KMBR’s Advanced Hades Tips and Tricks

Last Updated - December 1st, 2020 - Updated Zagreus Bow, Eris Rail, Sea Storm, Black Out,
and Companion Rib to match the new patch notes. (v1.37033)

READ FIRST:
Note 1: A lot of what I say in this document is opinion. Treat it as such. This is how I have
worked in my roughly 400 successful escapes at up to 32 heat. What works for me may not
work for you, and you may have different opinions than I do about boons/aspects/etc. Do what
works for you. Also, there will be spoilers in this document. Namely the 4th aspects of each
weapon and the legendary keepsakes/companions, as I will be rating and review them all.

Note 2: I will be talking about several Mirror of Night talents here. If you don’t know them, then
be sure to look them up when I mention them as they are very important.

Note 3: I will not be doing numerical ratings. I find it hard to quantify all of these boons,
keepsakes, and aspects. Keeping the rating system consistent would be a headache I don’t
care to do. But under each rating note I’ll explain how I feel about the object in question.

Changelog:
October 27th - Adjusted Heart Rend and Second Wave to match the new patch wording and
requirements, respectively.
October 13th, 2020. Added “Conch Shell” as a path into Poseidon’s Huge Catch legendary, to
reflect the recent patch. Adjusted new Fiery Presence damage numbers (75%). Adjusted new
Chiron bow numbers.
October 11th, 2020 - Added a section on RNG Manipulation for your starting boon. Gave an
updated heading for Chamber Progression Mechanics and Chamber RNG Manipulation.
October 10th - Reformatted the Companions Section for easier reading, changed “Read First”
note 2 to be shorter. Finished Example Builds.
October 9th, 2020 - Reorganized Document for better flow, created a Table of Contents, began
Example Builds
October 8th - Finished Duos and Updated Organization

Table of Contents:
Note: Enabling Document Outline under “View -> Show Document Outline” will give you quick
links too, including sections straight to specific aspects, companions, or Olymians.
Pg. 2 - Aspects of Infernal Arms
Pg. 14 - Companions
Pg. 20 - Legendaries
Pg. 27 - Duos
Pg. 43 - Blue Laurel Chambers: Should I take Darkness, Gemstones, Chthonic Keys, or Nectar?
Pg. 45 - Gold Laurel Chambers: Should I take Centaur Hearts, Poms of Power, or Obols?
Pg. 47 - RNG Manipulation
Pg. 51 - Example Builds (with videos)
Which Aspect of the Infernal Arms Should I Use?
Any you want. They’re all valid. Do what’s fun for you. Here’s a list of my personal ratings for my
personal playstyle. So take this with a grain of salt. For my descriptions, I am under the
assumption that the weapon is at max level via titan’s blood.

Stygian Blade:

Aspect of Zagreus:
What it does: Bonus +15% attack speed and move speed. Attack speed is a buff to your
DPS and move speed is nice I guess.

Rating: Good starting weapon/10. The sword is a versatile arm, and it being melee means
you can easily inflict Privilege Status using attack + dash, making you not reliant on a
special/cast/call like ranged weapons can be. The added DPS is nice, but other aspects do it
better.

Aspect of Nemesis:
What it does: For 3 seconds after you special, +30% chance to deal critical damage. This is
very good. Critical damage is +200%, and you’re going from a 0% chance to a 30% chance.

Rating: Crit is always good/10. You can get easy Privilege Status weaving in your special and
your attack, leaving your dash to be more defensive if you so wish. I’ve started to use this
more than Arthur.

Aspect of Poseidon:
What it does: Your special dislodges any bloodstones in an enemy. Your cast also does
+50% damage.

Rating: Cast damage and cast dislodging/10. There are only four aspects in the entire game
that specialize in casts builds, so if you’re doing a cast build, your options are limited. A
straight buff to damage is great. Combining this with Hunting Blades or other great cast
damage moves is wonderful. But you have to be prepared to force a cast build going in. If
you’re not doing that, then do not pick this aspect.

Aspect of Arthur:
What it does: You have 50 more HP starting out, you take 40% less damage when you sit
inside your special, which now leaves an aura on the ground, and this aura disables traps
(including magma damage) and slows down enemy projectiles. The aura lasts 8 seconds and
cannot be placed elsewhere while it is active. The weapon also now has a heavy moveset,
meaning its attacks and specials are slower but do more damage.

Rating: The aspect I use/10. Going for Deadly Reversal and/or Heart Rend make this weapon
a monster. Hitting a critical hit for over 2,000 damage is wonderfully rewarding. The slower
animations make it harder to use, and my priority for an attack speed boon on Hermes is
much higher when I have this weapon. While the damage reduction in the aura is nice, just
like Festive Fog, it can be hard to get use of. Especially when you have lower mobility with the
slower swings. You also don’t want to be tanking damage. While this is the definitive “tank”
aspect across all Infernal Arms, you still would rather avoid damage than tank it in this game.

Eternal Spear:

Aspect of Zagreus:
What it does: +25% special speed, damage, and range. Not bad. Spear has some good
hammers that synergizes well with this, but it eventually gets outclassed.
Rating: Good starting aspect/10. Note the start of a pattern. Special on the spear is nice
because it gives you range, but it also leaves you incredibly open. Having increased range
and speed help mitigate your vulnerability. Damage is always a plus too. But soon there’s a
better spear with a stronger special.

Aspect of Achilles:
What it does: After you throw your spear by using your special, instead of recalling it back to
you, you rush into it. This rush does 25 damage, but most importantly it makes your next 4
attacks/casts do +150% damage. Woops, Poseidon blade is much less useful now. While
Poseidon blade still can dislodge casts with its special, it can’t match the damage and mobility
of the Achilles spear. Not only does this aspect give you more mobility to be at range, but it
gives three times the damage buff that Poseidon does.

Rating: Massive cast (and attack) damage/10. It can be tricky to use as you dash around the
map using your spear, and the spear’s special only goes 90% of the distance it normally does
with this aspect. So it takes some getting used to. But if you’re building a cast build? This is a
good aspect. A common build is this aspect with all the Zeus boons.

Aspect of Hades:
What it does: When you charge your spin attack, enemies become marked with Punishing
Sweep. Of note, this does not count toward Privilege Status. However, enemies that are
marked take +150% attack and special damage (excluding another spin attack) for the next
10 seconds. Your spin is also a wider radius, allowing you to hit more enemies.

Rating: The aspect I use/10. +150% damage to nearly all enemies is very good. You can
even increase spin damage and radius again with hammer boons. The main problem with this
aspect is that charging up your spin takes time. The Quick Spin Daedalus Hammer upgrade
helps mitigate this a lot. But you definitely need to build a skill of knowing when to charge and
when to dodge.

Aspect of Guan Yu:

What it does: You have -50% max hp and you heal 50% less. This applies to the start of your
run (so if you were at 100HP, when you equip this you go down to 50) and continues for the
rest of your run (so Centaur Hearts are only worth 12.5 HP). On the bright side, when you
charge your spin attack and unleash it, it launches forward in a line and heals you for 1hp per
hit. Additionally, like Arthur, it has a heavy moveset, meaning it attacks slower and does more
damage.

Rating: Glass cannon/10. Remember when I said that the Aspect of Zagreus becomes
outclassed? This is why. The special on this 45 damage and leaves you less vulnerable,
because you don’t have to recall it. Additionally, it has a larger hitbox. You see Exploding
Launcher, a hammer upgrade, a lot here and in all special builds for the spear because it
adds more AOE to it. You also see Serrated Point because three hits is strong on this weapon
(and all spears). You can kill things with incredible speed, but you better be good at dodging.

Shield of Chaos:

Aspect of Zagreus:
What it does: Your attack and dash-strike damage is increased by 15. Not bad, but nothing to
write home about. Can you guess it? A good starting aspect, but if you like to use the shield’s
attack, this is the only aspect that really buffs that. As I was reminded in the reddit thread, 15
damage is a 75% damage boost, and that is worth pointing out. That being said, I still stand
by my rating below. I think I’d have more fun with this shield if it changed the function of it like
Eris or Hestia do for the Adamant Rail.

Rating: It’s a shield so it’s broken/10. Block is always good. You can use it, but there are
more damaging aspects.
Aspect of Chaos:
What it does: Hahahahahahaha. Free win. Okay, that’s less true. They nerfed it going into
1.0 and it used to be even more broken. Now, gods forbid, you have to aim your throw. This
shield works by you charging a bull rush and then using your special to throw your shield.
You’ll end up throwing 5 shields in a V formation in front of you. If you’re close enough to an
enemy and have good aim, you can hit them with all 5.

Rating: Broken if you can aim so it’s what I use/10. Five times special damage? Good. Know
what’s better? Five times special damage with five instant stacks of Hangover. Put Dionysus
on the special and never look back. Oh, and put Aphrodite on attack. Now you have an easy
Privilege Status. Bull Rush into enemies to apply weak, throw your shield to apply hangover,
repeat. Oh, and their duo brings max stacks up from 5 to 8, so that’s another 60% damage
boost on your hangover. There are more builds like this for this aspect, but that one is my
favorite.

Aspect of Zeus:
What it does: You throw your shield using your special. It stays there doing AOE around it at
30 damage per hit.

Rating: Personally, would not use/10 too much micromanagement. People have made it
work. I have not. It’s hard to get it to hit the right spot, so others have used Zeus boons for
increased AOE. If you can kite an enemy around you and keep them in the shield, it works.
Punching and kicking enemies while your shield is out looks cool though.

Aspect of Beowulf:
What it does: The second-to-last cast weapon. Instead of lodging your casts into enemies,
you lodge them into your own shield. Then, when you rush, your casts unlodge and do an
effect around you. The effect depends on the cast, and some casts change if you have this
shield equipped. However, you take +10% damage when using this shield. Also, this shield
has a heavy moveset.

Rating: Good for throwing/10. Wait what? Yeah...no one really uses this for cast builds right
now. See, the shield throw does 3x the damage it normally does under the heavy moveset.
Get Aphrodite special and that one hammer boon that gives you +200% damage when you
dash and special? Another decently easy win. That hammer got nerfed going into 1.0 though,
so this may change in the future and people might start using casts again for this shield. I
would like to experiment with it more, myself, but the Aspect of Chaos is such a free win that I
haven’t yet.
Heart-Seeking Bow:

Aspect of Zagreus:
What it does: +15% critical chance on attacks.

Rating: Crit is always good/10. Honestly not much to say about this. Good starting aspect.
Easy to use and free extra damage. Not bad at all, but certainly not special.

Aspect of Chiron:
What it does: Your special fires 8 arrows instead of 9. However, the last foe stuck by your
attack is marked, and all special arrows seek the marked foe.

Rating: People love it/10. Very good for specials that stack. Ex: Dionysus. Artemis is also
good as it has multiple chances to land a critical hit. Zeus is less good than you’d imagine,
because the enemy has an internal 0.2s cooldown for the special to chain lightning again,
which means that it’ll only chain once and not 9 times. Demeter is also good because it
stacks, but you don’t get any extra DPS like you do from Dionysus, you only get more Chill. A
defensive option for an offensive weapon, so you don’t particularly see it. Update: This got a
damage reduction but an extra arrow after the latest patch. Overall a nerf in total damage, but
an extra chance to proc a status or critical hit.

Aspect of Hera:
What it does: Our last cast weapon. You lodge your cast into the bow, and then when you
fire your attack you fire your special out of the arrow. Enemies dislodge their bloodstones in 5
seconds. Why is this useful? Mostly because it gives your cast range. Why do you want that?
Well, you’re probably only going to run one build for this.

Rating: The aspect I use/10 but probably not better than Zagreus, Charon, or Rama. Put
Aphrodite on cast and any status curse on attack. Hit an enemy for Privilege Status.
Aphrodite’s AOE will wreck everything, and if you get Blown Kiss you get even more cast
damage. Take Chaos for more bloodstones and cast damage, and go for Artemis’ legendary.
It’s essentially an explosive sniper build. Decent AOE, large damage, but a little slow. It’s a
unique playstyle, and that’s why I love it.

Aspect of Rama:
What it does: Enemies hit by your special are marked. Marked enemies share 60% of the
attack damage they take with other marked enemies. However, your special now fires three
ricocheting arrows in a straight line. So you go down from 9 arrows to 3 on your special, but
they can bounce into other enemies. Also has a heavy moveset for its attack.

