The Ardent Skull is definitely the oddest weapon in Melinoë’s arsenal. Despite its appearance as, well, a skull, it can be incredibly powerful. In fact, when combined with the powers of Hera herself, your enemies won’t even stand a chance.
While the Ardent Skull takes a little bit of setup and has a more involved playstyle than other weapons, your reward could be a highly flexible, highly explosive build that can be effective with many combinations of gods and will completely destroy anyone in your path.
In this guide, we cover how you can put this unique build together.
Playstyle & Best Aspect
- The build will primarily focus on your Attack and your Omega Special — the Attack will Curse your enemies with Hitch, while the Omega Special will deal massive damage while picking your Shells back up.
- Your Cast will be useful as well, as it will prevent enemies from avoiding your Attack, inflict Curses, and deal some extra damage.
- You will be using a lot of Omega skills with this build, so you will want to get a source of Magick regen quickly, or take a good amount of Magick increases.
Best Aspect
The most useful aspect for this build will be the Aspect of Persophone.
This will essentially allow you to use your Omega Special longer the more you use your Omega Cast. As the Omega Special will be one of, if not the, largest source of damage, being able to use it longer will help you deal even more damage.
Best Arcana Cards
- The most important Arcana Cards to activate will be Death, The Huntress, and The Furies, to greatly boost the damage of your Attacks.
- The Moon can be taken to further increase the damage of Omega Casts.
- The Champions, meanwhile, can help get the Boons you want quicker.
- After that, you can activate stuff like The Sorceress, The Wayward Son, The Titan, Eternity, The Boatman, or Excellence, depending on if you want to focus more on survivability or utility.
Best God & Boons
The god you will want to focus on the most for this build is Hera.
In particular, you will want to get the Sworn Attack Boon as soon as possible — not only will it cause your Attacks to deal more damage, but it will also inflict Hitch, causing enemies to take more damage from all of your other attacks.
Once you have that Boon, there are a few others that you will want to get:
- Born Gain – you will want a form of Magick regen for this build, and this is easily the best one in the game, pretty much giving you an (almost) full bar of Magick whenever you run out.
- Hereditary Bane – allows Hitch to last longer, and increases the damage caused from it.
- Dying Wish – increases your area damage potential, since any enemy with Hitch will damage all other enemies afflicted with it when they die.
You can grab Nexus Sprint and Nasty Comeback to help spread Hitch to enemies, while Brave Face will give you a huge source of damage reduction. If you find it towards the end of a run, Bridal Glow can give some of your Boons a huge boost.
Best Daedalus Hammer Upgrades
There are several Daedalus Hammer Upgrades you can take, depending on if you want to focus more on Attacks or Specials:
- Possessed Array – causes your Shells to automatically activate their Omega explosion when picked up, giving you a massive damage increase.
- Full Salvo – lets you shoot all of your Shells at once, letting you spread Hitch quicker and deal much more damage. This will also make your Omega Attack very effective.
- Bolstered Array – gives you more Shells, boosting the effectiveness of the two previous Upgrades.
- Mega Driver – makes your Specials stronger and allows you to travel farther with them.
- Twisting Crash – causes the projectiles from your Omega Special to come back to you letting them damage enemies again.
- Colossus Driver – causes your Specials to be stronger, while also allowing you to take less damage while using them.
Any combination of these Upgrades will help out your damage in different ways, so pick the ones that suit you best!
Other Gods and Helpful Boons
Here are a few other gods you can focus on that will pair well with Hera’s Boons for this build. One will be chosen to make your Specials more powerful, while the others can boost your Casts, put another Curse or two on enemies, or increase your overall damage!
- Aphrodite – Flutter Flourish, Passion Dash, Sweet Surrender, Heart Breaker, Secret Crush
- Aphrodite will mainly give a huge damage boost to your Specials, but can also give some utility and an overall damage boost.
- Flutter Flourish will give your Special a huge damage boost, as most enemies hit by it will be close to you.
- Passion Dash can give enemies Weak, and you can take Sweet Surrender to make the afflicted enemies take even more damage.
- If you’re confident about keeping your health high, Shameless Attitude will boost your damage even further.
- If you want to focus more on one or two targets, the Soul Mate Duo Boon will give you a further damage increase on enemies with Hitch.
- Demeter – Ice Flourish, Frigid Sprint, Gale Force, Weed Killer, Arctic Ring
- Demeter is another great choice to boost your Specials, as well as inflict Freeze on enemies.
- Ice Flourish will increase the damage of your Specials, while also Freezing enemies so that they can’t fight back or run.
- Arctic Ring and Gale Force can make your Casts more powerful, with the latter even working with Cast enhancements from other gods.
- If you get the Hammer Upgrades to enhance your Attack, Weed Killer will pair well with them.
- Between Hera and Demeter, you can easily take advantage of Course Gift, greatly reducing the damage you take.
- Apollo – Nova Flourish, Blinding Sprint, Light Smite, Extra Dose, Critical Miss
- Apollo is a great option for boosting your Specials as well, while also being able to provide some damage mitigation with Daze.
- Nova Flourish will boost the damage of your Specials, while making them larger so they can hit more enemies.
- Blinding Sprint and Light Smite will help spread Daze, then Critical Miss can give you some free damage.
- Solar Ring will give your Omega Casts a huge damage boost.
- Hestia – Smoulder Ring, Glowing Coal, Slow Cooker, Natural Gas
- Hestia will help make your Cast into another powerful source of damage, as well as improve your area damage potential.
- Smoulder Ring will cause your casts to inflict Scorch on foes, while Glowing Coal turns it into a projectile.
- If you have both Natural Gas and Hera’s Dying Wish, you can make enemies explode in two different ways when they die, giving a great boost to area damage.
- If you take a few Fire Boons, Slow Cooker will boost the damage of both Attacks and Specials.
- Since you will be channeling a lot of Omega moves, the Funeral Pyre Duo Boon will let you spread Scorch to enemies while channeling.
- Zeus – Storm Ring, Lightning Lance, Divine Vengeance, Double Strike
- Zeus (unsurprisingly) pairs up with the queen well to enhance all of your damage.
- Storm Ring will give your Omega Casts a huge damage boost, while Lightning Lance will turn it into a projectile.
- Divine Vengeance will give you some free damage if you get hit, while Double Strike gives you a chance to double that.
- If you don’t want Zeus’s Boons anymore for any reason, you can take the Queen’s Ransom Boon to get rid of them and level up your Hera Boons.
And here are some notable Boons for the gods that will show up randomly or will appear in every single run:
- If you happen to find Artemis in your run, Pressure Points, Lethal Snare, or Death Warrant to give your attacks a chance to deal Critical damage, amplifying your damage greatly.
- From Hermes, you can take Saved Breath to keep your Magick costs low, and Swift Strike and Swift Flourish will make your attacks faster.
- Any Hex you choose to bring will work, though Night Bloom and Moon Water will be the least disruptive to your attacks.
- Finally, if you decide to get a Boon or two from Chaos, one with Strike or Flourish will further increase your damage.
Best Keepsakes
You will always want to start your runs with the Iridescent Fan, so that you can ensure you get Sworn Attack and other Hera Boons as soon as possible.
If you haven’t gotten a Boon to enhance your Special by the first boss, you can then switch to the Keepsake of the god you want to enhance it with. Once you’re comfortable with your Boon setup, you can use Discordant Bell to further increase your damage, Transcendent Embryo to get a free Chaos Boon, or Luckier Tooth if you want a little more survivability.
Once you get fully set up, this build can absolutely destroy your enemies. Have fun charging around and causing explosions!
