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Build ideas and tips for all weapon aspects in “Hades”

96 min read
Published by Permalink
Table of contents
Revision history (last updated )
Added “All the Artemis” section; called out Targeting System explicitly; more details on Beowulf usage
Added Talos Blizzard Shot recipe
Added Nemesis + Divine Strike recipe; added more explicit need for Hunter’s Mark with Pressure Points; expanded on what makes Breaching Cross so good; added optimal damage rotations for Exploding Launcher and Zag Sword Merciful End
Corrected that Flood Flare does not trigger Sea Storm; clarified why AOE damage on Chiron w/ Zeus Special is useful
Fleshed out and reordered the Rama Shared Suffering recipes; clarified the priority of Attack-special-cast-dash boons
Added “Flat Damage Bonanza” build concept
Added Explosive Return with Dashing or Charged Flight combination; Add Guan-Yu Quick & Massive Spin combination; added more commentary on Poseidon to the Flat Damage Bonanza concept
Added links to in-depth Achilles and Hera speedrun build guides; added a link to my 57-heat clear
Added how to scale up attacks generally, “Splash Dash and Bash” strategy, a section on low-Blood aspects, and Tidal Dash start recipes for several aspects
Moved the generic scaling advice to its own “Stay flexible” section; added recommendation for Fated Authority for Zeus; reworded the Arthur hammers and added Tidal Dash start recipe
Added combat tips section; extended commentary on Achilles and Talos and Chiron and Hades; linked to my 50 Heat clear videos for Achilles and Talos; expanded how you scale up base damage with Artemis
Expanded commentary on Chaos Shield; added links to Chaos Shield and Zag Rail 50 Heat videos; added a tip about spawning baddies facing to the right
Reworded low-Titan Blood section to put less emphasis on hidden aspects, which are sneaky expensive
Tweaked the Zag Bow and Rama build recipes and hammer discussion
Added link to 50 Heat Zag Bow clear video
Added link to 40 Heat Demeter Fist clear video and linked to Nyaanyaa’s final boss guide
Added links to 50 Heat Zeus clear and Ananke’s Merciful End Fists guide
Added a section on Hammer & Hermes offers; fixed certainty of “core” boon offers; add Merciful End as an option for Chaos shield; clarify which aspects are good for Lots of Aphrodite; added a link to my latest 50 Heat Zag Spear video
Added sections on the Well and Companions; totally overhauled Gilgamesh section and linked to my 50 Heat Gilgamesh video
Linked to 50 Heat Poseidon + Smoldering Air video; overhauled Aspect of Poseidon section; combined the Aphrodite, Artemis, and Athena starts for Nemesis into a single recipe
Linked to Arthur 50 Heat video and my album of 50+ heat clears; tweaked the Arthur recipes
Dropped the hammer & Hermes section; tightened up the Well section; added videos for Zag blade and Eris
Added link to 50 Heat Rama & Demeter videos
Added link to faster Rama 50 Heat video; tweaked Bow hammer sections

Having trouble beating the final boss of Hades consistently? Some weapon aspects seem totally unusable? This is the guide for you.

Who is this for?

This is the guide that I wish existed when I was roughly at the midpoint of my Hades playing. Maybe this describes you?

  • You’ve cleared the final boss a couple of times
  • You realize you still have a ton more runs in your future to power up all of your tools and complete the various story threads.
  • When you get to Elysium or Styx, things feel hard still. You have a couple of aspects that you like, but when you get a clear, it feels like luck most of the time. You’re trying out other aspects, and some feel unworkable.

That’s where this guide comes in. I want to show you how to competently use each weapon aspect, and give you some build recipes you can lean on for consistent, repeatable clears.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

If you want to understand one key to success and get to playing, it’s this:

Slow attacks or specials want the boons that confer percentage-based increases: Aphrodite, Artemis, Athena, Demeter, and Poseidon. Fast attacks or specials want boons that add a new damage source: Zeus, Dionysus, or Ares.

Have fun!

If you read just one more thing, I recommend the section on controlling your build.

Why should you listen to me?

I love the heck out of this game and I’ve played it a ton. I’ve got untold hundreds of hours in and I’ve cleared 32+ heat with every weapon aspect (now 50 Heat with every aspect!) and I’ve cleared at 50 51 52 55 57 heat, so I know some things.

What are these build recipes?

An ideal build for me is one that…

  • Works with the core mechanics of the weapon aspect. There’s plenty of workable builds where you can ignore the weapon (cast duos, juiced-up Tidal Dash, hit-and-run with Doom, spam calls with Quick Favor or Smoldering Air). There’s nothing wrong with those! But you get a variety of weapons in this game for a reason, and all of them are potentially strong.
  • Works with a handful of common boons. You can force seeing gods with keepsakes, so there’s a good chance you can get a core boon from them. But after that, you might not see them again! Or you won’t get offered the duo you really need! It’s easy to say “just get Hunting Blades” but I don’t want to leave you high and dry if that doesn’t happen.
  • Doesn’t necessarily need a specific Daedalus Hammer. You might not get it! Of course, if a particular aspect and hammer combination is a spicy way to murder things, I’ll call those out.
  • Once the basics are in place, the build has a couple of different avenues to scale up in power.

Basically the quicker and more easily a build is effectively "online", the happier I am. Struggling through Elysium when your build isn’t effective yet or you have the ‘wrong’ hammers stinks.

Controlling your build

When you’re first starting out with Hades, you’re at the mercy of the game’s random number generator for the gods and boons you get offered. Because you should be experimenting with all the different combinations while you learn the ropes, this is for the best.

However, eventually you’ll want to tug the strings in your favor. Here’s how.

Use the god keepsakes early

Nearly all my build suggestions will tell you to start with a particular god (“Get Zeus on attack”) or class of god (“Get a god with a percentage-based attack boost”), so you’ll want to use the god keepsakes in Tartarus and probably Asphodel. The Tartarus god will be your primary damage source or one that you want to lock in, and the Asphodel god will be angling for a good complementary boon or trying to increase your odds for a duo or legendary if you already have the gods you want in your pool.

I hardly ever take a god keepsake into Elysium. At that point I’m typically either taking the Coin Purse or offensive keepsakes (Hourglass, Sigil, Earing) to scale up or using defensive keepsakes (Acorn, Spearpoint, Tooth) to tough out the final bosses.

Worth noting: in addition to the increased chance for rare or epic boons, god keepsakes also increase the odds you’ll get offered a duo or legendary from that god if you’re eligible.

Know the mechanics of the God pool

Three things to know: first, each run will try to keep you to 4 gods (not counting Chaos and Hermes). You can force more with keepsakes, but then you’ve got even more gods in the pool and you’ll be less likely to get any particular god later on. The takeaway is if you’re planning on forcing another god in Asphodel, try to take a maximum of 3 different gods in Tartarus.

Second, selling a boon does not remove the god from your pool, so that’s not an escape hatch.

Third, the game tries real hard to fill your “core” Attack-Special-Cast-Dash slots: you are nearly guaranteed to be offered one if a slot is empty. So if you’re fishing for tier 2 boons, duos, or legendaries you might want to fill those so you stop getting offered a cast you don’t care about. On the flip side, if you must have a core boon like Divine Dash: fill the Attack, Special, and Cast slots with whatever, then Athena will likely offer Divine Dash next time you see her.

Use Deep Pockets

With 100 free obols at the start, more often than not you’ll have 150 obols when you see the Tartarus shops, and that’s another early opportunity to get offered and lock in another god and get your build online that much quicker.

You can get more obols over time with Golden Touch, but I find the potential early control of your build much more valuable.

Use Family Favorite and don’t worry about it (mostly)

I used to be a Privileged Status nut, but over time I’ve changed my mind.

Once you have a full god pool and Hermes, the 25% from Family Favorite isn’t that far off from the 40% from Privileged Status, but Family Favorite is for everything all the time with zero work.

Take whatever god or boon you think is best or that fulfills a requirement for a duo/legendary and don’t worry about it needing a status effect to trigger Privileged Status.

That said, there’s some builds where your primary damage output is a status effect—like hangover or Doom—so going for Privileged Status isn’t particularly hard since you’re already halfway there. I’ll call those situations out.