Rating: Good for special/10. Wait what? Yeah...the attack is way too slow to take advantage
of the share damage. Way too slow. You can’t get Flurry Shot on Rama either, so there goes
that idea. But the special fires quickly and ricochets to enemies. Get Zeus on your special and
max out your potential lightning damage with his other boons and you’ll be wonderful. Hard to
find a way for Privilege Status though, and you don’t want it on your attack, so call or dash.
Maybe just run Family Favorite.
Twin-Fists of Malphon:

Aspect of Zagreus:
What it does: +15% chance to dodge. If I remember correctly, this used to be both dodge
and attack speed, but alas, those days are gone. Dodge chance is very strong, as you can
dodge anything in the game, even AOE damage.

Rating: The aspect I use/10. A very good starting aspect. Nothing special, but dodge chance
is great and I got used to using it back in the beta days. Want a free win? Get Merciful End on
this. Ares attack, Athena special, and Athena dash. That’s a free win on almost any heat. The
only hard part is getting those four boons. Add in Exposed for Privilege Status and now it’s a
laughably free win. My 10 minute win was an early Merciful End on this weapon, and I fought
Charon and wasn’t even speedrunning.

Aspect of Talos:
What it does: Your special deals 20 damage and pulls an enemy in. For the next 4 seconds
they take 40% more attack and cast damage. Oh yeah, this does cast damage bonus too. I
forgot because I never combined this with casts.

Rating: Probably better than what I use/10. It’s a solid +40% damage buff and helps you hit
out of bounds enemies by pulling them in. I prefer dodge chance, but if you don’t, then this
might be the aspect for you. I certainly like it more than the next two.
Aspect of Demeter:
What it does: After landing 12 attacks, your special hits 5 times.

Rating: I don’t like it/10. This is barely more DPS than just spamming your special without
having to do 12 attacks. And I do mean barely, since you can get roughly 5 specials in that
same time. (This assumes you’re not using your attack to proc Privilege Status, in which case
that changes.) Personally, unless you really like the idea of attacking -> powered up uppercut,
the other aspects are probably mathematically better. For me, it’s also annoying to try and
time 12 hits all the time, as it’s not a natural stopping spot in your combo.

As a note, we once tested this in SGG’s high heat discord channel. It was months ago, long
before 1.0, so things may have changed since and my memory might not be perfect on this.
But ultimately, we tested to see which made more sense: spamming special or charging your
special, since you can do 5-6 special hits in the time it took to charge your powered one. If I
remember correctly, it ended up that in that same amount of time it took to charge and land
one shot, you got the same amount of special hits by just spamming special. But since you
attack to charge, charging was slightly more DPS. And once again, that’s with Privilege
Status. Privilege Status just makes this aspect better. Always go for it on your
attack+special/dash.

Aspect of Gilgamesh:
What it does: This is the most recently added aspect and the only new aspect to launch at
1.0. Because of that, I’m sure the community needs more time to determine how best to use it
and where it falls in terms of strength compared to other fist aspects. It has a heavy moveset,
but...changes things. You can now do multiple dash attacks with it. It’s dash-upper attack
maims the enemy, which means for the next 4 seconds they take +25% more damage but
also do +50% more damage to you. After those 4 seconds they take 400 damage. As
Accipter_ on reddit helped remind me, Gilamesh also adds two dashes, which is a free
Hermes boon. And the Maim (400 damage after 4 seconds) is essentially a free Ares boon. A
good way to look at it. Accipter_ and Unhappily_Happy also pointed out that the dash attack
and attack hitboxes are much larger as a part of its heavy moveset, so it has good crowd
control embedded into it.

Rating: I honestly don’t know/10. Personally, I’m not sure the 100dps +25% is worth the
+50% damage trade off. I think if you run Athena on the attack, maim, and then dash attack
the enemy repetitively you have a good established simple combo. I’m not sure how strong
this will ultimately be.
Adamant Rail:

Aspect of Zagreus:
What it does: +12 ammo. Makes it so you have to reload less, which is an overall DPS buff.

Rating: Good starting aspect/10. Hey, we’ve established a full pattern now! It doesn’t do
anything great, but it’s something.

Aspect of Eris:
What it does: For 4 seconds after you hit yourself with your special, you do +75% damage.
That’s global damage, so casts, attacks, specials, dash, calls, etc. A very solid buff for very
little cost: mobility and planning your movements. At the time of writing this, 3 out of 5 of the
current highest 1.0 heat runs were all done with the aspect of Eris.

Rating: Extremely strong/10. Extremely flexible/10. You can turn this into a cast build, a
special build, an attack build, or anything. Global damage, and global damage almost twice as
strong as privilege status, is remarkable. It takes skill to use, but if you can use it, it’s very
rewarding.

Update: Eris got a huge duration nerf, going from 8 seconds to 4 seconds. This certainly
requires more micromanagement, but since the damage output is the same, it’s hard to say
this weapon is any less strong.

Aspect of Hestia:
What it does: After you reload, your first attack does 150 base damage. So you fire -> reload
-> fire. The only time you’d not do this is if an enemy has 1 hp left. Then you can spam left
click. This is the quintessential sniper build.

Rating: The aspect I use/10. Combine this with the first mirror trait, Fiery Presence, that does
+75% on first hit. Congrats, now your first hit does 300 damage! Put on Than’s keepsake for
global damage buffs, don’t get hit, and become a one-shot sniper. Chaos has three boons
that do great for this: backstab damage, attack damage, and first-hit damage. Chaos is always
worth it. This build, to me, is just plain fun. Trying not to get hit while taking pure damage buffs
and not using Olympian keepsakes to determine my build because Thanatos’ keepsake is my
build. Perfect. Take Aphrodite for amazing attack damage, take pressure points for crit
possibility, and take Heart Rend and you’ll see crits for over 4,000 damage. It’ll take 6-8 shots
to kill the final boss on crits. Okay, getting that RNG is crazy lucky. But take anything that
boosts attack damage. Of note, it will be hard to apply Privilege Status here, so Family
Favorite might be the better choice.

Aspect of Lucifer:
What it does: Laser gun go pew.

Rating: The only aspect I actively hate in this game/10.

Okay, what it really does: This changes your attack to be a laser that ramps up damage
over time. The damage is actually pretty good. Your special leaves a pulsing orb on the
ground that does AOE damage and if you shoot it, then it explodes for even more AOE
damage.

Rating: I still hate this/10. This is the only weapon in the game that cannot break projectiles.
Your sword can slash into orbs and break them. This laser cannot. Your fists can stunlock
unarmored enemies. So can your sword or any other weapon. This aspect cannot. The
defensive abilities that you grew used to your whole time playing this game just do not exist
on this weapon. Also, if you’re playing on a controller or have auto-aim enabled in general,
there will be times when you’re trying to pop the special orb and you’re hitting an enemy
instead and visa-versa. But if you get Poseidon attack and it turns the laser blue and if you get
the Sea Storm duo you now have the super soaker build. Add Razer Shoals and Jolted for
Privilege Status and your DPS is insane.

Yet I still hate this weapon.

Which Companion (Legendary Keepsake) Should I
Use?
Battie:
What it does: This companion puts a small 2,500 damage AOE around your nearest foe,
then two same-sized AOE circles on both sides of it, to form a 5 circle line. This has been
exploited in the beta build before to do multiple hits on the same target, but it cannot naturally
hit a target more than once. I am not sure if the exploit still exists in the 1.0 version.

Progression: You unlock this one by completing Megara’s quest and gifting her ambrosia for
the first time.

Rating: Solid/10. Commonly used in high heats because it can hit 2,500 damage on multiple
targets. Good for destroying armor and minibosses. Enemies can move out of the AOE before
it activates though. Activation time is fairly quick, and quicker than Mort’s. You cannot use this
companion on the final boss until you beat the main story.
Mort:
What it does:This companion puts a large 3,500 damage AOE around your nearest foe.

Progression: You unlock this one by completing Thanatos’ quest and gifting him ambrosia for
the first time.

Rating: Meh/10. Don’t get me wrong: this keepsake is strong and it’s certainly better than no
keepsake by leaps and bounds. This takes longer to activate than Battie, but it does more
damage. Once again, foes can leave the AOE before it does activate. The extra damage is
nice, but you can’t overkill armor, HP, or boss damage gates. So, it isn’t as good as one might
think. It also requires enemies to be more clumped up, so you will probably not hit ranged
enemies with this as you may with Battie. Certainly not bad, but not one I use. You cannot use
this companion on the final boss until you beat the main story.
Shady:
What it does: This companion does a small 1,000 damage AOE around your nearest foe,
nearly instantly. Once it crashes, it leaves 4 instances of food (+10 healing each), 30 obols,
and 10 darkness. At 5 summons per run, that’s a total of 200 healing (320 with Dark
Regeneration), 150 obols, and 50 darkness.

Progression: You unlock this one by completing Sisyphus’ quest and gifting him ambrosia for
the first time.

Rating: Best utility/10. 40 healing on the spot is nice, and it’s 64 healing if you’re running Dark
Regeneration in your mirror. This alone can make it worth it. 50 free Darkness is nothing to
scoff at either, and 150 obols is a free boon. Certainly not the most damage, but in terms of
utility, no other companion is better. Additionally, unlike the last two companions, you can
summon Bouldy on the final boss.
Note: It does less damage in the picture because it cannot overkill armor, but it’s base damage
is still 1,000.

Rib:
What it does:This companion summons Skelly (at 250 hp) to draw aggro from enemies on
the map, making him the nice tank for you.

Progression: You unlock this one by completing Skelly’s quest and gifting him ambrosia for
the first time.

Rating: Situationally meh/10. 250 health isn’t a lot. He takes 10% less damage from enemies
(so attacks that would do 10 damage to you do 9 damage to him), and 95% less damage from
you (so your attacks that would do 10 damage do 1 damage to him). But therein lies the
problem: you can damage him too. If you’re on a melee weapon, it’s almost going to be
impossible not to damage him. If you’re on a ranged weapon, you might be able to angle your
attacks to miss him.

Ultimately, there are few use-cases where he’s better than killing an enemy outright. Tanking
Theseus’ phase two call is one example. Or the megagorgon’s petrification in Asphodel. Or
tanking Asterius and Theseus allowing you to keep Theseus at range and hit him.Or the fact
that he lasts until his HP is gone makes it better than a single-instance of damage, so this
makes him slightly better in rooms with waves of enemies. But if you can kill a bunch of
enemies with Mort or Antos, then why bother? The nice thing is, this companion works on the
final boss.

Update: Skelly was buffed to take 95% reduced damage from you (up from 90%). The patch
notes also say he has more health, but the tooltip still says 250. So either the patch notes are
wrong or the tooltip is. Don’t know what the new health would be, but I don’t think it
fundamentally changes my thoughts. That being said, a little more survivability is still good.

Fidi:
What it does: You unlock this one by completing Dusa’s quest and gifting her ambrosia for
the first time.

Progression: This companion summons Dusa to fire her petrification stones for 30 seconds,
at 70 damage per stone. She fires them in sets of 4 to 6, and each set will either be fired one
by one or in a group. She will continue to fire sets even if no enemies have finished spawning
yet. She can get roughly 10 sets out in a fight (this changes depending on RNG).

Rating: Best normal room keepsake/10. When fighting many enemies in a normal room, this
is better than the single-hit use of Battie, Mort, Shady, and Antos. This is the only keepsake
that truly helps for more than 5 seconds, except Rib, which does no damage. This is also
useful against bosses because while it won’t petrify, it still does decent damage and can take
care of the boss’s adds too. You cannot use this companion on the final boss until you beat
the main story though.

Antos:
What it does: You unlock this one by completing Patroclus and Achilles’ quest and gifting
Achilles ambrosia for the first time.

Progression: This companion summons Patroclus and Achilles to drop down like two
dragoons from Final Fantasy on two enemies and do 1,500 damage to each of them. If two
enemies are unavailable, it will drop down onto the same enemy for a total of 3,000 damage.

