Skul: The Hero Slayer – Boss-Killing Skull Tierlist

Win Condition

 
 
—————————-Win Condition——————————– 
These skulls will win you the game easily. 
 
Alchemist: 
The Alchemist legendary does insanely high damage and can store charges of their potion throw ability. In other words, if you want you can just swap to the alchemist when their potions are up. The main negatives of the Alchemist is that status effects don’t work against most bosses and that using the ability locks you in animation for a bit. Just being the current skull summons high-damage golems, and using the summon skill lets you quickly nuke a boss’ hp in exchange for not getting passive summoning for awhile. Overall, you can just use their abilities before swapping to your other skull. If your other skull is useless, you can just stay alchemist to get the passive summons. 
– Fire potion is best against bosses because legendary fire pot leaves sustained field of fire. 
– You are free to move at all times except the brief timing when throwing a potion. You can also hit bosses with ease from afar. 
– I don’t think the summon golem active is very good if you plan to keep using alchemist afterwards due to putting golem spawning on cooldown. It should only be used as a finisher or if you plan to swap skulls right after. 
– Hold basic attack button the whole time while alchemist. 
– Tactics/Magic Damage Builds work well. 
 
Bomber: 
The Bomber may as well be considered an ability as long as you have the instant explosion skill. Every time your skull swap is available, you can swap and instantly detonate, giving you the Bomber’s swap skill dmg, the explosion damage, and your other skull’s swap skill all at the same time. Naturally, this means you can obliterate most enemies every few seconds when swap comes off cooldown. Since it is instant, the positioning and timing doesn’t matter. 
– Prerequisite is having the bomber’s instant explosion skill. Magnifico priests can help you get this. If you don’t get the skill, you can still use the bomber to relatiavelygood effect as a reliable nuke against bosses, but the timing to dash into a boss right as your explosion is about to go off can be hard, and you lose some dps waiting for the explosion to come. 
– Need Tactics/Magic Damage for optimal nuking. Reduced swap cooldown also works well. 
 
Werewolf: 
Honestly, this is likely the best common skull you can get. Incredibly fast skull with solid damage attacks make the game a breeze. The abilities are fairly straightforward as either dash damage, debuff enemies, or lifesteal abilities. Upgrading it to legendary makes it scale to lategame. 
– The lifesteal ability makes it quite easy to stay healthy before reaching the boss since most levels have rooms spamming normal enemies. More HP going into a bossfight helps with bossfight. 
– The debuff abilities make enemies hit take more than double damage, so naturally this works well against strong enemies. 
 
 

A-Tier

 
———A-tier—————— 
These skulls are also great for killing bosses, but need more set-up or are limited in some ways. 
 
Reaper: 
Invincibility Frames and mass aoe with large damage makes most fights just a matter of dodging boss shots while you wait for the cooldowns. The only caveat is that the skull is a balance skull and is therefore a bit slow, so dodging can be a little harder. 
 
Archlich: 
High damage chains means you can usually kill bosses faster than they can kill you. Balance skull so slower speed, and doing damage on some bosses is not guaranteed since you have to land abilities/attacks. 
 
Shield: 
Able to spam shield hits without really taking damage makes this a decent boss killer. Hard to hit flying enemies and is slow as a power skull. 
 
Pike: 
Able to spam dash attacks for invincibility frames makes most bosses a breeze. Has a skill to spam dashes with no invincibility frames, but increases dps immensely. As long as you play it right and build around it, works great. 
– Blitz/Dash Build synergizes well with pike abilities 
 
Dark Paladin: 
Able to create shield buffer on self and has long-ranged skill. Solid all around, but relatively lower dps than other skulls. 
 
Thief: 
Surprisingly strong for how weak its earlier forms can be. Gold Toss is an insanely strong ranged ability and is basically infinite ammo. Being unhittable in smoke screen is also a large period of benefit for bosses. Has high speed so dodging abilities is easy. 
– Sorcery/CDR/Manatech Build works amazing with gold throw and smoke screen 
– Attack Speed Sprint/Soar Build works great in cover of smoke screen(and is quite fun). 
 
 

B-Tier

 
———–B-Tier—————– 
These skulls can work to kill bosses, but are rather limited in some capacity or another. 
 
Clown: 
Really good single target damage and speed, but range is suboptimal and has some animations. Awful jump attack. Also struggles against flying enemies. Really good against big enemies when using Jack-in-the-Box or the midair ability. 
– Madness/Duel/Weakness Build works well for dps. 
 
Carleon Soldier(Summoner): 
Try not to charge your attack if you can help it. Simply swap to this skull when it’s up to summon the 5 familiars, then use abilities to summon 2 more familiars. If you have free time, can charge an attack to buff familiar attack damage. Swap out when available. The basis is that your familiars do all your damage while you focus on dodging. Struggles against flying enemies. 
 
Genie: 
Invincibility Frames and good damage, but main drawback is a lot of getting stuck in animations and slow speed. There are periods right after using a skill where you can get hit if the ability is mistimed, especially the swap skill. 
 
Mummy: 
Surprisingly good damage as soon as you get a real weapon. Flamethrower, rocket launcher, and shotgun do lots of damage to bosses from range, while machine gun is alright if you can hit the boss with it. Two main drawbacks are having to swap out to get a new weapon (or wait 30 seconds/hope random boss summon drops it) and the horrible speed (and dash stuttering) after the initial swap. This basically means after exhausting your weapon’s ammo, it is in your best interest to swap out. 
 
Samurai: 
Does good damage with the final slash. Main caveats are having to get in close to create marks, only being able to use the final slash a few times in a bossfight, and actually landing your abilities/marks can be hard without taking damage. Struggles a bit against flying enemies. The slash dash ability can be hard to position without getting hit, and can even miss. 
 