Use Dark Foresight

This is an easy choice: more boons, poms, obols, and hearts means you’re more likely to clear the run. You’ll probably get your Hammers and Hermes faster. And you’ll get far more darkness, gems, and nectar from fishing, troves, and completing runs than you ever will from room rewards.

Max this ASAP and never turn it off.

Use your best judgment on Gods’ Pride vs Gods’ Legacy

Since I like potential Epic boons from Chaos and Hermes, most of the time I use Gods’ Pride. However, there are many builds where a specific duo (see: Merciful End) or legendary (see: Zeus or Aphrodite) is a run-winner, so, yeah, Gods’ Legacy is nice there.

Remember that regardless of choice, Chaos Favor boons, God keepsakes, miniboss rooms, Nectar from Eurydice, and Yarns of Ariadne will increase boon rarity and bump your chances for legendaries and duos.

Use Fated Persuasion

The ability to roll again for a key boon is too valuable. I could write an entire thesis on when to reroll, but I’ll leave it at this: I’d only roll for important boons, and only roll once unless it’s really, really important.

Always check Wells

Get in the habit of checking every Well. If there’s something useful and you have a little spare money, just buy it. Even a few rooms with your primary attack buffed with a Jerky or your health topped up will go down easier.

In between Biomes, check the Well before changing keepsakes; you might want to swap to the Bone Hourglass (or leave it equipped, use the Well, then swap) to extend the duration.

These are usually instant purchases for me:

  • Yarn of Ariadne if you’re looking for Duos or Legendaries. Or even just if Hermes is available or a Chaos gate is in the same room; rarity is everything with those two.
  • Nail of Talos any time after Tartarus. All those Lernie heads have armor! Armored Elysium and Styx baddies are terrifying, and some minibosses and Dad summons have an absurd amount of armor. You won’t often regret buying a Nail.
  • Stygian Shard just before or during Elysium: There are traps everywhere—including in Asterius’s miniboss room!—and they hit hard with a Shard equipped.
  • Night Spindles. You can probably think of an extra boss or miniboss that you’d like to nuke.

Stay flexible

Even with keepsakes and Dark Foresight and rerolls, there are no guarantees that you’ll get the exact boons you’re after. You can either hope that you’ll get ’em later, or you can work with what’s on offer.

To that end, here are some quick-and-dirty ways to find decent damage from all the gods:

  • Aphrodite: Add a few Poms. Seek out her tier-2 Weak boons (especially Sweet Surrender) and try for Unhealthy Fixation or add Zeus and a call and look for Smoldering Air.
  • Ares Blade Rifts: Add a few Poms. Seek out his tier-2s like Engulfing Vortex. If you have his cast, look for Artemis and Hunting Blades.
  • Ares Doom: A big Doom is rarely bad. Add several Poms and look for Impending Doom. Faster attacks also want Dire Misfortune. Look for global damage boosts. Merciful End stomps.
  • Artemis: Get Hunter’s Mark and Pom it lots. Add Chaos or Jerkies and look for Aphrodite to unlock Heart Rend.
  • Athena: Add a Pom or two. Play reckless aggressive and bank on Deflect for cover. Extra backstab damage from Blinding Flash can add up. Look for a big-damage cast, call, or dash to build up in parallel, or seek out Artemis to unlock Deadly Reversal.
  • Demeter: Add a Pom or two. Killing Freeze is sneaky powerful. Arctic Blast can add a damage burst if you have a fast-ish attack and don’t mind losing the Chill stacks. Her cast wants the duo with Artemis and Glacial Glare.
  • Dionysus Hangover: Hangover loves lots of Poms, global damage boosts, and duos with Aphrodite, Ares, or Artemis. Look for a call because Hangover ticks build the gauge quickly.
  • Dionysus Cast: Add Poms, additional cast damage, and global damage boosts. Look out for Zeus or Demeter for duos.
  • Poseidon: Poseidon is bad on attack unless you’re praying for Sea Storm. However, his special and cast are solid, his call is excellent, and his dash is arguably the best core boon in the game: throw some Poms on them and look for his tier-2 boons, especially Razor Shoals, Breaking Wave, and Wave Pounding.
  • Zeus: Seek out more Zeus for Static Discharge, Double Strike, and Splitting Bolt. Look for global damage boosts.

Some builds that will come up a lot

Flat Damage Bonanza

Get as many additional sources of damage as you can, then seek out “global” damage boosts to boost everything. For example, Billowing Strength giving +20% damage on only your weapon attack is fine, but it’s extraordinary when it’s boosting your attack and lightning bolts and hangover ticks and Tidal Dash.

Nab a few things from each column below, Pom the flat damage as much as you can, and it’ll probably work out.

SourceFlat damageGlobal damage boosts
DionysusHangover boonsStrong Drink, Black Out, Bad Influence
ZeusLightning boons, Static Discharge, Splitting BoltBillowing Strength
PoseidonDash, Breaking Wave, Razor Shoals, Sea Storm
AresDoom or Blade Rift boonsBlood Frenzy
AphroditeDashSweet Surrender
ArtemisSupport FirePressure Points, Hunter’s Mark
HermesRush Delivery, Bad News
DemeterSnow Burst, Killing FreezeRavenous Will
MirrorFamily Favorite, Privileged Status, Ruthless Reflex
AspectEris, Gilgamesh (Maim)
HammerExplosive Return (Shields)Ferocious Guard (Shields), Targeting System (Rails)
KeepsakeSigil of the Dead, Skull Earring

Poseidon will often feature prominently in these; Tidal Dash is a strong core boon to build around and anything can become a potent lightning bolt factory with Sea Storm.

Aphrodite and Artemis are great fourth gods with a ton of handy duos, especially with Dionysus. Pressure Points is most impactful when you have a bazillion sources of damage that could possibly crit, then Hunter’s Mark takes over.

Although I haven’t listed them in the table above, casts are another source of damage. The call gauge builds fast with lots of things doing damage, so get a call or try the Sigil.

This is my starting point for Chaos Shield, many of the Zagreus aspects, and Eris Rail.

Lots of Zeus

Many aspects, particularly those with faster attacks, can find a win through taking as much Zeus as you can get. All his attacks get more powerful with the Jolted status from Static Discharge, the bolts can add Double Strike for even more bolts, Billowing Strength boosts everything, and his legendary takes it completely over the top.

A Pom in Static Discharge or Double Strike is probably more valuable than another Pom in Lightning Strike or Thunder Flourish.

Lots of Rail, Fist, Spear, and Sword aspects can go this way, as can Zeus Shield or Rama Bow.

Despite my overall recommendation that you should use Fated Persuasion, Fated Authority can maybe get you more Zeus: use your rerolls primarily on miniboss rooms (they have a boon reward with a skull), as those can only be swapped to a different god (outside of Styx).

Lots of Aphrodite

For aspects that hit too slow for Zeus and have big base damage, lots of Aphrodite is a solid alternative. Aphrodite on attack or special confers both the largest percentage damage boosts and Weak status for built-in damage reduction, which is a strong combo. All of her tier 2 boons make Weak better, so you want all of those. Then that opens her legendary, Unhealthy Fixation. A 1-in-6 chance that that baddie you hit will stop attacking you for a while? You win.

Nemesis, Arthur, Guan-Yu, shields with Charged Shot, the bows, and Hestia come to mind here.

Zeus and Aphrodite Together

Opening with either Zeus or Aphrodite gets you halfway to unlocking their duo Smoldering Air. If you’re feeling like your build is a little weak, being able to spam Zeus, Dionysus, or Poseidon calls will fix that. Activating any call gives you a brief window of invulnerability, so it’s great for getting out of a jam. Permanently having the post-call buffs from Billowing Strength or Second Wind doesn’t hurt either. Watch me clear at 50 Heat with the Aspect of Poseidon (but mostly I lucked into an early Smoldering Air).

