h2-builds-and-combat

[keen vapor]

Not the rest, also what did you mean by get the egg later? Does it not help my odds to put the keepsake early on?

[thin ridge]

You want the egg after you get an Aether element

So you have chaos guaranteed

[keen vapor]

Oh I thought the egg could give me the aether element boon

[thin ridge]

Nope

[keen vapor]

Okok so I'll take the aphro or zeus one

Then egg after I get a duo boon

Should I avoid chaos gates until then?

[thin ridge]

Yes

[keen vapor]

Alright I'll finish this run and try that

[thin ridge]

Make sure you have either aphro or Zeus keepsake

And then pray for the other god

[keen vapor]

Probably aphro since I haven't maxed that one out

How many rerolls should I save for chaos? Can I use 1 or 2 to change the god to aphro or zeus if I'm unlucky

[thin ridge]

Sure

Just save like 6 authority for chaos maybe

[keen vapor]

Do authority get used when I change the gate ones?

Like is there 2 separate reroll types?

[spare kite]

nope the pool of rolls is shared

[keen vapor]

Okok thats good to know

[thin ridge]

If you have boatman enchantress and champions you have 10 fated authority/persuasion

[keen vapor]

If I have the opposite as in Zeus Attack + Aphro special, does this still work?

Okay I got the duo boon, hopefully I'll get a gate or lucky with the egg

FINALLY GOT IT lesgo

[cold raven]

I usually use zeus special and aphrodite dash for romantic spark

but it could depend on weapon- with torches, it's easy to pop omega special and just run into a crowd of enemies to blitz the entire group

if you tried romantic spark with something like axe, you would probably want something like zeus attack and psychic whirlwind hammer

[junior trail]

zeus works better as special because Blitz triggers once the attack lands

[cold raven]

I think zeus special has slightly stronger base dmg (like 20 extra damage for the same rarity), but I'm not 100% sure on their pom scalings

So a heroic zeus special has 20 extra base blitz dmg over a heroic zeus attack

[keen vapor]

I ended up going with an omega attack build so doesn't the blitz land everytime in that scenario?

[cold raven]

blitz has a cooldown

[keen vapor]

Ahh I see, I thought it activated on every attack

Nevermind I just realized Blitz is the lil cloud icon that takes a few second to work

[cold raven]

The attack applies the curse, the lightning bolt comes down afterward. The lightning bolt itself is where the cooldown lies

Ayy you figured it out very quickly

[keen vapor]

Yes only 80 hours in hahaha

[cold raven]

You can trigger blitz early by doing another 120 dmg to the enemy while they're cursed, with romantic spark, or with arc flash

But if your goal is to nuke them with romantic spark, spamming more zeus attacks doesnt necessarily up your dmg by much, cuz you should be dashing into them instead

[keen vapor]

Is arc flash a duo boon with apollo and zeus?

[uneven palm]

Just a Zeus boon

[cold raven]

nah it's a regular boon from zeus

[keen vapor]

Okok

[silent crow]

it does sound like a duo now that i thikn about it

[keen vapor]

Going off the name alone yeah, I figured flash stood for zeus and arc for apollo lmao

Now I just gotta win once with the witch staff

[cold raven]

reminder that romantic spark makes the lightning bolt have an insane 80% !!!! multiplier when you trigger blitz with your dash

that's probably gonna outdamage just mashing your attack button or whatever lol

[keen vapor]

Dang I'll have to try building around that sometimes

Any decent staff build? I don't play the weapon often and kinda suck at it

[thin ridge]

Nice

[tidal hinge]

Does anyone know if glorious disaster works with charon

[uneven palm]

It does but it’s just fine. You can’t drop another cast while Prominence Flare/Disaster is going so it’s kinda a net loss of damage potential

[thin ridge]

Glorious disaster needs a rework

In reqs

[tidal hinge]

p flare needs a rework too i wish it didn't delay your cast, needs to behave like meat grinder tbh

[uneven palm]

I like Momus, start with Hera’s gain, and flesh out other things as hammers and big percentage boosts (or high-rarity Blitz) on attack/special show up

[thin ridge]

It would be a much stronger meat grinder tho

[thin ridge]

Momus Hostile environment

[uneven palm]

Ooh that’s a fun one. Hostile Env goes so hard on Momus

[thin ridge]

Geyser spout or meat grinder

[tidal hinge]

Would it? I rarely ever take P flare honestly, at least not since warsong

[thin ridge]

Cause the dps is higher so if it didn’t have the cast nerf it would be better

I think I don’t really use it

[tidal hinge]

It's unfortunate because anytime i want to use meat grinder or p flare i end up just wanitng gyser

[thin ridge]

I use meat grinder to activate hostile environment then I sell it

Or I’ll use sword ring and sell that

[tidal hinge]

Yeah same, if im doing underground that is

usually just stick with sword ring if im going for it on surface and then focus more on omega cast with gyser and local climate, add a sneaky natural selection too

[thin ridge]

Natural selection 💔

[keen vapor]

I didnt get hera gain but I tried the Momus build with a focus on omega attacks & attacks, just won!

[keen vapor]

Is it possible to do a spirit build only? Or maybe a build where you just stand around and the mobs die by themselves? I know there's a zeus boon for that but I haven't tried a full run in that sense

[magic moss]

anything that deals even 1 damage is possible to clear with the game given infinite time

someone killed typhon in a 550 minute run using only raki since they had 100% dodge chance so they left the game afk

[keen vapor]

100% dodge chance is actually hilarious I gotta try that

[keen vapor]

I wanted to try gliding around with sprint but idk if there's enough damage boons for that, like small mobs is managable but I could only hit the boss 1 time, is that normal?

Maybe a build around the poseidon slide one

[junior trail]

i miss the old thunder rush so bad

[magic moss]

yes 100% possible

just don't get hit

[stray pivot]

Demeter and Heph duo its very fun defeinitely underrated

[royal ledge]

@drowsy hornet Your mistake was killing the Tempus.

[forest heart]

how do i do aspect of selene

[stray pivot]

Dont trust anybody use the Omega attack fully loaded with aphordite for ultimate damage

[forest heart]

"dont trust anybody" implies i also shouldnt trust you

[willow phoenix]

Omega special is much easier to use than o attack for selene, you also want to upgrade the skyfall asap with moon beam

Then just spam omega and use skyfall

[stable herald]

Start with Selene's keepsake so you can max out the hex right away ofc. idk if Prism (triple space lasers) or Cascade (space lasers w each omega move) is better but I really like Prism

Also the hex upgrades that give it your attack boon don't inherit bonus damage, only bonus effects. So it's only good with boons that have all their damage in their effect like Blitz or Scorch. Hope that gets fixed.

[forest heart]

i already took aphro attack...

[willow phoenix]

If you're doing o attack then use Apollo because it's so much easier to use with the huge aoe increase and possibility of apollo legendary

[stray pivot]

HA

[forest heart]

i took it before you said to

[stray pivot]

Still

HA

I really wanna try something really dumb but really fun
heroic Apho special in the axe with the poseidon duo

Probably in the Underworld for pompom and extra fun

[celest belfry]

Between extended wallop (more range, 100% attack damage) and wicked thrasher (attack power +30) which is more powerful for for a momus attack based build?

it almost seems like it might be a toss up, but I don't really need the range. My biggest issue with the game is seeing "how much" attack power I have, can't see it, can't math it! Rude!

[royal ledge]

Extended Wallop only buffs Attack, not omega attack.

[celest belfry]

Nice point! Thanks!

[uneven palm]

Wicked. It’s just a solid hammer

[celest belfry]

I'm omega damage mainly in this run, hitting 1200+ each time now

[formal pulsar]

You see a power hammer you take the power hammer

It will help more than anything else till you know what you are building for and still power hammers are just really solid

[celest belfry]

I just finished this run with 8 heroic and 3 legendary and 3 duo. It was epic! Finished the final over world boss in like 2 minutes! Lost all my lives but I was overconfident and reckless

Ice, lighting, fire, speed, no hex

I did go for wicked btw! Thanks for both of your advice

#h2-victory-boasting message

[surreal hazel]

Wicked Thrasher is an insane base damage boost when compared to other sources

+30 on a weapon with base power of 10/15/20 basically means triple average power

multiplies when combined with Rapid and Mirrored thrasher too

get all three and your basic attack sequence is 12x the base damage, and still multiplies with +% boosts

[past crest]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1217384333212389379/1364164549653303416/image.png?ex=6808acbd&is=68075b3d&hm=6b3ab92fe8d3a2735f0a4ca16f88a918d3d63073f7631751e812314581593ed9&

insanely lucky run i could basically just facetank everything

[woeful saddle]

is it just me or does anyone else find aspect of medea a bit... boring?

idk what it is but i just dont feel satisfied having to do a loop of mash primary 4 times > tap secondary > repeat

id like to think the skull is meant to be like a rocket launcher of sorts

[surreal hazel]

Medea makes you the rocket

[woeful saddle]

idk i find it more fun to actually fire skulls and see them explode rather then become the rocket

[junior trail]

o.atk build suits better with mel skull or persephone, it's really fun with wide grin

[royal ledge]

It's certainly not as satisfying as the Aspect of Beowulf in Hades 1.

[woeful saddle]

wide grin fires 3 skulls at once but what does that do for aspect of medea, which loads the skulls?

[royal ledge]

Fires multiple omega attacks at once - but as Pond said, it's better suited to the other aspects.

[junior trail]

attack load to 4 and all fire at once, but once special triggers, there'll be a slight delay before collecting shells, might not be the most fun way to play with Medea

medea loop is just attack > special, no need to load to 4 then special

[woeful saddle]

yeah

[manic mantle]

what's the best build for 32 fear surface?

[woeful saddle]

im not sure if this sounds OP, but i kinda wish medea changed the skull so that it becomes like a semi-auto weapon that fires faster the more you connect your hits, kinda like the Dragon's Fury from TF2, but that might lean too hard into hidden aspect territory.

I get that Hades and TF2 are completely different games but i really like the concept of the Dragon's Fury so i wish to see it in other games

rewarding accuracy with the skull is something im interested in exploring

[bleak night]

Fine Line Mel Torches is super easy to put together, just need to get any Mana you can find

[woeful saddle]

"super easy to put together"

can we easily and consistently find athena?

ive been up to olympus like 6 times and she hasnt appeared once

[bleak night]

You don't need Righteous Pike

[woeful saddle]

o

[bleak night]

It helps but it isn't 100% needed

Just needs Born Gain and Fine Line + a good MP pool for the most part

[woeful saddle]

i dont understand Born Gain

does it restore all magick that is primed?

[bleak night]

Yes, minus the amount it primes as stipulated in the boon

Then anything primed by it is unprimed once you enter a new location

[royal ledge]

Let's say you have 100/100 mana. When you spend it all, Born Gain primes 12 (or whatever number, depending on rarity and level), and refills your mana completely. You now have 88/88 mana.

[woeful saddle]

oh

what if i got other boons that prime mana?

does it remove the priming from that?

[bleak night]

Nope

[royal ledge]

No. Only the mana primed by Born Gain will reset in each location. But it does mean that you need to have enough mana total that you don't prime yourself down to close to zero available mana by triggering Born Gain over and over again.

[bleak night]

Just the MP the boon itself will prime in the location you fight in

[manic mantle]

i am not really good at using mel torches. what other builds are there?

[bleak night]

That's the best part; you don't have to be good at it

The build plays itself

[manic mantle]

ok i will give it a try

[bleak night]

But yeah otherwise people do Zeus Special Mel Blades

It's effortless and builds into anything

[manic mantle]

*turning on steam to play h2

[bleak night]

If you need help with it still later on lmk, I can probs help out in VC

[woeful saddle]

until you start getting annihilated by merciless auto-forcers who, in groups of 912834 or more, start doing their spin attack at you

(you have to run or lose 80% of your health!)

[bleak night]

You can continue Omega Attack spam on Torch while dashing

Dashes don't interrupt your Omega Attacks in any way

[tall notch]

What's that build? You just spam special old Momus style and use the blitz to deal damage?

[bleak night]

You just toss it out on cooldown while attacking. Easily blends with most god pools

Also scales really well

[tall notch]

Ohh so the primary playstyle is still to keep attacking? You don't just hang back and hug corner?

[bleak night]

You can for certain enemies, but it's a mixed range playstyle that's super flexible

[tall notch]

That actually sounds interesting

Do you have vods of playing that on high fear?

[uneven palm]

This isn’t quite that but here’s a Pan 50F https://youtu.be/dAdIgzHWzvw?si=atkfJUOaTBCgIFTv

Has Zeus attack because that was the purple one but the playstyle is similar to what you’d do with Zeus special: throw out specials as much as possible, attack in between.

[bleak night]

There's quite a good amount, but if you're free I can demonstrate it a lil

Not rn ofc but yeah

[sage flame]

trick knives king as always

[silent crow]

hot trick knives in your area

[ornate sapphire]

is the god pool still 4 like in hades 1?

had demeter in ephyria but never saw her again when I really needed that infusion

[spare kite]

Yup

[brittle brook]

Question what does it mean when it says power
For example
“Wicked thrasher, your attacks have +30 power” what does it mean by power?

