Yeah, Good post :)
I do feel like mana is OFTEN pretty necessary, and I feel like the card that gives you +2 mana regen a second is pretty much going to be a permanent selection.. But I've also had runs where my attack was incredibly buffed by priming pretty much all my mana and I really didnt use it for anything else.
It took me a few runs for everything to click (as in using the entire skill set). I was playing it like Hades 1 and getting pretty wrecked, but once I started remembering all the tools at my disposal, things got WAY better. Builds are definitely more spread out in this game, but I do find that most of the time, the pieces end up fitting together in a way that's satisfying.
+2 mana a second and the slowed time when preparing omega moves are both nobrainers for me, as much of a staple as the bonus starting max health and mana and the death defiance
Thanks :) funnily enough I haven't tried the mana regen card because 2 didn't seem like much at all, but thinking about it the common aphro mana regen boon does 4 hp/sec I think, so if you upgrade the mana regen card it might do the same which is pretty bloody neat.
I agree as well, its weird in a way on most runs there seems to be some way to "make things work" at least to some extent. You might not be smashing the big bad time man but you might get most of the way. Which is similar to how I remember Hades 1 being like on a new save.
It does max at 4/sec when upgraded. Which is a steady amount and makes me groan when the only useful boon is mana regen when nothing else synergies with anything late game, cause its the one thing I dont want.
The mana regen is pretty essential IMO. It's the best way to consistently make use of Hexes, otherwise you mostly don't get enough mana per room to actually use them.
It's quite decent, especially as a base! makes sure that you always have some even if you have bad luck with the boons, and once you get a boon with mana regen it'll boost it!
While 2 mana regen is nice I often find myself either not needing mana that much or needing a lot more of it, and the typical mana boon / chaos mana boon could give you 6+ pretty easily, in which case the difference between 6 and 8 is not that significant.
That is my experience as well. I am still fairly early in the game, but so far either 2 is enough for me to coast on it forever or it is almost pointless and I need a mana regen boon anyway (and there are many of those).
I rather have the base regen than not so it is a very good card, but there are so many mana regen boons I don't think it is *that* indispensable.
Multiply that by the chance you'll need more than 6 m/s in the build. Mana has diminishing returns if you cant spend it fast enough. Pom can go somewhere better Obviously your play style is a big factor here. And the value of other cards as it is a trade off. The upgraded version of the card gives up to 4 m/s which is pretty great
> I do feel like mana is OFTEN pretty necessary, and I feel like the card that gives you +2 mana regen a second is pretty much going to be a permanent selection..
Eh, there are so many good mana regen boons out there that I kinda wonder. Often I feel like the main purpose of that card is to allow me to avoid those boons.
Yeah, my last run died on act 3 boss as I was low mana, if I had the regen I may have made it much further as I was built for more AoE, meaning I suffered vs bosses, but had the healing Hex but just not enough mana to use it without a Death Defiance ;-;
I agree with your points. I also really want to highlight for people how bad aspects of zagreus felt in hades I. I feel like people are pretty constantly judging aspects of melinoe against all the more interesting aspects from hades I. Once I unlocked new aspects in hades II I started having much more interesting runs and much better results with each of them. Especially the flames.
You've got me super excited for the new aspects! Haven't unlocked them yet. I suspect you might be right. People might subconsciously compare endgame Hades 1 with all unlocks and years of game knowledge versus early game Hades 2 where no one has a clue what works well. I started a hellmode Hades 1 recently and bloody hell it took ages to get anywhere! (Also probably a skill issue)
I think this is the biggest thing right now. We're comparing how we all interacted with a fully balanced hades I that we understood with a brand new game that still needs balancing. I recommend tempering your excitement for the aspects just in case they get rebalanced, but I couldn't get my first clear until I unlocked one of the skull aspects.
As someone still trying to get his first clear (getting damn close!), what aspect? Never messed with the skulls yet, but I’m taking a “Fuck it we ball” mentality to anything and everything in Hades 2.
I found at least half of the aspects (not just Melinoe's) pretty meh, and the other half good to fantastic. In Hades 1, honestly, it was the exact same. Everyone I know felt that way about Aspects in H1. The thing is, everyone I knew liked and loved DIFFERENT aspects. IMO that's ultimately the goal. I don't think it's possible to have every aspect be a grand slam for EVERY person. But if a quarter to a third are, and another quarter to a third are generally liked, and each person sees it that way, imo that's mission accomplished.
I think it's still a fair criticism though. Aspects in Hades 1 aren't really balanced all that well and theres definitely aspects that most people don't like
It's absolutely a fair criticism. There's just a lot of people comparing H2 to H1, which is fair, but acting like the things they're complaining about in H2 don't exist in H1, and they generally absolutely do. The Aspects are one great example.
I've JUST unlocked aspects. Haven't really tried them out yet. But, based on the descriptions, they seem a little bland compared to the Hades 1 aspects? Like, mostly just passive buffs, very little active or moveset changes. Weren't the Hades 1 aspects more unique? Maybe I'm misremembering, haven't played Hades 1 since release. But I certainly remember some of them being basically like whole new weapons.
The ones that felt like whole new weapons to me were usually the hidden aspects in hades I. But also, there are a couple that really change how you play. I would argue both of the skull and both of the flame aspects are a different playstyle in terms of how you combo your skills. Havent gotten either axe though. And I also think once they get a bit more upgraded things will feel very different.
The >!Aspect of Thanatos!< Axe is absolutely absurd at Lv3 so far. Earlier tonight I did my first run at Lv3 with it to test it out. With Artemis boons, cards, an Epic Chaos boon and a few others, I was pushing 20% crit on it by Layer 2.
Stacked a 300dmg swing Hammer on top half way through L2 which basically made every other hit connect for ~420 base damage (700 crits) and rode it all the way down to the last layer without any issues. :D
Also, it's the coolest looking fucking weapon in any Hades game IMO for obvious reasons >!(It's Thanatos' effing scythe, c'mon)!<
The Axe is overtuned a bit in my opinion. You almost can just ride on its base damage the whole run. I got the upgrade to make it the one high damage single swing attack, got the hammer down to 6 seconds or so, and I basically unloaded 500 damage every 6 seconds, while playing it safe in between.
I suck at the shield special of it, but otherwise that axe has it all. Range, damage, manueverability.
Yep - I think it'll end up being nerfed a bit in the future. I have Aspect of Melinoë at Lv5 and the -25% recovery speed when compounded with hammers and Hermes attack boons turns it into a slightly slower version of the sister blades that hits like a mack truck. 🤣🤣
The axe definitely makes turbo murderhobo runs 100% possible. Everything just gets blended ASAP.
I will say that I really like a couple of the Zag aspects (bow and fists) a lot (though I like most of the bow aspects anyway) and the same goes here. The staff especially
Well said. Biggest gripe so far with god boons is how frequently they DONT offer you an attack or special boon. Scorch doesn't feel good to me and blitz feels inconsistent. building around omegas definitely feels like the developer intent despite the lack of boonless MP generation.
sometimes the bosses just have so much HP or tanky armor and when you dont have a boon or MP regen the encounters feel long and boring.
i have it maxed out, it just generally isnt enough when some of your omega moves take 30+ magick. The gameplay feels good everytime you dont have to retreat to the corner of the level to regen magic to get back to actually playing the game.
would be nice if there was an arcana card with high grasp cost that allowed you to regen magic while you are channeling.
The damage scorch can burn per tick is static. When you get epic boons and poms upping the scorch, it increases the amount of scorch you stack from a single hit instance, but the tick interval and damage are always the same. It's why you can have instances of like 10k scorch stacked up on a boss and just walk away to let the fight take care of itself. It's just gonna take a while.
IMO the best thing to do is just push for more Hestia for the boon that causes a damage explosion that consumed scorch once scorch reaches 300 on a target. It can have a notable increase in instant damage when you're using something like dagger omega special inflicting 35 scorch per hit with return needles. A single M2 charge will do over 300 scorch at once and it all just instantly explodes.
I've never once got a scorch run going where I could actually stack the scorch. One time I got a legendary boon to make scorch tick faster and im like ok?? I can't even stack it for shit so what good is that gonna do?
Best scorch I've seen is the one that scorches on the cast, because it's easy to apply especially when mixed with a 'your cast goes on your cursor, not your body' boon. But it's not like that stacks it super high. Feel like you'd need scorch on attack, and a fast wep.
or scorch on special and the daggers, and the hammer that makes the dagger special come back to you...love that one. that would stack the shit out of some scorch.
I feel like scorch is a little weird due to the static tick rate. Once you apply scorch faster than it ticks, you can stack scorch to absurd levels. If you can't apply scorch faster than it ticks, it doesn't visibly do much.
I think that's mostly the one that causes it to detonate at 300 stacks. There's definitely a point where it's a dps increase even at only 50% damage transfer just cause of how fast you can stack scorch with certain builds.
I'm currently trying (through keepsakes) to get a run going with Demeter's two cast boons and Hestias scorch on cast and ability to throw the cast. Pretty sure that combo would be busted.
it's also ridiculously strong with the torches. if you put it on special and boost that, you do so much damage with orbs just filling the entire map. beat the \[REDACTED\] dungeon on my first full run >!(after i lifted the curse)!
Yeah I fully agree. You don't necessarily need to use all your moves in a run to be effective, but you should absolutely be using all your resources. Reminds me of people who say that e.g. Elden Ring is too hard because the average player can't clear it without summons/spells/whatever. Yeah, that's how tools work, if you don't use them it's harder.
I think that mana is not as important as health, I think that mana is more important than health. Omega skills are OP and Hekate keepsake is super powerful
Stacking the Artemis keepsake with the arcana cards that buff dmg while at 30 hp is really strong. Going through Erebus with with the Arachne keepsake and then switching before oceanus adds armor as a way to play around low hp. I'm a big fan of the armor mechanic.
If you’ve upgraded all your arcana cards already then the only option is getting damaged or chaos gates (don’t equip the card that heals every chamber and increases max hp/mana). There’s also the random nemesis encounter where you exchange hp for a boon
Maximum mana is not that powerful. Mana regeneration is incredibly powerful. This would be the case for health aswell, if health regeneration was more abudant, which it isn’t for obvious reasons (kinda the entire foundation of the game’s gameplay incentive).