Cast builds

The cast-focused weapons (Poseidon, Achilles, Beowulf, Hera, Talos, maybe Eris) will share some similar patterns:

  • Pom your cast aggressively. Poms raise the base damage, which is more valuable than percentage increases.
  • Prioritize the Well: Braids of Atlas, Prometheus Stones, and Eris Bangles are cheap. Nearly all of my cast runs inevitably become Bone Hourglass runs to pile those on. Also, the Well might have a Light of Ixion…
  • Take Chaos: more casts or stronger casts are crazy strong. If you see a Light of Ixion between biomes, consider switching keepsakes to the Cosmic Egg to possibly get better rarity for a cast damage boon.
  • Look for Artemis and Poseidon: Mirage Shot is either nice to have or absolutely broken (with Beowulf). Fully Loaded from Artemis is obviously useful but it takes a bunch of boons to unlock, so don’t go too out of your way for it.
  • Look for Demeter: Snow Burst is very strong if you’re casting all the time. For Hera and Beowulf, Ravenous Will will boost all your casts if you load them all at once.
  • Look for Hermes: he has a couple of cast-specific boons that are handy, or you can try for Hyper Sprint + Rush Delivery. If you have everything else you want and you haven’t seen Hermes yet, using the Lambent Plume keepsake will unlock his cast-friendly legendaries.

Triple-A Goddesses

Artemis, Aphrodite, and Athena all play well together, especially for melee weapons. Put Athena on your primary attack or special. Put Artemis on cast, call, or the remaining attack/special slot to unlock Deadly Reversal. Now every time you deflect—which will be constantly because Athena is your main attack—you’ll get a brief window where everything you do has a 20% chance to crit, like Pressure Points on steroids. The Deadly Reversal window is a paltry 2 seconds, so melee weapons where you’re up close and attacking constantly take best advantage.

Add Aphrodite on dash or special to apply Weak—always welcome—and unlock Heart Rend to make those crits even more punishing. Ares or Poseidon dash are also nice with some poms and a chance to crit.

All the Artemis (and friends)

Artemis has great self-synergy and plays well with others. Put Artemis on your main damage source, get Hunter’s Mark and her other crit-boosting tier-2 boons, and throw as many Poms as you can into Hunter’s Mark. Pressure Points and Support Fire are free damage that can add up.

Look for ways to increase your damage both to boost the crits sky-high and even out the sad non-crits: use Shadow Presence and Blinding Flash from Athena for extra backstab damage, lodge bloodstones with Boiling Blood, and look for Chaos or Jerkies.

Getting Aphrodite and Heart Rend is a solid next step, but Artemis’s duos are mostly great so you can see what shows up and pivot accordingly.

Don’t sleep on Doom

Purely for damage, Doom is rarely a bad option, especially if offered at Rare or Epic levels.

For fast attacks, adding Dire Misfortune (Doom hits harder if you re-apply it before it drops) will beef the Doom drops quite a bit, making the whole drop potentially more powerful than zaps from Lightning Strike. That requires a second boon, which isn’t ideal, but it’s something to think about.

For slow attacks, Doom will likely exceed any percentage-based add because you can’t attack fast enough to make up the difference; adding poms or Impending Doom (Doom takes 45% longer but hits 60% harder) tilts that even more likely in Doom’s favor.

Of course all the (looks askance) other gods bring goodies to the table. And those are valuable! And there are a few aspects that hit so hard (Rama, Arthur) or have excellent hammers (Bows, Rail) that tilt the math back towards percentage-based boons and crits.

But, yeah, Doom hits hard.

Merciful End

Speaking of Doom, the path to this Ares + Athena duo is narrow and making the most of it is even harder, but it’s so powerful that I think it’s worth calling out. Here’s how it goes:

  1. Start with the Blood-Filled Vial and get Ares on either attack or special. Probably attack. Pom it as much as you can while it’s easy to do so.
  2. Get Athena on attack or special. Probably special. Now the duo is unlocked. Avoid unlocking other duos: don’t take Flood Shot (Curse of Drowning), True Shot or Artemis’ Aid (Deadly Reversal), Crush Shot (Curse of Longing), Dionysus’ Aid (Curse of Nausea), Demeter anywhere (Stubborn Roots), or—sneakiest of them all—Zeus anywhere if you’ve taken any “revenge” boon (Vengeful Mood).
  3. Get the duo. Now you can alternate attack and special to quickly trigger Doom. A reasonable damage boost! Let’s do better.
  4. Get Divine Dash. Now shit just got real. Dash-strike to apply Doom and immediately pop it. That is an insane damage boost and you have Divine Dash. You probably win at nearly any heat. Let’s do better.
  5. If you’re doing Privileged Status, get Blinding Flash. Now Doom is one status, Divine Dash will apply Exposed for the other, and your Doom drops got 40% more powerful. Let’s do better.
  6. Get Impending Doom. This is a free 60% damage boost because Doom will still pop immediately. Pom it if you can to take it over 80%. Let’s do better.
  7. Add Pressure Points. Now some of those Doom drops will be for like 1000–1500 damage when they crit. Let’s do better.
  8. Add Artemis on cast or call to unlock Deadly Reversal, then get it. Because all you’re doing is dash-striking, you’re deflecting constantly and triggering the buff, so critical Doom pops will happen all the time.

A juiced-up Doom with Divine Dash for extra protection can be enough for a clear, so you’re not helpless if you never get the duo. But you want the duo. Even if I don’t call it out specifically, Merciful End can work on any aspect.

Dionysus Duo Digging

People underestimate Dionysus. It’s not flashy, but baddies melt with full stacks of Hangover. Many weapons have no problem getting to the maximum 5 stacks, and nearly every weapon can get there quickly and maintain it if you’re mildly aggressive about it.

Hangover responds well to lots of Poms, and Dionysus has a ton of useful duos to scale things up:

  • Low Tolerance so you can lay on 8 stacks? More damage!
  • Curse of Nausea for faster ticks? More damage!
  • Splitting Headache for crit chance with each stack? More damage! This gets pretty bonkers with Hunter’s Mark and Pressure Points. Dio loves Artemis.
  • If you’ve already got Aphrodite and Artemis, Heart Rend will beef up those crits even more.

One trick with Dionysus is to have a single source of Hangover; stacks overwrite each other even if the most recent is weaker.

Hangover ticks fill the call gauge quickly, so prioritize adding a call or consider using the Sigil keepsake to get one.

Splash Dash and Bash

Many aspects focus on dash-strikes and can work with a variety of attack boons, so starting with Poseidon on dash is smart. Tidal Dash has excellent damage on its own and scales up nicely with Breaking Wave, Razor Shoals, Wave Pounding, more dashes from Hermes, and global damage boosts. Poms go on the dash and maybe Razor Shoals. Meanwhile, see what shows up for your attack and scale that in parallel. You’re in a good position to build around a big pile of flat damage sources.

The tricky part is dealing with the knockback; it can feel unpredictable at first, and you can’t practice on Skelly. I recommend that you intentionally pause between dashes instead of dashing as quickly as possible. Once you have a better feel for how you’ll knock baddies around, you can speed things up.

This works on many of the swords, spears, bows, fists (with Long Knuckle), and Zagreus shield.

A few combat tips

A complete guide to combat in Hades is beyond the scope of this article. Mastery comes from practicing, learning enemy movement and attack patterns, and dying a lot. That said, here’s a few things that were not immediately obvious to me that will help you die less often.

Dash through everything

The most important mechanic to master in the game is the dash. Many weapons do their best overall damage with dash-strikes. Practice and internalize the timing so you “know” how long to wait after dashing until you can dash again.

More importantly, when you dash (not a dash-strike!), you are invulnerable for the duration of the dash. (This also applies to dash-like moves like Achilles’ special rush or the Bull Rush on the shields.) Dash through projectiles, dash into expanding shock waves, dash over traps, dash straight through charging baddies. Dashing is the only reliable way to avoid damage if you’re caught in the middle of Boss Dad’s big circular swings.

Finally, the first mirror perk is Shadow Presence for a reason: the best way to deal with most baddies is to get behind them, and the best way to do that is to dash (or dash-strike, if they aren’t attacking) directly through them. Wail away while they’re forced to turn around.

Stay to the left of spawning baddies

Speaking of backstabs, when new baddies spawn in they nearly always enter facing towards the right-hand side of the screen. Stay to the left of the spawn animation so you can get some blows in before they can turn around to attack you.

