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[xxcrystalinerose]

Another day, another banger Aspect of Pan build. Wasn't very lucky in terms of Boon rarity, but I didn't even need to use attacks to deal damage or trigger Origination, and the build makes it VERY easy to maintain Perfect Image's buff. I was trying to compare Apollo vs. Aphrodite special and suffice to say both are pretty fun!

Already clears 3 Fear mobs pretty quick, but with Dancing Knives it would be even quicker I guess!

Vs. Chronos here (almost did it hitless...)

[xxcrystalinerose]

I call this build "i cast EXPLOSION!!"

[xxcrystalinerose]

Chronos is floating because as the saying goes... "time flies".

So... are his coins made from gold, a common metal in human currency because... "time is money"?

If peepaw loves gold that much he better learn to shut the fuck up bc, as the saying goes (since he wants to play this game), "silence is golden"

[xxcrystalinerose]

This is literally just the Meg -> Zag -> Than rotation... I KNEW this ship's existence was the best thing that's ever happened to me

I need a boyfriend that I dominate and another one that dominates me but the one I dom in turn dominates the one that doms me. Like a Rock Paper Scissors throuple. Lol I don’t actually want this but it’s a funny concept to think about. and would heal the world

[xxcrystalinerose]

Engraved Pin

[xxcrystalinerose]

Gotta love how Zag's love interests are 1) The punisher of jealousy and oathbreakers, 2) Peaceful Death, and 3) Cute gorgon head maid who's a total sweetheart

While Mel's (possible) love interests are 1) Divine Retribution, punisher of hubris, 2) Doom (feared and hated by all mankind), 3) Strife (Greek pantheon's #1 troublemaker), and 4) Two mortals whose whole life story is a cautionary tale about hubris.

All the while unlike Zag, Mel's implied to have never had a romantic relationship before as an adult, based on her Aphrodite boon dialogues (to me, her and Icarus screams "childhood puppy love", which doesn't actually count as true relationship experience).

Girlie I think you need to get therapy or get laid. Preferably both. And soon.

...

I do think it's cute that at least between Meg/Than and Nem/Moros, both women are deliverers of punishment, while both men are embodiments of concepts that will inevitably arrive at the end of mortal lives. Dusa and Icarus + Arachne also fit the mold of "sweetheart dealing with power dynamics issues" (prince/servant vs. goddess/mortal, in Arachne's case a mortal maligned by gods).

Zagreus and Melinoë may have never known each other, but they somehow have the exact same bisexual taste, which is very important to me.

Also proof that they're DEFINITELY Persephone's children: got their mother's taste for tall big tiddy goths lmao.

[xxcrystalinerose]

Alecto 🤝 Eris

"EW you're being lovey-dovey with my big sibling. DISGUSTING."

[xxcrystalinerose]

In celebration of me officially reaching 100 HOURS of fucking around in Hades 2, here's a couple of general gameplay tips from yours truly!

Preface

I am not the best Hades gamer out there, but I'd like to think I'm doing pretty good considering my still-standing 25+ win streak in the Underworld and 16 Fear clear on all weapon types, so this tip is meant for you guys who find Hades 2 weirdly difficult compared to the first game (I've been there!), or those who still haven't figured out good build and aspect combos. However, I will not be doing a deep dive of all the bosses except for the final bosses!

Obviously, spoilers abound under the cut, so tread with caution!!

Part 1: General Questions, Comments, Complaints, etc.

Q: Playing Melinoë is so difficult compared to Zagreus!

A: First of all, you are playing Melinoë, not Zagreus. Second of all, you are playing Lv. 1 Mel after being so used to Lv. 100 Zag (if you've spent an unreasonable amount of time playing Hades 1 like I did). These two have different playstyles! I myself am guilty of this mindset in my first 20 hours of gameplay.

Mel is all about using everything in your disposal to dispatch enemies. Additionally, the devs have designed the kit in such a way that none of your moves are an afterthought that you occasionally use every other room. The biggest example of this is Cast, which remains useful as a crowd control (CC) move even without a Boon attached to it. Use your Cast all the time!

