Saros: How to Get All Permanent Upgrades – Full Progression Guide

Roguelikes usually punish you for missing things: skip an NPC, take the wrong route, or overlook a side room, and you can lock yourself out of an ability for several runs. Saros does not work that way. Every permanent upgrade is tied to main-story progression, so none of them are missable. You earn them by clearing the required biomes, beating mandatory bosses, and following the plot-critical interactions as they come.

The short version

• Saros has six permanent upgrades, all of them mandatory and none missable: Jump Network, Grapple, Overdrive, Parry, Eclipse Thread, and Blazing Strike.
• Jump Network (fast travel): reach the end of Shattered Rise and beat the Prophet boss.
• Grapple: clear Ancient Depths and defeat its Overlord, Bastion — you receive it near the end of Shattered Descent, before the Blighted Swamp.
• Overdrive: in Shattered Descent, speak to Eli at the biome midpoint.
• Parry: in Blighted Marsh, power up the Carcosan device for Alab.
• Eclipse Thread and Blazing Strike: both are mandatory main-path abilities — keep advancing the campaign and you will get them.
• Spend Lucenite at The Passage to enhance these abilities through the Armor Matrix.

That structure changes how you should play. You do not need to comb every branch early hunting for hidden movement tech. Stay on the critical path, learn what each upgrade changes, then use Lucenite later to strengthen them. The unlock order is identical on PC and console, because these are progression abilities rather than platform-specific mechanics.

The six permanent upgrades

Saros has six permanent upgrades that persist across cycles. These are not the same as temporary weapons, artifacts, or run-specific power spikes — permanent upgrades stay with you and reshape how the game flows, especially once traversal opens up and your combat toolkit widens.

• Jump Network – unlocks fast travel
• Grapple – opens grapple-point traversal
• Overdrive – adds a charged power attack
• Parry – a melee reflection/counter tool
• Eclipse Thread – later main-path story upgrade
• Blazing Strike – later main-path combat upgrade

The first four have precise biome-based triggers, covered below. Eclipse Thread and Blazing Strike arrive later on the same critical path. You cannot fail an obscure side objective and lose them, so the plan is the same for all six: keep advancing.

How to get Jump Network

Jump Network is the first upgrade most players chase because it unlocks fast travel, and that changes the pace of the game immediately. To get it, reach the end of the Shattered Rise biome and defeat the Prophet boss. Once that fight is done, fast travel opens and you can move between linked points instead of replaying long approach sections on foot. If Prophet is giving you trouble, our Prophet boss guide breaks the fight down by phase.

This is also where a lot of early confusion clears up. If Saros feels more backtrack-heavy than expected in the opening stretch, it is because the game has not handed you its fast travel tool yet. Do not waste time looking for a hidden switch before Prophet — the intended route is simply to push Shattered Rise to completion.

Once Jump Network is yours, use it aggressively. Fast travel is a run-stabilizer, not just a convenience: it cuts the health, ammo, and focus you burn on repeated transit fights and makes later progression checkpoints far less punishing.

How to get Grapple

Grapple comes from clearing the Ancient Depths biome and defeating its Overlord, Bastion. You receive the ability near the end of Shattered Descent, just before the Blighted Swamp. There is no extra ruined-colony terminal to hunt for — finishing Ancient Depths and putting Bastion down is what hands you the tool. Our Bastion boss strategy covers that fight if it is what is standing between you and Grapple.

Once Grapple is active, it lets you use anchor points that were previously just visual teases in the environment. The mistake to avoid beforehand is trying to sequence-break movement: if you see a gap with obvious grapple logic but no usable tool, that is a future route, not a puzzle you failed. Keep advancing the current biome objective rather than searching every corner for an alternate jump angle.

After you unlock it, re-read your map. Routes that looked decorative before can become the cleanest line through a zone, which matters most when you are trying to preserve resources on a strong run.

How to get Overdrive

Overdrive is acquired in Shattered Descent after speaking to Eli at the biome’s midpoint. Unlike Jump Network and Grapple, this one is about combat rhythm rather than route access. It is a charged power attack, and it scales further later through the Armor Matrix.

Do not dump Overdrive into every basic enemy pack the moment you have it. It pays off most on elite targets, stagger windows, and boss phases where burst damage shortens the stretch of the fight most likely to kill you. In Saros, disciplined timing beats flashy overuse, and Overdrive rewards that exactly.

If Overdrive feels underwhelming at first, that is usually an investment issue, not a flaw in the skill. Its ceiling climbs once you feed Lucenite into the relevant Armor Matrix nodes.

How to get Parry

Parry is tied to Blighted Marsh progression. You unlock it by powering up the Carcosan device for Alab. Once active, Parry gives you a melee reflection tool — including the ability to send certain Nova projectiles straight back at enemies instead of only dodging them. For the full route through the biome, see our Blighted Marsh walkthrough.

This is one of the biggest quality-of-life upgrades in the game, turning some encounters from pure avoidance tests into controlled counters. That does not mean you should try to parry everything. Saros still rewards dodge discipline, spacing, and shield management, and not every attack is meant to be reflected. Use Parry where the game clearly teaches the interaction, then expand once the timing feels natural.

Blighted Marsh itself is messy — hazards, ranged pressure, and split-second decisions. Getting Parry here is deliberate: the game is handing you a new answer to a biome that is becoming more aggressive.

Eclipse Thread and Blazing Strike

The final two permanent upgrades are Eclipse Thread and Blazing Strike. Both are mandatory abilities on the main path, which means you cannot lose them by failing an obscure side objective.

If you are checking your progression because you have seen these names in discussions and worry you skipped them, here is the read: keep following your main biome and story objectives and Saros will deliver both. Do not abandon a good run trying to brute-force side routes — they are not hidden collectibles.

How to strengthen permanent upgrades faster

Unlocking the six abilities is only half of long-term progression. Saros also lets you improve them through the Armor Matrix, and that is where Lucenite matters. Lucenite drops from enemies and funds the enhancement layer that makes abilities like Overdrive and Parry scale into harder content.

Farm after you have secured a useful permanent tool, not before. Clear enemy-dense rooms, pick up Lucenite, and return to The Passage to bank meaningful upgrades before a run collapses — usually better than forcing one more risky section on low healing. If you want a route-by-route farming plan, our resource farming guide by biome lays it out.

This is also why fast travel matters so much. Jump Network does not just save time; it improves farming efficiency by cutting dead travel between productive fights and upgrade management at The Passage.

Common mistakes

• Treating upgrades as missable. All six permanent abilities are mandatory progression checkpoints, not secrets.
• Over-exploring too early. If a route looks designed for Grapple or a later traversal tool, it is — come back with the tool.
• Ignoring fast travel. Once Jump Network is unlocked, use it often instead of replaying long routes by hand.
• Confusing Armor Matrix nodes with the base unlock. Seeing upgrade nodes does not mean you can get the core ability early.
• Spending Overdrive and Parry on trash mobs. Both reward intent over autopilot.

Practical takeaway

The cleanest way to get all permanent upgrades in Saros is to trust the critical path. Beat Prophet in Shattered Rise for Jump Network, clear Ancient Depths and defeat Bastion for Grapple, speak to Eli in Shattered Descent for Overdrive, and complete the Alab objective in Blighted Marsh for Parry. Keep advancing the story for Eclipse Thread and Blazing Strike, then spend Lucenite at The Passage to push every ability further through the Armor Matrix. Focused progression first, optimization second — none of the upgrades that matter are hidden.