General Inscription Guide

[bpat]

Introduction
First off, I'm not sure if this belong here or in Spoilers since most guides are in Spoilers, so I guess you should all be wary of potential spoilers. I don't think this is an issue though since this doesn't really have more spoilers than the average General Discussion thread.

Infusions can be a bit confusing for newer players and even seasoned players often don't know how create a good Inscription setup. While it's definitely possible to win with a poor setup (I cleared the prides on Insane with an Archmage using only a mediocre Shielding Rune, a decent Manasurge Rune, and my starting Phase Door Rune, and my first winner used the Infusion of Wild Growth and a Sun Infusion over a good Inscriptions like Heroism), but having a good setup makes the game far easier both early and late. You can find Inscriptions in all towns but Elvala has a very poor selection (Phase Door, Teleport, and Manasurge only) so it's not worth looking at.

Infusions
Regeneration *****
This is the most important Inscription throughout the early game and it remains strong to the end, although it falls off a bit if you aren't Antimagic. As long as you aren't dying in a turn, it heals you considerably each turn over its duration. It's better than a Healing Infusion because it heals for more and the entire heal isn't consumed in a turn, so preemptively using Regeneration can greatly increase your survivability during a fight. I recommend searching the shops for a good Regeneration Infusion as soon as you have the money for it.

Wild *****
Like Regeneration, this is amazing early and useful throughout the entire game, although it can easily become obsolete if you max stun and pin resistance or have the Draconic Will prodigy. You should really use Physical/Mental or Physical/Magical, depending on how much confusion, silence, and disease resistance you have and how much your class cares about each status, but failing that a regular Physical Wild works too (your starting one has the lowest possible cooldown so you won't likely replace it early). Important effects to remove include stun, daze, pin, freeze, blind, disarm, and poison, although removing other miscellaneous effects can help too. The resist all is nice too but you really should be saving it for status removal unless you absolutely need the defense.

Healing **
Worse than Regeneration for reasons already stated, but it can be useful early if you get a really lucky drop. It might also be better than Regeneration on Archmages and Arcane Blades because of Arcane Shield, but you really don't need either Regeneration or Healing on either.

Sun **
This is actually amazing early since you can easily beat any enemy's physical save, but late game it's seriously bad compared to other Inscriptions, especially considering how common blind immunity is. The stealth reduction makes areas like The Maze and Reknor much easier (although you really shouldn't still have one in Reknor).

Movement *****
This is simply the best Inscription in the game. Super speed for a turn lets you easily engage or disengage, making it incredible for any class but especially for low-mobility and melee ones. The stun and pin immunity is also great since if you're careful, you will never be stunned, allowing you to skip a Wild Infusion. If you're lucky you can find a decent one in Last Hope, making the early game much easier for many classes, although early it's less essential than Regeneration. This is the only Inscription you should get more than one of on most classes.

Insidious Poison *
Damage is weak, healing reduction is weak, and magical effects are the least problematic of the three types. Never use this ever.

Heroism *****
This is better than Shielding for many classes, since not only does it make you more tanky, but it also increases your damage by a considerable amount by increasing your best stats. This is especially noticeable on melee characters but it's still helpful on everyone. Like Movement Infusions, you can sometimes find these in Last Hope, but they are very rare and not essential early.

Wild Growth ***
Damage is much better than Insidious Poison but still not great since it can't crit. You're really in it for the pin and armor/hardiness, which are both fairly helpful. It's a good filler Inscription if you have an extra slot open and it's pretty fun too, but it isn't really optimal unless you really value the pin.

Runes
Shielding ****
On most classes, this is a weaker Heroism. Unless you don't plan on taking life damage at all but instead plan on tanking with shields (Archmage, Arcane Blade, Corruptor, and Reaver), there isn't any reason to use this over Heroism late game. However, it's a good placeholder for Heroism and it can be used in conjunction with Heroism for incredible defense.

Phase Door **
This gives great defensive bonuses and has a surprisingly low cooldown, but it takes a turn to use and it's not very reliable. Compared to the other three mobility Inscriptions (Movement, Teleport, and Controlled Phase Door), this is slightly somewhat than Teleport and significantly weaker than the other two. It's nice to have, but it isn't consistent enough for you to be able to depend on it, making it a questionable choice for an endgame setup.

Manasurge ****
This is only useful on a handful of classes, but it's actually pretty great if you haven't gotten the right drops. This makes enemies with Manaclash much less problematic and it helps you out-sustain your enemies in long fights. This is better early than late, but still good late, especially on Archmage and Necromancer.