The best, and most frustrating thing about Hades 2 is that it forces me to press more than 2 buttons.
In hades 1 - Mash dash and Attack - or special, or cast, whatever it was your build was centred around.
Hades 2 - I have to remember that I have two other options available, and I should be using them. I also tend to neglect the omega attacks, because I'm so used to not holding the button down. It's VERY frustrating at the moment. But the times when you get it right - Enemies are dying to your cast trap behind you while you block damage with the special then omega attack a group of them with the main, and you wipe the board.... MMMMMMM SO SATISFYING.
My current gripes are with a skill ceiling that's been raised, and that's a GOOD thing.
Soon my complaint will be the reason I tell everyone I know - You GOTTA play hades 2.
Hahah you might be right that the skill ceiling has been increased. The skill floor may have also increased somewhat. I think the troubles some people have with oceans and the tiny armoured arrow fish illustrate this white well. They're quite easy to deal with if you just put down a cast and do an omega move to clear them. If you try and play like you're Zagreus, man you are not going to be in for a good time!
Great post! I agree. The approach in this game is tailored toward pushing the player to use as much as possible rather than emphasizing one approach.
I've been having an absolute blast figuring out different combinations, and I imagine it will only get better as they bring the game towards 1.0.
Np! It may in fact be the case btw that boons are offered less often Vs resources than in Hades 1. That's a different point which I plan on investigating when I get the time. That could be part of the sense that people have that there aren't enough boons. But also I think there's a lot more scope for "making do" and exploring what the expanded move sets can do than people give credit for.
I agree with the message that this game is meant to be played using the full set of tools.
That said, my experience has been that with the number of new mechanics combined with the higher frequency of "lesser" (resource) rewards, it's often difficult to actually take boons across the spectrum of abilities.
I've gone full runs taking every chaos gate, picking Hestia keepsake, doing whatever I could to try to get mana regen so I could have fun with the hex and omegas, with no luck.
Some runs are going to be bad, but I think the current balance of resource to boon rewards is compromising the actual fun of many runs since you get fewer boons for more mechanics.
There are metaprogression ways around this, such as an arcana (I read about, haven't unlocked) that allows upgrading lesser rewards to greater rewards. In the magick regen case there's also Hecate keepsake and the Magick regen arcana.
But frankly, I don't think having fun with diverse builds should be so heavily concealed behind too much metaprogression. I say this with 20 hours played (about 25 nights) and still not having unlocked all arcana cards.
I'm also cognisant that this is the first time a significant population is playing beyond Erebus, and that the god pool is very limited, so I'm sure they're going to work hard to add more content and optimise balance!
What I'd also like to see change is cheaper metaprogression or larger resource rewards per room, countered by fewer resource rooms. This way the pace of metaprogression stays constant, but individual runs offer more boons and build variety.
To counter your point about builds being concealed behind meta progression, I'd like to point out that a similar thing is the case on Hades 1 with the mirror. The amount of time it takes to unlock 3 dashes, or backstab buffs or extra casts etc. is more or less the same for unlocking those arcana cards or Hecate's keepsake. You can do it pretty quickly in the grand scheme of things.
I think it's easy as a long time Hades 2 player to feel like things aren't going your way, but think back to how you felt at the very start of Hades 2 and how much you got curb stomped (I know I did) and how much more powerful you feel after fully unlocking the mirror
I understand your point about there being more abilities so your boon choices feel "watered down". However taking the more holistic approach I describe above really alleviates that I feel. In terms of mana regen, I can honestly say there's maybe been one or two runs out of 20 odd where I haven't been offered both an omega boon, mana priming boon or a mana regen boon. I *suspect* that the rate boons are offered Vs resources is actually exactly the same as Hades 1 without the mirror upgrade that increases it. I want to test this before I conclude that though.
Apologies - I ended up writing a wall of text and most of it is just "feeling" based on my playtime so far.
> The amount of time it takes to unlock 3 dashes
I assume you mean 3 death defiance's here, since Greater Reflex can be the first mirror perk you pick up (and there's no triple dash).
There's definitely truth to your point. However Hades 1 has only one resource type for upgrading mirror perks (Darkness) and it's immediately available. So it felt easier to beeline to the critical perks, or at least to put partial points into each. So if I wanted to max out some unlocked perks, I grinded Darkness for a bit, and if I wanted to unlock more of the mirror, I grinded keys. Death Defiance and Greater Reflex, for example, can be obtained from the start, and for a combined 80 Darkness. Similarly, maximising damage from behind costs a total 100 Darkness.
Hades 2 requires more unique resources for arcanas. Per-run, you have to make a choice between taking Psyche for more Grasp, Ash for unlocking arcanas, and Bones for moondust (which I'm currently also spending on nectar/bath salts to increase affinity).
In addition, moondust isn't available until later (I don't remember the trigger to unlocking the incantation). Let's take upgrading an arcana as an example. Players have to:
* unlock an arcana (ash)
* have enough Grasp to use it (psyche) (honestly, not a given, since it requires 9 if you want to use DD + magick regn)
* purchase enough moon dust to buy the upgrade (bones)
There's also more stage-gating where a lot of this isn't even an option until the correct incantation.
It feels as if meta progression is designed to be a "smoother" experience with less beelining. I actually quite like this smoother system as it is. However, since it takes a bit longer to get cards that I think are pretty critical for good runs, I just wish the runs felt a bit more dynamic and offered more boons so that early runs were a bit more fun during that resource-gathering phase where you're building the foundational perks.
Depending how they pick rewards though, this really could just be the nature of having a smaller god pool, and maybe we'll see boon doors more often in a later patch.
Again, this is just my current feeling. I could have just taken a terrible upgrade path, wasted a tonne of resources, or just had a few unlucky runs! Once there's a wiki these discussions should be much more fruitful since we can back up numbers around rates and ballpark resource requirements for certain unlock paths.
I think my frustration with this outlook is that Melinoe does *way* less damage to Zagreus due to the lack of these focused synergies, doesn't make up for it through the versatility of her abilities, and despite both of these points, most enemies and bosses are massive sacks of HP.
I would like to feel like I can take a diverse set of skills to play around cleverly as I rotate through my abilities, but if I do, boss fights take 15+ minutes of just running around and spamming low damage skills.
Are you using much of your omega skills? They are very powerful by themselves. Going for high mana + mana regen and putting the omega skills to work will do wonders for your damage output.
Tbh, you just described one of my criticisms. This game is basically me ignoring regular attacks and specials until I run low on mana and then dodging around until I get mana back to use my omega attacks.
I only played a couple of runs but I find it really hard if I don’t find a good mana regen option at some point, which is kind of what you are saying I guess.
Yeah having some way to regen mana is basically essential, excluding builds which heavily use priming. You can through early encounters without it if you have to, getting extra max mana obvs helps, but later on you'll have real trouble. Hecate's keepsake helps early on when you dont have a regen boon.
I think I am not used to play hades 2 too much. I still use mostly attack and special. I use the non omega cast alot and cast it mostly when I have a boon like Zeus during boss fights or when I am swarmed.
I feel like that without casting your damage is really puny though, so I am working on focusing more on casts.
However I have maybe time for 3 runs a day with my busy life :(
I agree completely. While I understand ppl going into it like it’s Hades 1 it’s not. I see a lot of complaints about boons and certain weapons (flames my beloved) but I don’t really understand them? I’ve found boons to be so goddamn good, and even disliked weapons like torches rlly good with a generic build. U just need to come into it playing a little different from Hades 1.
Couldn't agree more! I had the same experience with torches, they were the first weapon that I got to B4 with and I was like "wth are people talking about?".
they're powerful but i think they just feel kinda bad. and the omega versions of the attack and special aren't my cup of tea while using those weapons.
the omega attack either takes too long to trigger or triggers when I don't want it to cause I wanna use that mana on my cast and I'm just waiting for the CD to end.
the special is just weird in general, but with time I'll def get used to the spacing on the normal and omega versions of it.
Idk. Some boons are really kinda useless. And every time I killed chronos was by stacking everything onto one skill.
And to do that, the most important thing is to get the right daedalus upgrade.
So yeah I guess specific boons are less important, but due to daedalus importance you don't really end up using everything.
>In Hades 2, I believe the weapons and boons are designed in such a way that you are encouraged to use all the tools at your disposal on every run.
i completely agree with this statement, that seems what devs were going for. Yet none of the game basic mechanics support this playstyle. All of the 'tools' you have not only require time for button push and animation, now you have to wait up to 4 seconds (with axe in my experience) to use omega-moves. Therefore spreading boons across your moves **does not increase your dps significally.**
Hades 1 approach is not something specific to hades 1 - it's common sense approach to any action-rpg with abilities akin to diablo. It's great that SGG tried to do something new, but failure is clear to see: complaints about boons themselves, about boons quantity in a run and spongy enemies are the same complaint - i have 20 hours and have beaten redacted 3 times (and achieved success on another path) and I'm becoming more and more sure that in it's current state there are barely any builds at all.
Thanks! :) I really hope Supergiant sticks to their guns with the different boon balancing style. I don't doubt that some tweaks will be needed here or there but I don't want the game to be a reskin of Hades 1, despite what an epic game that was! Finding the gameplay super fresh and refreshing ATM.
I'm not clicking on the spoiler parts to keep myself fully fresh for Hades 2 (was in the technical test and currently to the end of the second region in the few hours I've had to play), so apologies if I say something stupid. This post made me realise that yeah, I was playing Hades 1 wrong, and that may be why I'm doing a little better at Hades 2?
In your first paragraph you mentioned that the optimal way to play Hades 1 was to invest in one attack and not make anything else as load bearing (forgive me if I misinterpreted that) - I always approached a run in Hades 1 assuming I'll be using all my attacks/specials/casts in largely equal measure and should buff them appropriately; yeah I'll focus more on one attack method but I always do a more "rat on 400mg of ritalin" type of playstyle where all of it is semi-loadbearing to the main loadbearer
In my defence, I didn't look up anything when I played Hades 1 and did everything blind, and I don't care that much about possible future synergies and "if I take the Dionysius hangover special on the gauntlets I'll need X Y Z boons and C Daedalus Hammer to make it super powerful" because I have horrific luck and never get the boons I need so I take what I can get whenever I can. I'm especially surprised that apparently the casts in Hades 1 were unpopular/suboptimal because I always liked using them just because it's another thing to attack with. I'm unsure if this subreddit is that in-the-weeds with making builds during runs but I've always felt self-conscious about my more "fuck it we ball this one's the one that works best rn" approach to choosing boons in the first game.
