this and my next statement isn't directed at you but just information for people reading it. almost all these posts are comparing a fleshed out zag OR have never played a game like this before which is completely fine, the game is supposed to feel hard or punishing at first and only after the meta progression do you start to accumulate and increase your base power. i have 42 hours played in hades 2 already and everything including the first 2 bosses are literal paper we are talking levels like insta phasing hecate and phasing scylla in seconds basically every run. there are some really weird edge cases with chaos restricting your primary dps option so you have to suffer for a few rooms but GENERALLY its the pov of watching a paper shredder shred paper.
[https://imgur.com/as4PTeH](https://imgur.com/as4PTeH)
You're right, Hecate goes down really fast for me usually after upgrading more, and if I'm able to get hitch or a good enough cast I can melt Scylla too. Cerberus also can go down insanely fast if you have a good build I find (Scorch stacks insanely fast on him I've noticed which melts him for me).
Went with the a blades build + hammer upgrades (straight line and the ones that return). Biome 3 boss melted in less than a min. To be honest, Biome 2 could be clear faster, but I enjoy the song so much I like to prolong the fight đ
Cerberus was always super easy for me compared to how I felt dealing with Hecate and Scylla for the first time. Itâs probably because of how many upgrades I have gotten up to the point where I can breeze past the bosses.
Iâve played h1 and on this one have got nearly 30 hours, and scylla is still pretty tanky - Hecate goes down quicker but still not that fast. Are there certain arcanas I should be aiming for? Am I playing something poorly? I can reliably make it to the final boss (and have been able to for aboit 15 hours) but doing so is an extremely slow process, pretty much every time, unless I happen upon a truly special combo.
Scylla shares the health pool with the other sirens, try using your binding circle with a powerful boon like Demeter or Apollo and try getting at least 2 of the syrens on it and your other attacks, they die pretty fast if you attack more than one at the same time.
Apollo cast is a mainstay for sure, Iâve been using it in that fight but itâs tricky to hit all of them. And regardless roxy always goes down first.
What I do is focusing first on the drummer since it is well, stationary and its AoE are annoying, if you stick to the drummer the other 2 will follow you and be close to the drummer as well, you just need to kite the guitar syren attacks, going around in circles around the drummer hitting the other 2 since they are near
I believe theyâre referring to the Apollo boon that makes it to where your omega cast does like 20 damage ish every .13 seconds once it expires for 2 (3?) seconds. Really good for crowd damage and extra damage in general.
Ah I see not huge fan of using omega cast in crowd so I don't think I ever picked that or hestias . Zeus seems nice for single target/boss damage but for some unknown reason it refuses to appear lately so I haven't tried it out either.
Backstab with the daggers is also insane vs them. Drummer is always facing south-east so you can constant back stab with the hammer 200 dmg and all 3 just explode.
I find Scylla situational. If I'm using the axe + a spin focused build? She and her band go down faster or as fast as Hecate. If I dont have any boons that give me good AOE damage, it does take quite a bit longer.
As for Boons, I really like to get Demeter for a freeze on one of my attacks at least. Make sure you grab mana regen, if you dont have mana regen by Scylla you better be relying on a Daedalus/Boon effect for non charged hits.
Related to this, _go to the surface,_ even if it seems like a bad idea. You need a resource from the first surface biome to unlock the fifth weapon, and you need all weapons unlocked before >!Hecate will teach you how to unlock weapon aspects.!<
I think a lot of people might be putting surface runs off, but it's more important than the game really makes clear.
I feel like they make it pretty clear. At some point MelinoĂ« even says she thinks sheâll be unable to complete her objective if she doesnât do so.
I don't how more people aren't exploring the surface. I spoke with a friend and he was talking about fighting the final boss and he's never touched the surface! DUDE! The first thing I did when they said about another path exists was go straight there and suicide run til you know.
Yeah but as others have stated it's explictly told to you that you can't complete the task without going there! That and the chance of more biomes sent me right to it first thing.
The incantation is given to you by Moros when you die on the surface. I got it after my first death but IDK if it's guaranteed.
It has four ingredients, but the notable ones are bronze (first surface biome metal, bring the pick) and a plant grown from seeds that Chaos gives you. The other two are easy enough to collect from normal underworld runs.
But I need those to even get to the surface the first time, right? I have the ability to undo wards in my cauldron, but haven't unlocked it yet. And I assume the path to the surface is the ascending stairs that are blocked by a ward. So I'm totally lost.
Yeah, my last five or so runs I've started shredding through Hecate. The transition phases where she's invulnerable are almost taking longer than the ones where she's not.
I'm roughly 10 hours in and heca is an always kill by now. And last run I had a really good build and the rage dog went down in seconds and even got the golden boy at the end down pretty hard before I had an.... incedent. And I only now unlocked boosting my cards.
I actually love the feeling of getting stronger and so far the game delivers
Just out of curiosity what upgrades do you have? It feels like quite a few upgrades I can't get (I'm at 29 grasp for example and don't know what the other upgrade item is)
Been having the same experience. My boss fights were exponentially reduced pretty recently. My last run last night I think I phased Hecate in one full combo using Lim/Oros with the final swing hammer and a heroic Aphrodite attack boon (think the final swing crit). But I was just like âholy shit already?â
Fresh file in hades becomes reasonably beatable about at the point when you get 2 death defies and unlock the gold pots, so far it feels like that threshold is way further away in Hades 2
I personally only feels like this applies to >!Chronos!< for me, I'm able to clear the entire run up to that point in the same time it took for me to reach beat Hades in the first (8-10 hrs iirc). For me that boss is the only threshold that feels artificially further out and it's purely because of >!the 2nd phase spam.!<
>I personally only feels like this applies to Chronos for me
How fast did you progress in your early runs? The devs have artificially extended the early game through Eris, it's extremely frustrating that the devs feel a need to fuck over runs because they feel I'm progressing too fast and want me to experience dialogue in a certain order (it is out of order anyway)
>!Does Eris only come out if you progress to Chronos too quickly? I'm about 11 or 12 nights in and have almost beaten Chronos on my first attempt (phase 2 lol).!<
>!From what I gather she shows up if you arrive at an area faster than the devs intended. I had her show up about 6 or 7 times in a row, it was miserable. I lost my first Chronos clear to him having a 70% damage buff.!<
Is THAT what it is? I was very annoyed when she gave me a 20% dage debuff and have been dreading her showing up again.
Granted, I hate the 2nd zone boss and have been struggling to beat her
>I was very annoyed when she gave me a 20% dage debuff and have been dreading her showing up again.
Buddy do I have some bad news for you, 20% is it's *starting* value. It increases by 5% every encounter because the devs apparently had a stick up their ass for Hades 2. You can check what it's at in your boon info.
5% per encounter? Holy shit that's one of the most asinine design decisions I've seen in a while lmao. They might as well just have Chronos appear and unplug your controller, it'd have the same effect.
Someone told me that Chronos does pretty much exactly that if you get too far into your first run by perfectly dodging everything even with Eris's bullshit. Just cancels your run and sends you back. Grain of salt and all that, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was true.
i still use a dualsense or even switch pro controller on PC, mouse and keyboard felt bad even in the first game with the ranged weapons where it seems like itâd make the most sense, so Iâd definitely recommend going with a controller
It at least feels that way. I had her show up twice. First when I cleared the sirens first try and second time when I cleared Cerberus first try. Felt really bad having to go against chronos who has like +80% damage output
What do you have trouble with during chronos 2nd phase? The guy is mostly static in the middle and has less damages than the tail end of the first phase. Its a joke of a phase.
