I really hope they create a “lab” room in hades 2 where you can play with aspects, hammers, boons, and poms to better understand the game’s math and build designing.
That would be so cool. Maybe after you've finished the main story and are just making runs/taking victory laps, something like this unlocks in whatever serves as the "Skelly" room?
Great idea. Something like Transistor’s Practice Room! One of my only major criticisms of Hades is that it doesn’t allow for this kind of readily available, stress free experimentation. That and the fact that the Mirror of the Night is in a different room to the armory.
I really don't like this actually, part of the fun is just testing builds in the actual game and learning and dying. Just being able to play around with the builds like that would kind of make it not as fun
A thing worth considering about stubborn roots is that it's a huge help when learning a boss for the first time. When I was struggling to beat Hades for the first time Stubborn Roots was a huge help. I was able to just run away until I got up enough HP to feel confident going in for a hit
AFAIAC, when this guy got to stubborn roots he started drooling on his shoes. How do you not see the value here? Yeah, it's not going to help you much getting to Hades, but it's huge to have in your back pocket when you do get to him. And if you're using stubborn defiance, it's potentially useful against every other boss, as well, especially the Champions of Elysium. And ok, if you wanna downgrade the boon because it isn't that useful until the end, I get it (although, the point of the game is to BEAT HADES, right?) - but he never even mentioned the final boss fight once, even though it's obvious that that's the whole point of the boon. If he had started off with stubborn roots, I'd have shut the video off immediately.
@@MrGhosta5it gets kinda nuts when you have both. As long as you have 8 stacks up, you dealing like... 2.2x hangover damage compared to lacking both duos
Stubborn Roots were the training wheels I used to pull through my first two successful runs, just dashing away from foes when on low health and comfortably buying me enough time to learn the hades fight once I got there. Once you are experienced with all foes in the game its significantly less good, but I highly recommend it for new players that hit a wall at elysium+ (theseus too you could easily drag out ad infinitum with this when you learn the fight).
Totally agree, for new players this allows them to beat the game they would normally lose. I specifically tried to get this for fight against Hades, and it saved me a lot of runs when I was learning the game.
I agree, stubborn roots got me through my first run. I thought it was so powerful to just regen my health like that. Can definitely see why it would loose some of its magic for a veteran player though.
I got it in Asphodel and it carried me all the way to Theseus and Asterius. I was able to kill Asterius and then Theseus killed me when he was at half health
"How often are you on zero death defiances and you feel like you could pull through because of stubborn roots" Regularly. I have only won against [Redacted] thanks to stubborn roots. Granted yes I'm a bad Hades player but yeah. It's useful to me and it has helped regularly through Elysium and Styx.
Ended up getting stubborn roots in a run that just wasn't going the way I wanted, and it actually carried me through the last fight. Took forever but I won.
It's one of those duo boons that are really good for new players, but to get Demeter you have to have made it to the final boss at least once. (For my second playthrough, it took 4 runs, but for my first game it took a lot longer to achieve that.) My first win that wasn't with the shield was due to Stubborn Roots, if I recall right. Once you start getting better at the game it starts to look less appealing, but only because you're in the state of usefulness less often.
Curse of Longing and Cold Fusion very much felt like they were made specifically for Privileged Status in mind (makes it so jolt and doom don't need to be reapplied to keep up P-Status). And I wonder if that sort of design decision is why neither of those Duos have much going for them.
Agreed. Curse of Longing is nice in my opinion, get the longer doom and weak boons, and you can easily apply both with a dash/attack or special combo (Aphro dash/Ares special with Nemesis for example). Now add in some Artemis boons, try to get Heart Rend, and now you got a complete sword build that does really well. Remember that Pressure Points can make even Doom crit, and I've seen it crit for like 2600 damage.
I would’ve put Scintillating Feast a little higher, mostly because it solves Trippy Shot’s biggest drawback - instead of just sitting around doing nothing for several seconds, the fog is now providing extra damage (damage that is very scalable with other Zeus boons!) in that way there is something nicely Lightning Rod-esque about it. Great video regardless! Definitely gave me some new perspectives on boons I had ignored before
Agreed. I actually think this is the strongest duo in the game. Jolted and double lightning strikes with larger AoE in addition to the fact that 3+ can be stacked results in completely ridiculous DPS that exists simply in addition to the weapon damage and continued enemy stuns. Simply wild on a decent Zeus build.
@@cashrock505 Strongest when Merciful End and Hunting Blades are a thing? Imo Jolt related builds require too many specific zeus boons to become amazing.
@@ToveriJuri Conversely, there are so many boons that scale the power of this build. Ravenous Will, Double Strike, High Voltage, Static Discharge, the default Ares and Hermes damage buffs, and you can even get things like Splitting Bolt, Cold Fusion, or Sea Storm on top of this. It also makes Lightning rods okay, to keep the lightning going after the cast expires. But the important thing is that all of that is just in addition of weapon damage, you do a little set-up of casting then you also get potentially huge added DPS on top. You could run Poseidon Sword for added cast damage or something. You can run basically any hammer you want for this set-up, do whatever your chaos gates indicate. I do think it's the strongest, but not the most consistent. I think with the right build it is the strongest though.
I never thought trippy shot ever sat around and did nothing, although maybe for bosses, for mobs, trippy shot provides a fairly frequent stun effect on them, which combos very well with Scintillating Feast as it keeps the mobs in there longer for the lightning damage to wreck them.
Stubborn roots is definitely especially helpful when you first start out, when I only had one or two death defiances to work with. It also one time let me survive from an early failure against the furies where I lost every defiance but shortly afterwards I gained Stubborn Roots, then eventually I made it to Patroclus and regained all three and went on to win the run.
Yeah, I don’t necessarily think boons/aspects etc geared towards beginners /early heaters are bad boons, just different. I guess that’s what’s great about Hades so many different experiences
Low tolerance + splitting headache + heart rend is my absolute favourite build especially with chiron bow. The weak effect is nothing you even have to think about when its on your attack. And all 3 of these duo boons synergise sooo well with each other
Every time I play Hades (a noob): "I love this boon, this has got to be one of the best!" Halean video: "So this boon is a huge piece of shit" Me: **Shocked pikachu face**
I reckon that sweet nectar could be improved by giving a pom with the duo. cus then if you're pushing for max level, it doesn't do too much, and if it just appears in a run you aren't aimin for it, you still get to utilize it properly.
I mean, Dionysus nectar boon gives a nectar... why pom boon no give pom? All jokes aside, Sweet Nectar really should have another effect added to make it actually useful... like maybe increase the odds of getting poms or giving poms a small chance to upgrade rarity on the boon that was pommed? Also, it should be called Sweet Pom.
I really don’t like how “fun” is a factor in these ranking because honestly some of the basic boons are fun for me because I’m pea-brained and just like to see BIG NUMBER.
@@thesaltmerchant4564 Agreed. Hades has me hooked, simply because I'm constantly trying to beat my fastest time. Getting a strong build is exciting! Still unable to get under 12 minutes, though 😂
Honestly smoldering air is so good just because zeus is in your pool and you are definitely running billowing strength. I basically see SA as a free 30% damage bonus along with insane call damage. top 3 duos in the game.
Managed to get scintillating feast as well as ice wine on the Hera aspect and it was really cool to pack them all together and just nuke an area, the chill kept them moving slower in the fog and damage stacked. Was a lot of fun
Legit Stubborn Roots is the reason I cleared Hades with the bow for the first time. No heat, no timer, but I could not have done it without that perk. Just avoided Hades for a while and built up health a few times. Rough fight, but got it done.
One thing to note about unshakable mantle (the stun immunity boon). If you get that combined with the athena 90% trap damage reduction boon, you can completely ignore urns in the hades fight, which makes it much easier.
My 1st ever successful run was exactly with cold embrace and yes it was so tough, but it was so fun especially when I feel like I’m cheesing a win unconventionally
I wish every duo boon was worth using. It's such a feel bad when you realize that some of the duos that you're eligible to get just aren't even worth getting, aside from the ones that are at cast only I mean. Not sure what the devs were thinking with cold embrace. It's one Duo that I don't even want to try, and that's really bad what if you got some kind of buff while you were in the beam of cold embrace? Wouldn't that make it better
Since Jolted stacks and an attack resets the timer, Cold Fusion on the Hades fight can generate some ludicrous amount of Jolted Damage. But it really is only useful on bosses like you said.