[stray pivot]

It calculates before any +% damage

[brittle brook]

So the attack will at least hit 30 damage is what your saying? (Before calculations)

[spare kite]

Your omega attack does 120 base dmg, if you pick up wicked now it'll do 150
Then you add any % buff you have
120 + 100% from heroic apollo attack = 240
150 + the same 100% = 300

[brittle brook]

Okay gotcha thank you

[civic salmon]

does anyone have a build that uses prominance flair?
I can't figure out any reason to take it over geyser spout

it seems like it barely does more damage

[thin ridge]

Zeus attack

Power surge arc flash static shock born gain

[thin ridge]

Use geyser/meat grinder

[formal pulsar]

when playing mirrored thrasher, would you take power surge or static shock?

[uneven palm]

Static

[formal pulsar]

can i ask why? is it focused damage from static vs random enemy that power surge hits?

[uneven palm]

So like one bolt per attack from power surge at common is 20 dmg. Static Shock at common hits for 10, with Mirrored you’re hitting twice so they’re equal there, AND it can jump to like 4 more enemies. It’s way more damage. If you can spare the primed magick that is.

[formal pulsar]

makes sense. for some reason i forget that mirrored thrasher consumed 5 per the two attacks. i thought power surge would trigger on both attacks

[willow phoenix]

Power surge continues to be very underwhelming

[errant latch]

so I want to try my hand at a max HP run, here's the build I'm thinking (lots of rng needed)
start with aphro keepsake, frinos and mel axe
life affirmation
--enter ephyra--
traces of spirit
bridal glow
sea star
success rate
burnt offering
buried treasure
--exit ephyra--
--enter thessaly--
change to demeter keepsake
hearty appetite
farm water boons to proc water fitness
--exit thessaly--
--enter olympus--
change to hephaestus keepsake
uncanny fortitude
worry free
--exit olympus--
--enter summit--
change to hecate keepsake
if any rerolls left, use them to upgrade water fitness more

[royal ledge]

What hammers are priorities for Medea?

[bleak night]

not much, but Boosted Ignition and Colossus are effortless picks, Melting is Melting, and Possessed Array is the best but needs you to build MP and either Born or Mortal Gain

Aspect is honestly good enough to win without any hammers

[royal ledge]

Thanks. The aspect's damage always seems underwhelming to me, so I don't know what I am doing wrong.

Excluding using Blitz as a crutch, I guess.

[bleak night]

You need help with it ? I can probs help you out in a VC in an hour or so

[bleak night]

Blitz def isn't a crutch for the most part

It's really good on the aspect because of synergy, doesn't mean it's a cheat to use it

[royal ledge]

Eh, I might just need a better attack boon honestly. My last run with it I had common Hera on attack and common Ares on special. Triggered origination, sure, but the damage wasn't great. Eris took forever.

[bleak night]

Ares on Special is usually bad ye

just put him on Attack if anything

Special boons have disgusting scaling on Aphro if you'd rather run that instead of Blitz

you only really want Ares for Grievous and w/e else

[royal ledge]

I figured Ares on attack would be worse, due to the lower % increase, and only one attack every three seconds would get the 50 power added.

I assume loading four shells would still only give one of them +50 power? Correct?

[bleak night]

you mostly use the Attack for the Orig procs

unless you wanna do pure damage and just put Aphro on it

Some people just put Dem on Attack as long as Blitz is on Special

[junior trail]

does the 8 sec freeze cooldown gap still proc origination? or just 2 sec from freeze effect

[bleak night]

the icon being there still counts for Orig

[thin cloud]

Is there a limit to how many mana restoring boons you can have?

Also does anyone think that during family disputes any boons from the god(ess) you anger should be disabled for the fight?

[candid ledge]

For the core boon slot it's just the one but there is no limit (other than how many spawns can functionally happen in 1 run) to what you can get from chaos gates/chaos egg

There's also mist veil I suppose

[thin cloud]

What would be a good build focused around dodges and the warm breeze boon?

[sage flame]

get wispy wiles from aphrodite, lots of air boons, warm breeze ofc, something with daze, gale, and that hestia dodge boon if u can

[wide pollen]

Are there any reasonably viable builds with Hephaestus on attack or special?

[neat mirage]

ill go apollo spec

but tbh hitch is so good im not sure

mininet what do you think

[magic moss]

no but genuinely tho outside of following the rules, i have notifs for #h2-victory-boasting enabled to check for any new 50s so i get spammed there

[magic moss]

for what aspect

[neat mirage]

pan trick knives 55f

well i didnt hit the special anyways rip

@bleak night double strike or lightning lance with storm ring?

probably lightning lance right

[bleak night]

Lightning lance if Pan trick

[neat mirage]

4:35 city

do i heph or fig for thessaly?

[bleak night]

Fig better because you almost never get the god you want in Thess anyway

[neat mirage]

ill just stream the run

[bleak night]

O sure

[magic moss]

@fair horizon @formal pulsar did some more testing and I think I got a reason as to why Amulet works in Thessaly but doesn't in Olympus

TLDR: PreCombat Encounter generations are unique to Thessaly and Olympus, and they have BAEK set to true since if they were false the keepsake would activate before the encounter itself finished. The problem/oversight here is that in the order of generation, the Keepsake checks its conditions after the PreCombat generation happens instead of the normal base encounter, and never checks it again since it doesn't differentiate between PreCombat and actual combat. As a result, BAEK is true when the keepsake procs in EVERY SINGLE OLYMPUS ROOM since they ALL generate with some kind of PreCombat and as a result the keepsake will never work. The reason Amulet works in Thessaly is because PreCombat only generates once per boat, which is upon entry. Afterwards, every encounter in that boat triggers with the normal encounter, which has BAEK set to false and therefore Amulet works.

[formal pulsar]

this makes perfect sense. And this check might be related to why Athena keepsake trigger on actual encounters on the rift while Dionysus keepsake doesn't check for it and can trigger on the fake pre-encounters on the rift...

[royal ledge]

Just cleared 40 fear with the Aspect of Pan. I didn't have a special boon until after I defeated the Tail of Typhon. But if it works, it works.

[woven idol]

Hey guys. What’s the gameplan with Aspect of Thanatos? What builds and hammers should I go to, and does maxing it out make a big difference?

[bleak night]

Can go magickless attack or go for the funny Psychic Whirlwind build, but Psychic is one of 12 hammers. Can achieve similar results with Seething Marauder but having em both is high roll god tier

[stray pivot]

Rhe gameplan its
Git gud

Really good.

[bleak night]

But you do generally wanna get Seething asap as it's good on both Attack and Omega builds

[woven idol]

Thanks. Should I max out the aspect? Does it make a huge difference?

[stray pivot]

Only for attack speed

You get the 13% critical for being
Gud

[woven idol]

Right.

[stray pivot]

I prefer mel axe and charon
Than is hard to master and 13% crit isnt enough to really notice it

[bleak night]

If you go for the attack build, then ye it matters a lot

[woven idol]

But not if I go spinny spin

[bleak night]

I have a run up if you wanna see how I play the funny spinny

[stray pivot]

I love spinnly spin but its hard

[bleak night]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_lluF0ZfRjo&pp=0gcJCYQJAYcqIYzv

[stray pivot]

Ohhh your that one

[bleak night]

[stray pivot]

Awesome

[bleak night]

The spin do be hittin frfr

[woven idol]

Wait wtf I watched your videos before

You’re him???

[bleak night]

Damn that must've hurt your eyes

[magic moss]

wow Mynt is famous you made it Mynt im proud of you

[stray pivot]

What i like about Hades 2 its the variety of options for high fear runs

[bleak night]

[magic moss]

nah hes fake tbh

[bleak night]

[stray pivot]

Ermmmmm
Rude?

[bleak night]

We're memeing dw

But yeah, just needs EM again and we're good to go

[stray pivot]

Yeahhhhh
I need the extra fear from EM to get past 16 fear

[magic moss]

nah Mynt is kinda boosted

he gets carried by his skill tbh tbh

[bleak night]

If you wanna get past 20 with no issue lmk, usually people just have no clue how to streamline their builds, but have the general technical skill to get past it

Bloatware boons just delays your power spike

[stray pivot]

Its awesome that i got to beating 16 fear from both routes
I didnt make it that far in Hades 1

[woven idol]

Ok so I get Thanatos Axe now, what about Coat? Specifically Aspect of Selene? I used it, won Chronos on my first try using it, but I still have no clue what I was doing

[magic moss]

my highest heat clear was 32 heat with 80% god mode enabled in H1 so you got this

[bleak night]

This aspect is a lil unintuitive ngl

[woven idol]

Yeah i know right? Coat just feels just a bit wonky to me

[bleak night]

Just needs better missile tracking for the most part

[woven idol]

And make the missiles just a tad bit faster by default

[stray pivot]

I never actiaved God Mode
Not even here
I know it is not illegal
I just liked playing the base experience

[stray pivot]

Yeah

[magic moss]

lmao the first thing i did in h2 was turn on god mode and max it out to 80% so uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[stray pivot]

Totally respectqble

[magic moss]

i believe in you 👍 Lets get that ez 32 both sides

[stray pivot]

It took me like 150 runs to get to Hades so maybe
I ws fha bit wrong

[bleak night]

I was pretty trash at H1 when I first started, so I get it

[tough pasture]

Question: are you all playing on mouse and keyboard or gamepad?

I played hades 1 entirely on m+k but I'm playing hades 2 entirely on gamepad.

I think changing the default controls on gamepad (after about 250+ runs) has significantly improved my performance on high fear. Remapping dash to LT and cast to RT has given me more versatility so that there's almost no button-mashing anymore. (I mapped hex to A button on Xbox gamepad.)

/I can't believe it took me so long to change the default controls.
//There was definitely an adjustment period but after about 10 runs (of increasing fear up to 32 fear). I now prefer the new controls.

[final bridge]

I find gamepad easier for remapping and ease of execution over m+k

You have the right idea with changing the default controls for gamepad, it saves a lot of headache down the line

[stark ibex]

so brethern i'm trying to do judgement runs(cause i find it funny) what arcana are the must have 3 in your humblest opinion i'm currently choosing strength and persistence don't know what the last one should be if there are better options then what i'm using please say

[stark ibex]

damn mynt beeen reading your guide on the subreddit thank you and the other high skill players🙏

also what do you guys suggest a relatively casual who wants to go further in the fear i've only gone up to like 3 with grit, horde and ward

[woven idol]

This ^^^ I want to dive into higher fear but don’t know where to start and what to pick and how to navigate the higher fears

[bleak night]

[bleak night]

Try to play with Timer and learn to get used to Frenzy

At some point the +40% enemy attack, movement and projectile speed become normalized to you

[stark ibex]

Thank you for the help

[bleak night]

Ye np. If you want some VC help in a live run people ask for that as well, so lmk

[stark ibex]

duly noted i'll ping if so

[obsidian pollen]

What’s a good build for aspect of eos torches because it has intrigued me

[bleak night]

A good Special you can Omega spam for the most part

It wants you to have a Daybreaker out then spam special or omega special. Special if you get the Triple Spark hammer

[obsidian pollen]

Thanks

Do I need an attack boon if I want daybreaker out?

[bleak night]

Anything works, people do Hera for the most part but ngl it feels like just going Romantic Spark is the best thing anyway

It works on every aspect, so it mitigates the weakness of Eos

It has bad tracking so it's hard to fully be good with

[obsidian pollen]

Ok thanks

[sage flame]

unless you do a weird thing where you constantly spawn a new one for each new group of enemies you go after so you don't rely on it tracking anything, basically just using it's bursts in close range

[uneven palm]

I like Hera or Apollo attack on Eos. Night arcana is fun also because all the daybreaker pulses can crit

[stark ibex]

migrating from death to strength is kinda hard🥀
doesn't help that strength isn't max

[uneven palm]

Don’t bother if it isn’t maxed IMO

Especially if Death is maxed already

[stray pivot]

Just work to max it and use death in the meanwhile

[woven niche]

just like hades 1, don’t think too much about the schematics - keep ENJOYING the game and just play, you’ll find yourself becoming crazy skilled and knowledgable just as your zag/mel gets stronger too, and before you know it you’ll be playing at the highest heats/fears and barely remembering what it was like playing as a beginner without the duos at 0 heat

[bleak night]

true

[magic moss]

my goat

[simple turret]

How do I deal with these enemies? I am asking for help and advice, not trying to complain. (and sorry about self promoing I just didnt really know how to show my issue better)
https://www.twitch.tv/gaypineapplez/clip/DarlingAcceptableGoshawkOptimizePrime-5pj9gFyAaOugEm5O

[formal pulsar]

look you kinda low rolled here. this is one of the worst packs in the game. the Clanger vow of fangs on an auto watcher is very very difficult to deal.

