Minecraft Dungeons ‘Soul’ Magic Guide: How to use souls, best weapons, builds, and artifacts
Minecraft Dungeons' magic mechanic is a bit of an oddity. Here’s what you need to know about using souls.
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Minecraft Dungeonsis a fun and accessible action RPG that’s perfect for first-timers or veterans who want something a bit more chill. Minecraft Dungeons has a range of playstyles based on what gear you pick up. You can emphasize archery and be a ranger-type character, use daggers and be a stealthy assassin, or use a massive sword and become a warrior. You can also become a wizard,sort of.
Minecraft Dungeons doesn’t have a traditional magic system, with a gradually-replenishing pool of “mana” you can use to cast spells. Instead (and rather creepily), magic-like artifacts are powered by the souls of your defeated enemies, which can be fun, but also cumbersome in certain situations.
Here’s how the soul gauge works, what items combine best with it, and some general tips on the wizarding lifestyle.
Minecraft meets Diablo
Minecraft Dungeons is an action RPG set in the blocky worlds of Minecraft! Team up with three friends and get your dungeon crawl on.
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Fantastic souls and where to find them
Your soul gauge appears underneath your artifacts on your action bar, butonlywhen you have a weapon or artifact equipped that absorbs souls. The artifacts that use souls include the Corrupted Beacon, Harvester, Torment Quiver, and Lightning Rod, while some armor pieces like the Dark Armor and the Soul Dancer Robes boost your soul-generation, alongside weapons like the Eternal Knife and the Frost Scythe.
After defeating an enemy with one of these items equipped, you’ll see a ghostly face rise from the corpse of a defeated enemy, and gradually gather into your character. Upon doing so, your soul gauge will gradually fill, allowing you to use certain artifacts that have “Requires souls” as one of their traits. Some artifacts use more souls than others, but the general results are incredibly potent and powerful. A fully charged Corrupted Beacon can provide some of the highest damage-per-second area damage in the game, making short work of even some of the most powerful enchanted mobs.
Source: Windows CentralSouls look like these spooky ghost boys (left), and the soul gauge sits beneath your aritfacts (right).
Also, each soul artifact gives you a bonus to the amount of souls you generate per kill. So, depending on your playstyle, you may want to forego having defensive options to increase the number of souls you receive, although this can be a risky playstyle if you’re particularly squishy with low armor, using something like the Soul Dancer Robes for example.
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The biggest downside to a souls-oriented playstyle is the fact that you needmobsto power it. On some boss battles, there simply aren’t many mobs available, as you’ll only be fighting a single entity. This will starve you of souls, leaving you to rely on a melee or archery weapon to defeat your target in some cases. The “Soul Siphon” enchant gives you a 10 percent chance to gain up to nine souls on-hit, rather than on-kill, but it seems to be incredibly rare. The enchant comes as default on the Eternal Knife dagger-style sword but I’ve actually never seen it appear on any other weapon as a random enchant. Let us know in the comments if you have!
Best artifacts for souls playstyles
There are a range of items that are powered by souls, but some have very different uses when compared to others. Here are some loadouts I recommend for players looking to dabble with souls.
To find out where they drop primarily, take a look at ourloot tables guide over here.
Melee souls-user
Melee souls players will generally use the Harvester explosion artifact as their primary souls-dump, but there are other artifacts you should consider when making your builds. Of course, what artifacts you take will depend heavily on your enchants and weapons too, but here are some suggestions.
Enchants to look for as a melee souls-user include Enigma Resonator, which gives you a stacking crit bonus based on how many souls you have stored. You may also want enchants like Leeching and Radiance to give you heals when fighting in melee range, and Anima Conduit, which grants health for each soul absorbed.
Archery souls-user
Archery-heavy soul weavers will be using one of the game’s Soul Bows, gunning for weapon enchants like Enigma Resonator, which grants you massive amounts of crit chance depending on how many souls are you in your gauge.
Any other enchants that increase your arrow potency is worth exploring too. I managed to get a bow with a couple of enchants with increased damage, which when coupled with Enigma Resonator makes for some truly insane crits (30,000 or more!)
Caster souls-user
Due to the way souls work in general, playing a pure caster feels a little tougher than the above choices, but the Corrupted Beacon is so incredibly fun to use, that you may find the risks are worth the rewards.
Spells dont benefit from Enigma Resonator, but you’ll want weapons that have Soul Siphon on them (such as the Eternal Knife) to help you replenish souls when you run out.
Best armor and weapons for souls playstyles
There are a few key weapons and armor that every souls-oriented player will want to get, either because they boost your soul generation, or because they offset some of the weaknesses that may come with the playstyles in question.
For information on where these items can drop, take a look at ourloot tables over here.
Melee souls-user
Melee souls-users will want Soul Scythe weapons above all else, for the large damage they deal, but also the additional souls they generate. The “Dark Armor” set also mitigates incoming damage, while boosting souls generated.
Archery souls-user
Archery souls users will primarily want any enchant that boosts archery skills with extra arrows. Infinity is great too for ensuring you don’t run out. Your regular archery attacks will generate souls on-kill when using a Soul Bow or a Soul Crossbow, and here are the best options currently in the game. For those instances where you run out of arrows and souls and you need to run into melee, weapons like the Frost Scythe and the Jailor’s Scythe can keep enemies at bay, while the Eternal Knife can guarantee additional souls for your Torment Quiver. The armor you’ll typically want to use is the Frost Bite Unique, or failing that, any Phantom Armor with good enchants is a good alternative.
Caster souls-user
The squishiest of the playstyles, the caster-style soul user uses Soul Robes or the Unique Souldancer Robe with additional mitigation to boost the power of artifacts. With these items, you’ll be able to shred large groups of enemies using the Corrupted Beacon or the Harvester, but given how fast souls deplete currently, you’ll need to fall back on an Eternal Knife or a good archery option in a pinch.
General soul-playstyle tips
Are you playing with souls?
The souls mechanic is interesting, although admittedly a bit clunky as of writing, and I suspect that Mojang will tweak it in the future so that you don’t have to rely on the presence of mobs to regain souls. In any case, souls power some of the most powerful artifacts in the game, and can be a lot of fun. Are you playing with one of these styles right now? Let us know in the comments, and if you have any questions, I will try and answer them!
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Jez Corden is the Executive Editor at Windows Central, focusing primarily on all things Xbox and gaming. Jez is known for breaking exclusive news and analysis as relates to the Microsoft ecosystem while being powered by tea. Follow onTwitter (X)andThreads, and listen to hisXB2 Podcast, all about, you guessed it, Xbox!
