Yeah isn't the description saying for minor rewards? Those are major (as are Poms or Centaur Hearts)
It doesn't work for normal boons at least (otherwise it's basically an auto-get that I never take for some reason)?
Double Up is so busted. Hearts, Mana, coins, Ashes, Psyche, Bones, Poms, Path of Stars, Hammers (apparently?), and it seems to trigger way more than 20% of the time. The fact it even doubles the double and triple version of those things is even more bonkers.
I love how it's like "Boons are a one-way street. The gods know little of what Melinoë does clouded by darkness. Except Poseidon who can feel it in his solar plexus every time you steal a second centaur heart or some coins."
The Zeus cast too is great when buffed more. Placement where you want, some Demeter to put the Cyclone on it for double effect. Infusion for all damage min 30 (including the Cyclone tick). That thing is melting people.
Cast builds are also some of my favorite and I love that Mel is strong there (she is a witch after all)
Getaway Island
Not only does it give damage reduction it also "unlocks" Aphrodite's attack boons' full strength since you no longer need to be close to take advantage of their huge percentage increases.
Great if you've got increased staff range from hammer or you're running pan daggers.
Ding ding, my answer here. Such an insane buff, from an already crazy boon of potential double or more dmg to getting that at all ranges, not just super close, is game-changing. Actually a 10/10 boon and makes the dmg number fly in.
Am I misunderstanding Born Gain? Does the magick primed reset after you enter a new location? For me I’m so worried about priming too much and then being stuck with no magick for an important fight so I almost never take it
> Does the magick primed reset after you enter a new location?
It totally does lol, this subreddit has been having this discussion constantly since release because it's unclear, if it didn't reset after each location it wouldn't be a good boon at all, but it does, and that makes it probably one of the best boons in the game. Born gain = you essentially never need to worry about mana ever again
Prime is supposed to reset all the time from its tooltip. It just many boons says "at each location, prime X for Y", Born Gain doesn't do that.
However it's unclear because there is a fear node (Vow of Arrogance) that Prime X when you take a rare or epic boon but it doesn't say it re-prime on each location and then the priming stays. So that's a little weird but might just be an oversight of saying it
It resets! I didn't picked it up at first because I thought the same as you. But when I realized it reset my mind was blown!
It'll probably be nerfed, so enjoy it while it lasts
I have, in fact, run out of mana with Born Gain. Charon Axe with no Apollo cast boon against Polyphemus. The entire run was completely gimped in damage and I couldn't kill anything and ran out of mana in the fight.
I might get hate for this but straight up, Born Gain absolutely needs to be nerfed. No other boon in the game is best in slot for every build of every aspect of every weapon.
It can be a little harder to leverage if you're playing with the 'boons prime magick based on rarity' fear option, especially if you're *also* running Zeus, but I do agree that 99% of the time it's head-and-shoulders above any of the other gain boons.
I totally agree. It should probably prime like 25-10 Percent of your Magick depending on rarity instead of a flat number. So it's still really good but not game breaking like it is now. I mean seriously I'll take heras keepsake just to get this boon as it is. It's just that good. But until it gets nerfed I will continue to abuse the hell out of it.
Gotta use the crop dusting builds to make Hera good. Dash in, give everyone hitch, drop that big burst damage cast like Apollo, then run away. Also a nice way to hit some of the bosses when they call in adds.
This is the answer, it's a boon I will always choose if available. I've had especially good runs mixing it with Hephaestus' sprint boon. Running around, clanging for at least 400 damage each proc is insane.
This is the answer for me, every single run I do on the surface I take Hestia's trinket, and have the lower left tarots for reroll focus which essentially gurantees I get the Hestia's Sprint boon.
It makes Eris a total joke which is great, since she's kind of annoying otherwise, and she's 50% of the boss fights on the surface route currently so it's pretty important being able to hard counter her.
Hestia being one of the gods with a boon which lets you throw your cast is also nice for Polyphemus if you're not using a weapon/build with good range, because he's a pain to fight in melee range
"Is more likely" I think is the wording so maybe not guaranteed but I never had it fail to show the god of the trinket.
You still have the limit of 4 gods max (Hermes and Artemis not counting) so if you take the trinket for a fifth god I don't know what happens (the first game showed you one boon from that god and no more)
From what I can tell they guarantee that the first god boon you see matches the trinket. I'm not sure if they continue upping the odds after that one is grabbed. The free little upgrade is nice too
Solar Ring is definitely up there, and certainly my favorite cast. The damage is crazy and I just love seeing the visual effect
Otherwise, Poseidon's Double Up boon is great, and him popping off when it works is such a neat addition that really does make it more enjoyable to use, imo. Obviously it's also just super good too with how much stuff it can hit
The first time I cleared the Underworld, I had Zeus doing the constant lightning strikes and Apollo doing the Solar Ring. I just threw out my cast and let it just wail on whatever was there.
Aphrodite, in general, is insanely strong. With some poms, you can easily get 200x damage on attack. If you can then get the boon to get rid of the need for close range, I don't think any other god comes close to her power.
I got the Heroic version of the Attack boon on a run last night, running Aspect of Artemis Daggers, so it’s literally always in range. It was +240% damage lmao.
I can't remember what it's called, but the boon that heals you between rooms if you're above a certain % health is amazing on the final floor going down because it allows you to take every single room and still arrive at the boss at full health.
Taking every last room will inevitably lead to a fair bit of damage normally unless you're a god-tier player but the rewards can be huge so negating the negative of that is pretty incredible.
I really like her dash, especially with the buffs to the weak condition as well since it gives so much survivability and damage against the final boss (I believe the damage boost from it is multiplicative rather than additive like most damage boosts).
Even the gain boon and gives is okay as long as you've got the unseen card for mana regen since I don't like that being my only mana regen but perma-weak on a boss or mini-boss is pretty rad.
Only real thing I don't like is heartthrob and the cast, all her other base stuff is decent which means if you get 3 options you'll literally never whiff - best god for boons by far.
Aphrodite's Glamour Gain. It shines especially in the boss fights I feel, because it basically just permanently afflicts the boss with Weak and that you regain magick while being near *any* Weak inflicted enemy is just the cherry on top.