Rating: My favorite/10. If I don’t take Shady, I take Antos. Why? This is the miniboss and
boss killer. Use it on bosses before adds spawn to do 3,000 damage on the boss. This is the
second-highest single-target damage possible from a companion (500 below Mort’s, although
Fidi with good RNG and doing damage for all 30 seconds can out damage both of them, but
I’m not even sure that can happen with the damage gates and phase changes).
Also, it cannot miss and happens instantly. Well, as long as you don’t use it when a boss is
invulnerable (ex: has a shield up during its phase-changes or the hydra when it’s head is way
in the air), but all companions will miss when a boss is invulnerable. It’s also good against
Theseus and Asterius as it does a good chunk of damage to both of them, or you can save it
for after you kill one, since this fight does not spawn any adds, to finish off the second fighter.
Be careful though, sometimes it does too much damage and the first hit will knock the boss
into the second phase and the second hit will hit the boss’s shield. Still, this is better than
Battie or Mort because they’d get the boss down to the exact same amount of health anyway,
as you can’t over-damage a boss past its phase-change/damage gate.

Also, the best art and animation/10.

Legendaries: Are they good? A breakdown of each

one.
Zeus (Splitting Bolt):

What it does: It adds a bolt of 40 damage per lightning attack. This can be great damage,
especially if you have a weapon that attacks quickly with lightning (Ex: Lightning on fist’s
attack or on Rail’s attack). But it’s just a damage increase.
Progression: A three-tier boon progression. The pathing here is annoying, to say the least.
One path is Special/Dash/Aid -> High Voltage/Double Strike -> Splitting Bolt. Another path is
Attack/Cast -> Storm Lightning -> Splitting Bolt. The downside of this is two-fold for Zeus.

1. The Jolted status effect does not count toward progression, so you’re skipping a status
curse to help unlock this.
2.If you take the attack or cast, the only boon that unlocks his legendary after is Storm
Lightning. This doesn’t give you a lot of possibilities to roll this.

As a result, Splitting Bolt can be harder to get than other legendaries. This means that you
need one tier-1 boon, but might want two (to get more tier 2 boon options), then two tier-2
boons (one to unlock Splitting Bolt and you want to get Jolted), and then Splitting Bolt. This
means that a typical Zeus build will need 4-5 boons.

Rating: Meh/10. If you see it, get it, unless you don’t have Jolted and are still missing a
second curse for Privilege Status. 40% damage overall might still be better than 40 flat
damage per added lightning attack depending on your build.

Poseidon (Second Wave & Huge Catch):

What it does: Instead of knocking foes away once with your boons, it knocks away enemies
twice. This can be great for multiple reasons.
1. It now doubles Typhoon’s Fury slam damage, which is a boon you might’ve taken to
unlock this legendary anyway.
2. It now doubles Breaking Wave’s slam damage, which is a boon you might’ve taken to
unlock this legendary anyway.
3. It now doubles your instances that trigger Wave Pounding damage to bosses, which is
not a boon that unlocks this legendary, but if you have it then it’s free damage.
It’s absolutely hilarious with Rip Current, which pulls foes in from the other side of the map
during your call. (That’s an exaggeration, but it’s ridiculously large with its pull-in range.)
Nothing like pulling foes in to slam them away into walls to pull them in to slam them away...

Progression: Another three-tier boon progression, but a much better one. You need one
attack/special/cast/dash/call -> Typhoon’s Fury/Breaking Wave -> Second Wave. All three tier
two boons are unlocked no matter which tier-1 boon you take. Update: The removed Razor
Shoals as a path into Second Wave, which means it’s now harder to get and you’re passing
up a status curse. A negative on both accounts, but still a decent boon progression. If you’re
not running Privilege Status, then this isn’t as big of an impact, but Razor Shoals was a good
boon to take on offer, and now there’s less reason to.

Rating: Solid/10. Just damage via knockback, but it synergizes well with its other boons and
is much easier to get.

Huge Catch: I don’t know it’s fine I guess. You can now try to force it with Conch Shell. If
you’re doing farming runs, you want to force Poseidon to get Ocean’s Bounty and unlock
more darkness and gems anyway. Taking Sunken Treasure to also unlock Huge Catch isn’t
bad. This is useless outside of farming runs, but if you’re hard farming and can force Poseidon
in Tartarus, then go for it.

Athena (Divine Protection):

What it does: It gives you a shield that negates the next damage you take. Once you take a
hit, the barrier disappears and will not respawn until either 20 seconds pass or you enter a
new chamber. This is nice, but keepsakes can be better defensive options than this boon. You
can get almost 3.5s of shields from the Broken Spearpoint in the same amount of time that it
takes for the boon to respawn. Or, well, there’s her call.

Progression: One of the hardest legendaries to get. It’s a narrow three-tier boon progression.
You go attack/special/dash/revenge -> brilliant riposte -> Divine Protection. That’s it. That’s
the only path. There are a few problems with this.
1. The only tier 1 boons that you will probably take are attack/special/dash. While the
revenge boon is nice, it isn’t usually a high priority. This means that if you already have
an attack/special/dash, this is much harder to get.
2. Brilliant Riposte is great, but this path progression does not give you Exposed for a
status curse. You may want to take that over Brilliant Riposte.
3. If you’re down a death defiance, Athena also has two boons that replenish them, which
is also potentially a better pick than Brilliant Riposte.

Rating: Pretty bad/10. If you have full death defiances, have Exposed or don’t need it, and
this is offered? Take it. Free defense! Never rely on getting this though, and even then a
single instance of damage negation isn’t wonderful.

Aphrodite (Unhealthy Fixation):

What it does: You have a 15% chance to charm foes when you inflict Weak. The charm lasts
for 4 seconds unless it’s a boss and then it lasts like a tenth of a second. This might make you
think “well it’s useless on bosses then” but that’s not even true. First, it cancels whatever
attack they’re doing. Second, there’s no internal cooldown. You don’t have to wait 4 seconds
after you charm them, you can still charm them again. In essence, you can stunlock a boss
with this boon if you have fast enough applications and good RNG. Third, you can still
damage any enemy while it’s charmed and it does not break the charm.
Progression: Another three-tier boon progression. Go from attack/special/cast/dash (not call)
-> Empty Inside/Sweet Surrender/Broken Resolve -> Unhealthy Fixation. Like Poseidon, this
is a great flow, is decently easy to get, and it synergizes well.

Empty inside extends your weak duration, Broken Resolve makes your weak reduce even
more damage, and Sweet Surrender now makes your weak foes take more damage. These
are all great, and you want them all. In fact, since weak is already a status curse, if these are
offered you almost certainly take them. (Although Dying Lament is strong and an early Life
Affirmation can be great too.)

Rating: Absolutely broken/10. Take without hesitation. The only reason not to take this boon
is that it makes the game too easy unless you’re on ridiculously high heat.

Artemis (Fully Loaded):

What it does: It gives you +2 bloodstones, so you increase your casts by two. That’s it. Not a
complex thing.

Progression: Finally something that isn’t a three-tier boon progression. This is a weird one
though. You need two of the three paths to unlock this. Pressure points. (that’s the whole path
for that one.) Any cast that lodges from any god -> Exit wounds. Any Artemis tier 1 boon
(including pressure points) -> Support Fire. The prerequisites for this legendary aren’t bad at
all.

Pressure Points is good on any build. Support fire is never bad, though not always great. And
Exit Wounds is great damage for any cast build.

Rating: Strong when used but very situational/10. If you’re running a cast build? Go for this.
Actively try to get this. Pressure Points and Exit Wounds are great improvements to cast
builds anyway. Support Fire is meh for cast builds, but it’s free damage and it’s another path
into unlocking this legendary. You don’t even need to be using Artemis’ cast. You could be
using Aphrodite’s cast or Hunting Blades or anything. If you’re not running a cast build?
Probably won’t get much use out of this.

Ares (Vicious Cycle):

What it does: It makes his blade rifts do +2 damage for each consecutive hit. So for
example, the first hit would be 20 damage, then 22, then 24, then 26, etc. Considering how
often his blade rifts hit, this is a lot of damage.

Progression: A simple three-tier boon progression. Cast/Dash/Aid -> Black Metal/Engulfing

Vortex -> Vicious Cycle.
This is simultaneously a simple progression and an annoying one. Why? Because Ares is one
of the few Olympians that do two things. He does Doom and Blade Rifts. Most of his boons
revolve around Doom effects, which means when you receive three options for your Ares
boons, odds are they won’t be in the path to his legendary.

Fortunately, but Black Metal and Engulfing Vortex are great for improving your cast/dash/aid.
Unfortunately, these aren’t status curses, so if you’re planning on relying on this damage you
might want to run Family Favorite instead of Privilege Status.

Rating: Fine/10. The only situation where I’d actively go for this is one where I’m trying to run
Hunting Blades (his cast with his duo with Artemis). If you get Hunting Blades alone it’s a free
win, but with Vicious Cycle, it’s a hilariously free win. Even without Hunting Blades, this does
enough damage to be its own build and win on it alone. However, I find this cast really unruly
without the homing aspect, as enemies can move out of its AOE too easily and it moves too
slowly for any bosses.

Dionysus (Black Out):

What it does: Foes that have the hangover curse and are in your Festive Fog take +60%
damage. That’s a lot of damage, and that’s all damage. This can be ridiculously effective in
the right circumstances. Here’s one: Zagreus Fists: Dionysus Attack, Dionysus Cast,
Aphrodite Dash. You have Attack+Dash for Privilege Status. Throw out your cast and now
congrats you’re doing +100% damage to all enemies in the fog. You could do the same thing
with Chaos Shield and Aphrodite on Attack and Dionysus on Special and Cast. Their duo also
adds another +60% hangover damage, so these two combos together well. And that’s just two
options. There’s a lot of viability here.

Progression: A weird boon progression. It’s Cast (Festive Fog) + Attack/Special/Dash/Call ->
Black Out. Easy to unlock, at least.

Rating: I’m not a fan/10. On paper, this is great. Easy progression, high synergy, and
massive viability in many builds. There are so many duos and even just Dionysus boons that
improve your Festive Fog too. There are two problems I have with this, but they’re big ones:
1. You have to fight in your Festive Fog. This gives you less room for mobility and
dodging and requires you to constantly keep your cast up. This probably means
running Infernal Soul (+2 casts) over Stygian Soul (3 sec. cast refresh) so you can
consistently have one up when you change locations suddenly.
2. Your cast doesn’t lodge. This means that you lose out on either Boiling Blood (+50%
attack and special damage to enemies with a cast in them) or Abyssal Blood (Enemies
do 25% less damage and move 25% slower with a cast in them). Losing this isn’t a big
deal in normal encounters. But losing this for minibosses and bosses is hard to
swallow. You’re losing this to gain +60% damage (so a +10% damage bonus) but it
requires you to keep that enemy in the fog and control and collect your casts.
 Festive Fog has some amazing duos though. If you’re running Festive Fog, this is a great
legendary. But for the two reasons I listed above, I almost never take Festive Fog to begin
with. But hey, if you’re running Hera bow or Poseidon sword or Achilles spear, go for it.

Hermes (Greater Recall & Bad News):

Greater Recall:
What it does: Your casts automatically return to you. Pretty great if you’re running Hera Bow
or Poseidon Sword or Achilles spear. Is it necessary? No. It’s a solid quality of life though.

Progression: (requires Infernal Soul talent in your Mirror of Night) - Flurry Cast/Quick
Reload/Auto Reload/Lambent Plume -> Greater Recall.
A weird progression, but it has a reason. You can only get two Hermes boons per run. This
increases to a maximum of three if Charon sells a Hermes boon in the Styx shop. This creates
a simple problem. If you don’t get offered Flurry Cast, Quick Reload, or Auto Reload from the
first Hermes boon, you cannot get his Legendary in your run unless you have insanely good
RNG. (This would require getting one of them in your second offering and then having a
Hermes boon being sold in the shop, you buying it, and Greater Recall being offered. Good
luck.) They mitigate this a bit by saying “if you have Lambent Plume equipped he can offer it
at any time!” So If you want this legendary, you should probably be running Lambent Plume.

Rating: Quality of Life buff on a cast build useless on other builds/10. It also requires you to
not take godly things like dodge chance or extra dashes for more i-frames. So, you probably
won’t see this much unless those aren’t offered either.

Bad News:
What it does: Your cast does +50% damage to the enemy if that enemy doesn’t have any
casts lodged into them.