But you also could have played it better. You needed to LOS it and try to pick the enemy one by one (which is time wasting with vow of time)

[simple turret]

I thought the cover in this arena didnt LOS

[formal pulsar]

drop the cast and hide behind the rock while throwing out specials

it does

[simple turret]

ah

do they have a max range I can play outside of

[formal pulsar]

not afaik

but if you reflect a bullet on it while it is firing (with athena dash) it will stop firing and go to its defensive mode

[simple turret]

athena dash strikes again

I didnt know that though, ty

[formal pulsar]

no problem, man. that pack is insanely difficult so dont bad about it beating your ass.

[uneven palm]

Yeah uhh that’s a brutal room

[formal pulsar]

If I see a clanger auto watcher I know I am about to be slapped HARD.

[stark ibex]

aight should i focus on strength then champions or sorceress

[formal pulsar]

Tbh if you are still at the point of level leveling arcana, and death is already fully leveled up, it is fine to focus on other arcana’s first before switching to strength.

You can max out all your rolls arcana and damage boosting arcana (furies, origination) then work on strength

[stark ibex]

okay thank you for the help

[cold raven]

huntress is also a strong dps card for certain aspects. There are just 3 things to note:
-you need to remember to use at least 1 omega move per room to keep your magick below max (preferably in the beginning of the room)
-it doesn't work if you prime your entire magick pool
-it only affects the non omega attack/special (Hence only a few aspects make good use of it. Think mel black coat, mel daggers, or medea skull)

You would also want to be careful if you run certain gain boons like being near enemies w/aphrodite, standing still with demeter, getting hit with hephaestus, or even accidentally picking up poseidon bubbles. Those could bring your magick back to full unintentionally and deactivate your huntress card until you burn magick again

[rich belfry]

damn 20 fear is hard

tried with thanos but faailed so bad

[bleak night]

huh

[magic moss]

have you tried aspect of thanatos

[rich belfry]

i mean

loooooooooooooooooooollllllll yes yes that

[magic moss]

you see, the joke was that you called it the aspect of thanos and that doesn't exist

[rich belfry]

brother went like WHAT IS THAT I DIDNT DO 51 FEAR WITH IT

[magic moss]

not everyone finds 50 fear easy Mynt

[bleak night]

I meant the Thanos thing

I even did a twerking Thanos emote cmon dude

[rich belfry]

i know im sleepy asf lol

[magic moss]

oh uh im blind but you see i am never wrong so therefore i will twist the narrative and make you the bad guy

[bleak night]

[magic moss]

ill pay for your emotional damage in exposure and glazing

EVERYONE, GO CHECK OUT MYNT'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL FOR SOME INCREDIBLE HIGH FEAR GAME PLAY FROM THE BEST HADES 2 PLAYER IN THE WORLD

this is based genuinely on facts

[bleak night]

?

[thin ridge]

Don’t leak hidden aspects before release

Thx

[rich belfry]

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[formal pulsar]

whats are some ideas for ares falling blades builds? i never really digged deep into this mechanic of his

[stray pivot]

Extra area attack with apollo duo and instant fall with heph duo

Definitely try to bridal glow it or heroic at least

Maybe PomPom but that depends oh the route

Overall solid idea but try to add the cast and the other one
Dash alone will be hard-ish

Demeter and heph duo ita very xool

I simply love it

2 sec cooldown freeze my bemloved

[formal pulsar]

i feel like you must be the only room temperature fan

[formal pulsar]

i went for something similar and was severly underwhelmed. i guess he cannot have all good apples

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1363005907855740992/1365192041868300360/Hades_II_2025.04.25_-_00.46.17.09.DVR.mp4_-_VLC_media_player_2025-04-25_01_05_17.png?ex=680c69aa&is=680b182a&hm=ea8b5016f0dc4610cbd792185708659201afb305411632286f6a1dfaa8a870a6&

[stray pivot]

Sure maybe

[stray pivot]

Yeah
I think ares blades are very
Ehhh?
I mean they are good just not my go for duos or dun or damage

That would be demeter cast and every single heph blast at heroic and some decent level

[formal pulsar]

you know I consider myself a freeze enjoyer but i feel like you can get the same result with a high rarity cold storage

[stray pivot]

Not really

The effect gets severly nerfed on bosses after a while being frozen
Not with room temperature though

You ought to try if you want something different from the classic
bLiTz!
kInGs rAMsOn!

(Joke, its very good no joke)

[magic moss]

ok cool

i think 32 is 100% possible arcanaless boonless

[formal pulsar]

i love heph blasts but i usually go for the chain reaction rude awakening stuff. not really room temperature but i will give it another spin

[stray pivot]

Also heph works better in witch staff because the special is already slow
Overall i think heph its the perfect magickless god

[formal pulsar]

have you achieved it mini?

[magic moss]

last patch? sure, this current patch absolutely not

[magic moss]

beat 21 in 1 attempt so eh?

[stray pivot]

You sure?

[magic moss]

yes

[stray pivot]

At least to me
I love subjective experiences

[stray pivot]

Chain Reaction was more overwhelming than Room Temperature to me
Its a bit hard to pull out (to me)

Also god
I want more Blasts duos with heph there are only 3 :(

[formal pulsar]

with a 2sec CD it triggers on CDs, no?

[stray pivot]

Nope

May be bugged idk but it definitely didnt work

[formal pulsar]

I do hate that when you start the encounter, you have to fire the blast first before you can even trigger it

[stray pivot]

Yeah

Chain reaction its just really not for me

[formal pulsar]

Love Handles with Sunny desposition on a 2s heph cd is very funny tho. but very difficult to pull

[stray pivot]

I prefer the apollo duo and thats bad cuz its only a damage up

[formal pulsar]

@stray pivot this was my highest roll for heph. I dont think I can ever replicate that

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1233146305308528650/1362913000075558982/Hades_II_2025-04-18_18_09_07.png?ex=680c0824&is=680ab6a4&hm=d8695d37eb6c7848f0daf15360bb36b603e38c8c8854f8230d5523061fbfbb85&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1380&height=776

[stray pivot]

You need lvl 4 in attack and lvl 8 in special for the 2 sec block

[formal pulsar]

that's true but with the attack and special it was always going on and with lvl 5 grand caldera, the damage of each (doubled) blast was through the roof

[formal pulsar]

I just tested chain reaction using pony menu, and with a 2cd heph boon, if you fire it on CD, you will always get a double blast

[stray pivot]

Oof
Well me dumb srry

Boutta to try it with room temperature tomorrow

[cold raven]

for ares blades build, instead of going for dash or cast or whatever, you just slap cut above on torches and get the apollo and heph duo lol

[woven idol]

hey real question, is Mel Blade better than Artemis

[cerulean panther]

I prefer Artemis but I'm hearing from a lot of people that Mel is better.

Also, who else thinks that current Smithy Rush should be a prereq for Chain Reaction now?

When you could force it with holding Sprint down I understand, that's a Merciful End/Divine Dash scenario.

[willow phoenix]

Imo pretty samey ngl lol, at least for 0-32f in my experience

I do prefer mel blades more but it's more because I don't really vibe with the riposte mechanic. I don't like needing to wait for enemies to attack. I guess you can use it as a parry button if you have additional channel speed making it instant

That and mel blades don't need any magick to run which does make things easier on higher fear. The only thing mel blades suck at is the Typhon fight which is a shame lol

[cerulean panther]

The parry is actually not Magick-reliant.

Just channeling your Omega Attack even with 0 Magick or a fully Primed bar will put up the shield if it's off cooldown.

The following O Attack will not fire, but you can still get the "Riposte!"

[willow phoenix]

Huh neat

Maybe running out of magick would make things smoother for me lol

I don't really like how clunky the o attack is sometimes

[uneven palm]

At like extremely extremely high fear I’d say Mel’s a little stronger. Less than that I’d say they’re pretty close. Mel’s consistent and easier to run. Artemis requires more technique but you can run a buncha different ways (regular attack, specials, trick knives, omega attacks) that are all valid.

[woven idol]

What is trick knives?

[uneven palm]

Blade hammer. When you dash-strike you also throw three specials

[stray pivot]

It is?

[timber snow]

Whats the best mel aspect for speedrunning?

[glossy forge]

the order from best to worst is probably staff, flames, skull, coat, daggers, axe

[shy quail]

Real question why do people like visceral impact so much more than profuse bleeding for ares blood drops?

[willow mesa]

oo heinous affront is fun

how come no one told me

[bleak night]

Have you tried it with Light Smite

[bleak night]

Works with Heinous ig

[willow mesa]

ive all three

im a die to prom tho cause im greedy and dodge into attacks lol

[bleak night]

Nice

[formal pulsar]

Visceral is guaranteed 1 or maybe 2 and works much better in room clears. Profuse bleeding has relatively low percentage for the effect it does but its main use is against guardians

[grand pumice]

Is the witch staff even good? Whats the best aspect for it. I wanna try some runs with it so tips would be great!

[sage flame]

momus probably

im sure there are people who will argue but it's momus for the aspect choice

[magic moss]

staff is good, momus is top 5 aspect

[thin ridge]

Momus 🔥

[cerulean panther]

Not according to the Book of Shadows.

It works, you'll get two pops, but if you don't have Volcanic Strike or Flourish Chain Reaction won't spawn.

[stray pivot]

OO

That should work

[cerulean panther]

I believe it's a holdover from when Smithy Sprint held down Sprint for one second and then exploded. The prereqs haven't been updated since.

[magic moss]

Genuine question for the high fear runners that popped up in my head

How much does the sheet impact/motivate you in your own attempts at 50? Like it is a factor when you attempt 50s on aspects you don’t like, or going for 51+ clears, etc

[waxen garden]

what's the best special boon for charon axe? zeus or hera?

[willow phoenix]

Apollo is also pretty good since you can hit the o spec twice on a single enemy

Outside of that, anything that can give origination is good imo so depends more on the overall build. I like going Apollo, Dem, Ares, Pos for the cast damage

[waxen garden]

interesting, I usually start with the Apollo keepsake for Lucid Gain so he's always in the pool

[bleak night]

I mean yeah, still the best idea for the most part

You generally want Orig from Cast + Special but you can do Cast + Dash so you can run Nova Flourish since the damage is disgusting

[strange plinth]

Has anyone been able to get Frosty Veneer lately? Cause I'm trying to do a tank run with Than Axe and pomming Tough Gain and I can't seem to get that infusion, I've done like 8 runs back to back trying to get it and I'm thinking I might have to go Hera Legendary just to get it

[errant latch]

you need at least 4 water for it to show up

[strange plinth]

My last run I had 8 water and it still didn't show up, I got water fitness from posiden so I was hoping that would meant that would be the tank run with frosty veneer

[errant latch]

also it's a demeter infusion boon

[strange plinth]

Yeah, I had Hephaestus, Demeter, Posiden and Hera in the god pool by the end of that run but still no infusion from Demeter

[errant latch]

probs just unlucky, try maxing out your rerolls and/or using them in miniboss rooms to roll increased rarity demeter?

[strange plinth]

I'm maxed out on my rerolls, and mainly saving them to roll for tough gain to pom. RNG really doesn't seem to be in my favour, currently on run 9 hopefully I can get it this run before heading to bed

[uneven palm]

Try Vow of Denial if you really want to force it, but that has significant drawbacks

[uneven palm]

I do want my name next to that “18” a bit, it’s true

[hard marsh]

How do yall recommend building the axe

[errant latch]

can go aphro atk boon and then spec into furious whirlwind hammer for Ω atk spam

+% dmg boons can work in general, like dem hera or apollo

[wide pollen]

Does rarity boost affect the chances of infusions?

[wide pollen]

Freeze on attack is good if you want to play safely

Apollo is hilarious on attack because the attack range is massive, although Hera is still best for killing swarms

[void idol]

does the 50 power from wounds, general special power from slow cooker and such, and on hit effects like scorch or wave flourish apply for every individual rocket in the omega and regular special of the coat?

[wide pollen]

Slow Cooker applies to every hit, that I know

What boons apply to what hits though is something I don't completely understand. I'm hoping for clarity on that myself.

[spare kite]

attack/special, only the base version
attacks/specials includes
strike(s) is both attack and special (+ omegas if plural)

[spare kite]

every rocket will inflict wounds but if an enemy already has wounds the rest of the rockets that hit the same enemy won't get the +50

[uneven palm]

Yes. Infusions are considered common by the game, so you’re less likely to get them when you have chances for increased rarity

[wide pollen]

I've noticed with poseidon special on lin and oros, if I boomerang a special through an enemy so it hits twice, I only get one splash

With Zeus static shock, I get two

[spare kite]

That's an internal cooldown thing afaik

[wide pollen]

On the three hit combo in the attack sequence though, poseidon goes off three times and Zeus once

No, can't be a cooldown, three hit combo strikes faster

[uneven palm]

Yeah it’s a weird thing with blade regular special, you just get the one wave

But like with O special you get a wave per dagger, correctly

[wise idol]

Pretty sure it’s just each attack can only spawn one wave

So like base dagger is the same projectile hitting twice and wouldn’t spawn two waves

But different projectiles will spawn their own wave

[willow phoenix]

Yea each projectile can only spawn one wave, even if they can hit multiple times

Easy examples are dagger special and torch special

[uneven palm]

Oof that’s real trash for torch special then

[heavy stream]

naaaah it's the first time i roll so bad 😭
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/797949612664946820/1365826630169137323/image.png?ex=680eb8ac&is=680d672c&hm=2f162f38ca6146f26991e781b4c12341aa946947fbdd96f4f1f84caa600435a2&

[stray pivot]

Dark Side its the most useful one

[heavy stream]

i did take dark side, but yeah those are the 3 i never take

[cerulean panther]

Smoke the run and start over.

