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Picking the Concave Stone in Oceanus could help with getting to the Legendary earlier, since you either get a boon that is required or you remove a non-required boon from the pool. Then you can follow up with the Hammer in Fields.
I think a good fix for this problem would be if the Omega Attack was always a parry when you started charging it, for all Blade aspects, not just when the recharge let it be a parry. The Aspect of Artemis could keep the 'crit machine on-parry' mechanic and the other Sister Blades would have the survivability they need. There could even be a slower wind up on the Arty parry to make it smoother. In general I've found a weird philosophy in Hades II of considering the game successful when the players have fewer toys rather than the enemies having stronger abilities. This is most manifest in Eris' artificial debuffs during early runs, but it's also present in updates like the one where they 'buffed' The Artificer by making half of Oceanus' rewards crappy materials or when they 'balanced' Echo by making it so the only good boons she gave out don't always appear rather than just giving her better rewards. I don't think there's anything in this game that's remotely comparable to the safety and power of Hera and Zagreus' Heart-Seeking Bow or Hestia's and Eris' Rail of Adamant from Hades I, even for aspects like Charon, Than and Medea (Medea itself being a weaker version of the Beowulf aspect in Hades I). Echo almost feels weaker than Narc in terms of consistent upgrades for the player and is easily worse than Patroclus (if she didn't give DDs I'd even argue she's weaker than Eurydice from the first game). The first game seemed to be built around the design philosophy that the base game is easy and accessible to new players, with difficulty being customizable and ending at brutally, near impossibly hard. It's possible it's just nostalgia goggles, but in Hades I I felt like I started weaker and then built towards becoming unstoppable by the end of the game, with the only ways to stop me being my own customization of the game via the Heat gauge. I liked that a lot better than the current idea of the gameplay being kind've underpowered and skewed towards denying the player flexibility, consistency and high tiers of build output in exchange for more grindy enemies and bosses with big hitboxes and short phases. I think this is most clear with the Heat/Fear system. I preferred playing Hades I with around 16 to 32 Heat because it let me buff the enemies to challenge myself, but I tend to play Hades II at 0-8 Fear because most of the Fear options involve denying the player gameplay instead of making the enemies tougher and more interesting. The Vow of Wandering is my favourite since it does something more dynamic with enemy layout, and sometimes I play with Revenants since it's a cool mechanic and idea even if it can be tedious sometimes. The speed, HP and damage buffs can be fun but are somewhat generic, and the rest is based around making the gameplay less flexible and interesting, which just strikes me as very strange considering only three or four of the sixteen Pacts did that in Hades I. I'd give trivia but this comment is long enough already, eheh.
Personally, I don't love Hades 1 as much as Hades 2. Maybe it's fatigue (the opposite of nostalgia in this case), but Hades 2 feels so much more fresh and all the options given are so much better and more balanced in most cases than Hades 1. The best I could do in Hades 1 was 16 heat, and would struggle with 32 heat, even with the best aspects, but I managed to do Hades 2 with 32 fear. First clear was Mel Sister Blades on the surface and Mel Axe underworld - like not even with the fancy aspects. What I like especially about Hades 2 over Hades 1 is the emphasis on positioning rather than dodging. There are seemingly more tactical options in the game design that just were not present in Hades 1 (but there were certainly inklings of it). The Dash in H2 isn't very spammable, but allows you to move faster, which means less i-frames, but allows for positioning yourself better, if the gameplay is designed around it (and it is). The Cast is a stationary circle that you can drop in the middle of enemies and run out, or you can lure the enemies into it so they slow down. It's wide enough that you could be fighting one enemy on one side, while keeping the others bogged down on the other. The game is also designed around overall using more of your specials + attacks and not just spamming the one thing that works™ as how it was in Hades 1 (dash-attack only sword, charged beowulf, bow special being pretty lackluster outside of Chiron all come to mind). Hades 2 seems to give the player much more tools to make use of things that would be kind of useless in Hades 1. Other tactical things include much better Environment tools to hit enemies with (trees do crazy damage, as well as the pressurised barrels), and combining them with the cast to position enemies where they're gonna take the most damage is very tactical. I literally never found myself attempting trap/environment kills in Hades 1, even though they were possible. The damage just wasn't there, and the enemies didn't lend themselves well to being kited/positioned in harms way. Also enemies have more interesting patterns to dodge now, like the gold bags firing a single beam, or the hourglasses leaving a timestop circle around themselves when they die (in addition to the spiral fireball they do). Let's look at the hammers too - so many of the hammers in Hades 1 are just awful and useless. Every weapon has 3 good hammers at BEST, but most have less than that, with some hammers actually being actively detrimental to a given playstyle. Contrast that with Hades 2 where every weapon has 2 bad hammers at WORST, and every hammer will be effective in some way. One of my favourite hammers is Flick Knives, as it allows the Special to actually serve a purpose in what is most likely an Attack-centric build. Now I'm not saying that there isn't a hierarchy of hammer upgrades in Hades 2, however unlike Hades 1, I've never felt like "ugh, it's _these_ hammers" and would just rather not pick anything if given the option. As for the Heat vs Fear system itself, I can't say I miss the Heat system, except Extreme Measures and mayyybe Calisthenics Program (miniboss upgrade). I'm sure we have EM coming in the 1.0 release once all the bosses are done (or maybe in some patch after 1.0), but all the other Pacts have an equivalent in Fear. I like that they moved Approval Process to a Chaos curse and Underworld Customs isn't possible cause we can't purge boons (which also makes sense story-wise I think). Overall, I think the way the gameplay is structured makes Mel feel stronger than Zag. I found myself struggling a lot to even get TO Megaera for the first time, but Hecate was cooked literally on my first run. I'm positive my experience in Hades 1 had something to do with the success, but I do believe the gameplay being slightly slower and more tactical did it a lot of good as well.