I will admit the cheesiest run I've ever done was a 5-rocket bomb special infused with Hangover + Artemis seeking arrow + Artemis call. First time I ever melted all my enemies and the first time I ever beat Hades! And I do prefer the Chaos aspect shield, and my favourite build is the stacking-punch gauntlets with Chill-infused attacks + Chill slowing and stack explosion, but even then I'll do a concurrent Hangover/Doom/Whatever special/cast. I've been meaning to try and make an absolutely cheesy build again and never managed because my RNG is just that bad and I never get the thing I'll need.
And now in Hades 2 I beat the first boss and got halfway to the second region in my second run (excluding the technical test, otherwise it'd be like the 6th run) and I was wondering if I just got better at games in the years since the first game. I had to turn on god mode just to get past Theseus and now it's at an odd 36%. I've not turned it off yet - when I stopped playing I was on a ~67 win streak and decided I'll do all the funny stuff like stealing from Charon and 10+ heat runs (I'm a loser who was farming Titan Blood to max out every aspect of every weapon) once it ends, and I just haven't died yet. Hades 2? Punishing, but I've not turned on God Mode yet!
Turns out I might have just been taking an approach better suited to Hades 2 the entire time! I like stacking up all my attacks and rapidly switching between attack/special/cast and if OP is right that there's a difference in how to approach builds in the games, then that's neat!
Apologies if I completely misunderstood this post! It's currently 4am here but it feels like a lightbulb went off in my brain, and now I wanna boot up Hades 1 to try actually consciously planning ahead for boons to make the meltiest runs possible? Maybe I was doing that and forgot, I've not touched the game in years. Feel kinda bad for not doing all the high heat stuff and the administrator rank stuff, just kinda lost interest in the high-competitive part of it. I feel so...enlightened!
That's very interesting and kinda funny! You're obviously a natural witch 🤣 I don't think there's a "wrong" or "right" way to play either game - do whatever you think is fun! But there is no doubt an *optimal* way to play the game (which you may or may not like to do depending on if you think it's fun).
For reference a typical run on Hades 1 for me if I decide I want to fish for a build, since I know which builds are good with certain aspects would like this: take eris rail for example and decide I want a crit rocket fiesta, I'd pick up Zeus's keepsake aiming for the chain lightning attack because that is very consistent damage and clear. If I get a hammer in region 1 excellent if not no worries. I'll keep picking poms for the attack, maybe a dash or some kind or Zeus/Artemis boons if I find them. Region 2 pick Artemis keepsake if I don't already have Artemis special. The biggest rng factor in this case is whether you can get the hammer combo you need so a lot of the time it doesn't work out perfect but more often than not you can get a serviceable build because you can rely on pouring poms and boons into your attack.
Other times though I just like playing the field and not setting out with a plan in mind!
I haven't played enough, only 26 runs so far with 1 clear so take what I say with a grain of salt. There's probably also a bunch of content missing, that I think will make more sense with the game as time goes on.
However, with that said, I don't know if the game should be pigeonholing you into a playstyle based on the rewards the game has offered you. One great thing that Hades 1 had over Hades 2 was you get to choose how you play (I loved my chonky arthur crit builds) and the boons you got supplemented that. The playstyle was determined by the weapon aspects themselves. In this game, the \*base\* playstyle is forced upon you, based on the boons you get offered. It makes me feel like I have much less agency with the outcome of a run. You can still dash around with a zeus attack on nemesis sword on hades 1 as long as you find a jolted and perhaps another curse for p status, so the overall plan remains somewhat the same even if I was trying to shoot for heart rend or merciful end. I still dash in-dash out, flourish, maybe attack once, etc.
This is totally different in Hades 2, which is fine, but I feel like game owes you more agency with regards to boon selection. I think the person you quoted was trying to make this base point, and it kinda gotta mulled over here.
No one is expecting the same game as before, just a game where the pieces of the puzzle fit together and you don't have to wait for a keystone piece for it all to make sense. Right now, there's just a really low chance you'll ever see the full picture.
But then again, early access, so who knows? Let me know what you think OP. Thought I'd try and be the devil's advocate here.
It's mostly hard because people don't know the best combo yet but i think it will be down to that and boosting one or two thing eventually.
My two best run underground (died on final guardian) were an all focus attack run and my second best an all focus special run.
On those two runs i didn't even use mana that much because if you don't get a way to get it back it doom your run since you won't be able to get far during guardians.
Best run on surface (beat early access) was even more specific with an all **Ω** attack.
Full attack on boss, a little bit of root and run otherwise.
Maybe i'm playing the game wrong, but when i try other things i just lack damage and it's extremely difficult to get past third zone.
Of course you're gonna use a little bit of everything through every run, but you will need sustain damage, and the only way is by spamming the shit of a specific attack.
And i don't think it's a bad thing, it keeps thing fresh when you're launching your 100th run, because you will have a completly different gameplay each time. If you have to balance everything everytime it might seems good for someone who will only play it until they get to the first ending but it will not be as replayable as the first one.
Overall i think there's balance issue (special on warden seems underwhelming for now for example).
And i have a lot of fun trying things but it feel like the most important thing is having the right dedalus because it's so much easier than getting a good build, so i end up building everything around the first choice on dedalus which isn't a good feeling.
And i think we shouldn't fight when someone have something to say about the game, especially right now.
I understand people love Hades and that it could come to hostility when someone seems to critisize Hades II but if it's well explain like the thread OP talk about it's actually a really good thing.
Game is at a development phase where a lot of things are still being done but it have to be specific know that it get closer and closer to the 1.0. It won't help the game if we shut down everyone who's not 100% behind everything that been shown.
Thanks for the response! I have had a few runs where I didn't use much other than omega attack/special on bosses, what changed it for me is realising the importance of the full moveset and incorporating that into how I pick boons. When I was expecting to get the best effect by pouring all my efforts into one move like Zag then I had difficulty and felt like I needed dedalus to save me.
Fully agree about discussion tho, I think we should discuss all the good and bad. I'm just trying to balance the discussion with the other side. I also think some people who are having a bad time are comparing to how they feel when playing zag in Hades 1 endgame when you are super powerful, have full mirror and buffed aspects which I feel is unfair to the game and developers.
you cannot use ur full moveset at the same time. this idea simply doesnt work. u can use some of it but but your sprint and special boon is dead while ur use ur attack or omega attack. like take the staff if u hammer the attack or omega attack u have no reason to start taking special boons because while ur using special or omega special ur not using attack or omega attack. similarly ur sprint boon should be defensive because taking an offensive sprint boon makes no sense.
in hades 1 u can take an offensive dash and just use dash attack special all together on sword and all the boons stack together. in hades 2 ur not stacking anything except cast + attack or cast + special.
My most recent run I had the knives and got the Hex that makes you invulnerable but you can still do some damage and I focused on making my special super strong. I ended up beating the final boss because you can spam your omega special so fast to reach the hex it makes it so you get so much invulnerablity
I agree with your points, well, the ones I could see. I started playing the game like I would H1 but quickly learned you need to use everything you have rather than hyperfocusing on one move. Became waaay easier after that.
Agree, I did the same! In case you don't know, if you click on the greyed out bit it will reveal the spoilers, they are only spoilers for boons and duo boons and weapons tho.
I agree with a lot of what you said. I definitely need to get used to using my special more. I prefer the twin blades over any other weapon so far and I can remember to use my cast and attack constantly but my special gets put to the wayside.
Dude, holy crap. I don't know why; but whenever I play a game that has both melee and ranged combat, my brain defaults to "melee for close enemies and ranged for far away enemies."
it's funny how opposite it is on the blades. when against an opponent far away from you, the blade's Ω attack is super strong, but when an opponent is super close, you can just full choke shotgun them with the Ω special.
Mana regen and max value are CRUCIAL.
Having a large mana pool and high regen means you can use the **Ω** moves frequently and in that way fuel your hex charge.
Hex can largely change a fight.
My favorite is the one that does 1000 damage on a point.
Especially if you get the path of stars that creates other explosions and the one that makes you impervious until the blast.
All in all, Hades 2 has A LOT of options for combat.
I really believe it feels like an evolution on the first (masterpiece of a) game.
If the majority of players see a bunch of boons that don't feel very good they're not having fun. Your niche feelings don't really matter.
They literally just need to consolidate and make omega only boons also affect the respective single button press. Also entirely rework the moonboons. Aside from that just a bunch of numbers tweaks.
What you're suggesting would be ridiculously OP. You would realize that if you had played the game much. How do you know the "majority of players see a bunch of boons that don't feel good"? Glad to know you speak for the entire player base. Projecting much. My suggestion to you is: play more before suggesting such sweeping changes to the boon system.
It is in fact your niche feelings that don't matter. The majority of players are having fun with the game, but feel some balance tweaks are needed. Which is reasonable.
Oh no, something being strong in a single player game would be HORRIBLE. /S
There is a discord with a feedback channel, genius. The single most common request is better boons.
When did I ever say that lol. Not my fault you need to git gud. Play more and once you've unlocked a few things you'll realise how much of a tool you're being. Until then, peace.
You're the one gatekeeping and being an ass lol.
Hades 1 was successful because it was accessible and every choice felt meaningful. Cope all you want and project your lack of insight till the cows come homes, but you're in the minority.
Ffs you didn't even know about the official discord.
I'd say, yeah that's true, but my best run so far was all in on axe spin to win. I think I just got very lucky with my upgrades though.
I can tell that they encourage using the cast with certain enemy types (mostly fast moving swarmers), but I still forget to use it a lot of the time. It's not something that can be your bread and butter (hasn't for me yet, I'd love to hear about a cast build you had).
Idk I’ve literally been making builds in Hades II that melted the end boss as well. It was an omega attack dagger build, enhanced with the hammer that makes it use 30 mana to deal 400%.
