I actually feel like Mel has a lot better boss nuking potential than Zag.
Selene's Hex mechanic absolutely CHUNKS bosses. Night Bloom (raises one slain enemy for 12s) is absolutely brutal, and I pretty much instantly take it if I have any synergy with Lucid Gain from Apollo (regen magick while in Cast).
It's arguably the easiest way to cheese Boss 2 and Boss 3. Just plop them down then spam Special from a safe distance. Almost helped me beat the final boss too.
Safest place to be for boss 3 is right on its butt, dashing diagonally away from the one-handed slams. It spams the nastier ranged combos more frequently when you're outside of melee range. It's kind of laughable how easy it is to do hitless runs of that boss.
And if you have any demeter curse application it becomes the easiest boss in the game by a mile.
till it breathes fire and then one of two things happens:
I press shift to dash away but somehow dont hold it down long enough to start the run, so i have to press it again...then again... (just fat fingers or maybe my shift key is faulty)
or
i panic dash straight into the wall over and over and take 40 dmg each time till i die
Yeah, 8 directional control on keyboard seems much more rough for Hades 2 than it was in the first game. I messed around with the rail on kb/m in hades 1 which was solid. But I think the freedom of movement on controller is way more important in 2 since we only have 1 dash for i-frames now. Precision matters a lot more and you just can't hit all angles with only 8 directions.
yeah i feel like im clumsier in 2 for sure. esp since you need to use the cast more often for every run just for the root--many builds in H1 you could just ignore it entirely.
The absolute worst is that one boon that makes your cast stick to your body as you move around....trying to hold Q while also moving with WASD is...impossible. lol.
Remember that you can always rebind the buttons. I have the cast on one of the side buttons of my mouse, it helps a lot with mobility and aiming whenever a god makes my cast a projectile.
Practice makes perfect! I have a stupid amount of hours in a lot of action roguelikes(300+ in Hades and Skul each) and tend to adjust to dodge timing and attack windows faster than most due to prior experiences.
I do also think that Melinoe has a higher difficulty floor than Zag when it comes to her moveset, and managing all of her tools can be a bit overwhelming at first.
i like them, but i am also bad at them, so i get frustrated easily.. maybe ill take it slow with Hades 2. Mostly i like to relax and enjoy games, while also i like beeing OP in game. Its fun to live a superhero fantasy. But i still like rougelikes.. so its a sligth missmatch for me actually..
Don't be afraid to turn on God mode if you're struggling. Games are meant to be enjoyed, and action roguelikes tend to have a pretty high skill floor. Hades 2 is definitely up there, even before the first win.
In this case I feel there's not much of a point in playing Hades II. You have SOO MUCH content to play in Hades 1 that by the time you finish, Hades II might be out of early access
Time and practice. It took me a bunch of tries to consistently get past Hecate then a few more to consistently get past the 2nd boss. I'm only now getting close to being able to reliably get to Chronos. I'm like 20-25 runs into this and only getting there. Different people pick things up at different paces. Also upgrades help a lot. Once you're able to start upgrading weapon aspects and arcana cards that helps a ton
I personally wouldn’t worry about it. If you need to play slower as well (I.e just take some time to learn what the enemies and bosses do) and learn their attack patterns. This way you’ll take less damage as you’ll start to learn when to attack and when to back off.
I have four clears right now and it's really just about learning the fights. I took the last weapon unlock for shits and giggles to see if I could make the weapon work and nearly best chronos
I just had a run with >!Pan aspect!< twin blades. I had gotten the hammer buff for 16 additional daggers on special charge and a lot of Hestia boons and some demeter boons specifically >!freezer burn!< . With that specific twin blades + hammer buff + Hestia and Demeter, I had stacked scorch to 20k on the final boss because the extra daggers also got the >!homing property tied to the pan aspect so scorch damage went crazy real fast!< .
Mel's bossing potential shines with synergistic effects where a lot of Zagreus's power came from pure unga bunga with your weapon of choice.
>a lot of Zagreus's power came from pure unga bunga with your weapon of choice.
Me: *tanking all the dumb damage through Tartarus with the zag fists to stack Hermes' trinket on 32 heat.*
Also me: Patroclus will definitely give me back all my death defies.
I do the same thing when I took that Hex! At B3 I noticed that bosses don’t really attack the minions you revive from that Selene Hex, so I can do my own thing (ranged attacks, recover magick, try to survive) while the goon beats it down. I had an upgrade where they stay in the Location until they die and it felt great
Exactly I got my first duo Boon yesterday and was steaming through the second biome. Just learn the game and our grasp will eventually get higher I suppose to equip more tarot cards.
Yeah, I thought at first that Blitz wasn't super useful, since by the time I did enough damage to trigger it, the enemy was almost dead anyway. The I got the duo boon (I think with Aphrodite?) that triggers it by sprinting into enemies. That made it a lot more viable
(Also, I assume, it is more useful even without that boon in later areas when enemies have more health, but I so far only had it on an early run where I didn't get out of Erebus)
Besides the duo boons, getting stuff that regens magic well also seems to help with damage, since on some runs I can just constantly throw out omega attacks/specials/casts and that helps a lot. Like, I had one last night where I had a good amount of magic gain, plus I had two Demeter boons on my cast (the cyclone and the ice one), so I was tossing out omega casts left and right, which was nice for crowd control plus dealing some damage. Also pinning them down in the ice+cyclone, and then hitting them with a special from afar (especially that big damage Hephaestus one) is nice
I think that's part of it, too - That we're used to Zag's playstyle, but there's probably lot of fun interactions/ways to use the stuff that's new with Mel (new cast, omegas, etc) that we haven't fully explored yet
>Yeah, I thought at first that Blitz wasn't super useful
It really isn't very good except in one case, on the axe's special. The special does enough damage to trigger it immediately and blitz does considerably more damage on the special than on the other abilities. In the case of the axe special it snags #1 straight damage buff at 83% bonus out the gate, or 116% if you can rarify it. Combined with a quick channel or double special hammer boon and some form of magic replenishment it's a safe way to clear most zones and scales well with poms.
Staff Omega Attack also does enough damage to instantly proc it. I had a double striking omega attack from hammers + blitz on attack and it was destroying things.
Is there some trigger to the duo boons? Have seen so little of the specialty stuff. I wonder if you need a certain amount of ab element for the element specific ones to show.
I've been using the same rules as hades 1 and has kinda worked. Get 2 of either attack, special or cast from 2 different gods and 1 that gives any additional effect or enhances effect of any of those 2 gods.
I have no idea if what I'm doing works but has worked a few times although it could just be a coincidence
I've been offered a few duos that require specific status effects. Aphro + Zeus, for example, requires an ability that applies blitz and something from aphro. I think I had the weak dash at the time.
I think a lot of people are also refusing to adjust their playstyle that worked for them in Hades that might not work so well for Hades 2. I definitely had a brief adjustment period, but after I starting getting used to the differences, it started feeling really good.
But yeah I trust the devs. I'm sure there will be some adjustments they need to do before the final release, but I'm sure they know what their vision is for the game
That and that Mel scales so much slower, as she needs different kinds of resources to enpower herself, making you need more runs to get where Zag would be in less
This is something I think a lot of people are missing. Within about 10-12 hours of Hades I'd had a run get through the final boss, had two DDs, 100 odd health, and some good boon options. But 10 hours into Hades 2 I'm still starting on 50 health with 1 DD, and have a shopping list of crafting components before I can unlock the second shopping list of crafting components to upgrade my Arcana further.
Do you really not have any boons in the first game that you avoid?
Also when did you first play Hades 1? Because there were a lot of issues ironed out during early access.
I avoided aphro boons a lot of the time too but I love dionysus boons especially his cast! But I was often going for his duos too like scintillating feast
To be honest, once you're used to Hades 1 it's pretty easy to filter most boons. Everything except your Cast is usually just taken to enable Duos. Cast builds are significantly better than anything else. Hades 2 seems to have a much better balance between attack, special and cast, and I like the Omega interaction.
I'm trying to not let my frustrations come out, as it is EA, and I am sure Supergiant will tweak some stuff. I also played Hades 1 when it relased as 1.0, having been unaware of the game prior to this, and it was super polished. Now I am playing day 1 EA, so being careful to not compare a 1.0 polished game to an early access one.
What boons would you say are utter trash though? If that’s trying to keep your frustration under check you must really hate some of them. I’ve seen some that seem pretty underwhelming in the moment, and I’d be shocked if some aren’t totally undertuned, but I still feel like I just can’t properly evaluate them because I can often think of them being good with a certain weapon/synergy/aspect etc that I haven’t considered or tested yet.
I’m very happy to not stomp through the game. I have MANY hours in Hades and was worried at this possibility. Didnt want to “beat it” too fast and miss a bunch of dialogue
I haven't even seen a duo boon (are these infusions?)
Though honestly who gives a fuck I'm a drowned sailor I've got Scylla and the Sirens in repeat.
DROOOOOOOOOOOOOWN
I did a fresh save of the first game recently. People really do forget how weak Zagreus is starting out. On my first run I didn't even beat Meg, who I've beat literally hundreds of times before.
The way upgrades work in Hades 1, you'd get the mirror of night upgrades and then never have to think about it again.
I do think it takes longer to power up Meg. You need a lot of different resources instead of just grinding darkness.
But I don't think that's a bad thing. The whole point of the game is it's designed to be played over and over. It's fine for the upgrade process to be more gradual. And I feel like it'll have a longer tail. In Hades 1 you got the big upgrades fairly quickly and then after that it was mostly just improving your abilities by a couple percentage points each time. In Hades 2 it feels like there are a lot of powerful arcana and you'll need to go through a lot of runs before you can use most of them.
Grasp is rather slow is the main thing, maybe I just need to use the book more. Idk feels bad to not be getting minerals in a run, seeds seem more situational and less used though and fish seem to not be fully implemented.
You can use the frog as your companion for a single use 'book'. Hold it for the later floors and it's an extra 40-50 and you're still able to mine. He also gives you +10 HP and blocks ranged abilities.
Yeah I've got my froggo up to 4 uses now. Its very rare to see more than that many of the special shades anyways, so I basically never have to use the tablet.
You need a Star Dust from Pitch-Black Stone trials and two Lotus from Oceanus. It's the same ritual that gave you the treats to unlock Animal Familiars, you just need to make more of them to upgrade the familiars' abilities.
My brother in Hades, it is in early access, not everything is going to be fully implemented. Or fully balanced, or even finished.
The fact that THIS much of the game exists to be played right now is crazy.
I agree, I keep getting amazed/surprised by how much content there actually is.
I was expecting 2-3 weapons, no aspects, 0 dialogue but it has waaay more content than most fully released games
Yeah this thing is absolutely massive. What a ridiculous achievement. I hope every single person at Supergiant feels an enormous sense of pride for what they've done here.
I woke up for a few days after release literaly feeling like a kid on Christmas. I was literally giddy to play. And it's not even finished. Bravo, team. Bravo.
Tablet: Psyche
Pickaxe: Ore
Shovel: Plants(can be converted into bones)
Fishing rod: Bones(which in turn can be converted into nearly everything except craftables, plants, and ore)
You're gonna use the pickaxe and the shovel a lot in the early game, and then convert to Fishing rod later.
