How To: Viridian Wildwood / Sacred Bloom

The Viridian Wildwood is a unique mechanic that can be randomly found in the endgame (maps/waystones) or forced to spawn by using a Sacred Bloom. This mechanic adds an additional level of difficulty and reward to your maps.

How to Encounter / How to Use Sacred Bloom:

The Viridian Wildwood can be encountered randomly as you open maps/waystones. To guarantee that you will encounter the Wildwood, you must use a Sacred Bloom on an atlas node. This will add the Viridian Wildwood to that atlas node as well as all connected nodes.

Light/Darkness and Exploring:

The Wildwood is covered in darkness upon entering. As you move through the darkness the area around you will be revealed. You cannot infinitely explore through this darkness. There is a hidden/unspecified amount of "light" that you have and that light gets depleted as you run through the darkness. Once you run out of this hidden resource a portal will appear to take you out of the Wildwood.

Encountering Wisps:

Inside the Wildwood you will come across multiple different colored "wisps". You collect these wisps and once you leave the Wildwood they are automatically dispersed among the enemies in your map/waystone. Each of these wisps empower monsters in your maps to be more difficult and rewarding. Here are the bonuses each color of wisp provides:

[Purple] Wild Wisps: Empowered monsters gain
- Damage Reduction
- Increased Damage
- Increased rarity of Items Dropped

[Yellow] Vivid Wisps: Empowered enemies gain
- Damage Reduction
- Increased Damage
- Chance for Additional Monster Modifiers

[Blue] Primal Wisps: Empowered monsters gain
- Damage Reduction
- Increased Damage
- Chance to be upgraded into a Magic Monster

[Orange/Unique] Sacred Wisps: Empowered monsters gain
- Damage Reduction
- Increased Damage
- Increased Rarity of Items Dropped
- Chance for Rare Monster packs to have Map
Bosses amongst their packs
- Rare Monsters' chance for Additional Monster
Modifiers
- Normal Monsters' chance to be upgraded into a
Magic Monster

There are also 2 other types of wisps that glow white. Unlike the other wisps, these do not empower any enemies at all. These purely aid in exploring the Wildwood itself.

Small White Wisps: These replenish your hidden "light" resource, allowing you to uncover more of the darkness before being kicked out of the Wildwood.

Large White Wisps: These reveal a large area around them, uncovering the portions of darkness without requiring you to use up your hidden "light" resource.

Navigating the Wildwood:

The overall pattern of the Wildwood is roughly a diamond shape. At each tip of the diamond (top/bottom/left/right) there will be a different point of interest. These points of interest will usually contain large amounts of wisps in/around them for you to collect. Generally speaking, wisps will create a trail for you to follow to reach those points of interest. So upon entering the Wildwood, locate a trail of wisps (sometimes it's right next to you, sometimes you have to explore the darkness a bit to find it) and follow it to a point of interest. If you find a point of interest and see no trail to follow, you can run diagonally through the darkness (keeping in mind the overall diamond shape of the zone) to try to find another. You will know you've found a point of interest because once you are close enough to it the entire area around it will become revealed.

Omen Altars:

Hidden throughout the Wildwood you can find Omen Altars that can drop various omens. These altars are frequently found off of any path, scattered throughout the darkness. If you have found all points of interest and have collected that majority of the wisps you could find, you can use your remaining "light" to venture further into the darkness to try to find these Omen Altars.

Overall Strategy Recommendation:

As soon as you enter the Wildwood try to locate a nearby wisp trail. Once located, follow it to a point of interest. Once at that point of interest, try to identify which corner of the map you're in (based on the direction of trails around it, and if you run into any dead-end walls in any direction). Based on what corner you think you're in, run in a diagonal pattern to your next point of interest, following any wisp trails if possible. Repeat until you've found all 4 points of interest. Make sure to collect the glowing white wisps (the small ones in particular!) whenever possible to increase the amount of wisps you'll likely be able to collect overall. Once all 4 points of interest have been found you can continue to run through the darkness to find altars and expend any remaining "light". After you have used up all light and the portal spawns, you can go back to collect any wisps that may have gotten left behind if you're trying to maximize how many wisps you have.