In 'defence' of Curse of Longing and its fun factor: I once deliberately built a run with the Fists where I put Ares on Attack and Aphrodite on Dash, got both Dire Misfortune and Impending Doom, and, of course, Curse of Longing. IIRC I also lucked out with an Epic level Hermes Attack Speed boon. Is this 'viable' in a run? No, especially not at higher heats with Approval Process and/or Underworld Customs. But seeing 2,000+ damage Doom procs on Hades that seem to stack endlessly high was DEFINITELY a fun time. In general though I do find the only way to ensure consistency with Curse of Longing's effect is pairing it with Dire Misfortune and Passion Dash; if not Passion Dash, then Empty Inside is almost mandatory for the increase uptime on Weak. Still an ultimately 'meh' duo boon that asks way too much of you for too little return.
Blizzard Shot does work with Mirage Shot, and while it can have some difficulties clearing certain mobs because the knockback keeps pushiong them out of the ice, it really shines against bosses. I phased Hades with only one set of four casts each phase.
Parting Shot + Night Shawl + Stygius upgrade for +200% backstab. Your casts now deal upwards of 500 damage depending on level. That's a 1500 burst, more if you have crits
For heart rend you can always use the aspect of nemesis for the sword since you gain natural crits from your normal attacks after a special. Stack on things like hunters mark and pressure point with heartbreak strike you could have a decent build
Basically came here to say this. Artemis attack, Aphro special. Apply the weak to enemies with special while simultaneously activating Nemesis crit condition, the dash strike. If you have double edge, this alone will saw through enemies. Of course you can also make this much more powerful with Chaos attack and/or dash strike boons. Hunter Dash adds a lot of damage as well (though to go for a safer route without sacrificing too much damage, you can get Athena dash with blinding flash to activate privileged status). Also consider the hyper delivery combo since you'd be dashing a lot anyway. Sweet surrender and clean kill also boost damage and are worth getting.
Stubborn roots has saved runs for me against Hades at the end. But yeah I agree it doesn't do well with tight deadline. Lightning rod is good passive call meter build. I'd say try to find a balance between using your cast and then leaving then on the ground.
51:52 Stubborn Roots enabled me to beat Hades (Boss) my first two times. Combined with Stubborn Defiance which resets in every room it enables novice players a viable albeit slow strategy to stay alive and learn boss habits while they're evasive. It's a great noob crutch and will encourage players to clear out every Styx rat room for instance for maximum powerups and buy the Titan's Blood or Diamond. The sword boon that gives +2 HP for every attack at the cost of -60% HP will most certainly help you get to Hades for the first time, but I've never managed to defeat Hades with said hammer boon where Stubborn Roots has worked.
The first time I got Smoldering Air was with Aphrodite's call and it was frankly amazing. Having trouble with Hades? Just charm him every few seconds and wail on him completely without fear.
I completed my first ever run with lightning rod. It was a total cheese strategy as I just laid down as many as possible and ran away from Dad but it worked! And for that reason I will always love it.
The sea storm Boon with the Poseidon dash on the hidden aspect of the punchy gloves is good as heck. Heck, pretty much any combined boon is good on those
"How often are you on zero death defiances?" VERY OFTEN ? 😆 That heal over time got me one of my few clears coupled with demeter's chill slowing Hades to a halt. Very lame playstyle but it got the job done.
I was having trouble beating hades too. I took a step back and just dashed around in the fight with him and just learned all his moves and the tells for the moves. Hades is definitely intimidating but not that hard if you just take your time and learn/dodge his moves.
@@marcusmcpherson7989 yeah i got some more clears since then. I figured it's more a matter of power level. If my build is strong enough i can manage him if i have some spare death defiances. But if my damage is low i'm just screwed. Still in the process of unlocking and upgrading more aspects so there's a lot to explore in terms of builds still.
lightning rod is definitely s tear for me, it has absolutely carried me through so many runs, i think it's amazing especially for the fire attack on the second phase for the final boss
ngl, Sturrborn Roots full on saved one of my runs, I was 100% convinced I woudl die in Hades, no death defiances, and only like 5 mins on the timer, but stubborn roots managed to help me slowly recover from my mistakes, and I eventually beat hades with like 21 health and 12 seconds to spare, it was crazy, and I defo couldn't have done it without the lucky stubborn roots offer in charon's styx shop
I had the weirdest Deadly Reversal build where I'd wound up with Athena's attack on Aspect of Arthur, and that strangely turned into an absolute room clearer, especially if there were witches of any sort in play. I wouldn't mention it, but that was my first 32 Heat success story, and honestly I probably would've died to Hades if I hadn't gotten off a few choice crits.
Lightning rod is actually the best duo in the game imo, the cheese potential is quite easy to execute, but the best thing is the ammount of synergies, striking twice, bigger area, jolted, legendary one, more casts. It can literally solo any boss in seconds without any risk
Yeah it's amazing how big of a difference it makes even just putting the correct boon on your attack versus your special and then also pomming correctly
My favorite is Sea Storm with Privileged Status, Static Discharge and Razor Shoals. So satisfying to hear the PS sound effect constantly, especially on something fast fireing like the rail.
I gotta say, I think you did Low Tolerance dirty... any fist aspect does phenomenally with it, you put Weak on your dash and Hangover on your Attack and zoom around punching things mindlessly while you drool all over your favorite onezie. If you grab up like 2-3 secondary boons from each god, enemies can be slowed, you can do like 30% more damage or so with 3 enemies who have Hangover (definitely recommend Dionysus Aid for this build, the DOT ticks get absolutely nuts) enemies do very little damage, among many other fun effects. The Thing about this build is that even without the Duo (which depending on the potency of your attack and the other boons you've acquired throughout your run, is effectively somewhere between a 30-50% increase in damage, seeing as it's a 60% boost to all Hangover as it's almost trivial to keep 8 stacks of Hangover using fist Attack to apply them), you're still absolutely crushing ass on groups and bosses, the build is easy as hell to build, and you still have Special and Cast to assign to whichever god you please (I don't even have a preference, there isn't a wrong choice tbh).
@@bruhder5854 you probably want more Dionysus boons and a couple poms to boost the effects of Hangover overall, but it's pretty easy to get, and so are the secondary boons that buff Hangover. The thing about it is that it absolutely shreds and if you're even sort of trying to get this duo, it pops up fairly reliably. I think the only issue is that there are really only three ways to make it do 8 stacks consistently. Fists, Chiron Aspect, and Gun (especially Eris Aspect, though). You can make Chaos Aspect work decent, but it's pretty hard to keep the stacks and Weakness on enough enemies at once to justify going for the build with Chaos. The build really shines with Eris Aspect, even without the secondary boons, but is more reliant on hammers (I've found rocket and shotgun hammers work best, just run straightup on enemies, rocket for Weak, and then Attack for Hangover), which is kind of rough. I think the selling point for Weak/Hangover builds is that they synergize really well, and you never have to manually finish off enemies (minus Elysium soldiers) once their health gets low enough.
@@keystonelyte you forgot Rama... It's really easy to spread a LOT of hangover stacks with the special. I still prefer curse of nausea though, it has close to the same dps, but you don't need weak and you only need to keep 5 stacks up. With Rama that frees you up to also use your regular attack for devastating effect. Dio Rama is just insane in the damage you can output. You want more than a few poms though, when I do this I try to stack as many poms as I can. I've gotten it to 20 damage per tick I think... With 5 stacks and nausea, that's almost 300 dps. With 8 stacks it's 320 dps... I actually don't know if you can combine nausea and low tolerance, that would be epic if you can.