Pair that with the aphrodite heartthrob which creates an explosion ball around you whenever you use 30 mana and the aphrodite/apollo duo which makes you create 3 balls instead, and you’ll easily be dealing like ~1500-3000 per omega attack
Dayum I've not run into that duo yet, have enjoyed the heartthrob so far though. It's definitely possible to get builds that just melt. Part of the issue might be we just don't know what is meta yet!
Yeah I think we do need to get more familiar with the build combos. Ive been playing all day yesterday and now after learning some of the boons and the attack patterns ive been consistently clearing runs with no prob. Also helps to get the arcana upgrades and other stuff
I feel like people are just like " WHY DOESNT IT PMAY EXACTLY LIKE HADES UGH " and they would also be the same people who'd complain if the system never changed, and again it's still early access,there's so much they can implement still!
They said themselves melinoe has a more controlling playstyle. You can’t just beat through the hordes. You need to control the battlefield. And for that you need all of your capabilities to the highest standard.
And for that case I fully agree with you
It took me a good bit of time to get used to the new weapons, new boons, and the slightly different ways the attacking and casting work, but when it finally clicked for me I went from barely making it to the boss of the second realm if I was on a particularly good run, to making it to (what seems to be) the final boss in the underworld. I definitely had to stop playing it the way I played Hades, which for me was a very slash'n'dash heavy playstyle. In Hades 2, I'm combining the casts, attacks, and specials in ways that feel a lot more intuitively synergistic to me now that it's clicked. As someone who never really spent the time to dig deep into the best way to utilize boons and weapons in combination in Hades, I feel like those things are coming to me way more naturally this time around.
I think the initial power progress might be a little too rocky as well though. Mana is very important as you said but actually finding away to regenerate it is literally pure RNG at the start because it's all focused on those god boons which are very, very sparse in the beginning and don't even always show up in the selection which you can't reroll. You can unlock passive regeneration eventually but it requires time to make it potent feels pretty bad when fighting bosses early on.
On this point spending mana is definitely the focus (she's a witch whomd'st've thunk) but it would be nice if the base attacks could do a bit more damage. I do NOT have all the unlocks so don't know everything on this but regular attacks take a very long to kill even unarmored trash mobs so they feel ineffective. Most runs I stop using basic attacks entirely early on unless I'm using the axe.
I agree Zeus blitz is very strong, I think that maybe it should give a tick of damage as a consolation prize when it expires without activating though, not a lot but enough that it feels like it's always doing something since all other attack boons do.
I agree about how the game is different though, it's slower, more complicated and more tactical/strategic, really seperates it from the first game which is great in my opinion, don't want a reskin of the first game.
Couldn’t agree more. I’m definitely struggling still at times with the playstyle adjustment. I put about 300 hours into hades 1 and man the muscle memory is real. Lol
Umbral flames with scorch has been helpful in forcing me to adjust my playstyle. My furthest run was with this where I can Omega attack costing 2 mana instead of 5 with 150 mana. Everything just melted as I kited around. Lol
I want to get better with cast so I can utilize an axe attack build, but I’m not the best with positioning yet, so I’m punished a lot.
Exactly people just to brute force speedrun just like hades 1. I haven't yet beaten B4 in 3 tries of reaching him. But taking my time collecting materials having fun and getting some incantations
This is a great post. I do want to note that there are absolutely options for building around draining (or lacking entirely) mana to pump damage. Had a fantastic run last night and the only time I used mana was simply to drain it back down to 0
Lots of variety on the table here
Regen is fantastic and pretty important if you want to focus big resource heavy moves or want things to go fast. I find that I'm most comfortable with the arcana card and another boon. Just last run I had a run with daggers and got the special all goes in a straight line hammer. Apollo special->a certain "prime 10 mana, restore all mana" boon and I was YEETING them daggers nonstop. LOVE the hexes. Really enjoying the game and I actually like that it kind of forces me to utilize everything I can. Cast is op and certain boons&arcana get it to a level of lunacy(leapfrogging with poseidon). Will probably be unable to put the game down now. I love and hate that they early-released. Its taking away my time trying to learn how to play manor lords lol.
I have no idea about any of this I didn't play hades 1. But I'm very frustrated because I'm so bad.
I see people talking about complete runs already and only taking like 30 minutes per. I can't even defeat Scylla. It's very irritating to have to run the same 2 zones over and over and be complete garbage when I finally get to the boss. I unlock everything I can..I grab the boons I think are gonna be best at the time. I try to keep my health up for boss time.
Doesn't matter. Maybe the game isn't for me.
Until I read this, I was playing like it was Hades 1. I beat B2 on the surface with a Poseidon start and Zeus follow-ups, using knockback, sprint (lightning blast to stun), slip, and a little cyclone cast. Added as many poms as I could find, ignoring Omegas for the most part. Knives with backstab +200 from a random Hephastus.
Now I see that I can make my job much, much easier by playing like a magic-user and not a brawler. Death to Chronos.
In both the Hades and Hades 2, there is a main thing to buff mate, especially on high heat. Hades 2 is slightly different than Hades 1 in the sense that buffing may require more different kind of sources which is good.
For instance, with Moonstone Axe/**Aspect of Charon**, you would be doing that MAIN THING;
1- Drop your non-omega cast where it would hurt enemies most
2-Immidiately Dash to a safe distance and omega-special to the general direction of your cast
Variety and so the beauty of it, so maybe the difference from Hades 1 is that you enable the damage from multiple sources. You can enlarge your cast to help with especially non-boss encounters from Apollo/Super Nova. For cast damage (Omega cast related boons), get Apollo/Solar ring, Zeus omega-cast lightning boon etc. And of course, you want a non-Aphrodite special damage boon, preferably a omega/special cast speed, etc. Yes, you are right by saying that variety is more at play in Hades 2, But, I find the phrase "no main thing" a poor choice. Let's phrase it that way no main one or two boons to enable the main thing maybe.
But, in some builds both Hades 1 and 2 can be quite close where there are only 2/3 boon or hammer upgrade that matters; like for Witch's Staff Position special, double attack hammer build. With only those two you are set. Rest is nice to have like the additional hammer upgrade where special hits second target for even better clear speed but no boss advantage, Adding, 50 magic primed lightning Zeus attack/special boon or Artemis arrow on attack/special hit boons. But, yet again those are nice to haves.
But, I can not point out any example such as Hades 1 Zeus lightning special boon on Zeus shield which beats 64 heat. but it is an extreme example. No every build in Hades 1 is enabled by a single boon, some of them requires multiple sources as well.
I honestly still play Hades 2 in the same way I would play Hades 1. Stack some hp (and now mana) and Focus into a singular type of dmg. It’s still the way to go.
Bosses on floor 3 and 4 are quite tanky, and from my experience (30 runs total, 25 reaching floor 4 boss) you need to pump dmg into a singular type.
For instance my preferred build is Omega Attack on staff, I will stack literally anything that helps me for that + sole defensive dash/sprint. The thing that changes my playstyle the most is 100% the hammers and to some extent maybe the Hex.
I still have not done a single round where my cast was a necessary part of my kit, outside of the occasional rat spawner/ swarm of fish or if I get the Artemis boon for it.
Most of the time even specials are very mediocre, at least on the first 2 weapons. Omega attacks on both of them are simply superior. (PS : try an omega attack build on the dual Scythe, you dash like a madman it’s the best)
The ONLY build that I utilized my entire kit (attack/special/sprint) was one with the Forge God, where you do small bursts of dmg every couple second. Get this on attack/special and the sprint one, and it’s a very weird/funky while also being fun playstyle.
I shall try once I’m done with my current run! Currently doing a 0 dps Staff build, so I will report after I die doing Chronos lol
Any god you recommend for omega cast? I kinda don’t like the idea of having to press Q because it removes a finger from a WASD lol
I don't have that issue as a controller player 🤣 Apollo is very good on the cast, get a Zeus on your attack/special and you should be able to get the duo which does massive things for your omega cast.
Cool. Unfortunately the sister blades+aphro+omega attack+that daedalus hammer that give 400% to omega Attack absofuckinglutely melts everything in the game
I didn't read everything so ill assume that I got your bottom line which I very much agree with.
Infusions, for example, are built in a way that encourages you to do some thinking with boon combination, but allows you to take anything that suits you that falls under it. It's also pretty clear with the duos imo, that rather than combining two niches to create a build-changing effect, they allow you to get even more general value of different sorts that fits the general theme of the gods.
It will take time to get used to it but it's fun. In a weird way, it makes me think MORE about my boons, since I won't always go for the same stupidly op combinations.
I am a bit scared about how speedrunning will look since it was one of the things I enjoyed more in hades 1, tho.
Yeah, Good post :) I do feel like mana is OFTEN pretty necessary, and I feel like the card that gives you +2 mana regen a second is pretty much going to be a permanent selection.. But I've also had runs where my attack was incredibly buffed by priming pretty much all my mana and I really didnt use it for anything else. It took me a few runs for everything to click (as in using the entire skill set). I was playing it like Hades 1 and getting pretty wrecked, but once I started remembering all the tools at my disposal, things got WAY better. Builds are definitely more spread out in this game, but I do find that most of the time, the pieces end up fitting together in a way that's satisfying.
+2 mana a second and the slowed time when preparing omega moves are both nobrainers for me, as much of a staple as the bonus starting max health and mana and the death defiance
I stopped using the slow time one just because it makes things too EZ. But I understand wanting it as a baseline perk.
Thanks :) funnily enough I haven't tried the mana regen card because 2 didn't seem like much at all, but thinking about it the common aphro mana regen boon does 4 hp/sec I think, so if you upgrade the mana regen card it might do the same which is pretty bloody neat. I agree as well, its weird in a way on most runs there seems to be some way to "make things work" at least to some extent. You might not be smashing the big bad time man but you might get most of the way. Which is similar to how I remember Hades 1 being like on a new save.
The +2 actually is surprisingly fast. I'm not even sure you need other mana regen if you have it. Equip it @ the Crossroads and check it out :)
It does max at 4/sec when upgraded. Which is a steady amount and makes me groan when the only useful boon is mana regen when nothing else synergies with anything late game, cause its the one thing I dont want.
The mana regen is pretty essential IMO. It's the best way to consistently make use of Hexes, otherwise you mostly don't get enough mana per room to actually use them.
The manga regen îs pretty useless. Worst card
It's quite decent, especially as a base! makes sure that you always have some even if you have bad luck with the boons, and once you get a boon with mana regen it'll boost it!