Additionally, in case you haven't realized it, you can still move while charging your Omega Cast; however, the AoE will not follow you unless you have Local Climate (Demeter).

Don't forget that you can hold down Dash to Sprint. Lock enemies in place with Cast then sprint away if you need breathing room. However, do remember that you do not have i-frames while sprinting, only when dashing.

I have to concede that as of the current EA patch, dashing to dodge attacks still feels janky without the Swift Runner card, mostly because of the dash start-up animation being slightly but noticeably slower than Zag's dashes. However, after several runs with the Judgment card (where I can't activate Swift Runner, and that it might not activate further in the run), the rhythm of dashing with and without it is just muscle memory now. Keep practicing!

Q: Melinoë feels so squishy/slow/weak/etc.!

A: Hades 2 does feel much more Early Game Hellish™ than Hades 1, which imo is mostly because of the Arcana system's complexities.

You need various resources to unlock an Arcana, then you need sufficient Grasp to actually use the Arcana, THEN some Arcana have prerequisites for activation so you can't just use anything and everything you want. Very unlike H1, where you can just dump exactly one resource type into levelling the Mirror upgrades and the only true constraint is choosing one side of the Mirror over the other.

To mitigate the squishiness, Frinos with a fully upgraded Life Bond gives you a free 40 base HP. I prefer him over Toula because I fucking suck at bullet hells and Frinos eats up all those projectiles without flinching too much, and some enemies are really fucking annoying with their projectile attacks. Looking at you, hourglass thingies in Tartarus.

Another thing to note is that The Wayward Son card is a buffed version of Zag's health regen on room exit. At max level it heals 4 HP (8 if you're low), which also makes Chaos gate health drains trivial in Erebus and Oceanus, so go grab those Chaos boons.

If you think surviving against Chronos/Eris is difficult, try having at least 200-220 HP (adjust depending on Fear settings) before entering the fight. The Centaur and Titan cards are useful to achieve this. If you run a Hephaestus build, the Boon that adds HP based on Magick is also great!

Q: The Bosses in Hades 2 are more difficult... please help!

A: I see this observation often, but in my experience, the H2 bosses bar Chronos and Eris are actually significantly easier than the H1 bosses. Your experience gap between dealing with H1 and H2 bosses could also contribute. But anyways, here's some tips for each boss:

Hecate

The transformation Hex counts as a projectile and can be blocked by Frinos. If you haven't unlocked Frinos, simply dash back and forth into the hex (essentially abusing your dash i-frame) and it will eventually dissipate. Don't try to outrun it.

(Frinos ate the hex before I could fully demonstrate the dodging lol)

If you DO get transformed, dash and attack repeatedly to prevent Hecate's attacks from hitting you, because your attack in sheep form is a charge forward that helps add extra distance while waiting for the dash cooldown to end.

Scylla and the Sirens

They killed me an unreasonable amount of times early game because there's so damn much going on the screen, so my tip for that is kill the drummer first. The guitarist's arsenal is much less dangerous and her dash attack is heavily telegraphed. Even if the guitarist is the featured artist, I would still kill the drummer first. Additionally, the Night Bloom Hex* works in this fight. Have fun!

Infernal Beast

Mostly immobile boss that can't really turn around with heavily telegraphed attacks, so the easiest trick is to just stand behind it for free backstab damage and don't get hit. Paired with the massive hitbox, the boss becomes very vulnerable against Apollo/Zeus cast and Omega specials with Pan aspect on the Sister Blades.

Polyphemus

Sometimes he has sheep in the fight; if he eats them he gets healed. Gold sheep will block Omega moves in the radius indicated around them, while black sheep will charge at you. I find his most difficult attack is the boulder slam if he spots you. When he leaps, sprint away first for some distance, then dash into the shockwaves because they move FAST and staying near will guarantee you get hit.

