Board 8 > Hades 2 Early Access is out

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've stopped playing at the moment, I'm waiting till new animal familiars are added haha.

I want the dog and polecat OK?

It was really unnecessarily cruel of them to show them in the crossroads at the start just to make them vanish entirely when familiar recruitment opened up...

I knew it was gonna happen too. In the back of my mind I was like... they are totally gonna be gone when this opens up so that it makes you have to do the frog first.

As soon as it opened up I ran to where they normally sit and they were gone and I was like I KNEW IT!

I don't know what any other familiar can have that's better than +30 HP from the frog.

I know at least one (maybe only one) time I went through 5 DDs in the final battle - 3 regular, Luckier Tooth, and Toula's (the cat)... and I still managed to win in the end so that was pretty handy. Also like Toula doing the fishing instead, and the cat sound effects are on point.

that being said, I went back to taking Frinos out with me if only for him to tank the hex in the Hecate fight, looool

I knew those animals weren't gonna be a thing yet--they had no animations at all when you interacted with them

I may try to go for the statues. I can probably get the 8 heat one without too much effort, and maybe the 16 heat one is doable, but I dont think Ill ever get the 32 heat one.

Do you do something special to get Back Burner for Apollo or Spontaneous Combustion for Hestia? I haven't seen them offered, and they're not listed as the legendary boons in the list.

I was originally planning on waiting to the full release, but not being able to open this topic without fear of spoilers eventually wore down my resolve haha. I don't think there's really gonna be anything major past where I am now, so here I am.

I think my only major complaint so far is how anemic the weapons feel. A bunch of their power budget goes into the omega moves, so the basic stuff all feels weaker than I'd like. Some weapons feel like they need to be bolstered by a hammer before they feel good at all.

Everything else has felt pretty damn good. The tone is a bit more sombre, which is to be expected from the plot, but the voice acting is predictably great and there's just so much stuff to do.

Anagram posted...

Do you do something special to get Back Burner for Apollo or Spontaneous Combustion for Hestia? I haven't seen them offered, and they're not listed as the legendary boons in the list.

Damn you really need to unlock the cauldron spell that shows you this stuff, I just dont remember when the spell unlocks. Maybe after you've given the 2nd hectare to all the gods?

I found a wiki that claims Spontaneous combustion prereq is Flame Flourish (her special)

Back burner: not in apollo's boon list on this wiki so maybe not as good a wiki as I thought it was. A different site says it involves daze so probably a prereq of a daze ability

Going to google how to get cauldron spell to show you this stuff

Insight Into Offerings
2 Ambrosia, 2 Poppy, 1 Golden Apple
Reveals a complete list of Olympian Boons in the Book of Shadows.

No indication when it unlocks but Ambrosia and Golden Apple are more later game-ish items

I think back burner gives you backstab damage on dazed targets, so grab some daze

Thanks.

Game feels much better already than I think people are giving it credit for - I've only gotten to use the first two weapons but I enjoy them both, particularly the staff. Just had my sixth run ended and very nearly beat the first phase of Chronos with a burn/jolt build that got the duo crazy early, but I just didn't have enough HP to scrape through in all. Scylla feels like the Theseus/Asterius type wall here, which will probably cause a lot of problems to most players. The third boss is very straightforward but satisfying, and just beforehand I got the Chronos stage which was very fun. I'm happy with what there is so far even at this early stage. As long as there's a good heat system again, and even more content released later, I'll be delighted. Think I'll beat the final boss and then leave the rest until full release.

Have discovered that Chronos is immune to Selene's time slow ability, and mocks you for using it on him.

Isn't he also immune to the slowdown on your omega moves or am I imagining that?

Yeah, he's immune to anything that manipulates time. Anything.

Literally unpauses your game if you try to pause

Dunno if it was already posted but I just found out (2nd boss) if you have the revive enemy hex, you can use it in the Scylla boss fight to revive one of her sisters LOL

KommunistKoala posted...

Dunno if it was already posted but I just found out (2nd boss) if you have the revive enemy hex, you can use it in the Scylla boss fight to revive one of her sisters LOL

...ok my plan to not play the game more after my vacation is officially nullified, lol

Does she comment on it?

Anagram posted...

Does she comment on it?

Yea I got one quick line (the one between Roxy and her death line) unless that was from her entering the final phase but I don't think she has a line there?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/2aea6218.png

Trying to do the "beat Erebus in 5 minutes" challenge is maddening. I got Cerberus down to half health before failing.

I cannot for the life of me get Hermes' last boon. It feels like the legendary boon only shows up if you've exhausted all of his other boons. Even with the fear effect to remove the two unchosen boons each time, he just doesn't show up as often as the other gods, and his item doesn't summon his boons.

Original Hades had a mirror aspect that increased Legendary and Duo boon chances but the arcana just has a increased Duo boon chance, right? That probably also doesnt help.

I remember repeatedly grinding for the last Chaos one in the original which funnily enough functions the same as Hermes's. Sounds the same here, just gotta keep grinding and avoid taking the two that dont fall into the Legendary pre-requisite I guess... and the usual (bringing your re-rolls, going to every Charon shop opportunity) I guess.

Actually speaking of Chaos, maybe getting "any boons are +x% rare or better" from them might also help? Every little bit... I'll probably start trying for the last Hermes boon to see how it goes for me.

If you revive one of the sirens in their fight right at the end while using Judgement, you get an extra set of arcana. Accidentally made my first run with Judgement easier >_>. Only really was the equivalent of upgrading it once though, so oh well.

Anyone else need an absolute metric tonne more moondust?

All of the fear options now are for Chronos at 20 or 24. I can take him at 16 with any weapon, but 20 is giving me difficulty, and 24 might just be beyond me. I can't imagine doing it at 32.

Anagram posted...