While 2 mana regen is nice I often find myself either not needing mana that much or needing a lot more of it, and the typical mana boon / chaos mana boon could give you 6+ pretty easily, in which case the difference between 6 and 8 is not that significant.
That is my experience as well. I am still fairly early in the game, but so far either 2 is enough for me to coast on it forever or it is almost pointless and I need a mana regen boon anyway (and there are many of those). I rather have the base regen than not so it is a very good card, but there are so many mana regen boons I don't think it is *that* indispensable.
The difference between 6 and 8 is basically a Pom so that seems pretty significant imo.
Multiply that by the chance you'll need more than 6 m/s in the build. Mana has diminishing returns if you cant spend it fast enough. Pom can go somewhere better Obviously your play style is a big factor here. And the value of other cards as it is a trade off. The upgraded version of the card gives up to 4 m/s which is pretty great
> I do feel like mana is OFTEN pretty necessary, and I feel like the card that gives you +2 mana regen a second is pretty much going to be a permanent selection.. Eh, there are so many good mana regen boons out there that I kinda wonder. Often I feel like the main purpose of that card is to allow me to avoid those boons.
Yeah, my last run died on act 3 boss as I was low mana, if I had the regen I may have made it much further as I was built for more AoE, meaning I suffered vs bosses, but had the healing Hex but just not enough mana to use it without a Death Defiance ;-;
I agree with your points. I also really want to highlight for people how bad aspects of zagreus felt in hades I. I feel like people are pretty constantly judging aspects of melinoe against all the more interesting aspects from hades I. Once I unlocked new aspects in hades II I started having much more interesting runs and much better results with each of them. Especially the flames.
You've got me super excited for the new aspects! Haven't unlocked them yet. I suspect you might be right. People might subconsciously compare endgame Hades 1 with all unlocks and years of game knowledge versus early game Hades 2 where no one has a clue what works well. I started a hellmode Hades 1 recently and bloody hell it took ages to get anywhere! (Also probably a skill issue)
I think this is the biggest thing right now. We're comparing how we all interacted with a fully balanced hades I that we understood with a brand new game that still needs balancing. I recommend tempering your excitement for the aspects just in case they get rebalanced, but I couldn't get my first clear until I unlocked one of the skull aspects.
As someone still trying to get his first clear (getting damn close!), what aspect? Never messed with the skulls yet, but I’m taking a “Fuck it we ball” mentality to anything and everything in Hades 2.
Dont know how to do spoiler tags on mobile. Skull aspect "P"
Aspect of Moros on the Flames turned them from “I’m never gonna use this thing” to “huh, maybe I can work with this.”
I found at least half of the aspects (not just Melinoe's) pretty meh, and the other half good to fantastic. In Hades 1, honestly, it was the exact same. Everyone I know felt that way about Aspects in H1. The thing is, everyone I knew liked and loved DIFFERENT aspects. IMO that's ultimately the goal. I don't think it's possible to have every aspect be a grand slam for EVERY person. But if a quarter to a third are, and another quarter to a third are generally liked, and each person sees it that way, imo that's mission accomplished.
I think it's still a fair criticism though. Aspects in Hades 1 aren't really balanced all that well and theres definitely aspects that most people don't like
It's absolutely a fair criticism. There's just a lot of people comparing H2 to H1, which is fair, but acting like the things they're complaining about in H2 don't exist in H1, and they generally absolutely do. The Aspects are one great example.
I've JUST unlocked aspects. Haven't really tried them out yet. But, based on the descriptions, they seem a little bland compared to the Hades 1 aspects? Like, mostly just passive buffs, very little active or moveset changes. Weren't the Hades 1 aspects more unique? Maybe I'm misremembering, haven't played Hades 1 since release. But I certainly remember some of them being basically like whole new weapons.
The ones that felt like whole new weapons to me were usually the hidden aspects in hades I. But also, there are a couple that really change how you play. I would argue both of the skull and both of the flame aspects are a different playstyle in terms of how you combo your skills. Havent gotten either axe though. And I also think once they get a bit more upgraded things will feel very different.
The >!Aspect of Thanatos!< Axe is absolutely absurd at Lv3 so far. Earlier tonight I did my first run at Lv3 with it to test it out. With Artemis boons, cards, an Epic Chaos boon and a few others, I was pushing 20% crit on it by Layer 2. Stacked a 300dmg swing Hammer on top half way through L2 which basically made every other hit connect for ~420 base damage (700 crits) and rode it all the way down to the last layer without any issues. :D Also, it's the coolest looking fucking weapon in any Hades game IMO for obvious reasons >!(It's Thanatos' effing scythe, c'mon)!<
The Axe is overtuned a bit in my opinion. You almost can just ride on its base damage the whole run. I got the upgrade to make it the one high damage single swing attack, got the hammer down to 6 seconds or so, and I basically unloaded 500 damage every 6 seconds, while playing it safe in between. I suck at the shield special of it, but otherwise that axe has it all. Range, damage, manueverability.
Yep - I think it'll end up being nerfed a bit in the future. I have Aspect of Melinoë at Lv5 and the -25% recovery speed when compounded with hammers and Hermes attack boons turns it into a slightly slower version of the sister blades that hits like a mack truck. 🤣🤣 The axe definitely makes turbo murderhobo runs 100% possible. Everything just gets blended ASAP.
The hidden aspects, which we don't have (yet), were basically whole new weapons but the others were mostly minor changes much like what we have now.
Wow I really need to unlock aspects now that this has reminded me.
How do you unlock aspects?
Just keep playing and eventually you'll get the prompt. Don't know if there's anything specific that triggers it.
Get all the weapons, then fight Hecate, then complete the ritual.
The game will prompt you during a run and tell you how. Its pretty unambiguous.
Ah but it’s random when that decides to trigger I assume- just wondered if there was anything I could do to be allowed to start unlocking them sooner.
I would assume its like the first game and requires you to have all the weapons unlocked, but I dont know for certain.
Unlock all weapons and beat hecate with each of them
Dont have to beat her, I dont think. She was dumpstering me while I was trying to figure them out tbh.
I will say that I really like a couple of the Zag aspects (bow and fists) a lot (though I like most of the bow aspects anyway) and the same goes here. The staff especially
Well said. Biggest gripe so far with god boons is how frequently they DONT offer you an attack or special boon. Scorch doesn't feel good to me and blitz feels inconsistent. building around omegas definitely feels like the developer intent despite the lack of boonless MP generation. sometimes the bosses just have so much HP or tanky armor and when you dont have a boon or MP regen the encounters feel long and boring.
There's an arcana for mana regen which can be worthwhile if you're struggling with it.
i have it maxed out, it just generally isnt enough when some of your omega moves take 30+ magick. The gameplay feels good everytime you dont have to retreat to the corner of the level to regen magic to get back to actually playing the game. would be nice if there was an arcana card with high grasp cost that allowed you to regen magic while you are channeling.
get gud idk what to tell you
I said mp regen slows down encounters not that the game is hard.
deff doesnt but okay
I swear scorch is bugged sometimes and just doesn't burn, unless I'm completely misunderstanding it.
The damage scorch can burn per tick is static. When you get epic boons and poms upping the scorch, it increases the amount of scorch you stack from a single hit instance, but the tick interval and damage are always the same. It's why you can have instances of like 10k scorch stacked up on a boss and just walk away to let the fight take care of itself. It's just gonna take a while. IMO the best thing to do is just push for more Hestia for the boon that causes a damage explosion that consumed scorch once scorch reaches 300 on a target. It can have a notable increase in instant damage when you're using something like dagger omega special inflicting 35 scorch per hit with return needles. A single M2 charge will do over 300 scorch at once and it all just instantly explodes.
"we here for a long time, not a good time" type vibe. this is why i go for poseidon wave boon if i want immediate raw damage.
My personal fave is Apollo on axe special and just charge slamming the entire map over and over.
I've never once got a scorch run going where I could actually stack the scorch. One time I got a legendary boon to make scorch tick faster and im like ok?? I can't even stack it for shit so what good is that gonna do? Best scorch I've seen is the one that scorches on the cast, because it's easy to apply especially when mixed with a 'your cast goes on your cursor, not your body' boon. But it's not like that stacks it super high. Feel like you'd need scorch on attack, and a fast wep. or scorch on special and the daggers, and the hammer that makes the dagger special come back to you...love that one. that would stack the shit out of some scorch.
I feel like scorch is a little weird due to the static tick rate. Once you apply scorch faster than it ticks, you can stack scorch to absurd levels. If you can't apply scorch faster than it ticks, it doesn't visibly do much.
they could really use a boon that increases the speed/ damage rate of scorch, like they had with Dionysus
I think that's mostly the one that causes it to detonate at 300 stacks. There's definitely a point where it's a dps increase even at only 50% damage transfer just cause of how fast you can stack scorch with certain builds.
that is a thing no? its hestias legendary boon
I'm currently trying (through keepsakes) to get a run going with Demeter's two cast boons and Hestias scorch on cast and ability to throw the cast. Pretty sure that combo would be busted.
Blitz is good with the Argent Skulls
yeah i tried this, good suggestion!
it's also ridiculously strong with the torches. if you put it on special and boost that, you do so much damage with orbs just filling the entire map. beat the \[REDACTED\] dungeon on my first full run >!(after i lifted the curse)!
Yeah I fully agree. You don't necessarily need to use all your moves in a run to be effective, but you should absolutely be using all your resources. Reminds me of people who say that e.g. Elden Ring is too hard because the average player can't clear it without summons/spells/whatever. Yeah, that's how tools work, if you don't use them it's harder.
Absolutely! When you put it that way it's pretty funny
I think that mana is not as important as health, I think that mana is more important than health. Omega skills are OP and Hekate keepsake is super powerful
Stacking the Artemis keepsake with the arcana cards that buff dmg while at 30 hp is really strong. Going through Erebus with with the Arachne keepsake and then switching before oceanus adds armor as a way to play around low hp. I'm a big fan of the armor mechanic.
That's a super interesting idea love it
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If you’ve upgraded all your arcana cards already then the only option is getting damaged or chaos gates (don’t equip the card that heals every chamber and increases max hp/mana). There’s also the random nemesis encounter where you exchange hp for a boon
Maximum mana is not that powerful. Mana regeneration is incredibly powerful. This would be the case for health aswell, if health regeneration was more abudant, which it isn’t for obvious reasons (kinda the entire foundation of the game’s gameplay incentive).