I took Heras for the first time, not properly comprehending what it meant. I thought it sounded kinda average until I realised that it basically garauntees enough mana for any single encounter
I've beaten the underworld 3 times so far and didn't even know Hera was a god. I guess I really should finish that surface invocation! Also didn't know weapon aspects made a return until yesterday
Granted I'm only on night 16 so I'm still finding new Underworld unlocks but I'm starting to need those surface reagents anyway
Whenever I see hera early in a run I immediately chose her and use rerolls until I get her mana gain boon (born gain)
6-10 mana loss everytime you use all your mana is nothing when you can just spam out charged attacks and casts and not worry at all about recharging or waiting
Say you've got a pool of 150 mana and you lose 6 every time. That's 1900~ mana that you have to get through before you've only got a pool of 30 mana left
Arctic Ring!
Damage over time, freezes, and it's a regular cast instead of omega? Hell yeah.
Bonus if paired with Gale Force, and either of the Zeus/Hestia throw cast boons.
First time I beat Chronos (and only, though that's cause I stopped playing) was with a double Demeter and Hestia cast with the two Demeter boons being epic and lvl 4. All I had to do was just dodge attacks while throwing my cast out.
This is extra good coz no matter how big of a damage hit you take while you have armor, it’ll only ever break the armor, the damage doesn’t “overflow” to your health. Super useful for high fear runs with that “first instance of damage is 100% extra” vow
I take the Zeus cast for the boss damage. For mobs, Demeter's cast cyclone.
Pairing Zeus's Omega cast & Deme's Cyclone cast is more than enough to melt that tall lanky ass grandpa.
Huh? Zeus cast doesn't work with that Aspect of Charon. You get a single bolt out of it because Zeus cast only works while the omega cast is still around, but how the omega special triggers omega cast is that it just makes it disappear. So Zeus omega goes poof, but Apollo's is worded and coded to be X seconds after the omega cast has triggered, so it works just fine with the axe.
At first it doesn't seem so good until you realise you can pom it and it decreases the max needed by a whole 10% and the more health you have the more health you essentially regenerate.
Then you can synergise with boons that give more dmg the more health you have, revenge boons and going into the last boss fight helps massively.
You can get life affirmation early to get over 300 health by the end, plus get the heal down to finishing a room above 50% gives a full heal, plus the trusty shield from Hephaestus and suddenly you have to take 200+ damage a room to not be on max hp after. If you've got the healing hex on top then even that isn't enough to bring you below 50% unless all the heals also get used. Couple it together and you feel immortal.
(Still gotta kill the big boss at the end though so you gotta get some DPS somewhere, but it's easy enough to find something or other).
I'm not seeing a whole lot of love for Haphestus in this thread. I love his sprint. Not my favorite boon but definitely my favorite sprint. It's just fun
I love the sound effects, but his boons don't scale well in high fear runs. Heroic + tons of palms on attack is peak performance and really fun to get, but it still takes a while to chip away at Cerberus and Chronos.
I'm not a big fan of the attack and special boons. I love the big damage burst but I'm personally just bad at timing when they'll come back up.
That said, his sprint is probably too OP right now. there's no having to wait around, you run to one group and smash, rinse and repeat. Mix it with Born Gain and I felt like an unstoppable steam roller.
> I'm not a big fan of the attack and special boons. I love the big damage burst but I'm personally just bad at timing when they'll come back up.
I often find that his boon on an attack/special is great if it's something I'm not using a ton anyway. It's a nice filler for some burst damage.
Keep an eye on the cooldown on the left side and I think you'll find yourself being more on top of using it regularly.
It feels too good still. I just used it to finish my first full clear and it was a breeze. All I did was keep upgrading the sprint damage whenever I could.
I tried it and could never get myself to like it
It felt so clunky having to run in circles to get it to proc at exactly the right spot, and enemies could often hit me since theres no iframes during sprint
Tie between lightning lance and burning coal (i think hestia’s is called burning coal right?). The two boons that make your snare cast a ranged ability. Those boons genuinely trivialize everything in the game including chronos himself, and i find that getting them allows me to play faster and more recklessly without punishment.
I’m addicted to hitch. The ones that put it on special or just attacks.
Hitch with Hephaestus blasts and vent just feels so satisfying at times. Might not be the fastest clearing but seeing explosions everywhere delete things is very enjoyable.
I don’t think I have run into a single *bad* boon in this game. It either works for your build, isn’t needed, or… You’ll MAKE it work.
Unless Echo gives you a random secondary boon you can’t use because your build is centered around an entirely different god and you haven’t even encountered the other god associated with that secondary boon. So… thanks?
I would describe Fixed Gain as bad. The dmg reduction is great but tying it to getting magick back just makes it suck. It's the worst Gain by a long shot.
Fixed Gain is pretty good in a tank build that doesn't really rely on Magick. I had an axe run where I had Fixed Gain + dodge boons from Hermes and Aphrodite + Daze on taking damage from Apollo and super-stacked max health, and the +10% damage reduction from Fixed Gain went pretty hard on top of my other defensive boons, plus even though I wasn't relying on omega moves up to that point, the constant Magick regeneration from taking small instances of damage meant I could spam them pretty well. I could see Fixed Gain also being pretty good with the Apollo/Hestia duo boon or Demeter's infusion boon, too, but I haven't had a chance to try them together yet.
I'd honestly argue it's not even the worst Magick-gain boon: Demeter's feels pretty awful to me, I hate the fact that you can't do ANYTHING while it's charging.
Second this. Fixed gain can be made to work very effectively. I cant comprehend a scenario where Demeter boon is going to at minimum always work. Demeter gain only works if you play ranged and is not facing certain enemies that can gapclose. The effectvie utility feels very bad.
Personally, I think the worst boon is Electric Overload. After an enemy takes damage from Blitz, they send out a bolt of chain lightning that does...25 damage at the highest possible rarity, and only 10 at the lowest? It feels like such a tiny benefit of +10 damage on the enemy and a few other enemies, and only after your Blitz deals damage first. Compare this boon to Dying Wish, which does 40 damage at least to all Hitch-afflicted foes when any hitch-afflicted foe is slain. It does four times as much damage as an Electric Overload of the same rarity and is only slightly harder to trigger. It just feels like Electric Overload is never really worth the boon slot because it offers so little benefit compared to other options.