[heavy stream]

lmaoooo it's cool i don't need a hex to win

[heavy stream]

glad i didn't end up taking that advice :p
didn't even know there was an extra page in case you got more boons than that 💀
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/797949612664946820/1365837217632747620/image.png?ex=680ec288&is=680d7108&hm=d9b74eab5911533fbb44bb975513ea363b19693f256fe718ab80fc7328d43c47&

[cerulean panther]

Daaaaaaaang. Very nice!

[wide pollen]

Some of the enemies you raise with Night Bloom can do a surprising amount of damage

[thin ridge]

They should honestly change this

Infusion rate shouldn’t be affected by the rarity thing

[thin ridge]

Dark side is the worst choice why’d you take it

[heavy stream]

it's the one that's not conditional or useless against bosses

[willow phoenix]

If you're not gonna invest in dark side then it's not worth taking tbh, even then it's still the weakest scaling offensive hex

I guess it can work as a panic button but even then it's rarely ever worth lol. Twilight Curse and Night Bloom work much better as a casual hex

[heavy stream]

at least it's strictly upside thanks to impervious

[willow phoenix]

I mean if you take timer I'd argue it'd eat your time instead lol. The very long cast animation just makes me not want to use it

But for casual play it can give a lot of invulnerability period which is a plus I guess

[thin ridge]

It’s a dps limiter

[sage flame]

dark side is based tbh

it's pretty good at room clear tbh and is a great panic button for both rooms and bosses, works really good with antler just for being safe, and a lot of people don't really care about hexes, so one that gives you extended invuln at base is nice

[zinc forge]

How've people been feeling about Hexes? I went through a period of going really hard on them, always equipping the keepsake for more choices, but lately I've been picking it less and less to focus on boons and poms

I think the big hesitancy for me is that you have to invest so much to get the interesting upgrades

[cerulean panther]

Berendain's post in Feedback is pretty much exactly how I feel. #h2-feedback message

When you have a run that recycles Magick quickly and efficiently, when you have the space to take Moonbeam, when Paths of Stars show up enough to push a Hex fully, they're awesome.

That's a lot of conditions.

[zinc forge]

yeah I totally feel that

it's a shame beacuse when they work they're so much fun

[thin ridge]

Also if you don’t want to build them you have to spend rerolls avoiding them if you want an actually good room reward

[cerulean panther]

I'll say the Summit being especially pushy with Hexes has made their deficiencies that much more apparent.

An unupgraded Hex for the Tail fight instead of a rarified boon, or at least a multipom?

[thin ridge]

If you haven’t gotten a hex by that point you clearly don’t want one and offering it is so dumb

[cerulean panther]

Speaking of, why is a miniboss fight even offering non-boon rewards?

[thin ridge]

They should make it only a 10 point path of stars if you have a hex, and if you don’t just make it not part of the pool

[willow phoenix]

It feels like a relic from a time where SGG thought magick would be integral to most builds but now magick is totally optional which places a lot of things especially hex in a weird spot

A lot of hexes are very strong with enough investment. But in a lot of runs they're pretty bad or straight up unusable because of the magick use requirements and how weak some of the hexes are without upgrades

I feel like a big change to hex is coming since it has been feedbacked on a lot since the beginning of EA and they didn't touch on Hex at all in Warsong

[willow phoenix]

Sidepoint but I do feel like the game is kinda weird with how magick is presented as a main resource but doesn't feel like one

Like the design clearly wanted magick to be a very important part of the game with gain boons, the mp bar on top of the health bar, the pot on the same reward level as heart, hex needing you to use magick, priming magick as punishment, and so on. But for a lot of builds magick is totally optional now which does make those magickless build have an advantage because they can just totally ignore that part of the game

Feels like they need to make magick used more outside of just omega moves tbh since the uses of omega is very dependent on weapon and aspect. It's not just a straight up upgrade of the base move so a lot of times you wouldn't even use the omega given the opportunity

Anyway rant over

[zinc forge]

yeah I totally get that, I think the witches staff double hit was a good step towards something like that

or the duo that uses magic to reduce the damage you take

[dreamy thicket]

How does the Eos Daybreaker interact with the Night arcana card? Does it give +crit% to *every *pulse from the Daybreaker? Or only the first pulse? I'm reading some conflicting info. I did ~20 mins of testing myself and seemed like only the first pulse was ever critting.

[willow phoenix]

Only the first one apparently all of them

[junior trail]

its fixed, now it works with every pulses

[uneven palm]

Yeah it’s every pulse

[willow phoenix]

Huh neat

Honestly I feel like a lot of buggy interactions got fixed but never got mentioned in the patch notes

[uneven palm]

Yeah when Eos first was reworked it had a ton of bugs but it seems like most have been ironed out now, but quietly

[gilded sand]

I'm new to Hades II and I'm getting a bit lost by what boons to take, which ones generally fit together for either Attacks, Special Attacks and such.
Is there a list, educational video or guide that I could go by as a beginner?

[stray pivot]

Depends on the weapon and aspect

[uneven palm]

In general, fast or low-power moved want additional damage sources like Poseidon or Hestia or Zeus. Slower, higher-power moves benefit more from percentage boosts like Apollo or Aphrodite. Start playing with that concept and see how it feels.

[iron valley]

Did you play Hades I by chance? If so, are you familiar with "privileged status" from the mirror (now called "Origination" with the Arcana)? I would suggest figuring out how you are going to consistently apply status curses from two different Olympians.

For some weapons, you will focus on your Attacks. For some, Specials. Some will heavily use Omegas, others will focus on regular attack/special. Most of my weapon choices use Special less than Attack. So I always put a status curse on special, and I'm OK with choosing one that either doesn't trigger often (Zeus Blitz, Ares Wounds, Demeter Freeze) or doesn't add damage (Demeter Freeze, Zeus Blitz until the burst).

The "occasional use" button (usually special) are also where I would put a Hephaestus Blast boon. Whereas for my primary button (usually attack), I will consider boons that do not apply curses (and also those that do).

[iron valley]

@gilded sand I then try to get a status curse on my Cast, and on my Sprint. I personally like Demeter because she can have a primary Freeze Cast, and/or add Gust to anyone's cast. I also like her Gust sprint for "Barriers" (blue heart shields). Other choices I like are Apollo for Daze on sprint and Hera for Hitched on sprint. Hestia's "Scorched" on sprint is not the primary use of the boon (primary use is clearing enemy projectiles).

For some aspects, you will focus on faster and weaker strikes (like Blades and Flames). For these, finding ways to increase your "Power" is usually strong, as well as "flat damage incrase" boons (Hestia and Poseidon). For other aspects, you will focus on slower and stronger strikes (Moonstone Axe). For this, finding ways to increase strike speed and higher %age based increases (Aphrodite, Apollo) are especially strong. For most aspects, you can be flexible and/or they are somewhere in the middle.

[iron valley]

@gilded sand If you are looking at trying to learn more about the game mechanics in general, I would suggest focusing on Descura (the staff) as I find it to be the "middle ground" of the aspects (I also happen to think Aspects of Mel and Momus are quite strong at both low and high Fear). Zorophet (the Moonstone Axe) will teach you how to plan out your strikes better... because you will be heavily punished for poor timing, poor positioning, and overcommitting (from too much damage, and from not enough damage) causing self-lock from animations.

I would also try to figure out if you want to be "magick dependent" or "magic independent". Some aspects use a lot of magick (like the Staff, and especially the Flames). Some aspects barely use any magic (Revaal, the Skull), some are "somewhere in the middle" (Xinth, the Black Coat, Lim and Oros the Sister Blades), and some are purely dependent on your playstyle (Axe, plus all of the above if you choose many boons that "prime" a lot of magick).

[spare kite]

(wrong mo- aspect btw, is momus)

[iron valley]

Thanks! totally meant that

[gilded sand]

I did play Hades I for like 30-40 hours I think?
So I do get the Duo Boon system for example, but Hades II makes me feel like I can't insanely power up just one thing anymore, if that makes sense?
Like, I used to play Shield of Chaos and was able to almost fully spec into things that help my Doom.
But Hades II so far makes me feel like there's not just one boon that you focus on and that's your ride or die

[iron valley]

@gilded sand once you know how much magick you will want/need (or, in other words, once you have chosen a weapon and have decided how much you will be obligated to pursue), you can think about which "Gain" boon you want. Some are good if you need a constant refill but of low amounts (Aphrodite, Hestia, maybe Poseidon), some are good if you need it more rarely or only all at once (Heph, Zeus), some are good if you can accept some sacrifice per encounter (Hera primes magick, Ares primes health), and some are good if you can force yourself into a specific situation (Apollo if you stand in a cast that expires, Demeter if you stand completely still for 1 second). Aprhodite's Gain is how she reliably applies her Weak status curse and so I like to choose that for the Axe because I know I will almost always be close and I like her strong % damage boost against close foes on Attack.

[iron valley]

So I think there were a bunch of changes between the games that might be causing this perspective (which isn't necessarily wrong). In H1, much of Zag's playstyle was dash around quickly and then burst an enemy. In H2, Mel moves differently and there seems to be more focus on trying to force her into "thinking" about her engagements more (thus adjusting how status curses are applied; not all of them are easy to apply now). And more boons no longer "stack on top of each other" (including fewer Duos that seem to juice up a particular boon). The closest thing I can think of to boosting the old Ares Doom mechanic is boosting Zeus' new Blitz mechanic (in that there are ways to get it to strike "instantly" or strike twice per single activation). Otherwise, I think part of the new direction is to try to have Mel be more flexible in switcing between options.

[iron valley]

@gilded sand after going back and forth, I do agree that H1 makes me feel like "If I don't get this particular boon/build, I am going to feel weak and probably lose" (I try to play near 32 Heat) and H2 makes me feel like "I'm really not sure if I'll get a particular boon/build, which makes me a bit nervous, but I also feel more comfortable knowing I can be OK with just about any set of boons offered." (I try to play near 32 Fear and the biggest obstacles for me now, besides certain questionable enemy mechanics, are "did I myself position correctly" and "did I set up Origination quickly/reliably enough in my run and/or that fight?")

I focus on "how will I attack tanky enemies?" (like bosses), "how will I deal with mob rooms?" (AoE/multi-target), and "how will I deal with armored foes?" (this seems to be a sticking point I hope they fix; mini-boss "Wardens" have too much armor and not a lot of health.

I can cross those off my lists with many combinations of gods. However, I also feel I am required to branch out along god offerings to accomplish all of that. In Hades 1 it felt more like "Do I want to attack quickly, or do I want to attack slowly? Do I want to be up close, or do I want to be far away?" and that the solution to winning a fight was always just "make this number bigger" (which, while important for Hades 2, is definitely not the only important decision).

[dapper elbow]

When doing a judgment run what is the best weapon and aspect that can get me through the run

[swift sedge]

i dont understand the prometheus fight at alll.. i've gotten to him like 3 times now and i can't tell what he's doing or how i should avoid his attacks and then the stupid memory game is so hard to remember for me

iwent in with 440 hp and took damage from everything 😭

[glossy forge]

I felt the same as you until I watched this video from unexplainedbacn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDfSTMw9qsI

It's mostly about understanding how to dodge his big moves and knowing his "small -> small -> big" pattern, and knowing that you can punish him for a second after each big move

[willow phoenix]

Something I didn't realize until after I beat like 100 Prometheus is that his ground pound ring thing is totally safe inside the ring, just like Hecate's ring attack

But yeah if you struggle with Prom I suggest just running around in the fight to get a feel of his patterns and when he's staying still

His pattern is not exactly easy to understand on the fly like the other bosses

[gilded sand]

Thanks a lot for your input. I'll try to take some of that mindset and use it for myself.
Knowing that it's normal for the build not to boost up one specific boon or ability is helping as well.
That was pretty much my "main concern" because it felt odd and in a way I was unsure if my builds were okay and questioning my choices.
I only have the first 4(?) weapons unlocked so far and I didn't finish the final boss yet, but I will aim for that tomorrow

[wild pine]

A lot of the hexes now feel great with moderate investment to heavy investment. I'm running on fear in the low 20s and just grabbing a hex in ephyra and the moonbeam in thessaly allows any of wolf howl, eclipse, or pet summon to clean house to the extent that they end up in my top 5 damage source lists, sometimes even on top. I'm routinely getting >100k hex damage. The moon laser isn't quite as good but also totally works, and then the phase shift and moon water value are hard to quantify but very real.

Only the sheep hex and dark side feel really bad at this point.

Even without taking the selene trinket or seriously hunting upgrades, I feel it's easy to get reasonable value from wolf howl, moon water, and sometimes the pet. I don't feel like I need to be on an omega-spam or massive-mana-cycling build to get value because I usually at least have the passive hex charge card going even on very low-spending builds.