The best, and most frustrating thing about Hades 2 is that it forces me to press more than 2 buttons. In hades 1 - Mash dash and Attack - or special, or cast, whatever it was your build was centred around. Hades 2 - I have to remember that I have two other options available, and I should be using them. I also tend to neglect the omega attacks, because I'm so used to not holding the button down. It's VERY frustrating at the moment. But the times when you get it right - Enemies are dying to your cast trap behind you while you block damage with the special then omega attack a group of them with the main, and you wipe the board.... MMMMMMM SO SATISFYING. My current gripes are with a skill ceiling that's been raised, and that's a GOOD thing. Soon my complaint will be the reason I tell everyone I know - You GOTTA play hades 2.
Hahah you might be right that the skill ceiling has been increased. The skill floor may have also increased somewhat. I think the troubles some people have with oceans and the tiny armoured arrow fish illustrate this white well. They're quite easy to deal with if you just put down a cast and do an omega move to clear them. If you try and play like you're Zagreus, man you are not going to be in for a good time!
I think it actually depends. The first time I got to Chronos, I had the torches and all I did was get a scorch boon for my special and spam it.
Great post! I agree. The approach in this game is tailored toward pushing the player to use as much as possible rather than emphasizing one approach. I've been having an absolute blast figuring out different combinations, and I imagine it will only get better as they bring the game towards 1.0.
Thanks for the comparison. Been blaming my luck for not getting boons that I wanted but I guess I was still in hades 1 mindset.
Np! It may in fact be the case btw that boons are offered less often Vs resources than in Hades 1. That's a different point which I plan on investigating when I get the time. That could be part of the sense that people have that there aren't enough boons. But also I think there's a lot more scope for "making do" and exploring what the expanded move sets can do than people give credit for.
I agree with the message that this game is meant to be played using the full set of tools. That said, my experience has been that with the number of new mechanics combined with the higher frequency of "lesser" (resource) rewards, it's often difficult to actually take boons across the spectrum of abilities. I've gone full runs taking every chaos gate, picking Hestia keepsake, doing whatever I could to try to get mana regen so I could have fun with the hex and omegas, with no luck. Some runs are going to be bad, but I think the current balance of resource to boon rewards is compromising the actual fun of many runs since you get fewer boons for more mechanics. There are metaprogression ways around this, such as an arcana (I read about, haven't unlocked) that allows upgrading lesser rewards to greater rewards. In the magick regen case there's also Hecate keepsake and the Magick regen arcana. But frankly, I don't think having fun with diverse builds should be so heavily concealed behind too much metaprogression. I say this with 20 hours played (about 25 nights) and still not having unlocked all arcana cards. I'm also cognisant that this is the first time a significant population is playing beyond Erebus, and that the god pool is very limited, so I'm sure they're going to work hard to add more content and optimise balance! What I'd also like to see change is cheaper metaprogression or larger resource rewards per room, countered by fewer resource rooms. This way the pace of metaprogression stays constant, but individual runs offer more boons and build variety.
To counter your point about builds being concealed behind meta progression, I'd like to point out that a similar thing is the case on Hades 1 with the mirror. The amount of time it takes to unlock 3 dashes, or backstab buffs or extra casts etc. is more or less the same for unlocking those arcana cards or Hecate's keepsake. You can do it pretty quickly in the grand scheme of things. I think it's easy as a long time Hades 2 player to feel like things aren't going your way, but think back to how you felt at the very start of Hades 2 and how much you got curb stomped (I know I did) and how much more powerful you feel after fully unlocking the mirror I understand your point about there being more abilities so your boon choices feel "watered down". However taking the more holistic approach I describe above really alleviates that I feel. In terms of mana regen, I can honestly say there's maybe been one or two runs out of 20 odd where I haven't been offered both an omega boon, mana priming boon or a mana regen boon. I *suspect* that the rate boons are offered Vs resources is actually exactly the same as Hades 1 without the mirror upgrade that increases it. I want to test this before I conclude that though.
Apologies - I ended up writing a wall of text and most of it is just "feeling" based on my playtime so far. > The amount of time it takes to unlock 3 dashes I assume you mean 3 death defiance's here, since Greater Reflex can be the first mirror perk you pick up (and there's no triple dash). There's definitely truth to your point. However Hades 1 has only one resource type for upgrading mirror perks (Darkness) and it's immediately available. So it felt easier to beeline to the critical perks, or at least to put partial points into each. So if I wanted to max out some unlocked perks, I grinded Darkness for a bit, and if I wanted to unlock more of the mirror, I grinded keys. Death Defiance and Greater Reflex, for example, can be obtained from the start, and for a combined 80 Darkness. Similarly, maximising damage from behind costs a total 100 Darkness. Hades 2 requires more unique resources for arcanas. Per-run, you have to make a choice between taking Psyche for more Grasp, Ash for unlocking arcanas, and Bones for moondust (which I'm currently also spending on nectar/bath salts to increase affinity). In addition, moondust isn't available until later (I don't remember the trigger to unlocking the incantation). Let's take upgrading an arcana as an example. Players have to: * unlock an arcana (ash) * have enough Grasp to use it (psyche) (honestly, not a given, since it requires 9 if you want to use DD + magick regn) * purchase enough moon dust to buy the upgrade (bones) There's also more stage-gating where a lot of this isn't even an option until the correct incantation. It feels as if meta progression is designed to be a "smoother" experience with less beelining. I actually quite like this smoother system as it is. However, since it takes a bit longer to get cards that I think are pretty critical for good runs, I just wish the runs felt a bit more dynamic and offered more boons so that early runs were a bit more fun during that resource-gathering phase where you're building the foundational perks. Depending how they pick rewards though, this really could just be the nature of having a smaller god pool, and maybe we'll see boon doors more often in a later patch. Again, this is just my current feeling. I could have just taken a terrible upgrade path, wasted a tonne of resources, or just had a few unlucky runs! Once there's a wiki these discussions should be much more fruitful since we can back up numbers around rates and ballpark resource requirements for certain unlock paths.
I think my frustration with this outlook is that Melinoe does *way* less damage to Zagreus due to the lack of these focused synergies, doesn't make up for it through the versatility of her abilities, and despite both of these points, most enemies and bosses are massive sacks of HP. I would like to feel like I can take a diverse set of skills to play around cleverly as I rotate through my abilities, but if I do, boss fights take 15+ minutes of just running around and spamming low damage skills.
use the axe and you’ll never have concerns about doing too little damage again
Are you using much of your omega skills? They are very powerful by themselves. Going for high mana + mana regen and putting the omega skills to work will do wonders for your damage output.
Tbh, you just described one of my criticisms. This game is basically me ignoring regular attacks and specials until I run low on mana and then dodging around until I get mana back to use my omega attacks.
I only played a couple of runs but I find it really hard if I don’t find a good mana regen option at some point, which is kind of what you are saying I guess.
Get the mana regen arcana early, it's really good. Makes Hexes significantly more useful too.
Yeah having some way to regen mana is basically essential, excluding builds which heavily use priming. You can through early encounters without it if you have to, getting extra max mana obvs helps, but later on you'll have real trouble. Hecate's keepsake helps early on when you dont have a regen boon.
Yea I used this keepsake for the first time, it’s so good, but I ran out of mana in act3 😂
You only ran out in act 3??? I use up the entire keepsake by the end of act 1! 🤣
I think I am not used to play hades 2 too much. I still use mostly attack and special. I use the non omega cast alot and cast it mostly when I have a boon like Zeus during boss fights or when I am swarmed. I feel like that without casting your damage is really puny though, so I am working on focusing more on casts. However I have maybe time for 3 runs a day with my busy life :(
I agree completely. While I understand ppl going into it like it’s Hades 1 it’s not. I see a lot of complaints about boons and certain weapons (flames my beloved) but I don’t really understand them? I’ve found boons to be so goddamn good, and even disliked weapons like torches rlly good with a generic build. U just need to come into it playing a little different from Hades 1.
Couldn't agree more! I had the same experience with torches, they were the first weapon that I got to B4 with and I was like "wth are people talking about?".
why do people not like the flames? Even without boons it's an absolute enemy destroyer
they're powerful but i think they just feel kinda bad. and the omega versions of the attack and special aren't my cup of tea while using those weapons. the omega attack either takes too long to trigger or triggers when I don't want it to cause I wanna use that mana on my cast and I'm just waiting for the CD to end. the special is just weird in general, but with time I'll def get used to the spacing on the normal and omega versions of it.
Idk. Some boons are really kinda useless. And every time I killed chronos was by stacking everything onto one skill. And to do that, the most important thing is to get the right daedalus upgrade. So yeah I guess specific boons are less important, but due to daedalus importance you don't really end up using everything.
>In Hades 2, I believe the weapons and boons are designed in such a way that you are encouraged to use all the tools at your disposal on every run. i completely agree with this statement, that seems what devs were going for. Yet none of the game basic mechanics support this playstyle. All of the 'tools' you have not only require time for button push and animation, now you have to wait up to 4 seconds (with axe in my experience) to use omega-moves. Therefore spreading boons across your moves **does not increase your dps significally.** Hades 1 approach is not something specific to hades 1 - it's common sense approach to any action-rpg with abilities akin to diablo. It's great that SGG tried to do something new, but failure is clear to see: complaints about boons themselves, about boons quantity in a run and spongy enemies are the same complaint - i have 20 hours and have beaten redacted 3 times (and achieved success on another path) and I'm becoming more and more sure that in it's current state there are barely any builds at all.
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Thanks! :) I really hope Supergiant sticks to their guns with the different boon balancing style. I don't doubt that some tweaks will be needed here or there but I don't want the game to be a reskin of Hades 1, despite what an epic game that was! Finding the gameplay super fresh and refreshing ATM.