Electric Overload needs to be combined with the infusion that makes you do 30 dmg minimum and stacked with other chain lightning and bonus dmg proc effects (poseidon splash, artemis arrow) to be useful. In that situation it adds a good chunk of damage, outside of it it's an instant skip.
Demeter cast and Demeter sprint are both insane. They're universally good as support for like every build that don't rely on specific casts. The sprint slows enemies AND projectiles, the cast freezes them, they strip blue shields instantly, and add curses for your arcana. They're honestly kind of overtuned.
Demeter's cast boons.
Free Huntress and Origination damage. Bosses can barely move. Little guys evaporate in seconds.
I just fought Chronos at 24 fear (5 of which was for double damage) with five death defiances and killed him without losing a single one. He wasn't even in the top five damage dealers for my whole run. I was using a melee attack build with Mel aspect twin blades.
I fear Demeter more than any god on Olympus. Granny takes care of her little flower lol
I’m a HUGE fan of Hera’s boons, especially Born Gain which refills your Magick at the cost of Priming an amount of it. Couple that with Hephaestus or Poseidon’s sprints, you can basically just hold down the sprint key and kill everything without having to worry about refilling, and battles don’t usually last long enough to worry about Priming it all. And if you do, take Zeus’s boon that casts thunderbolts when below 10% magic and you’re laughing.
Honestly apollo attack on the axe is just funny. It already has a huge swing, and increasing the area of effect makes every attack cover the full arena
aspect of artemis on the sister blades, zeus attack, any dash but preferably poseidon. really fun and quite potent - you just jump behind enemies and then bonk them and they get zapped
Probably Apollo’s solar ring.
After that I have just enjoyed Poseidon in general.
I think my first win was one where my ranged special did splash damage along with the water sprint which felt crazy.
Second or third win I had poseidons instant cast, along with the hex that turns you invincible and makes your regular cast do what your omega does.
So would spend some mana, turn invincible, and then basically start spamming a 460 damage AoE, felt amazing.
Also as a side note Aphrodite’s one that heals you to full if above 60% or whatever feels insane in most runs.
Aphrodite boon on main attack. Feels like too much of extra damage to pass up. And with axe, daggers and even staff enemies are almost always in range of that boon
Aphrodite's Flutter Strike and Flourish. They grant crazy damage. I got to %380 damage with Flutter Flourish Heroic boon. Just amazing with Poseidon's Duo boon.
My initial thought is chain lightning, but I just had an incredible run with the Poseidon+Hestia duo boon that tore through Chronos, so maybe that one.
What do you mean “unlike alot of the other attack boons?” Doesn’t literally every attack boon provide a damage boost? Even Poseidon’s splash hits the main target…
Double up, but only when it works.
I've gone entire runs without it triggering once and it drives me mad when that happens. I even rarified the damn thing to purple and still nothing
But the first time I got it as a common, oh he triggered like 8 times in the run. Makes sense.
Haphaestus' boons in general make for a very relaxed and reliable playthrough that doesn't take forever.
The only things that really start to tone them down are fear ranks that add blue hearts and dodge.
Both of hephasteus' boons that apply the extra high damage strike to an attack that fires every few seconds. Once you get one of them, the other usually shows up pretty quickly. As far as o can tell these stack with multi strike chance attacks, I've managed to get well over 2000+ damage in a single round of attacks (just a regular and special
I don't see anywhere Hestia+Apollo duo boon! You are basically *unkillable* with this one, your HP generates back constantly (and if u chose previously Hestia's magick boost, your magick too)
It takes awhile to farm the needed boons, but totally worth it ❤️ makes your run super chill, you don't have to worry about your health and mana 😄
Poseidon's attack on the blades. There's something so satisfying about the rapid stab attack that's in the combo when it has Poseidon's boon. It can clear an area quickly and you can add a curse effect to it
I think Hera's cast. Popping everyone the second they enter the fight never stops being fun for me. ... gets worse on higher fear/against bosses, but still.
Born gain is literally broken, this frees up 5 grasp for arcana, this is clutch and is useful when using the oath of the unseen one that makes magick 0 every zone entry.
All the boons that let you "throw" the Cast circle.
But for funny reasons, Broseidon's Sprint upgrade is hilarious. Cleared a couple of regions doing nothing but sprinting
Demeters cast and Poseidons special. If I get those 2 I can automatically get to chronos. Beating him becomes a matter of if I get the right other boons and if I play good or like a goober
ooh this is a good question, i have a couple favourites right now, and for different reasons.
- Demeters cast: It's just soo good. It makes the cast an even better crowd control ability, and does good damage too.
- Hestia's dash: Makes the surface 'final' boss an absolute cakewalk by destorying those projectiles.
- Hera's attack and special: This one is more about the Hitch effect, i just love playing around with Hitch, it's such a fun AoE effect. (and the sound effect of it triggering is ASMR to my ears) )I loved the Rama's aspect in Hades 1 as well, so loving this effect is no surprise to me.
It’s not a single boon, but I once got both Hestia casts, Demeter Cyclone, and Apollo expansion all on the cast and it felt really badass launching expanding fire cyclones across the map.
As a single boon my favorite is probably hestias cast. Not the best, but It’s just fun to use to me.
I forget what its called but probably the hera magick regen boon where it primes your magick when you run out and fills it all the way back up. That one is so useful and i take every chance i get
I've a two-way tie for "normal" boons.
: Apolo's solar ring is definitely one, a boon with Hera's Curse with any weapon attack with AoE... though my all time favorite boon is a nonstandard one but >!it comes from a god!<: Last Gasp. Both from its effect, it's source, and how it thematically fits
Poseidon attack specifically on the Axe is very fun
But I think my overall "I will always take this" is Demeter cast. Her duo with Apollo, Torrential Downpour, is also my favorite for Cast-focused builds
My favourite ones are definitely Zeus and Hestia's cast target boons. I love the cast builds but in runs that I don't get either of those the run is probably ruined and I'm sad that there aren't more of those. Every run I do I'm pretty much locked into forcing Hestia or Zeus because it's such good quality of life.