[spice cave]

I posted about it in the #h2-feedback channel, but to copy-paste:

I don't find Hexes all that satisfying to use without specifically building my run around them.

My current experience with them is that while they're certainly useful if I get them fully developed (particularly Total Eclipse), I feel like I'm building up an entirely separate thing that doesn't truly synergize that well with my other boons that I'm collecting. This leads me to either attempt to ignore Selene entirely on runs, or picking her up because I'm specifically building around Hexes. If I try to split the difference, I end up either getting Selene too late and having an underpowered Hex that has no parity with anything else in my toolset, or underdeveloping Selene anyway because I'm more interested in getting better boons.

I guess what I really want is for Hexes to have more synergy with the rest of the boons so that I stop feeling like I have to go out of my way to develop it into something that I can use with the rest of my build.

[wide pollen]

There are hexes that can be useful without investment

Wolf Howl is good for i-frames even if the damage is subpar

[iron valley]

I agree, however, this issue means being "forced into Paths" (like in Fields) might become a punishment

[iron valley]

Biggest benefit of Wolf Howl is definitely Eris' comments during the fight. Second is the jump causing i-frames. Third is repositioning (in the context of i-frames and slow-mo) The mastermind behind the Epic "jump twice" boon was living in 3025 because by that far into the Path you should be able to burn through magick.

[iron valley]

I think part of the issue re: cohesion/synergy with other boons is that it could be too easy for them to be overpowered (or useless) based on the scaling of each component. Since Hexes shouldn't overtake all of the other boons in a build, the baseline seems to be to make them tend towards weaker or "less integrated".

I completely agree with the "how can I feel like hexes have a parity with the rest of my build?" idea, personally feeling like I rarely hit the sweet spot of "I invested the right amount into Paths without feeling like I wish I had more points" and without getting upset for "I wasn't able to invest enough, and so I wish I hadn't invested at all"

I love how Hexes can trigger faster/more flexibly than Calls in H1. And its rare that I can't think of/observe a time for hexes to be "at least somewhat useful"; my big gripe (I think I share with your perspective) is that there is a huge opportunity cost to go for hexes and the "hey a hex could be good here" is weighted against this.

My preference would be for hex offering and/or Path points to be awarded consistently at each region start/end. Can choose to bank Points or choose/change a Hex. Opportunity cost of choosing/changing is loss of that chance for more Points. Worst that can happen is someone chooses not to use hexes, like choosing not to use a Call in H1.

[iron valley]

Yeah, in H1, most of the god "identities" were based on a single mechanic and that this mechanic was obvious. Most "quirks" (like changes to casts or dashes) were unrelated to the rest of the "identity" and thrown in as variety to the regular move set (such as Ares/Aphrodite/Demeter/Dionysus casts being different).

Now, the "H2 identities" are more thematic. I would strongly suggest you think about "how does this personality/flavor contribute to what I want to do?" Zeus is "playmaker/closer" (burst after time and/or threshold damage with Blitz, or "pseudo-single target burst/pseudo-multi target spread" with his Cast (chain lightning feels like more of a remnant from 1) and his goal is to increase the number of lightning bursts (hit many enemies and hit them hard); he also has boons that can cause double lightning strikes or instantly trigger Blitz.

Hera is "family/include everyone" with Hitch encouraging hitting other targets (basically Bow Aspect of Rama) and her boons also help with other gods and/or need other gods (broadly). Her "AoE" way of handling mobs is kind of like Zeus in that she benefits those who can hit many enemies infrequently, and she benefits those who can hit one target for high numbers.

[iron valley]

@gilded sand Poseidon is... basically unchanged from H1. Most of his boons focus around a single relatively large flat boost to strikes (yours or enemies) and pushing your self or enemies. He benefits those who can hit often and those who can figure out how to push enemies around in a useful way. Hestia is also kind of like Poseidon in that she helps those who can keep hitting targets (although her damage is explicitly over time instead of individual bursts from separate strikes; please note that Hestia's scorch mechanic works quite differently from everything else...) These two (separately) are probably the most awkward to use without devoting significant attention to them individually (and thus are quite difficult to combine).

Apollo... has his fingers in everything (he was "god of many things"). He wants to show off (larger strike range, expanding casts, status is "dazed") and he is decent everywhere for damage, but doesn't really shine in a particular spot. Unfortunately, for consistency sake, this means I'm often using him just for his dash and then "whatever else he gives me" with my focus on other gods. For non-Zeus casts though, I really like his boon that expands cast size. And if I don't need a status on attack/special/cast, I'm not particularly upset with using him to fill a slot.

[iron valley]

@gilded sand Aphrodite is very much "close combat": the damage boost is great if you get in close (and otherwise it isn't active). Her Weak applications from dash and from Gain incentivize being close by reducing the damage enemies dish out and increasing what you deal. If you can't manage being too close to comfort from your Aspect or your other boons, Aphrodite might be a liability.

Hephaestus is about damage mitigation and addressing damage mitigation. The "new armor every room", "invincible at start of room", and "extra damage to armored enemies" are some of the best boons in the entire game. His Cast boon is decent, but I unfortunately find his attack and special boons to be too slow. Still, if you approach him as a support god, you should be happy.

Ares theme is "keep dishing out violence"; his central mechanic is not "Wounds" but instead the "blood drops" and "sword drops". Thus, he can be useful even without "Wounds" (sword drops on slow/frozen/immobile enemies are incredibly strong because the balance is around them being able to miss). Ares also benefits when being willing to gamble/sacrifice life points. This can obviously be a huge issue, so if you are willing to invest in Ares, you can also generate blood drops on enemies with Wounds. Ares is also stronger when using Vows to have more enemies (and thus more dying).

[iron valley]

@gilded sand (somehow Demeter didn't copy so its out of order...I think of her similarly to Apollo.) Demeter is like the "crowd control" version of Apollo's utility. Freeze can be the most OP status in the game if you use it well, or it can be barely worthwhile. I suggest trying to apply it to small groups at a time: either to give you space to retreat/attack another group, or to take down the frozen ones. Biggest mistake I had early on was hitting everything with Freeze and then having them thaw (reapplication requires 10 seconds from first application); if I couldn't kill everything in that initial period, I would accidentally set myself up to be down this resource and thus get overrun. Gust is also surprisingly strong with crowd control (slowing enemies and their projectiles is often almost as useful as an entire freeze if you can otherwise position well). And Demeter has a boon that heals on resource gathering, which I didn't realize was something offered quite frequently until I started taking this boon. Honestly I probably rank Demeter the MVP god of all of them because of how well she opens up the rest of the collection and how applicable she is to every Aspect.

[thin ridge]

Panda how long did it take you to write all this holy crap 😭

[iron valley]

I don't remember maybe 5-10 minutes for the stuff about each god? I jotted down notes stream-of-consciousness while watching another video and didn't revise it much. I had given the topic a lot of independent thought in the past few weeks so perhaps that affected things. I hope you and others find/found it useful as a "lower spoiler/patch agnostic" way to develop an approach to how to choose a god pool, and I thought it was a useful contribution for "focused discussion of gameplay, design, balance, and builds". Especially for someone who first posted about getting lost in H2 because of differences from H1 (and, I assume, wasn't looking to just copy a YouTube suggestion).

[formal pulsar]

what is even more interesting is that they added anti omega attacks mechanic in this patch to Prometheus. His dodge move only trigger when you use omega attack. So a magickless build never get to experience that. Why add more anti omega attack mechanic? I feel like the magickless play style is already stronger.

[iron valley]

I don't think its always Omega attacks: I've had it trigger before Ares or Artemis empowered non-Omega strikes. I think it might be attached to "high damage is likely incoming" (and Omegas are almost always going to do this). In agreement with you though, I've also had fights where it has never triggered and those were all when I wasn't using Omegas (like with Black Coat on an attack/cast build). I forget how it played out with Aspect of Medea for me because I probably don't use any magick at all on those runs except to trigger Huntress and anything incidental from a Hammer.

[iron valley]

This also being said, I've also had it trigger when I was definitely not going to hit him. Like I completely whiffed a Staff Omega Alpha or an Omega Cast and his "someone is using magick" ears started burning, except he ran closer to the strike to tell me since I was the closest person to gossip with. So I'm not entirely sure what the trigger is.

[magic moss]

it procs on omega moves

[formal pulsar]

mininet looked into the code here: #h2-builds-and-combat message

oh there he is. but yeah according to mini code diving, it is triggered by omegas

[iron valley]

I don't believe you, name every omega attack. Just kidding. Thanks for looking into it, this is super helpful to know.

[magic moss]

whats funny is that that post was made when i was still pretty new to code diving so it was all based on experimental testing

but now that i know what to look for better, https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1249502882819215453/1366260441742835784/image.png?ex=68104cb1&is=680efb31&hm=d52fab8d674fc47f6ce62782467a6b15b93d1fcd61c6f78df9554a67763c3327& i didnt need to do that entire testing process XD

i wonder what "ChargeManaWeaponFire" could mean

[iron valley]

I believe it means "the only winning move is not to play"

Okay so what does the code say about how he knows if we will win or not?

[zinc forge]

Yeah I get that. Like Calls from the first game we're still impacted by your other boons and were a much smaller investment

[woven idol]

What's the best cast for Momus cast builds?

[iron valley]

That's a bit of a loaded question because Momus can make almost anything work, so I think you should focus on "what doesn't work" (especially since it isn't necessarily intuitive).

I think the two best casts at the moment are Zeus and Demeter Freeze. Demeter Freeze happens to activate faster due to Hermes Winner's Circle Omega Cast speed increase, when Zeus and a few others that are x strikes in y time do not.

Demeter also has ways to add Gust to any cast (and with Apollo, to add Cyclones when standing in Gust). These continue with Momus.

Aphrodite Cast is nice because the grouping pull repeats. In contrast, Poseidon cast isn't necessarily bad, but the repeat trigger is only good to keep enemies away (instead of stuck). Poseidon Geyser Spout does repeat so burst is OK. I'm not keen on Poseidon on Momus because the repeat mechanic + pushing make things less consistent and predictable and any avoidable losses are to be avoided at 5 minute timers.

Hestia Cast is OK, but if you aren't building diligently towards Scorch, it is best used as an "I need to apply another Status Curse and I happened to get unlucky in getting Hestia." Ares Sword Ring triggers, but that also isn't anything special due to Momus alone (but if you have a way to freeze or slow enemies in the ring, its a good combo).

Apollo cast is ongoing Daze + damage bursts, and his Gain (magick granted if standing in expiring cast) does repeat. Please note that Apollo's Prominence Flare prevents new casts (Omega or regular) from starting while it is ongoing, and it also does not repeatedly trigger with Momus passive (thus this boon has a strongly negative relationship with Momus in addition to being difficult to get itself).

I believe Momus cast does activate with Ares Meat Grinder, Poseidon Geyser Spout, Artemis Easy Shot, and Demeter/Ares Hostile Environment (which help Omega Cast), which seems slightly inconsistent with Prominence Flare and is something you would have to memorize.

[willow phoenix]

I like dem cast then geyser spout

Geyser spout works with the momus cast although the damage numbers get a bit weird

If you have ares you can get the dem ares duo for more damage. The blade rifts also work with momus

[woven idol]

Very helpful, thanks alot you guys

[thin ridge]

Arctic ring arctic gale meat grinder(to get hostile environemt, sell this for geyser spout as soon as possible), winners circle, a Zeus core boon(I try for hail storm) and for gain lucid is best but born gain will always work

[wide pollen]

How do you sell it for Geyser Spout?

[spare kite]

Purging pools in underworld

[spare kite]

If you haven't unlocked the incantation for them to show up in all in between regions you gotta sell 3 boons in the one that's before Tartarus

[wide pollen]

Oh wow, I never knew about that

Because I never sell boons there

I'm at like night 320 or so

[spare kite]

Think of them as cleaning your pom options from trash more than the money

You quickly realize how quickly how so little some boons do lol

Orrr you can also do stuff like selling bridal glow and picking it up again

Or either of the ramson duos or hera's legendary

[wide pollen]

Seems to me for those last two you'd need a lot of luck to get it again, although I guess you still get the money if they don't show up again

I wonder if I've missed other incantations like that

[harsh sparrow]

hi all! looking for some advice to defeat typhoon, that second phase is so full of stuff i cant even keep my eye on anything. Maybe i am just old now.

[stray pivot]

Dont get desperate and dont get too close unless hes lasering the whole room

Hes more TANKY than hard

[spare kite]

? Ideally you wanna stay in his face

His chin slam is a lot easier to dodge than anything

[stray pivot]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[uneven palm]

Half of his nonsense can’t hit up top. Tongue laser, floating doohickeys, and mini tail won’t bother you. Chin slam is telegraphed by the horns flashing and he’ll do it roughly half the time if you’re in in his face. move down quickly or dash right under him. Eyeball blasts move to one side, dash through the shot, sprint to the other side to avoid the splashes. In the final phase there’s a second bounce and they go all over so you’ve just gotta save dashes to iframe those. Breath tornados do a lap around the edge and get back up when you can, or just tank them they hurt the least.