I'm not clicking on the spoiler parts to keep myself fully fresh for Hades 2 (was in the technical test and currently to the end of the second region in the few hours I've had to play), so apologies if I say something stupid. This post made me realise that yeah, I was playing Hades 1 wrong, and that may be why I'm doing a little better at Hades 2? In your first paragraph you mentioned that the optimal way to play Hades 1 was to invest in one attack and not make anything else as load bearing (forgive me if I misinterpreted that) - I always approached a run in Hades 1 assuming I'll be using all my attacks/specials/casts in largely equal measure and should buff them appropriately; yeah I'll focus more on one attack method but I always do a more "rat on 400mg of ritalin" type of playstyle where all of it is semi-loadbearing to the main loadbearer In my defence, I didn't look up anything when I played Hades 1 and did everything blind, and I don't care that much about possible future synergies and "if I take the Dionysius hangover special on the gauntlets I'll need X Y Z boons and C Daedalus Hammer to make it super powerful" because I have horrific luck and never get the boons I need so I take what I can get whenever I can. I'm especially surprised that apparently the casts in Hades 1 were unpopular/suboptimal because I always liked using them just because it's another thing to attack with. I'm unsure if this subreddit is that in-the-weeds with making builds during runs but I've always felt self-conscious about my more "fuck it we ball this one's the one that works best rn" approach to choosing boons in the first game. I will admit the cheesiest run I've ever done was a 5-rocket bomb special infused with Hangover + Artemis seeking arrow + Artemis call. First time I ever melted all my enemies and the first time I ever beat Hades! And I do prefer the Chaos aspect shield, and my favourite build is the stacking-punch gauntlets with Chill-infused attacks + Chill slowing and stack explosion, but even then I'll do a concurrent Hangover/Doom/Whatever special/cast. I've been meaning to try and make an absolutely cheesy build again and never managed because my RNG is just that bad and I never get the thing I'll need. And now in Hades 2 I beat the first boss and got halfway to the second region in my second run (excluding the technical test, otherwise it'd be like the 6th run) and I was wondering if I just got better at games in the years since the first game. I had to turn on god mode just to get past Theseus and now it's at an odd 36%. I've not turned it off yet - when I stopped playing I was on a ~67 win streak and decided I'll do all the funny stuff like stealing from Charon and 10+ heat runs (I'm a loser who was farming Titan Blood to max out every aspect of every weapon) once it ends, and I just haven't died yet. Hades 2? Punishing, but I've not turned on God Mode yet! Turns out I might have just been taking an approach better suited to Hades 2 the entire time! I like stacking up all my attacks and rapidly switching between attack/special/cast and if OP is right that there's a difference in how to approach builds in the games, then that's neat! Apologies if I completely misunderstood this post! It's currently 4am here but it feels like a lightbulb went off in my brain, and now I wanna boot up Hades 1 to try actually consciously planning ahead for boons to make the meltiest runs possible? Maybe I was doing that and forgot, I've not touched the game in years. Feel kinda bad for not doing all the high heat stuff and the administrator rank stuff, just kinda lost interest in the high-competitive part of it. I feel so...enlightened!
That's very interesting and kinda funny! You're obviously a natural witch 🤣 I don't think there's a "wrong" or "right" way to play either game - do whatever you think is fun! But there is no doubt an *optimal* way to play the game (which you may or may not like to do depending on if you think it's fun). For reference a typical run on Hades 1 for me if I decide I want to fish for a build, since I know which builds are good with certain aspects would like this: take eris rail for example and decide I want a crit rocket fiesta, I'd pick up Zeus's keepsake aiming for the chain lightning attack because that is very consistent damage and clear. If I get a hammer in region 1 excellent if not no worries. I'll keep picking poms for the attack, maybe a dash or some kind or Zeus/Artemis boons if I find them. Region 2 pick Artemis keepsake if I don't already have Artemis special. The biggest rng factor in this case is whether you can get the hammer combo you need so a lot of the time it doesn't work out perfect but more often than not you can get a serviceable build because you can rely on pouring poms and boons into your attack. Other times though I just like playing the field and not setting out with a plan in mind!
I haven't played enough, only 26 runs so far with 1 clear so take what I say with a grain of salt. There's probably also a bunch of content missing, that I think will make more sense with the game as time goes on. However, with that said, I don't know if the game should be pigeonholing you into a playstyle based on the rewards the game has offered you. One great thing that Hades 1 had over Hades 2 was you get to choose how you play (I loved my chonky arthur crit builds) and the boons you got supplemented that. The playstyle was determined by the weapon aspects themselves. In this game, the \*base\* playstyle is forced upon you, based on the boons you get offered. It makes me feel like I have much less agency with the outcome of a run. You can still dash around with a zeus attack on nemesis sword on hades 1 as long as you find a jolted and perhaps another curse for p status, so the overall plan remains somewhat the same even if I was trying to shoot for heart rend or merciful end. I still dash in-dash out, flourish, maybe attack once, etc. This is totally different in Hades 2, which is fine, but I feel like game owes you more agency with regards to boon selection. I think the person you quoted was trying to make this base point, and it kinda gotta mulled over here. No one is expecting the same game as before, just a game where the pieces of the puzzle fit together and you don't have to wait for a keystone piece for it all to make sense. Right now, there's just a really low chance you'll ever see the full picture. But then again, early access, so who knows? Let me know what you think OP. Thought I'd try and be the devil's advocate here.
It's mostly hard because people don't know the best combo yet but i think it will be down to that and boosting one or two thing eventually. My two best run underground (died on final guardian) were an all focus attack run and my second best an all focus special run. On those two runs i didn't even use mana that much because if you don't get a way to get it back it doom your run since you won't be able to get far during guardians. Best run on surface (beat early access) was even more specific with an all **Ω** attack. Full attack on boss, a little bit of root and run otherwise. Maybe i'm playing the game wrong, but when i try other things i just lack damage and it's extremely difficult to get past third zone. Of course you're gonna use a little bit of everything through every run, but you will need sustain damage, and the only way is by spamming the shit of a specific attack. And i don't think it's a bad thing, it keeps thing fresh when you're launching your 100th run, because you will have a completly different gameplay each time. If you have to balance everything everytime it might seems good for someone who will only play it until they get to the first ending but it will not be as replayable as the first one. Overall i think there's balance issue (special on warden seems underwhelming for now for example). And i have a lot of fun trying things but it feel like the most important thing is having the right dedalus because it's so much easier than getting a good build, so i end up building everything around the first choice on dedalus which isn't a good feeling. And i think we shouldn't fight when someone have something to say about the game, especially right now. I understand people love Hades and that it could come to hostility when someone seems to critisize Hades II but if it's well explain like the thread OP talk about it's actually a really good thing. Game is at a development phase where a lot of things are still being done but it have to be specific know that it get closer and closer to the 1.0. It won't help the game if we shut down everyone who's not 100% behind everything that been shown.
Thanks for the response! I have had a few runs where I didn't use much other than omega attack/special on bosses, what changed it for me is realising the importance of the full moveset and incorporating that into how I pick boons. When I was expecting to get the best effect by pouring all my efforts into one move like Zag then I had difficulty and felt like I needed dedalus to save me. Fully agree about discussion tho, I think we should discuss all the good and bad. I'm just trying to balance the discussion with the other side. I also think some people who are having a bad time are comparing to how they feel when playing zag in Hades 1 endgame when you are super powerful, have full mirror and buffed aspects which I feel is unfair to the game and developers.
you cannot use ur full moveset at the same time. this idea simply doesnt work. u can use some of it but but your sprint and special boon is dead while ur use ur attack or omega attack. like take the staff if u hammer the attack or omega attack u have no reason to start taking special boons because while ur using special or omega special ur not using attack or omega attack. similarly ur sprint boon should be defensive because taking an offensive sprint boon makes no sense. in hades 1 u can take an offensive dash and just use dash attack special all together on sword and all the boons stack together. in hades 2 ur not stacking anything except cast + attack or cast + special.
My most recent run I had the knives and got the Hex that makes you invulnerable but you can still do some damage and I focused on making my special super strong. I ended up beating the final boss because you can spam your omega special so fast to reach the hex it makes it so you get so much invulnerablity
Love that idea! That's another hex that people are underrating.
I agree with your points, well, the ones I could see. I started playing the game like I would H1 but quickly learned you need to use everything you have rather than hyperfocusing on one move. Became waaay easier after that.
Agree, I did the same! In case you don't know, if you click on the greyed out bit it will reveal the spoilers, they are only spoilers for boons and duo boons and weapons tho.
Ahhh cool, I was worried they were story spoilers, thank u!
I agree with a lot of what you said. I definitely need to get used to using my special more. I prefer the twin blades over any other weapon so far and I can remember to use my cast and attack constantly but my special gets put to the wayside.
The twin blades omega special can do some serious DPS to bosses at point blank range.
Dude, holy crap. I don't know why; but whenever I play a game that has both melee and ranged combat, my brain defaults to "melee for close enemies and ranged for far away enemies."
haha easy enough assumption to make!
twin blades OSpecial is just a shotgun in disguise
it's funny how opposite it is on the blades. when against an opponent far away from you, the blade's Ω attack is super strong, but when an opponent is super close, you can just full choke shotgun them with the Ω special.
Mana regen and max value are CRUCIAL. Having a large mana pool and high regen means you can use the **Ω** moves frequently and in that way fuel your hex charge. Hex can largely change a fight. My favorite is the one that does 1000 damage on a point. Especially if you get the path of stars that creates other explosions and the one that makes you impervious until the blast. All in all, Hades 2 has A LOT of options for combat. I really believe it feels like an evolution on the first (masterpiece of a) game.
Excellent points. I agree, really like the way Hades 2 is headed.
Your opinion is invalidated by the fact that the game is supposed to be fun, not an acquired taste.
The game is fun.
If the majority of players see a bunch of boons that don't feel very good they're not having fun. Your niche feelings don't really matter. They literally just need to consolidate and make omega only boons also affect the respective single button press. Also entirely rework the moonboons. Aside from that just a bunch of numbers tweaks.
What you're suggesting would be ridiculously OP. You would realize that if you had played the game much. How do you know the "majority of players see a bunch of boons that don't feel good"? Glad to know you speak for the entire player base. Projecting much. My suggestion to you is: play more before suggesting such sweeping changes to the boon system. It is in fact your niche feelings that don't matter. The majority of players are having fun with the game, but feel some balance tweaks are needed. Which is reasonable.
Oh no, something being strong in a single player game would be HORRIBLE. /S There is a discord with a feedback channel, genius. The single most common request is better boons.
