Hades & Hades 2

Benefit of the Switch patch coming later: after about another ten runs I finally got deathbando to remember he's supposed to exist, and I can still use the jank OP pre-nerf bow builds.

It was soooo satisfying to just watch Hades melt to a tricked-out Hangover special-focused bow. Experience death by red wine drunkenness, Dad!

What problems are you running into? It's gone pretty fine for me most times I've tried it.

Oh it's not that it's useless or anything, it's just that I find that going for the 3-hit combo with Excalibur is pretty hard once you turn the Heat up. Forced Overtime and EM 3 and 4 in particular are not kind to it. Which kinda defeats the purpose because I'm not going for this build for practicality, I'm going for it because I want to see some 2k crits. (This attempt the crit fell on the special, which turned out to be fairly practical after all, but not what I was aiming for.)

Speaking of builds, does anyone have a reliable way to make the fists unshit? They're the one weapon I can't make headway on.

I MADE MY FIRST ESCAPE! WOO!

Yeah, I figured it might have been a high heat problem. I'm still very gradually turning up Heat (I think the highest i've done is 10 heat so far on one weapon) so I'm not really sure what kind of weapons and builds become less viable at higher heat.

It depends on what kind of problem you're having. Dionysus on the regular attack and Aphrodite on the special with privileged status enabled should be decent since the fist strikes very quickly letting you build up the poison charges, and aphrodite's weak effect will mitigate the danger of being at melee range. As with most builds, Athena dash is also extremely helpful. The Long Knuckle Daedalus upgrade is something you might want since it means you can attack from further away.

It might also be worth considering putting Athena on attack and Ares on the special, and going for the merciful end Duo Boon. Being able to deflect with your attacks gives you some safety and the doom damage with the duo is quite powerful.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 16th 2020 at 3:16:01 PM

Also know that Talos aspect gives you a damage boost to your cast (same as sword Poseidon aspect) so if you want to do a cast build (like with Hunting Blades or Crystal Beam) it's one of the best for it. Fist also has some great hammer upgrades, the uppercut kick with Artemis special is extremely strong.

Congrats! Now keep going, there's a lot of story yet.

Does anyone know what I have to do to fulfill that one questline to get closer to the gods so Persephone can implement her plan? I'm assuming that I need to max out at least a few gods' heart meters but so far I've only managed to do Ares, Artemis, and Athena and I have no idea how to unlock the rest. It apparently says Aphrodite's will unlock when you max out all your love interests, and I think Poseidon unlocks when you catch one of every single fish (not looking forward to that given I've only gotten fish to spawn in Chaos' rooms like once), but other than that I have no idea what unlocks what.

EDIT: Nvm, my google-fu was weak, found a guide on steam that seems to cover everything.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 17th 2020 at 12:09:15 PM

Mind linking it?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2238809372#:~:text=Once%20you%20encounter%20Megaera%20enough,cutscenes%2C%20the%20heart%20should%20unlock.

You need to max out six gods' heart meters to complete the quest. The exception being Demeter where getting to her locked heart counts as being maxed out for this questline.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 17th 2020 at 12:25:49 PM

Finally got the fists to work. My problem was taking too much damage by getting too close, so an Athena call-focused build was just the ticket.

Meanwhile, I'm suspecting that Zag might truly be the god of relationship counseling. I've got quests for Hades/Persephone, Orpheus/Eurydice, Achilles/Patroclus, and on a nonromantic note Nyx and Chaos.

Speaking of relationships, I've come to a rather unfortunate realization: between Meg and Thanatos, Zag definitely Has a Type for dutiful, emotionally-closed tsunderes who are great warriors and serve as his rivals, while they also have poor sibling relationships and struggle with working for what they themselves want. Said type is very much fulfilled by Hades.

Edited by IniuriaTalis on Oct 18th 2020 at 9:02:07 AM

Why the fuck was I not excited about this game before. I guess I expected Zagreus to be a very different kind of protagonist and for the game to be a lot more... Edgelordy, for lack of a better term.

Dear gods now that I've played it it's one of my favorite games of all time. And probably my favorite portrayal of the ancient pantheon I've ever seen too.

Haven't made it past Ornstein and Smough yet. But I am, as Vergil would say, motivated. This game is pretty much perfect.