[wide pollen]

Eyeball blasts get me the most by far

Can combo you too

[thin ridge]

Literally just stay in his face and dodge for head slams and tempests. Everything else can’t really do anything

Tail spin is very generous but hits hard

[mental sluice]

Does winners circle speed up prominence flare? My guess is that it doesn't since I don't think it impacts meat grinder.

[junior trail]

no

[thin ridge]

Cast expires faster so it’ll trigger faster

[mental sluice]

It truly is the worst cast modifier 😔

[thin ridge]

Meat grinder is different tho because you can have a separate cast and meat grinder going and meat grinder lasts during the cast

[mental sluice]

Getting a lot of meat grinders can be fun, although I don't know if I'd say they're the most effective

[formal pulsar]

Does the high powered strike that inflict wound benefit from origination?

[elfin forge]

that's a good question

proc order like that is kinda hard to tell I feel

[formal pulsar]

Okay just tested it and it doesn’t…

That kinda blows

[elfin forge]

so it's damage->wound basically

[formal pulsar]

Yeah

[elfin forge]

meaning you probably want a third curse

I have kinda the same question for blitz

[formal pulsar]

Let me test that as well rq

Blitz works

If there are only two curses on the mob and one of them is blitz, blitz will benefit from origination when it proves

Also I wish maybe they would rework the ares scaling so that Poms increase the wound power not the percentage it would make him more unique and interesting imo

[elfin forge]

honestly though % scaling with poms is always better, at least with the formulas that the game has right now

scaling any flat number just falls off a cliff so fast

[formal pulsar]

I kinda disagree. the thing is this game has 105% global damage baked into every build from origination furies and strength alone before doing anything really. Before any boon boosting global damage. Adding extra 10% per pom from ares is not really ground breaking. Boosting base damage now that can scale with that massive modifier a lot.

All the global damage modifier are the reason why blitz ends doing way more damage than you think by initially looking at the numbers

And why it falls off at 55f runs where the global damage is not really there is boost it up

[wide pollen]

How much do people know about the first few runs after starting a fresh save file?

I've found that Eris shows up at Oceanus to be a mega douche

Are the gods set in stone? Will it always start with Apollo, then Poseidon and Demeter? Come to think of it, I never saw a fourth god.

Or a Daedelus hammer, not having even 1 of those was awful

I managed to get to Chronos second phase and got him partway down before being hit by a 70 damage scythe

[errant latch]

there probs is a god order, as in, you only see certain gods after you reach certain milestones

[iron valley]

Hades 1 had "a god order" for certain runs. Most of the gods were hard coded not to appear the first run. This was lightly for story purposes (Nyx reached out to Athena first, and then more of the family decided to help as they heard rumors about Zagreus).

In Hades 2, there is story exposition meant to occur over the first few nights. This includes when gods and upgrades are introduced. Supergiant has kindly blessed us with a playable intro rather than 30 to 60 minutes of non-interactive cutscenes and dialogue. The bargain between story set-up and player interaction is that the game needs to force you to die a few times before killing Chronos, otherwise certain story beats would need to be excluded or otherwise cause issues due to ordering.

People like to complain about Eris's "blessing". And I get it; it feels unfair to have no agency. But the alternatives are: play a game without any story (or confusing story); play a game with perhaps more than 30 minutes of mostly non-interactive intro; obtain a pre-set save after the "playable intro" (plenty of people do this); or simply intentionally die in the first room for 10 runs or so. Sure, this doesn't technically solve the second minor section where the game forces you to be unable to progress briefly. But that one is a small sacrifice of time to strengthen the story and represent the sacrifices of the family.

I'm surprised there is so much hate for these "forced speedbumps" in Hades but we don't hear "Why doesn't Link just start with the Master Sword and all items in each game?" or "Why do I need to grind for loot in my MMORPG?"

I'm not saying you are complaining. Your questions seem to be based out of curiosity. The game opens up quickly in terms of runs, though not necessarily in terms of minutes played. You will soon have many options to choose from; the early limits in build variety are so it isn't too much at once.

[silent crow]

ppl dont complain about other forces speedbumps bc mmorpgs and zelda obviously have more set restrictions in what you can do

in hades 2 the speedbump should be the game being tough as nails just like the first but they have to add this unintuitive restriction because the UW route is too easy

[iron valley]

I'm sorry, you are right. Hades should have also not made you fight him 10 times before he let you go, and Persephone should have come back after you met her once. The whole game should have been "tough as nails" until you beat it once and for all.

[silent crow]

those dont feel like the game is actively robbing the player of a win because theyre too good

[iron valley]

Not sure why you are continuing this since you and I are obviously never going to agree. You sound like the type of player who gets upset because "you should be able to play 32 fear because you are actually good". If you don't like how the game is designed, uninstall it and find a new game. Please stop suggesting the game's narrative is fundamentally designed incorrectly simply because it doesn't match your ideal or some past iteration of a frankly different game. This will be the last time I interact with you and I suggest you reciprocate.

[silent crow]

..im sorry?

i dont know why you're assuming all these things about me

[woven idol]

Damn someone sounds sensitive

Anyway, is there any difference in playstyle when using Selene Coat and Mel Coat? You just tap the Hex button every few seconds right?

[errant latch]

bro actually left the server dang

[bleak night]

wtf.

[willow phoenix]

Selene wants to do a lot of omega moves since the selene hex is about buffing omega damage

While mel coat doesn't really have any additional incentive for omega move and instead have buff for attacks, so generally I prefer just dash attack spam tbh for it lol

Also damn chill people it's just a game

[junior trail]

ʷʰᵃᵗˢ ᵗʰᵉ ᵗᵉᵃᵃᵃ ᵗʰᵉ ᵍᶦʳˡˢ ᵃʳᵉ ᶠᶦᵍʰᵗᶦⁿᵍᵍᵍᵍᵍᵍᵍ

[woven idol]

😭

Eroticpanda sounds like a huge butt im sorry

[woven idol]

Oh so entirely different playstyle then thanks

[willow phoenix]

Some people play Selene like lvl 1 mel coat on super high fears so you're not entirely wrong tbh lol

[bleak night]

I tried my best not to lol

[lean acorn]

anyone have a rec on which aspects of the staff and skull should be used to do the 20 nightmare run? They are the last two pieces of nightmare I need, but I've been hitting a wall lately.

[uneven palm]

Momus is strongest staff. Either stack up Omegas with big percentages (Geyser Spout and Ares-Dem Hostile Environment can can make the cast especially powerful) or maybe stack up attack hammers (Mirrored, Wicked, Rapid).

Medea’s probably the strongest skull but any of them if you just need a clear I’d fish for Possessed Array hammer, get magick sorted (like Born Gain) and lean into that.

I can dig up some videos if you wanna see how any of em play

[lean acorn]

This is super helpful, thank you!

[stray pivot]

Im sorry i prefer persephone because i still need to use braincells to win

[willow phoenix]

Mel Skull is the ultimate brain dead skull imo, like no thoughts just shoot and reload

[stray pivot]

Yeah then comes medea skull load special load special load special

[uneven palm]

Medea’s loop is simple but the “don’t get hit” part takes skill

[grand pumice]

Guys give me your best aspect of thanatos build

[sage flame]

poseidon attack spin, I can be trusted

thanatos is super flexible and can work with almost any build you throw at it tbh

[errant latch]

aphro atk, dem special/cast: freeze em then spin to win

[uneven palm]

It could be worse lol

[sage flame]

honestly when I was typing it out I was like "tbh this isn't even that bad"

but poseidon bad right guys

[thin ridge]

I used to think this but Medea is really not brainless at all

It just looks brainless and broken but maneuvering well changes the whole run

[thin ridge]

Level 40 blitz 🤑

[willow phoenix]

I said mel skull lol, you don't need maneuvering with mel skull

[thin ridge]

Wait I’m stupid sorry

[glossy forge]

I mean, it's not at all robbing the player of a win because they're too good. Fresh file speedrunners exist, people can consistently clear fresh file. Good enough to win with no restrictions != too good imo, and I don't think anyone is getting robbed

[formal pulsar]

they left the server. dont know if they can read your message. felt like a bit of an overaction but people need to chill, it is a game.

[glossy forge]

Was it sand who left or erotic panda? 😵‍💫

[formal pulsar]

sand

[glossy forge]

True, it's not that deep at the end of the day

[woven idol]

Erotic panda sounds like a huge jerk ngl

[glossy forge]

that's what I picked up too, i hope they just had a bad day or smtg bc wtf 😭

[wide pollen]

This isn't the first incident, there was something a couple of days ago as well.

[sage flame]

some people are just rude on the internet /shrug

[bleak night]

[thin ridge]

They just hide their nastiness in giant text walls

[bleak night]

There was another incident before this one...?

[thin ridge]

Nothing big just them being annoying

Pandas only been here for like a week 😭

[thin ridge]

Eris shows up in oceanus?

[bleak night]

Early on for the Blessing of Strife thing ye

[wide pollen]

After a few runs, she moves to Mourning Fields. After a few more, Tartarus. After that, not in the underworld.

I never saw her there my first playthrough, but starting a fresh file she stops players from winning too soon. Or makes it a lot harder for them, anyway.

She doesn't fight you just makes it so you take more damage, starting at +20% then going to +100%

[junior trail]

i wonder if the reward from eris is artificer-able or not

[wide pollen]

I dunno, but it is larger than normal rewards, so I'd rather not

There's plenty to transform in the Underworld

[spare kite]

Prob not

Or at least they can't be sea star'd so it makes sense in my head

[wide pollen]

Speaking of artificer, a neat thing I found out the other day. Artificer charges refresh after the Chaos Barren curse wears off.

[bleak night]

wha

[spare kite]

???

[junior trail]

[spare kite]

Amazing

[wide pollen]

Relevant in like 1 out of a few hundred runs.

[sage flame]

wait thats kinda goated to know tho

esp if you get barren in oceanus, you may get some oceanus minor transforms, otherwise fields side rewards also would go crazy

[civic salmon]

I've been making a lot of builds with exceptional talent and i tried it with Pan
Heaven FLourish + static shock + arc flash + double strike
And it was shockingly bad
I thought after each dagger hit, it would apply blitz and then the next to hit would set it off and so on

Is that not how arc flash works?

[junior trail]

Arc Flash only triggers Blitz instantly, it doesn’t bypass the internal cooldown. So even though it procs right away, there’s still that 0.6 second window before Blitz can be applied again

Pan o.special is too fast for blitz build

[civic salmon]

ahhhhh I see

dang i really thought it was gonna be amazing

[junior trail]

Static Shock has its own internal cooldown too; it caps out at 3 chain-lightnings within 0.75 seconds.

[formal pulsar]

Finally an answer why static shock works with coat dash strikes but doesn’t increase with exhaust riser. THANK YOU

[blissful escarp]

for the past week i have been trying to beat 32 fear on the surface with medea skulls for the first time but i've had so many good runs die to typhons tail i just need tips for that fight

[faint gazelle]

does the Night Arcana work with Momus Staff?

[junior trail]

night only works with the initial o.move and not momus copies

[woven idol]

okay so Ares finally appeared to me, what is his gameplan and build ideas? What I should play around, what his boons does in general, good duos and legendaries and such?

[uneven palm]

Mess around some he’s got a lot of good duos. Heinous Affront (Ares-Zeus) is awesome. Hostile Environment (Ares-Demeter) rocks on cast-y aspects like Momus and Persephone.

He’s fine just to throw on your off-hand attack/special to chunk down things with Wound and get access to Grievous Blow, which ups your overall damage by a lot.

Other than that Ares attack/special is absolutely best on things where you’ve got a damage boost already. Like Ares attack on Medea rules.

And with Furies/Strength/Origination you already have a big damage boost built-in so Ares attack/special is rarely a bad take honestly

[uneven palm]

The hitbox is real fussy there, I had a rough time too. Try to get Mint Condition from Heph so you can inflict as much safe damage as you can early. If you’ve still got magick you can use the O special to ram through and do damage during some unsafe times like when it’s making eggs.

[errant latch]

ok bc I have a skill issue with surface I think I'll try bridal glow shenanigans:
hera keepsake -> onion vow -> hermes room 2 -> dodge boon -> ephyra -> bridal glow dodge boon

hopefully help it along with gale, aphro infusion and circe dodge to get 100% 😛

[woven idol]

Thanks !!

[heavy stream]

WHAT
the game offered me a choice between two duo boons
and then my CONCAVE STONE TRIGGERED

[spare kite]

First good stone use

[heavy stream]

just be good at the game idk what to tell you

glowing coal + tidal ring + arctic gale carries yet another run

[static thicket]

downbad panda

[wide pollen]

Is there a resource somewhere, a compilation of what things have what internal cooldowns?