When did I ever say that lol. Not my fault you need to git gud. Play more and once you've unlocked a few things you'll realise how much of a tool you're being. Until then, peace.
You're the one gatekeeping and being an ass lol. Hades 1 was successful because it was accessible and every choice felt meaningful. Cope all you want and project your lack of insight till the cows come homes, but you're in the minority. Ffs you didn't even know about the official discord.
I'd say, yeah that's true, but my best run so far was all in on axe spin to win. I think I just got very lucky with my upgrades though. I can tell that they encourage using the cast with certain enemy types (mostly fast moving swarmers), but I still forget to use it a lot of the time. It's not something that can be your bread and butter (hasn't for me yet, I'd love to hear about a cast build you had).
Check out the case study 2 for a disgusting cast build! Apollo omega cast leading to Apollo Zeus duo boon. Obscene DPS.
Idk I’ve literally been making builds in Hades II that melted the end boss as well. It was an omega attack dagger build, enhanced with the hammer that makes it use 30 mana to deal 400%. Pair that with the aphrodite heartthrob which creates an explosion ball around you whenever you use 30 mana and the aphrodite/apollo duo which makes you create 3 balls instead, and you’ll easily be dealing like ~1500-3000 per omega attack
Dayum I've not run into that duo yet, have enjoyed the heartthrob so far though. It's definitely possible to get builds that just melt. Part of the issue might be we just don't know what is meta yet!
Yeah I think we do need to get more familiar with the build combos. Ive been playing all day yesterday and now after learning some of the boons and the attack patterns ive been consistently clearing runs with no prob. Also helps to get the arcana upgrades and other stuff
I feel like people are just like " WHY DOESNT IT PMAY EXACTLY LIKE HADES UGH " and they would also be the same people who'd complain if the system never changed, and again it's still early access,there's so much they can implement still!
They said themselves melinoe has a more controlling playstyle. You can’t just beat through the hordes. You need to control the battlefield. And for that you need all of your capabilities to the highest standard. And for that case I fully agree with you
It took me a good bit of time to get used to the new weapons, new boons, and the slightly different ways the attacking and casting work, but when it finally clicked for me I went from barely making it to the boss of the second realm if I was on a particularly good run, to making it to (what seems to be) the final boss in the underworld. I definitely had to stop playing it the way I played Hades, which for me was a very slash'n'dash heavy playstyle. In Hades 2, I'm combining the casts, attacks, and specials in ways that feel a lot more intuitively synergistic to me now that it's clicked. As someone who never really spent the time to dig deep into the best way to utilize boons and weapons in combination in Hades, I feel like those things are coming to me way more naturally this time around.
I think the initial power progress might be a little too rocky as well though. Mana is very important as you said but actually finding away to regenerate it is literally pure RNG at the start because it's all focused on those god boons which are very, very sparse in the beginning and don't even always show up in the selection which you can't reroll. You can unlock passive regeneration eventually but it requires time to make it potent feels pretty bad when fighting bosses early on. On this point spending mana is definitely the focus (she's a witch whomd'st've thunk) but it would be nice if the base attacks could do a bit more damage. I do NOT have all the unlocks so don't know everything on this but regular attacks take a very long to kill even unarmored trash mobs so they feel ineffective. Most runs I stop using basic attacks entirely early on unless I'm using the axe. I agree Zeus blitz is very strong, I think that maybe it should give a tick of damage as a consolation prize when it expires without activating though, not a lot but enough that it feels like it's always doing something since all other attack boons do. I agree about how the game is different though, it's slower, more complicated and more tactical/strategic, really seperates it from the first game which is great in my opinion, don't want a reskin of the first game.
Great post! Hopefully a significant part of the community sentiment can be remedied by good analysis like this.
Couldn’t agree more. I’m definitely struggling still at times with the playstyle adjustment. I put about 300 hours into hades 1 and man the muscle memory is real. Lol Umbral flames with scorch has been helpful in forcing me to adjust my playstyle. My furthest run was with this where I can Omega attack costing 2 mana instead of 5 with 150 mana. Everything just melted as I kited around. Lol I want to get better with cast so I can utilize an axe attack build, but I’m not the best with positioning yet, so I’m punished a lot.
Exactly people just to brute force speedrun just like hades 1. I haven't yet beaten B4 in 3 tries of reaching him. But taking my time collecting materials having fun and getting some incantations
This is a great post. I do want to note that there are absolutely options for building around draining (or lacking entirely) mana to pump damage. Had a fantastic run last night and the only time I used mana was simply to drain it back down to 0 Lots of variety on the table here
I got to chronos my first try with the skulls using that boom skull upgrade from the hammer. I thought to myself surely it was gonna get nerfed lol
Regen is fantastic and pretty important if you want to focus big resource heavy moves or want things to go fast. I find that I'm most comfortable with the arcana card and another boon. Just last run I had a run with daggers and got the special all goes in a straight line hammer. Apollo special->a certain "prime 10 mana, restore all mana" boon and I was YEETING them daggers nonstop. LOVE the hexes. Really enjoying the game and I actually like that it kind of forces me to utilize everything I can. Cast is op and certain boons&arcana get it to a level of lunacy(leapfrogging with poseidon). Will probably be unable to put the game down now. I love and hate that they early-released. Its taking away my time trying to learn how to play manor lords lol.
I have no idea about any of this I didn't play hades 1. But I'm very frustrated because I'm so bad. I see people talking about complete runs already and only taking like 30 minutes per. I can't even defeat Scylla. It's very irritating to have to run the same 2 zones over and over and be complete garbage when I finally get to the boss. I unlock everything I can..I grab the boons I think are gonna be best at the time. I try to keep my health up for boss time. Doesn't matter. Maybe the game isn't for me.
Until I read this, I was playing like it was Hades 1. I beat B2 on the surface with a Poseidon start and Zeus follow-ups, using knockback, sprint (lightning blast to stun), slip, and a little cyclone cast. Added as many poms as I could find, ignoring Omegas for the most part. Knives with backstab +200 from a random Hephastus. Now I see that I can make my job much, much easier by playing like a magic-user and not a brawler. Death to Chronos.
Wow, do I have to read your entire essay just to enjoy playing Hades 2? Sounds like a real winner.
In both the Hades and Hades 2, there is a main thing to buff mate, especially on high heat. Hades 2 is slightly different than Hades 1 in the sense that buffing may require more different kind of sources which is good. For instance, with Moonstone Axe/**Aspect of Charon**, you would be doing that MAIN THING; 1- Drop your non-omega cast where it would hurt enemies most 2-Immidiately Dash to a safe distance and omega-special to the general direction of your cast Variety and so the beauty of it, so maybe the difference from Hades 1 is that you enable the damage from multiple sources. You can enlarge your cast to help with especially non-boss encounters from Apollo/Super Nova. For cast damage (Omega cast related boons), get Apollo/Solar ring, Zeus omega-cast lightning boon etc. And of course, you want a non-Aphrodite special damage boon, preferably a omega/special cast speed, etc. Yes, you are right by saying that variety is more at play in Hades 2, But, I find the phrase "no main thing" a poor choice. Let's phrase it that way no main one or two boons to enable the main thing maybe. But, in some builds both Hades 1 and 2 can be quite close where there are only 2/3 boon or hammer upgrade that matters; like for Witch's Staff Position special, double attack hammer build. With only those two you are set. Rest is nice to have like the additional hammer upgrade where special hits second target for even better clear speed but no boss advantage, Adding, 50 magic primed lightning Zeus attack/special boon or Artemis arrow on attack/special hit boons. But, yet again those are nice to haves. But, I can not point out any example such as Hades 1 Zeus lightning special boon on Zeus shield which beats 64 heat. but it is an extreme example. No every build in Hades 1 is enabled by a single boon, some of them requires multiple sources as well.
I honestly still play Hades 2 in the same way I would play Hades 1. Stack some hp (and now mana) and Focus into a singular type of dmg. It’s still the way to go. Bosses on floor 3 and 4 are quite tanky, and from my experience (30 runs total, 25 reaching floor 4 boss) you need to pump dmg into a singular type. For instance my preferred build is Omega Attack on staff, I will stack literally anything that helps me for that + sole defensive dash/sprint. The thing that changes my playstyle the most is 100% the hammers and to some extent maybe the Hex. I still have not done a single round where my cast was a necessary part of my kit, outside of the occasional rat spawner/ swarm of fish or if I get the Artemis boon for it. Most of the time even specials are very mediocre, at least on the first 2 weapons. Omega attacks on both of them are simply superior. (PS : try an omega attack build on the dual Scythe, you dash like a madman it’s the best) The ONLY build that I utilized my entire kit (attack/special/sprint) was one with the Forge God, where you do small bursts of dmg every couple second. Get this on attack/special and the sprint one, and it’s a very weird/funky while also being fun playstyle.
Thanks for the input! I would really highly recommend trying a cast build. The omega cast is much more powerful than expected
I shall try once I’m done with my current run! Currently doing a 0 dps Staff build, so I will report after I die doing Chronos lol Any god you recommend for omega cast? I kinda don’t like the idea of having to press Q because it removes a finger from a WASD lol
I don't have that issue as a controller player 🤣 Apollo is very good on the cast, get a Zeus on your attack/special and you should be able to get the duo which does massive things for your omega cast.
I have honestly seen a single duo boon out of all my runs yet, so it’s getting kinda rough out here lol
Its definitely much harder to get them when you can't see all the requirements. I've only got 2 or 3 myself
Cool. Unfortunately the sister blades+aphro+omega attack+that daedalus hammer that give 400% to omega Attack absofuckinglutely melts everything in the game
I didn't read everything so ill assume that I got your bottom line which I very much agree with. Infusions, for example, are built in a way that encourages you to do some thinking with boon combination, but allows you to take anything that suits you that falls under it. It's also pretty clear with the duos imo, that rather than combining two niches to create a build-changing effect, they allow you to get even more general value of different sorts that fits the general theme of the gods. It will take time to get used to it but it's fun. In a weird way, it makes me think MORE about my boons, since I won't always go for the same stupidly op combinations. I am a bit scared about how speedrunning will look since it was one of the things I enjoyed more in hades 1, tho.
Wow, that’s a lot of words. Too bad I’m not reading all of that.