Progression: (requires Stygian Soul talent in your Mirror of Night) - Auto Reload/Lambent
Plume -> Bad News.

Another Lambent Plume path progression (see above). The only other boon you can get to
unlock this is auto-reload. As with the problems above, you only really can do this effectively
without Lambent Plume if you get offered this on the first boon, and at over 10 boons he can
offer, good luck. You probably wouldn’t want auto-reload over extra dashes or dodge chance
anyway.

Rating: Situationally Good but you’ll never actually use it/10. Putting this on Slicing Shot or
Festive Fog or Crystal Beam, the casts that don’t lodge, make it do +50% damage for free.
But you’ll need to be running those casts and need to be on Stygian Soul in your mirror, and if
you’re running those casts you very well might be using Infernal Soul for more casts anyway.
On any other cast, it’s a minor dps buff.
Demeter (Winter Harvest):

What it does: Foes die at 10% HP instead of 0% HP. When they die they do 50 damage to
enemies around them, inflicting their chill. This helps apply chill to normal encounters making
Killing Freeze more viable, and it also helps get to 10 stacks, making Arctic Blast more viable,
but this does not remove the downsides of Arctic Blast at all.

Progression: A boon progression similar to Artemis’. You need two of the following three
paths. Ravenous Will. (That’s it, that’s the whole path). Attack/Special/Dash/Aid/Snow Burst
-> Killing Freeze/Arctic Blast -> Winter Harvest. So to reiterate, you need two out of these
three boons: Ravenous Will, Killing Freeze, and Arctic Blast. Overall, a simple progression.

Problems?
1. Ravenous Will isn’t a good boon in my opinion. When you have no bloodstones you do
more damage and take less. Nice if you use your casts constantly, but if you’re on the
talent where your cast refreshes every 3 seconds, good luck. If you’re not, you still
need to throw your casts out and not collect them every fight. Demeter has better
boons to take if she offers this.
2. Arctic Blast isn’t a good boon in my opinion. When you have 10 stacks of chill on an
enemy (-40% speed), it clears the stacks and does AOE damage around the enemy.
Two problems with this:
a. You want -40% speed on an enemy. You don’t want to lose that.
b. You want a curse on an enemy, and chill is this. This removes the privilege
status chance.
3. Killing Freeze is actually pretty good. It adds a damage over time effect (DOT) to the
chill when *all* enemies are already chilled. And this is great for bosses. But useless
for normal rooms. Oh, and if you have Arctic Blast you’ll clear this DOT anyway.

Rating: Cool animation fun to see bosses shatter/10. If you get offered it? It’s only a buff.
Take it. There are zero downsides. Is this something I’d ever actively pursue? No. It isn’t
worth 1-2 taking two bad boons (Ravenous Will and Arctic Blast) just to get it to unlock.
Especially when Frozen Touch, Nourished Soul, and Rare Crop can all be offered and are
much more valuable.

Chaos (Defiance):

What it does: It gives you a death defiance.

Progression: The boon progression is pretty simple for this one. Have any other Chaos boon.

Rating: Pretty good/10. It can be replenished by Athena/Well of Charon/Patroclus as any

other death defiance can be. Becomes less useful as skill goes up, as you won’t die as often.
I’ve passed this up for attack boons or the like.
Duos: Are they good? A breakdown of each one.
Zeus:
Zeus and Artemis - Lightning Rod
What it does: Your uncollected bloodstones each summon a bolt of lightning that does 70
damage on a single target around it. The range is actually decent, and each bloodstone
strikes every second until collected or recalled.

Progression: Infernal Soul must be active in your mirror - attack/special/cast/dash/call from

both Zeus and. Easy progression, and a three-boon one which is nice.

Rating: It’s fine/10. Probably not your build, but it could be. You could throw these out into the
field and then solely focus on dodging. And you can win a run just like that. But it’s very slow.
For most builds, it will be a nice add to DPS and a good way to inflict the Jolted status.
Obviously doesn’t pair well with Greater Recall or any build that requires you to lodge casts or
relies on firing the cast to do damage.

Zeus and Ares - Vengeful Mood

What it does: Your revenge boons automatically activate every 3 seconds.

Progression: attack/special/cast/dash/call from both Zeus and Ares + a revenge boon (Curse
of Vengeance, Heaven’s Vengeance, Holy Shield, Wave of Despair, Frozen Touch). A four-
boon duo, which makes it slightly harder to get than Lightning Rod or other three-boon duos,
but still not challenging.

Rating: meme build/10. The problem with this is that most revenge boons have a very limited
range. Holy shield and frozen touch in particular need the enemy to be right up on you. Curse
of Vengeance is great, but Heaven’s Vengeance only hits one enemy. I’ve gotten all of those
with this duo...and it didn’t do much. I tried to actively make it work, but I really needed to rely
on my other boons as I normally would. Wave of Despair is probably one of the better boons
for this too, but I didn’t end up getting all 5. Pick this up if you see it and it’s better than your
other options, because it’s free dps, but don’t think that this will be a build maker or a free win.

Zeus and Poseidon - Sea Storm

What it does: When you knock away foes, you are struck by lightning. Note: this is when you
knock away foes in general, not just with a Poseidon boon. So now your shield attacks also do
lightning damage. Each knock away adds 40 damage, and incurs the wrath of any add-ons
like Jolted.

Progression: attack/special/cast/dash/call from both Zeus and the same minus the dash for
Poseidon. Another three-boon duo.

Rating: Great/10. You obviously need some knock away effects. So if the only time you knock
away an enemy is during your Poseidon call, this has less value. But if you have knockback
on your attack or dash, this becomes a monster. Add Rupture and Jolted for easy Privilege
Status and this can be enough to win a run.

Update: They removed Poseidon dash as a possible progression for this duo. How dare they.
Still solid, but a little harder to get.

Zeus and Demeter - Cold Fusion

What it does: Your Jolted status doesn’t end when an enemy attacks. Instead, it ends after
10 seconds. This is near-infinite assuming that you have a reasonable way to apply Jolted
again.

Progression: Static Discharge from Zeus and attack/special/dash/call from Demeter. Static
Discharge is what applies the Jolted status, so you probably want that anyway. But what that
means is this is a four-boon duo, as it requires a lightning application boon to happen before
you can get Jolted.
 Rating: Great/10. Free damage, and a lingering status to keep Privilege Status up. Weirdly
enough, it doesn’t require the enemy to be chilled from a Demeter boon, which just makes it
even easier to use. Jolted is also what makes Zeus stronger, as his initial lightning bursts can
be fairly tame damage. This keeps the DPS high, especially if enemies are attacking even
quicker under Forced Overtime.

Zeus and Dionysus - Scintillating Feast

What it does: Your Festive Fog cast also strikes enemies with 60 lightning damage
periodically. I haven’t timed this out to know the DPS myself, but once again, it’s a good way
to apply Jolted and it’s free damage onto your cast.

Progression: attack/special/dash/call from Zeus and Trippy Shot from Dionysus. Of note, the
codex says either Trippy Shot or High Tolerance...which you can’t get High Tolerance from
Dionysus without Trippy Shot. It might be incorrect and really is Trippy Shot AND High
Tolerance, in which case this would be a four-boon progression, but for now I’m going to
assume it’s three.

Rating: Free buff/10. If you read my analysis of Dionysus’ legendary Black Out, you know I’m
not a fan of Festive Fog. It requires enemies to stay inside the fog, which is harder on heats
such as Forced Overtime, and can be hard in general as enemies like to be mobile in this
game. It also loses the ability to lodge a cast, which is free damage or damage reduction +
slow. That being said, Festive Fog + Black Out + Scintillating Feast is good if you want to run
it. And there’s even the Ice Wine duo to further buff it still. A valid build, but not one I
personally use.

Zeus and Athena - Lightning Phalanx

What it does: Your Phalanx Shot cast from Athena now bounces to up to three more foes.

Progression: attack/special/dash/call from Zeus and cast from Athena. Easy three-boon
progression, even if the scope is limited by needing Athena’s cast.

Rating: Solid but not a run maker/10. Extra DPS, covers more space for more chances to
deflect projectiles and attacks, and Athena’s cast can hit like a truck. If you combine this with
something like Achilles Spear and some Chaos boons, it can do great amounts of damage
and then you can potentially make it a run maker. But by itself, it’s not strong enough to carry.

Zeus and Aphrodite - Smouldering Air

What it does: Your God Gauge charges at 1% every 0.2s, but is capped at 25%. This turns it
into a 0% to Use% in 5 seconds, max, assuming you’re doing nothing to raise the gauge but
waiting. It can also be combined with other things that build your god gauge, including
Athena’s Proud Bearing which starts your god gauge at 20-some% depending on rarity.

Progression: attack/special/cast/dash/call from both Zeus and Aphrodite. An easy three-boon

progression. You may also need any call boon (except that special one you get from a
keepsake, which doesn’t work with this) for this to appear, but it doesn’t list that in the codex.
Rating: Run winner/10. This can give you near invincibility with a call like Athena’s, Ares’, or
Poseidon’s. You can get some effective invincibility by charming everything with Aphrodite’s
too.The only call I’d avoid here is Artemis’, as that one relies on a full god gauge and greater
call to really be effective. Personally, I’d stick with Poseidon, Athena, or Aphrodite’s here,
depending on your style.

Poseidon:
Poseidon and Artemis - Mirage Shot
What it does: Whenever you fire your cast, it creates a second cast that does 30% of the
damage of the original. So, in essence, it’s a 30% damage buff per cast, but another chance
to critical, inflict charm, etc.

Progression: attack/special/cast/dash/call from Poseidon and Artemis, excluding Artemis’

dash. Easy three-boon progression, but I miss the days when this wasn’t a duo and was just
an Artemis boon. Ah well.

Rating: Fine to take but not worth actively going for/10. As is the thing with a lot of duos, it’s
free damage and not much else. This one at least gives a chance to proc another ability. It’s
useful on cast builds, but not something to prioritize over getting more casts from Chaos and
Artemis. Or more cast damage from Chaos. Both of those are better, a single Chaos boon can
be more than doubly so. If you see Mirage Shot, grab it, but don’t spend the effort actively
going for it.

Poseidon and Demeter - Blizzard Shot

What it does: Your cast now fires shards of ice instead of a single bolt of water. It moves
slower, but does AOE damage along the way, and lots of it. The codex lists the shard damage
as 20, but there must be a decent amount of shards, because this thing can hit for the 100s
over its run. Thousands if you fire a few at once.

Progression: Poseidon’s cast with attack/special/dash/call from Demeter. Simple three-boon

progression with a lock by needing Poseidon’s cast, but still not bad.

Rating: Slow and steady wins the race/10. It’s very good damage and has a decent AOE. The
slow speed is actually a buff more than a nerf, as it has a chance to multi-hit enemies before
leaving the area. The only problem with it is the same with Festive Fog: you lose your ability to
lodge casts and enemies can leave the area decently quickly. That being said, I find this
easier to get damage out of, and it’s much quicker to retrieve and re-cast if you’re running
Infernal Soul. This can be a run winner, but once again, you will probably need to actively go
for it to be that. Get Chaos boons, use a cast aspect, etc. If you stumble upon it accidentally,
it’s still worth picking up, but in that case don’t expect it to necessarily carry for you.

Poseidon and Zeus - Sea Storm

See Zeus. I’m not going to copy/paste the info in these repeats in the future just to keep the
document shorter and less cluttered, but I will always direct you to where the information is.
Tl;dr = good boon. Go for it.

Poseidon and Aphrodite - Sweet Nectar

What it does: This turns all poms of power from giving +1 levels to +2 levels. And it turns the
poms in Styx from +2 poms into +3 poms.

Progression: attack/special/cast/dash/call from both Poseidon and Aphrodite.Easy three-

boon progression.

Rating: Strong early useless late/10. Poms have diminishing returns, so getting this late is
almost useless, unless you haven’t upgraded yet throughout the run. Getting it early,
however, can be great damage buffs. I believe this also applies to Nectar poms and pom
slices, so yay! It’s free damage. Once again, not anything to actively go for, but if you stumble
upon it, it’s worth it early. Mid-game you’ll have to make a judgement call, and late game don’t
bother unless your other options aren’t any better.

