It’s generally better to have a blessing in every slot before you start using the Horn of Strength to level one up.
58. Unlock the Blessing Codex. This permanent upgrade allows you to see all the blessings you have discovered, which is invaluable for planning your builds.

Part IV: The Knight’s Mettle – Advanced Sworn Combat and Strategy

With a solid understanding of buildcrafting, it is time to refine your execution. These advanced combat tips for Sworn will help you move with greater speed, efficiency, and deadliness on the battlefield.

Advanced Movement and Positioning

59. Cancel Your Animations with a Dash. Immediately after an attack connects, use your dash. This will cancel the recovery animation of the attack, allowing you to move or begin your next attack much faster.
60. Animation Canceling is Key for Slow Weapons. This technique is especially crucial for characters like the Rook, as it dramatically increases the tempo of their slow, heavy-hitting weapons.
61. Kite Your Enemies. Do not stand still and fight. Constantly move around the edge of the chamber to pull enemies into a condensed group. This makes them easy targets for area-of-effect (AoE) abilities.
62. Create Space When Overwhelmed. If you are taking too much damage, use your mobility to create distance. Lure the enemies on a chase around the room to give your health or cooldowns time to recover.

Resource Management Under Pressure

63. Guard Your Re-rolls. Re-rolls are one of your most valuable in-run resources. Save them for critical moments, like when you are offered a Sword in the Stone upgrade or when you are one blessing away from a powerful Duo.
64. Don’t Settle for a Bad Hand. Conversely, don’t be afraid to use a re-roll if you are offered three terrible blessings that do nothing for your build. A single good blessing can be worth more than saving the re-roll.
65. Know When to Spend Gold. Shops offer powerful items, but sometimes it is better to save your money. If you have the “Greed” blessing from Lugh, your damage increases for every 50 gold you hold, making hoarding a viable offensive strategy.

Mastering Status Effects

66. Use Freeze on High-Threat Targets. Beira’s Freeze is a “hard” crowd control effect—it completely stops an enemy from acting. Use it to neutralize the most dangerous enemy in a room, like a fast-moving assassin or a powerful spellcaster.
67. Use Stagger on Tanky Targets. Gogmagog’s Stagger builds up to a Stun, which makes the enemy vulnerable to increased damage. Use it on high-health elites and bosses to create massive damage windows for you and your team.
68. Don’t Underestimate Weakness. Cliona’s Weakness debuff is more than just a defensive tool. It is a prerequisite for some of the most powerful Duo Blessings in the game, like Bone Breaker, making it a top-tier utility effect.
69. Practice Your Positioning for Backstabs. Babd’s backstab builds require you to consistently hit enemies from behind. This demands precise movement and a deep understanding of enemy attack patterns and turning speeds.
70. Learn Which Enemies are Easy to Backstab. Large, slow-moving enemies are prime targets for backstab builds. Fast, erratic enemies are much more difficult and may require a different approach.

Part V: Brothers in Arms – Essential Co-op Strategies for Sworn

Sworn was designed as a cooperative experience, and playing with friends transforms the game entirely. To succeed as a team, you must think beyond your individual build and embrace the power of synergy.

The Power of Four: Why Co-op Changes Everything in Sworn

71. Co-op is a Different Game. Strategies that work in solo play may not be optimal in co-op, and vice versa. The biggest change is the speed at which you can apply status effects.
72. Focus Fire to Stack Statuses Instantly. An enemy’s status effect meter is shared among all players. If all four players are attacking a single boss with Chill effects, you will Freeze it four times as fast as a solo player. This is the single most powerful advantage of co-op play.
73. A Coordinated Team Can Perma-CC Bosses. By coordinating your Fae choices and focusing your fire, a good team can keep a boss permanently Frozen or Stunned, completely trivializing the encounter.

Building a Synergistic Team

74. Designate Roles. Don’t just have four damage dealers. Think like a classic RPG party. One player can be the dedicated “Crowd Controller,” running a full Beira Freeze build. Another can be the “Debuffer,” focusing on Cliona’s Weakness. The other two can then build for pure damage, capitalizing on the openings their teammates create.
75. A Beira Player Controls the Fight. A player who commits fully to applying Freeze can lock down the entire battlefield, making every encounter safer for the team.
76. A Cliona Player Makes Everyone Tankier. A player focused on applying Weakness effectively increases the survivability of the entire party by reducing all incoming damage.
77. Stack Monk Shields for Ultimate Defense. A powerful high-difficulty strategy is for multiple players to run the Monk’s Shield spell. Since players benefit from shields cast by their allies, this creates a massive, shared defensive barrier.

Communication and Coordination

78. Communicate Your Fae Choices. At the start of a run, decide which Duos or synergies your team will aim for. Call out which Fae you are picking to ensure you meet the prerequisites.
79. Call Out Your Targets. Verbally designate a priority target for the team to focus fire on. This ensures you are maximizing your status effect application.
80. Remember That All Rewards are Shared. All currency and blessings are shared equally among the party, even if a player is dead when the room is cleared.
81. Reviving Teammates is Always the Priority. Because rewards are shared, there is no penalty for being dead. Always use your resurrection tokens to bring a fallen teammate back into the fight.
82. A Dead Player is Still Progressing. Even if you spend most of a run on the floor, you are still earning the same resources as everyone else, so don’t get discouraged.
83. Plan Your Team Composition. Before starting a run, discuss which characters you will play. A balanced team with a mix of melee, ranged, and support capabilities will have a much easier time than four glass cannons.
84. Mix and Match Your Heroes. A team of four Spectres might sound fun, but it will be incredibly fragile. A balanced team is a strong team.
85. Protect Your Spectre. If you have a Rook on your team, their job is to draw aggro and protect the more fragile damage dealers like the Spectre.