@@finraziel the point about the poms I was making is that with 8 stacks you don't really NEED that many poms; if I can pom the Hangover, I definitely will. I prioritize MAKING the build, THEN I refine the build. Base Drunken Strike unpommed does 4 damage per tick per stack... that's still 32 damage a tick at 8 stacks. Obviously with that damage we would want to go for a Rare Crop, pray for Eurydice, or just pom the bejesus out of it. If you are running the right Mirror options and use Dionysus keepsake, it's almost certainly going to be rare or epic. That's 40 and 48 damage per tick respectively, which is pretty good even without poms. Add Privileged Status, and your Hangover is doing 120 damage a second with rare attack boon and zero poms. Thats nothing to scoff at. Every pom adds... 16 damage per second? That's a 13% damage increase, but for every pom you get diminishing returns for how much overall damage your build does on a percentage increase basis. That's why I don't prioritize 20 poms.
Legend of Drunken Master build: Aspect of Talos with the magnetic cutter+cast damage on fists Dionysus Trippy shot Dionysus attack if possible Zeus Call (ideal) or special or dash (Athena dash also excellent) Demeter special for the double status effect application + ice wine offering +ravenous will/arctic blast 4th god can be whatever, but I usually try to force Athena for the dash How this usually goes: use cutter and apply cast bonus damage + drag them in, dump Trippy shot on their heads, and lay into them with Dionysus attack. If they all die, drag another enemy into the stun/aoe damage area with the cutter. The amount of damage and control you can pump with this build is just so much fun 🥳 The trippy shot duo boons get so much better because you can drag enemies into it (Scintillating fog especially)
I neglected the Aid button until I had a Smoldering Air run. It's hard to manage another button if you aren't great at the game but the effort is worth it.
Love the guide, but so many things to argue here. Smoldering air with aphrodite's call is bad in most cases, except for boss fights, especially Hades; you can constantly interrupt their attacks completely trivialising the fights. Parting Shot works great with achilles's spear and aphrodite's cast: charge behind enemies and 3-shot even armored foes, pick up bloodstones, repeat. Etc etc, but I guess that's the beauty of Hades, there is always a way to make it work.
@@Grimm-A I guess my thought process has always been if the boon has such specific requirements to be viable, why would I ever even consider it other than just to see if there’s a situation it COULD work. The nature of the game leads niche boons to just, in my opinion, be worthless more often than not. Especially if you have to plan heavily for them (just to make them even approach viability) or your build ends up crippled without them. Hades would definitely do well to do some sweeping changes to a lot of duo boons so that only a handful aren’t undeniably broken.
When I first started, my favorite build was Chiron + Low Tolerance. I liked how it made boss health bars constantly (but gradually) drain, like a burning fuse or something
Splitting Headache and Low Tolerance are definitely designed to be used together. I use them on Artemis/Aphrodite builds because Hangover is easy to keep up for Privileged Status anyways and you can unlock both of them with any core Dionysus boon. Low Tolerance also adds quite a bit of damage if you use his call.
Just did a Zag bow run with curse of longing, which ended up working really well! Got explosive shot for attack, which made it so that i could AoE apply weak, then special to apply doom (epic boon) in a cone in front. Super fun! Poms went into special for extra doom ticks.
Right away watching this, I did a Chiron Low Tolerance run on 15 heat and just coasted to victory, might finally crack 16 heat and try this again lol. I miraculously got Curse of Nausea from the Styx store to round out the build as well!
Was playing with ice wine literally yesterday and i loved it! I’ve got about 100 hours in the game and i seriously slept on dionysus’ boons! His stuff is great.
Thank you for giving love to my boy Dionysus, I feel like hangover is hella underrated. I know for me, I slept on it solely because, like most non-ares/Athena status effects, I first became acquainted with it through the dash and drunken dash DOESN’T BREAK POTS WHYYYY??? But yeah once I got out of the noobish tendency to only use a fully charged call, I started doing all sorts of builds where Dionysus’s aid became my primary source of applying hangover. Get a couple simple god gauge modifying boons/items and it honestly charges up almost as fast as your cast with Stygian soul applied. Then your attention can center more around applying weak/hitting crits. The increased hangover damage with the call is huge, then if you have drunken dash or a fast attack/special with hangover it’s relatively easy to keep that 5 or 8 stack applied. Then if you have trippy shot/flare and blackout??? Good night. And idk like you said it’s fun as fun to just party rock your enemies to death. One of the things I love about hades is that there’s the room game and the boss game, and you really have to consider both when designing your build (all Poseidon wrecks rooms but is weak against bosses, but combine razor shoals with high rarity/pommed up pressure points or hunter’s mark and you can absolutely melt bosses (that crit rupture damage on chariot theseus and fleet-footed hades in particular is just disgusting). Those nasty Dionysus combos to me can be VERY good at both. I mean trippy cast is classic in that regard: chunks bosses but also has excellent AOE stun/crowd control. Anyway those are just some of my thoughts, love your hades content man! I’m a little late getting into the game but it has been a three month obsession at this point (logged 300 hours in 3 months), and I’m a few house contractor jobs from a full 100%.
One thing to add about cold fusion: it increases the time of privileged status if you aren't applying jolted frequently. Like if you only have zeus on dash or special.
Sea Storm is really fun since there's a ton of ways to exploit it. The fact that it works on any knockback effect, the fact that it can inflict Privileged Status on its own, the synergy it has with Zeus' other boons: it's just pure fun
I had one run where I got cold embrace and parting shot which was incredibly fun, throwing down a cast and then dodging to the opposite side of the room as fast as I could may have been impractical but was definitely memorable just cause of the interaction between the duo boons
Personally for Stubborn Roots I almost never used it after I have cleared the game 3-4 times unless im going for some meeme run like guan yu health regeneration max. Besides that I feel like it's more of a training wheels for new players to let them unlock more weapon/aspect options. It was what helped me to clear my first few runs bc I am not good at the sword at all.
Hello Haelian ! I do have an example for Curse of Longing being good ! You didn't mention the fact that it allows Doom to be a reliable source for Blood Boil. I was playing Exagryph with Lucifer aspect, Zeus attack, and I could not get jolted for the life of me. I had doom on my special and weakening dash, and while I got Festive Fog in the endgame shop, it's Curse of Longing that carried my dps before I got festive fog and pressure points to make my damage reliable either way :)
Pretty solid list Haelian, I don't think mine would be far off. It always makes me sad that the hangover stuff isn't better, Curse of Nausea+Low Tolerance is my favourite for fun combo
Curse of nausea: hangover every 0.35s instead of 0.5s, if your main damage source is from hangover, basically curse of nausea makes you do 1.42 times the original damage. Low tolerance: stack hangover up to 8 times instead of 5, basically makes your hangover do 1.6 times the original damage. These two are already very good duo boons in my opinion, if you manage to get both , which isn't too hard to get, you deal insane amount of damage, probably my favorite combo in the game.
Did your recommendation with using Chironact with Sea Storm (Zeus Attack, Call; Poseidon Special, Cast, Dash) and I cleared rooms and decimated Hades quick!!! Also was lucky to have Zeus boon appear as early as in Tartarus, with the Conch Shell already having had Poseidon's flourish taken care of
I remember doing an achilles spear run one time a few weeks ago with a Poseidon attack and Zeus on my special, getting offered Sea Storm in Tartarus, and after grabbing Static Discharge and Razor Shoals just absolutely CARVING through the run. I think i might’ve even snagged a record time with it but i can’t remember. I long to experience that high again.
Hunting Blades is my favorite with Aspect of Achilles I discovered that build and was wrecking EVERYTHING, could do like 5000 damage in like 3-4 seconds. You want Legendary Artemis boon, and youre in business. Also Mirage Shot is fucking amazing too for cast builds, specifically with flood shot or true shot
Hunting Blades is my go-to Spear build now, and I find that while Artemis Legendary makes the build busted, it's hard to get since you SPECIFICALLY need Support Fire & Pressure Points as pre-requisites. Consistency-wise, it's easier to get Ares Legendary, which just needs either Black Metal or Engulfing Vortex, and +1 Casts from Chaos to get high DPS from Hunting Blades.
I just won my first run with Stubborn Roots carrying me with 16 attempts as a new player. It was actually the first time I've ever seen a duo boon which is why I'm here. I think you should've maybe considered it more from that interpretation. It just heals a lot so long as you have a decent health pool and if you absolutely need to stall a room out it's going to get you to the boss, which helps clear all the rooms before Hades or get more gold for the shop there. I'm only saying this because you didn't say anything good about it but it definitely won me my first run due to that extra farming and survivability. Thanks for sharing this list. I'm looking forward to learning what are clearly more viable options with the heat system.