The only exceptions to this are Pests, Bothers, and floating stones which have no single “face” and can’t be backstabbed anyway, Wringers that spawn facing down, and Vermin that have their own unique spawning animation. And be careful around small spawns in Elysium and Erebus Gates where exploding Flame Wheels are a possibility.

Attacks destroy projectiles

What if I told you that you don’t need Athena to dismantle the Witches Circle in Asphodel?

With rare exceptions, an attack or special that strikes a projectile will destroy that projectile. You can even stop Theseus’ or Extreme Measures Dad’s spear throw if you have the timing down. Think about the area that your weapon’s attacks cover: the sword special can clear projectiles all around you, or the bow can attack directly into oncoming fire or special to clear an arc. If you can’t dash away from a projectile, poking it out of existence is the next best thing.

Be careful with the witches in Elysium: their big projectiles spawn more projectiles, so you need a fast attack with some range like the Rail or Flurry Jab on the Spear to safely erase those with your attacks.

Calls grant brief invulnerability

For about half a second after triggering a call you can’t be hit. This is for any call—even if the call doesn’t inherently make you invulnerable like Athena or Ares—and for any level call. When I have a call and can build the gauge quickly (it’s biased towards many smaller hits), I play more aggressively because I can always trigger the call to get out of a pickle.

Obstacles are your friend

There are obstacles like columns, rocks, tables, gaps, or bushes in every room, and you have the advantage: you can dash through them while baddies have to go around, most baddie attacks can’t go through obstacles, and enemy tracking around them is not great. Stick close to corners and central obstacles to slow baddies down, have some cover, and direct their attacks away from you.

For example, the safest place to be in the final boss fight is near either of the two big rocks on the sides of the arena. You can dash across and Dad’s skulls will boink off the rock; he has to clumsily chase you down to spin or thrust (so you know either of those are what’s coming!); he can’t move forward with his big spin through a rock; and rocks block his lasers in the final phases. Good ol’ rock. Nothing beats that!

Save summons for bosses and minibosses

Once you have access to Companions, they can take a huge chunk of health off bosses and strip armor from minibosses. Most folks use Battie (Meg) because she’s nearly instant and hits hard in a huge area; here’s a guide for aiming and timing Battie that I found helpful.

Strong Low-level Aspects

Tight on Titan Blood? Once you have the aspects available, here are some that are strong at low levels:

  • Nemesis Blade: A 15% crit chance at level 1 is nothing to sneeze at, and it’s 1 Blood to unlock.
  • Poseidon Blade: Exit Wounds from Artemis can carry a run.
  • Achilles Spear: A 50% boost to casts is incredible for 1 Titan Blood.
  • Zeus Shield: Zeus on special is excellent, not reliant on the special’s base damage, and easy to get going.
  • Chiron Bow: Dionysus on special works fine at level 1. Relentless Volley can also cover for lower levels.
  • Hera Bow: This starts strong. Quick Reload from Hermes gets your stones back to you quicker. Or try Stygian Soul with Dionysus on cast.
  • Eris Rail: A global damage boost, even a 15% one, has lots of potential.

Alternatively, Zagreus Bow and Zagreus Fists are cheap and strong when maxed out, so you could use those to farm Blood for the other aspects.

When you’re unlocking the hidden aspects, the hidden blade and hidden shield are solid at level 1.

Stygian Blade

Aspect of Zagreus Blade

Winning combo

Lodge a bloodstone, then Special → Dash-strike(s) → Repeat. This can be tricky to aim, so practice on Skelly.

I find that mashing Dash + Attack together is more reliable for me than trying to dash, then attack. You don’t have to knock out both dashes as fast as possible; you can take a moment to change direction or switch targets or dash out of danger.

Don’t obsess over doing the special every possible time. Weave it in when you safely can for supplemental damage, AOE damage, and status effects, but the focus on dash-strikes is the important takeaway.

Because the basic combo uses attack, special, and dash, once you know how to scale core boons up, Zagreus Blade is the king of throwing random stuff into every slot and it still working out.

Avoid Thunder Dash: it’s bugged and you lose control of the direction of dash-strikes with it on the non-Arthur blades.

Hammers of note

Because you’re doing lots of dash-striking, Double Edge is the clear winner.

Breaching Slash works on dash-strikes, so it’s decent. Shadow Slash does not work on dash-strikes, sadly. Cruel Thrust also does not apply to dash-strikes even though the dash-strike looks an awful lot like the thrust in the basic combo.

Flurry Slash lets you hold down attack and tap dash to dash-strike (like the Fists) and makes it easy to stun-lock regular baddies. However, it makes so you dash-strike out of standing attacks and attack after a dash-strike, so that can be an adjustment.

Low Titan Blood?

The core mechanic is the same. Titan Blood only makes Flurry Slash a little more interesting.

Build recipes

  • Start with Poseidon on dash. Get a few Poms on Tidal Dash, grab whatever for attack and special, and look for Poseidon’s tier-2 boons like Breaking Wave and Razor Shoals. Also go for global damage boosts or power up your attack boon. Watch me clear at 40 Heat in less than 12 minutes with the Aspect of Zagreus Blade, Tidal Dash, and Rush Delivery.
  • Merciful End. Once you have the duo and Divine Dash, the ideal damage rotation is Dash-strike(s) → Attack → Special → Repeat.
  • Start with Dionysus attack. Add Aphrodite on special or dash for Privileged Status and to unlock their duo. Ares is also solid on Special or Dash. Poseidon Dash is also great. See Aspect of Zagreus blade with Dionysus attack, Tidal Dash, and Double Edge in action.
  • Start with Artemis on attack for a poor-man’s Nemesis Blade. Add Aphrodite on special or dash and go for Heart Rend and Hunter’s Mark. Poseidon dash is also solid.
  • Double Hammer-specific: If you can get Flurry Slash, then Cursed Slash—I would only take Cursed Slash if I already had Flurry—you can hold down attack and tank baddies as you hack away constantly restoring your health. Not quick for a deadline, but it can get you a clear. Aphrodite or Athena or Demeter on attack there are good for extra survivability. Zeus attack is good for damage, better with Splitting Bolt or Static Discharge. Swift Strike from Hermes is fun too.

Aspect of Nemesis Blade

Winning combo

Lodge a bloodstone, then Special → Dash-strike(s) → Repeat. This can be tricky to aim, so practice on Skelly.

I find that mashing Dash + Attack together is more reliable than trying to dash, then attack. You don’t have to slam out both dashes as fast as you possibly can; you can take a moment to change direction or switch targets or do a regular dash if you’ve dashed into danger.

Don’t obsess over doing the special every possible time. Weave it in when you safely can—Athena on special is rarely a bad take—to refresh the buff and for supplemental damage, AOE, and status effects, but the focus on dash-strikes is the important takeaway.

Because of the built-in crit chance, you want Artemis for her crit-enhancing boons, especially Hunter’s Mark.

Nemesis loves Chaos and Hermes. Chaos can scale you up with Attack, Dash-strike, or backstab boosts. Take more dashes from Hermes; Swift Flourish isn’t bad.

Avoid Thunder Dash: it’s bugged and you lose control of the direction of dash-strikes with it on the non-Arthur blades.

See the Aspect of Nemesis in action.

Hammers of note

The best hammer, by a mile, is Double Edge.

Breaching Slash works on dash-strikes, so it’s decent. Shadow Slash does not work on dash-strikes, sadly. Cruel Thrust also does not apply to dash-strikes even though the dash-strike looks an awful lot like the thrust in the basic combo.

World Splitter is a high-risk/high-reward choice; the hit box is fussy, but chonking out fairly rapid 600+ damage crits feels wonderful.

Low Titan Blood?

The basic combo is the same. The first level gives you a 15% crit chance, which is still great.