Teleportation ***
This lets you escape bad situations more consistently than Phase Door, but unlike Phase Door, it can easily land you in the middle of another bad situation. I don't like this Rune for the same reason I don't like Phase Door, but like Phase Door, it is a decent filler that you can make use of until you get a good Movement Infusion. Its minimum range is a decent redeeming quality, so if you're sure you won't get burst down after teleporting, this can be a decent pick.

Vision *
If you thought Insidious Poison was as bad as it could get, you're in for a serious disappointment with this one. This Rune is like three different talents in one, but all so weak they don't help at all. I'd rather have a single point in Arcane Eye than have this for free.

Invisibilty ***
In theory, this can help you out in a pinch since most enemies have no way to see invisible foes. In practice, blind-firing, area spells, and enemies with see invisible will just kill you when you try to use this. These issues aren't helped by the fact it takes a turn to use. Despite its flaws, this Rune is actually pretty decent since it'll allow you to escape from some tricky situations and it is especially good against melee foes. However, it needs to be better than this for it to warrant a spot over something like Shielding or Regeneration.

Heat Beam **
This is pretty much a terrible Physical Wild. The damage is worthless and there is not reason to ever use it over a Physical Wild unless you're Undead. I guess you can also put it on your Golem for extra damage but it's still worse than Lightning. At least Insidious Poison reduces healing; this Rune is so bad it makes even Insidious Poison look good. It needs to do like five times the damage to be half-decent. That being said, it's a bit of a necessity on Undead until you get 100% stun resistance because you need some way to deal with stuns.

Frozen Spear *
Atrocious for the same reason as Heat Beam.

Acid Wave *
The armor reduction isn't terrible but the rest of this is utter garbage. You can't even safely put this on your Golem since it'll hurt you too. On higher difficulties the armor reduction is actually pretty good, but on higher difficulties it's also important to not waste any Inscription slots, so taking this over something like Movement, Heroism, or Lightning is questionable.

Lightning ****
This Rune is good for tanking big hits that you know are coming. With Timeless, you can double its duration, making it great on Shalore characters. This is mostly good for characters using Bone Shield, since it essentially lets you tank two extra hits before your Bone Shield breaks. This is especially good on higher difficulties since you can tank hits of 2,000 damage with it.

Controlled Phase Door ****
Well, at least it's better than the other two movement Runes, but it's still bad. It doesn't let you get as far as Movement Infusions do and it isn't even reliable. This is worse than 5/5 Phase Door in every way except the mana cost. No reason to take this unless you're Undead or class that has excess Inscription slots, specifically classes with Unstoppable or Bone Shield and Draconic Will.

Rune of Reflection *****
This is like a regular Shielding Rune but better in every way (as long as you build magic). I like to use this on every magic character I find it on.

Rune of the Rift ****
This is like Time Skip but it also reduces paradox and strips sustains. This is pretty incredible, especially against bosses, but unfortunately it's dependent on your target having a low enough spell save.

Taint of Telepathy **
This isn't actually a Rune but it's close enough. It gives telepathy to all types, unlike Vision Runes, and it also increases Mindpower which is good on a few classes. This still isn't very good, but it's not terrible if you can make good use of the Mindpower it gives you.

Recommended Inscription Setups
For most classes, I recommend Movement x2, Heroism, Wild (Physical/Mental or Physical/Magical), and Regeneration. However, there are a few exceptions and variants, so I'll list my recommended setup for each class with my reasoning for nonstandard setups. In general, replace all Wild Infusions with Controlled Phase Door, Lightning, or Shielding Runes on any class taking Draconic Will.

For Undead, you'll obviously be restricted to Runes, which is problematic since Runes in general are way worse than Infusions. DavionFuxa listed his recommendations below, which are solid choices overall, but they aren't quite what I'd pick. However, my knowledge about Undead Inscription setups is mostly theoretical since I never play them (my only Undead win was a Lich). For a standard Undead setup, I'd go with Shielding x2, Heat Beam (replaced with Lightning if you have 100% stun resistance), Controlled Phase Door, and Teleport (possibly replaced with second Controlled Phase Door or Lightning).

Whenever I suggest Shielding Runes, Rune of Reflection is always better on classes that build magic.

Berserker: Movement x2, Heroism, Wild x2. You don't need Regeneration thanks to Unstoppable.
Bulwark: Standard
Archer: Standard
Arcane Blade: Movement, Heroism, Wild, Regeneration, Shielding. Shielding is really good with Aegis. Optional Manasurge or second Movement replacing Regeneration
Brawler: Standard

Rogue: Standard
Shadowblade: Standard
Marauder: Movement x2, Heroism, Wild x2. You don't need Regeneration thanks to Unstoppable.