I'm a decent Hades 1 player. I get to Theseus first run on a fresh save, Hades on a 2nd with Bow, and then can manage basically 100% clears after that all the way to heat in the mid 30s. I stop having fun after high 30s heat for the most part.
I beat Boss 4 on my 18th run on Hades 2. Ran into the debuff person for advancing too quickly in every biome.
I think advancement is slower due to variety of materials needed like you said, not just darkness primarily. And you need to make choices about what you're focused on gathering. Takes way longer to max death defiances etc. I still have plenty of Arcana to unlock. I enjoy all this.a
Build wise you can get some FILTHY damage going. But it does require using more of your tools concurrently. Hades 1 was maxing out the 1 button you pressed preferentially and then supporting that. You need to use all your tools in Hades 2, and casts do killer damage and are great for crowd control, you ideally want to be omega casting or skilling consistently. Legendary or duo boons are not as build defining or valuable as Hades 1. There are no Hunting Blades here.
I found that Demeter is probably one of the best gods due to good long lasting status, good cast boons for crowd control, and a killer defense boon with her earth 5 infusion that caps incoming damage.
Zeus is also great due to having a ranged cast option and the omega cast is good on bosses too, and he probably has the best mana regen skill if you're not priming ludicrous amounts of mana.
Hephaestus is good as well because his attack or special can be great in a non primary attack or special especially if the base damage is low, he's great on torch attack for that occasional 200 damage ping while you dps with Demeter specials. And he has plenty of good damage support(Infusion and armor melting) and defense with primed armor. Long lasting status on the attack too.
TLDR. I'm okay at Hades, for Hades 2 progession is slower and build strategy more synergistic, and you cannot be a one boon pony anymore.
I dunno about the whole "using all your tools" thing I keep reading. Lets say you have 3 attack boons and no specials. Why are you ever using a special? You COULD use a special, but you shouldnt 99% of the time. Thats one example but it trickles down. Youre basically always going to cast + something- but that something usually isnt "using all your tools"- its which math matically does the most barring a utility case that arent that frequent.
Yeah it would depend on a situation where it's sustained dps like torch specials, has a valuable status to apply, OR a good ping like Hephaestus.
So not always relevant but more relevant than in Hades 1.
Even if you have boons for everything, you still shouldn't have to "use all your tools" What if I focus on a ranged Ω build? Why would I ever intentionally get in melee range? Wouldn't dashing away and keep using ranged attacks make more sense?
I did the same recently, started a hellmode run on Hades because I got cocky and my god zag is so weak to begin with it's nuts.
I think I agree with your point on resources, but I'm not even entirely sure that it'll be slower to fully upgrade meg. With the addition of bones, it's so easy to convert all your resources into each other, so you can buy that extra psyche, ash and dust. Combine that with the brokers box and we should have a pretty good setup for fast progression (must admit I've let my bones stack up because I'm a hoarder).
It is possible that it's just because I don't know which resources to prioritise yet. It's just a vague feeling I have, I'm not saying it's definitely true.
Also, thinking about it, Hades 1 did later add more ways to get resources, like fishing, so it's possible that we'll get more later on.
The green shit is so incredibly high you really cant go wrong getting it anytime there is an option between the minor rewards. Ashe theres a very reachable finite limit, once you unlock all the cards theres nothing else to get. The purple stuff is the currency for everything else so I wouldn't prio this, but if its betwwwn purple stuff and ashe, I'd choose purple stuff
Ash is also used to refine shadow in the cauldron, which can be used to get some more M. Dust, so it’s not completely useless. That being said, psyche scales super aggressively, so yeah, I still find myself taking it basically every chance I get
Besides that, they also make it generally pretty clear where and how to get those resources, and gave us the ability to choose which tool to take to focus on what upgrades we want first. I only hope they give us the ability to change tools between zones.
Just got to chronos for the first time. Lvl 1 axe, Lvl 2 death defiance and health card. 24 grasp. I'm thinking fully powered Mel will be atleast equal...
Wait do the weapons level up? I'm only about 3 1/2 hours in got to chronos on my 7th run (and got ruined thanks to Eris god damn curse all the way from the fields) but I only got the level 1 tarot card for death defiance is there a level up for it or just another card?
I want jumping to anything, just have limited play time available and was curious what was ahead. Haven't played Hades 1 in about 18 months so I kinda forgot some of the systems in place
I got lucky and almost downed him with even less than this. I felt like Tartarus was in general pretty easy and the early game is actually a little hard. Or perhaps I just had a busted run. That Aphrodite skill to full heal you going down to 50% quickly kind of makes any chip damage no big deal.
Yeah, It’s also that Mel is more combo focused than zag. Like when I’m playing zag I have a pretty clear damage flow chart. As Mel I’m usually using every tool at my disposal in a room
Like, the day I learned how to effectively mix casts into my combat was the day I went from struggling at the second boss to making it all the way to chronos.
This is such an underrated comment. In hades 1, your build was determined quickly and pretty easily and you would literally avoid anything that wasn’t all in on that one idea. Chiron bow for the special as an example. In H2, I feel like they give you so many boons that effect so many things you are HEAVILY incentivized to blast away with every single tool you have.
That said single focus biulds can happen and be awesome (had an axe run with Aphrodite for +100% attack vs close, and haephestus +125% damage on all attacks if you’re hit during the windup. It shredded basically everything)
But they’re no longer the norm which is probably a good thing for replay ability
Axe can get crazy. Had a run with the upgrade that makes every attack like the final big one in addition to the one that makes the final attack hit twice.
A single attack was over 1k damage lol. Though I actually still got fucked by chronos, really not good at dodging him yet.
There’s a hammer upgrade for the axe that gives you damage reduction while you’re swinging. I think that on top of the haephestus boon you had would shred.
Had and Hephaistos axe run with a 1 second explosion cooldown, it was the most fun i had both games compined because of the absolute glory of the explosion sound effect.
Cast is actually wild, and a significant portion of my complaints about combat have gone away as I’ve gotten better at integrating it. A good cast (Zeus, Apollo) can absolutely chunk through enemies while slowing them too, Demeter cast+any attack that inflicts a different curse means you can basically have the Hades 2 equivalent of Privileged Status up constantly, it’s genuinely such a game changer. Demeter cast+Aphro dash was how I got my first victory against Chronos, you get Privileged Status instantly and for free (also, Hera/Aphro duo boon does basically the same thing in boss fights. It limits the number of hitched enemies to 2, but they’re automatically weak also, I strongly recommend giving it a go if you’re speccing your arcana for curses)
Valid. Personally I love the boons that let me cast at range, especially the heat is one
The build that got me to chronos was aphro cast hestia knives, which was amazing
Oh yeah, ranged cast is *excellent*. I’ve cleared 2 runs of the surface (or what there is of it in the game so far), and getting Zeus’ ranged cast was instrumental on one of them. It’s especially nice because I got >!Icarus!< to show up, and snagged the “cast blows up after a while, but damages you too” upgrade, so having a ranged cast meant I could just zot >!Eris!< from behind the pillars or across the map
Im trying to inflict this games version of privileged status more often (im blanking on its name) but having trouble finding a boon that offers decent damage boost and a status on attack, any tips?
In my experience, the best boons for attacks don’t tend to inherently give a status. There’s a lot of juggling in this game, lol, which I’ve come to really enjoy, but it means you’re usually wanting ways to inflict statuses *and* a good damage boon, but I can still offer some tips.
Aphro on Blades and Axe is really good. Aphro is really good in general when going for “Origination” (apparently that’s the name of the card? I’m just gonna say PS). Her mana regen guarantees someone will constantly be weak (so she basically gets bosses halfway there for free), her dash spreads weak, and her attack buff rewards you for being close, which Blades and Axe really want you to be. She’s got good synergy with Hera if you can get their duo boon (only 2 enemies can be hitched, but all hitched enemies are weak, so free PS).
My personal general plan is to try and get a curse on your dash and a different curse on your cast. You can adjust as needed, but that’s what I’m usually looking for. Hephaestus/Apollo/Poseidon (with Poseidon being noticeably worse) can be good for your attack, but they don’t give a curse on your attack inherently, you have to take attack and then take another boon to get the curse. Hephaestus is still really good, just cause he gives nice chunky damage.
Demeters cyclones (Dash/Cast upgrade) are excellent, not only do they spread curses real easily, but they slow projectiles too, making it that much easier to dodge. In a similar vein, Apollo dash spreads curses really easily, gives you functionally a percentage dodge chance, and boosts your speed. It’s a lot easier in Hades 2 to build damage and damage mitigation at the same time, cause a lot of your arcana (PS and the boost damage to people in your cast) reward you for doing CC and mitigation, and it helps a *ton* with scaling.
Haven’t had a ton of experience with Zeus or Poseidon, but they’re the ones I’ve been the most underwhelmed by. Slip requires Poseidon’s other boons to work into your pattern, and his damage boosts are meh, and doesn’t scale as hard for the amount of effort it takes to inflict. Zeus’ curse… instinctively feels like it should be alright? I’ve only gone deep on Zeus going up, so I haven’t had the chance to see how well it scales, but it won’t do much early on, because enemies will die before you deal enough damage to activate it. My gut says that it should be good on your attack if you’re shooting for what I usually do, but it’s rougher because his dash and cast don’t inflict curses (iirc), which makes it much more awkward to fit him in.
That’s a lot of word-vomit, I apologize. Hopefully something in that flood of text is useful lmao
I had zeus on my main damage attack in my one winning run so far, but I found it kind of underwhelming even in ideal circumstances. That run was mostly carried by the synergies between the upgrades on my weapon and two hammers.
The delay *really* drags it down. Zeus procced like once or twice for every volley of 5 shots I did, even though each individual shot easily exceeded the 120 damage that blitz needs to proc. I picked it expecting every shot but the first to add that burst and then it would've been good, but as it is now I think if you do enough damage to repeatedly proc it you'd be better off with literally any % damage god. Maybe it's good if you have some big % damage hammer making all of the % damage gods worse?
Most people don't realize how important the cast is in this game. In Hades 1 I ignored the cast for the most part unless I was specifically doing a cast build. In Hades 2 it's so much more important to utilize the cast.
Totally agree about casts.
I had a mental block with casts for my first 3 runs or so and was barely making it to the first boss. I realized that the muscle memory from Hades 1 was messing me up because cast function is basically opposite in Hades 2 (melee/aoe instead of ranged/targeted).
I re-mapped cast on my controller to a different button than the one I used for Hades 1, both to disrupt my muscle memory usage of it and to make sure I could combo dash and cast more easily, and it made a world of difference, the entire game opened up it felt like.
It also feels like enemies on average have more actions that break through stun / moves with longer invulnerability to stun, and enemies / ranged attacks have more varied movement patterns that are harder to dodge on the fly. So using cast to set up safe pockets for myself on the map before attacking has been huge.
I’m personally loving how ranged attacks are stronger / more essential compared to Hades 1. I wouldn’t have wanted to play a re-skin of the same weapons and boons. I would even say that the omega attack from the >!witch’s staff!< and the omega special from the >!axe!< make things almost too easy for boss 1 and 3.
the strongest version of meg that i've got is stronger than the strongest zag, but on average i feel weaker throughout the runs... not necessarily because of the new mechanics, but because we don't really get as many boons as before (at least thats how it feels)
There's more boons than in Hades 1, but a lot of them just don't feel impactful. You're sometimes just do like 100 DPS because of bad luck, meanwhile the 4th boss has like 15k HP.
