Talenna Soulseer vs Varkos Headsplitter: Which New Legendary Looks Better?

The latest Event Dungeon champions are here, and this time we’re looking at two new Legendaries with very different strengths: Talenna Soulseer and Varkos Headsplitter.

Both champions bring something useful to RAID: Shadow Legends, especially in the current Arena meta where Mercurial gear, multi-hit attacks, lockouts, and block revive effects are everywhere. The big question is simple: which one looks better, and where should players actually use them?

After testing both on the test server, the answer is more interesting than expected. Talenna looks strong on paper, but Varkos may be the bigger surprise.

Talenna Soulseer is a speed-focused support/control champion with some strong similarities to Fabian. She brings a Speed Aura, an AoE skill cooldown increase, buff duration reduction, Increase Accuracy, and poison utility.

Her A3 is the key part of her kit. It gives your team Increase Accuracy, attacks all enemies, reduces enemy buff durations, and increases enemy skill cooldowns.

That sounds excellent, and it is. However, there’s one important difference compared to Fabian: Talenna only increases cooldowns by two turns, while Fabian does it by three.

That matters because Fabian usually locks enemies out for longer. Talenna’s lockout is still useful, but fast enemies can recover more quickly.

Still, Talenna has one big advantage: she buffs her own Accuracy before attacking. That makes her easier to build and more consistent into high-resistance teams.

This is where things get interesting.

Talenna isn’t just a lockout champion. She also places poisons, activates poisons, and boosts ally Turn Meter when poisons activate. Her passive also reduces enemy Crit Rate and Crit Damage based on poisons.

That gives her a second role beyond simple control.

In testing, the poison damage was actually noticeable. Against weaker or less protected teams, Talenna’s poisons helped finish enemies off and added real pressure.

However, building around poisons has a cost. If you use poison-focused relics or blessings, you may lose out on raw Speed. And in high-end Arena, going first often matters more than squeezing extra value out of poisons.

So Talenna can work in two ways:

• Build her fast and accurate as a lockout champion
• Build her with poison support for extra damage and Turn Meter pressure

The safer option is probably the fast lockout build, but the poison version is definitely fun and more effective than expected.

Varkos Headsplitter may be the more exciting champion of the two.

He is a defense-based damage dealer who brings multi-hit attacks, counterattacks, ally attack synergy, and block revive. His kit fits very well into the current Mercurial meta because he can repeatedly strip Total Guard stacks through multi-hit attacks.

His A3 gives himself:

• Increase Defense
• Counterattack
• Shatter
• An Extra Turn

His A2 is a double hit that ignores Block Damage and Shields. His A1 is a double hit that ignores Unkillable.

The really fun part is his passive. Whenever an ally attacks, Varkos has a chance to join in. That chance is even higher if the ally is a Dark Elf. When he counterattacks or joins an ally attack, enemies killed by him cannot be revived.

That gives him huge random swing potential.

Sometimes he joins in at the perfect moment and instantly deletes someone with block revive. Other times, he doesn’t join in and the fight feels slower. That randomness is part of his identity.

Two main builds stood out.

Mercurial Build

A 9-piece Mercurial build makes Varkos much harder to control and helps protect his buffs. This is especially useful because he relies heavily on his self-buffs to reach his full potential.

The downside is that his damage can feel slightly short at times.

Lethal + Stone Skin Build

A more traditional damage build gives him higher kill pressure. In testing, this helped him hit much harder, but it also made him more vulnerable than the Mercurial setup.

The best choice depends on your account:

• Use Mercurial if you want consistency and survivability
• Use Lethal/Stone Skin if you want bigger damage and faster kill

At first glance, Talenna looks like the stronger champion because lockout is always valuable. But after testing, Varkos may actually be the more unique option.

Talenna is very good, especially if you need a Speed Aura lockout champion with poison pressure.

Varkos, though, brings something rarer: a defense-based multi-hit damage dealer who can counterattack, join ally attacks, and block revive enemies. That makes him extremely useful in PvP and potentially strong in PvE wave content too.

Both Talenna Soulseer and Varkos Headsplitter look genuinely strong.

Talenna is a reliable control champion with useful poison pressure. Varkos is a dangerous damage dealer with excellent block revive potential and exciting synergy with ally attacks.

If you need control, Talenna is probably the safer pick.

If you want something more unique with higher upside, Varkos might be the better long-term choice.

Either way, both champions look like valuable additions, and both fit nicely into the current Arena meta.