Summary
Skul: The Hero Slayeris an action-roguelike game by Southpaw Games that came out back in January 2021 and has since released a huge number of updates, revamps, and even some DLC content. The game is adored by its fanbase, and it’s one of themore content-heavy roguelikes out therealongside other games likeDead Cells,Binding of Isaac,Enter the Gungeon, and more.
InSkul: The Hero Slayer, players (who arein control of an adorable little skeleton) will be steadily collecting a variety of items as they make their wayfrom place to place on a fantasy journeyto eventually fight the First Hero of the Humans, with each item having two Inscriptions on it. These Inscriptions are basically like passive bonuses (or sometimes active bonuses) players will obtain once they have enough items of the Inscription to match each of its thresholds. Because these Inscriptions have a massive effect on the ‘build’ and playstyle of a run, let’s go over some of the best ones to keep an eye out for.
Update May 27th, 2024 by Jacob Buchalter:Skul: The Hero Slayer is a massively underrated action roguelike game. Granted, it does have a pretty dedicated and almost fanatical fanbase, but it’s a game that honestly deserves as much attention as the most iconic roguelikes around. The reason it deserves this attention is simple, this game has it all. It has incredibly inventive classes in the form of skulls, it has a great art style, an interesting story, likable characters, deep systems, and most importantly it has an incredibly fun gameplay loop. A lot of the mechanical complexity of this game comes from the Inscriptions which are basically passive/active effects applied to Skul depending on the number of items he currently has equipped with those Inscriptions tied to them. There are a lot of Inscriptions in the game, and figuring out which ones are actually worth building into (as well as which ones work best with specific skulls) is one of the initial big ‘walls’ players bump up against in this game. So, to make that wall a bit easier to scale, let’s take a look at all the Inscriptions in the game and see which ones are the absolute strongest overall.
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Starting things off with an Inscription that is very helpfulfor people just starting to learn what everything doesinSkul: The Hero Slayer, the Relic Inscription. This Inscription is very focused on helping players recover more health than usual and then using that health recovery to deal damage to enemies that Skul is currently attacking.
The 4-stack benefit of this Inscription is a nice damage buff, but honestly, most players will end up really only using its 2-stack benefit. Healing Orbs drop pretty frequently in this game, and they’re the main source of healing players have for Skul mid-run outsideof the expensive restaurant in the shop area. So, adding another +3 HP recovery to the 10 each Healing Orb already provides goes a long way.
In older versions of the game, Treasure was a ‘nice’ Inscription, but one that many players didn’t take notice of all too often. In the current state ofSkul: The Hero Slayer, the Treasure Inscription almost feels mandatory a lot of the time due to the sheer amount of economy management it helps the player with.
Gold goes a long wayin the adorable indie darlingthat isSkul: The Hero Slayer, as it is what players can use to tailor their build how they’d like in the shop area, get Quintessences, and even purchase healing food. So, an Inscription that has enemies dropping chests constantly with a bunch of gold inside each one is of course going to be one of the more helpful Inscriptions for the early to middle parts of a run.
Magic Damage
The next two Inscriptions on here are pretty much the ‘default’ Inscriptions to look out for inSkul: The Hero Slayer, as they are just very basic yet very beneficial buffs to either the player’s Magic or Physical Damage. Wisdom, for example, is the Magical Attack variant, as with just 2-stacks of it players get a 20 percent buff to their Magic Damage. Then, at 4-stacks, players what basically amounts to a ‘lighter’ version of the Masterpiece’s 3-stack benefit, but for Magic Damage. When combined with the Artifact Inscription especially, players will notice their damage will suddenly skyrocket.
Physical Damage
Once players take a look at the description of the Courage Inscription for the first time, it becomes immediately clear that this is the Physical Damage counterpart of the Wisdom Inscription instead of the Arms Inscription.
Both Wisdom and Courage have the same effects, but replace every mention of the word ‘Magic Attack’ with ‘Physical Attack’ instead. A very useful Inscriptionfor most Power Skulls, and one that feels a bit more helpful in the first Act of the game than anywhere else, since Basic Attacks are used a lot more often (typically) in this part of a run.
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A lot of players end up thinking that Arms is the Physical Damage version of the Wisdom Inscription, but this isn’t entirely true. The Arms Inscription, for example, has some unique effects on both its 4-stack and 6-stack benefits. The 2-stack benefit is basic and easily understandable, but the descriptions of the 4-stack and 6-stack buffs can be a bit confusing. Basically, at 4-stacks, players will now have these floating ‘armaments’ follow their swings every 4 seconds that deal additional Physical Damage, and at 6-stacks every third swing of these Armaments will deal an even more impressive amount of damage. It really just amounts to more damage on each swing and a bit more range on Basic attacks.
The Artifact Inscription is, at first, very similar to the Wisdom one. When players simply gather two items that both have the Artifact Inscription, their Magic Attack is then increased by 45 percent. However, where this Inscription differs quite a bit is in the 4-stack and 6-stack effects. Both of these effects now cause meteors to sporadically strike random enemies (not random spots) every 6 seconds. These meteors, especially at 6-stacks, are plentiful and add up to a lot of damage overall.
Mystery is one of the newer Inscriptions added to Skul: The Hero Slayer, and it’s a bit of a wall of text at first glance. Essentially, this Inscription boils down to an effect where, every 20 seconds, Skul gains a random ‘buff’ for 10 seconds. These buffs range from bonus attack speed, movement speed, AoE damage, and even Skill Cooldown speed.
But, it’s the 4-stack of this Inscription that really has a massive effect, because when active, every time Skul gets one of these buffs, nearby enemies take a big chunk of damage and are then more susceptible to damage for the next 10 seconds.
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Masterpiece is another one of the more recent additions to this adorable skele-rogulike, and it’s a very fun one to use. Essentially, at 3-stacks, players get a huge Physical Damage buff when they deal Physical Damage to an enemy (with a cooldown, of course).
This alone would be enough to get it on these rankings, but the fact that at 5-stacks all items with Masterpiece Inscriptions gain additional effects/benefits easily makes this one of the best Inscriptions overall.
The Revenge Inscription might be one of the most ‘beginner-friendly’ options players have when they first start Skul. Unlike many other roguelikes out there, it’s almost impossible to avoid damage as a whole inSkul: The Hero Slayer.
Granted, some of the best players of the game can avoid most damage, but there’s just too much going on in some parts of the game to avoid it all. This is where Revenge comes in handy, as even having just to 2-stack effect of it makes it so that a more aggressive playstyle won’t be nearly as punishing to the player’s HP as it could have.
As one would expect from the name ‘Execute’, this Inscription is all about finishing off low-health enemies faster. Every single hit Skul takes in this game can have a massive impact, so killing some of those elite enemies even a few frames faster actually makes a big difference. Not only that, but this also applies to bosses as well, with the 4-stack effect basically enabling players to melt through the final 30 percent of the bosses' HP.