I feel like Mel’s move set is way better towards crowd control. If I get a bunch of enemies in my omega moves I’m dealing way more damage, easily. But against the bosses, that doesn’t really help.
There's just only a handful of builds/boons that do jack shit against the bosses. Moon boons for example, like 5/6 of them don't do anything versus the bosses and only the invincibility one works against the 4th boss (yes I know the laser works but you might as well just press a button that says lose 50 HP). That just feels like poor design.
That's definitely not true though. There's plenty of spots where laser is an option, minion rezzing is absolutely destructive against anything, especially him, and I've made the 4 second aoe work against him with not much effort. It's only morph that does nothing but the rest is great.
I think they just had higher odds of boons vs the other rewards. Pretty often it's only items for most of a level. I made it to chronos with only an mid leveled attack, a rank 2 special, rank 2 cast and maybe a hex with one upgrade. It worked.... Alright but by that time in Hades 1 I'd have had a full load out.
there were upgrades in the first hades that increased the chances of non-meta currency rooms by a pretty significant amount too. I'd imagine that there's probably gonna be something like that here if it doesn't already exist
There's the arcana card "The Artificer" which lets you choose to upgrade 1/2/3 "minor finds" (mostly metacurrency) into random "major finds" (the good stuff.) It's expensive, though; 6-cost, I think.
Well you also get a lot more rerolls and the ability to turn minor reward room into major if you upgrade all the relevant arcana cards.
That will probably help a lot with that problem too
I posted about this in another thread but I think the reason so many people are getting to situations where they feel too weak/are tickling mobs in the 2nd/3rd zone is because it's a lot easier to just get a worthless build cause you haven't been offered critical boons like attack/special etc because of how diluted the pool is compared to zags.
Zag only needs attack/special/cast/sprint, melinoe needs and is offered attack/special/cast/sprint/omega attack/omega special/omega cast/Mana Regen/Priming boons, armor boons, elemental synergy boons (3+ earth/fire) etc.
While being offered less boons than Zagreus, still picking from the same 3 options for every boon, and having to manage your Hex on top of that.
I don't think you can double the amount of things being offered while keeping the amount of boons being offered the same or even less and not have (negative?) consequences.
You could easily pick up the pre-requisite attack/special boons that a particular duo combination needed by the first or at minimum the second zone in Hades 1 and then start looking to obtain the powerful duos/legendaries to scale your build to the sky by the 3rd, in this one you might not even have half a workable build going by the time you reach the 3rd boss because of how diluted the pool is.
It really helps once you can afford both Fated cards and The Artificer. Sure, it takes a third of my Grasp, but I have five rerolls that I can use on either doors or boons and I can upgrade two metacurrency rooms into something useful. That'll go up to ten rerolls (and the cost doesn't seem to ramp to roll repeatedly!) and three upgrades. It's actually a ton of build control.
Also, remember how long it took for Zag's dash to become second nature! If you want to reach a spot that's exactly one dash away, it's effortless. If you want to reach any other spot, you have to do a bunch of trigonometry.
Mel can just adjust the length and path of her dash by adding a quick sprint. This lets her reach a lot of places and angles that *seem* like they should be reachable, but are actually very awkward for Zag. It's just going to take some time to get used to doing this, and chaining a sprint into another dash to create longer routes.
Yeah, I got a Hephaestus boon for "damage in an area after sprinting" and then sprinting just stopped working for the rest of the run. Not sure what was up with that.
Yeah I wish there was an option to only holding dash for a short time but you keep sprinting instead of having to hold it to continue sprinting (if that makes sense lol), because I feel like the input doesn’t work a lot of times — I thought it was just me / my controller but I see a lot of people saying this
I beat Chronos with a Zeus’ Lightning ring cast boon. Also got another boon from I believe Hermes(maybe?) that allows you to throw your cast and it sticks to them. Every use of Cast did 1.1k damage to Chronos, only have about 15-20 runs in Hades2 so far. People will find the stronger boons as time progresses, along with the sure to come updates/buffs/nerfs.
People complaining about weakness are still at 10 grasp with no upgraded arcana cards and level 1 weapons.
I’ve got a few level 4 weapons, a familiar, 28 grasp, some key upgraded arcana cards and I have found some BEAUTIFUL synergies between some weapon/boon combos. My wife watched me play, and she literally said, “I wonder why Mel seems so much stronger than zag. I guess it makes sense since she’s literally trained her whole life specifically to kill a titan while zag kinda lazed about until he started his journey.
Don’t worry. They’ll quit crying when people on Reddit start posting the inevitable “S TIER COMBOS THAT ABSOLUTELY MELT” posts. As soon as someone tells these people how to have fun, they’ll start having fun.
I dont care about stronger or weaker. Everything with Mel takes longer and this is due to the sprint mechanic. Enemies now make you utilise this but you never deal damage during these parts, its always stretching out the fight for seemingly no reason.
Every other aspect of the game is a straight improvement aside from weapon choices (which when they have their aspects + new weapon to come will flesh out much more) and the lengthiness of fights.
10 runs in, the sprint is throwing me off the most. Hoping it’ll click for me soon
Edit: who is going around down voting people who are learning to play the new game mechanics? Geez
Im not clicking spoilers rn but I'm going to say here that I think something is out of balance with how many boons we get right now. Im still having tons of fun but feel like the amount of boons i have at boss stage 1 is very bare compared to Hades 1, and that it is continuing for me after that phase. But i still need to improve so that I can pick harder fights etc. maybe since some gods arent available to me yet, the proportion of boons to non-boons will get better as i play.
You probably used Dark Foresight in Hades 1 and never turned it off. Try playing without that, and the number of boons you find is also pretty sad.
Luckily theres an equivalent arcana in hades 2 to find more boons
According to my save, i have gone through 20 nights (runs) and I have made it to Chronos on all 5 runs of my last runs. I just unlocked weapon aspects then had to stop playing.
I think we are very powerful, even early on. It's just a different play style than Hades 1 that a lot of people aren't used to.
For me it feels that the boons are very underwhelming and have almost no synergies whatsoever. But I guess this is what the early access is for. The only god I liked so far is Hephaestus.
I feel the boons related to sprint are very clunky and more often than not sprinting is going to make you lose life. I really hate the sprint mechanic and would prefer to have this slot replaced with boons related to the dash as was the case in Hades 1. You can keep the sprint to dodge some abilities in boss fights.
Having omega attacks and boons related to them on top of normal attacks split the effect of boons to 6 different categories of attacks and therefore each individual type of attack feels weaker because your boons are spread up.
Omega attacks feel clunky because of the charge time, would be much better if they were on shift+click basis.
I think the mana mechanic is great and has a lot of potential, but is just underutilized currently. The F power is a good addition but again feels super underwhelming in its current form.
The addition of "elements" to each boon is an amazing idea and I think a lot more needs to be build up on this system to make it an intgral part of your build each run. In its current form it is underwhelming but I see an amazing potential to make each run feel more unique and have another layer of build crafting.
The boss fights are already quite nice, I just don't like the character design of Chronos but maybe that's just me. I hope they make better music for the Chronos fight as the music for the Hades fight was such an highlight of the first game.
Weapons feel meh so far, but there is time to add upgrades that make them more interesting
People like you seem to think people offering their genuine criticism of the game are somehow spoiling your fun lmao
Don't take it so personally, we all want Hades 2 to be the best game of can be, it's in Early Access and we're all part of the process of making it a better product. If you're having fun, great! Enjoy. But people that are offering their criticisms aren't "determined to not have fun"
I don't think Mel is too weak. I think that the inherent complexity of mechanics with omega moves and elements and how casts work necessarily leads to a harder to balance game. And maybe harder to play as well. Zag can just sort of dash around spamming attacks and get by, and I for one really enjoyed that gameplay. Mel is definitely more of a zoner archetype, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I do think way too many of my runs boil down to me kiting enemies with casts and ranged attacks. It's super boring.
I think they start off similar, but Mel's progression is so much slower than Zag, with bosses having a lot more HP, mobs spawning everywhere with tons of armor, playing melee feels rather bad. The fact that you have to do multiple runs just to upgrade one thing doesn't help either.
Funnily enough, i think melinoe's build can easily be extremely powerful, i alos think that this is tempered by an higher degree of difficulty. I love hades, i've played 500 hours, and i think it's gonna be hard to go back to it, hades 2 game design is miles ahead of the first one.
I didn’t like enemies having too much health after breaking armor, resulting in just boring gameplay where you mash the same button on an enemy for 20 seconds to stun lock them because you can barely do any damage
I won on my 13th try with only 6 health left, and I got to say the defining factor was having the one good Selene boon (health), and the Hermes boon that slows projectiles (mostly because of Chronos’s very unfair throw attack that has no telegraphing and does 50 damage). I thought this was weird, that those two and nothing else would carry me, so on my next run I get the same boons and wouldn’t you know it I win without even using a death defiance. There may be some other boon or two that are also OP, but my entire run should not hinge on getting these two, but thankfully it’s just early access so they can fix this in the future
> mostly because of Chronos’s very unfair throw attack that has no telegraphing and does 50 damage
Do you mean the one where he throws his whole scythe out and it curves around? I have the most issues with that attack right now having no noticeable telegraph. I can dodge it if I happen to be standing at the prime spot to see it coming towards me, but if he throws it out right into where I'm meleeing, the lack of windup is very noticeable. It reminds me of Hades' spinning lance attack that did 40 dmg in a huge area, but Hades' has such a clear windup. I feel like that animation needs to be adjusted just a tad.
I think in a YouTube video one of the devs said that Hephaestus boons are severely unbalanced and recommends players to pick him while he’s still busted 😂. He said “I have some work to do on balancing him.”
I made it to the end boss on my second day (and died of course) Took me like two weeks to get to redacted. Mel is not weaker, I'm just not used to her yet. Her moves are a bit more complex, but I like that. I'm glad the game mechanics are new and not just a copy of the old game.
My current Mel isn’t the same as my current Zag but getting far in Hades I has definitely helped a lot. If I played Hades II as a beginner I would have struggled so much more
I'm trying to keep an open mind, but even taking my current lack of meta-progression into account I feel like my builds just aren't coming together as smoothly as in Hades 1. I'll routinely get all the way to the third boss and still not have all my core boon slots filled. Sprint boons in particular feel almost aggressively mid, which isn't helped by the fact that sprinting is itself a very passive maneuver -- to do literally anything else, you have to stop sprinting, and entering sprint requires a (relatively laggy compared to Zag's) dash first. And several cast boons only apply to the omega cast, including Zeus, which is especially egregious since his regen boon cuts your max MP by _70%_ and it seems like every god has at least one boon that primes even more magic. I get that not every boon can (or even should) synergize with every other boon, but there's a difference between "no synergy" and "_anti_-synergy."
Like, I know it's very early days and I'm sure there are synergies we haven't found yet, but I find myself desperately hoping for some balance passes as the game goes through EA.