Part VI: To Face a Corrupted King – A Spoiler-Free Boss Guide

The corrupted Knights of the Round Table stand between you and Arthur. Each boss in Sworn is a unique and challenging test of skill. This guide will provide high-level, spoiler-free principles to help you overcome them without ruining the discovery.

General Principles for Defeating Sworn’s Bosses

86. Patience is Your Greatest Weapon. Boss fights are marathons, not sprints. It is always better to dodge one more attack and wait for a guaranteed safe opening than to get greedy and trade damage.
87. Learn, Don’t Win. Your first few attempts against a new boss should be dedicated to learning, not winning. Focus entirely on dodging and observing their attack patterns and telegraphs.
88. Listen for Audio Cues. Many of the most dangerous boss attacks have a distinct sound effect that plays just before they are unleashed. Learning these audio cues can be just as important as watching for visual ones.
89. Clear the Adds. Many bosses will summon minions to aid them. In almost every case, your immediate priority should be to eliminate these smaller enemies before re-engaging the boss.
90. Use Your Ultimate Wisely. Save your ultimate ability for when the boss is stunned or between phases to guarantee that the full duration of the attack will land for maximum damage.

Archetypal Boss Strategies (Spoiler-Free)

91. For “The Butcher” (Gawain): This type of boss tests your ability to handle large, sweeping melee attacks and area-denial effects. Focus on staying mobile and learning to dash through their swings to get to their back, rather than just dashing away.
92. For “The Pestilent Overseer” (Percival): This type of fight is all about managing a chaotic screen filled with projectiles and summoned creatures. Map awareness is paramount. You must constantly track multiple threats at once.
93. For “The Abyss Commander” (Bedivere): This type of encounter emphasizes dodging relentless ranged attacks and navigating persistent environmental hazards. Survival is your only goal; prioritize avoiding damage above all else, and chip away at the boss’s health when it is safe.
94. For “The Corrupted King” (Arthur): The final boss is a true test of everything you have learned. It is an endurance fight that will demand mastery of all core mechanics. Play defensively, stay calm, and only attack during the small, safe windows after his combos.

Part VII: The Sovereign’s Challenge – Endgame Tips for Sworn

For the knights who have defeated Arthur and seek the ultimate challenge, the higher difficulties of Sworn await. Here, the rules change, and only the most prepared will survive.

Surviving Sovereign Difficulty

95. Defense Becomes More Important Than Offense. On the highest difficulty, Sovereign, enemy damage is immense. The game shifts from a race to kill the enemy to a battle of attrition.
96. Survivability Builds Become S-Tier. Builds that offer near-invincibility (like the “Grave Weakness” duo), permanent crowd control (Beira’s Freeze), or massive damage reduction (Monk Shields, Gogmagog’s shielding) become far more valuable than pure glass cannon builds.
97. Learn the Room “Corruptions.” On higher difficulties, chambers will be afflicted with Corruptions—negative modifiers like constant lightning strikes or slowed dash cooldowns. You must learn to identify these and choose your path wisely.
98. Some Corruptions are Run-Enders. Be prepared to adapt your strategy on the fly. A Corruption that disables healing can be a death sentence for a build that relies on Leech.
99. Environmental Chaos is the True Enemy. In the endgame, the greatest threat is often not the enemies themselves, but the chaotic combination of map hazards and Corruptions.

The Endgame Meta Builds

100. The Rook Halberd’s Invincibility. The reason the Rook Halberd build is so strong in the endgame is the immunity frames on its charged heavy attack. This allows you to ignore the otherwise unavoidable environmental damage.
101. The Freeze Turret Monk’s Control. This build excels because it prevents enemies from acting at all. If the enemies can’t attack, they can’t add to the chaos of the room.
102. The “Noodle Poison” Build’s Immortality. The Grave Weakness duo makes you nearly immune to enemy damage, which is essential when the map itself is trying to kill you.
103. Don’t Get Greedy. More endgame runs are lost to a moment of greed in a chaotic room than to a lack of damage. Play it safe, and live to fight in the next chamber.
104. Master Dodging the Environment. Your top priority must become avoiding meteors, exploding mushrooms, and other map effects.
105. Sometimes, Just Keep Moving. When the screen is a storm of projectiles and AoE indicators, the best strategy is often to simply keep dashing and wait for a moment of clarity.

Final Tips for Your Sworn Legacy

106. Complete Your Bounties. The bounty board in the hub offers rewards for completing specific in-game achievements, like fully upgrading your constellation.
107. Farm Holy Grail Water. This rare resource, primarily dropped by major bosses, is required for the final tiers of weapon upgrades.
108. Don’t Neglect the Currency Tree. The meta-progression tree that makes items cheaper in-run can be a lifesaver on higher difficulties.
109. Use the Training Dummy. The practice area in Carmarthen is the perfect place to test new weapons, spells, and combos without risk.
110. Join the Community. The official Sworn community is a great place to find new builds, share strategies, and team up with other knights.
111. Remember the Flip Mechanic. Many permanent upgrades have two different modes you can “flip” between. Tailor these choices to the specific build you are attempting for each run.

Conclusion: Your Legend Begins

You now hold the knowledge of the knights who came before. You understand the flow of combat, the favor of the Fae, and the trials that await in the corrupted heart of Camelot. This guide has given you the map, the sword, and the shield. The rest is up to you.

The path ahead is perilous, and you will face ignoble death time and again. But with each attempt, you will grow stronger, wiser, and more determined. Now go forth, Soulforged. Uphold your oath. Purge the darkness. Your legend is waiting to be written in the annals of a reclaimed Camelot. Slay the king.

Disclaimer: This is an unofficial fan work, all trademarks and copyrights for Sworn belong to the developer Windwalk Games.

Find the game here! SWORN Hub