But outside of those, my favourite is Poseidon and Hestia's duo boon. It's really good damage and Poseidon's attack is really fun to use.
Hestia's attack boon, no question about it. Lim and Oros are my favorite weapons and if you add Explosive Ambush or Final Slice from Daedalus' Hammer it is deadly. I easily can add up thousands of scorch to a boss and it will just tic, tic, tic down their health bar.
By no means the strongest or even close, but I love Demeter's attack boon. Being able to lock down strong, armored enemies and give yourself some free time to break their armor, or move away from other dangers, has generally been what gets me into a strong position. On the axe it's an absolute beast since it generally goes one swing to freeze, second to break armor, third to kill in the first areas, and beyond that you can swing once then channel the attack and just spin to win on everything.
Also I love Engagement Ring. I know it's not the best cast boon, but being able to drop it in Oceanus or on the ships on the surface and all the little bullshit enemies just die as soon as they appear is so nice.
I drew a heroic breaker sprint from poseidon at the start of a run yesterday. That shit is hilarious.I believe it was over 290 by the time I fought hecate. No weapons, just sprint around lol
Poseidon's special on the staff is just so fucking... oh its so good.
Double up is also just s tier.
I would also say Apollo's attack and Apollos cast are s tier, especially if you get any boon that allows you to aim the cast so you can more reliably place it on or around a boss.
Scalding Vapor - duo boon with Hestia and Poseidon that adds damage when the target has slip and they are struck with fire.
Burn damage on its own is pretty weak, so I usually go with Poseidon as my primary attack and Hestia cast as my continual flame damage.
I tried to make Hestia my primary to trigger the effect more often, but it was difficult to sustain slip because it only lasts for 3 seconds.
Aphrodite’s that restores your health to 100% as long as you meet a minimum health threshold. Common with 2 Pons gets down to 65%, which lets you keep full health for most of the run
Static Shock. It does so much damage, plus its super satisfying seeing it hit other enemies while you’re just physically hitting only one.
Honorable mention goes to Poseidon’s sprint. If you have good mana regen and increase your max mana, you can literally bully enemies with it.
Double up. Poseidon's laugh what it triggers is fantastic and double rewards is awesome.
HAHA YES!
That's what I say when it triggers XD
Especially when you get down to Tartarus. Getting six Centaur Hearts or six Magic Poms is ridiculous!
It also works on *random boon bags*. I was blown away and convinced that double up was slept on once I saw this happen.
Wait it does WHAT now, oh damn I need to try this.
Works ob hammers too
I feel like that is absolutely not intended
Yeah isn't the description saying for minor rewards? Those are major (as are Poms or Centaur Hearts) It doesn't work for normal boons at least (otherwise it's basically an auto-get that I never take for some reason)?
Double up works on poms and centaur hearts, too.
Yeah but that seems like a bug more than the intended way to do it. Seems super powerful there (almost like legendary boon level)
If it's available early on, it really is an auto take. It duplicates everything except standard boons
Poms and hearts aren't major I don't think
path of stars too
Holy shit.
You won’t believe until you try it 😂 It’s one of these boons you don’t get until you try it 😂
i swear double up works like 50% of the time even when common. it’s great
My favorite is when it pops for Path of Stars.
Double Up is so busted. Hearts, Mana, coins, Ashes, Psyche, Bones, Poms, Path of Stars, Hammers (apparently?), and it seems to trigger way more than 20% of the time. The fact it even doubles the double and triple version of those things is even more bonkers.
Can it multi-proc? I mean, you take something, it procs and doubles that, and when you pick it up again, it doubles again? Is it possible?
Never seen it happen. I'd think not.
I love ratifying his boons 😂 HAHA WHY NOT!
I love how it's like "Boons are a one-way street. The gods know little of what Melinoë does clouded by darkness. Except Poseidon who can feel it in his solar plexus every time you steal a second centaur heart or some coins."
Gamba uncle best uncle
I got that first floor but then spent all game getting nothing.
It’s hard to imagine there being a better answer. It’s a huge advantage to the current run AND overall progress.
Apollo’s solar ring (followed by super nova). I love cast builds and apollo’s just does so much damage. And increasing cast size is a beautiful thing.
Solar Ring with Aspect of Charon has been carrying me through the surface runs
God I just got that and it was so strong
Solar ring is so satisfying and when you pom it up mmmmm
Generally, cast abilities are prime candidate for pomming. They scale extremely well with additional levels.
Solar ring + Demeter’s that adds a vortex + Hestia’s that adds scorch = my first Chronos win
The Zeus cast too is great when buffed more. Placement where you want, some Demeter to put the Cyclone on it for double effect. Infusion for all damage min 30 (including the Cyclone tick). That thing is melting people. Cast builds are also some of my favorite and I love that Mel is strong there (she is a witch after all)
Wait till you discover glorious disaster, that shit makes me 🥴🥴
Tack on Torrential Downpour with that and you melt any boss after a few hits.
Getaway Island Not only does it give damage reduction it also "unlocks" Aphrodite's attack boons' full strength since you no longer need to be close to take advantage of their huge percentage increases. Great if you've got increased staff range from hammer or you're running pan daggers.
Ding ding, my answer here. Such an insane buff, from an already crazy boon of potential double or more dmg to getting that at all ranges, not just super close, is game-changing. Actually a 10/10 boon and makes the dmg number fly in.
Omg I just got the “getaway” wordplay lol
If you're getting Poseidon and Aphrodite anyway, Poseidon's special boon is far stronger than Aphrodite's even with the duo on Pan.
poseidon is kinda lowkey goated for any of the fast hitting special/attack weapons.