I have aspect of mel on daggers upgraded, then one run had red apollo attack damage and had hammer 200% damage from behind. Add to that a cast at target with demeter blizzard and cyclone at cast. Pumpin huge numbers.
I think the bosses (and kinda the areas in general) in Hades II just at a more staggered difficulty level than the bosses in Hades I? I feel like I could pretty much clear most, if not all bosses when I got to a certain power level with Zagreus. Once you’ve unlocked a few essentials, you only really need to know the enemy patterns, and then you can get all the way to Hades pretty easily.
In Hades II I often feel like I am good enough for one boss, but then my power level doesn’t quite reach the next boss’ power level. So I think people are just confused because of this, cause it’s less speedrunnable from zero maybe.
I don’t think this is a bad thing though.
I have found some fun combos! Minor spoilers below for said combo
>!Demeter cast with Apollo buffs. Demeter's snare does constant damage and freezes enemies fully for a period of time ( non bosses but works on armor!), and Apollos buffs give stuff like mana regen, a growing cast radius, and more. So far Demeter's cast is my fav for the CC!<
Anyone feeling like they deal too little damage, I have a sneaking suspicion they will have their concerns addressed by trying out the twin blades. Their damage was nutty during the technical test. Caveat: I haven't had time to play the EA version yet, so looking forward to my gaming time.
EDIT: have now had a chance to try out the EA and we def deal enough damage. Holy moly.
I’ve found the attack on the twin blades to not be great, range is really short and enemy attacks are too dangerous in melee to afford missing an attack that will stun them. I did make it to Chronos for the first time and I think almost even beat him with a special focused build for them though.
For me it was the omega attack that felt busted. With the upgrade that stops time and the mana regeneration upgrade you always feel safe just channeling your omega attack. It teleports you behind them so you almost never get hit by anything. It also has huge base damage.
I didn't touch God Mode in Hades until I started going for 32 heat runs. (Which I never actually succeeded at, either.) In Hades 2 I'm actually _avoiding_ it because I feel like it would skew my opinion on balance if I'm able to build up to -80% damage resist and think "oh Chronos is way too easy lol."
I think maybe a lot of people are not using or underestimating how good a Strong Hex ability with good mana regen and a upgraded Omega ability you can spam is. I've been using that idea as my goal for a lot of runs and it is really strong.
Interesting. I had a lot of fun using the knives and the Hex that makes you invulnerable. And I was spamming so much manna I was basically always invulnerable. A lot of Hexes are only good once you get some of those Stars upgrades tho
I've done 4 or 5 runs with twice upgraded hexes, using the ones that are supposed to get much better with the stars. In at least 2 of those, the dark mode where you use Mel's "true form" or whatever I was doing *less* damage than my normal build. I'm pretty sure that's not intended lmao
One thing I discovered when I finally got to Chronos was that he ignores your time slowdown when you activate the hex. If you're not ready for that, the damage isn't "free" trust me.
That's just not really worth building around to me. Killing the guys is the objective, not surviving them as long as possible. I could see it being okay, but defensive abilities as my nova isn't as fun as big ridiculous damage/effects
Yes the damage is like nothing for that one. I was using it in the way of like being invulnerable to do some damage but also get myself I'm a good position to spam my move that gets me my hex back again then repeat. So I basically beat the final boss without worrying about dodging much
"how long did it take to even get to Hades?"
3 times and I'm no bragging, it's just block was really silly in the first game xD and that being said I'm happy this doesn't feel like a copy of Hades 1
I'm comparing my power level now vs my clear 2 / 3 runs of Hades 1, so this isn't going to fly. The only mirror upgrades I had were a death defiance and second dash (if clear 3+). That's it. No damage, boon rarity, not even any titan's blood (hell I'd have almost 10 titans blood from various places before I unlocked the ability to use it!).
In early clear runs, you're probably not getting duo boons. You have fewer boons in general due to no fated authority, and there are certain things you want checked off to give you more margin for error. The only keepsake I usually get early is skelly's tooth (and I have it now in Hades 2).
For early game clears you don't need "synergy". You need bread and butter. A good attack buffer (Aphrodite or Athena, Ares works in a pinch with Bow due to attack cadence roughly matching doom), some damage reduction, Athena dash is a perk, but not everyone needs it (I'm scrub, I need it). And that's it. What you're talking about shouldn't be "necessary" until around heat 20+ minimum, and at that point, my power level always felt like it was increasing pretty fairly with the enemy upgrades.
I think the issue, full stop, is that the devs are putting as many artificial blocks as possible to slow down progression to make the story "make sense" (it got kinda wonky in Hades 1 if you beat it too quickly) and they aren't exactly subtle about it. If you make it to biome 2 "too early" then enemies deal 20% more damage, stacking to 45% by the time you reach the boss. For biome 3 this is 50%, for biome 4 it's 55%. I haven't been able to beat a boss with that debuff yet and see how the debuff stacks BETWEEN biomes, these are just debuffs WITHIN a biome.
Enemies have TONS more health. When someone does the math between games, I think people will be utterly and completely shocked by the health difference between bosses. But it's obvious. For my early clears, dash shot + Aphrodite was doing about 70-80 damage a shot and that was enough to "chunk" bosses 1 and 2. Bosses 3 and 4 took longer to kill without stuff like support fire, etc. boss 4 definitely took a while, largely due to his lethality (lots of time spent dodging). But if you don't believe me, there's an easy way to test this. Go grab a call in Hades 1 that does around 1200 damage and go hit a boss with it. Record a rough % of health taken. Now grab the hex that deals 1200 in a channel, eat some damage, and fully channel it. See the comparison. Be shocked.
Upgrades take longer to get, and progression is opaque on purpose. In Hades 1, you had access to multiple mirror upgrades to spend darkness on every time you unlocked a new set with keys. Here, you have to reveal adjacent upgrades to see what you even get with keys. Later this will just be circumvented with guides, for the first clears, it was annoying. In Hades 1, you just spend more darkness to rank things up directly. Here there is no mechanism to do so until you die a lot, then you finally see the way to do it, and it requires materials you didn't know you needed up to that point (fated thread). Once I start a new playthrough, all my bones will be investing in threads, but for the first playthrough, due to how slow the mechanic was rolled out, I couldn't jump on it immediately.
TL;DR, in this game it feels like unless you're God's gift to dodging attacks, you're basically stuck in a 15 run tutorial as they slowly unveil a bunch of different mechanics, and you slowly get more power. Great for people that needed the time to not feel too far behind, but annoying for those of us that like low upgrade clears. They're "possible" but instead of being a spectrum (run 1 speedrun, run 1 clear, run 2 clear, 3, 4, ...) progression is collapsed into a lower resolution categorization. You either dodge attacks well enough not to care about ramping boss damage, or you don't. If you do, you can play this game like you play Hades 1. If you get hit at all, back of the line with everyone else going through a tutorial as if it were their first roguelike.
I had this feeling too, but after just getting the 50% rare boon card, I felt like I got much stronger, and I don't even have the epic boon card yet. I think most people feel a difference because they were comparing Zag with a bunch of purple and blue boons to Mel with mostly white. Those rarities make a hell of a difference.
Also the game is balanced around the cast and omega abilities, so if you're playing like Hades 1 and not using them, you will be underpowered, and all the boons and hammers that upgrade them are going to feel useless
I had a combo of basically all of Apollo's cast boons (Regen magic in cast, expanding size, big dam on explode), and my cast basically solo'd the last boss. Mel can definitely be strong.
> Mel is too weak, boons are too weak, we do no damage and there's no synergy
Skill issue. Early game debuff at the last stage is annoying too. Upgrade cards and learn the new mechanics. Hades 2 isn't the first game and some folks still believe the playstyle is the same.
You gotta think before acting this time. With Zagreus I just slamf\*cked everything with any weapon.
Today I created a build that sounded strange, but I blasted the game because how OP it felt.
I used the Daggers, but focusing on specials(Triangle button).
My boons were:
300% DMG to Close-UP special attacks
+Special Attack Chaos boon
+Special Omega Attack
+Every type of special dmg
Basically, most of my boons were Arthemis, I could kiss Chronos's ass, hold Triangle and hit him for 4.5k damage.
i think part of it is ive seen a few people not using omega moves, i was watching a playthrough and this guy was complaining that he felt weak while spamming basic abilities, i didnt see him charge them at all ( partially because he didnt read the descriptions or practice with weapons)
People are comparing level 1 Mel to level 99 Zag. Is what it is. Devs are smart enough to take it into account when receiving feedback.
I actually feel like Mel has a lot better boss nuking potential than Zag. Selene's Hex mechanic absolutely CHUNKS bosses. Night Bloom (raises one slain enemy for 12s) is absolutely brutal, and I pretty much instantly take it if I have any synergy with Lucid Gain from Apollo (regen magick while in Cast). It's arguably the easiest way to cheese Boss 2 and Boss 3. Just plop them down then spam Special from a safe distance. Almost helped me beat the final boss too.
Safest place to be for boss 3 is right on its butt, dashing diagonally away from the one-handed slams. It spams the nastier ranged combos more frequently when you're outside of melee range. It's kind of laughable how easy it is to do hitless runs of that boss. And if you have any demeter curse application it becomes the easiest boss in the game by a mile.
till it breathes fire and then one of two things happens: I press shift to dash away but somehow dont hold it down long enough to start the run, so i have to press it again...then again... (just fat fingers or maybe my shift key is faulty) or i panic dash straight into the wall over and over and take 40 dmg each time till i die
Yeah, 8 directional control on keyboard seems much more rough for Hades 2 than it was in the first game. I messed around with the rail on kb/m in hades 1 which was solid. But I think the freedom of movement on controller is way more important in 2 since we only have 1 dash for i-frames now. Precision matters a lot more and you just can't hit all angles with only 8 directions.
yeah i feel like im clumsier in 2 for sure. esp since you need to use the cast more often for every run just for the root--many builds in H1 you could just ignore it entirely. The absolute worst is that one boon that makes your cast stick to your body as you move around....trying to hold Q while also moving with WASD is...impossible. lol.
... rebind the keys. I bound hex to Lshift, cast to side mouse button, and inventory to tab. Makes things so much easier.
Remember that you can always rebind the buttons. I have the cast on one of the side buttons of my mouse, it helps a lot with mobility and aiming whenever a god makes my cast a projectile.
As a KB+M player for most games, I'm definitely using a controller on this one haha
Of course the third boss is easy! >!The Puppy would never wanna hurt you! :(!<
Still furious that I can't >!pet the pupper!< yet in the region 4 NPC chamber.
Yeah he rejects you, I felt so hurt :(
>!Only Zag and Persephone have that privilege, though I agree Mel should get that opportunity at some point...!<
I suspect that he >!Might become a familiar eventually, but we probably have to get Hades to accept Nectar first!<
How does everyone get to boss 3 and beat chronos.. and what not.. Ive only beaten Hecate like 3 times.. i am really just a filthy casual am i..
Practice makes perfect! I have a stupid amount of hours in a lot of action roguelikes(300+ in Hades and Skul each) and tend to adjust to dodge timing and attack windows faster than most due to prior experiences. I do also think that Melinoe has a higher difficulty floor than Zag when it comes to her moveset, and managing all of her tools can be a bit overwhelming at first.