Eris

All of her attacks count as projectiles, so Hestia's Soot Sprint turns the fight into a total joke. She also turns relatively slowly when firing; when she does the spread shots, stay directly behind her. The forward charge is also telegraphed by an animation where she rises a bit before charging, so dash towards Eris to avoid getting hit (because it also stuns you).

Chronos, in general

God I hate that bitch ass scythe throw attack SO MUCH. I find the most reliable way to dodge it is to dodge towards Chronos but in a counterclockwise direction because it always travels clockwise. DO NOT DODGE AWAY FROM HIM.

The thrown scythe counts as a projectile, so projectile slowing effects like Demeter's Cyclone debuff or Hard Target (Hermes) affect its move speed.

Additionally, Chronos himself is immune to any time-slowing effect, including from the Sorceress card, the Phase Shift Hex, and Hermes' legendary Boon. He can still damage you during the time stop in the Hex casting animation.

Lastly, the ring explosions that come after his slashing attacks are unblockable by any "Block" move e.g. Axe special.

Chronos, 2nd phase

He always begins the phase with a full screen attack that does 999 damage unless you stand in the highlighted safe spots... or if you have Coarse Grit (Demeter Infusion) that lets you take no more than 15 damage per hit (lol). The clock hands will also kill you this way, so stand well clear of its radius. When he does this attack he will stand in place, which if you're lucky lets you get a guaranteed Omega Cast or Total Eclipse strike, and even one or two fully charged Pan aspect specials if the "safe spot" is near him.

(* Night Bloom has an unintended interaction with the Judgment arcana that causes its effects to be triggered multiple times in the Scylla fight. I've reported this as a bug, but I guess you could abuse it until the next patch lol)

Q: What is your Arcana setup?

A: This! I find this to be the easiest setup for activating the Divinity card and also the "safest" build, with the drawback of being unable to change room rewards/Boon and Well of Charon offerings.

If I wanted more challenge, I would activate everything in the third row, and use the remaining 3 Grasp for either The Huntress or Death, depending on weapon:

When I do a Judgment arcana run, I only activate The Wayward Son, Eternity, and Excellence; the bonus with Judgment is that it also automatically activates The Queen, and keeps it active no matter how many more cards it activates later.

If you have yet to max out your Grasp and want to play it safe, the cards I recommend to prioritize are Eternity > Excellence > Origination > The Swift Runner/The Sorceress > The Titan > The Furies/The Moon/The Huntress/ > Night/The Unseen.

Extra tip: The Moon synergizes very well with pure damage Omega Casts e.g. Apollo, Zeus, Poseidon because it adds to the base damage. Naturally, this makes Apollo cast busted as hell.

Q: What are your recommended Keepsakes? How do I use them?

A: The ones from Hecate, Odysseus, Nemesis, Moros, and Narcissus. If you're good at not getting hit, Arachne's because it continuously stacks Armor per location as long as you stay above 1 Armor. Recently I've also been messing around with Chaos', which has been fun.

To elaborate:

Silver Wheel (Hecate) lets you regen Magick automatically, which was great for me in very early game until I got the hang of every Gain boon and evaluated which are the best ones. Essentially, it's a good crutch for learning how the game works. However, do note that the Keepsake regen is prioritized over any other Magick regeneration effects.

Knuckle Bones (Odysseus) is also a similarly useful early game crutch if you have difficulty against bosses or need to take a run to analyze their moves (very appropriate). It also gives you all-damage reduction against bosses. And fun fact: bring it to the Polyphemus fight multiple times for some unique interactions!

Evil Eye (Nemesis) is just a straightforward free ~30% universal damage bonus against the last enemy that killed you. Since mine was Chronos... well, let's just say I almost never spend a single DD in his fights ever since.

Engraved Pin (Moros) is functionally a better Stubborn Defiance. Triggering its effect will be prioritized over consuming a Death Defiance, and it works ONCE PER ROOM which is fucking amazing as a learning crutch and in high Fear runs. One of my favorite strategies if 1) my HP falls below the Pin's healing threshold, 2) its effect has not been triggered yet, and 3) I am 100% sure the encounter is about to end, I just die on purpose, kill everything that's left, and get a free heal.