Alchemist: Standard. Optional Shielding or Manasurge replacing second Movement.
Archmage: Movement x2, Wild, Shielding, Manasurge. Manasurge helps against Mana Clash and Shielding is really good thanks to Aegis. Optional second Shielding over second Movement.
Necromancer: Movement, Heroism, Wild, Shielding, Manasurge. Same reasoning as Archmage, except Heroism is still helpful on Nercomancer. Optional Regeneration or Rune of the Rift replacing Wild or Shielding. Rune of the Rift is great because your Forgery of Haze will use it almost every time, although this can get annoying it is very powerful.

Summoner: Standard
Wyrmic: Standard
Oozemancer: Standard
Stone Warden: Movement x2, Heroism, Regeneration, Shielding. Your effects from these Inscriptions also apply to your Halves, so by having Heroism, Regeneration, and Shielding they get much more tanky. You can skip Wild because you have enough ways to cure and prevent stuns.

Sun Paladin: Standard
Anorithil: Standard

Reaver: Movement x2, Wild, Shielding, Lightning. All you should care about is protecting your Bone Shield and having good mobility, which this setup does well. Since you shouldn't be taking life damage, you don't need Regeneration or Heroism. Since you should be taking Draconic Will, you can replace the Wild with another Lightning or a Controlled Phase Door.
Corruptor: Movement x2, Wild, Shielding, Lightning. Same reasoning as Reaver.

Cursed: Standard
Doomed: Standard

Paradox Mage: Standard. Optional Shielding over second Movement since this class really needs the burst defense and it already has good enough mobility. Rune of the Rift is good too.
Temporal Warden: Standard. Optional Lightning over Movement to help with big damage from Damage Smearing. Rune of the Rift is good too.

Mindslayer: Standard
Solipsist: Standard

[Forger101]

You can find Inscriptions in all towns except Zigur

Zigur has an infusion shop in the top right corner.

[Mankeli]

Very solid work, thank you! I'm currently rolling a very succesful shalore reaver and was thinking about the lighting rune synergies with bone shield/timeless -now I'll have the courage to actually try it out because someone has already proven it to be viable .

One comment though: would'nt the unstobbale abusing classes be better of with one regeneration too, instead of two wilds (berserker), for example? Because if things go sour with unstoppable you are only left with one HP and heroism "to die at -X life effect". So you will probably fall to negative amounts of life and it would be nice to be back to positive values before the heroism runs out and your char dies. Regeneration helps with this and with marauder and berserker is probably your only way of healing fast (because no magical healing probably and even if you have picked up healing light it probably more or less sucks for your character compared to magic chars).

Of course, you try not to be left at 1 HP in the first place by killing things while unstoppable but rare accidents do happen.

[Davion Fuxa]

I'd probably bump up Teleportation, Heat Beam, and Frozen Spear a Star. I'd also change the description of Controlled Phase Door because you make it sound worse then Phase Door when it is undoubtedly going to at least allow you to move out of harms way reliably more of the time then Phase Door is going to let you.

A couple good points for Teleportation: It will instantly move you a minimum amount of tiles where the Movement Infusion can still let enemies get a hit in or two while in transit. It will still work as opposed to the Movement Infusion if you happen to get surrounded and are in a bad situation (Sand Suffocating you in Sandworm Tunnels, Master beating on you with hoards of enemies around you). That's two great reasons why while still inferior to the Movement Infusion, it's at least somewhat desirable.

In regards to Heat Beam and Frozen Spear, I agree they are terrible, but Undead's are stuck with them so they aren't exactly in a 'never use' situation like Vision or Insidious Poison are.

Speaking of Undead, seeing as how they can't use Infusions, you should perhaps add a setup catering to them. If you don't feel you have enough experience then I'll just throw a couple ideas here for some generic setups that I've mostly used in my last few YouTube Video runs featuring the Undead races:

Skeleton - Teleport (alternatively replace with Controlled Phase Door), Heat Beam (alternatively replace with Frozen Spear), Shielding x2 (or replace one with Rune of Reflection), Class Utility Rune (Lightning for Defilers, Manasurge for Archmage, etc) or Free Slot for whatever.

Ghoul - Controlled Phase Door (alternatively replace with Teleport), Frozen Spear (alternatively replace with Heat Beam), Shielding x2 (or replace one with Rune of Reflection, Class Utility Rune (Lightning for Defilers, Manasurge for Archmage, etc) or Free Slot for whatever.

[bpat]

You can find Inscriptions in all towns except Zigur

Zigur has an infusion shop in the top right corner.