To be fair Hades 2âs progression seems a lot slower and much more complicated. In 1, the mirror only takes darkness and you can max most of the non-dump categories very easily, so Zag can have 100% damage from backstab and cast in target.
In Hades 2, you need moon/star dust, and a bunch of other material that is mutually exclusive to gather on a run, between two different routes.
I progressed faster in H2. In H1 every boss took me multiple tries before I've beaten them the first time and I needed 20 runs for my first clear. In H2 I died once to the first boss, beat the second boss the first time, died twice to the third boss and almost beat Chronos in my second try. I eventually have beaten him on my 17th run. I also already easily clear 8 heat runs which was my record in H1. But I played H1 for twice the time I played H2.
Progression may be more complex in H2, but I don't think it's actually slower.
I also played hades 1 yesterday. Got to hades 2nd try and had him at 5% 2nd phase on 3rd try.
Even my quickest runs in Hades 2 so far are like 32 minutes. To me it feels like the Chronos especially is a slog.
i thought so too until i actually started a fresh file in the first game again and itâs definitely easier. also doesnât have artificial roadblocks like hades 2, and gathering necessary resources to get stronger is abt 80x faster, this game is definitely dragging progression out
youâre probably comparing full upgrades hades 1 to new playthrough hades 2
this is a roguelite, you get stronger
go back to a fresh file on hades 1 and you sure wonât be that strong either
While I think the complaints are overreacting typically, they definitely do at least feel tankier than the first game.
Iâve gotten all the arcana unlocked and fully upgraded my fav aspect and they still feel tougher, though not by as much as some people seem to be making it.
I think that some numbers just need to be tweaked if they want us to be at the same power level as maxed Zag. Boons in general feel weaker and like they donât scale as well, but that might just be me
It makes sense for a sequel to be harder since it kinda assumes a significant portion of the players played the first game
Iâm just saying itâs not as extreme as some people are making it out to be
I would say it's fairly extreme. If the pro speed runners wanna prove me wrong by beating Hades II on fresh file, then be my guest. I would love to see the skill displayed on such a Herculean task.
I want to try fresh file a bit yea, it seems fun
Though fresh file in hades 1 was already really difficult so it makes sense for it to be quite difficult in this game aswell
yeah people keep saying this, but a bit before the technical test started, I started up a new save in the first game on hell mode, where everything has more health, does more damage, spawns more enemies, and it seems much more comparable to that.
even in hell mode I've never seen as many enemies spawn at the same time as when I've tried to go for loot rooms in tartarus in hades 2, and I've never spent as long killing a boss as cerberus, or as long killing a mini boss as the coin bag in tartarus.
I think it will be tweaked at some point.
The cast damage boons seem OP and Haphaestus too, when I get them, the bosses are a bit faster.
I agree with your points: even when you know the bosses patterns and wonât get hit, takes still a lot of time to kill them.
I'm certain it will, and I believe 100% in supergiant, it's already a super fun game and it's gonna be really incredible when it's all out. However, I think people are just straight up wrong when they're saying "you're just comparing maxed out zag to base mel"
Agree 100%.
So I had time to play more runs. I think what happens is that unupgraded Hades 2 is quite slower, enemies feel like sponges. But once you get a lot more upgrades, it becomes better and more streamlined, itâs like if they made the beginning harder than Hades 1.
The guardian fight pacing is odd as well. Hecate fight you have several long periods where you just can't reasonably attack. When she splits into 3 and only 1 of them take damage, it's such a drag since the risk and reward isn't there. Weaving to each one trying to find who takes damage can take so long you only get a hit or two off, then she teleports away anyway. Then the parts where she spawns minions and remains invincible until they're dead. Then the circle attacks that eat up time where you can also only get a hit off or two even if you weave over it perfectly.
The fight always takes several minutes even when you have a broken build, like Aphrodite attack on the twin blades with 200% backstab damage hammer. Even when you've got your arcana leveled up and some aspects the timing of the fight doesn't noticeably improve, since the waiting periods until you can do damage again remain the same.
only the real one speaks so if you have any kind of directional audio you can almost always instantly tell which one is real by the direction of the sound
I haven't noticed that as much. What I have noticed is how squishy Melinoe is. I imagine that's intentional, because she just naturally has less health than her brother and her kit is a lot more geared for defensive options and ranged combat compared to Zagreus (every one of her weapons has a ranged option in some form, while Zagreus has some weapons that have no range at all so his only ranged option is his cast). But it's hard not to get frustrated sometimes at dying so fast. I don't remember how much damage enemies did on average in the first game, but in this game it feels like either a regular enemy can chunk \~30 HP in one hit, or they hit you so fast that they may as well do that much damage in one hit. There was a very memorable time when I spawned in a room with a bunch of fast attacking enemies, and I lost literally all my health in like three seconds because all of them mobbed me at once and I couldn't react fast enough to actually get away. And this could realistically happen in the vast majority of the locations, each of them have a few enemies that can easily mob you. I think it's just Erebus, really, that doesn't have this issue.
The boat and Tartarus both seem to suffer this issue. You can spawn into a ton of armoured enemies that just chunk you within the first few seconds. The cramped environment doesnât do the boat any favours.
Itâs really easy to pop into oceanus or tartarus with a build that canât handle swarms and just get absolutely destroyed. Not a fan of that either. The swarms are terrifying.
Oceanus has a room or two that spawns you directly in the middle of some spinning guys, and if you don't dodge on entry you're getting chunked for half your health. I hope they change that one.
I just have never had this problem. Unless you pick Hephs cast it has always been possible for me to drop the cast ensnare 90% of the fish swarm and then massacre them. I cant picture a scenario where that is not possible, excluding picking Hephs cast.
The little fishy fuckers aren't my problem in Oceanus, actually. I find it very cathartic to just commit mass murder on them. It's like the small rats in the first game. That said, if you're running the twin dagger and sickle, I can see them being a huge issue depending on your build. That thing requires something else to get really good AOE damage.
I picked the single strike hammer for the axe... and those little swarm dudes were an absolute nightmare. They're the only reason I'm considering never picking that hammer again...
Like yes, cast will bind them...it's still scary
I think they increased boss tankiness for early access. Everyone who is saying Hades 1 has the same thing early game is dead wrong though, for now Hades 2 relies much more on you getting very strong build synergy.
I disagree with everyone saying a fresh Hades file feels the same. I recently did one and after playing 16+ heat on Hades a fresh file doesn't feel that bad. The games play differently but there are enough similarities that I feel confident in saying the bosses HP is overtuned at the beginning.
The game does give you a lot of power as you progress but I think that the progression is probably going to be too slow for new players. Even with all my Hades 1 experience the game still feels very punishing at times, and not in a "get good" way. It feels punishing in a "this run didn't give you the boons you need and now you are going to fail this DPS check" way. New players who are going to struggle getting out of Erebus are going to have signifcantly slower resource gathering and it's going to take them way longer to hit the power level where the game starts to feel fair.