[static thicket]

wiki maybe

[willow phoenix]

Personally I really like glowing coal and fourth degree, like you can easily get like 1k+ damage each cast which gets insane with winner circle

[heavy stream]

sure but it's harder to get
glowing coal tidal ring is massive and easy

[willow phoenix]

You can also get both

Hmm fourth degree should work with heinous affront right, so adding that and light smite would make for some insane fireworks

[junior trail]

wiki has the info, you can also dig into the code if you're not sure about the details

[pale vortex]

Any good build idea for aspect of medea?

[uneven palm]

Zeus special, whatever +% on attack

Possessed Array is the best hammer but you need magick. Boosted Ignition or Colossus Driver are lots of free extra damage

Just checking, do you know the damage loop? Lot of people misunderstand the aspect. Don't attack and stand there. Tap attack, special into/through an enemy to pop the attacks, repeat. Load up multiple attacks for armor or if you know it'll one-shot em but otherwise 1 attack is fine.

[thin ridge]

Wounds attack is also good especially with heinous

Flutter if you want most %, nova for area damage

Wide grin is also fun since it’ll auto equip all the skulls in one click instead of four

[uneven palm]

I don't love wide grin because it breaks the basic loop, but you can work with it. pairing it with Bolstered for 6 instapops is nice.

[wide pollen]

How exactly does romantic spark work?

It looked like the damage bonus was much more than 80% when I used it

[pale vortex]

Oh nice! Haha I don't know so good to use it but I wanna try! It seems nice! Although I'm more committed black coat but I like to try new things

[pale vortex]

Like aphro on attack?

[thin ridge]

I just like it for the chunk

[thin ridge]

Mostly likely it’s leveled up without u realizing(the blitz), u have strength or orig or something else boosting it

[uneven palm]

Yeah, Ares, Aphro, Hera, Apollo, or Demeter

[wide pollen]

I'm comparing the damage to when it triggers without a dash

Not to the number on the boon

Origination online both when activating with dash and activating without dash

Same combat

One is at about 200 and the other at about 500

[pale vortex]

Ok thanks a lot

[thin ridge]

Demeter on Medea?

[formal pulsar]

honestly just ask @junior trail guy knows everything

[uneven palm]

I mean it's the last choice but it's fine. You've already got +90% on attacks so the difference between Aphro and Demeter isn't so stark

[thin ridge]

Aphro is like double Demeter tho

It’s quite noticeable

[formal pulsar]

with the +105% global damage modifier. and the 90% medea attack. the difference between epic demeter and aphro attacks is 195+60=255% (demeter) and 195+120=315% (aphro)

[uneven palm]

Thank you for doing the math 🙂

so yeah it's something, but Aphro isn't giving you double damage over Dem like you'd think by the boon numbers

Actually those numbers seem high. Isn't skull attack like 40 power?

[formal pulsar]

Well they are. But the difference between percentage attacks is not as big as it initially seems. You are not doing double damage with aphro. Probably more like 20% to 30%. Changes with multiplicative stuff like grievous and crit tho.

[uneven palm]

That is correct but your math above seem way high. With 40 base power, +195% from Furies, Orig, Strength, and Aspect your attacks hit for 118. Epic aphro (+120%) would add 48 to that for 166. Epic Demeter (+60%) would add 24 for 142.

[formal pulsar]

I meant the percentage not the raw numbers

[uneven palm]

ahhh, gotcha

i was reading it as output damage

[formal pulsar]

Nah you are good. Typing fast so omitted the %. My bad

[uneven palm]

So yeah, you're looking at a difference of 24 damage per attack b/w Aphro and Demeter at equal rarity. Not nothing, but it's not as big a swing as you'd expect from the attack boon percentages.

This is why I think Apollo or Hera attack are often better takes than Aphro just generally because their utility bits probably outstrips the little extra damage you get from Aphro.

It's also why Ares attack stomps on Medea because that 50 power from Wound is getting boosted by so much additional +% either from globals or the aspect.

[pale vortex]

Tried zues on special and ares at attack with divine vengeance and ares/Zeus duo boon and it was awesome! Lost though but it was nice run

[woven idol]

What should my Arcana setup look like? I'm playing strength

[thin ridge]

Get the one that boosts omega speed, the boatman and both reroll upgrades

Wayward son for healing, messenger for speed

Night and huntress if you cycle omegas a lot

[woven idol]

Thanks 👍

[uneven palm]

Most of us try-hards have the rolls-and-cash corner, entire first column for Divinity, Strength or Death, Persistence, rest is up to you. Origination and Lovers to finish up is common.

[woven idol]

Thanks bro

[cunning reef]

Hello, does the duo boon Hostile Environment not work with Tidal Ring from Poseidon? I've been trying for a while and it never gets offered. For contet I have Meat Grinder on my omega cast and a Demeter core boon. Thanks for any info

[civic salmon]

does daybreaker copy the special or the attack? it says special but looks like it's copying attack

[past salmon]

the daybreaker projectile shoots out a special whenever you special

[civic salmon]

oh so like it uses your attack but it activates when you use special?

[past salmon]

huh

[civic salmon]

Well it looks like the same color as my attack boon (hera's) so the blast it emits is also upgraded by that boon
but it emits that blast whenever you use special?

[past salmon]

no its like
It copies ur specials in like
Pretend the Daybreaker is a 2nd Melinoe
Whenever you special it specials
Whenever you O-Special it does the same

The projectile itself has a blast as a seperate thing and goes off ur attack boon

like hit the special button while the daybreaker is out and you will see

[civic salmon]

gotcha thanks!

oh i see
i have exceptional talent so i kinda just thought they were all from me lol

[stable herald]

oh, I thought you had to hit the Daybreaker with your special and it would launch its own specials. goes to show how little I used that aspect lol, I think I only ever used it in the Chaos Trial

[junior trail]

Yes, tidal ring is incompatible with hostile

And local climate

[cunning reef]

Ah that sucks. I hate hidden mechanics. Thanks @junior trail

[civic salmon]

exceptional talent + daybreaker is pretty cool

[solemn loom]

Will redirect to the latest site, https://h2crossroads.pages.dev/.
Uses browser cache, will save selection and continue where you left off unlike previous where everything will reset upon navigation.

[cerulean panther]

Is Tidal Ring incompatible or is Geyser Spout? Because Tidal Ring shouldn't interact with Omega Cast boons at all.

[uneven palm]

It is Tidal Ring, for some reason

[cunning ruin]

Zeus and Hera's marriage might be on the rocks, but their boons might be the rekindling they need.
Sworn Strike + Chain lightning? Call me a marriage counselor because these two are just better together 👏

[cerulean panther]

I wouldn't hate an alternate Duo that made it so Hitched enemies took full shared damage.

Maybe limited you to two or three Hitched enemies at a time.

[cunning ruin]

That would be cool. Their boons go so well together it's a shame their duos are giving up the one or the other

Blitz and Hitch shred through encounters like no one's business

[spare kite]

Just pom hereditary bane a few times

Is like +10% a pom still I think

[cerulean panther]

Okay, but what if you Pommed HB and then took the new Duo and shared damage exceeded full damage taken?

Hit this Auto-Watcher for 100 damage, the Hitched Skydracon takes 150.

[spare kite]

You can still do that with hereditary bane alone lol

It doesn't cap at 100%

[cunning ruin]

I was gonna say maybe the duo could be inflicting Blitz on all Hitched foes, but that's what I already do with the combo I mentioned...

[willow phoenix]

Hereditary Bane with Queen's ransom can reach like 200%+

[cerulean panther]

I did not know that.

[cunning ruin]

I know what I'm gunning for next run then.

[formal pulsar]

Is hereditary bane additive to the hitch damage?

[thin ridge]

Wait that’s so stupid what reason could there even be to do that

[spare kite]

Leftover from when it instantly detonated ig(?)

[limpid spear]

Does anybody know what determines which boons you can stack on each other? I mean how you can't have Geyser Sprout, Meat Grinder, or Prominence Flare together (presumably because they are all Omega cast modifiers) but you can have Fine Line and Cut Above together even though they are both omega move modifiers. (i'm making up the terminology, idk)

[thin ridge]

There are only very specific examples of boons being incompatible

I think tidal ring is incompatible with hostile and local

[uneven palm]

You can’t get Weed Killer if you have a “rapid” hammer for probably buggy historical reasons

Think those are the big ones?

[thin ridge]

Weed killer doesn’t work with rapid slash?

Cause I got that the other day

[uneven palm]

Oh really? Wiki right now says they’re exclusive but things be wrong sometimes

[thin ridge]

Maybe you are right and it just is a f10

[uneven palm]

The rapid ones used to remove your omega attack and I think the code hasn’t caught up

[limpid spear]

oh ok gotcha. So its actually very few instances were boons/hammers can't stack.
Thanks for the responses. I didn't know Tidal ring couldn't get local climate!

[uneven palm]

that's a weird one but yeah

[wide pollen]

Really? That's awful.

[junior trail]

Can’t wait for the next update and then having to recheck everything and rewrite the whole bug list on the wiki again woohoo

[wide pollen]

Well hopefully the list will be a lot smaller

[uneven palm]

Yeah. In like patch 1 the "Rapid" hammers removed your omega attack completely. That's probably why the restriction exists but it makes no sense now

[wide pollen]

This disappoints me, I am a big fan of Weed Killer

And also attacking faster

[thin ridge]

Wait that would’ve been so dumb 😭

What were they on

[uneven palm]

Staff, blades, axe. All just “hold for very fast repeating attacks” and took away the regular combos and omegas

[woven idol]

This works for Hades one for spears. Flurry Rush is the hammer name I think? It's because eliminating the hold on spear is actually more insanely beneficial, and also cuz there's no magick to consume and mechanics to be ignorwd

[cerulean panther]

So I tried Aphrodite Pan. I didn't get extra knives, Ingenious Flourish, or Reaper Knives. Died late in Typhon's last phase. I didn't realize how much CC the waves from Poseidon were doing.

[woven idol]

Oh so what's the best boons for Charon Axe?

[junior trail]

geyser spout and local climate

and lucid gain ofc

[woven idol]

Thanks

[uneven palm]

Here’s how to build Charon #h2-builds-and-combat message

With the adjustment that Siege Shredder is good too right now unexpectedly

[woven idol]

awesome stuff, tysm

[bleak night]

Siege Shredder being good seems unintended but ye it adds 210 damage which is nice

[stark ibex]

Want to do a ares+hestia run which weapon+aspect is the best

i'm assuming daggers cause they fast attackers either that or torches but i'm not sure it works synergistic enough

[uneven palm]

You mean just using their boons, or going for their fireball duo?

Just using their stuff, torches or blades or Mel coat would be good there. Hestia attack and Ares special ideally just because Hestia special is a bit crap.

The best Hestia synergy tho is with Demeter for freezer burn

If you wanted a duo Omega special fireball build, Mel Staff with Aphrodite special or Selene coat are both real fun with the Ares-Hestia duo

[stark ibex]

tbh the main reason i was thinking ares with hestia was due to blood drop

since hestia works better more atk speed you have

but maybe if i want a blood drop build prob hera+ares

[uneven palm]

Yeah. If you get too fast with Hestia you’re building up too much Scorch

Like having 1000s of Scorch applied doesn’t up your dps

[willow phoenix]

Pos Ares sounds good too, since pos wants the attack speed and there's the pos ares duo

But tbh at a certain point you just don't feel the attack speed buff, it doesn't scale that well

[cerulean panther]

I once lost a run Born Gaining myself out of Magick because I stacked Blood Drops too high.

Moros's Attack stinks if you don't have your Omega Special up (remove the damage buff and take Aspect of Mel's effect, give Mel something else) you just straight-up don't hit anything with Attacks.

I think I had Cut Above that run. It was fun until I realized I was out of Magick.

[willow phoenix]

It's very fun if you get righteous pike with enough magick though lol. Add weed killer, fine line, exceptional talent, and explosive intent to it and you're making those pikes rain

[hot plover]

I just made it to the top of Olympus and was cruising through straight easy mode the whole way. The last dude absolutely wrecked my whole world.

Are there any pinned strategies anywhere anyone can suggest? I couldn’t even follow the moveset at all!

[uneven palm]

You talking Typhon, or Prometheus?

[willow phoenix]

If you're talking about Prometheus, I suggest just running around a bit to see his pattern and when he stops. His patterns are a bit hard to read on the fly compared to other bosses but he does have them

But generally it's like,
3 phases
Phase 1: 1 big move -> idle
Phase 2: 2 small move -> 1 big move -> idle
Phase 3: same with phase 2 apparently

He generally has 4 attacks with big and small versions, 2 channeling attacks that leave fire on the ground, and the stage transition move

But tbh, it's very very doable to forgo all this and just outdps him. The damage output in H2 gets pretty insane easily and you can outdps the boss that he won't get to use most of his moves on you. It's probably the easiest way to beat him too lol

If you're talking about the final surface boss, then honestly just stick to the head and dodge backwards when he does a headbutt

[uneven palm]

Phase 2 and 3 pattern is small small big

[willow phoenix]

Oh yeah I forgot he ends with a big

You know I actually think Prometheus should scream out his attacks like an anime character lol, at least the big ones

The main issue people have with his fight seems to be visibility of his moves and I feel like there's not really a lot of ways around that outside of like aoe indicators

[uneven palm]

Yeah it’s not easy to learn at first. When you first take him on he winds up and… uhh something gnarly is coming

Unlike Eris, nothing is really telegraphed

Other than the fire summons

[willow phoenix]

At least eris always shoots straight lol, so even if you can't react to it it's still pretty easy to dodge it if you're not greedy

Make one mistake later in the fight and she'll eat your health bar though

[hot plover]

I was talking about Prometheus, didn't know about Typhon, yet! Not worried about the spoiler side. But P whooped me, bad.