Build recipes

  • Start with any of Artemis, Aphrodite, or Athena on attack. Artemis is more crits; Aphrodite is big damage; Athena is big safety and you can dash-strike into baddies with more reckless abandon. Slot the other “A” goddesses where you can to unlock duos; Heart Rend and Deadly Reversal are very strong on a crit-happy aspect. Artemis or Poseidon on dash are ideal for damage but Aphrodite is also good. Look for more Artemis crit-enhancing boons and Chaos or jerkies for attack or dash-strike boosts. See the Aspect of Nemesis blade with Deadly Strike in action.
  • Start with Dionysus on attack. Double Edge makes getting hangover stacks trivial. Add Aphrodite on special or dash for Privileged Status. Ares on Special for Privileged Status is also spicy. Add Artemis support boons for more/better crits or slot her into a main slot for Splitting Headache or Heart Rend. Global damage boosts like Bad Influence or Rush Delivery or Billowing Strength or Sweet Surrender will let you double-dip and boost both your dash-strikes and the hangover ticks.
  • Start with Poseidon on dash, then see what shows up for your attack and build up Tidal Dash (Poms, Breaking Wave, Razor Shoals) and your attack in parallel. Hydraulic Might is nice to have.
  • Merciful End. The built-in crits from the aspect give you a fallback source of damage if you don’t get the duo.

Aspect of Poseidon Blade

Winning combo

Use Infernal Soul, throw out all your casts. Ideally this kills a lot of things. For beefier baddies, special to dislodge the stones, then dash or dash-strike to collect them. Repeat. If you can’t spot which baddie has your stones or you chucked them out over lava (it happens), don’t panic. Use the basic Special → Dash-strike(s) → Repeat combo until you have your casts back.

If you get a sticking cast, you want Exit Wounds from Artemis; this is the Exit Wounds aspect. Exit Wounds also gets you halfway to Artemis’s legendary for more bloodstones.

For non-sticking casts (Ares, Demeter, Dionysus), enjoy the free 50% damage boost. (But 👀 Achilles spear.)

Always check the Well for cheap, potent Braids of Atlas, Prometheus Stones, or Eris Bangles. Chaos and Hermes are your new best friends.

Be mindful of the thresholds for boss phases, especially Lernie. You don’t want to throw out all your casts, trigger the next phase, and then be unable to get your casts back because they’re stuck in the invulnerable main head. If you’re close to triggering a phase, stick to the melee combo or restrict yourself to firing one cast at a time.

Avoid Thunder Dash: it’s bugged and you lose control of the direction of dash-strikes with it on the non-Arthur blades.

Hammers of note

Because you need to special to free up the bloodstones, Super Nova (bigger range on the special) is great. Dash Nova can give you some additional mobility to catch a baddie for your stones. Double Edge is always good.

Low Titan Blood?

Exit Wounds is far more valuable. With weaker casts you’ll have fall back to the basic attack combo more often, so go a little more “balanced” between melee and casts than you otherwise might.

Build recipes

  • Start with Athena cast and Pom it aggressively. Add Zeus and go for Lightning Phalanx to have a bunch of pumped-up deflection balls bouncing all over the place. Adding Artemis and going for Deadly Reversal—Phalanx Shot deflects a ton—makes this pretty wild.
  • Start with Aphrodite cast. Pom it aggressively. This has short range but hits like a truck. And there’s no chance you’ll accidentally chuck it over lava. (I have a lava problem.) Snow Burst from Demeter is more close-range damage and an easy Privileged Status. Adding Athena in a core slot for Parting Shot can pay off if you can dart behind baddies and pull off cast backstabs. Or add Zeus and a call and look for Smoldering Air.
  • Start with Zeus cast. This is an interesting one. Zeus cast appears underwhelming by raw damage numbers, but it hits a bunch of targets and often doesn’t stick in targets, so you can pick it right back up and fire again. You’ll scale up with Static Discharge and Exit Wounds, and going for either Zeus or Artemis legendaries. Or get Aphrodite somewhere and go for Smoldering Air. Demeter for Snow Burst or Cold Fusion is nice to have.
  • Start with Artemis attack or Poseidon dash, then see what happens. It’s nice to be halfway to Mirage Shot immediately. Grab a cast that strikes your fancy. You can safely nab any sticking cast from other gods and then add Exit Wounds next time you see Artemis. Or snag Demeter or Ares on cast and go for Hunting Blades or Crystal Clarity. In between casts, you have a poor-man’s Nemesis aspect to fall back on.

Aspect of Arthur Blade

Winning combo

Unlike the other sword aspects, do the attack combo. The second and third swings have massive hit boxes (bigger than they look) and hit for 100 and 200 base damage respectively.

The big swings have a wind-up (Swift Strike from Hermes helps), but you can dash during it to get the attack out faster, and you can dash in between the swings to reposition or change direction and continue the combo. Practice this on Skelly.

Avoid dash-strikes except on weak baddies that you can one-hit (or two-hit with a second dash-strike or the first stab in the attack combo) so you can get to the big swings faster.

Ignore the special for damage, but always drop the special aura: it protects you from traps, so you can safely hang around bombs or lava. Even if you’re not standing in it, kite baddies through it to slow them down, and the baddie AI gets kinda weird in and around the aura; some baddies seem to stutter and stop attacking. Swing away, Merill!

Hammers of note

Shadow Slash is a huge damage boost when you can pull off a backstab with the attack combo.

If you see Double Edge, consider switching to only dash-strikes. They’ll do plenty of damage and it’s safer and easier than going for the big swings, although you’re covering way less area. Watch me clear at 50 Heat with the Aspect of Arthur and Double Edge.

Arthur-exclusive Greater Consecration makes the special aura bigger and better.

Breaching Slash is fine.

Low Titan Blood?

The core mechanics and damage are the same. This is a great low-blood aspect.

Build recipes

  • Start with Athena on attack. With a solid damage boost and giant arc of deflection as you swing, that’s a good basis for a win. Add Artemis on special, cast, or call and go for Deadly Reversal or Pressure Points & Hunter’s Mark so you can pull off some monstrous crits. Add Aphrodite on dash and go for Heart Rend to make those crits silly. See Arthur with Divine Strike in action.
  • Start with Aphrodite on attack. This is also enough for a clear between the damage reduction from Weak, the aspect’s built-in HP boost, and Heartbreak Strike’s damage boost. If you get Unhealthy Fixation, it’s an easy win. Look for evasion from Hermes for crazy-high effective HP.
  • Start with Demeter on attack. The damage is good and Chill is great. Chilled and aura-slowed baddies are even easier to backstab if you have Shadow Presence or Shadow Slash.
  • Start with Poseidon on dash, then grab whichever big percentage boost for your attack shows up soon. You’ll be doing damage as you reposition between attacks, and knocking back baddies can give you breathing room for the big swings. However, you might whiff on the first stabs and dash-strikes. Aphrodite on dash is a weaker (hah!) alternative if you can’t manage Poseidon’s knockback.
  • Arthur is a viable aspect for a Shattered Shackle run. 100% bonus on attack is hard to top.

Eternal Spear

Aspect of Zagreus Spear

This is probably the most underwhelming aspect in the game.

Winning combo

The spear has surprisingly long straight-ahead range. Try to kite baddies or position yourself in a straight line with spawning baddies to try to hit them all and stun-lock them if you can.

The dash-strike is less powerful than a regular attack, but it has huge range and an enormous hit box. I typically dash-strike [x number of dashes], then regular attack until I can dash again.

Only use the charged spin attack when baddies are spawning to chunk off some damage once they appear. You can stand behind cover and charge, and it’ll hit through walls. You can also charge, then dash to direct the spin in a direction.

Hammers of note

Flurry Jab lets you hold down attack and dash-strike, then another regular attack flies out quickly. You want this. I never take a spin-enhancing hammer, because then you can’t get Flurry Jab.

Exploding Launcher makes the special much stronger, gives it AOE damage, and you don’t have to recall the spear, so that’s a winner. If you get that, you can mostly spam your special, or the ideal rotation is Special → Dash-strike(s) → Repeat.

Serrated Point makes dash-strikes very strong, but the reduction in dash range is a significant trade-off.

If there are no better options, Charged Skewer can be worth a take on the hopes that you’ll eventually get Exploding Launcher.

Low Titan Blood?

The core mechanic is the same. Titan Blood gives you extra damage and speed on the special, but even the beefed-up special is neither particularly fast nor strong and you can’t attack again until you retrieve it, which leaves you open. I generally don’t use it without Exploding Launcher.