@@Boat3d 'less fun not necessarily more difficult' pretty much sums up my entire essay lol. I feel the same way about Eris debuffs, reduced major rewards in Oceanus and nerfing Echo's one strongest offer instead of buffing the others to be better.
The AoE increase from Apollo core boons is hard to evaluate mathematically, but I'd estimate it's way better than one might initially think. We all know Hitch is busted good, but simply hitting a an extra enemy or two means you're getting a large multiplicative increase, plus more staggers. Just wish Apollo had any form of extra hit in his kit for some barrier clear.
@@Boat3d Honestly, it's not even really rebuke so much as it is rebuke + bitterness + 5 minute Erebus (and specifically Erebus). Once you get a cast boon or static shock, you don't have to care anywhere near as much, but you can easily lose an entire minute you don't have to barriers before that happens. I honestly hate the 5 minute Erebus timer more than anything; it feels like you just lose runs entirely off having shop + Arachne together and not getting a skip despite picking non-menu rooms.
Def see a lot of underrating Apollos boons. The extra AoE is super helpful for all the aspects. Some weapons just dont hit as hard with some gods (axe and Hestia for example, hard to build up burn with a super slow weapon). Meanwhile Apollo is generally just good for all weapons. He may not hit as hard as Hera, whose room clear potential is bonkers, but Apollo has plenty of good boons (and I believe hes got some of the best duos in terms of raw power).
Boated, what do you think about Aphrodite boons that take enemy distance into account? Do you think those are too limited? Would you buff or alter them?
@@Boat3d You know the ins and outs of the game better than me, but idk if I like her attack and special on most weapons. I feel like the weapons give incentive to range and distance aka the opposite of her boons.
@@l.n.3372 depends on the weapon but she has the highest % attack as long as you are within that range which would be the goal if using her, if playing outside that range then yeah probably best to go with something else
@Boat3d I'll be honest, I never use torches or the skull so if those weapons are good with Aphro then I don't know. I mainly stick to Pan daggers, Charon axe, and the staff.
@@l.n.3372 the other dagger and axe builds are phenomenal with Aphro if Vow of Rebuke isn't on. She hits like a truck on, say, Aspect of Than, Artemis or Mel (blades and axe) and combos into herself with Secret Crush, Shameless Attitude, Heart Throbs and her Cast quite nicely.
lol ik u think the moonstone special block is busted, but ngl i think ur the only person good enough to use it as a block effectively enough to be good. Maybe its the mouse and keyboard percision tho
I highly agree moonstone block is only busted cause boated carries it with his skill... artemis block is actually the OP one cause its a 360 block and you can dash with it and you get a buff without needing a hammer. Basically on paper if artemis did have a CD it would be better in literally every regard casually xd
Picking the Concave Stone in Oceanus could help with getting to the Legendary earlier, since you either get a boon that is required or you remove a non-required boon from the pool. Then you can follow up with the Hammer in Fields.
If only I had it ranked up 😅
@@Boat3d 50 Fear keepsake leveling marathon when?
good point I didnt even consider that I wonder how it works with the vow that makes you forget boons offered
I think a good fix for this problem would be if the Omega Attack was always a parry when you started charging it, for all Blade aspects, not just when the recharge let it be a parry. The Aspect of Artemis could keep the 'crit machine on-parry' mechanic and the other Sister Blades would have the survivability they need. There could even be a slower wind up on the Arty parry to make it smoother. In general I've found a weird philosophy in Hades II of considering the game successful when the players have fewer toys rather than the enemies having stronger abilities.