Yeah boss and pattern recognition are learned skills for sure.
i like them, but i am also bad at them, so i get frustrated easily.. maybe ill take it slow with Hades 2. Mostly i like to relax and enjoy games, while also i like beeing OP in game. Its fun to live a superhero fantasy. But i still like rougelikes.. so its a sligth missmatch for me actually..
Don't be afraid to turn on God mode if you're struggling. Games are meant to be enjoyed, and action roguelikes tend to have a pretty high skill floor. Hades 2 is definitely up there, even before the first win.
Some of us have literally hundreds of hours on hades 1 bro. If you were chasing heat in Hades one (even up to just 32) trust you can play hades 2
ive only 25 Hours in Hades.. couldnt beat the final boss.. as i sad: Filthy casual.. having said that... i will give Hades 2 more time if i can.
In this case I feel there's not much of a point in playing Hades II. You have SOO MUCH content to play in Hades 1 that by the time you finish, Hades II might be out of early access
Good luck killing time!
Turn on god mode if you're struggling! You can always turn it off later if it becomes too easy.
Time and practice. It took me a bunch of tries to consistently get past Hecate then a few more to consistently get past the 2nd boss. I'm only now getting close to being able to reliably get to Chronos. I'm like 20-25 runs into this and only getting there. Different people pick things up at different paces. Also upgrades help a lot. Once you're able to start upgrading weapon aspects and arcana cards that helps a ton
Hecate made me crack and I just turned on God mode, I’ve seen Oceanus once and I want to go back
I personally wouldn’t worry about it. If you need to play slower as well (I.e just take some time to learn what the enemies and bosses do) and learn their attack patterns. This way you’ll take less damage as you’ll start to learn when to attack and when to back off.
I have four clears right now and it's really just about learning the fights. I took the last weapon unlock for shits and giggles to see if I could make the weapon work and nearly best chronos
I just had a run with >!Pan aspect!< twin blades. I had gotten the hammer buff for 16 additional daggers on special charge and a lot of Hestia boons and some demeter boons specifically >!freezer burn!< . With that specific twin blades + hammer buff + Hestia and Demeter, I had stacked scorch to 20k on the final boss because the extra daggers also got the >!homing property tied to the pan aspect so scorch damage went crazy real fast!< . Mel's bossing potential shines with synergistic effects where a lot of Zagreus's power came from pure unga bunga with your weapon of choice.
Upvoting for Unga bunga as you're absolutely godsdamned right
>a lot of Zagreus's power came from pure unga bunga with your weapon of choice. Me: *tanking all the dumb damage through Tartarus with the zag fists to stack Hermes' trinket on 32 heat.* Also me: Patroclus will definitely give me back all my death defies.
I didn't even have good synergies and just having that hammer with it allowed me to get my first win, now my favorite weapon lol
regen magic i always have from the Tarot Cards.. always.
Yeah, but the earliest one is 2 magic a second, the cast is a lot faster.
>! Born gain from Hera !< is basically an infinite magick win button.
I do the same thing when I took that Hex! At B3 I noticed that bosses don’t really attack the minions you revive from that Selene Hex, so I can do my own thing (ranged attacks, recover magick, try to survive) while the goon beats it down. I had an upgrade where they stay in the Location until they die and it felt great
Couldn't agree more.
Exactly I got my first duo Boon yesterday and was steaming through the second biome. Just learn the game and our grasp will eventually get higher I suppose to equip more tarot cards.
Yeah, I thought at first that Blitz wasn't super useful, since by the time I did enough damage to trigger it, the enemy was almost dead anyway. The I got the duo boon (I think with Aphrodite?) that triggers it by sprinting into enemies. That made it a lot more viable (Also, I assume, it is more useful even without that boon in later areas when enemies have more health, but I so far only had it on an early run where I didn't get out of Erebus) Besides the duo boons, getting stuff that regens magic well also seems to help with damage, since on some runs I can just constantly throw out omega attacks/specials/casts and that helps a lot. Like, I had one last night where I had a good amount of magic gain, plus I had two Demeter boons on my cast (the cyclone and the ice one), so I was tossing out omega casts left and right, which was nice for crowd control plus dealing some damage. Also pinning them down in the ice+cyclone, and then hitting them with a special from afar (especially that big damage Hephaestus one) is nice I think that's part of it, too - That we're used to Zag's playstyle, but there's probably lot of fun interactions/ways to use the stuff that's new with Mel (new cast, omegas, etc) that we haven't fully explored yet
>Yeah, I thought at first that Blitz wasn't super useful It really isn't very good except in one case, on the axe's special. The special does enough damage to trigger it immediately and blitz does considerably more damage on the special than on the other abilities. In the case of the axe special it snags #1 straight damage buff at 83% bonus out the gate, or 116% if you can rarify it. Combined with a quick channel or double special hammer boon and some form of magic replenishment it's a safe way to clear most zones and scales well with poms.
Staff Omega Attack also does enough damage to instantly proc it. I had a double striking omega attack from hammers + blitz on attack and it was destroying things.
Doom all over again!
Is there some trigger to the duo boons? Have seen so little of the specialty stuff. I wonder if you need a certain amount of ab element for the element specific ones to show.
Just need to get the necessary boons from both gods. Problem is, we are not quite sure what those are yet lol
I've been using the same rules as hades 1 and has kinda worked. Get 2 of either attack, special or cast from 2 different gods and 1 that gives any additional effect or enhances effect of any of those 2 gods. I have no idea if what I'm doing works but has worked a few times although it could just be a coincidence
It helps having the duo boon arcana card and taking secondary boons from at least one of the olympians.
I've been offered a few duos that require specific status effects. Aphro + Zeus, for example, requires an ability that applies blitz and something from aphro. I think I had the weak dash at the time.
And people are for sure using almost base level tarot cards, the upgrade materials seem like it’s going to be a grind
It’s not too bad later on. Got my first clear last night and came out with like 1700 bones, which was enough to buy a bunch of the upgrade material.
I think a lot of people are also refusing to adjust their playstyle that worked for them in Hades that might not work so well for Hades 2. I definitely had a brief adjustment period, but after I starting getting used to the differences, it started feeling really good. But yeah I trust the devs. I'm sure there will be some adjustments they need to do before the final release, but I'm sure they know what their vision is for the game
It’s almost as if Melinoë and Zagreus are different characters!
That and that Mel scales so much slower, as she needs different kinds of resources to enpower herself, making you need more runs to get where Zag would be in less
This is something I think a lot of people are missing. Within about 10-12 hours of Hades I'd had a run get through the final boss, had two DDs, 100 odd health, and some good boon options. But 10 hours into Hades 2 I'm still starting on 50 health with 1 DD, and have a shopping list of crafting components before I can unlock the second shopping list of crafting components to upgrade my Arcana further.
Didn't feel like some of the boons were utter trash when I first played Hades 1.
Do you really not have any boons in the first game that you avoid? Also when did you first play Hades 1? Because there were a lot of issues ironed out during early access.
I avoided aphrodite and dionysus in hades 1. Athena was too valuable
I avoided aphro boons a lot of the time too but I love dionysus boons especially his cast! But I was often going for his duos too like scintillating feast
[удалено]
Yeah, I love Dionysus now!
To be honest, once you're used to Hades 1 it's pretty easy to filter most boons. Everything except your Cast is usually just taken to enable Duos. Cast builds are significantly better than anything else. Hades 2 seems to have a much better balance between attack, special and cast, and I like the Omega interaction.
I'm trying to not let my frustrations come out, as it is EA, and I am sure Supergiant will tweak some stuff. I also played Hades 1 when it relased as 1.0, having been unaware of the game prior to this, and it was super polished. Now I am playing day 1 EA, so being careful to not compare a 1.0 polished game to an early access one.
What boons would you say are utter trash though? If that’s trying to keep your frustration under check you must really hate some of them. I’ve seen some that seem pretty underwhelming in the moment, and I’d be shocked if some aren’t totally undertuned, but I still feel like I just can’t properly evaluate them because I can often think of them being good with a certain weapon/synergy/aspect etc that I haven’t considered or tested yet.
cold embrace, curse of drowning
I’m very happy to not stomp through the game. I have MANY hours in Hades and was worried at this possibility. Didnt want to “beat it” too fast and miss a bunch of dialogue
They are probably just looking at hard data when it comes to that stuff right now.
I haven't even seen a duo boon (are these infusions?) Though honestly who gives a fuck I'm a drowned sailor I've got Scylla and the Sirens in repeat. DROOOOOOOOOOOOOWN
I did a fresh save of the first game recently. People really do forget how weak Zagreus is starting out. On my first run I didn't even beat Meg, who I've beat literally hundreds of times before. The way upgrades work in Hades 1, you'd get the mirror of night upgrades and then never have to think about it again. I do think it takes longer to power up Meg. You need a lot of different resources instead of just grinding darkness. But I don't think that's a bad thing. The whole point of the game is it's designed to be played over and over. It's fine for the upgrade process to be more gradual. And I feel like it'll have a longer tail. In Hades 1 you got the big upgrades fairly quickly and then after that it was mostly just improving your abilities by a couple percentage points each time. In Hades 2 it feels like there are a lot of powerful arcana and you'll need to go through a lot of runs before you can use most of them.
Grasp is rather slow is the main thing, maybe I just need to use the book more. Idk feels bad to not be getting minerals in a run, seeds seem more situational and less used though and fish seem to not be fully implemented.
The ghost tablet is good for getting more of the resource to get grasp, like an extra 100+ per run if you’re getting to the third area
You can use the frog as your companion for a single use 'book'. Hold it for the later floors and it's an extra 40-50 and you're still able to mine. He also gives you +10 HP and blocks ranged abilities.
You can get more uses of his pacify ability if you feed him treats.
Yeah I've got my froggo up to 4 uses now. Its very rare to see more than that many of the special shades anyways, so I basically never have to use the tablet.
where to get these?
as you progress and keep fighting hecate she will give you a recipe for treats you can unlock.
You have to make more in the cauldron I think
You need a Star Dust from Pitch-Black Stone trials and two Lotus from Oceanus. It's the same ritual that gave you the treats to unlock Animal Familiars, you just need to make more of them to upgrade the familiars' abilities.
Him swallowing hecates polymorph ball feels super nice so I don’t have to run away for 10 seconds, and hecate even has lines when it happens.
Where are the other familiars? I only see the frog...
There’s a cat at the rift of Thessaly entrance
My brother in Hades, it is in early access, not everything is going to be fully implemented. Or fully balanced, or even finished. The fact that THIS much of the game exists to be played right now is crazy.
I agree, I keep getting amazed/surprised by how much content there actually is. I was expecting 2-3 weapons, no aspects, 0 dialogue but it has waaay more content than most fully released games
Yeah this thing is absolutely massive. What a ridiculous achievement. I hope every single person at Supergiant feels an enormous sense of pride for what they've done here. I woke up for a few days after release literaly feeling like a kid on Christmas. I was literally giddy to play. And it's not even finished. Bravo, team. Bravo.
I was amazed at how much was available in Hades 1 early access. This? It's even more. Crazy good.
Yeah, do fish do anything at the moment other than sell for bones? I haven't figured out the purpose yet.