 

C-Tier

 
——C-Tier———– 
These skulls have alright damage, but if at all possible should not be your main way to deal with bosses for various reasons. 
 
Gambler: 
Animation locks, might Russian roulette yourself into getting hit, and relies on immobile enemies for many abilities. 
 
Ninja: 
Very mobile, but the damage is just really low and does not provide much support against bosses. Hard to use effectively, but you can eventually chip away a bosses’ HP. Doing normal attacks is awful as the ninja because it moves you automatically in the direction you are facing, which sometimes moves you to bad positions. 
 
Frost: 
Actually really good damage. Caveats are that the skull is slow and freezes enemies. Sometimes freezing enemies can be good, but other times it can mess up your dodging because their attacks stall while frozen and go through after unfreezing still. 
 
Rider: 
Incredibly high DPS damage. Similarly, struggles incredibly against flying enemies. Being able to take damage while riding makes this a DPS-race skull, so a worse version of the pike skull. 
 
Rockstar: 
High Damage skills and attacks, but very immobile while trying to attack despite being a speed skull. Filling the gauge is very difficult against a boss unless you plan to take damage. 
 
Predator: 
Good DPS and swap skill, but too mobile and vulnerable while using skills. Trying to micromanage ability usage without getting hit is extremely difficult. The fact that its skills move it without providing invincibility makes it extremely likely to take damage while attacking enemies. Struggles against flying enemies. 
 
Living Armor: 
Works alright, but is slow. Does very good damage, but relies on risky melee hits to charge abilities, making some bossfights hard to do without getting hit. The abilities are quick, making them easy to hit while maintaining maneuverability. 
 
Prisoner: 
Actually a rather solid option if you have nothing else. The skills tend to have good range and only a little hard positioning, so you can chip away at boss’ HP over time. The buff cell drops are very useful, especially if you plan to swap, but can be hard to actually get cells out of a boss depending on your setup. It’s kind of like a worse dark paladin against bosses. 
 
Barbarian: 
In my opinion, this is the one skull I would rather keep the unique version than the legendary version. Upon upgrading, the guaranteed skill is replaced with a worse skill for bosses due to concentration and animations. For the purposes of this tierlist, I will be talking about the unique version. The guaranteed skill is very strong aoe instant-cast damage. This alone makes bosses doable, even neglecting the large self-buff when damaged. The attacks are fairly slow, but the abilities can be timed to safely get damage off. Being slow means damage will be taken often, but focusing on using abilities will allow dps to perhaps outpace damage taken. 
 
 

D-Tier

 
—-D-Tier—– 
These skulls suffer greatly against bosses specifically due to their nature or animations. 
 
Warlock: 
Does insane damage if you concentrate some spells. However, trying to dodge boss attacks while channeling spells is extremely difficult and completing concentration locks you in animation for a half-second, meaning you will likely be hit. Overall the damage trade-off isn’t particularly worth it. While channeling the legendary version, the spell will shoot small versions of itself periodically, but these tend to miss the boss regardless. So, your dps is alright due to your concentration burst, but the price to pay is also great. 
– The meteor spell seems to be the only particularly reliable spell against bosses since it hits everything on screen, ignoring positioning. 
 
Sword: 
Slow, melee and alright dps. Basically is a worse version of other skulls for the purpose of bosses without taking lots of damage. 
 
Skul: 
Main idea is to challenge yourself with this skull. Swapping to this skull is awful because it locks you in a moving animation for awhile, so you will be hit. If you are killing bosses with this skull, you will want to throw skull, pick it up, and repeat. 
– Very low dps comparably for lategame. 
 
Gargoyle: 
Flying is nice and all, but the damage type is mixed so your item build may be messed up. The abilities can often lead to you being hit, and flying in the air does not particularly help against any bosses aside from treant. Against some bosses, it makes it harder to dodge abilities. Overall, it is just a really awkward skull to use. 
 
Treant: 
Slow as sin and dps does not make up for it. Struggles against flying enemies. 
 
 

F-Tier

 
—-F-Tier—– 
These skulls are actively sabotaging your chance to win against bosses if you have the option to use them or not. 
 
Champion: 
Range is as low as possible, and bosses are unmovable so you cannot do wall damage. The slowdown is alright, but basically only works once in a fight. Damage does not make up for how risky it is to play this skull in a bossfight. 
 
Yaksha: 
Slower than sin, with long animations. The damage aside from 5th step absolutely does not make up for taking tons of damage trying to dodge attacks. 
 
Warrior: 
Charging attacks are awful against bosses. Long animations and struggles against flying enemies. DPS is so low that it even sucks against normal enemies. 
 
Minotaurus: 
Basically the same as Yaksha for the purpose of bosses. 
 
Ghoul: 
Basically the same as Yaksha and Minotaurus, but worse because getting bigger means you get hit by more boss attacks and your abilities are actually useless against bosses without taking damage. 
 
Archer: 
Needs to charge attacks to do any real damage, which is problematic in itself. Being locked in animations with shockingly low range for an archer means you will take damage. The only saving grace is the ability that shotguns arrows at many angles. 
 
Water: 
Same problems as Yaksha, except your abilities and attacks may as well all stun you for a second because of their animation speed. Every sequence of attacks will likely make you get hit. Struggles against flying enemies and does significantly worse against mobile bosses. 
 

This is all about Skul: The Hero Slayer – Boss-Killing Skull Tierlist; I hope you enjoy reading the Guide! If you feel like we should add more information or we forget/mistake, please let us know via commenting below, and thanks! See you soon!