This is most manifest in Eris' artificial debuffs during early runs, but it's also present in updates like the one where they 'buffed' The Artificer by making half of Oceanus' rewards crappy materials or when they 'balanced' Echo by making it so the only good boons she gave out don't always appear rather than just giving her better rewards. I don't think there's anything in this game that's remotely comparable to the safety and power of Hera and Zagreus' Heart-Seeking Bow or Hestia's and Eris' Rail of Adamant from Hades I, even for aspects like Charon, Than and Medea (Medea itself being a weaker version of the Beowulf aspect in Hades I). Echo almost feels weaker than Narc in terms of consistent upgrades for the player and is easily worse than Patroclus (if she didn't give DDs I'd even argue she's weaker than Eurydice from the first game).
The first game seemed to be built around the design philosophy that the base game is easy and accessible to new players, with difficulty being customizable and ending at brutally, near impossibly hard. It's possible it's just nostalgia goggles, but in Hades I I felt like I started weaker and then built towards becoming unstoppable by the end of the game, with the only ways to stop me being my own customization of the game via the Heat gauge. I liked that a lot better than the current idea of the gameplay being kind've underpowered and skewed towards denying the player flexibility, consistency and high tiers of build output in exchange for more grindy enemies and bosses with big hitboxes and short phases.
I think this is most clear with the Heat/Fear system. I preferred playing Hades I with around 16 to 32 Heat because it let me buff the enemies to challenge myself, but I tend to play Hades II at 0-8 Fear because most of the Fear options involve denying the player gameplay instead of making the enemies tougher and more interesting. The Vow of Wandering is my favourite since it does something more dynamic with enemy layout, and sometimes I play with Revenants since it's a cool mechanic and idea even if it can be tedious sometimes. The speed, HP and damage buffs can be fun but are somewhat generic, and the rest is based around making the gameplay less flexible and interesting, which just strikes me as very strange considering only three or four of the sixteen Pacts did that in Hades I.
I'd give trivia but this comment is long enough already, eheh.
Yeah a lot of the vows are trading fear for the game becoming less fun not neccesarily more difficult
Personally, I don't love Hades 1 as much as Hades 2. Maybe it's fatigue (the opposite of nostalgia in this case), but Hades 2 feels so much more fresh and all the options given are so much better and more balanced in most cases than Hades 1. The best I could do in Hades 1 was 16 heat, and would struggle with 32 heat, even with the best aspects, but I managed to do Hades 2 with 32 fear. First clear was Mel Sister Blades on the surface and Mel Axe underworld - like not even with the fancy aspects.
What I like especially about Hades 2 over Hades 1 is the emphasis on positioning rather than dodging. There are seemingly more tactical options in the game design that just were not present in Hades 1 (but there were certainly inklings of it). The Dash in H2 isn't very spammable, but allows you to move faster, which means less i-frames, but allows for positioning yourself better, if the gameplay is designed around it (and it is). The Cast is a stationary circle that you can drop in the middle of enemies and run out, or you can lure the enemies into it so they slow down. It's wide enough that you could be fighting one enemy on one side, while keeping the others bogged down on the other. The game is also designed around overall using more of your specials + attacks and not just spamming the one thing that works™ as how it was in Hades 1 (dash-attack only sword, charged beowulf, bow special being pretty lackluster outside of Chiron all come to mind). Hades 2 seems to give the player much more tools to make use of things that would be kind of useless in Hades 1.
Other tactical things include much better Environment tools to hit enemies with (trees do crazy damage, as well as the pressurised barrels), and combining them with the cast to position enemies where they're gonna take the most damage is very tactical. I literally never found myself attempting trap/environment kills in Hades 1, even though they were possible. The damage just wasn't there, and the enemies didn't lend themselves well to being kited/positioned in harms way. Also enemies have more interesting patterns to dodge now, like the gold bags firing a single beam, or the hourglasses leaving a timestop circle around themselves when they die (in addition to the spiral fireball they do).
Let's look at the hammers too - so many of the hammers in Hades 1 are just awful and useless. Every weapon has 3 good hammers at BEST, but most have less than that, with some hammers actually being actively detrimental to a given playstyle. Contrast that with Hades 2 where every weapon has 2 bad hammers at WORST, and every hammer will be effective in some way. One of my favourite hammers is Flick Knives, as it allows the Special to actually serve a purpose in what is most likely an Attack-centric build. Now I'm not saying that there isn't a hierarchy of hammer upgrades in Hades 2, however unlike Hades 1, I've never felt like "ugh, it's _these_ hammers" and would just rather not pick anything if given the option.