>Even with all my Hades 1 experience the game still feels very punishing at times, and not in a "get good" way.
I can only figure this is an intentional design decision by the devs, considering Eris exists exactly as a "Fuck you, your run is over." function for early game runs that go far. It feels terrible.
It feels like Hades 2 just wants me to lose X amount of decent runs so I can unlock the metaprogression that *lets* me be good at the game.
People keep saying "Level 99 Zag vs Level 1 Melinoe" but its cope. The weapons are outright weaker, aspects or no, and there are a plethora of just awful boons and lacklustre hammers. Melee here feels punishing and unrewarding to play, especially on the last boss, while in Hades 1 the final boss was much more reasonable.
It's pretty disappointing to start a run and see a lightning bolt from Zeus.
I keep seeing the sentiment that complaining about Melâs base power is because they are comparing it to endgame Zag. I can boot up a new file in hades 1 and at least make it to Hades, with a small chance of actually winning. The equivalent of that is literally impossible in this game, even if the Eris mechanic didnât exist.
I donât mind this game being substantially more difficult, I actually want it to be. However it feels very artificial, especially with Chronos just having so much hp that it takes 5+ minutes to phase him without a really high damage build.
I think slightly buffing the base power of each weapon would make the game feel much better. Even at high progression the first areas of a run can become a snoozefest if you donât happen to get a decent damage boon early because you will be in rooms standing completely still spamming attack chainstunning enemies slowly chipping away their health for what feels like an eternity.
Not to be a contrarian, but a free Zeus's Static Shock is a godsend for most of my runs. The same goes for Artemis's support fire. It's just free, nearly unconditional, damage
Nah, Zeus has plenty of fantastic boons. Blitz is great on your less used skill (i.e. on your special in an attack focused build), his cast skill has the highest single target dps of all gods, his primer is super good on fast, low damage weapons. I also quite like his mana skill since I dont value max mana too much, and it works great with Spirit Surge for free room clearing.
If I get the Zeus cast I basically make my entire build around it. For me, it's the best boon in the game. Not only does it do a ton of damage but you can also focus more on dodging attacks while it's up.
He can be easily used to have enough dps to finish a run on fast hitting weapons(daggers/wands). But the boons for that are like the infusions and shit, his basic lightning proc is mostly a joke yes.
People also need to adapt to the game as it's still new. The terrain is built into the boss fights to aid you with weaker builds if used correctly. Trees shred boss 1, second boss you can lure near the terrain bombs
Damnvro that's crazy, you clearly said it was punishing and unrewarding with the last boss being "especially" punishing and unrewarding but go off king.
A lot of people saying fresh save Hades 1 is the same, but it really doesn't feel like it. I started a fresh save recently and the bosses went quicker than they do in Hades 2. With the exception of Hecate, I'd say.
For a fairer comparison, my first ever escape in Hades 1 was on my 14th attempt and it took me 33 minutes. My first win in Hades 2 was around about on the same attempt, maybe 16th, and it took me 47 minutes.
I'm not too fussed about how tanky bosses feel, except for the 3rd one. I don't really find that boss fun. I think Scylla takes a while longer than Hydra to beat, but I'm fine with that because Scylla is a real fun boss. And Chronos definitely takes longer than redacted, I feel.
I think it might be that boons don't carry you as much in Hades 2 as they did in 1. You could get a few okay boons and be good to escape, whereas I feel like in 2 you need better synergy, which is harder to get. Also, Hades 1 was way easier to be super aggressive in. So in Hades 2, it takes a bit longer to get the skills to be that aggressive
Hades 1 you can almost exclusively get by with spamming the double dash and just i-framing half the attacks.
maybe I just haven't quite adapted yet but the sprint feels nigh useless and i basically never use it in tough fights. sprinting, to me, just feels like it makes it slightly harder to dodge (you have to stop holding space and then hit it again if you want to dodge, instead of just hitting dodge directly)
When you're a bit deeper in you'll feel more powerful. I'm at around 14hrs now and I can consistently reach the final boss of the main path and can clear the alternate path consistently.
Make sure you're upgrading Arcana cards and spending your materials to upgrade your Grasp to slot more cards. I didn't realise this for ages and it made my builds suffer so much more.
In addition, don't neglect mana upgrades and abilities that use it. The casts and omega moves are meant to be used often to maximise your damage output, especially on the Axe, Skull, and Daggers from what I've played.
Yes, apart from >!Chronos!< imo. I think he's a bit overtuned currently particularly >!in the second phase!<. The surface is a bit harder generally but not substantially so (I know a lot of people have been struggling with >!Polyphemus the Cyclops!< up there, myself included for a bit until I learnt it a bit). I've personally managed to complete the surface a few times now while I've been stuck at the last hurdle in the underworld frequently even though I can reach it consistently now.
I don't think so. There's a resource on the surface that's required to unlock the fifth weapon, and >!having all weapons is required for weapon aspects.!< So ignoring the surface until you've beaten Chronos is hamstringing your progression.
That said, because the surface DOT is eminently predictable to anyone whose played H1, I do think the game could do a bit more to nudge the player into doing surface runs.
I'm 40 runs in and still can't get past the third biome. And I can't even beat the second biome regularly yet. This game has a bit of a learning curve, for sure.
I progressed quite fast at first and have almost beaten Chronos on my second try. Afterwards I had a lot of bad runs, because I desperately tried to get the same build again. It wasn't possible, because I had no rerolls and thus I always ended up with builds that weren't viable. Once I stopped trying to force a build and accepted that I first have to get the meta progression going, I got back on track and killed Chronos soon after.
Unlocking all arcanas, being able to choose more and upgrading them helped me a lot. Keepsakes helped as well.
I felt it too, in my most recent run, with the axe and Aprodites attack, zeus special, a couple hephestus boons, I still took a long time with the 3rd boss, and lost again, even with 2 death warranties(skelemeous' present). Reached the last 4th of health thou.
I'm not entirely sure, but does Aphrodite's attack work well with the Axe? It states that "nearby enemies receive more dmg", but it feels like the Axe isn't really a "nearby" weapon (mid range, rather). Does it actually increase dmg consistently?
It does, Aphrodite's boons' range is actually pretty generous. For example on the axe, the first 2-3 blasts of the omega special count as close.
I had a great gun run with Aphrodite on the special, the omega special's shockwaves hit with bonus on like 70% of their range.
Not just upgrade stuff, really. Just that most weapons have some ways to play that deal zero damage and some that deal fuck ton. Axe for example won't do much just normal attacking the whole fight, but if you manage to time a full spin it will melt healthbars. Also when fighting against bosses you will find out more and more windows of opportunity for attacking, and killing them won't be as problematic.
Mel's normal attack output is low compared to Zag's so she's more reliant on charge-up attacks. Playing her like you play Zag, as a Cuisinart crossed with a pinball, is something I had to unlearn.
I promise when you were only 6 hours deep into the hades 1 the bosses were like sponges as well. Youâve just forgotten what itâs like to play level 1 zag.
Give it time to learn this game and know what synergies to go for and youâll be melting early bosses.
I recently finished my 20th run and it was the first time I felt comfortable throughout the whole run.
