Early Ironsoul Guide
Introduction
In my experience, 
Ironsoul tends to be written off as useless until you can get Berzerker, when it is entirely viable from the moment you can unlock it, something this guide intends to help with. This is also written from the perspective of someone who can't be picky with the gear they use, so there won't be any of those BiS charts outside of some recommendations.
Pre-Setup
| Items
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As stated three lines above, this guide is intended to be used and is written by someone who doesn't have every item and/or is still in their first Realm. As such, these are recommendations, if rather strong in some cases, and not absolute BiS statements (with certain exceptions). Most of these statements are made assuming that the reader has these items at a sufficient rarity to have the noted effects.
 The Amplifier: If you have this, use it. You can easily start with 1e4 casts on all accumulated spells if you've done enough challenges and secret achievements, which are then made even better by the boosted incantation efficiency and its enchantment, which can be immediately upgraded due to it being a unique. This is actually BiS for multiple classes, and is probably the last of those you'll see. Boots Of Eastern Blessings: Shortens the time needed to make your accumulated spells as good as possible even further and makes them better. Doubly effective with The Amplifier. Legacy: Nice to have to free up some attribute points, especially if you force it on with  Geode/ Ley Keeper, but ultimately far from optimal. It's primary bonus is negated by the fact that Void Lure is an incantation, essentially making Void Entities have a spawn time of a few frames at absolute worst. Empowering Chestguard: More free accumulated casts and better incantations. Also gives you a more forgiving burst as your spells last longer. Make sure to take this off while you're stacking incantation casts with Defense Stance. Empowering Handguards: See above, sans the stripping part. Netherfist: Useful at higher rarities for the same reason that Legacy is, but there are better options. Empowering Headguard: Yet more free casts. Hollow Eye Pendant: Helps with bursting in the form of extra pet levels and stronger pets, but there are better options. Lucky Amulet: Stronger incantations. What isn't to like? Torc Of Privilege: More free casts, but here's where I need to talk about that. While you may think that you just want to stack as many free casts as possible, there's a point where this stops really being worth it. I don't know where this point is, and it's fairly high given how Iron Blood and Enhanced Strength scale well with casts, but I'm going to just say that any more than 2e4 is probably not worth the item slot if the item doesn't give other bonuses that make it worthwhile. Back to the item, it's good. Destabilized Evocations: Makes Furious Strike, your burst spell, much better. It should be noted that this actually outclasses  Incantations Restructuring even if you have a fifth incantation, like Ritual of Potency, if only slightly (11x vs 10.48x profit). However, this is only the case for lower enchant levels, as the bonus incantation efficiency increases profit much faster if and only if you have  Ritual Of Potency for a fifth incantation. Frosty Ring: Absolutely game-changing. Allows you to better stack incantation casts even outside of Defense Stance and much better in said stance. Probably BiS for IS. Whiplash: Helps for the Simulacrum phase, but there are much better options for post-buildup play. Empowering Shoulderguard: More free casts, but refer to my Torc of Privilege rant. If you use this, make sure to remove it while spell-spamming in Defense Stance. Anima Core: Amazing on most classes, which is no different here, at least if you're doing enough Expeditions to upgrade the item itself and gain levels. Arcane Engine: Gives a very large bonus at it's highest, but until that point there might be better options depending on your other Trophies and how much they're upgraded. Collar Of Obedience: Helpful for the Simulacrum phase. Can be stacked with Whiplash to get that over with even faster. Empowering Waistguard: Just good in general and especially so for bursting. Berzerker: Absolutely game-changing, more so than likely any other item. If you have it, use it. It's as simple as that. Shadow-Scryer's Crystal Ball: Technically finds much more value on Oni but it is more than usable on IS. Use to stack incantation casts, if you don't have Berzerker, and TTS. The Accumulator: Gives a fifth incantation that would already give a higher profit bonus than TTS' passive on its own, which is then increased by the IS' passive ability. Use for bursting. Bite Sleeves: Very good. You can probably just throw these on for the free pet exp and PAP if you have nothing better and avoid that point-sink altogether Perfected Kata Bracers: When combined with a Frosty Ring, you get incantation durations only a second or two longer than what you get in Defense Stance, essentially letting you just sit and meditate for the entire run outside of occasional outbursts to grab upgrades. Rich Bands: More free casts, so see Torc of Privilege rant. The incantation buff is the same as the Kata Bracers, so you don't have much of a reason to use this unless you don't have the former.