As for the Heat vs Fear system itself, I can't say I miss the Heat system, except Extreme Measures and mayyybe Calisthenics Program (miniboss upgrade). I'm sure we have EM coming in the 1.0 release once all the bosses are done (or maybe in some patch after 1.0), but all the other Pacts have an equivalent in Fear. I like that they moved Approval Process to a Chaos curse and Underworld Customs isn't possible cause we can't purge boons (which also makes sense story-wise I think).
Overall, I think the way the gameplay is structured makes Mel feel stronger than Zag. I found myself struggling a lot to even get TO Megaera for the first time, but Hecate was cooked literally on my first run. I'm positive my experience in Hades 1 had something to do with the success, but I do believe the gameplay being slightly slower and more tactical did it a lot of good as well.
@@Boat3d 'less fun not necessarily more difficult' pretty much sums up my entire essay lol. I feel the same way about Eris debuffs, reduced major rewards in Oceanus and nerfing Echo's one strongest offer instead of buffing the others to be better.
The AoE increase from Apollo core boons is hard to evaluate mathematically, but I'd estimate it's way better than one might initially think. We all know Hitch is busted good, but simply hitting a an extra enemy or two means you're getting a large multiplicative increase, plus more staggers. Just wish Apollo had any form of extra hit in his kit for some barrier clear.
Yeah the vow of rebuke just locks out so many fun options sadly
@@Boat3d Honestly, it's not even really rebuke so much as it is rebuke + bitterness + 5 minute Erebus (and specifically Erebus). Once you get a cast boon or static shock, you don't have to care anywhere near as much, but you can easily lose an entire minute you don't have to barriers before that happens. I honestly hate the 5 minute Erebus timer more than anything; it feels like you just lose runs entirely off having shop + Arachne together and not getting a skip despite picking non-menu rooms.
Maybe to make the daggers feel faster, they could give Mel a second Dash?
I’m down with that! really agree with any sort of defensive tool to add to them
Def see a lot of underrating Apollos boons. The extra AoE is super helpful for all the aspects. Some weapons just dont hit as hard with some gods (axe and Hestia for example, hard to build up burn with a super slow weapon). Meanwhile Apollo is generally just good for all weapons. He may not hit as hard as Hera, whose room clear potential is bonkers, but Apollo has plenty of good boons (and I believe hes got some of the best duos in terms of raw power).
Apollo would see a lot of play at high fear if it wasn’t for hera/hitch’s incredible barrier clear/extra damage it just trumps everything
U deserve way more subs brother
thanks !
Do you plan to do more 'X god only' vids? It's pretty fun to watch
Yes! As well as 1 element only runs they are a lot of fun 🤠
BASED AND PERFECTION-PILLED😎
So true, we love Apollo
lmao you sounded dead at the start of oceanus there.
sounds normal to me
Goated
thank you my friend
Boated, what do you think about Aphrodite boons that take enemy distance into account? Do you think those are too limited? Would you buff or alter them?
aphro boons are strong, once again just fall off at high fear due to the vow of rebuke sadly
@@Boat3d
You know the ins and outs of the game better than me, but idk if I like her attack and special on most weapons. I feel like the weapons give incentive to range and distance aka the opposite of her boons.
@@l.n.3372 depends on the weapon but she has the highest % attack as long as you are within that range which would be the goal if using her, if playing outside that range then yeah probably best to go with something else
@Boat3d
I'll be honest, I never use torches or the skull so if those weapons are good with Aphro then I don't know. I mainly stick to Pan daggers, Charon axe, and the staff.
@@l.n.3372 the other dagger and axe builds are phenomenal with Aphro if Vow of Rebuke isn't on. She hits like a truck on, say, Aspect of Than, Artemis or Mel (blades and axe) and combos into herself with Secret Crush, Shameless Attitude, Heart Throbs and her Cast quite nicely.
Is Apollo goated? Shall I say with the sauce?
He’s a lot of fun , I wish his legendary functioned with more omega set ups
Yesssssssssssss you really did it, bro you are a phenomenon
More on the way as well as 1 element only runs too (time to become an air bender)
@@Boat3d no wayyyyy
lol ik u think the moonstone special block is busted, but ngl i think ur the only person good enough to use it as a block effectively enough to be good. Maybe its the mouse and keyboard percision tho
Yeah, I love the idea of it but it feels a little over tuned imo, also wish other weapons had better secondary buttons to match it
I highly agree moonstone block is only busted cause boated carries it with his skill... artemis block is actually the OP one cause its a 360 block and you can dash with it and you get a buff without needing a hammer. Basically on paper if artemis did have a CD it would be better in literally every regard casually xd
Good video,
discord link not wokring.
Yeah it only lasts so long, I’ll refresh it! Thanks for the heads up