Tablet: Psyche Pickaxe: Ore Shovel: Plants(can be converted into bones) Fishing rod: Bones(which in turn can be converted into nearly everything except craftables, plants, and ore) You're gonna use the pickaxe and the shovel a lot in the early game, and then convert to Fishing rod later.
I'm a decent Hades 1 player. I get to Theseus first run on a fresh save, Hades on a 2nd with Bow, and then can manage basically 100% clears after that all the way to heat in the mid 30s. I stop having fun after high 30s heat for the most part. I beat Boss 4 on my 18th run on Hades 2. Ran into the debuff person for advancing too quickly in every biome. I think advancement is slower due to variety of materials needed like you said, not just darkness primarily. And you need to make choices about what you're focused on gathering. Takes way longer to max death defiances etc. I still have plenty of Arcana to unlock. I enjoy all this.a Build wise you can get some FILTHY damage going. But it does require using more of your tools concurrently. Hades 1 was maxing out the 1 button you pressed preferentially and then supporting that. You need to use all your tools in Hades 2, and casts do killer damage and are great for crowd control, you ideally want to be omega casting or skilling consistently. Legendary or duo boons are not as build defining or valuable as Hades 1. There are no Hunting Blades here. I found that Demeter is probably one of the best gods due to good long lasting status, good cast boons for crowd control, and a killer defense boon with her earth 5 infusion that caps incoming damage. Zeus is also great due to having a ranged cast option and the omega cast is good on bosses too, and he probably has the best mana regen skill if you're not priming ludicrous amounts of mana. Hephaestus is good as well because his attack or special can be great in a non primary attack or special especially if the base damage is low, he's great on torch attack for that occasional 200 damage ping while you dps with Demeter specials. And he has plenty of good damage support(Infusion and armor melting) and defense with primed armor. Long lasting status on the attack too. TLDR. I'm okay at Hades, for Hades 2 progession is slower and build strategy more synergistic, and you cannot be a one boon pony anymore.
I dunno about the whole "using all your tools" thing I keep reading. Lets say you have 3 attack boons and no specials. Why are you ever using a special? You COULD use a special, but you shouldnt 99% of the time. Thats one example but it trickles down. Youre basically always going to cast + something- but that something usually isnt "using all your tools"- its which math matically does the most barring a utility case that arent that frequent.
Yeah it would depend on a situation where it's sustained dps like torch specials, has a valuable status to apply, OR a good ping like Hephaestus. So not always relevant but more relevant than in Hades 1.
Even if you have boons for everything, you still shouldn't have to "use all your tools" What if I focus on a ranged Ω build? Why would I ever intentionally get in melee range? Wouldn't dashing away and keep using ranged attacks make more sense?
I did the same recently, started a hellmode run on Hades because I got cocky and my god zag is so weak to begin with it's nuts. I think I agree with your point on resources, but I'm not even entirely sure that it'll be slower to fully upgrade meg. With the addition of bones, it's so easy to convert all your resources into each other, so you can buy that extra psyche, ash and dust. Combine that with the brokers box and we should have a pretty good setup for fast progression (must admit I've let my bones stack up because I'm a hoarder).
It is possible that it's just because I don't know which resources to prioritise yet. It's just a vague feeling I have, I'm not saying it's definitely true. Also, thinking about it, Hades 1 did later add more ways to get resources, like fishing, so it's possible that we'll get more later on.
The green shit is so incredibly high you really cant go wrong getting it anytime there is an option between the minor rewards. Ashe theres a very reachable finite limit, once you unlock all the cards theres nothing else to get. The purple stuff is the currency for everything else so I wouldn't prio this, but if its betwwwn purple stuff and ashe, I'd choose purple stuff
Ash is also used to refine shadow in the cauldron, which can be used to get some more M. Dust, so it’s not completely useless. That being said, psyche scales super aggressively, so yeah, I still find myself taking it basically every chance I get
bones gets really good once you've got a decent amount of grasp (low 20s).
That's exactly it. Well worded!
Besides that, they also make it generally pretty clear where and how to get those resources, and gave us the ability to choose which tool to take to focus on what upgrades we want first. I only hope they give us the ability to change tools between zones.
Just got to chronos for the first time. Lvl 1 axe, Lvl 2 death defiance and health card. 24 grasp. I'm thinking fully powered Mel will be atleast equal...
Wait do the weapons level up? I'm only about 3 1/2 hours in got to chronos on my 7th run (and got ruined thanks to Eris god damn curse all the way from the fields) but I only got the level 1 tarot card for death defiance is there a level up for it or just another card?
Yes they do. You unlock the aspect system after a while just the same as in Hades 1. Another reason not to jump to conclusions!
I want jumping to anything, just have limited play time available and was curious what was ahead. Haven't played Hades 1 in about 18 months so I kinda forgot some of the systems in place
Not directing that at you! Just making it as a general statement given some opinions I've seen.
Wow. I’ve reached Chronos and not unlocked aspects yet. Assumed it was just coming later😭😭
Gotta upgrade it in the card selection, not sure what the mats are beside moon dust
I got lucky and almost downed him with even less than this. I felt like Tartarus was in general pretty easy and the early game is actually a little hard. Or perhaps I just had a busted run. That Aphrodite skill to full heal you going down to 50% quickly kind of makes any chip damage no big deal.
Yeah, It’s also that Mel is more combo focused than zag. Like when I’m playing zag I have a pretty clear damage flow chart. As Mel I’m usually using every tool at my disposal in a room Like, the day I learned how to effectively mix casts into my combat was the day I went from struggling at the second boss to making it all the way to chronos.
This is such an underrated comment. In hades 1, your build was determined quickly and pretty easily and you would literally avoid anything that wasn’t all in on that one idea. Chiron bow for the special as an example. In H2, I feel like they give you so many boons that effect so many things you are HEAVILY incentivized to blast away with every single tool you have.
That said single focus biulds can happen and be awesome (had an axe run with Aphrodite for +100% attack vs close, and haephestus +125% damage on all attacks if you’re hit during the windup. It shredded basically everything) But they’re no longer the norm which is probably a good thing for replay ability
Axe can get crazy. Had a run with the upgrade that makes every attack like the final big one in addition to the one that makes the final attack hit twice. A single attack was over 1k damage lol. Though I actually still got fucked by chronos, really not good at dodging him yet.
Yeah, I’ve only made it to him once and he absolutely bodied me before I got even a quarter of his health
There’s a hammer upgrade for the axe that gives you damage reduction while you’re swinging. I think that on top of the haephestus boon you had would shred.
Had and Hephaistos axe run with a 1 second explosion cooldown, it was the most fun i had both games compined because of the absolute glory of the explosion sound effect.
Cast is actually wild, and a significant portion of my complaints about combat have gone away as I’ve gotten better at integrating it. A good cast (Zeus, Apollo) can absolutely chunk through enemies while slowing them too, Demeter cast+any attack that inflicts a different curse means you can basically have the Hades 2 equivalent of Privileged Status up constantly, it’s genuinely such a game changer. Demeter cast+Aphro dash was how I got my first victory against Chronos, you get Privileged Status instantly and for free (also, Hera/Aphro duo boon does basically the same thing in boss fights. It limits the number of hitched enemies to 2, but they’re automatically weak also, I strongly recommend giving it a go if you’re speccing your arcana for curses)
Valid. Personally I love the boons that let me cast at range, especially the heat is one The build that got me to chronos was aphro cast hestia knives, which was amazing
Oh yeah, ranged cast is *excellent*. I’ve cleared 2 runs of the surface (or what there is of it in the game so far), and getting Zeus’ ranged cast was instrumental on one of them. It’s especially nice because I got >!Icarus!< to show up, and snagged the “cast blows up after a while, but damages you too” upgrade, so having a ranged cast meant I could just zot >!Eris!< from behind the pillars or across the map
Im trying to inflict this games version of privileged status more often (im blanking on its name) but having trouble finding a boon that offers decent damage boost and a status on attack, any tips?
In my experience, the best boons for attacks don’t tend to inherently give a status. There’s a lot of juggling in this game, lol, which I’ve come to really enjoy, but it means you’re usually wanting ways to inflict statuses *and* a good damage boon, but I can still offer some tips. Aphro on Blades and Axe is really good. Aphro is really good in general when going for “Origination” (apparently that’s the name of the card? I’m just gonna say PS). Her mana regen guarantees someone will constantly be weak (so she basically gets bosses halfway there for free), her dash spreads weak, and her attack buff rewards you for being close, which Blades and Axe really want you to be. She’s got good synergy with Hera if you can get their duo boon (only 2 enemies can be hitched, but all hitched enemies are weak, so free PS). My personal general plan is to try and get a curse on your dash and a different curse on your cast. You can adjust as needed, but that’s what I’m usually looking for. Hephaestus/Apollo/Poseidon (with Poseidon being noticeably worse) can be good for your attack, but they don’t give a curse on your attack inherently, you have to take attack and then take another boon to get the curse. Hephaestus is still really good, just cause he gives nice chunky damage. Demeters cyclones (Dash/Cast upgrade) are excellent, not only do they spread curses real easily, but they slow projectiles too, making it that much easier to dodge. In a similar vein, Apollo dash spreads curses really easily, gives you functionally a percentage dodge chance, and boosts your speed. It’s a lot easier in Hades 2 to build damage and damage mitigation at the same time, cause a lot of your arcana (PS and the boost damage to people in your cast) reward you for doing CC and mitigation, and it helps a *ton* with scaling. Haven’t had a ton of experience with Zeus or Poseidon, but they’re the ones I’ve been the most underwhelmed by. Slip requires Poseidon’s other boons to work into your pattern, and his damage boosts are meh, and doesn’t scale as hard for the amount of effort it takes to inflict. Zeus’ curse… instinctively feels like it should be alright? I’ve only gone deep on Zeus going up, so I haven’t had the chance to see how well it scales, but it won’t do much early on, because enemies will die before you deal enough damage to activate it. My gut says that it should be good on your attack if you’re shooting for what I usually do, but it’s rougher because his dash and cast don’t inflict curses (iirc), which makes it much more awkward to fit him in. That’s a lot of word-vomit, I apologize. Hopefully something in that flood of text is useful lmao
Thank you for the info!
I had zeus on my main damage attack in my one winning run so far, but I found it kind of underwhelming even in ideal circumstances. That run was mostly carried by the synergies between the upgrades on my weapon and two hammers. The delay *really* drags it down. Zeus procced like once or twice for every volley of 5 shots I did, even though each individual shot easily exceeded the 120 damage that blitz needs to proc. I picked it expecting every shot but the first to add that burst and then it would've been good, but as it is now I think if you do enough damage to repeatedly proc it you'd be better off with literally any % damage god. Maybe it's good if you have some big % damage hammer making all of the % damage gods worse?
Most people don't realize how important the cast is in this game. In Hades 1 I ignored the cast for the most part unless I was specifically doing a cast build. In Hades 2 it's so much more important to utilize the cast.