Poseidon and Ares - Curse of Drowning

What it does: After you fire your cast, you do an AOE around you in three pulses. Damage
seems dependent on flood shot damage and other factors, as one is not explicitly listed in the
codex.
Progression: Cast from Poseidon and attack/special/dash/call from Ares. Another simple
three-boon progression with a lock behind Poseidon’s cast. Not too hard to get.

Rating: Too small for me/10. The AOE itself doesn’t cover that large of an area, and if I’m
using my dashes to get in on an enemy, I can’t use them to get out. Making this boon work is
tough, and it felt more useful as an add-on than actually trying to use this as my main source
of damage. If I’m already dash attacking in and can trigger it? Awesome. But I’m not going to
dash in and stick around for three pulses. That’s just asking to get hit. If you run across this
duo, feel free to grab it, but remember you’ll lose your ability to lodge casts too. So if casts
aren’t your main damage source, feel free to skip it. Or just feel free to skip it in general.

Poseidon and Dionysus - Exclusive Access

What it does: It makes all boons you get from here on out be, at minimum, epic rarity.
Previously obtained boons will not be upgraded to epic, and you won’t get any more chances
at Heroic offerings.

Progression: attack/special/cast/dash/call from both Poseidon and Dionysus. Easy boon

progression, which is nice, because you’ll want it early.

Rating: Good early useless late/10. Just like Sweet Nectar, if you already have your boons,
this is effectively useless. Getting it early is better, but it’s still not a run-winning duo. Rarity
doesn’t win runs, ever. Even on boons where you can’t upgrade via poms (Ex: Greater
Evasion or Greatest Reflex), rarity won’t save you. If you were going to die with 15% dodge
and 3 dashes, you were still probably going to die with 20% dodge and 4 dashes. This is
strongest on Chaos boons and Hermes boons, or other non-pom-able boons, but it won’t
make you a powerhouse.
Poseidon and Athena - Unshakeable Mettle
What it does: You can’t be stunned and you take 10% less damage from bosses.

Progression: attack/special/cast/dash/call from Poseidon and Athena. Easy three-boon

progression, which is the best we could ask for.

Rating: It annoys me when I see it as it’s pretty useless/10. Let’s take this in two parts: can’t
be stunned. That’s good. Being able to finish charging a spear spin or bow shot can be nice.
Is it worth the duo? Probably not, as many things in this game give the Sturdy ability where
you can’t be stunned but also take 30% less damage. Okay, so let’s look at the second part:
take 10% less damage from bosses. This is 1/3rd of an unupgraded weak, which applies to
every enemy, helps with privilege status and can be upgraded above 40%. This is a little bit
more than a Bronze Skin. This is less than a Different League, although that one only applies
to nearby attacks, but it at least applies to all enemies. It’s equal to the worst roll of Positive
Outlook, although that one requires your HP to be <40%. But if your HP is high you don’t
really need damage reduction. It’s always helpful, but the important thing is not to lose a life.
Oh, and High Tolerance at worst roll gives a higher % damage reduction too. Basically, minus
a bad Bronze Skin roll, this percent is less than every other damage reduction boon in the
game, and it only works on bosses.
Why was that added again? It’s almost useless. But 10% and can’t be stunned is better than
nothing so if your other options are horrible you can take it.

Athena:
Athena and Artemis - Deadly Reversal
What it does: After you deflect you have a +20% chance to deal critical hits for 2 seconds.

Progression: attack/special from Athena and attack/special/cast/call from Artemis.Decently

easy three-boon progression.

Rating: Crit is always good/10. Personally, I like to go for either this or Heart Rend when I run
Excalibur. It has uses on other builds too, but in essence: if you have deflect on your attack or
special, this is always a good buff. That being said, it’s not a free win. But it lowers the
skill/luck required for winning your run by a decent amount.

Athena and Aphrodite - Parting Shot

What it does: Your casts can now do backstab damage at +35%.

Progression: attack/special/cast/dash/aid from Athena and Aphrodite. Easy three-boon

progression.

Rating: I don’t get it/10. I’m probably not backstabbing with my cast, to be honest. Usually I’m
doing it at range, which means the enemy is most likely facing me. Even if I’m not doing it at
range, it’s hard to ever prioritize a conditional +35% damage buff over something like Mirage
Shot which is a non-conditional +30% damage buff with additional chances to proc things like
critical hits or charm. Parting Shot certainly isn’t the worst pick-up, but even in cast builds I
wouldn’t actively go for it. Artemis’ Fully Loaded, Chaos’ two cast boons, and Mirage Shot are
all better to actively work toward.

Athena and Demeter - Stubborn Roots

What it does: When you have no defiances left, recover 1hp every 0.8 seconds.

Progression: attack/special/cast/dash/call from Athena and Demeter. Easy three-boon

progression.

Rating: Either absolutely useless or broken in a good way/10. If you’re running Death
Defiances and you’re down to 0, this probably won’t save you. It might, and I’ve seen it
happen before, but your goal shouldn’t be “I’m going to get Stubborn Roots because that’ll
save my run.” If you’re on zero to medium heat, this isn’t a thing you should rely on for
winning. It can be nice, but the important thing is improving your knowledge and skill in those
instances. However, where I think Stubborn Roots is broken in a good way is when you’re on
high heat and running Stubborn Defiance. Stubborn Defiance isn’t diminished by Lasting
Consequences, so you could have healing disabled for your run and still be able to heal with
this. What’s nice is, you can also do things like kill yourself on magma after your fight, be
revived with your Stubborn Defiance, and then heal up to full with Stubborn Roots, then enter
the next chamber and be at full HP and have your Stubborn Defiance bring your defiance
back. This excels in those scenarios because it’s free healing in a minimal or healingless
game. Of course, if you’re on Tight Deadline you’re sacrificing time then too, but it’s doable. In
general, if you’re running Stubborn Defiance, this combines well with it as it keeps your HP
topped off far more often than with Death Defiances, so your effective healing is much higher.
Still, not a boon you should become reliant on.

Athena and Zeus - Lightning Phalanx

See Zeus. tl;dr = good but probably not a run maker unless you’re specifically playing for it.

Athena and Dionysus - Calculated Risk

What it does: Enemy ranged-attack projectiles are 40% slower.

Progression: attack/special/dash/aid from Athena and Dionysus. Easy three-boon

progression.

Rating: Okay but not worth actively going for/10. It very well might be better than your other
offerings, and this makes me actually tolerate the Satyrs in Styx. This is even better with
Benefits Package where enemies’ projectiles are faster or homing. However, it’s not a boon
that will win your run and not one you should ever get used to playing with.
Athena and Poseidon - Unshakeable Mettle
See Poseidon. Or don’t. tl;dr= I do not like this duo boon.

Athena and Ares - Merciful End

What it does: Win your run, probably. Okay, seriously: Your abilities that deflect instantly
activate doom effects at +40 damage.

Progression: attack/special from Athena and Ares. Simple three-boon progression...kinda.

See the rating.

Rating: My favorite build with Zagreus Fists/10. This is my favorite build in the game and
without doing the math I actually think might be the highest DPS build in the game. It’s at least
up there. There’s problems with it though: 1. It’s boon progression is a simple three boon
progression to unlock. Get Ares on your attack, Athena on your special and now you have it
unlockable. Yay! Problem: attack -> special -> attack is slow. You’d much rather attack ->
dash -> attack. Since it’s any deflect that triggers Merciful End, you can do that, but now you
need: Ares Attack, Athena Special, Athena Dash, and Merciful End. Now it’s effectively a four-
boon progression. This also does not give you exposed, which you’ll want since you have
your attack, special, and dash all accounted for. The only way to trigger privilege status now
(consistently - dying lament or revenge boons can help but we’ll ignore those for this) is either
with your cast, call, or by getting Exposed on your deflect abilities. We don’t want to wait for
our call to be active or our cast to refresh as we want to keep the DPS up. So really, what
you’re looking for to make this build work is: Ares attack, Athena special, Athena dash,
Merciful End, and Blinding Flash for Exposed. Now it’s a 5 boon progression to true power,
and that’s a lot harder to get. Oh, if you can get the Impending Doom boon from Ares for
+>=60% damage on your Doom, do it, because those 0.5s are non-existent with Merciful End.
When you get this duo going, it’s insanely fun, but you probably can’t rely on getting it going
every run unless you force it with keepsakes, have good RNG manipulation and rerolls, and
decent luck. (Of note, you can swap Ares attack to Ares special and Athena special to Athena
attack if you’d rather be using special for whatever aspect you’re using.)
Aphrodite:
Aphrodite and Athena - Parting Shot
See Athena. Tl;dr = not really worth going for.

Aphrodite and Ares - Curse of Longing

What it does: Your Doom effects continually hit weak foes at 50% damage. This is one of the
few damage boons in the game that’s multiplicative. To make this clear, if your first Doom
effect does 100 damage, your second will do 50, third 25, fourth 12.5, etc.

Progression: attack/special/cast/dash for Aphrodite and attack/special for Ares. Simple three-
boon progression.

Rating: Not as bad as you might think/10. It does two things well: keeps Doom on an enemy
for Privilege Status, and since the enemy is already weak it’s active. It also keeps DPS up. I
*believe* this is refreshable, meaning if you apply Doom again, it resets back to that original
amount of damage. (But I haven’t tested it myself because I never actively go for this.) So it
just adds DPS, which isn’t a bad thing. It won’t win your run though. If you were going to win
with this, you were going to win without it. And there are plenty of better Aphrodite boons to
get.

Aphrodite and Dionysus - Low Tolerance

What it does: Raises your max Hangover stacks from 5 to 8 on weak foes.

Progression: attack/special/cast/dash from Aphrodite and attack/special/dash from Dionysus.

Rating: I almost exclusively use this on Chaos shield/10. To be fair, you could run almost
anything on Chaos Shield since it’s too good, but I like this. Put Aphrodite on attack, put
Dionysus on special, and you get 8 stacks easily. It’s also a free Privilege Status, which is
nice. Going from 5 to 8 stacks is a 60% damage boost. This can be combined to an even
greater effect with Splitting Headache to give them a higher critical chance or Curse of
Nausea, which speeds up the DOT. At lowest rarity and no other damage buffs (which
wouldn’t happen because of Privilege Status alone), this brings the damage from 50 DPS to
80 DPS. You could easily double that if you got a decent special alone. It’s damage over time,
but good damage over time. And Dionysus has so many boons that benefit from hangover
status.

Aphrodite and Artemis - Heart Rend

What it does: Raises your critical hit damage by +150% on weak targets.

Progression: attack/special/cast/dash from Aphrodite and attack/special/cast from Artemis.

Simple three-boon progression still.

Rating: Crit is always good/10. This is another duo I try to build on Excalibur. But note, this is
critical damage not critical chance so only your abilities that can critical can do this. This
makes Pressure Points a much better ability, and it also makes this a stronger boon on the
Zagreus bow or Nemesis blade. But Aphrodite attack + Artemis special/cast + Pressure points
= fun times. Hell, throw in Deadly Reversal and now you have a +20% chance to crit too!
Those three go pretty well together.

Aphrodite and Poseidon - Sweet Nectar

See Poseidon. Tl;dr = good early bad late not worth actively trying to get.

Aphrodite and Zeus - Smouldering Air

See Zeus. tl;dr = good. Potentially broken. Grab it.

Aphrodite and Demeter - Cold Embrace

What it does: The Crystal Beam cast from Demeter now fires at you instead of an enemy for
+4 seconds, damaging enemies along the way at +30%.

Progression: attack/special/dash/call from Aphrodite and cast from Demeter. A simple three-
boon progression but with a lock behind Demeter’s cast.

Rating: Stop taking away my mobility/10. 30% damage is great (though once again, like half
of a Chaos boon...so why?), but I do not like that I now have to aim it myself using my own
body. I don’t like losing freedom of movement in a game where enemies already move so fast.
Having precise control might appeal to lots of you, but not to me.
Artemis:
Artemis and Zeus - Lightning Rod
See Zeus. tl;dr = fine but slow

Artemis and Ares - Hunting Blades

What it does: It adds a homing mechanic to Ares’ cast for 3.3 seconds. If an enemy moves
after they’ve already been homed in, the cast will continue to chase.

Progression: attack/special/dash/call from Artemis and cast from Ares. Simple three-boon
progression with a lock behind Ares’ cast.