Lightning rod paired with jolted, double strike and the big area damage boon is OP. Basically shoot your cast then just hide and win. Stubborn Roots helped me learn the Hades fight when I first started playing the game. It’s S tier for new players. Once you start raising the heat it’s useless. Other than that I agree with everything here. Love this game. So glad it came out for ps5 so I could experience it. Every other game in my back catalogue has been put on the shelf for a long time lol. Crazy I’ve put in 100+ runs since I’ve got it and it still feels fresh and fun. I still haven’t 100% it either. Feels weird going for a legendary to complete the prophecies. It’s more fun just rolling with what you get and using the other keepsakes IMO. Great channel. Keep it up!
a case for stubborn roots: if you dont have tight deadline, stubborn roots can mean you can finish all the sater tunnels and still enter hades with full health if you're using stubborn defiance
Smoldering air its one of the best duo. If you you're lucky enough with duo and legendary try Smoldering Air+Call from Dyo+Black out+Curse of Nausea (this are the core Dmg but can be more with Low Tolerance, and be more cast dmg with Black out, but is too hard to get more stuff like Ice Wine or Scintilant Feast)
Strongly disagree about Aphrodite's aid in combinaison with Smoldering Air. I find charming enemies every few seconds very fun (since it can get 2 enemies off your back AND have them bonk each other) In addition, this makes the Hades fight vastly easier because you can basically interrupt half of his attacks
I've actually never tried this, but does Lightning Phalanx still work if you get the duoboon, sell Athenas cast and then get another projectile based cast? Having a boncy Artemis cast could be interesting. 😄 Edit: Ice Wine easily has some of the coolest visuals when it comes to things you can do. Love that black and white and pink swirl going on!
I know I'm, what, TWO years late? But I've been back to Hades again (finishing up the last of the unlockables, finding the few unique dialogues I'd missed, etc.), and I think I know what would make Stubborn Roots work for me: 1. Boost the HP regen to 5 HP per second, but cap it at 100 HP over 20 seconds. 2. While that's happening, your DAMAGE also increases by 5% every second, capping at +100% damage across the board. Make this essentially a way to truly turn things around when you're at death's door and give you a fighting chance, but requiring that you stay alive for that 20 seconds that the healing remains active to get its full effect (and without having the benefit of continued HP regen beyond that certain point). Its effect is fast enough that it doesn't cut too much into your clear time if you end up needing it, while providing a significant power boost that can help you push through to the end of the run. Maybe if they bring this sort of boon back for Hades 2, this could be a way of reworking it.
I think the issue with calculated risk and other effects that slow projectiles is two fold 1)when there are a ton of projectiles on the screen it doesn’t matter if they are slow, you are getting hit no matter what and 2) projectiles stay on the screen longer so sometimes I feel like I end up in a situation where the entire arena is littered with land mines. I also struggle with it because I am used to specific attack patterns and specific projectile behaviors, so slowing stuff down fucks me up
the internal cooldown on lightning in my experience is that any attack can only have one beam at the same time, as soon as the last one is done with the animation the same attack can again trigger a beam.
for curse of longing you also need merciful end to instantly proc the doom effect. you would want something like aspect of zeus with aphrodite dash, athena attack (preferably with hammer that removes knockback), and ares special. throw shield, dash into them, and then spam attack to proc doom. Aphrodite hase a support boon that makes weak last for an extra ~7 seconds which is plenty of time.
So one silly thing with Merciful End is to have Doom on the Zeus shield special and then Athena on the normal, those brief moments where an enemy is in the shield and you can melee them are just wild.
Just saying if you have a good doom effect going and you get the afrodite /Aries boon you can get a foe week and put doom on it then walk away and just hit and forget everything on screen
I had a build recently where I had Poseidon's call and epic splash dash, and I managed to get Sea Storm offered in Asphodel. I also had double strike, Zeus's legendary, and +2 Greater Reflex from Hermes by the end Elysium, and so the Theseus and Hades fights were just Zag constantly dashing and damaging these poor fools. It was the fastest Hades fight I've ever had (if it lasted more than a minute I would be shocked) and the most enjoyable one too by far. I literally burst out laughing afterwards 🤣 10/10 definitely would do again
Blizzard shot on Hera Bow is absolutely brutal and really funny because it's often better to undershoot and miss the enemy to allow the shot to trigger right in front of them
Plain crystal beam with glacial glare makes a pretty decent cheese build that is probably easier to get than lightning rod or any other duo boon. As long as you can easily apply chill stacks the vanilla beam can keep up well enough with 10x slowed targets. With stygian soul, auto reload, and glacial glare you can keep 3 beams up indefinitely without needing to worry about picking them back up constantly so you can focus all your attention running away and dropping beams every 3sec.
I will always have a soft spot for Stubborn Roots, because i randomly took it for funsies/the fated list on my first heat run. I didnt understand the mechanic, so i ended up at like 7 heat not realizing it was redundant for the rewards and it saved me during the Hades fights after blowing through 2 death defiance.
I really hope they create a “lab” room in hades 2 where you can play with aspects, hammers, boons, and poms to better understand the game’s math and build designing.
That would be so cool. Maybe after you've finished the main story and are just making runs/taking victory laps, something like this unlocks in whatever serves as the "Skelly" room?
Great idea. Something like Transistor’s Practice Room!
One of my only major criticisms of Hades is that it doesn’t allow for this kind of readily available, stress free experimentation.
That and the fact that the Mirror of the Night is in a different room to the armory.
I really hope they won't. This would suck 50% of the fun of the game
I really don't like this actually, part of the fun is just testing builds in the actual game and learning and dying. Just being able to play around with the builds like that would kind of make it not as fun
I feel like something like this should only be available very late game...
I personally love the combo of ice wine and scintillating feast. just lobbing casts everywhere and controlling the weather makes me feel like a god
I once had a run on Beowulf Shield with Ice Wine, Scintillating Feast, and the legendaries for Artemis, Demeter, and Zeus lmao
But you're already a god
Yeah, my favorite combo. Get Jolted and Killing Freeze and Hades is dead in no time.
Got a very easy clear with Scintillating Feast. “Just stand there for a while Hades”
That's the combo I ran once, insta cast chill and lightning with stun
Double Duo cast at its finest~
A thing worth considering about stubborn roots is that it's a huge help when learning a boss for the first time. When I was struggling to beat Hades for the first time Stubborn Roots was a huge help. I was able to just run away until I got up enough HP to feel confident going in for a hit
Yeah it saved me the first time I beat Hades
Stubborn roots is the only reason I beat the game for the first time, but as you get better, its value goes south as you lose less dd
It has it uses but not to the point that are good as others i believe.
Stubborn defiance has saved my bacon a few times
AFAIAC, when this guy got to stubborn roots he started drooling on his shoes. How do you not see the value here? Yeah, it's not going to help you much getting to Hades, but it's huge to have in your back pocket when you do get to him. And if you're using stubborn defiance, it's potentially useful against every other boss, as well, especially the Champions of Elysium.
And ok, if you wanna downgrade the boon because it isn't that useful until the end, I get it (although, the point of the game is to BEAT HADES, right?) - but he never even mentioned the final boss fight once, even though it's obvious that that's the whole point of the boon.
If he had started off with stubborn roots, I'd have shut the video off immediately.
Curse of Nausea is criminally underrated. It's over a 40% increase in hangover damage per second. It's practically a must have for a hangover run IMO
Combo with low tolerance for even more hangover damage
@@MrGhosta5it gets kinda nuts when you have both. As long as you have 8 stacks up, you dealing like... 2.2x hangover damage compared to lacking both duos
That you can use Ares' vengeance boon to unlock it is great. You don't need to incorporate doom into your build to take advantage of it.
Yeah people don't realize how much the stacks of Hangover really do, Hangover is not only useful when you just do a couple of hits lol.
Stubborn Roots were the training wheels I used to pull through my first two successful runs, just dashing away from foes when on low health and comfortably buying me enough time to learn the hades fight once I got there.