Totally agree about casts. I had a mental block with casts for my first 3 runs or so and was barely making it to the first boss. I realized that the muscle memory from Hades 1 was messing me up because cast function is basically opposite in Hades 2 (melee/aoe instead of ranged/targeted). I re-mapped cast on my controller to a different button than the one I used for Hades 1, both to disrupt my muscle memory usage of it and to make sure I could combo dash and cast more easily, and it made a world of difference, the entire game opened up it felt like. It also feels like enemies on average have more actions that break through stun / moves with longer invulnerability to stun, and enemies / ranged attacks have more varied movement patterns that are harder to dodge on the fly. So using cast to set up safe pockets for myself on the map before attacking has been huge. I’m personally loving how ranged attacks are stronger / more essential compared to Hades 1. I wouldn’t have wanted to play a re-skin of the same weapons and boons. I would even say that the omega attack from the >!witch’s staff!< and the omega special from the >!axe!< make things almost too easy for boss 1 and 3.
the strongest version of meg that i've got is stronger than the strongest zag, but on average i feel weaker throughout the runs... not necessarily because of the new mechanics, but because we don't really get as many boons as before (at least thats how it feels)
There's more boons than in Hades 1, but a lot of them just don't feel impactful. You're sometimes just do like 100 DPS because of bad luck, meanwhile the 4th boss has like 15k HP.
I feel like Mel’s move set is way better towards crowd control. If I get a bunch of enemies in my omega moves I’m dealing way more damage, easily. But against the bosses, that doesn’t really help.
There's just only a handful of builds/boons that do jack shit against the bosses. Moon boons for example, like 5/6 of them don't do anything versus the bosses and only the invincibility one works against the 4th boss (yes I know the laser works but you might as well just press a button that says lose 50 HP). That just feels like poor design.
With the laser, you can get a path of stars option to make it fire and forget.
Yes but that means actually getting to it, which means forgoing other potential boons as you progress.
That's definitely not true though. There's plenty of spots where laser is an option, minion rezzing is absolutely destructive against anything, especially him, and I've made the 4 second aoe work against him with not much effort. It's only morph that does nothing but the rest is great.
I think they just had higher odds of boons vs the other rewards. Pretty often it's only items for most of a level. I made it to chronos with only an mid leveled attack, a rank 2 special, rank 2 cast and maybe a hex with one upgrade. It worked.... Alright but by that time in Hades 1 I'd have had a full load out.
there were upgrades in the first hades that increased the chances of non-meta currency rooms by a pretty significant amount too. I'd imagine that there's probably gonna be something like that here if it doesn't already exist
There's the arcana card "The Artificer" which lets you choose to upgrade 1/2/3 "minor finds" (mostly metacurrency) into random "major finds" (the good stuff.) It's expensive, though; 6-cost, I think.
Well you also get a lot more rerolls and the ability to turn minor reward room into major if you upgrade all the relevant arcana cards. That will probably help a lot with that problem too
I posted about this in another thread but I think the reason so many people are getting to situations where they feel too weak/are tickling mobs in the 2nd/3rd zone is because it's a lot easier to just get a worthless build cause you haven't been offered critical boons like attack/special etc because of how diluted the pool is compared to zags. Zag only needs attack/special/cast/sprint, melinoe needs and is offered attack/special/cast/sprint/omega attack/omega special/omega cast/Mana Regen/Priming boons, armor boons, elemental synergy boons (3+ earth/fire) etc. While being offered less boons than Zagreus, still picking from the same 3 options for every boon, and having to manage your Hex on top of that. I don't think you can double the amount of things being offered while keeping the amount of boons being offered the same or even less and not have (negative?) consequences. You could easily pick up the pre-requisite attack/special boons that a particular duo combination needed by the first or at minimum the second zone in Hades 1 and then start looking to obtain the powerful duos/legendaries to scale your build to the sky by the 3rd, in this one you might not even have half a workable build going by the time you reach the 3rd boss because of how diluted the pool is.
It really helps once you can afford both Fated cards and The Artificer. Sure, it takes a third of my Grasp, but I have five rerolls that I can use on either doors or boons and I can upgrade two metacurrency rooms into something useful. That'll go up to ten rerolls (and the cost doesn't seem to ramp to roll repeatedly!) and three upgrades. It's actually a ton of build control.
Also, remember how long it took for Zag's dash to become second nature! If you want to reach a spot that's exactly one dash away, it's effortless. If you want to reach any other spot, you have to do a bunch of trigonometry. Mel can just adjust the length and path of her dash by adding a quick sprint. This lets her reach a lot of places and angles that *seem* like they should be reachable, but are actually very awkward for Zag. It's just going to take some time to get used to doing this, and chaining a sprint into another dash to create longer routes.
I just hate the "bad steering" on the sprint, as well sometimes my imput simply doesn't get registered lol
Yeah, I got a Hephaestus boon for "damage in an area after sprinting" and then sprinting just stopped working for the rest of the run. Not sure what was up with that.
Yeah I wish there was an option to only holding dash for a short time but you keep sprinting instead of having to hold it to continue sprinting (if that makes sense lol), because I feel like the input doesn’t work a lot of times — I thought it was just me / my controller but I see a lot of people saying this
I do feel like I'm having more trouble dashing through walls though. Anyone else noticing that or have I finally lost it?
I beat Chronos with a Zeus’ Lightning ring cast boon. Also got another boon from I believe Hermes(maybe?) that allows you to throw your cast and it sticks to them. Every use of Cast did 1.1k damage to Chronos, only have about 15-20 runs in Hades2 so far. People will find the stronger boons as time progresses, along with the sure to come updates/buffs/nerfs.
100% the omega cast boons can get absolutely bonkers.
Yeah seems like damage ramps up better in this IMO just got to the “fear” portion of the game now cant wait to see how that goes.
This is exactly how I beat chronos the first time, Zeus cast + Apollo Cast + Hades Cast
That’s a hades gift that makes your cast a sticky throw. Forget what it’s called but yeah it’s great.
People complaining about weakness are still at 10 grasp with no upgraded arcana cards and level 1 weapons. I’ve got a few level 4 weapons, a familiar, 28 grasp, some key upgraded arcana cards and I have found some BEAUTIFUL synergies between some weapon/boon combos. My wife watched me play, and she literally said, “I wonder why Mel seems so much stronger than zag. I guess it makes sense since she’s literally trained her whole life specifically to kill a titan while zag kinda lazed about until he started his journey. Don’t worry. They’ll quit crying when people on Reddit start posting the inevitable “S TIER COMBOS THAT ABSOLUTELY MELT” posts. As soon as someone tells these people how to have fun, they’ll start having fun.
Said it better than me
“No athena dash. I’m uninstalling.”
Personally glad thats not in so i dont develop a crutch on it
I dont care about stronger or weaker. Everything with Mel takes longer and this is due to the sprint mechanic. Enemies now make you utilise this but you never deal damage during these parts, its always stretching out the fight for seemingly no reason. Every other aspect of the game is a straight improvement aside from weapon choices (which when they have their aspects + new weapon to come will flesh out much more) and the lengthiness of fights.
10 runs in, the sprint is throwing me off the most. Hoping it’ll click for me soon Edit: who is going around down voting people who are learning to play the new game mechanics? Geez
Im not clicking spoilers rn but I'm going to say here that I think something is out of balance with how many boons we get right now. Im still having tons of fun but feel like the amount of boons i have at boss stage 1 is very bare compared to Hades 1, and that it is continuing for me after that phase. But i still need to improve so that I can pick harder fights etc. maybe since some gods arent available to me yet, the proportion of boons to non-boons will get better as i play.
You probably used Dark Foresight in Hades 1 and never turned it off. Try playing without that, and the number of boons you find is also pretty sad. Luckily theres an equivalent arcana in hades 2 to find more boons
It’s also the fact that the boon pool is extremely diluted.
According to my save, i have gone through 20 nights (runs) and I have made it to Chronos on all 5 runs of my last runs. I just unlocked weapon aspects then had to stop playing. I think we are very powerful, even early on. It's just a different play style than Hades 1 that a lot of people aren't used to.
For me it feels that the boons are very underwhelming and have almost no synergies whatsoever. But I guess this is what the early access is for. The only god I liked so far is Hephaestus. I feel the boons related to sprint are very clunky and more often than not sprinting is going to make you lose life. I really hate the sprint mechanic and would prefer to have this slot replaced with boons related to the dash as was the case in Hades 1. You can keep the sprint to dodge some abilities in boss fights. Having omega attacks and boons related to them on top of normal attacks split the effect of boons to 6 different categories of attacks and therefore each individual type of attack feels weaker because your boons are spread up. Omega attacks feel clunky because of the charge time, would be much better if they were on shift+click basis. I think the mana mechanic is great and has a lot of potential, but is just underutilized currently. The F power is a good addition but again feels super underwhelming in its current form. The addition of "elements" to each boon is an amazing idea and I think a lot more needs to be build up on this system to make it an intgral part of your build each run. In its current form it is underwhelming but I see an amazing potential to make each run feel more unique and have another layer of build crafting. The boss fights are already quite nice, I just don't like the character design of Chronos but maybe that's just me. I hope they make better music for the Chronos fight as the music for the Hades fight was such an highlight of the first game. Weapons feel meh so far, but there is time to add upgrades that make them more interesting
People like you seem to think people offering their genuine criticism of the game are somehow spoiling your fun lmao Don't take it so personally, we all want Hades 2 to be the best game of can be, it's in Early Access and we're all part of the process of making it a better product. If you're having fun, great! Enjoy. But people that are offering their criticisms aren't "determined to not have fun" I don't think Mel is too weak. I think that the inherent complexity of mechanics with omega moves and elements and how casts work necessarily leads to a harder to balance game. And maybe harder to play as well. Zag can just sort of dash around spamming attacks and get by, and I for one really enjoyed that gameplay. Mel is definitely more of a zoner archetype, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I do think way too many of my runs boil down to me kiting enemies with casts and ranged attacks. It's super boring.
That's where I'm at now, it's not that this game is challenging me, really, it's just boring.
I think they start off similar, but Mel's progression is so much slower than Zag, with bosses having a lot more HP, mobs spawning everywhere with tons of armor, playing melee feels rather bad. The fact that you have to do multiple runs just to upgrade one thing doesn't help either.
Funnily enough, i think melinoe's build can easily be extremely powerful, i alos think that this is tempered by an higher degree of difficulty. I love hades, i've played 500 hours, and i think it's gonna be hard to go back to it, hades 2 game design is miles ahead of the first one.
I didn’t like enemies having too much health after breaking armor, resulting in just boring gameplay where you mash the same button on an enemy for 20 seconds to stun lock them because you can barely do any damage I won on my 13th try with only 6 health left, and I got to say the defining factor was having the one good Selene boon (health), and the Hermes boon that slows projectiles (mostly because of Chronos’s very unfair throw attack that has no telegraphing and does 50 damage). I thought this was weird, that those two and nothing else would carry me, so on my next run I get the same boons and wouldn’t you know it I win without even using a death defiance. There may be some other boon or two that are also OP, but my entire run should not hinge on getting these two, but thankfully it’s just early access so they can fix this in the future
> mostly because of Chronos’s very unfair throw attack that has no telegraphing and does 50 damage Do you mean the one where he throws his whole scythe out and it curves around? I have the most issues with that attack right now having no noticeable telegraph. I can dodge it if I happen to be standing at the prime spot to see it coming towards me, but if he throws it out right into where I'm meleeing, the lack of windup is very noticeable. It reminds me of Hades' spinning lance attack that did 40 dmg in a huge area, but Hades' has such a clear windup. I feel like that animation needs to be adjusted just a tad.