Rating: Free win/10. The main problem of this duo is how much I dislike Ares’ cast without
Hunting Blades. The challenge is surviving until you get Hunting Blades. Both of Ares’ paths
to his legendary also buff this duo, along with the legendary itself. These are all unnecessary,
but make it so much more fun. The damage when enemies are continuously hit with Slicing
Shot is too good to ever pass up. Even if you’re not running a cast weapon, never skip this
duo.

Artemis and Poseidon - Mirage Shot

See Poseidon. Tl;dr = not better than Chaos but it’s fine if you’re running a cast build. Don’t
actively go for it.

Artemis and Athena - Deadly Reversal

See Athena. Tl;dr = crit is always good.

Artemis and Aphrodite - Heart Rend

 See Aphrodite. Tl;dr = crit is always good.

Artemis and Demeter - Crystal Clarity

What it does: The Crystal Beam homes in on foes, much like how Hunting Blades makes
Slicing Shot home in on foes. It also increases damage by a near-insignificant 10%.

Progression: attack/special/dash/call from Artemis and the cast from Demeter. Three-boon
progression locked behind Demeter’s cast.

Rating: Good if you’re using Crystal Beam for some reason/10. I don’t like Crystal Beam,
though I admit that the cast has strong DPS. Combine this duo with Achilles Spear and you’ll
have some fun if you really like those set-up/builder type characters in games. This is the
closest thing you’ll really get to it in Hades. Crystal Clarity makes Crystal Beam much more
useful.

Artemis and Dionysus - Splitting Headache

What it does: Hangover-afflicted foes have a chance to take critical damage. At 5 stacks it’s
a 7.5% chance. If you got Low Tolerance for 8 stacks it becomes a 12% chance.

Progression: attack/special/cast/call from Artemis and attack/special/dash/call from

Dionysus.

Rating: Crit is always good/10. Like Deadly Reversal, it’s not a run winner on its own, but it’s
strong and there’s no reason not to pick it up if you see it. Also combines well with the
aforementioned Low Tolerance Chaos Shield build.
Ares:
Ares and Artemis - Hunting Blades
See Artemis. Tl;dr = take it.

Ares and Zeus - Vengeful Mood

See Zeus. tl;dr = meme build.

Ares and Aphrodite - Curse of Longing

See Aphrodite. Tl;dr = Fine but you would’ve won without it.

Ares and Dionysus - Curse of Nausea

What it does: attack/special/revenge from Ares and attack/special/dash/call from Dionysus.
Simple three-boon progression we’re used to by now.

Progression :Instead of damage ticking on Hangover every 0.5s it is now every 0.35s.

Rating: Meh/10. It’s a straight DPS boost. You’ll get three more ticks of hangover damage per
application than you would’ve without it. This ends up being about a 40% DPS increase (I’m
rounding) and if hangover is your main source of damage then it’s a great pick-up. But it’s just
a dps increase. Like Curse of Longing, it’s fine but if you won with this you probably would’ve
won without it.

Ares and Poseidon - Curse of Drowning

See Poseidon. Tl;dr = not a fan

Ares and Demeter - Freezing Vortex

What it does: Your Slicing Shot moves slower (~15% I’d guess, but I’d need a dataminer for
confirmation) and is 15% smaller. But now it inflicts Chill.
 Progression: Ares’ cast with Demeter’s attack/special/dash/call. Three-boon progression with
a lock behind Ares’ cast.

Rating: Doesn’t work with Hunting Blades/10. It adds chill but doesn’t add more damage? At
least not according to the codex and it’s been forever since I’ve used this. So now, it makes
the already-hard-to-get-damage-out-of Slicing Shot even harder to get damage out of by
reducing its size and speed. Take once for your prophecy and never look back.

Ares and Athena - Merciful End

See Athena. Tl;dr = hard to acquire and implement but free win if you can.

Dionysus:
Dionysus and Aphrodite - Low Tolerance
See Aphrodite. Tl;dr = Good if Hangover is your main damage. Otherwise don’t take it.

Dionysus and Demeter - Ice Wine

What it does: Increases Festive Fog damage by +30% (less than Chaos again, yay!) and
inflicts Chill.

Progression: Dionysus’ cast with Demeter’s attack/special/dash/call. Our last three-boon

progression with a lock behind Dionysus’ cast.

Rating: Solid/10. This also is more of an instant-cast instead of lobbing a ball of fog. Inflicting
Chill is nice too because if you’re running a cast build it can be hard to get Privilege Status.
Combine this with Scintillating Feast so your Festive Fog also does lightning damage and now
you can easily inflict Jolted too. Nice Privilege Status on a single cast! Oh, and you can
combine Cold Fusion easily too so the Jolted status doesn’t expire. If you’ve read this far, you
know I don’t normally take Festive Fog. But I have, and this duo boon synergy is why.

Dionysus and Zeus - Scintillating Feast

See Zeus and the paragraph right above this one. Tl;dr = I’m not the biggest fan of Festive
Fog, but if you’re going to run it, take this and Ice Wine and Cold Fusion for a great time.

Dionysus and Artemis - Splitting Headache

See Artemis. Tl;dr = crit is always good/10.

Dionysus and Ares - Curse of Nausea

See Ares. tl;dr = fine, but if you won with it you would’ve won without it.

Dionysus and Poseidon - Exclusive Access

 See Poseidon. Tl;dr = good early bad late.

Dionysus and Athena - Calculated Risk

See Athena. Tl;dr = fine to take but don’t go working for it.

Demeter:
Demeter and Poseidon - Blizzard Shot
See Poseidon. Tl;dr = a good cast duo that can do a lot of damage.

Demeter and Artemis - Crystal Clarity

See Artemis. Tl;dr = makes Crystal Beam a lot better.

Demeter and Dionysus - Ice Wine

See Dionysus. Tl;dr = Take it if you’re running Festive Fog.

Demeter and Zeus - Cold Fusion

See Zeus. tl;dr = take it.

Demeter and Athena - Stubborn Roots

See Athena. Tl;dr = good on high heat and Stubborn Defiance. Less good in other
circumstances.

Demeter and Aphrodite - Cold Embrace

See Aphrodite. Tl;dr = take Crystal Clarity over this.

Demeter and Ares - Freezing Vortex

See Ares. tl;dr = I will never take this again
Blue Laurels: Should I take Darkness, Gemstones,
Keys, or Nectar?
Once again, this is largely up to you. My general advice is: take what you need for the House of
Hades. Weapons that are still locked or talents that are still locked makes keys probably the
most valuable. If you don’t have all your keepsakes (including legendary keepsakes), then
nectar is extremely valuable too. However, your mirror is the most valuable thing you have
between runs. If your mirror isn’t maxed, then unless you need keys to continue maxing the
talents you’re using, get darkness. Gemstones are mostly cosmetic so you can put those at the
lowest priority. Assuming you have everything maxed, then my advice is as follows.

Darkness:
Assuming you’ve upgraded it with the house contractor, Darkness gives +5 max hp and heals
you that 5 too. This is a minor buff, but 5 darkness chambers are equivalent to a single Centaur
Heart. That makes this worthwhile. Additionally, a mirror talent called “Dark Regeneration”
makes it so you heal from gaining Darkness. This raises the value even more, making Sisyphus,
bosses, Darkness from Charon’s shops and Wells, and Darkness troves more valuable. FYI,
this talent is mathematically stronger than Chthonic Regeneration (heal 3 per chamber)
everywhere but Styx, where Darkness is only available if you find it in a Well of Charon. Even
then, overall it is still mathematically superior. That being said, I still run Chthonic Regeneration
because I like it more. I should probably swap though…

Gemstones:
+20 obols are nothing to scoff at. 5 of those equals a pom and 8 of those equals a boon. Once
again, the value is in the versatility of obols. But the amount is low and the gemstones
themselves are useless mid-run.
Chthonic Keys:
+1 reroll is the best thing you can take. This is RNG manipulation at its core, and an extra
chance can be significant. The keys themselves are useless mid-run, and unfortunately,
chthonic keys are probably the first metaprogression item that you’ll stop needing, but those
rerolls are valuable. This is why I state to take what you need outside of the run first: because
otherwise, you’ll always take keys and never finish maxing your mirror or obtaining all your
keepsakes.

Nectar:
Nectar has a high variance on if it’s worthwhile or not. Nectar, like darkness, can be used mid-
run, which is nice. You can gift Olympians, Charon, ! friends, and even Bouldy. Boldly also gives
you a minor boon in return for gifting him, which makes the value of nectar more worthwhile
mid-run. On top of that, nectar gives you a slice of pomegranate. This will give you a +1 level to
a random boon. If you have a low amount of boons, there are higher odds that this will land on a
more valuable boon. If you get nectar offered as your second reward in a run, and your first
boon was one of your most important (being the attack/special/dash/call, etc.) that you’ll use all
run, a guaranteed +1 to it makes it so you have the possibility to take more obols in the future,
which means more boons.

It’s also worth noting that Infernal Troves (those troves where you have to kill enemies within a
time limit) can also randomly drop nectar as a reward, and this nectar will still give the +1.
Nectar can also be buffed by Dionysus to give max HP per run. This makes nectar potentially
the most useful item, but also the most inconsistent. You do have to pay attention to your run to
know if you should take nectar over another blue laurel offering.
Gold Laurels: Should I take Health, Poms, or Obols?
This is largely up to you, but there are a few things you should know about each one.

Centaur Hearts:
Mathematically worth 125 obols. Worth even more if you have the Convenience Fee pact that
makes everything cost more in a shop. Worth even more still if you have Aphrodite’s Life
Affirmation boon that raises their HP value. Usually more worthwhile to take over Poms and
Obols, but read Poms and Obols first to get a complete understanding.

Personally, unless I’m on high heat, I almost never actively take Centaur Hearts. This is
because my “comfort value” of HP is 200 HP. I start at 100HP thanks to my Mirror of Night.
Between the +5HP from Darkness and the number of times I am forced to take a Centaur Heart
chamber reward, I expect to have 200 HP by the time I reach the final boss. Knowing your
“comfort value” of “I can complete the game with this amount of HP” helps you determine the
value of Centaur Hearts. You will never need 400 HP if you only ever lose 150 per biome.

Pom of Power:
Mathematically worth 100 Obols. Worth more if you have the Convenience Fee pact that makes
everything cost more from a shop. Worth even more if you have the Aphrodite and Poseidon
duo that makes Poms give an extra level, thereby doubling its value.

In most cases, poms are worth more than boon rarity. The only instance where this isn’t true
is within attacks and specials that do not do flat damage but instead do a +% damage value. In
this case, an upgrade in rarity is equal to about 2-3 pom levels. In all other instances (flat
damage value attacks and specials, all dashes and calls, and all secondary boons), a pom is
worth a single upgrade in rarity or multiple upgrades in rarity. Poms also have diminishing
returns. The upgrade from level 1 to 2 is always more than level 5 to 6. You need to take all of
these factors into account when determining how valuable a pom of power is for you.
Personally, at a base stance, I like to have every boon that matters in my build to at least be
level 2. I usually take poms over Centaur Hearts and Obols until I get to that point. However, to
understand this fully make sure you read Centaur Hearts and Obols too.

Obols:
Mathematically worth 100 obols. However, both Chaos and Poseidon have boons that increase
obol gains through gold laurel chamber rewards. At a reward to obols ratio, clearly, obols are
the least valuable. At default, they’re worth less than a Centaur Heart and equal to a pom. They
are also worth less than a boon which is sold at shops for 150 obols and less than a hammer
which is sold at shops for 200 obols.

The value in the obols comes from its versatility. You may not need poms or hearts, but obols
can still be turned into boons. So when offered a heart or obols, the obols may be the better
choice. Maybe your damage builds are all at a high enough pom level where the diminishing
returns make the pom almost worthless - then obols are for you. Obols also offer something that
no heart nor pom offers: Well of Charon items. This means healing, damage, and even
potentially death defiances.

Personally, my general rule is as follows: Never take HP unless I need to because I will always
reach my “comfort level.” (If you need to actively take HP to reach your comfort level, do so.)
Take poms to get all my important abilities to level 2, and my top boon or two I use for damage
until the diminishing returns aren’t worth it. For me, I stop caring about poms around level 4 for
those. Then always take obols.

