History GameBreaker / Hades

** Zeus have a couple of boons that synergizes with each other. Double Strike gives every single lightning bolt effect a second hit ignoring the internal cooldown on lightning bolts, Static Discharge applies Jolted which punishes enemies when they attacks with a lighting bolt that can activate Double Strike. Splitting Bolt further enchances Zeus boons by adding an extra instances of Lightning Bolt. All of these are applied to almost every activation of Zeus boons as a flat damage, which let them scale with global damage multipliers, one of which are native to Zeus boon in the form of Billowing Strength. With the right luck, it is possible to stack a bunch of Zeus boons to the point where even the normally weak Zeus Dash is capable of doing massive damage.
** Zeus' Call is commonly considered one of the strongest Call boon in the game. On its own, the call is pretty good with the lightning bolts doing plenty of damage in quick succession. Within the context of being a Zeus boon, it is well positioned to snowball into some of the most powerful boon in the game, being able to take advantage of Double Strike and Splitting Bolt, continuously applying Static Discharge, unlocking access to Billowing Strength, and qualifies as a requirement to unlock Smoldering Air. The combination between Smoldering Air, Zeus Call, and Zeus support boons are extremely powerful, and can be achieved on most builds by simply getting a Zeus Call and a core Aphrodite Boon.

* The "Ruthless Reflex" upgrade to the Mirror of Night offers Zagreus a 2-second 50% dodge chance and damage bonus whenever he dodges an attack by dashing. On its own, it's DifficultButAwesome because [[DamnYouMuscleMemory it denies Zagreus his second dash]] (which helps a lot with Asphodel and dodging certain attacks like the FinalBoss' SpinAttack). There are, however, two ways to break the game with this: One, Zagreus' aspect of the Twin Fists of Malphon can be upgraded with a flat 15% dodge bonus using Titan Blood, and the Lambent Plume can add 1-1.2% dodge chance every time you SpeedRun a room (fairly easy in Tartarus and Asphodel, and still doable in Elysium), which can see Zagreus hit a ~90% dodge chance for three seconds by the endgame with a well-timed dash. Second, Hermes's "Greatest Reflex" boon just straight-up adds dashes. Normally, having more than two dashes is overkill. With RuthlessReflex, however (which can trigger on each of the multiple dashes), you have just eliminated the only drawback and can use a DashAttack style with Stygius, the Twin Fists (especially Gilgamesh, as it baseline provides additional dashes), or Varatha to be plain-old untouchable most of the time. It gets even better if you can make the extra dash boon rare or epic, so it grants two or three extra dashes, respectively.

* The Beowulf aspect of Aegis is essentially Coronacht's Aspect of Hera applied to the Bull Rush, which now has a ''much'' wider area of effect. While it does give an extra damage penalty, the fact that the Bull Rush still allows you to NoSell damage makes it not as bad as it sounds. With the right build, you can pretty much annihilate most enemies and bosses in a flash. Unsurprisingly, it is a favourite of the SpeedRunning community.

* Hera's aspect of Coronacht is incredibly powerful, removing the normal cast (which is usually redundant when using the bow anyway) and instead lets Zag load the cast directly onto his bow and fire it, striking the enemy with both the arrow and the cast at the same time. Combined with casts that are powerful but hard to hit with, like Dionysus' Trippy Shot or Poseidon's Flood Shot (both can be gotten in the first room with the proper keepsake), the aspect of Hera provides an AlphaStrike build that will deal 400+ damage in a single attack. The only downside to it is that you have to hide for a while (5 seconds at max level) while waiting for your cast to come out. Its high damage makes it a common SpeedRunning tool.

* Exagryph's Aspect of Eris is generally considered to be either the best weapon or in the top tier by [[SpeedRunning Speed Runners]], and it's not hard to see why: It provides a scaling (up to +75%) bonus to all damage you deal for a solid 4 seconds after Zagreus absorbs his own special. This turns the somewhat finicky special into an always-useful and very solid damage buff, and since it's not specific to just the main firing mode, it synergizes excellently with sources of flat damage (Zeus in particular, but also Dionysus) that lets you chew through the game at incredible speed.