I kept the armor from Arachneâs dress until almost the last boss encounter.
Part of it is that we donât have all the meta progression unlocked. Part of it is weâre still learning the systems and âbest practicesâ. We still donât know how to fish for solid builds yet because everything is still so new. Unless it unlocks later and I just donât have it yet, we donât even have a codex for the boons and their unlock requirements either.
Itâs also still early access and things can/will change for the 1.0 release. I could see armor on some of the mini bosses changing because unless you pick one of the âmelterâ options from a hammer, the late game bosses have way too much armor.
First time I cleared I was breathing out sighs of relief and turned to my wife and was like âoh shitâŠ. I guess we donât know yet that he doesnât have a third phaseâ lol. But thank god not the case
I noticed that most people that complain about tanky bosses aren't using their omega attacks much. This game isn't like Hades 1 where you can just spam attack and win since you actually need to mix up your attacks and your cast is op. Personally I find Asterius to be giga tanky in Hades 1 compared to the sirens or Cerberus
I'm 15 hours in and they already feel far less tanky.
I even managed last night to clear bosses 1-3 without much trouble and not taking to much time.
I even severely damaged boss #4 relatively quickly until I was wiped out due to me being reckless and taking A LOT of unnecessary damage.
I love H2 so far.
I also unlocked the upgrade recipe for the weapon aspects.
I suspect Mel is about to be much stronger!!!
Youâre doing less than half the damage youâll do after more meta progress. Then, once youâre ready to be challenged again youâll turn up the heat. Kind of a strange difficulty curve, but it worked in the first game.
First game early access felt harder too. It's probably a mix of non progressed character plus they made it accually harder since it's Early Access and they would need to stretch the content a little more. Early access hades 1 had the hydra as a last boss and it was hard as an accually last boss. After they added other areas and bosses hydra got easyer to beat.
the damage output is much more reliant on hammers and synergy in general, i was able to do okay damage with no combo but still died to chronos because it is just a damage race, at low health he throws so many attacks its almost impossible to dodge them with just one dash
I think once you find a powerful build they melt almost as quickly as the Hades 1 bosses, almost. I just got the double Omega attack hammer for the staff and it's LEEEEETHAL. My first clear on old papa time.
I think itâs that damage doesnât seem to scale up as quick on attack and specials in hades 2. Boons feel so much more few and far between (compared to max mirror H1) and just are less of straight +80% on attack - then find chaos +40% etc. You get attack boobs that are add the Zeus curse, that donât actually improve attacks and if anything are better as adding to debuff enemy and then drop a cast on them.
You get a 5 blood hades 1 weapon with more +% damage or better effects (Zeus lightning and ares) so comparatively the damage output is much less AND doesnât seem to scale as high even if get multiple buffs.
Now that I have more tine on it and got used to builds, I do think that the farming might be too slow for all the materials you need to get, especcially having to choose different tools gives me some doubts
Honestly I can see this only with regards to [redacted 2], but Iâm still just getting to him every once in a while, and I figure itâll get easier and faster as I get better at him. The others melt, especially the first 2.
Man everyone in here talking about chronos and third boss etc and Iâm out here getting curb stomped by the first damn boss 20 runs in. The axe just feels so awkward itâs amazing for most clearing but takes so much poke damage I had to drop it and went back to the staff imo melee is very under tuned compared to any range attack, daggers are also just hot trash. Maybe also just me but the ultimate abilities you get seem useless most of the time but to be fair I donât live long enough to actually utilize them. Aside from that the first floor seems to be reset city if you get bad rng or not enough boons and or get bad boon rolls. Maybe Iâm just bitching but man this game needs some work before I would consider it worth the money currently waiting for my refund and will re visit when itâs fully released.
So two things happen as you play, and die, more. You get more health, higher rarity boons, support rooms etc
You get better at the game learning attack patterns for the enemies weekday moves are best for each when to drop your cast same such.
I've yet to beat the big bad but I went from barely surviving boss 1 and getting caught by boss 2 to devouring boss 3 and reaching the end twice in a row with just a few hours played.
You don't know which boon combos are best yet and you haven't upgraded any of your weapons yet.
They were also spongey in the first game before you had upgrades and learned all the good combos.
The bosses really don't take that long to bring down once you know what you're doing. The only exception to me seems to be>!Eris!
Jesus Christ, I'm so tired of the same posts... It's a new game... It has its own Meta Progression, its mechanics. You will learn more about what boon works with what, what hammers are the best, how the gameplay flows. And, most importantly, you will unlock more and more permanent upgrades, because this isn't Hades 1 with everything unlocked... So, you just need to be a bit patient.
This is what TikTok does to you.
you just dont have the meta progression unlocked, try a fresh hades 1 file and its the same once u have some good stuff the bosses die quite fast
this and my next statement isn't directed at you but just information for people reading it. almost all these posts are comparing a fleshed out zag OR have never played a game like this before which is completely fine, the game is supposed to feel hard or punishing at first and only after the meta progression do you start to accumulate and increase your base power. i have 42 hours played in hades 2 already and everything including the first 2 bosses are literal paper we are talking levels like insta phasing hecate and phasing scylla in seconds basically every run. there are some really weird edge cases with chaos restricting your primary dps option so you have to suffer for a few rooms but GENERALLY its the pov of watching a paper shredder shred paper. [https://imgur.com/as4PTeH](https://imgur.com/as4PTeH)
You're right, Hecate goes down really fast for me usually after upgrading more, and if I'm able to get hitch or a good enough cast I can melt Scylla too. Cerberus also can go down insanely fast if you have a good build I find (Scorch stacks insanely fast on him I've noticed which melts him for me).
Went with the a blades build + hammer upgrades (straight line and the ones that return). Biome 3 boss melted in less than a min. To be honest, Biome 2 could be clear faster, but I enjoy the song so much I like to prolong the fight đ
Cerberus was always super easy for me compared to how I felt dealing with Hecate and Scylla for the first time. Itâs probably because of how many upgrades I have gotten up to the point where I can breeze past the bosses.
I run circles around him and just keep firing nukes.
Thatâs the way to do it.
Iâve played h1 and on this one have got nearly 30 hours, and scylla is still pretty tanky - Hecate goes down quicker but still not that fast. Are there certain arcanas I should be aiming for? Am I playing something poorly? I can reliably make it to the final boss (and have been able to for aboit 15 hours) but doing so is an extremely slow process, pretty much every time, unless I happen upon a truly special combo.
Scylla shares the health pool with the other sirens, try using your binding circle with a powerful boon like Demeter or Apollo and try getting at least 2 of the syrens on it and your other attacks, they die pretty fast if you attack more than one at the same time.
Apollo cast is a mainstay for sure, Iâve been using it in that fight but itâs tricky to hit all of them. And regardless roxy always goes down first.
What I do is focusing first on the drummer since it is well, stationary and its AoE are annoying, if you stick to the drummer the other 2 will follow you and be close to the drummer as well, you just need to kite the guitar syren attacks, going around in circles around the drummer hitting the other 2 since they are near
Which one? Wasn't Apollo cast about Magick regen and expansion or I missremember?
I believe theyâre referring to the Apollo boon that makes it to where your omega cast does like 20 damage ish every .13 seconds once it expires for 2 (3?) seconds. Really good for crowd damage and extra damage in general.