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| Attributes
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The following is a general listing of the effectiveness of specific Attributes on the Ironsoul. Of course, you can use whatever really fits you and your items, but some are obviously better than others.
- Intelligence: Helpful, but nothing is absurdly good or absurdly bad. Should be your second dump stat after Patience.
- Insight: Only go up to 75, including free points from Legacy and Netherfist. Nothing after that is really worth it unless you somehow have nothing else to dump points into, which you should.
- Spellcraft: Immediately max this. The extra summon duration is just completely useless and extra accumulated casts are ok, but the increased evocation and incantation efficiency is invaluable. If you're far-enough along to unlock the 200 perk, you'll be even further benefited by the spell-spamming phase and the free accumulated casts.
- Wisdom: Completely useless because of Force of Will. Only put points here if it's needed for an item.
- Domination: Does nothing for the class and none to very few of the optimal or at least recommended items need this
- Patience: Either immediately max or go to 150 depending on how many points you have. Due to the IS having two stats that he gains absolutely nothing from, he has more points to play around with, so the extra profit from this stat will be very helpful. 75 is helpful for leveling, but unfortunately 125 and 175 don't apply to Furious Strike charges granted by Temper The Steel. 200 depends on how long you plan for your runs to be, which is somewhat counter-productive considering that you'll have Berzerker by that point.
- Mastery: Generally helpful but far from mandatory. Your points will probably find more value in Pat or Int.
- Empathy: More than worthwhile for the first 75 points, but the very large gap between perks that do anything for IS limits this stat drastically. Bite Sleeves are recommended to either grab the good perks and keep those points elsewhere or grab the later ones.
The required attributes for this strategy are 50 Int, 50 Spc, and 25 Emp.
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Setup
Simulacrum Phase (Optional)
Start as you imagine you would: by going Ironsoul. Stay chill, enslave create a 
Simulacrum as a pet, and put on the following spell bar.
Wait until you hit max sources. If you don't have a Collar Of Obedience or Whiplash, occasionally swap Force Of Will for 
Furious Strike and cast it once or twice while having an episode. This will let you get more sources, meaning that you'll spend less time here.
Stacking Phase
Spend a long time meditating on nothing to gain 
Iron Blood and 
Enhanced Strength charges. It is exactly that simple.
I recommend staying here for 5-6 hours, totaling 3k charges on both spells and tons of Furious Strike charges for later, ideally at least e5.
Spamming Phase
Now you've sufficiently meditated, and instead of gaining atrophied muscles and blood clots, you got a shitton of Iron Blood and Enhanced Strength charges. Replace Force Of Will with 
Void Lure, cast it once.
Swap it for 
Void Radiance, and put that on reckless autocast.
Mutate a poor 
blue doggo into a 
void doggo and defend yourself against nothing for the next few hours.
If you're always wearing a Frosty Ring and Perfected Kata Bracers, you can essentially keep doing this while stacking charges normally in meditation, as Iron Blood and Enhanced Strength don't contribute a ton to the average spells cast per second (collectively adding 0.8333... to 3 from RoP, Empower, and VR). This way, you can keep gaining Furious Strike charges and TTS casts. If you have The Accumulator, you can put Ritual Of Potency on instead of Empower.
Burst
Meditate for a few moments after your defensive stance to regain some charges in burst spells and stack Void Mana from VR. To do this, swap back to the first spell bar shown here but replace Empower with VR after refilling the former's charges.
Replace your void doggo with a 
spell noodle, which then turns into a 
tooth noodle. Put the following on your bar.
Replace TTS with Ritual of Potency if you have it. Next, go apeshit, put everything on autocast, and spam b and the max25 all option.
Depending on how long you spent meditating and what items you have, you can expect a Myst profit of e3 to e6 for a day-long exile.