Once you are experienced with all foes in the game its significantly less good, but I highly recommend it for new players that hit a wall at elysium+ (theseus too you could easily drag out ad infinitum with this when you learn the fight).
Great perspective on this boon that I didn't really consider!
Same! Stubborn Roots became a staple of my early wins, before I started climbing up in heat. It's ease of acquisition was a big help.
@@meander112 we
Totally agree, for new players this allows them to beat the game they would normally lose.
I specifically tried to get this for fight against Hades, and it saved me a lot of runs when I was learning the game.
I agree, stubborn roots got me through my first run. I thought it was so powerful to just regen my health like that. Can definitely see why it would loose some of its magic for a veteran player though.
I remember getting Exclusive Access in Tartarus once and it was absolutely busted seeing all those purples.
i once got a run where it was my last boon before fighting hades...
still took it for the achievement though
I got it in Asphodel and it carried me all the way to Theseus and Asterius. I was able to kill Asterius and then Theseus killed me when he was at half health
"How often are you on zero death defiances and you feel like you could pull through because of stubborn roots"
Regularly. I have only won against [Redacted] thanks to stubborn roots. Granted yes I'm a bad Hades player but yeah. It's useful to me and it has helped regularly through Elysium and Styx.
Hell yeah! It's a great duo boon if you're not great at the game yet it's almost a garenteed win. A slow win but a win nonetheless.
Just got my first clear today due to picking up Stubborn Roots in Styx, definitely wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise.
TRUE MY FIRST WIN WAS CAUSE OF STUBBORN ROOTS
Ended up getting stubborn roots in a run that just wasn't going the way I wanted, and it actually carried me through the last fight. Took forever but I won.
It's one of those duo boons that are really good for new players, but to get Demeter you have to have made it to the final boss at least once. (For my second playthrough, it took 4 runs, but for my first game it took a lot longer to achieve that.) My first win that wasn't with the shield was due to Stubborn Roots, if I recall right. Once you start getting better at the game it starts to look less appealing, but only because you're in the state of usefulness less often.
If Lightning Phalanx was treated as a lightning attack and profited off of stuff like jolted and double strike, it'd be busted and definitely S tier
Ooooo interesting!
Curse of Longing and Cold Fusion very much felt like they were made specifically for Privileged Status in mind (makes it so jolt and doom don't need to be reapplied to keep up P-Status). And I wonder if that sort of design decision is why neither of those Duos have much going for them.
They do kind of feel like, "Oops, you fucked up your build, here's a consolation prize."
Agreed. Curse of Longing is nice in my opinion, get the longer doom and weak boons, and you can easily apply both with a dash/attack or special combo (Aphro dash/Ares special with Nemesis for example). Now add in some Artemis boons, try to get Heart Rend, and now you got a complete sword build that does really well. Remember that Pressure Points can make even Doom crit, and I've seen it crit for like 2600 damage.
I would’ve put Scintillating Feast a little higher, mostly because it solves Trippy Shot’s biggest drawback - instead of just sitting around doing nothing for several seconds, the fog is now providing extra damage (damage that is very scalable with other Zeus boons!) in that way there is something nicely Lightning Rod-esque about it.
Great video regardless! Definitely gave me some new perspectives on boons I had ignored before
Agreed. I actually think this is the strongest duo in the game. Jolted and double lightning strikes with larger AoE in addition to the fact that 3+ can be stacked results in completely ridiculous DPS that exists simply in addition to the weapon damage and continued enemy stuns. Simply wild on a decent Zeus build.
@@cashrock505
Strongest when Merciful End and Hunting Blades are a thing? Imo Jolt related builds require too many specific zeus boons to become amazing.
@@ToveriJuri Conversely, there are so many boons that scale the power of this build. Ravenous Will, Double Strike, High Voltage, Static Discharge, the default Ares and Hermes damage buffs, and you can even get things like Splitting Bolt, Cold Fusion, or Sea Storm on top of this. It also makes Lightning rods okay, to keep the lightning going after the cast expires.
But the important thing is that all of that is just in addition of weapon damage, you do a little set-up of casting then you also get potentially huge added DPS on top. You could run Poseidon Sword for added cast damage or something. You can run basically any hammer you want for this set-up, do whatever your chaos gates indicate.
I do think it's the strongest, but not the most consistent. I think with the right build it is the strongest though.
With the aspect of Talos fists, you can drag them into the stun and wtfpwn everything inside of it 🥳🥳
I never thought trippy shot ever sat around and did nothing, although maybe for bosses, for mobs, trippy shot provides a fairly frequent stun effect on them, which combos very well with Scintillating Feast as it keeps the mobs in there longer for the lightning damage to wreck them.
Stubborn roots is definitely especially helpful when you first start out, when I only had one or two death defiances to work with. It also one time let me survive from an early failure against the furies where I lost every defiance but shortly afterwards I gained Stubborn Roots, then eventually I made it to Patroclus and regained all three and went on to win the run.
Yeah, I don’t necessarily think boons/aspects etc geared towards beginners /early heaters are bad boons, just different. I guess that’s what’s great about Hades so many different experiences
It's ya boi, crutching on cursed slash and stubborn roots to kill Hades for the first time!
Low tolerance + splitting headache + heart rend is my absolute favourite build especially with chiron bow. The weak effect is nothing you even have to think about when its on your attack. And all 3 of these duo boons synergise sooo well with each other
The only issue is how to reliably stack Hangover and Weak. Aphrodite on Attack and Dionysus on Dash and/or Call, I'm guessing?
@@aquartertwo aspect of chiron. One special and you got all 8 stacks :)
2 years late but that was my 1st favorite build and still love it today
Every time I play Hades (a noob): "I love this boon, this has got to be one of the best!"
Halean video: "So this boon is a huge piece of shit"
Me: **Shocked pikachu face**
I can confirm that Slicing Shot CAN indeed backstab. As long as the center is behind the enemy (I could see the "Backstab" text coming from its hits)
I reckon that sweet nectar could be improved by giving a pom with the duo. cus then if you're pushing for max level, it doesn't do too much, and if it just appears in a run you aren't aimin for it, you still get to utilize it properly.
I like dis
@@Haelian thank you RUclips haelian
I mean, Dionysus nectar boon gives a nectar... why pom boon no give pom?
All jokes aside, Sweet Nectar really should have another effect added to make it actually useful... like maybe increase the odds of getting poms or giving poms a small chance to upgrade rarity on the boon that was pommed?
Also, it should be called Sweet Pom.
I really don’t like how “fun” is a factor in these ranking because honestly some of the basic boons are fun for me because I’m pea-brained and just like to see BIG NUMBER.
Man's don't like fun lol
Killing things faster is fun
@@thesaltmerchant4564 Agreed. Hades has me hooked, simply because I'm constantly trying to beat my fastest time. Getting a strong build is exciting!
Still unable to get under 12 minutes, though 😂
Honestly smoldering air is so good just because zeus is in your pool and you are definitely running billowing strength. I basically see SA as a free 30% damage bonus along with insane call damage. top 3 duos in the game.
Managed to get scintillating feast as well as ice wine on the Hera aspect and it was really cool to pack them all together and just nuke an area, the chill kept them moving slower in the fog and damage stacked. Was a lot of fun
Legit Stubborn Roots is the reason I cleared Hades with the bow for the first time. No heat, no timer, but I could not have done it without that perk. Just avoided Hades for a while and built up health a few times. Rough fight, but got it done.
One thing to note about unshakable mantle (the stun immunity boon). If you get that combined with the athena 90% trap damage reduction boon, you can completely ignore urns in the hades fight, which makes it much easier.
Heart Rend can really slap when you have aphro attack and Artemis special on Chrions bow ngl
That Duo was practically made for Chiron. It's such a great combo.
Same goes for Aphrodite/Dinoysus. Weak on Attack, hit all 8 Chiron specials, 8 stacks of hangover.
I personally love building for sea storm (with or w/o splash dash), I’d give that boon it’s own SS tier for Sea Storm.