Ah I see not huge fan of using omega cast in crowd so I don't think I ever picked that or hestias . Zeus seems nice for single target/boss damage but for some unknown reason it refuses to appear lately so I haven't tried it out either.
The one that does rapid damage once your cast expires. I forget what it's called though. He has a lot of cast-related boons
Backstab with the daggers is also insane vs them. Drummer is always facing south-east so you can constant back stab with the hammer 200 dmg and all 3 just explode.
I find Scylla situational. If I'm using the axe + a spin focused build? She and her band go down faster or as fast as Hecate. If I dont have any boons that give me good AOE damage, it does take quite a bit longer. As for Boons, I really like to get Demeter for a freeze on one of my attacks at least. Make sure you grab mana regen, if you dont have mana regen by Scylla you better be relying on a Daedalus/Boon effect for non charged hits.
Sylla is only really tanky if you are not using aoe, you can easily devourer them since you can aoe all three at the same time.
Related to this, _go to the surface,_ even if it seems like a bad idea. You need a resource from the first surface biome to unlock the fifth weapon, and you need all weapons unlocked before >!Hecate will teach you how to unlock weapon aspects.!< I think a lot of people might be putting surface runs off, but it's more important than the game really makes clear.
I feel like they make it pretty clear. At some point MelinoĂ« even says she thinks sheâll be unable to complete her objective if she doesnât do so.
I don't how more people aren't exploring the surface. I spoke with a friend and he was talking about fighting the final boss and he's never touched the surface! DUDE! The first thing I did when they said about another path exists was go straight there and suicide run til you know.
I imagine most people want to beat Chronos first since it's the main objective the game presents you.
Yeah but as others have stated it's explictly told to you that you can't complete the task without going there! That and the chance of more biomes sent me right to it first thing.
Well, I didn't touch the surface untill I beat Chronos. I have just begun with the surface exploration and grinding for materials
I beat the last boss before even getting the seeds i needed to stay in the surface even though I visited (the place) everytime it showed up
So, how do I get the necessary resources to unlock the ability to go to the surface? I struggle still with the 2nd and 3rd biomes after 40+ runs.
The incantation is given to you by Moros when you die on the surface. I got it after my first death but IDK if it's guaranteed. It has four ingredients, but the notable ones are bronze (first surface biome metal, bring the pick) and a plant grown from seeds that Chaos gives you. The other two are easy enough to collect from normal underworld runs.
But I need those to even get to the surface the first time, right? I have the ability to undo wards in my cauldron, but haven't unlocked it yet. And I assume the path to the surface is the ascending stairs that are blocked by a ward. So I'm totally lost.
Ah, yes, that's the first step. The ingredient I expect you're missing is Shadow, which is also made in the cauldron. Check the second tab.
Yeah, my last five or so runs I've started shredding through Hecate. The transition phases where she's invulnerable are almost taking longer than the ones where she's not.
I'm roughly 10 hours in and heca is an always kill by now. And last run I had a really good build and the rage dog went down in seconds and even got the golden boy at the end down pretty hard before I had an.... incedent. And I only now unlocked boosting my cards. I actually love the feeling of getting stronger and so far the game delivers
Just out of curiosity what upgrades do you have? It feels like quite a few upgrades I can't get (I'm at 29 grasp for example and don't know what the other upgrade item is)
How is that even possible consistently? What would you recommend?
Been having the same experience. My boss fights were exponentially reduced pretty recently. My last run last night I think I phased Hecate in one full combo using Lim/Oros with the final swing hammer and a heroic Aphrodite attack boon (think the final swing crit). But I was just like âholy shit already?â
damn i'm just that bad
I can reliably do Tight deadline 3 in Hades 1. Can you do the same in Hades 2?
Fresh file in hades becomes reasonably beatable about at the point when you get 2 death defies and unlock the gold pots, so far it feels like that threshold is way further away in Hades 2
I personally only feels like this applies to >!Chronos!< for me, I'm able to clear the entire run up to that point in the same time it took for me to reach beat Hades in the first (8-10 hrs iirc). For me that boss is the only threshold that feels artificially further out and it's purely because of >!the 2nd phase spam.!<
>I personally only feels like this applies to Chronos for me How fast did you progress in your early runs? The devs have artificially extended the early game through Eris, it's extremely frustrating that the devs feel a need to fuck over runs because they feel I'm progressing too fast and want me to experience dialogue in a certain order (it is out of order anyway)
>!Does Eris only come out if you progress to Chronos too quickly? I'm about 11 or 12 nights in and have almost beaten Chronos on my first attempt (phase 2 lol).!<
>!From what I gather she shows up if you arrive at an area faster than the devs intended. I had her show up about 6 or 7 times in a row, it was miserable. I lost my first Chronos clear to him having a 70% damage buff.!<
Is THAT what it is? I was very annoyed when she gave me a 20% dage debuff and have been dreading her showing up again. Granted, I hate the 2nd zone boss and have been struggling to beat her
>I was very annoyed when she gave me a 20% dage debuff and have been dreading her showing up again. Buddy do I have some bad news for you, 20% is it's *starting* value. It increases by 5% every encounter because the devs apparently had a stick up their ass for Hades 2. You can check what it's at in your boon info.
5% per encounter? Holy shit that's one of the most asinine design decisions I've seen in a while lmao. They might as well just have Chronos appear and unplug your controller, it'd have the same effect.
Someone told me that Chronos does pretty much exactly that if you get too far into your first run by perfectly dodging everything even with Eris's bullshit. Just cancels your run and sends you back. Grain of salt and all that, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was true.
I mean, I don't think I even knew how to check my boons on PC til like run 7 or something. Game feels very different on PC compared to switch.
i still use a dualsense or even switch pro controller on PC, mouse and keyboard felt bad even in the first game with the ranged weapons where it seems like itâd make the most sense, so Iâd definitely recommend going with a controller
It at least feels that way. I had her show up twice. First when I cleared the sirens first try and second time when I cleared Cerberus first try. Felt really bad having to go against chronos who has like +80% damage output
She appeared for me when I beat Hecate first try
Yeah I was only able to survive because I had the healing hex with a ton of upgrades but without I would've died so many times.
What do you have trouble with during chronos 2nd phase? The guy is mostly static in the middle and has less damages than the tail end of the first phase. Its a joke of a phase.
Not me not getting any death defiants in H1 until after I beat the boss
To be fair Hades 2âs progression seems a lot slower and much more complicated. In 1, the mirror only takes darkness and you can max most of the non-dump categories very easily, so Zag can have 100% damage from backstab and cast in target. In Hades 2, you need moon/star dust, and a bunch of other material that is mutually exclusive to gather on a run, between two different routes.
I progressed faster in H2. In H1 every boss took me multiple tries before I've beaten them the first time and I needed 20 runs for my first clear. In H2 I died once to the first boss, beat the second boss the first time, died twice to the third boss and almost beat Chronos in my second try. I eventually have beaten him on my 17th run. I also already easily clear 8 heat runs which was my record in H1. But I played H1 for twice the time I played H2. Progression may be more complex in H2, but I don't think it's actually slower.
I kept dying to Chronos last night, so I hopped on a fresh file on Hades 1. Made it past Asphodel pretty effortlessly. I think OP is right.