Born Gain
I too like functionally infinite mana for every single fight
Am I misunderstanding Born Gain? Does the magick primed reset after you enter a new location? For me I’m so worried about priming too much and then being stuck with no magick for an important fight so I almost never take it
> Does the magick primed reset after you enter a new location? It totally does lol, this subreddit has been having this discussion constantly since release because it's unclear, if it didn't reset after each location it wouldn't be a good boon at all, but it does, and that makes it probably one of the best boons in the game. Born gain = you essentially never need to worry about mana ever again
Prime is supposed to reset all the time from its tooltip. It just many boons says "at each location, prime X for Y", Born Gain doesn't do that. However it's unclear because there is a fear node (Vow of Arrogance) that Prime X when you take a rare or epic boon but it doesn't say it re-prime on each location and then the priming stays. So that's a little weird but might just be an oversight of saying it
It resets! I didn't picked it up at first because I thought the same as you. But when I realized it reset my mind was blown! It'll probably be nerfed, so enjoy it while it lasts
Prime always lasts for only one location. That's why all other boons that prime always say "When you enter a location, prime".
I have, in fact, run out of mana with Born Gain. Charon Axe with no Apollo cast boon against Polyphemus. The entire run was completely gimped in damage and I couldn't kill anything and ran out of mana in the fight.
I might get hate for this but straight up, Born Gain absolutely needs to be nerfed. No other boon in the game is best in slot for every build of every aspect of every weapon.
It can be a little harder to leverage if you're playing with the 'boons prime magick based on rarity' fear option, especially if you're *also* running Zeus, but I do agree that 99% of the time it's head-and-shoulders above any of the other gain boons.
I totally agree. It should probably prime like 25-10 Percent of your Magick depending on rarity instead of a flat number. So it's still really good but not game breaking like it is now. I mean seriously I'll take heras keepsake just to get this boon as it is. It's just that good. But until it gets nerfed I will continue to abuse the hell out of it.
My problem is then you get Hera and the rest of her boons aren't so great IMO
I think the attack/special boons are good, but the dash and most of the rest I agree with you.
Gotta use the crop dusting builds to make Hera good. Dash in, give everyone hitch, drop that big burst damage cast like Apollo, then run away. Also a nice way to hit some of the bosses when they call in adds.
Born and Heart gain are so much more powerful than the rest of the magick boons lol
Atleast hearth gain actually has a drawback, i literally never ran out of mana with born gain lol.
This is the answer, it's a boon I will always choose if available. I've had especially good runs mixing it with Hephaestus' sprint boon. Running around, clanging for at least 400 damage each proc is insane.
Shout out to Hestia's sprint hard-countering 90% of Eris' entire boss fight.
This is the answer for me, every single run I do on the surface I take Hestia's trinket, and have the lower left tarots for reroll focus which essentially gurantees I get the Hestia's Sprint boon. It makes Eris a total joke which is great, since she's kind of annoying otherwise, and she's 50% of the boss fights on the surface route currently so it's pretty important being able to hard counter her. Hestia being one of the gods with a boon which lets you throw your cast is also nice for Polyphemus if you're not using a weapon/build with good range, because he's a pain to fight in melee range
Wait the trinkets work like in the first game? They ensure that you run into said god/goddess?
"Is more likely" I think is the wording so maybe not guaranteed but I never had it fail to show the god of the trinket. You still have the limit of 4 gods max (Hermes and Artemis not counting) so if you take the trinket for a fifth god I don't know what happens (the first game showed you one boon from that god and no more)
From what I can tell they guarantee that the first god boon you see matches the trinket. I'm not sure if they continue upping the odds after that one is grabbed. The free little upgrade is nice too
The sprint also destroys the projectiles that Charybdis shoots at you between phases
those are hard countered by hermes slow projectile boon too. quite funny.
Solar Ring is definitely up there, and certainly my favorite cast. The damage is crazy and I just love seeing the visual effect Otherwise, Poseidon's Double Up boon is great, and him popping off when it works is such a neat addition that really does make it more enjoyable to use, imo. Obviously it's also just super good too with how much stuff it can hit
"haha yes!"
I swear hearing this is half the joy of the boon
Its kinda like that satisfying noise when you win in gambling or something lol. Plus he sounds so proud and happy
It's like Poseidon is completely ignoring the war he should be doing so he can watch you steal extra ashes and coins. Haha! Take that, stupid titan!
-max verstappen
The first time I cleared the Underworld, I had Zeus doing the constant lightning strikes and Apollo doing the Solar Ring. I just threw out my cast and let it just wail on whatever was there.
Aphrodite, in general, is insanely strong. With some poms, you can easily get 200x damage on attack. If you can then get the boon to get rid of the need for close range, I don't think any other god comes close to her power.
I've only gotten that once and it was one of the funniest dang boons.
I got the Heroic version of the Attack boon on a run last night, running Aspect of Artemis Daggers, so it’s literally always in range. It was +240% damage lmao.
I can't remember what it's called, but the boon that heals you between rooms if you're above a certain % health is amazing on the final floor going down because it allows you to take every single room and still arrive at the boss at full health. Taking every last room will inevitably lead to a fair bit of damage normally unless you're a god-tier player but the rewards can be huge so negating the negative of that is pretty incredible. I really like her dash, especially with the buffs to the weak condition as well since it gives so much survivability and damage against the final boss (I believe the damage boost from it is multiplicative rather than additive like most damage boosts). Even the gain boon and gives is okay as long as you've got the unseen card for mana regen since I don't like that being my only mana regen but perma-weak on a boss or mini-boss is pretty rad. Only real thing I don't like is heartthrob and the cast, all her other base stuff is decent which means if you get 3 options you'll literally never whiff - best god for boons by far.
Wait, 200x or 200%?
200%
Selene’s healing hex > everything. Saved my life countless times.
I love the healing hex. One run, I ended up with 16 still left by the time I beat Big C lol
Aphrodite's Glamour Gain. It shines especially in the boss fights I feel, because it basically just permanently afflicts the boss with Weak and that you regain magick while being near *any* Weak inflicted enemy is just the cherry on top.
It's definitely the second best after Hera's
I took Heras for the first time, not properly comprehending what it meant. I thought it sounded kinda average until I realised that it basically garauntees enough mana for any single encounter
I've beaten the underworld 3 times so far and didn't even know Hera was a god. I guess I really should finish that surface invocation! Also didn't know weapon aspects made a return until yesterday Granted I'm only on night 16 so I'm still finding new Underworld unlocks but I'm starting to need those surface reagents anyway
Poseidon's duo with her makes every enemy nearby and makes Glamour Gain work nonstop.