I felt like he had AOE that just hit the whole stage within like 1 second of each other, and his smaller AOE it wasn't clear what was safe vs. dangerous.

I had quite high DPS & HP and I finished Eris without taking a hit, so I was feeling good.

[willow phoenix]

I have a video of me just getting hit by Prom for 2 minutes if you want to see his moves
https://youtu.be/BD5BdP4DsSY?si=f5lzvKEF-RTx0POm

PS firewalk fire immunity was basically useless against everything except the fire on the ground left from the 2 channeling moves

[cerulean panther]

I keep forgetting Fire Walk cuts so much of Prom's danger.

[glass harness]

Oh for the lines of fire (when he goes in the corner):

1. stay towards the doors
2. It is easier to memorize where to stand than where to avoid. Like if the pattern of the fires is
   a. Left
   b. Left and middle
   c. Right
   I remember instead to stay to the right, then move for the the third move

But yeah if you’re by the door where you come in you have extra clearance time for when the flames come down. It’s marginal, but it helps when you’re working with something like the scythe

Also you’re running a shorter distance

[willow phoenix]

No it doesn't lol

Fire walk only reduces the damage of the fire trail left by the 2 channeling attack, the line and circle one. It doesn't reduce the damage on impact, only the little tick damage

[uneven palm]

This might help. Breaks down his moves by phase and how to dodge them https://youtu.be/iDfSTMw9qsI?si=krPJFmoRv-7yh47D

[cerulean panther]

I think the tick damage is a big part of the danger of the fight, but that's just me.

[hot plover]

Thanks for the tips, everyone! Much appreciated!

[spare kite]

Also in case you hate memorizing you can always dash through the attack

[willow phoenix]

Or tank through it

But yeah dashing through it is pretty doable especially with divine dash

[spare kite]

I still don't understand why divine gives you more dash iframes

Is nasty

[glass harness]

They don’t have divine dash yet

[thin ridge]

Not if you manipulate the flame fields correctly, since the main ones are his big line and the circle of foresight which you can eliminate

[woven idol]

the main takeaway I get from this is that you almost always want to dash into and behind him most times. Am I wrong?

[sage flame]

yeah basically, another way is if u have high enough move speed (usually nitro boost can do it by itself but its safer to have another sprint speed bonus) you can literally just sprint away from all his melee moves in a circle and not take any damage. you still gotta worry about the punch projectiles and the fire moves but generally that is also something that works

its worth learning the dash timings tho, for when you cant get sprint speed

[woven idol]

God bless iframe timings

[woven niche]

so i tried zeus and aphro's duo boon for the first time. if anyone's the type to actually watch someone elses playthrough, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF77PsQAuqE&ab_channel=karan

(ignore the commentary it's for my friend)

0 fear, and JESUS why did i let typhon's chin hit me 5 times 😭 tf

anything i missed out in the build? anything i should've added as a damage booster? just getting into the nitty gritties

3,000 damage was my max!

https://imgur.com/a/lololol-hades-2-antler-romantic-spark-aR8vcAv

i'd like to do this one day^^^

[plush vapor]

anyone got any tips for the artemis aspect chaos trial, having a lot of trouble

last one left and cant even get near eris

[uneven palm]

Yup. Everything whiffs if you dash through after he’s committed himself to the move. The important exception is the ground pound with the lingering ring; you need to keep sprinting to avoid the ring if you go straight through him

[spare kite]

this is trial of blood right

[spare kite]

basically, spam your special
it works as a constant stagger from a distance.
focus more on aphro so you can get her infusion
of the 2 casts available I prefer tidal ring as a "get away from me" option and with rarity or a pom or two the dmg with crits is not bad

remember to check hermes shrines for hp/armor, a late pos for the resources boons too

https://youtu.be/ch67GSs5lsA recorded a trial blood if it helps

ignore the lag spikes it usually doesn't do that

Hammers wise you ideally get the armor dmg/wicked for +20 power (makes way better use of the aphro attack) or trick knives which pairs greatly with pos special

I only used the parry if I couldn't move to the enemy from another angle or for armored anchor dudes

[plush vapor]

thanks dawg

was just using the atk since thats what ur given but ill try this

[spare kite]

oh yeah attack is def your main dps but turns out you can spam your special mid combo without issues

also good if you don't wanna commit to the finisher

[spare kite]

god why is it so laggy

[maiden sedge]

hello, i have a quick question! does the "Life Tax" boon from Hades expire? i mean, if my health reaches 200/200, it won't work anymore?

it says "restore 1% of the damage you deal, until you reach the limit" -- the latter part confuses me a bit

[spare kite]

the limit is 100 hp total restored

[maiden sedge]

oh, alright! thanks!

[plush vapor]

managed to get it first try tysm

[spare kite]

gg

https://youtu.be/Rvuf5VXD02A god I love this duo

[wild pine]

Fascinating? Could you say more about this, or link a vid that shows how to optimally interleave knife attack and special?

[spare kite]

I'd look at @/myntkaramell vids with the blades for optimal gameplay, I kinda just do it on vibes

Is less obvious on trial of blood but for normal gameplay I just throw it whenever blitz is procced

Or during the multi stabs if I don't wanna do the finisher

[uneven palm]

Like optimal optimal is special attack attack repeat, ignoring the later, slower parts of the attack combo and throwing out a special at every opportunity. This 50F Pan run I did shows that a lot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAdIgzHWzvw That's a little extra tho. For like more normal gameplay you can just chuck out a special and dash-strike in and do however many attacks you feel like. You can chuck out a special in between any part of the blades attack combo.

and you wouldn't ordinarily play Pan this way btw you just kinda have to do weird stuff for 50F sometimes

[wild pine]

If the special itself doesnt interrupt the attack chain combo, how is the special-attack-attack loop working

[uneven palm]

I'm waiting just long enough before tapping attack again

[wild pine]

Gotcha

[uneven palm]

Basically making it a rhythm game lol. It's fussy. Not exactly recommended.

You can see me screw it up plenty

[sand latch]

how does arc flash work exactly? It doesn't seem to activate blitz on say every omega torch attack, but maybe I just don't have good enough vision

[spare kite]

Still need to wait the blitz animation itself to apply again

[sand latch]

ah, so it should be blitzing as often as possible, blitz just can't go more than 1/s or so?

[uneven palm]

Yup, you got it

[sand latch]

Does double strike take another second, or does it not prevent new blitz?

[uneven palm]

When double strike triggers it’s hard to see sometimes but it’s basically instant. You’ll just get Blitz with double damage sometimes

[woven idol]

Heya, how do you avoid Eris' barrage attack near the end of the fight

I'm at frenzy 2 and I cant not get hit, what's the plan here?

[feral seal]

Dashing through her as she attacks helps

Or you can just try dealing enough damage to where she can’t attack

(Not too hard considering she’s almost dead by that point anyway)

[woven idol]

Makes sense ty

[spare kite]

if you wait out her attacks for a few volleys she chills out for a bit allowing you to finish her off

if you have the dps, huggin the right pillar usually spawns her in your face

if you have athena's keepsake, use in thessaly and just grab divine dash then dash into her attack

[median anvil]

so I've seen plenty of people ask for rerolling hammers, it'd probably make the keepsake too strong but what if experimental hammer was changed to do "the next daedalus hammer you find will offer 1/2/3 more options"

you take god keepsakes in the first region so obviously no use for the first hammer, but if you missed your desired one there, you can take it in the third region for the second one

[heavy palm]

That's not a bad idea.

Maybe instead of 3 full rerolls (which basically guarantees you'll hit anything you want), 1,2 or 3 replacements of individual hammers. The replacement can't be the same as the original.

Then you could tune it to 2-4 if it wasn't feeling good enough.

[stable herald]

even offering 1-3 more options on the hammer would be too strong imo, fully upgraded that means you get offered half the entire hammer pool. I know we all want more control over our builds but ultimately they're still trying to make a roguelike here

[glossy forge]

The thing is, a lot of hades 1 hammers fundamentally change the weapon, so your best bet was to construct a build around the hammers you obtained. Hades 2 hammers just tend to function more like boons, with straightforward buffs and alterations, and they're a lot less impactful in that way. Boons for your desired build > hammers most of the time because you can roll the boons and not the hammers. That's why rolling hammers is totally fine in hades 2 imo; there's no such thing as constructing a build around the hammer you get, so if you get stiffed with terrible hammers, it feels incredibly bad. Speedrunners and high fear runners almost always go for a critical boon rather than a hammer, purely because it feels terrible to gamble and lose with garbage hammer options.

[magic moss]

being able to roll hammers will 100% warp the meta

staff meta devolves to start hestia for cardio gain and use all 10 rolls for mirrored on hammer

[glossy forge]

cool, make other staff hammers change the weapon and not simply increase the dps of a specific move, and we won't need rolls

otherwise, I'm rolling for mirrored

[magic moss]

so you’re asking sgg to completely overhaul the hammers

[covert mortar]

Is there a version of weed kill for specials? The cloest thing I can find is hestia's fireball but that doesn't give power to specials

[glossy forge]

No, I'm saying that mel has a much more diverse base moveset than zag, and thus hammers don't need to change the way you play an aspect. But in line with this change to the efficacy of hammers, you can't just assume "NO ROLL HAMMER" is the best approach, and I argue that it it's the worse approach

You could even add some lore to unlock the ability to roll hammers, like bonding with Icarus or smtg

[glossy forge]

Nope, there isn't a "+ % damage to omega special" in any boon

[covert mortar]

hmm okay so there's not really a decent way to do a primary omega special damage run. Gotta include either a strong cast or attack with it

[spare kite]

just grab enough global dmg buffs ig

also pan is famous for spamming omega special with pos special tho

[thin ridge]

We got giga cleaver for double damage but that’s about it

[thin ridge]

Have you touched Charon

[bleak night]

Controlled Burn runs

It only affect Omega Spec

[uneven palm]

Use Aphrodite the Pom and rarity scaling on her special is absurd

If distance is a problem add Poseidon and have their duo fix it

[thin ridge]

Island getaway aphro is so fun if you get it down

[covert mortar]

yeah I tried making a aeries special while going for apollo legendary or aeries apollo duo with cut above. It worked but fine line did a decent % of the damage

I might try another 1 with aphro/posidon combo. I tend to avoid posidon when going for omega special focused builds though

[wild pine]

Chaos "chant" boons give +% damage to all omegas. Sometimes you can get runs like this: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/854095120894001152/1368788244447236116/image.png?ex=68197ee4&is=68182d64&hm=37c8b95643f229862ba5f51b47e322bcb2d27e5cb87f5da2360c68ec3c5c53d4&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1481&height=830

Seriously tragic I couldn't find Slow Cooker

[wild pine]

I missed the context of what weapon? I hallucinated you were talking axe specifically but looking back I don't see that stated. Black Coat and Torch can very easily build around omega special, and staff and dagger with only slightly more difficulty. It's really only axe and skull that struggle IMO.

[covert mortar]

Oh I was trying a staff omega special run with the faster channel aspect. Kind of just experimenting around since I got a heroic aries special and leaned into it

I didn't even realize chaos had an infusion boon

[stray pivot]

I need to try this with the Axe go SPiiiiieeennnn build

[royal ledge]

The blasted Hellifish is ruining my day.

[glossy forge]

Just fig leaf it 🤓

[woven idol]

Is maxing out Melinoe Axe a good idea? I've never used it that much

And I'm looking for new weapons to try out

[uneven palm]

It’s a good weapon and more power & health are always good

[hollow tartan]

since when does chaos have an infusion 😭

[spare kite]

pretty much since forever

you could see it in patch 1 but wasn't available iirc? became obtainable in patch 2

[bleak night]

It's the best aspect in the game

[woven idol]

Head empty, spam left click? Sounds good

[bleak night]

not quite, no

spamming attack on Mel Axe will get you killed since it's not as fast

[wintry fiber]

ospam

exact opposite to thanaxe lmao

[bleak night]

I think Mel Axe is more of a dash attack aspect

even without Dashing Heave, Special-cancelled Dash Attacks are still pretty good on it

saw Mysterra practicing with it and it gets pretty quick

[woven idol]

Yeayea I'm mostly joking it's mostly omega and dash spam

[bleak night]

I prefer to Omega on Than now if anything

[woven idol]

Also, special cancelled dash attacks? What's that

[bleak night]

Dash -> Special -> Attack, but you input Attack almost instantly after Special so it weaves the 3 hit Shredder and your dash attack seemlessly

makes Zeus super viable

[woven idol]

Oh okay I'll look for a video demonstration then