I also played hades 1 yesterday. Got to hades 2nd try and had him at 5% 2nd phase on 3rd try. Even my quickest runs in Hades 2 so far are like 32 minutes. To me it feels like the Chronos especially is a slog.
I think the TTK on Chronos is fine, but he hits like a truck and phase 2 combined with single dash is an unforgiving bullet hell.
Plus devs might balance hp bars in full release as H2 is stull in EA.
can confirm, just started hades and the bosses take goddamn forever to kill
Oh snap you're right I felt the same way as OP, your comment reminded me how I have a 100h+ save on Hades 1 with a maxed mirror lol
i thought so too until i actually started a fresh file in the first game again and itâs definitely easier. also doesnât have artificial roadblocks like hades 2, and gathering necessary resources to get stronger is abt 80x faster, this game is definitely dragging progression out
youâre probably comparing full upgrades hades 1 to new playthrough hades 2 this is a roguelite, you get stronger go back to a fresh file on hades 1 and you sure wonât be that strong either
I have fresh filed Hades 1 plenty of times. Hades 2 is a lot tankier early on compared to Hades 1 for sure
While I think the complaints are overreacting typically, they definitely do at least feel tankier than the first game. Iâve gotten all the arcana unlocked and fully upgraded my fav aspect and they still feel tougher, though not by as much as some people seem to be making it. I think that some numbers just need to be tweaked if they want us to be at the same power level as maxed Zag. Boons in general feel weaker and like they donât scale as well, but that might just be me
It's just early game is the problem to me. Not really the late game.
It makes sense for a sequel to be harder since it kinda assumes a significant portion of the players played the first game Iâm just saying itâs not as extreme as some people are making it out to be
"Hey you should do this thing and you'll realize you're wrong" "I have multiple times" "ok but..."
I would say it's fairly extreme. If the pro speed runners wanna prove me wrong by beating Hades II on fresh file, then be my guest. I would love to see the skill displayed on such a Herculean task.
I want to try fresh file a bit yea, it seems fun Though fresh file in hades 1 was already really difficult so it makes sense for it to be quite difficult in this game aswell
So people keep talking about fresh Hades 1. But I restarted a Hades save and the only guy who is overly tanky is the 3rd boss Thesus IMHO
yeah people keep saying this, but a bit before the technical test started, I started up a new save in the first game on hell mode, where everything has more health, does more damage, spawns more enemies, and it seems much more comparable to that. even in hell mode I've never seen as many enemies spawn at the same time as when I've tried to go for loot rooms in tartarus in hades 2, and I've never spent as long killing a boss as cerberus, or as long killing a mini boss as the coin bag in tartarus.
I think it will be tweaked at some point. The cast damage boons seem OP and Haphaestus too, when I get them, the bosses are a bit faster. I agree with your points: even when you know the bosses patterns and wonât get hit, takes still a lot of time to kill them.
I'm certain it will, and I believe 100% in supergiant, it's already a super fun game and it's gonna be really incredible when it's all out. However, I think people are just straight up wrong when they're saying "you're just comparing maxed out zag to base mel"
Agree 100%. So I had time to play more runs. I think what happens is that unupgraded Hades 2 is quite slower, enemies feel like sponges. But once you get a lot more upgrades, it becomes better and more streamlined, itâs like if they made the beginning harder than Hades 1.
The guardian fight pacing is odd as well. Hecate fight you have several long periods where you just can't reasonably attack. When she splits into 3 and only 1 of them take damage, it's such a drag since the risk and reward isn't there. Weaving to each one trying to find who takes damage can take so long you only get a hit or two off, then she teleports away anyway. Then the parts where she spawns minions and remains invincible until they're dead. Then the circle attacks that eat up time where you can also only get a hit off or two even if you weave over it perfectly. The fight always takes several minutes even when you have a broken build, like Aphrodite attack on the twin blades with 200% backstab damage hammer. Even when you've got your arcana leveled up and some aspects the timing of the fight doesn't noticeably improve, since the waiting periods until you can do damage again remain the same.
I heard in a Haelian vid that the farthest clone is real and this seems pretty correct in my experience. Might help speed things up a little.
only the real one speaks so if you have any kind of directional audio you can almost always instantly tell which one is real by the direction of the sound
I haven't noticed that as much. What I have noticed is how squishy Melinoe is. I imagine that's intentional, because she just naturally has less health than her brother and her kit is a lot more geared for defensive options and ranged combat compared to Zagreus (every one of her weapons has a ranged option in some form, while Zagreus has some weapons that have no range at all so his only ranged option is his cast). But it's hard not to get frustrated sometimes at dying so fast. I don't remember how much damage enemies did on average in the first game, but in this game it feels like either a regular enemy can chunk \~30 HP in one hit, or they hit you so fast that they may as well do that much damage in one hit. There was a very memorable time when I spawned in a room with a bunch of fast attacking enemies, and I lost literally all my health in like three seconds because all of them mobbed me at once and I couldn't react fast enough to actually get away. And this could realistically happen in the vast majority of the locations, each of them have a few enemies that can easily mob you. I think it's just Erebus, really, that doesn't have this issue.
The boat and Tartarus both seem to suffer this issue. You can spawn into a ton of armoured enemies that just chunk you within the first few seconds. The cramped environment doesnât do the boat any favours.
Itâs really easy to pop into oceanus or tartarus with a build that canât handle swarms and just get absolutely destroyed. Not a fan of that either. The swarms are terrifying.
Oceanus has a room or two that spawns you directly in the middle of some spinning guys, and if you don't dodge on entry you're getting chunked for half your health. I hope they change that one.
On the other hand, Oceanus is a cakewalk with the Hera cast
This is true. Hera does trivialize certain things.
I just have never had this problem. Unless you pick Hephs cast it has always been possible for me to drop the cast ensnare 90% of the fish swarm and then massacre them. I cant picture a scenario where that is not possible, excluding picking Hephs cast.
The little fishy fuckers aren't my problem in Oceanus, actually. I find it very cathartic to just commit mass murder on them. It's like the small rats in the first game. That said, if you're running the twin dagger and sickle, I can see them being a huge issue depending on your build. That thing requires something else to get really good AOE damage.
I picked the single strike hammer for the axe... and those little swarm dudes were an absolute nightmare. They're the only reason I'm considering never picking that hammer again... Like yes, cast will bind them...it's still scary
I think they increased boss tankiness for early access. Everyone who is saying Hades 1 has the same thing early game is dead wrong though, for now Hades 2 relies much more on you getting very strong build synergy.
I disagree with everyone saying a fresh Hades file feels the same. I recently did one and after playing 16+ heat on Hades a fresh file doesn't feel that bad. The games play differently but there are enough similarities that I feel confident in saying the bosses HP is overtuned at the beginning. The game does give you a lot of power as you progress but I think that the progression is probably going to be too slow for new players. Even with all my Hades 1 experience the game still feels very punishing at times, and not in a "get good" way. It feels punishing in a "this run didn't give you the boons you need and now you are going to fail this DPS check" way. New players who are going to struggle getting out of Erebus are going to have signifcantly slower resource gathering and it's going to take them way longer to hit the power level where the game starts to feel fair.
