Godmastery 101

Stalwart Shell



Grubsong



Fragile/unbreakable heart



Fury of the Fallen



Thorns of Agony



Baldur's Shell (kinda)



Quick Focus



Deep Focus



ALL of the lifeblood charms



Hiveblood



Spore Shroom (kinda)



Shape of Unn (kinda)

So, before we get into Godmastering in earnest, let's cover some basic mechanics of Godhome.Godhome is divided into the Pantheons and the Hall of Gods. Each Pantheon consists of a gauntlet of bosses all fought consecutively, with a break halfway through with a hot spring and bench so that you can rest and recover before continuing. The last fight of each Pantheon is invariably a Godmaster-exclusive boss that willkill you the first time you fight it. But, when you reach that fight, win or lose, you will unlock that boss in the Hall of Gods. But let's not talk about that now.There are three pantheons that are available from the start, provided you've fought all the bosses in each pantheon, save for its final one. They are the Pantheon of the Master, the Pantheon of the Artist, and the Pantheon of the Sage. Beat all three, and you'll unlock the Pantheon of the Knight. And once you beat THAT, a switch above the knight's pantheon will unlock, allowing you to climb further up Godhome, smash through some hidden walls, and face the Pantheon of Hallownest, also known as ALL THE BOSSES IN THE ENTIRE GAME. Beat THAT, and you'll unlock new endings to the game. Go you!Pantheons all have Bindings that you can toggle on and off. There are four bindings- Nail, Shell, Charms, and Soul. Each of these will make the fights more difficult. But what do they actually do?The Nail binding will cut the power of your nail by about 1/3. With a Pure Nail, that does 21 damage on a hit, the binding will bring your power down to 13 damage on a hit. This is a fairly low-impact binding, and can be counteracted by Gitting Gud.The Shell binding will set your base health to 4. All other health masks will be converted into pretty, but worthless, golden masks. Note that this only modifies your BASE health. You can still get bonus health through Lifeblood (see below), or by equipping the Fragile/unbreakable Heart Charm. This is a medium-impact binding, and can be counteracted by Charms and the lifeblood switch. If you've got the Charm binding on, too... Hoo boy, you're in for a ride.The Charm binding is pretty straightforward, but devastating. It removes all of your equipped charms, and prevents you from putting them back on until you leave the Pantheon. Simple, right? Except that charms are. Which means that with this Binding on, your magic is bog standard, your nail is slow and has short reach, healing is inefficient and takes forever, and you'll never have enough Soul. The only thing it DOESN'T do is modify your movement- but gods help you if you're used to using Dashmaster and Sprintmaster. This is a high-impact binding, and can be counteracted by Gitting Gud.The Soul Binding is not what it first seems. It doesn'tyour soul meter, it just sets an extremely low cap on it.See that big ornate shell? That means you get a maximum of one full Soul charge. Exactly enough to use a single spell. Any extra is wasted, and your Soul vessels won't save you here. Best strategy here is to fill your Soul meter, launch whatever spell, and immediately resume filling. This is a medium-impact binding, and can be counteracted to some extent by the Deep Focus Charm and an emphasis on nail fighting.So, that's the bindings. But what's the point of them? Well, remember that Lifeblood door next to the Hall of the Gods?Yep, this guy. For each Pantheon you complete with a Binding, you get a notch filled on the Lifeblood door. It is NOT necessary to have all the bindings on at once to get the notches! But once you get eight notches, the door will open, revealing a Lifeblood switch. Smack it, and the hot spring rest areas of each Pantheon will get a Lifeblood Coccoon. At 8 notches, the coccoon will contain 3 lifeseeds. At 12, it'll contain 4 lifeseeds. And at 16, it'll contain 5 lifeseeds. Handy! And practically a must-have if you're going into the Hallownest pantheon with bindings on. It's the only mercy you'll get.But anyway, let's talk Hall of the Gods.The Hall of the Gods is a big old hall containing each and every boss you've unlocked thus far. Some bosses are variants on the original, and can be switched between their variants by hitting a mechanical switch (for bosses fought twice in reality) or dream nailing a little dreamcatcher (for dream bosses). You WILL NOT have a complete selection when you get into the Hall the first time. You'll need to unlock them from the various Pantheons.Each boss in the Hall of the Gods will have a little difficulty selector when you challenge them. Attuned and Ascended are available by default. Beat Ascended, and you'll unlock Radiant difficulty.Attuned difficulty is bog-standard. You fight the boss exactly as you did in the original game. No clever tricks here.Ascended difficulty is trickier. The boss does double damage, but more importantly, the bosses may also get a health boost or change their arena. It's a bigger challenge than attuned difficulty, and makes previously-trivial bosses a lot harder to deal with. Looking at you, Gorb.Radiant difficulty is 'one hit kill' difficulty. No amount of health will save you. YOU DED. Additionally, the changes from Ascended difficulty are still in effect! Hold on to your butt and be prepared to restart. A LOT.--So, let's talk builds. Each boss has a set of charms that will enhance your chance of success, but more generally, you can tailor your builds to the difficulty of the fight. So pay attention, here.Attuned and Ascended battles can be damage races, or hit and run battles. Deep Focus and Shape of Unn are good picks for surviving these battles but... here's the rub. I personally recommend making a setup for Radiant difficulty, and thenWhy? Because it makes a nice difficulty curve so that you can mark your progress and refine your strategy rather than remaking it for each fight.I also recommendin mid-fight. It's often more efficient to just die. Harsh? Yes. But each fight takes about a minute and a half. Your time is valuable, and healing WON'T make the fight easier- it'll just make itAs part of this, i recommend going for power over endurance. Fragile Strength is near-universally useful in these fights, as is Quick Slash. And don't worry about being overcharmed. On Radiant difficulty especially,Just save your biggest charm for the last slot, and bam, free charm!Speaking of which... Did you keep that Kingsoul around? Might be handy.But anyway, there's a flipside to this happy state of affairs. Health not mattering on Radiant difficulty also means that charms that boost health, or trigger on taking damage, now doHere's a handy list of charms that no longer matter:Fun, right? Well, let's get to bosses.