My 1st ever successful run was exactly with cold embrace and yes it was so tough, but it was so fun especially when I feel like I’m cheesing a win unconventionally
I wish every duo boon was worth using. It's such a feel bad when you realize that some of the duos that you're eligible to get just aren't even worth getting, aside from the ones that are at cast only I mean. Not sure what the devs were thinking with cold embrace. It's one Duo that I don't even want to try, and that's really bad what if you got some kind of buff while you were in the beam of cold embrace? Wouldn't that make it better
Since Jolted stacks and an attack resets the timer, Cold Fusion on the Hades fight can generate some ludicrous amount of Jolted Damage. But it really is only useful on bosses like you said.
In 'defence' of Curse of Longing and its fun factor: I once deliberately built a run with the Fists where I put Ares on Attack and Aphrodite on Dash, got both Dire Misfortune and Impending Doom, and, of course, Curse of Longing. IIRC I also lucked out with an Epic level Hermes Attack Speed boon. Is this 'viable' in a run? No, especially not at higher heats with Approval Process and/or Underworld Customs. But seeing 2,000+ damage Doom procs on Hades that seem to stack endlessly high was DEFINITELY a fun time.
In general though I do find the only way to ensure consistency with Curse of Longing's effect is pairing it with Dire Misfortune and Passion Dash; if not Passion Dash, then Empty Inside is almost mandatory for the increase uptime on Weak. Still an ultimately 'meh' duo boon that asks way too much of you for too little return.
Blizzard Shot does work with Mirage Shot, and while it can have some difficulties clearing certain mobs because the knockback keeps pushiong them out of the ice, it really shines against bosses. I phased Hades with only one set of four casts each phase.
Parting Shot + Night Shawl + Stygius upgrade for +200% backstab. Your casts now deal upwards of 500 damage depending on level. That's a 1500 burst, more if you have crits
For heart rend you can always use the aspect of nemesis for the sword since you gain natural crits from your normal attacks after a special. Stack on things like hunters mark and pressure point with heartbreak strike you could have a decent build
Basically came here to say this. Artemis attack, Aphro special. Apply the weak to enemies with special while simultaneously activating Nemesis crit condition, the dash strike. If you have double edge, this alone will saw through enemies. Of course you can also make this much more powerful with Chaos attack and/or dash strike boons. Hunter Dash adds a lot of damage as well (though to go for a safer route without sacrificing too much damage, you can get Athena dash with blinding flash to activate privileged status). Also consider the hyper delivery combo since you'd be dashing a lot anyway. Sweet surrender and clean kill also boost damage and are worth getting.
Stubborn roots has saved runs for me against Hades at the end. But yeah I agree it doesn't do well with tight deadline.
Lightning rod is good passive call meter build. I'd say try to find a balance between using your cast and then leaving then on the ground.
51:52 Stubborn Roots enabled me to beat Hades (Boss) my first two times. Combined with Stubborn Defiance which resets in every room it enables novice players a viable albeit slow strategy to stay alive and learn boss habits while they're evasive. It's a great noob crutch and will encourage players to clear out every Styx rat room for instance for maximum powerups and buy the Titan's Blood or Diamond. The sword boon that gives +2 HP for every attack at the cost of -60% HP will most certainly help you get to Hades for the first time, but I've never managed to defeat Hades with said hammer boon where Stubborn Roots has worked.
The first time I got Smoldering Air was with Aphrodite's call and it was frankly amazing. Having trouble with Hades? Just charm him every few seconds and wail on him completely without fear.
Just started the video. Gotta say, that's a brave and tasty thumbnail.
Incoming Stubborn Roots in S tier. Calling it now.
oof
Nah its gonna have its own special tier of SSS
I love that you dont just rank them by strength but also by how fun they are.
I hope you know how much your videos help me with this game, thank you Haelian.
I love the calculated risk boon. It makes theseus and satyrs so much easier to deal with.
"You stand next to an enemy as Zag pulsates around them"
Ah yes. A classic conversation from Twitch-Chat.
Edit: 33:27
I completed my first ever run with lightning rod. It was a total cheese strategy as I just laid down as many as possible and ran away from Dad but it worked! And for that reason I will always love it.
The sea storm Boon with the Poseidon dash on the hidden aspect of the punchy gloves is good as heck. Heck, pretty much any combined boon is good on those
"How often are you on zero death defiances?"
VERY OFTEN ? 😆
That heal over time got me one of my few clears coupled with demeter's chill slowing Hades to a halt. Very lame playstyle but it got the job done.
I was having trouble beating hades too. I took a step back and just dashed around in the fight with him and just learned all his moves and the tells for the moves. Hades is definitely intimidating but not that hard if you just take your time and learn/dodge his moves.
@@marcusmcpherson7989 yeah i got some more clears since then. I figured it's more a matter of power level. If my build is strong enough i can manage him if i have some spare death defiances. But if my damage is low i'm just screwed. Still in the process of unlocking and upgrading more aspects so there's a lot to explore in terms of builds still.
Honestly the full Demeter chill revenge effect us so good for getting some sweet Max damage hits in on difficult enemies.
lightning rod is definitely s tear for me, it has absolutely carried me through so many runs, i think it's amazing especially for the fire attack on the second phase for the final boss
ngl, Sturrborn Roots full on saved one of my runs, I was 100% convinced I woudl die in Hades, no death defiances, and only like 5 mins on the timer, but stubborn roots managed to help me slowly recover from my mistakes, and I eventually beat hades with like 21 health and 12 seconds to spare, it was crazy, and I defo couldn't have done it without the lucky stubborn roots offer in charon's styx shop
I had the weirdest Deadly Reversal build where I'd wound up with Athena's attack on Aspect of Arthur, and that strangely turned into an absolute room clearer, especially if there were witches of any sort in play. I wouldn't mention it, but that was my first 32 Heat success story, and honestly I probably would've died to Hades if I hadn't gotten off a few choice crits.
Heart Rend : Chiron bow, Aphrodite on attack, Artemis on special.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk
My first 32 heat was exactly that. Along with +4 shots and +3 damage per consecutive shot, that 32 heat run felt easier than most 16 heat runs.
Lightning rod is actually the best duo in the game imo, the cheese potential is quite easy to execute, but the best thing is the ammount of synergies, striking twice, bigger area, jolted, legendary one, more casts. It can literally solo any boss in seconds without any risk
Thanks for these Guids Healian. I was able to win 15 runs in a row(+1 heat each try) because i understand how to do dmg now. Keep up the good work. :)
Yeah it's amazing how big of a difference it makes even just putting the correct boon on your attack versus your special and then also pomming correctly
My favorite is Sea Storm with Privileged Status, Static Discharge and Razor Shoals. So satisfying to hear the PS sound effect constantly, especially on something fast fireing like the rail.
I gotta say, I think you did Low Tolerance dirty... any fist aspect does phenomenally with it, you put Weak on your dash and Hangover on your Attack and zoom around punching things mindlessly while you drool all over your favorite onezie.
If you grab up like 2-3 secondary boons from each god, enemies can be slowed, you can do like 30% more damage or so with 3 enemies who have Hangover (definitely recommend Dionysus Aid for this build, the DOT ticks get absolutely nuts) enemies do very little damage, among many other fun effects.
The Thing about this build is that even without the Duo (which depending on the potency of your attack and the other boons you've acquired throughout your run, is effectively somewhere between a 30-50% increase in damage, seeing as it's a 60% boost to all Hangover as it's almost trivial to keep 8 stacks of Hangover using fist Attack to apply them), you're still absolutely crushing ass on groups and bosses, the build is easy as hell to build, and you still have Special and Cast to assign to whichever god you please (I don't even have a preference, there isn't a wrong choice tbh).
I think on its own its not that great but since it synergizes with other hangover boons and other duo boons, it's power level scales up drastically.
@@bruhder5854 you probably want more Dionysus boons and a couple poms to boost the effects of Hangover overall, but it's pretty easy to get, and so are the secondary boons that buff Hangover.
The thing about it is that it absolutely shreds and if you're even sort of trying to get this duo, it pops up fairly reliably. I think the only issue is that there are really only three ways to make it do 8 stacks consistently.
Fists, Chiron Aspect, and Gun (especially Eris Aspect, though). You can make Chaos Aspect work decent, but it's pretty hard to keep the stacks and Weakness on enough enemies at once to justify going for the build with Chaos.