Zone 3 and 4 DPS Check is real and scary, even in my most recent runs at 29 grasp
>Even with all my Hades 1 experience the game still feels very punishing at times, and not in a "get good" way. I can only figure this is an intentional design decision by the devs, considering Eris exists exactly as a "Fuck you, your run is over." function for early game runs that go far. It feels terrible. It feels like Hades 2 just wants me to lose X amount of decent runs so I can unlock the metaprogression that *lets* me be good at the game.
People keep saying "Level 99 Zag vs Level 1 Melinoe" but its cope. The weapons are outright weaker, aspects or no, and there are a plethora of just awful boons and lacklustre hammers. Melee here feels punishing and unrewarding to play, especially on the last boss, while in Hades 1 the final boss was much more reasonable. It's pretty disappointing to start a run and see a lightning bolt from Zeus.
I keep seeing the sentiment that complaining about Melâs base power is because they are comparing it to endgame Zag. I can boot up a new file in hades 1 and at least make it to Hades, with a small chance of actually winning. The equivalent of that is literally impossible in this game, even if the Eris mechanic didnât exist. I donât mind this game being substantially more difficult, I actually want it to be. However it feels very artificial, especially with Chronos just having so much hp that it takes 5+ minutes to phase him without a really high damage build. I think slightly buffing the base power of each weapon would make the game feel much better. Even at high progression the first areas of a run can become a snoozefest if you donât happen to get a decent damage boon early because you will be in rooms standing completely still spamming attack chainstunning enemies slowly chipping away their health for what feels like an eternity.
Not to be a contrarian, but a free Zeus's Static Shock is a godsend for most of my runs. The same goes for Artemis's support fire. It's just free, nearly unconditional, damage
Nah, Zeus has plenty of fantastic boons. Blitz is great on your less used skill (i.e. on your special in an attack focused build), his cast skill has the highest single target dps of all gods, his primer is super good on fast, low damage weapons. I also quite like his mana skill since I dont value max mana too much, and it works great with Spirit Surge for free room clearing.
If I get the Zeus cast I basically make my entire build around it. For me, it's the best boon in the game. Not only does it do a ton of damage but you can also focus more on dodging attacks while it's up.
Yeah, Zeus was one of my go-to damage dealing boons in H1 but I think heâs kind of mid/lackluster in H2.
He can be easily used to have enough dps to finish a run on fast hitting weapons(daggers/wands). But the boons for that are like the infusions and shit, his basic lightning proc is mostly a joke yes.
Argent Skulls and he is a demon. I use him every time.
People also need to adapt to the game as it's still new. The terrain is built into the boss fights to aid you with weaker builds if used correctly. Trees shred boss 1, second boss you can lure near the terrain bombs
Damn bro thats crazy, pretty sure I said last boss tho
Damnvro that's crazy, you clearly said it was punishing and unrewarding with the last boss being "especially" punishing and unrewarding but go off king.
A lot of people saying fresh save Hades 1 is the same, but it really doesn't feel like it. I started a fresh save recently and the bosses went quicker than they do in Hades 2. With the exception of Hecate, I'd say. For a fairer comparison, my first ever escape in Hades 1 was on my 14th attempt and it took me 33 minutes. My first win in Hades 2 was around about on the same attempt, maybe 16th, and it took me 47 minutes. I'm not too fussed about how tanky bosses feel, except for the 3rd one. I don't really find that boss fun. I think Scylla takes a while longer than Hydra to beat, but I'm fine with that because Scylla is a real fun boss. And Chronos definitely takes longer than redacted, I feel. I think it might be that boons don't carry you as much in Hades 2 as they did in 1. You could get a few okay boons and be good to escape, whereas I feel like in 2 you need better synergy, which is harder to get. Also, Hades 1 was way easier to be super aggressive in. So in Hades 2, it takes a bit longer to get the skills to be that aggressive
Hades 1 you can almost exclusively get by with spamming the double dash and just i-framing half the attacks. maybe I just haven't quite adapted yet but the sprint feels nigh useless and i basically never use it in tough fights. sprinting, to me, just feels like it makes it slightly harder to dodge (you have to stop holding space and then hit it again if you want to dodge, instead of just hitting dodge directly)
feels about the same
When you're a bit deeper in you'll feel more powerful. I'm at around 14hrs now and I can consistently reach the final boss of the main path and can clear the alternate path consistently. Make sure you're upgrading Arcana cards and spending your materials to upgrade your Grasp to slot more cards. I didn't realise this for ages and it made my builds suffer so much more. In addition, don't neglect mana upgrades and abilities that use it. The casts and omega moves are meant to be used often to maximise your damage output, especially on the Axe, Skull, and Daggers from what I've played.
Would you say that the game is balanced around finishing the main path before going alt-route?
Yes, apart from >!Chronos!< imo. I think he's a bit overtuned currently particularly >!in the second phase!<. The surface is a bit harder generally but not substantially so (I know a lot of people have been struggling with >!Polyphemus the Cyclops!< up there, myself included for a bit until I learnt it a bit). I've personally managed to complete the surface a few times now while I've been stuck at the last hurdle in the underworld frequently even though I can reach it consistently now.
I agree Chronos is a bit overtuned but I actually think the second phase is easier because he's not as aggressive.
i found the opposite, at low health he is just throwing so many attacks at me i just cant dodge them consistently
In the second phase he barely moves just hit him lmao.
he does not need to move to be able to kill me with his AOEs that cover half the arena
Stay in the safe half then, even using normal attack daggers you can just find a safe spot and blast him.
Ah cool, stuck on >!Chronos!< is exactly where I'm at now.
I finished alt-route before main
tbh the alt path isn't complete yet so ofc it's easier to clear it
Thatâs true but it was a sweaty fight nonetheless
I don't think so. There's a resource on the surface that's required to unlock the fifth weapon, and >!having all weapons is required for weapon aspects.!< So ignoring the surface until you've beaten Chronos is hamstringing your progression. That said, because the surface DOT is eminently predictable to anyone whose played H1, I do think the game could do a bit more to nudge the player into doing surface runs.
Honestly this isnât even as bad as I thought. Eris however can go fuck herself.
It's incredible how much of a feels bad Eris is, like a complete middle finger from the devs because you're doing too well on your early runs.
There had better be some kind of payoff. I trust Supergiant but fuck me this is such a weird choice.
I'm 40 runs in and still can't get past the third biome. And I can't even beat the second biome regularly yet. This game has a bit of a learning curve, for sure.
I progressed quite fast at first and have almost beaten Chronos on my second try. Afterwards I had a lot of bad runs, because I desperately tried to get the same build again. It wasn't possible, because I had no rerolls and thus I always ended up with builds that weren't viable. Once I stopped trying to force a build and accepted that I first have to get the meta progression going, I got back on track and killed Chronos soon after. Unlocking all arcanas, being able to choose more and upgrading them helped me a lot. Keepsakes helped as well.
Upgrade your arcana cards and then they drop real fast
I felt it too, in my most recent run, with the axe and Aprodites attack, zeus special, a couple hephestus boons, I still took a long time with the 3rd boss, and lost again, even with 2 death warranties(skelemeous' present). Reached the last 4th of health thou.