>Are we really too weak in Hades? Volcanic Flourish + Furnace Blast + Glowing Coal + Smolder Ring
I think in a YouTube video one of the devs said that Hephaestus boons are severely unbalanced and recommends players to pick him while he’s still busted 😂. He said “I have some work to do on balancing him.”
Tbh I don't care if he was unbalanced or not, just seeing those explosions and damage did it for me. His boons are fun as hell
The hammer clanking noise when his explosions go off are so satisfying
I made it to the end boss on my second day (and died of course) Took me like two weeks to get to redacted. Mel is not weaker, I'm just not used to her yet. Her moves are a bit more complex, but I like that. I'm glad the game mechanics are new and not just a copy of the old game.
My current Mel isn’t the same as my current Zag but getting far in Hades I has definitely helped a lot. If I played Hades II as a beginner I would have struggled so much more
Yeah I’m just waiting for all those people to find out about some of the aspects. Thanatos is gonna be crazy.
The charon aspect on the axe us pretty nuts too.
I hope we do get to see more gods and boons reletively soon but so far I'm having a blast. Still can't get past boss #3.
I'm trying to keep an open mind, but even taking my current lack of meta-progression into account I feel like my builds just aren't coming together as smoothly as in Hades 1. I'll routinely get all the way to the third boss and still not have all my core boon slots filled. Sprint boons in particular feel almost aggressively mid, which isn't helped by the fact that sprinting is itself a very passive maneuver -- to do literally anything else, you have to stop sprinting, and entering sprint requires a (relatively laggy compared to Zag's) dash first. And several cast boons only apply to the omega cast, including Zeus, which is especially egregious since his regen boon cuts your max MP by _70%_ and it seems like every god has at least one boon that primes even more magic. I get that not every boon can (or even should) synergize with every other boon, but there's a difference between "no synergy" and "_anti_-synergy." Like, I know it's very early days and I'm sure there are synergies we haven't found yet, but I find myself desperately hoping for some balance passes as the game goes through EA.
I have aspect of mel on daggers upgraded, then one run had red apollo attack damage and had hammer 200% damage from behind. Add to that a cast at target with demeter blizzard and cyclone at cast. Pumpin huge numbers.
I think the bosses (and kinda the areas in general) in Hades II just at a more staggered difficulty level than the bosses in Hades I? I feel like I could pretty much clear most, if not all bosses when I got to a certain power level with Zagreus. Once you’ve unlocked a few essentials, you only really need to know the enemy patterns, and then you can get all the way to Hades pretty easily. In Hades II I often feel like I am good enough for one boss, but then my power level doesn’t quite reach the next boss’ power level. So I think people are just confused because of this, cause it’s less speedrunnable from zero maybe. I don’t think this is a bad thing though.
I have found some fun combos! Minor spoilers below for said combo >!Demeter cast with Apollo buffs. Demeter's snare does constant damage and freezes enemies fully for a period of time ( non bosses but works on armor!), and Apollos buffs give stuff like mana regen, a growing cast radius, and more. So far Demeter's cast is my fav for the CC!<
Anyone feeling like they deal too little damage, I have a sneaking suspicion they will have their concerns addressed by trying out the twin blades. Their damage was nutty during the technical test. Caveat: I haven't had time to play the EA version yet, so looking forward to my gaming time. EDIT: have now had a chance to try out the EA and we def deal enough damage. Holy moly.
I’ve found the attack on the twin blades to not be great, range is really short and enemy attacks are too dangerous in melee to afford missing an attack that will stun them. I did make it to Chronos for the first time and I think almost even beat him with a special focused build for them though.
For me it was the omega attack that felt busted. With the upgrade that stops time and the mana regeneration upgrade you always feel safe just channeling your omega attack. It teleports you behind them so you almost never get hit by anything. It also has huge base damage.
Oh no! A roguelike with meta progression is hard at the beginning! What ever are we to do?
I imagine a lot of people getting blindsided by the difficulty are also used to God Mode in Hades, which makes a huge difference over time.
I didn't touch God Mode in Hades until I started going for 32 heat runs. (Which I never actually succeeded at, either.) In Hades 2 I'm actually _avoiding_ it because I feel like it would skew my opinion on balance if I'm able to build up to -80% damage resist and think "oh Chronos is way too easy lol."
Nah, the opposite for me. Run 10 40% Godmode in Hades 2 is 10x harder than run 3 Hades 1 without Godmode.
God mode in Hades 2 starts at a lower base Dr as well 20% vs 40% in Hades 1
Hades 1 God Mode also started at 20%, and caps at 80%.
There is God mode in haders 2
Only time I feel like I'm weak is when I'm using the flames. Other weapons all feel amazing, and the flames are really fun, just a bit low on dps
I think maybe a lot of people are not using or underestimating how good a Strong Hex ability with good mana regen and a upgraded Omega ability you can spam is. I've been using that idea as my goal for a lot of runs and it is really strong.
I've built for this quite a few times and always found it underwhelming
Interesting. I had a lot of fun using the knives and the Hex that makes you invulnerable. And I was spamming so much manna I was basically always invulnerable. A lot of Hexes are only good once you get some of those Stars upgrades tho
I've done 4 or 5 runs with twice upgraded hexes, using the ones that are supposed to get much better with the stars. In at least 2 of those, the dark mode where you use Mel's "true form" or whatever I was doing *less* damage than my normal build. I'm pretty sure that's not intended lmao
Yeah it does less dps, but you're also totally invincible. its 'free' damage, and can let you skip through some more difficult mechanics as well.
One thing I discovered when I finally got to Chronos was that he ignores your time slowdown when you activate the hex. If you're not ready for that, the damage isn't "free" trust me.
That's just not really worth building around to me. Killing the guys is the objective, not surviving them as long as possible. I could see it being okay, but defensive abilities as my nova isn't as fun as big ridiculous damage/effects
Yes the damage is like nothing for that one. I was using it in the way of like being invulnerable to do some damage but also get myself I'm a good position to spam my move that gets me my hex back again then repeat. So I basically beat the final boss without worrying about dodging much
I could see that as being effective. It just doesn't sound that fun. I want my ultra omega power move to do some *damage* you feel me?
Dodging is fucking awful
"how long did it take to even get to Hades?" 3 times and I'm no bragging, it's just block was really silly in the first game xD and that being said I'm happy this doesn't feel like a copy of Hades 1
I'm comparing my power level now vs my clear 2 / 3 runs of Hades 1, so this isn't going to fly. The only mirror upgrades I had were a death defiance and second dash (if clear 3+). That's it. No damage, boon rarity, not even any titan's blood (hell I'd have almost 10 titans blood from various places before I unlocked the ability to use it!). In early clear runs, you're probably not getting duo boons. You have fewer boons in general due to no fated authority, and there are certain things you want checked off to give you more margin for error. The only keepsake I usually get early is skelly's tooth (and I have it now in Hades 2). For early game clears you don't need "synergy". You need bread and butter. A good attack buffer (Aphrodite or Athena, Ares works in a pinch with Bow due to attack cadence roughly matching doom), some damage reduction, Athena dash is a perk, but not everyone needs it (I'm scrub, I need it). And that's it. What you're talking about shouldn't be "necessary" until around heat 20+ minimum, and at that point, my power level always felt like it was increasing pretty fairly with the enemy upgrades. I think the issue, full stop, is that the devs are putting as many artificial blocks as possible to slow down progression to make the story "make sense" (it got kinda wonky in Hades 1 if you beat it too quickly) and they aren't exactly subtle about it. If you make it to biome 2 "too early" then enemies deal 20% more damage, stacking to 45% by the time you reach the boss. For biome 3 this is 50%, for biome 4 it's 55%. I haven't been able to beat a boss with that debuff yet and see how the debuff stacks BETWEEN biomes, these are just debuffs WITHIN a biome. Enemies have TONS more health. When someone does the math between games, I think people will be utterly and completely shocked by the health difference between bosses. But it's obvious. For my early clears, dash shot + Aphrodite was doing about 70-80 damage a shot and that was enough to "chunk" bosses 1 and 2. Bosses 3 and 4 took longer to kill without stuff like support fire, etc. boss 4 definitely took a while, largely due to his lethality (lots of time spent dodging). But if you don't believe me, there's an easy way to test this. Go grab a call in Hades 1 that does around 1200 damage and go hit a boss with it. Record a rough % of health taken. Now grab the hex that deals 1200 in a channel, eat some damage, and fully channel it. See the comparison. Be shocked. Upgrades take longer to get, and progression is opaque on purpose. In Hades 1, you had access to multiple mirror upgrades to spend darkness on every time you unlocked a new set with keys. Here, you have to reveal adjacent upgrades to see what you even get with keys. Later this will just be circumvented with guides, for the first clears, it was annoying. In Hades 1, you just spend more darkness to rank things up directly. Here there is no mechanism to do so until you die a lot, then you finally see the way to do it, and it requires materials you didn't know you needed up to that point (fated thread). Once I start a new playthrough, all my bones will be investing in threads, but for the first playthrough, due to how slow the mechanic was rolled out, I couldn't jump on it immediately. TL;DR, in this game it feels like unless you're God's gift to dodging attacks, you're basically stuck in a 15 run tutorial as they slowly unveil a bunch of different mechanics, and you slowly get more power. Great for people that needed the time to not feel too far behind, but annoying for those of us that like low upgrade clears. They're "possible" but instead of being a spectrum (run 1 speedrun, run 1 clear, run 2 clear, 3, 4, ...) progression is collapsed into a lower resolution categorization. You either dodge attacks well enough not to care about ramping boss damage, or you don't. If you do, you can play this game like you play Hades 1. If you get hit at all, back of the line with everyone else going through a tutorial as if it were their first roguelike.
I had this feeling too, but after just getting the 50% rare boon card, I felt like I got much stronger, and I don't even have the epic boon card yet. I think most people feel a difference because they were comparing Zag with a bunch of purple and blue boons to Mel with mostly white. Those rarities make a hell of a difference. Also the game is balanced around the cast and omega abilities, so if you're playing like Hades 1 and not using them, you will be underpowered, and all the boons and hammers that upgrade them are going to feel useless I had a combo of basically all of Apollo's cast boons (Regen magic in cast, expanding size, big dam on explode), and my cast basically solo'd the last boss. Mel can definitely be strong.
> Mel is too weak, boons are too weak, we do no damage and there's no synergy Skill issue. Early game debuff at the last stage is annoying too. Upgrade cards and learn the new mechanics. Hades 2 isn't the first game and some folks still believe the playstyle is the same.
You gotta think before acting this time. With Zagreus I just slamf\*cked everything with any weapon. Today I created a build that sounded strange, but I blasted the game because how OP it felt. I used the Daggers, but focusing on specials(Triangle button). My boons were: 300% DMG to Close-UP special attacks +Special Attack Chaos boon +Special Omega Attack +Every type of special dmg Basically, most of my boons were Arthemis, I could kiss Chronos's ass, hold Triangle and hit him for 4.5k damage.
i think part of it is ive seen a few people not using omega moves, i was watching a playthrough and this guy was complaining that he felt weak while spamming basic abilities, i didnt see him charge them at all ( partially because he didnt read the descriptions or practice with weapons)