Aromatic Phial (Narcissus) rarifies a random Common boon when you drink from a Fountain, which helps massively in no-Arcana runs or runs without Excellence/Divinity. It could also help if you grabbed Hera's Uncommon Grace but are unable to activate it because you have a Common boon. Lastly, the extra Fountain heal helps with survivability.

On the topic of Keepsakes, I encourage you to use the Olympian Keepsakes, because they now have the ability to increase the rarity of non-Infusion/Duo/Legendary Boons up to a certain rarity threshold and not just help you aim where your current build is going.

Rarification works especially well with Demeter's Rare Crop; one time Heroic Rare Crop managed to rarify my Attack, Special, and Cast somehow and I ended up blazing through Tartarus and Chronos like it was nothing.

End Notes (For Now)

I have some more tips prepared, but I'd like to know before I compile the next one:

Aand that's it for now. If I got something wrong or you know anything relevant to what I've shared above, do tell me in the replies so I can edit!

TL;DR: Don't forget to use Cast, get used to dodging with and without Swift Runner card, grab Chaos boons in early regions, be patient with grinding for upgrades, keep practicing, and have fun :)

[xxcrystalinerose]

[xxcrystalinerose]

"So I heard that Chronos has my daughter, her family, and your own. Go fuck him up for me."

(My thoughts under the cut)

I just got this dialogue one run ago, and I feel so sad for them. I know Chaos must be seething right now, despite their apparent calmness.

Chaos is the originator of all things, while Nyx is the primordial Night herself. They've lived a long, long existence, had gotten estranged from their daughter for quite a while until Zagreus helped them reconnect. Those times must have only been a flash compared to the rest of their life, and suddenly, Chronos returned and captured Nyx and the rest of the House of Hades.

Then, Chronos managed to deceive Chaos into revealing where the Fates reside, and now they've unwittingly made the situation even worse for everyone by endangering their granddaughters—the three whom even Nyx was cautious against. I'm sure Chaos would have liked to snuff out Chronos themselves, but their presence would inherently destabilize all of existence. To only be able to watch until someone or something could finally free your long-lost daughter...

Death to Chronos.

[xxcrystalinerose]

I might have a severe case of keepsake favoritism...

The characters being my favorites aside, these keepsakes are the best "general purpose" ones with the most benefits imo, which I always pick on runs when I have the Judgment arcana on or just want a "fuck it we ball" run where I'm not experimenting with builds. Hecate's keepsake is a great early game crutch at least until I got the hang of Gain boons and maxed out the Unseen arcana. Odysseus' I just maxed out because I liked him, but also bc his voice at boss fight starts made me giggle. Nem's keepsake is great for speedrunning peepaw into his temporal grave (30% damage bonus is insane and I constantly use it in Tartarus to this day regardless of what I'm doing). Moros' is a lifesaver on high heat runs because I could just do the "kill myself for free heal" strat when I get sloppy, unlucky with health upgrades, or Judgment runs where it won't activate the Titan and Wayward Son arcanas.

[xxcrystalinerose]

i may have forgotten to rein myself in and this turned into a whole HUGE piece, but in the meantime i'm pleased to say i somehow figured nem's armor out

doom incarnate save me... save me doom incarnate... your babygirl energy is through the roof.......

[xxcrystalinerose]

From my perspective as the audience, here's what makes the entire deal even funnier:

I went into Hades 2 with the expectation of having 2-3 love interests like in the first game. When I played EA and delved into Nemesis and Moros' nectar dialogues, I thought, "Yep, totally romanceable. Nice to have multiple gender options again. Funny that they're both Nyx's kids though".

Then I unlocked the surface route, and 3 runs later Icarus happened. So I thought, "Oh they have history? Icarus' crush is pretty cute. Could the dating pool be bigger this time?"

Then Eris started appearing in the Crossroads. By this point I have not seen the end of the surface route, but I'm already (insert the Rock eyebrow raise.png). Like are they... y'know...

And then I found out about the Eris boss fight.