Build recipes

  • Start with Poseidon on dash, then see what happens. Any attack boon is decent or you might get an early Exploding Launcher and want to focus on special, so you can defer that decision until you’ve seen the first hammer. Meanwhile, beef up Tidal Dash with Poms, Breaking Wave, Wave Pounding, or Razor Shoals.
  • Hammer-specific: Exploding Launcher. If you see Exploding Launcher, pivot hard into it. Put Demeter, Artemis, Aphrodite, Poseidon, or Athena on Special and you’re golden. Combine with Charged Skewer to make it nuts. Probably the ideal build is Aphrodite & Artemis on attack and special with Heart Rend. Watch me clear at 50 Heat with Zagreus Spear, Exploding Launcher, and Deadly Flourish.
  • Hammer-specific: Flurry Jab. Put Artemis (go for Hunter’s Mark) or Zeus (go for Splitting Bolt and Static Discharge) on attack and you’re in good shape. Tidal Dash, more dashes from Hermes, or any call (you’ll build up bars quickly) will scale this up nicely.
  • Merciful End works.

Aspect of Achilles Spear

This often gets pigeon-holed as a cast weapon and you should absolutely use it for that, but the boost to attack and the required use of the special for the buff gives you a lot of flexibility.

Winning combo

Special rush through baddies, cast or backstab or dash-strike at least 4 times to exhaust the buff, then repeat. You have to use all four casts/attacks before you can buff again, so I tend to stab away and try to use the special semi-frequently to refresh it.

You can use the special rush to quickly reposition yourself, and you’re invulnerable while you’re zooming about. For example, depending on your reaction time you can probably fling yourself far, far out of Boss Dad’s giant circular swings, an attack that causes fits for many players until they nail the timing to dash through it. Or if you play like me, you can constantly fling yourself into traps. Be careful, is what I’m saying.

The choice between Stygian Soul and Infernal Soul might depend on the cast you’re planning to get. Stygian Soul shines with the non-lodging casts (Demeter, Ares, Dionysus), especially if you get more stones from Chaos, Artemis, or the Well. Or you might not get any extra casts and be sad. On the flip side, Infernal Soul is reliable and initially better for burst damage. Achilles doesn’t give you any way to get your stones back faster, but three boosted casts will kill a lot of things.

Hammers of note

Flurry Jab lets you hold down attack and dash-strike, then another regular attack flies out almost immediately. You want this. I never take a spin-enhancing hammer because then you can’t get Flurry Jab.

If you do want to spin-to-win, the Achilles buff does apply to spins, so Massive Spin and maybe Quick Spin can do some work. It’s a bit awkward though, because you have to use one of your buffed attacks to start charging the spin, so you can only do two spins per buff.

Serrated Point makes dash-strikes very strong. Ridiculously strong when the buff is active. Shorter dashes can be a rough adjustment, though.

Low Titan Blood?

The core mechanic is the same. This is a strong aspect. Even at level 1, the 50% boost matches the Aspect of Poseidon’s full power cast boost.

Build recipes

  • Start with Artemis on attack. Then see what happens! The buffed attack gives you meaty crits on its own. If you see Ares or Demeter, grab their casts and go for Hunting Blades or Crystal Clarity. But nearly any cast can do some work. See Aspect of Achilles spear with Crystal Clarity in action.
  • Start with Demeter on attack. Then see what happens! Adding Dionysus cast is one way to go; slowed baddies will be easier to hit with the Trippy Shot grenades and if you get Ice Wine, well, Ice Wine slaps. Poseidon’s cast and Blizzard Shot is also strong. Zeus cast or special with Cold Fusion to apply long-lasting Jolted status to groups of baddies is solid.
  • Start with either Zeus attack or cast. All The Zeus is great here. Artemis is a great addition: seeing a boosted Electric Shot crit, trigger Hunter’s Mark, and shred an entire Elysium room feels great. Watch me clear at 50 Heat with Achilles, Flurry Jab, and Lightning Strike.
  • Start with Dionysus on attack. Add any other status on special. Rush through baddies for one status, backstab for privileged status, then oh you look you have 3 bloodstones and 3 buffed casts and literally any cast is a hoot with a 190% damage boost. If they’re not dead yet, stab away until the hangover and stabbing kills them and they cough up the bloodstones. Repeat.
  • The speedrunner special: Start with Poseidon dash. Add Artemis or Zeus on attack. If you’re actually speedrunning, you want Flurry Jab. Get a beefy cast like Phalanx Shot or flex for Hunting Blades if you have Artemis attack. Only stop dash-striking to special and refresh the buff or chuck a cast. Scale up with more Zeus, Artemis, Poseidon, Sea Storm, more dashes from Hermes, or Hyper Sprint + Rush Delivery. One of the best speedrunners, 185, has an in-depth guide to this build. See the Aspect of Achilles with Tidal Dash and Flurry Jab in action.

Aspect of Hades Spear

Winning combo

While enemies are spawning or approaching, charge up as much spin as you can. You can dash-strike into charging a spin if you’re pressed for time. Any spin applies the debuff, so a wee baby spin is fine. You can do this behind cover too. You can dash to spin in a general direction, and it hits through barriers. Once the debuff is applied, attack and dash-strike non-stop, or special if you have Exploding Launcher.

Because of the large percentage boost on debuffed baddies, Artemis on attack is ideal, but anything can work.

Hammers of note

This aspect wants hammers.

Exploding Launcher is great. If you get that, you can mostly spam your special, or the ideal rotation after applying the spin debuff is Special → Dash-strike(s) → Repeat. See the Aspect of Hades spear with Exploding Launcher in action. If there are no better options, Charged Skewer can be worth a take on the hopes that you’ll eventually get Exploding Launcher. Charged Skewer raises the base damage as you charge, so you want a percentage boost on your special.

Serrated Point is very strong here, but risky.

All the spin hammers are useful. Quick Spin is the clear winner. Flaring Spin is OK. Massive Spin is overkill but fun.

Low Titan Blood?

The core mechanic is the same. Artemis is a little less appealing at low levels.

Build recipes

  • Start with Artemis on attack. Big spins and attacks on debuffed baddies will crit real hard. Aphrodite on dash or special will unlock Heart Rend and get you on your way to Smoldering Air. Dionysus on dash or call to unlock Splitting Headache is a solid take, too. See the Aspect of Hades with Deadly Strike and Serrated Point in action.
  • Start with Athena on attack. Having a huge deflection whirl available is great fun. Scale up with hammers, Pressure Points & Hunter’s Mark, and the AAA build. Aphrodite on dash and Artemis on special are strong takes.
  • Start with Aphrodite on attack. All The Aphrodite is a solid direction to go. If you get Exploding Launcher, put Artemis on special and go for Heart Rend.
  • Start with Poseidon on dash, then see what happens. Any attack boon is decent or you might get an early Exploding Launcher and want to focus on special, so you can defer that decision until you’ve seen the first hammer. Meanwhile, beef up Tidal Dash with Poms, Breaking Wave, Wave Pounding, or Razor Shoals.
  • Merciful End works. If you’re going this route, Serrated Point slows down your dash-strikes which is suboptimal. See the Aspect of Hades spear with Merciful End in action.

Aspect of Guan-Yu Spear

The HP reduction is brutal.

Winning combo

Don’t bother with the clonky and not particularly strong attack combo.

The special on this aspect is like an automatic Exploding Launcher hammer with AOE, but it also pierces. Lean into it. The animation has a wind-down, but you can dash and dash-strike to cancel out of it. So the optimal sequence when you can skewer a group is Special → Dash-strike(s) → Repeat. For single baddies when you don’t have Charged Skewer, Cast → Dash-strike → Dash-strike is faster.

The HP-restoring spin move is a trap! Only do it while baddies are spawning for little touch-ups. Don’t try it if baddies are out and you’re desperate; you’ll make mistakes and die.

Hammers of note

You always want Charged Skewer! It’s a run-winner on its own. You’ll one-shot a lot of things and it speeds up the special animation even if you can’t charge it.

Breaching Skewer is useful.

The spin hammers are OK, especially Quick Spin.

Serrated Point can shred, but it’s even riskier here. Everything is riskier here.

Low Titan Blood?

Avoid like the plague until it’s at or near full power.