If I am down a death defiance, never go below 200 obols, as that’s how I can replenish a death
defiance from a shop. Otherwise, I make sure to always spend my obols. Unspent obols means
untapped power. Spending obols on permanent upgrades (boons, poms, chaos) is better than
temporary ones (for the next 6 rooms do more backstab damage). Healing can be even more
valuable than permanent upgrades too, as a death defiance is worth more than a boon or
anything else you could buy. And if it’s your last life, it’s worth more than losing your run.
RNG Manipulation: Chaos, Infernal Gates, and
Chamber Rewards

Image above by Sparrow from the Supergiant Discord.

Chamber Progression Mechanics:

First off, it’s important to know how Chamber Reward progression works. There are three types
of chambers: Gold Laurel (Boons, Poms, Hammers, Obols, and Hearts), Blue Laurels (Nectar,
Darkness, Gemstones, and Keys), and Special Rooms (Chaos, ! Friends, and Charon’s Shop).
A room that isn’t a transition room or a boss room will always be a laurel room. The game
determines if it’s blue laurels or gold laurels using a specific and complex formula that depends
on many things, but it isn’t important to know all of that. Just know this: the game will try to
balance (not 50/50) blue room rewards and gold room rewards. We can use that balancing
mechanic to our advantage.

A couple of quick notes first. Charon’s shop, ! friend rooms, and a failed Infernal Gate are
essentially skipped in this formula. Bounty Rewards (Titan’s Blood, Diamond, and Ambrosia) are
also skipped in this formula. However, if you’ve already received the boss reward and the will
instead give darkness, that does count as a blue laurel room in the formula.

Additionally, miniboss rooms will always offer an Olymian boon that isn’t Hermes. The room
before the final boss will always be a shop, and if there are multiple options, the other option will
always be a gold laurel option that isn’t gold (boon, heart, hammer, pom). There will also also be
a shop offered roughly midway through a biome, but not always paired with a gold laurel room.

So let’s talk about RNG manipulation. If you were offered a shop and darkness as your options
and you take the shop, you will *probably* be offered darkness, gemstones, keys, or nectar after
the shop, since it still wants to give you a blue laurel room. Opposite though is if you were
offered Chaos or a gold laurel room. Chaos counts as a boon in terms of the formula, so by
taking Chaos, that increases the odds that the rooms Chaos offers after are all blue laurel
rooms. Additionally, Infernal Gates will always be gold laurel, and they offer double the rewards
if you complete them. (+2 pom, 200 obols, +50 hp, or a higher rarity chance for an Olympian
boon).

Chamber RNG Manipulation:

This means a few things with RNG manipulation.
1. Chaos Chambers essentially counts as a regular gold laurel chamber. By taking a Chaos
boon you’re foregoing another gold laurel room in the rest of your biome/run. Use this
information to decide if you want to take Chaos or not.
2. Infernal Gates essentially count as a regular gold laurel chamber. By taking an Infernal
Gate you’re foregoing another gold laurel room...unless you fail. (And maybe if you don’t
fail. I need a dataminer to confirm this, but until then I’m under an assumption that it
counts if you get the reward.) What this means is, if you’re offered two gold laurel rooms
you don’t want but there’s also an Infernal Gate, you can take the infernal gate, fail on
purpose, and the gate will most likely offer three gold laurel room options for you. So if
you’re hunting for Athena and she isn’t offered, this is a good way to increase the
chance that you see her sooner. However, it still counts as a chamber, so you are in
essence taking a total chamber reward out of your run in order to do this by doing a
room with no reward.
3. ...unless you do it right before the pre-boss room. If you take either Chaos or an Infernal
Gate right before the pre-boss room, you’re adding a total chamber reward to your run.
 This is because these rooms cannot push you directly out to the boss. They’ll still push
you to Charon’s shop (with a possible option of another gold laurel room). These still are
counted in the formula and increase the odds that you’ll start the next biome with a blue
laurel room. Unless you’re getting darkness from the boss fight, which will go into that
formula and become even more of a reason to take these options. So it can be a good
free power boost before a boss fight.
4. Trial of the Gods (where you pick a god and anger another, but get two god boons)
seemingly count as one instance in the formula, and not two, despite the fact that you
get both boons. This raises their value.
5. Anything you buy from Charon’s shop or well (darkness, gemstones, boons, hammer,
etc.) do not count in the formula. Buy at will!
6. You can only get two Hammers from Chamber Rewards. One becomes available from
the first room, and the second Hammer only becomes available starting in Elysium. This
makes Hammers even higher priority, because even if you don’t want them, taking them
means that they are removed from the rewards pool. If you’re hunting for a specific boon
and your choices are not that boon or a hammer, taking the hammer makes it so it won’t
appear again until Elysium (or not at all if it's your second hammer). This increases your
odds for getting what you want for the rest of the run.
7. What point 6 says about Hammers is exactly true for Hermes too, except both Hermes
boons are available at the start. Taking them removes them from the pool and increases
your odds for other gold laurel offerings.
8. The optional boss encounter seems to have no effect on both the amount of chambers
and is a skipped room in the formula. However, I have not been able to confirm this one.
If you can take the fight and win it, there’s very little reason not to do it. (Losing time on
the Tight Deadline pact or HP would be the only real reasons). Update: After a few more
fights it actually seems like it does count as a Gold Laurel room. But once again, I can’t
really confirm without a lot of runs or a dataminer.
9. Rerolling Chamber Rooms has a few important things to know.
a. You cannot reroll out of Laurels. Ex: You can’t roll a blue laurel room into a gold
one.
b. You cannot reroll into shops, ! mark rooms, or trial of the gods rooms (maybe?
Haven’t seen it myself but some people say they’ve done it), but you can reroll
out of a trial of the gods room.
c. You cannot reroll into anything else that’s currently being offered. So if one door
is a Pom of Power, you cannot reroll the other door into another pom of power.
However, if Aphrodite and Demeter are being offered by a trial of the gods, you
can reroll the other door into an Aphrodite or Demeter boon.
d. Rerolling rooms has its own formula and its own odds. Never spend more than 3
rerolls on a single room. Your odds of seeing something new are very very small
after 3 rerolls.
e. Room rerolling is strongest in Styx. This is because you can’t reroll into what’s
being shown, and Styx has the most things being shown. Also, you can’t reroll a
gold laurel into a god that isn’t in the pool, and without forcing gods to appear
with keepsakes, there will always be a few Olympians that are not in the pool for
 a run and will not show up - even with rerolls. Due to this, Styx has the best
opportunity to force a god. Below is an example.
i. You want Athena. One of the doors is already Athena. Take it. You didn’t
get what you wanted. But now that Athena isn’t being offered and the
other doors are still gold laurel rooms that you can’t repeat, your odds of
rerolling into Athena are the highest they possibly can be. Reroll one
room once. If you didn’t get Athena, pick the second room you want the
least and reroll that one once. Continue until you have all the rooms you
want to take. Note: Your odds are slightly better if you reroll multiple
rooms once than one room multiple times. You can also “reset'' RNG by
taking a path and rerolling again after you’ve cleared it.
10. Rerolling boons is a crapshoot. You can get the exact same boons but one’s a higher
rarity. Or the exact same boons but in a different order. The only way to change the odds
here is to take more duo boons. If you want an Athena boon and Artemis offers her duo
boon with Athena, it may be worth taking it just so Athena can’t offer it in the future.
11. The Satyr sack room will never be the first room you pick. Use this to your advantage. If
you would rather fight the miniboss than the rooms full of enemies? Take a miniboss
room first, that way when you take a mob encounter path, there’s a chance it’ll be the
sack instead. Do the opposite if you’d rather fight mobs than the miniboss.

Starting Boon RNG Manipulation:

Additionally, using the “Give Up” feature preserves the seed you’re on. This is mostly abusable
in a few ways.
1. Look at the boon you’re going to get in the first room of a run without an Olympian
Keepsake active. This will give you three choices as normal. For example: attack, cast,
and dash.
2. If you reset via “Give Up.” That Olympian will stay, and so will their boon offerings. But if
you use an Olympian Keepsake, you get the same offerings from the new Olympian.
a. Ex: If you saw that Ares was offering his special, cast, and dash and then you
give up and put on Eternal Rose to force Aphrodite, then Aphrodite will also offer
her special, cast, and dash like Ares did.
3. Because of the +20% rarity buff of an Olympian Keepsake, note that while the same
three boons will be offered, you will actually have a chance to get a higher rarity boon.
4. This also somewhat applies if you roll new boons via Fated Persuasion. However, there
is a little RNG to this one. I haven’t figured out what makes it so it *usually* is the same
Fated Persuasion reroll after changing keepsakes, but not always.
5. Changing your Mirror of Night changes RNG a bit. This doesn’t always result in new
boons being offered, but I think it triggers a chance for them to change. So if you see
you have a good cast boon offered then change your mirror for more cast talents, it
might actually change.
6. From my testing, if your starting boon is Ares but you force another Olympian like
Aphrodite, Ares will still be in the Olympian pool for your run. This can help you decide
 what aspect to run, knowing two of the gods that will appear throughout the chambers.
However, I’m not sure if I just had RNG luck on this though, so I’ll need a dataminer to
confirm or wait until one of my future tests shows it doesn’t end up being true.
7. If you start with a hammer, it can be worth checking to see which Aspect you like has the
best starting Daedalus Hammer boon offered.

Example Builds (with videos)

Build Note: I don’t want to steal anyone’s content, so all videos I post will be of my own
gameplay. They’ll also be on my new 1.0 file, which is on Hell Mode. Since it’s a new file, it has
less runs and less heat than my main file, as I’m climbing the heat ladder one by one. The
videos will almost all be a fight with the final boss too, so be aware of spoilers. Also, I
won’t be doing example builds for every aspect, but just the main aspects I run per
Infernal Arm. This will be Arthur Blade, Hades Spear, Chaos Shield, Hera Bow, Zagreus Fists,
and Hestia Rail. These are just my favorite builds that work for me. If you want more (and
probably better) builds to look at besides mine, check out the next few paragraphs.

Hades High Heat/Challenge Runs by Krashercorr on Supergiant Games’ Discord.

This is a running document that keeps track of all of the 40+ heat runs, and they all have videos.
It can be found in Supergiant Games’ Discord, specifically pinned in the High Heat channel, but
I linked it here too. A lot of builds at this heat aren’t perfect, as it’s players reacting to the RNG
they get. Still, if a build can work at 40+ heat, it can certainly work at lower heats. So if you’re
looking for an example build for an aspect I don’t go over or if you don’t want to use the build for
an aspect I do go over, this is a great resource. A lot of those players also stream and have their
own youtube channels, so check them out.

I also do recommend joining the Supergiant Games Discord Server. They have wonderful
developers that interact with the community, and the community itself is super welcoming and
awesome. Here’s the link for those interested: discord.gg/supergiant
Stygian Blade - Aspect of Arthur:
What I’m going to call this build: Deadly Heart Rending Reversal AKA crit is always
good/10

Link to the final boss fight: https://youtu.be/pDs2rQlfThw You can see the panic when that
chariot spawns. I hate them.

Important Boons:
Attack - Athena
Special OR Cast - Artemis
Dash - Aphrodite
Secondary Boons - Blinding Flash (Exposed), Deadly Reversal, and Heart Rend

Description of Build:
Your attack deflects and gives you one status curse while your dash weakens and gives
another. This triggers Privilege Status for the +40% damage. You still need Artemis on either
cast or special to unlock both the duo boons we want. We also need to have Athena on Attack
and Aphrodite on dash, as if we swap those, we can’t get Deadly Reversal.

Deadly Reversal gives us a +20% chance to critically hit an enemy after deflecting, which
we’re doing all the time with our attack. Without Deadly Reversal, the only way we can crit is
through our Artemis special or cast, or if we picked up Pressure Points.

Heart Rend also makes it so weak enemies take +150% critical hit damage. These two
combine well together - we have a higher chance to critical hit and our critical hits do more
damage.

Combine this with attacks, dash attacks, or backstabs depending on the Daedalus Hammer
upgrades, Chaos boons, and Hermes boons you get. Not the flashiest build, but it has good
defense with deflect + weak and good damage with the added critical hits.