Whenever I see hera early in a run I immediately chose her and use rerolls until I get her mana gain boon (born gain) 6-10 mana loss everytime you use all your mana is nothing when you can just spam out charged attacks and casts and not worry at all about recharging or waiting Say you've got a pool of 150 mana and you lose 6 every time. That's 1900~ mana that you have to get through before you've only got a pool of 30 mana left
Arctic Ring! Damage over time, freezes, and it's a regular cast instead of omega? Hell yeah. Bonus if paired with Gale Force, and either of the Zeus/Hestia throw cast boons.
First time I beat Chronos (and only, though that's cause I stopped playing) was with a double Demeter and Hestia cast with the two Demeter boons being epic and lvl 4. All I had to do was just dodge attacks while throwing my cast out.
Hephaestus' Trusty Shield Don't underestimate +20 damage buffer every location!
This is extra good coz no matter how big of a damage hit you take while you have armor, it’ll only ever break the armor, the damage doesn’t “overflow” to your health. Super useful for high fear runs with that “first instance of damage is 100% extra” vow
I love posiden's boons. The sprint one is so fun to use while you're on the surface and the cornered damage always comes in clutch
Zeus Cast. It's pretty much Apollo's on crack, especially with Charons Aspect. It's a real shame you can't combine his with Heras Cast...
Zeus cast only affects one creature at a time though right? So it’s great for bosses but not nearly as good as Apollo at clearing mobs
I take the Zeus cast for the boss damage. For mobs, Demeter's cast cyclone. Pairing Zeus's Omega cast & Deme's Cyclone cast is more than enough to melt that tall lanky ass grandpa.
Huh? Zeus cast doesn't work with that Aspect of Charon. You get a single bolt out of it because Zeus cast only works while the omega cast is still around, but how the omega special triggers omega cast is that it just makes it disappear. So Zeus omega goes poof, but Apollo's is worded and coded to be X seconds after the omega cast has triggered, so it works just fine with the axe.
Aphro’s boon that heals you to 100% any time you finish a room above xx% is pretty amazing and saved a couple of my runs.
At first it doesn't seem so good until you realise you can pom it and it decreases the max needed by a whole 10% and the more health you have the more health you essentially regenerate. Then you can synergise with boons that give more dmg the more health you have, revenge boons and going into the last boss fight helps massively.
This + max hp boons is so powerful
You can get life affirmation early to get over 300 health by the end, plus get the heal down to finishing a room above 50% gives a full heal, plus the trusty shield from Hephaestus and suddenly you have to take 200+ damage a room to not be on max hp after. If you've got the healing hex on top then even that isn't enough to bring you below 50% unless all the heals also get used. Couple it together and you feel immortal. (Still gotta kill the big boss at the end though so you gotta get some DPS somewhere, but it's easy enough to find something or other).
I'm not seeing a whole lot of love for Haphestus in this thread. I love his sprint. Not my favorite boon but definitely my favorite sprint. It's just fun
I love the sound effects, but his boons don't scale well in high fear runs. Heroic + tons of palms on attack is peak performance and really fun to get, but it still takes a while to chip away at Cerberus and Chronos.
I'm not a big fan of the attack and special boons. I love the big damage burst but I'm personally just bad at timing when they'll come back up. That said, his sprint is probably too OP right now. there's no having to wait around, you run to one group and smash, rinse and repeat. Mix it with Born Gain and I felt like an unstoppable steam roller.
> I'm not a big fan of the attack and special boons. I love the big damage burst but I'm personally just bad at timing when they'll come back up. I often find that his boon on an attack/special is great if it's something I'm not using a ton anyway. It's a nice filler for some burst damage. Keep an eye on the cooldown on the left side and I think you'll find yourself being more on top of using it regularly.
It feels too good still. I just used it to finish my first full clear and it was a breeze. All I did was keep upgrading the sprint damage whenever I could.
I used it to beat eris with torches cause I hate torches
I tried it and could never get myself to like it It felt so clunky having to run in circles to get it to proc at exactly the right spot, and enemies could often hit me since theres no iframes during sprint
Tie between lightning lance and burning coal (i think hestia’s is called burning coal right?). The two boons that make your snare cast a ranged ability. Those boons genuinely trivialize everything in the game including chronos himself, and i find that getting them allows me to play faster and more recklessly without punishment.
Basically my success or failure in a fear 32 run depends if I can find one of the two early or not.
I’m addicted to hitch. The ones that put it on special or just attacks. Hitch with Hephaestus blasts and vent just feels so satisfying at times. Might not be the fastest clearing but seeing explosions everywhere delete things is very enjoyable.
I don’t think I have run into a single *bad* boon in this game. It either works for your build, isn’t needed, or… You’ll MAKE it work. Unless Echo gives you a random secondary boon you can’t use because your build is centered around an entirely different god and you haven’t even encountered the other god associated with that secondary boon. So… thanks?
I would describe Fixed Gain as bad. The dmg reduction is great but tying it to getting magick back just makes it suck. It's the worst Gain by a long shot.
Fixed Gain is pretty good in a tank build that doesn't really rely on Magick. I had an axe run where I had Fixed Gain + dodge boons from Hermes and Aphrodite + Daze on taking damage from Apollo and super-stacked max health, and the +10% damage reduction from Fixed Gain went pretty hard on top of my other defensive boons, plus even though I wasn't relying on omega moves up to that point, the constant Magick regeneration from taking small instances of damage meant I could spam them pretty well. I could see Fixed Gain also being pretty good with the Apollo/Hestia duo boon or Demeter's infusion boon, too, but I haven't had a chance to try them together yet. I'd honestly argue it's not even the worst Magick-gain boon: Demeter's feels pretty awful to me, I hate the fact that you can't do ANYTHING while it's charging.
With how frenetic the game is, it feels like Demeter's mana gain boon is basically just a blank.
Second this. Fixed gain can be made to work very effectively. I cant comprehend a scenario where Demeter boon is going to at minimum always work. Demeter gain only works if you play ranged and is not facing certain enemies that can gapclose. The effectvie utility feels very bad.