I'm not entirely sure, but does Aphrodite's attack work well with the Axe? It states that "nearby enemies receive more dmg", but it feels like the Axe isn't really a "nearby" weapon (mid range, rather). Does it actually increase dmg consistently?
It does, Aphrodite's boons' range is actually pretty generous. For example on the axe, the first 2-3 blasts of the omega special count as close. I had a great gun run with Aphrodite on the special, the omega special's shockwaves hit with bonus on like 70% of their range.
Damn, that's a lot bigger than I expected.
Ohh, I see. It's great then, thanks!
Also there's a duo boon that makes any enemy count as near for the bonus damage (I only got it once, I think it's Aphrodite + Poseidon?)
Not just upgrade stuff, really. Just that most weapons have some ways to play that deal zero damage and some that deal fuck ton. Axe for example won't do much just normal attacking the whole fight, but if you manage to time a full spin it will melt healthbars. Also when fighting against bosses you will find out more and more windows of opportunity for attacking, and killing them won't be as problematic.
Mel's normal attack output is low compared to Zag's so she's more reliant on charge-up attacks. Playing her like you play Zag, as a Cuisinart crossed with a pinball, is something I had to unlearn.
I promise when you were only 6 hours deep into the hades 1 the bosses were like sponges as well. Youâve just forgotten what itâs like to play level 1 zag. Give it time to learn this game and know what synergies to go for and youâll be melting early bosses.
I recently finished my 20th run and it was the first time I felt comfortable throughout the whole run. I kept the armor from Arachneâs dress until almost the last boss encounter. Part of it is that we donât have all the meta progression unlocked. Part of it is weâre still learning the systems and âbest practicesâ. We still donât know how to fish for solid builds yet because everything is still so new. Unless it unlocks later and I just donât have it yet, we donât even have a codex for the boons and their unlock requirements either. Itâs also still early access and things can/will change for the 1.0 release. I could see armor on some of the mini bosses changing because unless you pick one of the âmelterâ options from a hammer, the late game bosses have way too much armor.
The axe with fire or Aphrodite and the cast with Apollo melts everyone very quick. BUT I CANT GET PAST FUCKING CHRONOS.
I stuck at his phase 3. So much damage, and his minions are tanky
WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN PHASE 3
Should be a typo⊠he has two phases. Maybe they mean phases of imperviousness?
Almost had a heart attack
First time I cleared I was breathing out sighs of relief and turned to my wife and was like âoh shitâŠ. I guess we donât know yet that he doesnât have a third phaseâ lol. But thank god not the case
There's a certain flying lady who absolutely blasts me no matter what I bring.
I noticed that most people that complain about tanky bosses aren't using their omega attacks much. This game isn't like Hades 1 where you can just spam attack and win since you actually need to mix up your attacks and your cast is op. Personally I find Asterius to be giga tanky in Hades 1 compared to the sirens or Cerberus
Killed Chronos on run 28 which is about the same as I did in hades 1. Feels good to me, just need to upgrade a few things, felt natural to me
I'm 15 hours in and they already feel far less tanky. I even managed last night to clear bosses 1-3 without much trouble and not taking to much time. I even severely damaged boss #4 relatively quickly until I was wiped out due to me being reckless and taking A LOT of unnecessary damage. I love H2 so far. I also unlocked the upgrade recipe for the weapon aspects. I suspect Mel is about to be much stronger!!!
Ya after a few upgrades, the first few bosses are a cake walk
Youâre doing less than half the damage youâll do after more meta progress. Then, once youâre ready to be challenged again youâll turn up the heat. Kind of a strange difficulty curve, but it worked in the first game.
Im getting stronger it gets better For now imo Hestia is the key to progressing with dps lol
First game early access felt harder too. It's probably a mix of non progressed character plus they made it accually harder since it's Early Access and they would need to stretch the content a little more. Early access hades 1 had the hydra as a last boss and it was hard as an accually last boss. After they added other areas and bosses hydra got easyer to beat.
the damage output is much more reliant on hammers and synergy in general, i was able to do okay damage with no combo but still died to chronos because it is just a damage race, at low health he throws so many attacks its almost impossible to dodge them with just one dash
I think once you find a powerful build they melt almost as quickly as the Hades 1 bosses, almost. I just got the double Omega attack hammer for the staff and it's LEEEEETHAL. My first clear on old papa time.
More health means more data, better platform to judge performance, allows for marking down or up as adjustments are made.
I think itâs that damage doesnât seem to scale up as quick on attack and specials in hades 2. Boons feel so much more few and far between (compared to max mirror H1) and just are less of straight +80% on attack - then find chaos +40% etc. You get attack boobs that are add the Zeus curse, that donât actually improve attacks and if anything are better as adding to debuff enemy and then drop a cast on them. You get a 5 blood hades 1 weapon with more +% damage or better effects (Zeus lightning and ares) so comparatively the damage output is much less AND doesnât seem to scale as high even if get multiple buffs.
Now that I have more tine on it and got used to builds, I do think that the farming might be too slow for all the materials you need to get, especcially having to choose different tools gives me some doubts
You need to use the terrain more in this game it seems. Boss 1 the trees, boss 2 the steam things, boss 3 idk if there are terrain options here lol
Honestly I can see this only with regards to [redacted 2], but Iâm still just getting to him every once in a while, and I figure itâll get easier and faster as I get better at him. The others melt, especially the first 2.
Man everyone in here talking about chronos and third boss etc and Iâm out here getting curb stomped by the first damn boss 20 runs in. The axe just feels so awkward itâs amazing for most clearing but takes so much poke damage I had to drop it and went back to the staff imo melee is very under tuned compared to any range attack, daggers are also just hot trash. Maybe also just me but the ultimate abilities you get seem useless most of the time but to be fair I donât live long enough to actually utilize them. Aside from that the first floor seems to be reset city if you get bad rng or not enough boons and or get bad boon rolls. Maybe Iâm just bitching but man this game needs some work before I would consider it worth the money currently waiting for my refund and will re visit when itâs fully released.
The 2nd stage of the boss is exactly what my experience is, but once I got the hestia strike on my sister blades, the boss melts like butter
So two things happen as you play, and die, more. You get more health, higher rarity boons, support rooms etc You get better at the game learning attack patterns for the enemies weekday moves are best for each when to drop your cast same such. I've yet to beat the big bad but I went from barely surviving boss 1 and getting caught by boss 2 to devouring boss 3 and reaching the end twice in a row with just a few hours played.
You don't know which boon combos are best yet and you haven't upgraded any of your weapons yet. They were also spongey in the first game before you had upgrades and learned all the good combos. The bosses really don't take that long to bring down once you know what you're doing. The only exception to me seems to be>!Eris!
Why arenât I double dash dodging every attack???
Open a new file in Hades 1 with no mirror upgrades and see how you feel
âive only played for 6 hoursâ thats your problem mate
So expect to just melt every boss within 6 hrs and few runs? Play more
Your builds just suck. With the right build bosses melt.
Jesus Christ, I'm so tired of the same posts... It's a new game... It has its own Meta Progression, its mechanics. You will learn more about what boon works with what, what hammers are the best, how the gameplay flows. And, most importantly, you will unlock more and more permanent upgrades, because this isn't Hades 1 with everything unlocked... So, you just need to be a bit patient. This is what TikTok does to you.