Build recipes

  • Start with Aphrodite or Artemis on special. Add Athena on attack so your spin move is a giant deflection wheel, or Aphrodite if you put Artemis on special. I would prioritize Aphrodite, because Weak is too useful when your HP is down. Go for the usual AAA goodies. See the Aspect of Guan-Yu with Charged Skewer and Heartbreak Flourish in action.
  • Merciful End is fun here. If you don’t have Divine Dash yet, you can tag baddies with Doom with the spin or dash-strikes, then trigger the Merciful End drop with the special at range.
  • Hammer-specific, but Quick Spin and Massive Spin together can let you quickly spam out lots of gigantic, powerful, self-healing death disks. A percentage-based boon on attack like Aphrodite or Artemis (or maybe Poseidon with Sea Storm and lots more Zeus and Poseidon?) can cause some havoc.

Shield of Chaos

Aspect of Zagreus Shield

Winning combo

Titan Blood enhances the attack and dash-strike, so lean into that. I like to dash-strike into baddies, charge a short Bull Rush, ram into them to knock them back, and repeat. A faster pattern to use against slower or unarmored baddies is dash-strike → standing attack → repeat.

While your special is bouncing around you can’t attack, so I might use that sparingly if I find Zeus or Ares to throw around for some supplemental damage, or maybe Aphrodite to apply Weak.

Always remember that you have a shield, so if you’re charging the rush and a baddie is about to take a swing, you can block it! Or rush through it. You can block nearly everything and you’re invulnerable during the Bull Rush.

Hammers of note

Charged Shot is amazing: it pierces multiple baddies and does full (massive) damage regardless of charge time. It turns the shield into a better bow. Against bosses where you’re not knocking back, the optimal damage sequence is to be up close and do a standing attack, hold attack just long enough to activate Charged Shot, release, repeat.

Pulverizing Blow lets you easily stun-lock by mashing attack, so that’s handy.

The only special-enhancing hammer I tend to use here is Empowering Flight, because it boosts your attack.

Low Titan Blood?

The core mechanic is the same.

Build recipes

  • Put Artemis on attack. Add Aphrodite on dash or special and go for Heart Rend. Hunter’s Mark and Chaos can also scale this up. See the Aspect of Zagreus shield with Deadly Strike & Charged Shot in action.
  • Start with Athena attack for a nice arc-o-deflection while you attack and rush. Add Artemis on special, cast, or call and go for Deadly Reversal so you can crit after deflecting. Add Aphrodite on dash and go for Heart Rend to make those crits better. Blinding Flash can take you to Privileged Status, if you’re running that.
  • Start with Poseidon on dash, then pick up whichever of Artemis, Aphrodite, Athena, or Demeter show up next for your attack. Here you’ll be doing mostly dash-strikes, but you’re also in good shape if Charged Shot shows up.
  • Merciful End is always solid.

Aspect of Chaos Shield

Winning combo

Dash-strike, then charge a short Bull Rush into or through a baddie. Then standing right next to them and pointing at them, fire your special, hopefully hitting them with all 5 shields. This is easiest to pull off on the larger enemies and bosses. Repeat.

If you whiffed or the baddie died, you’ll probably have to dash away until you have your shield back and can rush again. Swift Flourish from Hermes and the Dashing Flight hammer help by getting your shields back in your hands faster. You can attack again when the central shield is back in your hands; the additional ones can still be out, but that’s pretty hard to judge when there’s a lot happening on screen.

Always remember that you have a shield, so if you’re charging the rush and a baddie is about to take a swing, you can block it! Or rush through it. You can block nearly everything and you’re invulnerable during the Bull Rush.

Hammers of note

Sudden Rush makes the Bull Rush portion of the attack cycle faster.

Explosive Return is a solid damage boost for all the close-up special thwacking you’ll be doing. The explosion damage increases with percentage boosts from special boons and hammers, so Dashing Flight can do some good work here.

Charged Shot takes away your Bull Rush, so if you take it you need to change up your attack method. I like to do a dash-strike, hold attack to charge the shot, fire it, then dash up, maybe dash-strike for another hit, then launch the special. This takes more skill to pull off, but Charged Shot is so powerful that it’s worth trying.

Watch out for Dread Flight: the last thing you want is to wait even longer for your special to come back to you.

Low Titan Blood?

This aspect comes alive with more Titan Blood. With fewer shields to chuck about, Zeus or Ares on special becomes more appealing.

Build recipes

  • Start with Dionysus on special. Chaos shield is the perfect hangover weapon. Add Aphrodite or Ares on attack for Privileged Status and go for their duos. Add Artemis for Pressure Points and Hunter’s Mark so everything has a chance to crit. Add Splitting Headache so that happens more often. I love this build. See the Aspect of Chaos shield with Curse of Nausea in action.
  • Start with Zeus on special. Explosive Return will trigger more bolts all around you. Go for All The Zeus. Watch me clear at 50 Heat with Thunder Flourish and Explosive Return.
  • Start with Poseidon on special. Now your attack, bull rush, and special all have knock-back. Look for Zeus and go for Sea Storm. Now pretty much everything you do will trigger bolts. The shield 💙 Poseidon. More Zeus, Pressure Points & Hunter’s Mark, Explosive Return & Dashing Flight, Breaking Wave, and Wave Pounding will scale this up. The small rooms in the Styx tunnels are hilarious with this build.
  • Start with Poseidon on dash, then take whatever flat damage shows up for your special and proceed per the above. Ares can be nice on attack, but maybe wait until you see the first hammer, because if you can get Charged Shot, I’d prefer a percentage boost like Aphrodite. Look for Breaking Wave, Razor Shoals, scale up your attack and special, and look for global damage boosts.
  • The standard combo alternates attack and special, so Merciful End is an option. You can put Ares on either attack or special, but lean attack so you can switch to dash-strikes if you get the duo and Divine Dash.

Aspect of Zeus Shield

Winning combo

Micromanagement of the special is key. Instead of chucking it vaguely in the direction of baddies and hoping for the best, use the special like a yo-yo: get close, launch it into a baddie, then recall it before it passes completely through them.

When the special is out you can still attack, block, and rush, which makes no logical sense, but take advantage. The ability to attack and special simultaneously is extraordinarily powerful. Depending on how dextrous you feel and how baddies are lined up, attack or Bull Rush to bash them further along the path of the special, or dash-strike (which doesn’t knock back) for additional damage while they’re stun-locked. For armored baddies, I typically charge a short Bull Rush instead of dash-striking to have the shield up and knock em back along the path of the shield. For bosses, you can’t knock them back, so I special, rush through, recall to pick up while you pass it, repeat. The same pattern works great on crowds if you can herd baddies into a clump.

Once you have a handle on how far the disc goes before it stops moving, it’s satisfying to land your shield on top of phasing bosses like, say, Theseus as he’s about to go into his final phase. Or you might drop the shield over a point where lots of spawning witches congregate while you deal with others around the room with casts or attacks. But generally don’t let the special get away from you.

Remember that you always have a shield! You can block nearly everything.

If you typically run Greater Reflex on the mirror, try Ruthless Reflex here. With good blocking, you can handle 1 dash. The “Near miss” window is pretty generous and the 50% global damage boost when you dodge is vicious.

Hammers of note

Explosive Return is great for close-up yo-yo action, the boom has a surprisingly large range and scales up with bonus special damage, and it triggers bolts on baddies all around you if you have Zeus on it.

Charged Shot is always beastly if you can adjust to not having the rush. Pulverizing Blow lets you double-bash baddies while they’re stun-locked by the special without knocking them away from it.

There aren’t any truly bad hammers here.

Low Titan Blood?

The special ticks are insultingly weak; Zeus or Dionysus or Ares on special make the most sense.

Fully-powered up, the special hits hard enough and fast enough that any boon can be a reasonable pick.