* The "Ruthless Reflex" upgrade to the Mirror of Night offers Zagreus a 2-second 50% dodge chance and damage bonus whenever he dodges an attack by dashing. On its own, it's DifficultButAwesome because [[DamnYouMuscleMemory it denies Zagreus his second dash]] (which helps a lot with Asphodel and dodging certain attacks like the FinalBoss' SpinAttack). There are, however, two ways to break the game with this: One, Zagreus' aspect of the Twin Fists of Malphon can be upgraded with a flat 15% dodge bonus using titan blood, and the Lambent Plume can add 1-1.2% dodge chance every time you SpeedRun a room (fairly easy in Tartarus and Asphodel, and still doable in Elysium), which can see Zagreus hit a ~90% dodge chance for three seconds by the endgame with a well-timed dash (or higher with a Hermes 'Greatest Reflex' boon). Second, Hermes has a boon that straight-up adds dashes. Normally, having more than two dashes is overkill. With Reckless Dash, however (which can trigger on each of the multiple dashes), you have just eliminated the only drawback and can use a DashAttack style with Stygius, the Twin Fists (especially Gilgamesh, as it baseline provides additional dashes), or Varatha to straight-up be invincible most of the time. It gets even better if you can make the extra dash boon rare or epic, so it grants two or three extra dashes, respectively.

** Her dash boon is Divine Dash. While it only deals minimal damage, it surrounds Zagreus with an AttackReflector for the duration of the dash that sends any projectiles back at the attacker, and also blocks most melee attacks. Suddenly, a huge amount of incidental damage that whittles down any given playthrough is being erased, taking a lot of pressure to play perfectly off the player. This boon is ''so'' absurdly useful that it's worth taking over almost any other option, including some Duo Boons.

** Her dash boon is Divine Dash, widely touted as one of if not ''the'' best defensive single boon in the entire game. While it only deals minimal damage, it causes any projectiles to be deflected if Zag touches them while dashing, and also blocks most melee attacks from causing him any damage. Suddenly, a huge amount of incidental damage that whittles down any given playthrough is being erased, taking a lot of pressure to play perfectly off the player.
** Her legendary boon, Divine Protection, stands out even among legendary boons for breaking the game in two — while active, it completely negates the next hit that Zagreus takes. And 20 seconds after it's discharged, it comes back. It's a permanently regenerating shield that Zagreus doesn't need to do anything to use, so all that's needed is to know when to play it safe and defensive (and given that you need at least one boon that can deflect attacks to get Divine Protection, anyone with the boon is already well equipped to do so), and it's more than reasonable to never take another point of damage in the entire rest of the run.

** "Quick Favor" adds 1% to your God Gauge every 2 seconds (or less on higher rarities). This is incredibly practical when you have a strong Boon, as it means you no longer have to think about doing damage to charge your LimitBreak -- or, for that matter, losing segments of it because you've been playing keep-away.

** Zeus Call is commonly considered one of the strongest Call boon in the game. On its own, the call is pretty good with the lightning bolts doing plenty of damage in quick succession. Within the context of being a Zeus boon, it is well positioned to snowball into some of the most powerful boon in the game, being able to take advantage of Double Strike and Splitting Bolt, continuously applying Static Discharge, unlocking access to Billowing Strength, and qualifies as a requirement to unlock Smoldering Air. The combination between Smoldering Air, Zeus Call, and Zeus support boons are extremely powerful, and can be achieved on most builds by simply getting a Zeus Call and a core Aphrodite Boon.

* Due to how the game's autosave system works, you can actually fish twice in the same room and both catches will be counted. Considering how low the spawn rate is the surface, it is a godsend for those who want to fill up the codex and obtain valuable rewards. To explain, the autosave triggers whenever Zagreus enters a new room/zone or collects the room reward. However, the fishing spot is independently spawned in the room itself. So if you fish -> collect reward -> quit, you can fish again at the same spot for a second time while keeping the first catch. However, it will not work in the starting areas of Asphodel, Elysium, or in Styx's hub, as there are no room rewards to trigger the autosave. This exploit also doesn't work in areas like Chaos' realm or Charon's shop, as the autosave doesn't trigger after obtaining their rewards.

** Ares's ability to cause your Basic and Special Attacks inflict Doom -- time-delayed bonus damage with an animation of a sword balancing above an enemy's head and then falling -- is a huge benefit to HitAndRunTactics. The bonus damage is hefty -- typically ''twice'' that of your actual attacks -- and in addition you've got a lot more time for dodging. When combined with ranged weapons (the Heart-Seeking Bow, the Adamant Rail, or even the shield and its [[ThrowingYourShieldAlwaysWorks boomerang throw]]), Zagreus is able to deal significant damage from very safe distances.