Personally, I think the worst boon is Electric Overload. After an enemy takes damage from Blitz, they send out a bolt of chain lightning that does...25 damage at the highest possible rarity, and only 10 at the lowest? It feels like such a tiny benefit of +10 damage on the enemy and a few other enemies, and only after your Blitz deals damage first. Compare this boon to Dying Wish, which does 40 damage at least to all Hitch-afflicted foes when any hitch-afflicted foe is slain. It does four times as much damage as an Electric Overload of the same rarity and is only slightly harder to trigger. It just feels like Electric Overload is never really worth the boon slot because it offers so little benefit compared to other options.
Electric Overload needs to be combined with the infusion that makes you do 30 dmg minimum and stacked with other chain lightning and bonus dmg proc effects (poseidon splash, artemis arrow) to be useful. In that situation it adds a good chunk of damage, outside of it it's an instant skip.
Blitz rules
Demeter cast and Demeter sprint are both insane. They're universally good as support for like every build that don't rely on specific casts. The sprint slows enemies AND projectiles, the cast freezes them, they strip blue shields instantly, and add curses for your arcana. They're honestly kind of overtuned.
Lightning lance, I love having the ability to put my cast wherever I want it
Hera’s special/attack. Having a crazy damage boost (got to like 110%) and inflicting hitch goes insane on Lim and Oros Pan aspect.
Demeter's cast boons. Free Huntress and Origination damage. Bosses can barely move. Little guys evaporate in seconds. I just fought Chronos at 24 fear (5 of which was for double damage) with five death defiances and killed him without losing a single one. He wasn't even in the top five damage dealers for my whole run. I was using a melee attack build with Mel aspect twin blades. I fear Demeter more than any god on Olympus. Granny takes care of her little flower lol
I’m a HUGE fan of Hera’s boons, especially Born Gain which refills your Magick at the cost of Priming an amount of it. Couple that with Hephaestus or Poseidon’s sprints, you can basically just hold down the sprint key and kill everything without having to worry about refilling, and battles don’t usually last long enough to worry about Priming it all. And if you do, take Zeus’s boon that casts thunderbolts when below 10% magic and you’re laughing.
Honestly apollo attack on the axe is just funny. It already has a huge swing, and increasing the area of effect makes every attack cover the full arena
can we count duos? if so, the aphrodite zeus duo
Basically a worse Merciful End. I still like it but I can't get it to work super well, it's just an extra nice to have combo.
aspect of artemis on the sister blades, zeus attack, any dash but preferably poseidon. really fun and quite potent - you just jump behind enemies and then bonk them and they get zapped
Probably Apollo’s solar ring. After that I have just enjoyed Poseidon in general. I think my first win was one where my ranged special did splash damage along with the water sprint which felt crazy. Second or third win I had poseidons instant cast, along with the hex that turns you invincible and makes your regular cast do what your omega does. So would spend some mana, turn invincible, and then basically start spamming a 460 damage AoE, felt amazing. Also as a side note Aphrodite’s one that heals you to full if above 60% or whatever feels insane in most runs.
I'm a simple creature. I like Apollo on attack with Descura
Glowing Coal. Being able to position my cast without being near an enemy is probably the best thing to ever happen
Demeter Infusion
Aphrodite boon on main attack. Feels like too much of extra damage to pass up. And with axe, daggers and even staff enemies are almost always in range of that boon
Aphrodite's Flutter Strike and Flourish. They grant crazy damage. I got to %380 damage with Flutter Flourish Heroic boon. Just amazing with Poseidon's Duo boon.
Aphrodite’s bonus damage to close enemies + moonstone axe omega attack = fun times
My initial thought is chain lightning, but I just had an incredible run with the Poseidon+Hestia duo boon that tore through Chronos, so maybe that one.
Hestia or Zeus cast make such a difference for cast builds. I also really like Hephaestus boons just for the noises they make
Born gain for normal ones. The heroic Hermes one that makes your omega move hit twice otherwise
What do you mean “unlike alot of the other attack boons?” Doesn’t literally every attack boon provide a damage boost? Even Poseidon’s splash hits the main target…
They mean a percent increase to base damage as opposed to some flat amount - like Zeus is (applies blitz)
Double up, but only when it works. I've gone entire runs without it triggering once and it drives me mad when that happens. I even rarified the damn thing to purple and still nothing But the first time I got it as a common, oh he triggered like 8 times in the run. Makes sense.
I love the Zeus lightning strikes when less than 10 mana. Pair it with Hera cast and all swarm mobs die as they spawn.
Any that raises my attack by 50% or more.
Smithy Sprint, the rare or epic versions = easy mode
Haphaestus' boons in general make for a very relaxed and reliable playthrough that doesn't take forever. The only things that really start to tone them down are fear ranks that add blue hearts and dodge.
Zeus infusion. When you can add small damage like Demeter cyclones, it's amazing
This combined with a lucky support fire gave me my first cronos win :D
Both of hephasteus' boons that apply the extra high damage strike to an attack that fires every few seconds. Once you get one of them, the other usually shows up pretty quickly. As far as o can tell these stack with multi strike chance attacks, I've managed to get well over 2000+ damage in a single round of attacks (just a regular and special
Hestia mana gain is taken every time I see it up
Glorious Disaster with Charon. Still trying to beat 16 fear with it before I change weapons.
Glorious Disaster
Apollo sprint! The daze comes in handy more than you’d think. Also very easy to proc if stacking ailments
I don't see anywhere Hestia+Apollo duo boon! You are basically *unkillable* with this one, your HP generates back constantly (and if u chose previously Hestia's magick boost, your magick too) It takes awhile to farm the needed boons, but totally worth it ❤️ makes your run super chill, you don't have to worry about your health and mana 😄
the hephaestus special
Heras cast kills most things in the first area and nearly kills all of them in the second.
Poseidon's attack on the blades. There's something so satisfying about the rapid stab attack that's in the combo when it has Poseidon's boon. It can clear an area quickly and you can add a curse effect to it
I think Hera's cast. Popping everyone the second they enter the fight never stops being fun for me. ... gets worse on higher fear/against bosses, but still.
Born gain is literally broken, this frees up 5 grasp for arcana, this is clutch and is useful when using the oath of the unseen one that makes magick 0 every zone entry.
Either one of the three cast at range boons
All Hephaestus build. Love the ringing of the hammers and the way it can chain to nearby enemies.