The build really shines with Eris Aspect, even without the secondary boons, but is more reliant on hammers (I've found rocket and shotgun hammers work best, just run straightup on enemies, rocket for Weak, and then Attack for Hangover), which is kind of rough.
I think the selling point for Weak/Hangover builds is that they synergize really well, and you never have to manually finish off enemies (minus Elysium soldiers) once their health gets low enough.
@@keystonelyte you forgot Rama... It's really easy to spread a LOT of hangover stacks with the special. I still prefer curse of nausea though, it has close to the same dps, but you don't need weak and you only need to keep 5 stacks up. With Rama that frees you up to also use your regular attack for devastating effect. Dio Rama is just insane in the damage you can output.
You want more than a few poms though, when I do this I try to stack as many poms as I can. I've gotten it to 20 damage per tick I think... With 5 stacks and nausea, that's almost 300 dps. With 8 stacks it's 320 dps... I actually don't know if you can combine nausea and low tolerance, that would be epic if you can.
@@finraziel the point about the poms I was making is that with 8 stacks you don't really NEED that many poms; if I can pom the Hangover, I definitely will. I prioritize MAKING the build, THEN I refine the build.
Base Drunken Strike unpommed does 4 damage per tick per stack... that's still 32 damage a tick at 8 stacks. Obviously with that damage we would want to go for a Rare Crop, pray for Eurydice, or just pom the bejesus out of it.
If you are running the right Mirror options and use Dionysus keepsake, it's almost certainly going to be rare or epic.
That's 40 and 48 damage per tick respectively, which is pretty good even without poms. Add Privileged Status, and your Hangover is doing 120 damage a second with rare attack boon and zero poms. Thats nothing to scoff at. Every pom adds... 16 damage per second?
That's a 13% damage increase, but for every pom you get diminishing returns for how much overall damage your build does on a percentage increase basis.
That's why I don't prioritize 20 poms.
Stubborn roots is pretty good if you have a good Zeus or ares build going. It just lets you go ham without having to be too careful
LOL that thumbnail though! 🤣Thanks for the list!
Legend of Drunken Master build:
Aspect of Talos with the magnetic cutter+cast damage on fists
Dionysus Trippy shot
Dionysus attack if possible
Zeus Call (ideal) or special or dash (Athena dash also excellent)
Demeter special for the double status effect application + ice wine offering +ravenous will/arctic blast
4th god can be whatever, but I usually try to force Athena for the dash
How this usually goes: use cutter and apply cast bonus damage + drag them in, dump Trippy shot on their heads, and lay into them with Dionysus attack. If they all die, drag another enemy into the stun/aoe damage area with the cutter.
The amount of damage and control you can pump with this build is just so much fun 🥳
The trippy shot duo boons get so much better because you can drag enemies into it (Scintillating fog especially)
I neglected the Aid button until I had a Smoldering Air run. It's hard to manage another button if you aren't great at the game but the effort is worth it.
Right now I’m loving Guan Yu with Smoldering air + Athena’s call.
Thanks for some dope youtube-only vids man, loved the tierlist. Keep up the good work!
Love the guide, but so many things to argue here. Smoldering air with aphrodite's call is bad in most cases, except for boss fights, especially Hades; you can constantly interrupt their attacks completely trivialising the fights. Parting Shot works great with achilles's spear and aphrodite's cast: charge behind enemies and 3-shot even armored foes, pick up bloodstones, repeat. Etc etc, but I guess that's the beauty of Hades, there is always a way to make it work.
Yup, bad rank boons are not usseles, athey just have more requirments to be good or more skill
@@Grimm-A I guess my thought process has always been if the boon has such specific requirements to be viable, why would I ever even consider it other than just to see if there’s a situation it COULD work.
The nature of the game leads niche boons to just, in my opinion, be worthless more often than not. Especially if you have to plan heavily for them (just to make them even approach viability) or your build ends up crippled without them.
Hades would definitely do well to do some sweeping changes to a lot of duo boons so that only a handful aren’t undeniably broken.
When I first started, my favorite build was Chiron + Low Tolerance. I liked how it made boss health bars constantly (but gradually) drain, like a burning fuse or something
I feel like cold fusion can be very good if it's the second curse to activate privilege status
Splitting Headache and Low Tolerance are definitely designed to be used together. I use them on Artemis/Aphrodite builds because Hangover is easy to keep up for Privileged Status anyways and you can unlock both of them with any core Dionysus boon. Low Tolerance also adds quite a bit of damage if you use his call.
Stubborn Roots took me to the second phase of the Hades fight for the first time! I love it : )
Just did a Zag bow run with curse of longing, which ended up working really well! Got explosive shot for attack, which made it so that i could AoE apply weak, then special to apply doom (epic boon) in a cone in front. Super fun! Poms went into special for extra doom ticks.
None of these are F tier because you can still sell them for a lot
Right away watching this, I did a Chiron Low Tolerance run on 15 heat and just coasted to victory, might finally crack 16 heat and try this again lol. I miraculously got Curse of Nausea from the Styx store to round out the build as well!
Was playing with ice wine literally yesterday and i loved it! I’ve got about 100 hours in the game and i seriously slept on dionysus’ boons! His stuff is great.
For a not so great player, stubborn roots has saved me on SO many runs. The key is to use it with Stubborn Defiance, not Death Defiance.
You're so right about Hunting Blades. I love it but I find myself always seeking it now.
Thank you for giving love to my boy Dionysus, I feel like hangover is hella underrated. I know for me, I slept on it solely because, like most non-ares/Athena status effects, I first became acquainted with it through the dash and drunken dash DOESN’T BREAK POTS WHYYYY??? But yeah once I got out of the noobish tendency to only use a fully charged call, I started doing all sorts of builds where Dionysus’s aid became my primary source of applying hangover. Get a couple simple god gauge modifying boons/items and it honestly charges up almost as fast as your cast with Stygian soul applied. Then your attention can center more around applying weak/hitting crits. The increased hangover damage with the call is huge, then if you have drunken dash or a fast attack/special with hangover it’s relatively easy to keep that 5 or 8 stack applied. Then if you have trippy shot/flare and blackout??? Good night. And idk like you said it’s fun as fun to just party rock your enemies to death. One of the things I love about hades is that there’s the room game and the boss game, and you really have to consider both when designing your build (all Poseidon wrecks rooms but is weak against bosses, but combine razor shoals with high rarity/pommed up pressure points or hunter’s mark and you can absolutely melt bosses (that crit rupture damage on chariot theseus and fleet-footed hades in particular is just disgusting). Those nasty Dionysus combos to me can be VERY good at both. I mean trippy cast is classic in that regard: chunks bosses but also has excellent AOE stun/crowd control. Anyway those are just some of my thoughts, love your hades content man! I’m a little late getting into the game but it has been a three month obsession at this point (logged 300 hours in 3 months), and I’m a few house contractor jobs from a full 100%.
One thing to add about cold fusion: it increases the time of privileged status if you aren't applying jolted frequently. Like if you only have zeus on dash or special.
Sea Storm is really fun since there's a ton of ways to exploit it. The fact that it works on any knockback effect, the fact that it can inflict Privileged Status on its own, the synergy it has with Zeus' other boons: it's just pure fun
I had one run where I got cold embrace and parting shot which was incredibly fun, throwing down a cast and then dodging to the opposite side of the room as fast as I could may have been impractical but was definitely memorable just cause of the interaction between the duo boons
I know this ain’t the most op duo boons, but Curse of Nausea + Low Tolerance on Lucifer or Chiron is mad fun
I can already tell this is gonna be a banger
Personally for Stubborn Roots I almost never used it after I have cleared the game 3-4 times unless im going for some meeme run like guan yu health regeneration max. Besides that I feel like it's more of a training wheels for new players to let them unlock more weapon/aspect options. It was what helped me to clear my first few runs bc I am not good at the sword at all.
Hello Haelian !