* ''Cursed Slash'' causes [[PowerAtAPrice Zagreus' maximum health to drop by sixty percent]] (which also affects any [[HeartContainer Centaur Hearts]] you pick up afterwards), but also causes each of his normal attacks to recover two HP per hit. It may seem like this would make Zagreus into a GlassCannon, but in practice, it makes him much more durable. When you can recover from all damage with just a few basic combo strings, getting back to maximum health becomes trivial. Lose some health? Just play defensively for a bit with dashes and hit-and-run tactics, and you'll be back to full in no time. Combined with Darkness upgrades, a few Hearts, and Cerberus' Collar, and Zag will still have about 100 HP or so, giving him a solid health pool that he can recover with ease.

* The Guan Yu aspect of the Eternal Spear, when fully upgraded, halves your health and any health upgrades for the duration of the run (70% at base), but in exchange gives the spear's spin attack health-restoring properties for each hit. It only heals for one point per hit, but the spin attack will hit several times at least and has decent range. It gets even more broken when combined with hammer upgrades that increase its size and decrease charge time. This was so broken, in fact, that the spin attack got nerfed so it would bounce off walls instead of passing through them, as prior to that, you could hide behind the plentiful barriers and attack with impunity.

* '''Ice Wine (Demeter/Dionysus)'''. Trippy Shot is already the highest-damaging spell in the game as far as straight damage goes, but it's tricky to aim due to being a lobbed shot with travel time. Ice Wine not only removes this weakness, it ''increases the damage by 50% and inflicts Chill.'' This turns an already-DifficultButAwesome spell into an immediate [=AoE=] nuke capable of obliterating the health bars of most anything in the game, even if you're not running a cast build. What's even more broken is that Ice Wine can stack with Scintillating Feast (unlike Hunting Blades which can't stack with Crystal Clarity) which is also a game breaker, making for a truly insane cast.

* ''Cluster Bomb'' launches five reduced-damage bombs in a single attack in a parabola pattern. While it's finicky to get all five shots to hit the same target (they only overlap at point blank), the upgrade will clear out rooms of {{mooks}} and is invaluable against large mobs and mobile bosses who can dodge a single bomb (but not so easily a spread of five). It's more broken paired with ''Rocket Launcher'' upgrade, where due to an actual bug in the game, the rocket damage ''isn't'' reduced. The combined effect is akin to a rocket shotgun with a base damage of 400 (five shots at 80 damage each) that will annihilate practically anything at close range. If you get critical hit boosts from Artemis, this could easily add up to over 1000 damage per shot.

* ''Triple Bomb'' allows you to fire out three bombs at once, which is roughly the same as having a guaranteed critical on every use of an already strong attack with a wide radius. And if you actually ''can'' apply critical to it – and even better, turn the bombs into missiles with increased base damage, which is made even more powerful with boons that increase Special damage – kiss the challenge of the game goodbye. Getting this hammer upgrade early makes it a straight-up DiscOneNuke.

* The god Keepsakes guarantees that the next god you encounter to be the same as their equipped Keepsake - guaranteed for the very first room, while past that is up to RNG, though it will be be available as a choice in multiple exit rooms - while boosting the overall chance for higher rarity boons for said god. This essentially allows you some degree of choice over your intended build, and a new god's Keepsake can be equipped after every biome. This becomes available relatively early by simply offering a single Nectar to each god to give you their Keepsake.

* '''Sea Storm (Poseidon/Zeus)'''. Provided you can acquire it, it's an instant recipe for huge damage output, as it is the only ability in the game that allows you to stack two effects onto one attack (knockback + lightning), ''and'' furthermore can trigger Privileged Status if their additional status effects (Jolted and Rupture) are added. To really sweeten the deal, if you go that far, you're on a fast track to getting both gods' Legendary Boons… and with ''them'' added, you're basically achieving an '''overkill''' level of damage. Not surprisingly, Tidal Dash by itself cannot be a prerequisite for this to prevent snapping the game in half.

* ''Flurry Slash'' allows you to hit enemies indefinitely as long as the button is held down (at a faster rate than the normal 3-hit combo as well, which not only boosts the action's base damage to 25, but also allows your Attack to reliably rack up status effects like Chill and Hangover, along with spam the others much faster.