Groups of enemies can easily be disrupted and knocked around by charging amidst them and throwing out a flurry of basic and dash attacks, plus bonus damage from bashing foes against walls and edges can add up quickly. If you enjoy having a handy portable metal wall to carry around with you and bully enemies into corners, the Shield is the choice for you. The Aspect of Achilles is considered a strong pick for its handy additional mobility options, but for builds that aim to boost the power of the Spear’s special attack (especially using the ‘Exploding Launcher’ and ‘Charged Skewer’ Hammer upgrades), the Aspect of Zagreus is the more optimal choice. The spear-throw special’s damage is lacklustre, and its charge-up spin attack too slow and risky to be consistently relied upon.īoons that deal per-attack damage bonuses, especially Zeus’ and to a lesser extent Dionysus, Ares and Demeter’s, will combine well with Hammer upgrades that grant additional attacks, such as ‘Flurry Jab’ and ‘Serrated Point’. Its saving grace is the long reach of its base and dash attacks, which will allow you to avoid most potential counterattacks by remaining just outside of their range. Unfortunately, the Spear is one of the weaker picks among Hades weapons, and feels slightly over-reliant on lucky boon or Hammer finds to achieve potential that even approaches alternative choices. Picking up the ‘Charged Volley’ Hammer upgrade will give you the means to unload volleys of arrows into weakened opponents at point-blank range for thousands of points of damage, making it extremely effective at destroying bosses. Dionysus, Poseidon or Ares’ cast abilities allow Zagreus to front-load a huge burst of damage into distant enemies – and if they’re clumped up, even better. Using the Aspect of Hera, finding cast boons that deal massive area-of-effect damage are a must.
The ‘Relentless Volley’ and ‘Concentrated Volley’ Daedalus Hammer upgrades will boost the special’s damage greatly, making them desirable finds on any Chiron bow build. With the Aspect of Chiron, boons that amplify the incredible special’s damage are natural picks, with Artemis’ ‘Deadly Flourish’ being a particularly strong pick thanks to the additional critical damage. The base bow is considered to be a relatively weak pick, but the Chiron and Hera Aspects present a variety of powerful options. The Bow presents a relatively safe option for Zagreus, allowing him to kite enemies toward him while peppering them with arrows at range. The Blade becomes practically unstoppable with the ‘Double Edge’ Daedalus Hammer upgrade, which causes dash strikes to hit twice, and amplifies each hit’s damage by 30%.Ī special mention goes to the Aspect of Poseidon, which is used in builds that rely on cast for damage, but almost never deal damage with the Blade itself. Boons from Athena, Aphrodite, Demeter, Poseidon, or Artemis that boost attack damage are a natural pick, and keep an eye out for boons from Chaos that raise the damage of dash attacks further still.
The superiority of the dash-dash-special combo synergises particularly well with the Blade’s Aspect of Nemesis, taking full advantage of its bonus to critical hit chance.