I do have an example for Curse of Longing being good ! You didn't mention the fact that it allows Doom to be a reliable source for Blood Boil. I was playing Exagryph with Lucifer aspect, Zeus attack, and I could not get jolted for the life of me. I had doom on my special and weakening dash, and while I got Festive Fog in the endgame shop, it's Curse of Longing that carried my dps before I got festive fog and pressure points to make my damage reliable either way :)
I meant privileged status not blood boil woops
Pretty solid list Haelian, I don't think mine would be far off. It always makes me sad that the hangover stuff isn't better, Curse of Nausea+Low Tolerance is my favourite for fun combo
Curse of nausea: hangover every 0.35s instead of 0.5s, if your main damage source is from hangover, basically curse of nausea makes you do 1.42 times the original damage. Low tolerance: stack hangover up to 8 times instead of 5, basically makes your hangover do 1.6 times the original damage. These two are already very good duo boons in my opinion, if you manage to get both , which isn't too hard to get, you deal insane amount of damage, probably my favorite combo in the game.
Did your recommendation with using Chironact with Sea Storm (Zeus Attack, Call; Poseidon Special, Cast, Dash) and I cleared rooms and decimated Hades quick!!! Also was lucky to have Zeus boon appear as early as in Tartarus, with the Conch Shell already having had Poseidon's flourish taken care of
I remember doing an achilles spear run one time a few weeks ago with a Poseidon attack and Zeus on my special, getting offered Sea Storm in Tartarus, and after grabbing Static Discharge and Razor Shoals just absolutely CARVING through the run. I think i might’ve even snagged a record time with it but i can’t remember. I long to experience that high again.
You forget to say the fun combo of Blizzard Shot with Breaking Waves. And yes, it can be conbined with Mirage Shot
Hunting Blades is my favorite with Aspect of Achilles I discovered that build and was wrecking EVERYTHING, could do like 5000 damage in like 3-4 seconds. You want Legendary Artemis boon, and youre in business. Also Mirage Shot is fucking amazing too for cast builds, specifically with flood shot or true shot
Hunting Blades is my go-to Spear build now, and I find that while Artemis Legendary makes the build busted, it's hard to get since you SPECIFICALLY need Support Fire & Pressure Points as pre-requisites.
Consistency-wise, it's easier to get Ares Legendary, which just needs either Black Metal or Engulfing Vortex, and +1 Casts from Chaos to get high DPS from Hunting Blades.
I just won my first run with Stubborn Roots carrying me with 16 attempts as a new player. It was actually the first time I've ever seen a duo boon which is why I'm here. I think you should've maybe considered it more from that interpretation. It just heals a lot so long as you have a decent health pool and if you absolutely need to stall a room out it's going to get you to the boss, which helps clear all the rooms before Hades or get more gold for the shop there. I'm only saying this because you didn't say anything good about it but it definitely won me my first run due to that extra farming and survivability.
Thanks for sharing this list. I'm looking forward to learning what are clearly more viable options with the heat system.
you deserve more subs man, thanks for this, following all of your guides
Lightning rod paired with jolted, double strike and the big area damage boon is OP. Basically shoot your cast then just hide and win.
Stubborn Roots helped me learn the Hades fight when I first started playing the game. It’s S tier for new players. Once you start raising the heat it’s useless.
Other than that I agree with everything here. Love this game. So glad it came out for ps5 so I could experience it. Every other game in my back catalogue has been put on the shelf for a long time lol. Crazy I’ve put in 100+ runs since I’ve got it and it still feels fresh and fun. I still haven’t 100% it either. Feels weird going for a legendary to complete the prophecies. It’s more fun just rolling with what you get and using the other keepsakes IMO.
Great channel. Keep it up!
Ice Wine broke the game for me. 400 damage per hit, and I got a +1 cast from Chaos. Hence 1,600 damage in one sitting.
a case for stubborn roots: if you dont have tight deadline, stubborn roots can mean you can finish all the sater tunnels and still enter hades with full health if you're using stubborn defiance
Smoldering air its one of the best duo. If you you're lucky enough with duo and legendary try Smoldering Air+Call from Dyo+Black out+Curse of Nausea (this are the core Dmg but can be more with Low Tolerance, and be more cast dmg with Black out, but is too hard to get more stuff like Ice Wine or Scintilant Feast)
I had Artemis’ cast, mirage shot and lightening rod and that aoe is what got me the win since I wasn’t super strong, big fan
Strongly disagree about Aphrodite's aid in combinaison with Smoldering Air. I find charming enemies every few seconds very fun (since it can get 2 enemies off your back AND have them bonk each other)
In addition, this makes the Hades fight vastly easier because you can basically interrupt half of his attacks
I've actually never tried this, but does Lightning Phalanx still work if you get the duoboon, sell Athenas cast and then get another projectile based cast? Having a boncy Artemis cast could be interesting. 😄
Edit: Ice Wine easily has some of the coolest visuals when it comes to things you can do. Love that black and white and pink swirl going on!
I think I asked this very question myself and sadly it does not work.
I know I'm, what, TWO years late? But I've been back to Hades again (finishing up the last of the unlockables, finding the few unique dialogues I'd missed, etc.), and I think I know what would make Stubborn Roots work for me:
1. Boost the HP regen to 5 HP per second, but cap it at 100 HP over 20 seconds.
2. While that's happening, your DAMAGE also increases by 5% every second, capping at +100% damage across the board.
Make this essentially a way to truly turn things around when you're at death's door and give you a fighting chance, but requiring that you stay alive for that 20 seconds that the healing remains active to get its full effect (and without having the benefit of continued HP regen beyond that certain point). Its effect is fast enough that it doesn't cut too much into your clear time if you end up needing it, while providing a significant power boost that can help you push through to the end of the run.
Maybe if they bring this sort of boon back for Hades 2, this could be a way of reworking it.
I think the issue with calculated risk and other effects that slow projectiles is two fold 1)when there are a ton of projectiles on the screen it doesn’t matter if they are slow, you are getting hit no matter what and 2) projectiles stay on the screen longer so sometimes I feel like I end up in a situation where the entire arena is littered with land mines. I also struggle with it because I am used to specific attack patterns and specific projectile behaviors, so slowing stuff down fucks me up
Low tolerance was the centerpiece of my first heat 32 clear, which worked pretty well.
the internal cooldown on lightning in my experience is that any attack can only have one beam at the same time, as soon as the last one is done with the animation the same attack can again trigger a beam.
for curse of longing you also need merciful end to instantly proc the doom effect. you would want something like aspect of zeus with aphrodite dash, athena attack (preferably with hammer that removes knockback), and ares special. throw shield, dash into them, and then spam attack to proc doom. Aphrodite hase a support boon that makes weak last for an extra ~7 seconds which is plenty of time.
So one silly thing with Merciful End is to have Doom on the Zeus shield special and then Athena on the normal, those brief moments where an enemy is in the shield and you can melee them are just wild.
Just saying if you have a good doom effect going and you get the afrodite /Aries boon you can get a foe week and put doom on it then walk away and just hit and forget everything on screen
I had a build recently where I had Poseidon's call and epic splash dash, and I managed to get Sea Storm offered in Asphodel. I also had double strike, Zeus's legendary, and +2 Greater Reflex from Hermes by the end Elysium, and so the Theseus and Hades fights were just Zag constantly dashing and damaging these poor fools. It was the fastest Hades fight I've ever had (if it lasted more than a minute I would be shocked) and the most enjoyable one too by far. I literally burst out laughing afterwards 🤣 10/10 definitely would do again
Blizzard shot on Hera Bow is absolutely brutal and really funny because it's often better to undershoot and miss the enemy to allow the shot to trigger right in front of them
Aspect of Hera with lightning cast, and lighting rod was super fun. Turning the battle field into a thunderstorm by shooting from a distance
Plain crystal beam with glacial glare makes a pretty decent cheese build that is probably easier to get than lightning rod or any other duo boon. As long as you can easily apply chill stacks the vanilla beam can keep up well enough with 10x slowed targets. With stygian soul, auto reload, and glacial glare you can keep 3 beams up indefinitely without needing to worry about picking them back up constantly so you can focus all your attention running away and dropping beams every 3sec.
I will always have a soft spot for Stubborn Roots, because i randomly took it for funsies/the fated list on my first heat run. I didnt understand the mechanic, so i ended up at like 7 heat not realizing it was redundant for the rewards and it saved me during the Hades fights after blowing through 2 death defiance.