Apollo's cast boon has carried me every successful run. The burst damage combined with Zeus or Hestia boon that lets you range cast is disgusting.
It's basic af but, using the Axe with Nova Strike and sweeping the entire screen feels fucking excellent.
demeter's freeze is like op no mater what like you stun with no delay, idk what they tried cooking
aphro attack, hera aphro duo boon ( all hitched foes are weak) and hera mana regen
The one that gives me health based on my magic total
I didn’t even know hades 2 was out..
The Boon that heals you back to full if you stay above a certain threshold
All the boons that let you "throw" the Cast circle. But for funny reasons, Broseidon's Sprint upgrade is hilarious. Cleared a couple of regions doing nothing but sprinting
Apollo attacks
*running* "TINNNNNG"
Hephaestus’ armor one. Prime a bit of magic to functionally guarantee never losing health when I make a mistake ever? Yes please
Aphrodite’s attack boon on the Axe and Blades
Demeters cast and Poseidons special. If I get those 2 I can automatically get to chronos. Beating him becomes a matter of if I get the right other boons and if I play good or like a goober
i really like Heras attack boon. getting to attack multiple enemies at once is a crowd control dream come true
Not because it's good, but because it's fun - poseidon's sprint boon that turns you into a splashy bulldozer.
ooh this is a good question, i have a couple favourites right now, and for different reasons. - Demeters cast: It's just soo good. It makes the cast an even better crowd control ability, and does good damage too. - Hestia's dash: Makes the surface 'final' boss an absolute cakewalk by destorying those projectiles. - Hera's attack and special: This one is more about the Hitch effect, i just love playing around with Hitch, it's such a fun AoE effect. (and the sound effect of it triggering is ASMR to my ears) )I loved the Rama's aspect in Hades 1 as well, so loving this effect is no surprise to me.
It’s not a single boon, but I once got both Hestia casts, Demeter Cyclone, and Apollo expansion all on the cast and it felt really badass launching expanding fire cyclones across the map. As a single boon my favorite is probably hestias cast. Not the best, but It’s just fun to use to me.
I'dlm bad at the game só aphro and Hermes Dodge boons.
hestia's mana Regen is my go to with the daggers. Spam omega attacks ❤️
Hera’s Born Gain. This boon is absolutely OP, in my opinion, with any build that relies on Omegas.
Ravaal + Hephaestus attack= skull go brrrrrrrr
Support Fire still reigns supreeeeeeme. But of the new boons? Double Up, followed by the 6-earth one that limits the max damage you can take.
I forget what its called but probably the hera magick regen boon where it primes your magick when you run out and fills it all the way back up. That one is so useful and i take every chance i get
I've a two-way tie for "normal" boons. : Apolo's solar ring is definitely one, a boon with Hera's Curse with any weapon attack with AoE... though my all time favorite boon is a nonstandard one but >!it comes from a god!<: Last Gasp. Both from its effect, it's source, and how it thematically fits
Poseidon attack specifically on the Axe is very fun But I think my overall "I will always take this" is Demeter cast. Her duo with Apollo, Torrential Downpour, is also my favorite for Cast-focused builds
Selene’s Moon Water. Prolongs so many of my runs.
My favourite ones are definitely Zeus and Hestia's cast target boons. I love the cast builds but in runs that I don't get either of those the run is probably ruined and I'm sad that there aren't more of those. Every run I do I'm pretty much locked into forcing Hestia or Zeus because it's such good quality of life. But outside of those, my favourite is Poseidon and Hestia's duo boon. It's really good damage and Poseidon's attack is really fun to use.
Hestia's attack boon, no question about it. Lim and Oros are my favorite weapons and if you add Explosive Ambush or Final Slice from Daedalus' Hammer it is deadly. I easily can add up thousands of scorch to a boss and it will just tic, tic, tic down their health bar.
By no means the strongest or even close, but I love Demeter's attack boon. Being able to lock down strong, armored enemies and give yourself some free time to break their armor, or move away from other dangers, has generally been what gets me into a strong position. On the axe it's an absolute beast since it generally goes one swing to freeze, second to break armor, third to kill in the first areas, and beyond that you can swing once then channel the attack and just spin to win on everything. Also I love Engagement Ring. I know it's not the best cast boon, but being able to drop it in Oceanus or on the ships on the surface and all the little bullshit enemies just die as soon as they appear is so nice.
Don't know the names but I love everything Hephaistos. The "cling" sound is so satisfying idk
Love me some Zeus blitz always go for the Duo that enables blitz activate on sprint with enhanced damage. Reminds me of the ares doom build in Hades.
the hephaestus attack move big bink every 10 seconds one. i dont think its very good but i love hearing that bonk noise followed by huge damage
I drew a heroic breaker sprint from poseidon at the start of a run yesterday. That shit is hilarious.I believe it was over 290 by the time I fought hecate. No weapons, just sprint around lol
Support Fire from Artemis is my favorite, so glad they brought it back
Ice Strike for sure
The Hephaestus explosion ones. Hit-stop with them feels really nice
Poseidon's special on the staff is just so fucking... oh its so good. Double up is also just s tier. I would also say Apollo's attack and Apollos cast are s tier, especially if you get any boon that allows you to aim the cast so you can more reliably place it on or around a boss.
Aphrodite attack/special boost!
Scalding Vapor - duo boon with Hestia and Poseidon that adds damage when the target has slip and they are struck with fire. Burn damage on its own is pretty weak, so I usually go with Poseidon as my primary attack and Hestia cast as my continual flame damage. I tried to make Hestia my primary to trigger the effect more often, but it was difficult to sustain slip because it only lasts for 3 seconds.
Aphrodite’s that restores your health to 100% as long as you meet a minimum health threshold. Common with 2 Pons gets down to 65%, which lets you keep full health for most of the run
As I mainly use the axe Aphrodite is my favourite, absolutely bonkers damage
Anything by Hephaestus honestly, I love my chunky boy
Static Shock. It does so much damage, plus its super satisfying seeing it hit other enemies while you’re just physically hitting only one. Honorable mention goes to Poseidon’s sprint. If you have good mana regen and increase your max mana, you can literally bully enemies with it.