All of the fear options now are for Chronos at 20 or 24. I can take him at 16 with any weapon, but 20 is giving me difficulty, and 24 might just be beyond me. I can't imagine doing it at 32.

I thought this too at the time but I dunno... practice makes perfect I guess, figuring out the combinations of your preferred playstyle, weapon aspects and vows for the run. unfortunately a fair bit of luck needed too, getting the right hammer(s) and pool of boons really makes all the difference.

I did my original 32 fear runs with the staff and yesterday I completed them with the axe. Early this evening I did 32 fear with the torches, I think I got lucky.

Staff strategy: Momus and praying you get Double Moonshot hammer, topping up HP when needed. Pretty sure in final fight I was running from one end of the area to the other, spamming omega special to get back up to 50%, lol. Poseidon special is also pretty nifty there.

Torch strategy: Hera attack and born gain, Encounters +60% since they all get hitched anyways so was able to clear rooms really well. Got lucky with some hammers and Apollo's extra hit chance.

Axe strategy: Charon, Apollo solar ring and just spamming the omega special-cast combo. Think I got the timer vow to 7 minutes for that one, just so easy to clear rooms. Getting the +50% dual curse is the tricky part there since Apollo's cast doesn't have one so you gotta have the Special + another source (Demeter cyclone or you gotta do more steps in attack/dash/sprint to get the other curse in...), I forget but I might have forgone that in the arcana.

Knives strategy was hoping to be Aspect of Pan and while I had a timer vow on the other 32 fear runs, I kept it off for them and put all the encounter and health stuff to max, so it was a grind. Got really unlucky in boons but still managed to get one hit away in the end... also was my first time using the arcana ability where you take less damage/deal more damage below 30% HP where I basically was the whole run. Last 2 regions the Moros charm was getting invoked literally every room... happened during part of final fight when boss was invincible so again, unlucky.

Overall another strategy for high-fear runs i had wanted to use but barely ever works out: jack up the "first hit +% damage" vow to max, and try to get the Heph "prime to enter every encounter with armor" ability, so the jacked-up first hit you take hits the armor rather than your health. Problem is if you go for Heph with your first boon he's inevitably offering you all the "main" boons so it never comes up as an option, then you just need to hope it does on your 2nd (or even 3rd) Heph boon and hopefully not take too much damage/lose DDs in meantime.

No idea what I'm going to do for skulls, think I gotta practice & learn Aspect of Medea which is apparently the best, though I just use Aspect of Melinoe right now. Very likely a no magic build and probably going for Zeus/priming everything.

ok won with the knives at 32 fear and ironically this time he was 1 hit away from killing me instead of vice versa, but I'll take it.

...and then went right into a practice skull run that led into a full 32 fear skull run, stopped for the night at entrance of 4th region, don't like my setup for multiple reasons (not enough health, no chain lightning, same curse on both attack and cast/gamble of starting with the Echo keepsake not paying off...) but maybe I can turn things around.

Another "fun" situation I ran into with tonight's playthroughs: out of nowhere I got offered the last of the Chaos "sin" boons for the prophecy and it is so ludicrous I can't believe they programmed this as an option. Ideally the benefit varies but for my case it was a +89% chance to get additional resources (big woop) and the sin part, "Barren", disables your arcana for eleven encounters. Couldn't believe that shit, got it in Oceanus and I think I only hit my 11th encounter like right before 3rd region guardian?? On the plus side they didn't disable your Death Defiances but yeah... if you're going to make me lose arcana I expect a better reward than double resources (which never even occurred the few times it came up in 4th region, ugh).

Also learned the "Prowess" and "Finesse" in the Chaos virtues are literally impossible to get at this point in time, based on people checking the game code. In case anybody else is trying to clear out their prophecies.

And I still haven't gotten Hermes' legendary one yet either, damn. Just that and the Hera duo boon left for me.

ok officially done with Hades II until the next substantial update, just like with original Hades I need to force myself to stop as I keep getting pulled into the gameplay loop, I really could keep doing it but I've maxed out almost everything and have a ludicrous pile of resources. I really put way too much into it... Steam says 169 hours, damn.

I did the 32 Fear skull run and went into it with the intention of cheesing it with the Phoenix Skin duo boon (HP restores so long as you don't deal or receive damage) and I did in 3rd region. So going into every new encounter with 100% health helped, and in the final boss once things got down to about half health there was a hefty sequence of running from one side of the area to the other, lol. Nowhere to hide phase 2 but good thing DDs exist.

Just love this game so much and look forward to seeing what else they do with it - and especially what they're going to do for the "post-game" loop, original Hades' logically made sense but given this game's circumstances... will be interesting to see!

Lastly (the reason I started playing it again after I said last time I was done, lol):

KommunistKoala posted...

Dunno if it was already posted but I just found out (2nd boss) if you have the revive enemy hex, you can use it in the Scylla boss fight to revive one of her sisters LOL

Did this and took some hilarious screenshots of the drummer still jamming while the area exit arrow's behind her, lol. Good stuff.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1145350/view/4191241567727414432

New patch

Umbral Flames (Eos): reworked; Omega Attack now fires a slow shot that occasionally creates damage blasts and also copies your Specials

what the fuck that isn't just a reworking, that is completely wiping out what it used to be before, my favourite flames aspect & overall 2nd favourite aspect. I know the flames are considered bottom tier weapon but come on, that is super shitty... why not save that "reworking" for when the weapons' 4th aspects get released?

Momus was broken before so not surprised to see it nerfed but again, not even nerfed, just completely gone.

Lots of good stuff in the update but man if Eos and Momus were too good you could at least keep them but just nerf them... will have to learn the Aspect of Moros on the flames next time I play, i guess. Glad they haven't touched Aspect of Charon either (...yet?)