And the subsequent dialogues in the Crossroads with her.

And then Arachne's high hearts dialogue happened.

All I could think about by that point was "bruh".

What's next? Mel saves the Fates and all three of them develop a hero worship rescue crush on her? My girl is already collecting crushes from Nyx's children like fucking Pokémon atp, might as well do THAT right???????? RIGHT????????

Going back to Zag's romantic relationships from Mel is extremely hilarious to me because of how comparatively well-adjusted he was.

Sure he done fucked up with Meg in the past and they had to kill each other as part of the job description, his sudden leaving seriously hurt Than while also having communication issues w/ each other, and there's the matter of Dusa being a lowly servant of the House. But in the end, he sorted everything out with 0 grievances from all parties involved (that one dialogue where Than admits Meg is the one who tells him to finally pursue Zag seriously warms my heart). Got the Mom(s) Seal of Approval™ even, and from Achilles too!

Meanwhile I look at Melinoë and she has a frankly criminal amount of situationships. Her rizz level is insane and she goes straight for the throat when flirting yet somehow her dating life is simultaneously a mess and nonexistent. Nemesis regularly kicks her into the dirt verbally AND physically but is the only person to acknowledge how fucked up it is that Mel is sent out alone in the hopes of killing an all powerful Titan that took SIX gods to kill in the past. "Fuck you and fuck your stupid frog in particular" then turns around and gives free Death Defiances. Her and Moros try to flirt with each other but they kept missing the mark because sometimes one of them says something totally unhinged like it was normal (I don't think watching people die is an appropriate bathtime conversation topic, my man). Her and Eris are a hot mess—literally with all those rounds she shot at Mel AND without a basis of workplace professionalism. Icarus is one shot nerve away from accidentally proclaiming his undying (literally) love to her but his guilt complex is hanging on to that nerve. And then there's Arachne and her not so little crush warring with the fact that said crush is family with and is helping the gods who cursed her.

Never have I realized how important it is that Zag has become a minor god of relationship counselling until I look at his baby sister and think, "yeah girl you definitely need help for all that shit".

[xxcrystalinerose]

Going back to Zag's romantic relationships from Mel is extremely hilarious to me because of how comparatively well-adjusted he was.

Sure he done fucked up with Meg in the past and they had to kill each other as part of the job description, his sudden leaving seriously hurt Than while also having communication issues w/ each other, and there's the matter of Dusa being a lowly servant of the House. But in the end, he sorted everything out with 0 grievances from all parties involved (that one dialogue where Than admits Meg is the one who tells him to finally pursue Zag seriously warms my heart). Got the Mom(s) Seal of Approval™ even, and from Achilles too!

Meanwhile I look at Melinoë and she has a frankly criminal amount of situationships. Her rizz level is insane and she goes straight for the throat when flirting yet somehow her dating life is simultaneously a mess and nonexistent. Nemesis regularly kicks her into the dirt verbally AND physically but is the only person to acknowledge how fucked up it is that Mel is sent out alone in the hopes of killing an all powerful Titan that took SIX gods to kill in the past. "Fuck you and fuck your stupid frog in particular" then turns around and gives free Death Defiances. Her and Moros try to flirt with each other but they kept missing the mark because sometimes one of them says something totally unhinged like it was normal (I don't think watching people die is an appropriate bathtime conversation topic, my man). Her and Eris are a hot mess—literally with all those rounds she shot at Mel AND without a basis of workplace professionalism. Icarus is one shot nerve away from accidentally proclaiming his undying (literally) love to her but his guilt complex is hanging on to that nerve. And then there's Arachne and her not so little crush warring with the fact that said crush is family with and is helping the gods who cursed her.

Never have I realized how important it is that Zag has become a minor god of relationship counselling until I look at his baby sister and think, "yeah girl you definitely need help for all that shit".

[xxcrystalinerose]

[xxcrystalinerose]

doom incarnate save me... save me doom incarnate... your babygirl energy is through the roof.......

[xxcrystalinerose]

To Melinoë.