I found the one fists variant that can pull enemies to you also works really well. I used that and got a Daedelus upgrade that made Zag a three punch machine with anything barring elites whom usually would get stunlocked to death anyway.

I took those fists all the way to Hades himself but died as that was my first time fighting him. I unlocked Demeter though and find her boons rather fun to play with

IMO, the best way to handle that fight is just to stay behind the pillars to avoid theseus' spear throw, and focus on killing minotaur first. you want to have a good idea of where theseus is, but besides that, if you kill asterius first, theseus is pretty easy to deal with.

It took me a few tries to get past them, but now I can consistently beat them every time.

The hades fight is really brutal and probably the biggest barrier to completing a run for a new player. I was stuck on him for longer than any other boss or area, after a while i'd consistently make it to him every time but then just lose. But when you beat him once, it gets much easier to do it every time afterwards.

Of note, I finally managed to get a build with the bow that performed well that wasn't Chiron with artemis special (and tbh, i haven't even found that as good as i hoped it would be, albeit I might not be picking the most optimal boons and mirror perks and chiron is not fully upgraded yet). Rama with Aphrodite on attack, ares on special, and twin shot plus point blank shot (very lucky that i managed to get both of those in the same run) was doing excellent damage, it ended up being one of my fastest runs easily.

The only big problem was that I was getting hit a lot because of trying to get the point blank range bonus plus rama's slow charge time for the attack, which means that if i was playing with higher levels of heat (including the ones that buff enemy movement and attack speed, which i didn't have on this time) i would have been in trouble. But with this 8 heat run I did (which included extreme measures 3), I was doing so much damage that even without a call, I didn't have to use a single death defiance and had an easy time with every single boss. Aphrodite was also helping a lot with the damage reduction from weak.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 23rd 2020 at 4:25:33 PM

Yeah I went for Theseus first under the impression that him wielding a shield meant he'd be squishier if I could actually get the hits in... Doesn't quite seem to be the case. Had an awesome loadout that run too. Ah well.

Theseus alone is easier to deal with but hes an absolute ass if you go for him first as having to deal with him, Asterius, and whomever god is helping him is too much. It is easier to just kill Asterius first.

My last run ended cause my god does the Temple of Styx have nasty enemies. Fuck the Snakestones and Satyrs.

Chiron is best with Zeus special, if you get the +4 shots on special Hammer then it's a free run. Hera aspect with some cast duos (Poseidon cast is the main recipient here, but also Dionysius or Aphrodite work) pretty much gives you a rocket launcher, though the regenerating cast is recommended.

Edited by Ninety on Oct 23rd 2020 at 6:13:33 AM

How do you get this? Is it a hermes boon?

You probably already know this but the athena dash comes in clutch for styx since if you time your dodge right, it's not likely the satyr poison will hit you and they'll just get poisoned in return.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 23rd 2020 at 2:13:51 PM

Stygian Soul, the alternate mirror upgrade to Infernal Soul. Instead of 3 casts at max rank, you get one cast that regenerates without needing to be retrieved after 3 seconds.

Edited by Perseus on Oct 24th 2020 at 5:10:02 AM

It's probably weaker in many situations, but fuck having to retrieve stones. Especially when they end up out of bounds. You're really dependent on Chaos for extra stones and Artemis' legendary if you're lucky enough, but I'll still prefer it any day.

Yeah, collecting the stones is the worst part of cast builds for me. Even with poseidon it's annoying but with the other cast weapons you have to actually wait a good bit if you don't have them upgraded all the way to lower the drop down time.

On the other hand, once you do, if you can get lucky with Hermes for Quick Reload and Greater Recall, quadruple casting every 2-3 seconds? Beautiful.

I used to be all abord the Stygian Soul train but lately I'm more than willing to accept the annoyance of grabbing stones as the price to be paid for massive burst damage.

Edited by Perseus on Oct 26th 2020 at 12:31:42 AM

Speaking of, I wonder if the Chaos boon that grants extra bloodstones works with Stygian soul? I mean that would be pretty great if you could get it reliably.

As Ninety said:

So yes. It does. But getting Chaos boons reliably is a big if.

My reading comprehension is good.

... Does Apollo not show up in this game? Man, he's getting the shaft again huh.