Build Variations:
This can be run on other aspects very easily, including both Zagreus and Nemesis blade. In
fact, Nemesis’ native crit makes Deadly Reversal less necessary, as you already have a
chance on the aspect to do critical hits for Heart Rend.

Also, if you run Nemesis, you can actually swap the attack/dash, putting Aphrodite on attack
and eliminating the necessity for Deadly Reversal. You won’t need that +20% crit chance as
much, and you can still get Pressure Points to increase Nemesis’ crit chance. Since
Aphrodite’s attack can be over 20% higher than Athena’s, this is already a nice and consistent
damage increase. In fact, without doing the math, Aphrodite attack + Heart Rend + Pressure
Points might be mathematically better than the Deadly Reversal build. Due to that, I typically
run whichever one presents the opportunity first.

Eternal Spear - Aspect of Hades:

What I’m calling this build: Serrated Privilege/10.

Link to the final boss fight: https://youtu.be/1raq2mzVGlE This was my “My DPS > Your
DPS so I don’t have to dodge” example for a friend a few weeks ago. Of note, I didn’t turn off
my music or switch over my volume settings, so the sound is extremely low and there’s still
music in the background. ...I may change this video later.

Important Boons:
Attack - Either Aphrodite or Artemis
Dash - Something to give you Privilege Status
Call - Something to give you Privilege Status if you went that over Family Favorite and have
Artemis on attack
Daedalus Hammer - Serrated Point

Other boons that are nice but aren’t necessary - Greater Reflex from Hermes. More dashes is
helpful here. Quick Spin from Daedalus Hammers. This will help you apply Punishing Sweep.

Description of the build:

Dash-attack. Don’t. Stop. Dash-attacking. Serrated Point gives your dash-attack three attacks,
so in essence you just tripled your damage there. However, you take a -25% dash range
penalty for taking this hammer. That hurts. A lot.

-25% distance not only means you’ll try to dash out of an AOE but still stay in it, it also means
that your dash is a shorter time, which means less i-frames. Take extra dashes if you can.
Otherwise, expect this to be extremely challenging until you get used to it.

Taking Quick Spin will help you apply Punishing Sweep for +150% damage. The ideal combat
flow goes as so. Enemies are spawning so you charge your spin. Enemies have spawned so
you unleash it. Now they have Punishing Sweep on them for +150% damage taken for 8
seconds. Go ham with your dash attack.

Of course, getting two ideal Daedalus Hammer upgrades isn’t easy, and you can’t reroll them
like you can other boons. So sometimes you don’t get Serrated Point or sometimes you don’t
get Quick Spin. This build is doable without. You can focus on your regular attacks without
Serrated Point and you just have to be more careful with when to charge your spins without
Quick Spin.
Anyway, if you have Privilege Status, make sure to get two status curses. Family Favorite is a
viable option here.

Build Variations:
This build is extremely flexible already, but you could also easily run Athena on attack. And
dash. And everything. Just take Family Favorite if you’re planning on doing that. All that
Deflect helps keep you alive and do massive damage though. The hammers Massive Spin,
Flurry Jab, and Flaring Spin are good here too if you can’t find the other upgrades. If you find
the Exploding Launcher upgrade, then that is a good sign to pivot into a special build too.

Shield of Chaos - Aspect of Chaos:

What I’m going to call this build: Low Tolerance. Hangovers suck/10.

Link to the final boss fight: https://youtu.be/Eti4QQIdFrw Lost two Acorn uses. >:(

Important boons:
Attack - Aphrodite
Special - Dionysus
Secondary Boons - Low Tolerance

Other boons that are nice but not necessary - Anything that buffs Hangover or Weak, +special
speed% from Hermes, Athena dash. Sudden Rush Daedalus Hammer upgrades.

Things to avoid: Charged Shot and Dread Flight Daedalus Hammer upgrades.

Description of Build:
Charge your Bull Rush and rush through or barely into an enemy. This will apply Weak. Aim
your special at them and fire. This will apply Hangover stacks and now you have Privilege
Status active too. Repeat. You want to be right up next to them in order for all five shields to
hit.

Sudden Rush (faster Bull Rush) and Hermes +special speed% upgrades keep your damage
up and your vulnerability down. When your shields are out flying, you’re a sitting duck. This is
why we also avoid Dread Flight. We don’t need the shield bouncing to more foes, and if we
get Explosive Return then when we catch the shield it will apply a Hangover stack and AOE
damage on enemies anyway. FYI, we avoid Charged Shot because we lose our Bull Rush,
which we desperately need. Other hammers, such as +% damage to armor or +%damage
after blocking are good here too. There are several good hammers, actually. Take what you
like if you can’t find Sudden Rush.

Chaos is less useful here (though still useful, as he always is), because your +special%
damage boons don’t apply to the Hangover stacks, just the base damage. Still, when you
throw five shields, that’s something. Hermes dash boons are still great, but I find them less
necessary here. For one, you have the ability to block. Also, you’re mostly moving by Bull
Rushing anyway.

Otherwise, just keep on getting Aphrodite and Dionysus boons. They have a lot of secondary
boons that will boost your damage here.
Build Variations:
Not many variant options here. You can get the Dionysus+Ares or Dio+Artemis duo boons,
but their damage isn’t as significant as Low Tolerance. In terms of priority, I’d go Low
Tolerance > Curse of Nausea > Splitting Headache.

Heart-Seeking Bow - Aspect of Hera:

What I’m going to call this build: Heartbreak Time AKA cast damage/10

Link to the final boss fight: https://youtu.be/wPmNjyUhItY Not my cleanest fight, but happy
100 I guess. Also, I’m not attacking as frequently so I can show you the power of the casts.

Important Boons:
Attack - Anything that gives you Privilege Status, but Family Favorite is fine to run here too.
Cast - Aphrodite
More casts (Grasp) - Chaos
More cast damage (Shot) - Chaos

Other boons that are nice but not necessary - Exit Wounds, Pressure Points, and Fully
Loaded. Blown Kiss. Heart Rend

Description of Build:
Note: The Test Branch Server currently lists “Aspect of Hera (Bow): Further updates to
interactions with Crust Shot” so what I have here may change in the next patch. I do not know
what these interaction changes are since I do not play on the Test Branch Server.

Do whatever you can to buff your cast damage. Take Chaos as much as possible. Note:
Depending on how many casts you have, Shot may be better than Grasp. For example, +60%
damage on three casts (so +180%) is better than +100% damage by adding one cast.

Blown Kiss adds some first shot damage, which is nice. Pressure Points gives you a chance
to crit, Exit Wounds adds a bunch of damage as casts dislodge, and Fully Loaded is
equivalent to two Chaos boons, which is awesome. Heart Rend is nice, as it’s more crit
damage, but since you’re critical hitting only <5% of the time most likely, it’s not the biggest
pick up. Also, you need to take Artemis on your attack or special to unlock Heart Rend, and if
you put Artemis on your attack then you can’t have an easy Privilege Status. Also, you’d want
Exit Wounds and Pressure Points (as you need both of those to unlock Fully Loaded) before
you’d want to unlock Heart Rend anyway.

Then just lodge casts and fire. Flurry Shot makes this a bit quicker, but is by no means a
necessary pick-up. In fact, being able to aim where your AOE detonates might be better
anyway, and you lose that with Flurry Shot. (I only mention this because I picked it up in the
posted video.) Stay mobile. Extra dashes help. I didn’t get any in my build. And as always, you
can try to get Hermes’ Greater Recall for a quality of life buff.

Build Variations:
You can actually use Artemis’ cast instead of Aphrodite’s, which makes getting Fully Loaded
the tiniest bit easier. You’d also have higher single-target damage if you have decent crit
RNG. The problem is that you lose the AOE, which is very important in normal encounters.
I’ve used the Artemis cast at low heat, but it’s not something I’d recommend after heat 16-20,
depending on what Pacts of Punishment you use. In essence, the more Jury Summons, Tight
Deadline, and Damage Control you have, the worse Artemis cast is for this variation.

To be honest, I wouldn’t use anything besides those two casts. But as always, Festive Fog
and Hunting Blades can be crazy good. Still, I’d save that for Achilles Spear.

Twin-Fists of Malphon - Aspect of Zagreus:

What I’m going to call this build: Merciful Win/10.

Link to the final boss fight: https://youtu.be/aA1Eq30qM-0 Didn’t even need to dodge. This
was recorded a bit ago for a friend of mine during one of my Darkness farming runs.

Important Boons:
Attack - Ares
Special - Athena
Dash - Athena
Secondary Boons - Merciful End

Other boons that are nice but not necessary - Blinding Flash (Exposed), Impending Doom,
Breaching Cross (Daedalus Hammer), and Greater Reflex.

Things to avoid: The Heavy Knuckle Daedalus Hammer upgrade, as it slows down your attack
speed.

Description of build:
Hit with an attack to apply the Doom effect. Dash through the enemy to apply the Merciful End
effect. Repeat. Add in Impending Doom for higher Doom damage and Blinding Flash for
global +40% damage from Privilege Status. Extra dashes help you dash more often, which
means more applications of Merciful End. Oh, and Breaching Cross is a great Daedalus
Hammer upgrade on any fist build, so might as well grab that if you see it. +900% armor
damage is monstrous.

As I talked about in the Duos section, this is a strong duo, but it’s hard to get online. That’s the
main downside. But given how strong this duo is, it’s very rewarding when it does come
online.

Build Variations:
Unfortunately, there’s not much of a pivot out of going for Merciful End. If you commit, then
you’re committing to attempting this for the entire run. Fortunately, even without Merciful End,
if you get Ares attack and Athena dash, you’re still in a winnable position. The only other duo
you could easily add would be Curse of Longing, but as I’ve said in its breakdown, I don’t
really believe it’s a run-winning duo. You could also get Deadly Reversal if you can find
Aretmis on cast or call, which is probably a better option than Curse of Longing.

Adamant Rail - Aspect of Hestia:

What I’m calling this build: Thanks, Thanatos/10.

Link to the final boss fight: https://youtu.be/XqNNme2A3q4 I played so poorly here. I got hit
by *everything*, so this is a good example of how I’m definitely not the best Hades player. But
hey, I won even if I never dodged an attack or used Athena’s call. Oh, and I forgot to pin the
attack boon I had from Chaos too. Woops.

Important Boons:
Keepsake - Thanatos
Attack - Anything with a high attack %. Ideally Artemis or Aphrodite.
Attack damage, backstab damage, first hit damage - Chaos

Other boons that are nice but not necessary - Deflect boons and dodge chance boons and crit
boons. Piercing Fire or Explosive Fire Daedalus Hammer upgrades.

Description of Build:
Step 1: Put on the Pierced Butterfly Thanatos keepsake. Step 2: Don’t get hit. Step 3: Profit

Set your mirror to Fiery Presence for more first-hit damage (75%). Despite backstab damage
being a more consistent talent, we want first hits to help us clear normal rooms faster.
Because safe normal clears = Pierced Butterfly buffs, and that translates into boss wins
anyway. Boiling Blood is also very good here for bosses. Also, put on Family Favorite over
Privilege Status, as you have no control over forcing Olympians with keepsakes since you’re
going to have Pierced Butterfly equipped the entire run.

Deflect and dodge chance help keep you alive and increase your chances of doing a room
hitless, so if you can find those boons, grab them. Extra dashes, as always, is good too
though. Critical hit boons like Pressure Points or Deadly Attack are both solid here, and even
Deadly Reversal if you can somehow find it. Otherwise, this is a “make the best with what you
can get” build.

Except always take Chaos. They have three types of boons they can give you to massively
increase your damage. There’s no reason not to take Chaos. I’ll also mention to avoid the
mid-biome shops and ! friends rooms though, as taking them is one less chance to get +2%
global damage.

In the Piercing Fire vs Explosive Fire argument, Explosive adds AOE which is nice but
Piercing means I can shoot Theseus in the face which is also very nice. To each their own,
but they’re mutually exclusive so you can’t have both. Seeking Fire or the Ricochet Shot
Daedalus Hammers are also good to add.

Build Variations:
Build variations don’t really exist here since we’re leaving most of this build up to RNG. The
best you could do is run it without Pierced Butterfly. Then you could use keepsakes to force
Deadly Reversal, Heart Rend, Winter’s Harvest, or something else.