I can't believe I never knew this! Thanks!

Very solid work, thank you! I'm currently rolling a very succesful shalore reaver and was thinking about the lighting rune synergies with bone shield/timeless -now I'll have the courage to actually try it out because someone has already proven it to be viable .

One comment though: would'nt the unstobbale abusing classes be better of with one regeneration too, instead of two wilds (berserker), for example? Because if things go sour with unstoppable you are only left with one HP and heroism "to die at -X life effect". So you will probably fall to negative amounts of life and it would be nice to be back to positive values before the heroism runs out and your char dies. Regeneration helps with this and with marauder and berserker is probably your only way of healing fast (because no magical healing probably and even if you have picked up healing light it probably more or less sucks for your character compared to magic chars).

Of course, you try not to be left at 1 HP in the first place by killing things while unstoppable but rare accidents do happen.

Thanks for the feedback. I prefer double Wild on Unstoppable classes because usually the burst of healing from Unstoppable ending heals me to maximum. As always, my setup isn't the only way to build those classes, it's just what I recommend.

I'd probably bump up Teleportation, Heat Beam, and Frozen Spear a Star. I'd also change the description of Controlled Phase Door because you make it sound worse then Phase Door when it is undoubtedly going to at least allow you to move out of harms way reliably more of the time then Phase Door is going to let you.

A couple good points for Teleportation: It will instantly move you a minimum amount of tiles where the Movement Infusion can still let enemies get a hit in or two while in transit. It will still work as opposed to the Movement Infusion if you happen to get surrounded and are in a bad situation (Sand Suffocating you in Sandworm Tunnels, Master beating on you with hoards of enemies around you). That's two great reasons why while still inferior to the Movement Infusion, it's at least somewhat desirable.

In regards to Heat Beam and Frozen Spear, I agree they are terrible, but Undead's are stuck with them so they aren't exactly in a 'never use' situation like Vision or Insidious Poison are.

Speaking of Undead, seeing as how they can't use Infusions, you should perhaps add a setup catering to them. If you don't feel you have enough experience then I'll just throw a couple ideas here for some generic setups that I've mostly used in my last few YouTube Video runs featuring the Undead races:

Skeleton - Teleport (alternatively replace with Controlled Phase Door), Heat Beam (alternatively replace with Frozen Spear), Shielding x2 (or replace one with Rune of Reflection), Class Utility Rune (Lightning for Defilers, Manasurge for Archmage, etc) or Free Slot for whatever.

Ghoul - Controlled Phase Door (alternatively replace with Teleport), Frozen Spear (alternatively replace with Heat Beam), Shielding x2 (or replace one with Rune of Reflection, Class Utility Rune (Lightning for Defilers, Manasurge for Archmage, etc) or Free Slot for whatever.

You are probably correct about Undead and Heat Beam/Frozen Spear Runes. I didn't add anything about Undead since I never play as them but if you'd like, I can edit in your Undead Rune builds into the guide. I'll edit in some clarifications about Teleportation and Controlled Phase Door later today, since I do think they're both better than regular Phase Door. Although I still find Teleportation to be a bit overrated, I should clarify that it's considerably more useful in general that Phase Door.

[Doctornull]

I can't believe I never knew this! Thanks!

It's hidden.

You are probably correct about Undead and Heat Beam/Frozen Spear Runes. I didn't add anything about Undead since I never play as them but if you'd like, I can edit in your Undead Rune builds into the guide. I'll edit in some clarifications about Teleportation and Controlled Phase Door later today, since I do think they're both better than regular Phase Door. Although I still find Teleportation to be a bit overrated, I should clarify that it's considerably more useful in general that Phase Door.

I can get good use from a Heat Beam especially if I'm using Meta / Quicken, but Frozen Spear is just awful, because it's a spell so you can't use it to get rid of Silence.

In my tweak pack I have a Rune which clears Confusion & Blindness, and gives you a 10+ turn timed effect which works against all Mental effects, including Silence. Prophylactic Runes are the only ones that can work against Silence.

[Davion Fuxa]

I probably would get some thoughts on a proper Undead Layout from other players. Quite literally I have as much video time as playtime with Undead characters - 30 hours.

But feel free to add in my general setup:

Relocation Rune, Status Ailment Rune, Shielding Runes x2, Synergy Rune

[grobblewobble]

Over time my standard set has become the same as yours, except with one movement replaced with a shield. One movement infusion and a torque of psychoportation seem to cover the escapes for me..

So I'm curious how you get more value out of the second movement infusion than you'd get out of a shield? Sounds like a silly question maybe, but.. how do you use it?

Another interesting question is what runes to use on your golem as an alchemist. I put my rune of the rift on him and was very happy with the results, it turned my golem from a meat shield into an effective offensive weapon.

[Theyleon]

With 2 movements, you use the first offensively, to get into a good position at the start of the fight, and save the second for the brave sir robin part of the fight.

[Cathbald]

it's definitely useful to have a guide explaining all the runes to the new players and it's a nice one, I have slightly different setup myself and I don't 100% agree on everything but everyone play differently and it is still solid advice.

just want to point out that healing will get a nice boost in 1.2 and you should maybe write it down so new player looking at your guide right now don't dismiss healing infusions when 1.2 arrives.

[bpat]

With 2 movements, you use the first offensively, to get into a good position at the start of the fight, and save the second for the brave sir robin part of the fight.

This is pretty much it. I often open with a Movement Infusion for optimal positioning and stun/pin immunity and I save the second for when I need to escape or close a distance. It's always good to have one off cooldown for emergencies.

it's definitely useful to have a guide explaining all the runes to the new players and it's a nice one, I have slightly different setup myself and I don't 100% agree on everything but everyone play differently and it is still solid advice.

just want to point out that healing will get a nice boost in 1.2 and you should maybe write it down so new player looking at your guide right now don't dismiss healing infusions when 1.2 arrives.

I will update it when 1.2 hits, but for now I'm going to leave it since we don't know when 1.2 will be released. Do you know how much they're being buffed?

[Cathbald]

in 1.2 healing infusion are instant use, so you don't use one to instantly lose the life you just gained, and they also cleanse 1 wound and poison. for me that makes them on par with shields, the cleanse is a bonus but you have to take damage before using them to their full potential so that balances it out. also, very useful to use before a wild if you're both poisoned and stun ^^
apparently though they have a scaling problem at the moment and the heal isn't much later in the game.

[bpat]

1.2 thoughts so far: Biting Gale Rune looks borderline overpowered and everyone who doesn't need the defensive Inscription slot should probably take it. Healing Infusions are probably better than Regeneration Infusions now, especially early, and they have extra synergy with Fungal Blood and Ancestral Life since you can get two free turns instantly. Movement Infusions were nerfed considerably but they're still probably the best Inscription and most classes should still take two of them. Primal Infusion is arguably better than any Wild but you could remove a harmless magical effect instead of confusion or stun, so it does have a drawback. I don't think there were any other major changes to Inscriptions, but let me know if I missed anything. I'll edit the main post after testing out Biting Gale and Healing a bit more, but for now just know that they are both very good.

[Davion Fuxa]

Some thoughts from another player then on the recent update and what it did to inscriptions:

I'd probably disagree on Movement Infusion still being the best Movement Inscription - with the slow speed you can no longer really rely on effectively getting out scot free from engagements which can be a serious consideration. The instant move from Controlled Phase Door or Teleport have more or less become par with the once reigning king since they can potentially do that.

****A note on Movement Infusion for Wyrmics btw, currently playing one and finding that since Lightning Speed has also been brought up to par with Movement Infusions (Early Game I've yet to find a percentage value that even exceeds Lightning Speed 3/5, and you get 3 Turns), Wyrmic Players should definetely be less concerned with even caring about a Movement Infusion.

Healing Infusion has improved greatly but I wouldn't call it better then Regeneration since you still don't replenish your health more overall still, removing poison is nice but likely the player was covering that with a Wild already, and unless you are playing Wyrmic you won't be getting Fungus category unless you pursue and Anti-Magic path. If anything the buff for Healing Infusions has brought it up to par with Regeneration Infusion, which means a player could easily consider going with Healing over Regeneration or vice versa depending on the stats of the healing infusions they find.

Acid Wave has definetely become the bane of my playthroughs on most of my recent playthroughts (Skirmisher, Berserker, and Wyrmic) due to the fact that it is now Disarms - repeatedly. This is a fairly powerful ability if the player posseses the game knowedge, he could make very good use of it. It's a serious contender as an offensive utility inscription where arguable there once wasn't any.

Biting Gale of course has also become a good contender, though I haven't seen it in action yet I think. I haven't used it either since I don't see a lot of Early Game value in it but it might be a consideration later down the road - I'll probably test it out when I pick up my 5th Inscription Slot on my Berserker i'm running now.

[Pigslayer]

My nightmare roguelike necromancer used invisibility for the entire game. It saved me several times. During the final battle, Elandar spent more turns pointlessly following me, than blasting me. Still, I probably would've lost that fight without cauterize.

I've tried biting gale on insane vs the horned horror and 4 rares. It's much, much better than frozen spear.