Build recipes

  • Start with Zeus on special. It works exactly how you’d like, dropping a bolt on every special tick. Scale up with poms, more Zeus, Pressure Points & Hunter’s Mark, or whatever you can manage to do with your attack while the shield is out. See the Aspect of Zeus with Thunder Flourish in action. Watch me clear at 50 Heat with Zeus Shield, Thunder Flourish, and Explosive Return.
  • Start with Athena on special. You’d think you could stand under your giant spinning deflection disk and nothing could hit you, but it only deflects on the ticks. Still, there are worse things than having a giant spinning deflection disk at your disposal. This is a great start to a Merciful End or Deadly Reversal run.
  • Zeus Shield is a baller Merciful End weapon. Because you can attack and special simultaneously, you don’t need Divine Dash for fast damage, and it doesn’t matter where Ares is on attack or special; take the highest rarity on offer. See Aspect of Zeus with Merciful End in action.
  • Start with Dionysus on special. Zeus shield is another great hangover weapon. One yo-yo cycle will get you to full hangover, so then you can change targets if you want to spread around more hangover.

Aspect of Beowulf Shield

Don’t worry about the aspect’s 10% damage penalty. It’s not a big deal.

Winning combo

There’s two broad ways to go with Beowulf.

The cheesy way is to spam the special. It hits real hard and doesn’t bounce around as much. Throw any percentage-based god on there (Aphrodite?) and if you get Charged Flight or Dashing Flight, you win.

The other (better) way is with the casts. I like to dash-strike a baddie, hold attack to put up the shield and start charging a short rush, then rush into them. You can load casts while in the middle of your Bull Rush, so I start mashing cast (consider remapping your cast button; I move it to a trigger on the shoulder), then the casts pop at the end of the Rush. Repeat, ideally rushing into your bloodstones to pick them up again. Or bash the baddie to knock them away while you wait to pick up your stones.

Against weaker baddies, you want to only load up the minimal number of casts to one-shot them so you don’t waste time.

Against stronger baddies, I like to get into a rhythm Rushing back-and-forth, triggering 2 casts going one way and 1 cast going the other (scaled up if you get more bloodstones), picking up the stones on each pass.

As a cast-focused weapon, Beowulf loves Chaos, Hermes, the Well, and Demeter. Snow Burst is wonderful for loading your casts mid-rush, and it’s “free” damage because you’re doing that constantly anyway. Ravenous Will will boost all your casts if you load them all at once.

Because the rush has a built-in 100% damage boost (once you have Titan Blood invested), Artemis is the choice for attack; additional percentage gains aren’t as impactful as crits here. Also, that’s halfway to Mirage Shot.

With Beowulf, Mirage Shot has a bonkers in-your-favor bug: instead of 30% damage, the second burst does full 100% damage. Always seek out Mirage Shot.

Beowulf can’t get Exit Wounds, so the path to Fully Loaded requires taking Pressure Points (decent!) and Support Fire (meh here). Don’t stress over it.

Be careful at higher heat: there’s a bug (Beowulf has, err, a lot of bugs) that while cast flares are popping your dash does not have i-frames. Divine Dash can counteract this somewhat, but you can’t deflect Boss Dad’s big spins.

Hammers of note

For special builds, Dashing Flight or Charged Flight are what you want. You can’t get both. Either will boost Explosive Return if you get that later. If you get Dashing Flight, consider remapping your controller so dash-specials are easy to pull off.

For cast & rush builds, most attack hammers are fine. Ferocious Guard is solid, and Sudden Rush will give you better mobility.

The only hammer that’s gameplay-altering is Charged Shot: casts will pop at the end of the shot, so now it’s a lot like the Hera Bow, but your shield is up while you charge and it always does the same amount of damage regardless of charge time. You can also fire it through Greatshields and over some barriers. It’s wild.

Low Titan Blood?

With weaker Dragon Rushes, special-driven builds are slightly more appealing, but cast-driven builds are still strong.

Build recipes

  • Start with Poseidon Cast. You’re halfway to Mirage Shot. Pom the cast aggressively. Add Artemis attack and start looking for Mirage Shot. This is all about getting Mirage Shot ASAP, but you can also scale it up with Snow Burst, Wave Pounding, Pressure Points & Hunter’s Mark, Fully Loaded, and Chaos. Don’t get Breaking Wave or Typhoon’s Fury if you don’t yet have Mirage Shot, because you don’t want to unlock Second Wave. Flood Flare doesn’t trigger Sea Storm, so don’t chase that.
  • Start with Aphrodite cast. This is the strongest cast that you don’t have to wait for. Pom the cast aggressively. Find Demeter for Snow Burst (Privileged Status is solid here) and Ravenous Will and you’re cruising. Or get Artemis (attack) and Poseidon (probably dash), and seek out Mirage Shot. Also valid is putting Athena on attack, slotting Artemis somewhere, and going for Deadly Reversal so the casts can crit.
  • Use Stygian Soul and start with Dionysus cast. Pom it aggressively. (Another in-your-favor bug: Poms give you twice as much as they say they are exclusively on this weapon and cast.) Stunned enemies in the fog are sitting ducks, so wail on them until you can cast again. Add Artemis (attack) and Poseidon (probably dash), and seek out Mirage Shot. Fully Loaded, Chaos, and Prometheus Stones for more casts make this insanely good.
  • Hammer-specific, but seek out Dashing Flight or Charged Flight, put a percentage-based boon on special, and spam the heck out of it. It’ll hit hard enough to win. Focus on defensive and evasion boons from there. Battle Rage from Ares can be vicious here. Explosive Return is the ideal second hammer.

Heart-seeking Bow

Aspect of Zagreus Bow

Best Zagreus aspect? Possibly!

Winning combo

Dash-strikes on the bow charge much faster than regular attacks. Dash-strike, preferably away from a baddie, and hit them with an attack, ideally a Power Shot, and ideally you’ve lined them up so the piercing attack hits them all. Repeat.

For this, I’m rolling my thumb from dash over to attack, holding attack, then releasing.

Any percentaged-based god on attack will serve you well.

I don’t often use the special, but if I see Ares or Zeus or Athena I might throw them on special to have a wide-radius arc of thunder/doom/deflection to toss out occasionally for crowd control or to clear projectiles. Dionysus can be nice to shotgun full-stack hangover onto larger baddies.

Hammers of note

The built-in crit chance on the attack is a signal to lean into the attack on this aspect. Nearly all the attack hammers have merit, and this scales up via hammers.

Twin Shot doubles everything about your attack, which you absolutely want. Because baddies are always closing in on you anyway, the range reduction isn’t as bad as it sounds

If you have trouble with the Power Shot or want to stun-lock baddies, Flurry Shot is useful; Twin Shot and Flurry Shot together is as close to an easy win as you’ll find. If you have the timing down, though, Perfect Shot is outstanding.

Triple Shot can triple your attack damage, but only when fighting in close. If I get that, I change to dashing through baddies and charge up an attack while they turn around or after they miss an attack. Or stand on top of their spawn location and blast away as soon as they appear.

Explosive Shot is another high-risk/high-reward choice because you’ll have to fight much closer, forget about consistent power shots, and hope the AOE and damage boost make up for it. I love it as a second hammer with Twin or Triple Shot.

Compared to those, Chain Shot is underwhelming. Sniper Shot sounds good, but the distance required is too far when baddies are chasing you.

The only special hammer I’d take is Charged Volley, and if you see it early it might be worth pivoting into a special-heavy build. It’s good fun to charge up the special on top of a spawning baddie or phasing boss and unleashing on them when they’re vulnerable.

Low Titan Blood?

The core gameplay is the same.

Build recipes

  • For pure damage, start with Artemis attack for even more crits. Add Aphrodite on special, dash, or cast and go for Heart Rend. Empty Inside will help keep Weak status up. Scale up with Hammers, Chaos, Jerkies, Hunter Dash, and Hunter’s Mark. See the Aspect of Zagreus bow with Deadly Strike in action.
  • For a little bit of defense (but still plenty of damage), start with your preference of Aphrodite, Athena, or Demeter on attack. If you chose Aphrodite or Athena, look for Artemis on cast, special, or aid to unlock Heart Rend or Deadly Reversal. If you chose Aphrodite, look for Zeus to unlock Smoldering Air. Killing Freeze is great if you chose Demeter. Scale up with Hammers, Chaos, Hunter Dash, Hunter’s Mark, or other crit enhancements from Artemis. Watch me clear at 50 Heat with Zag Bow, Twin Shot, and Frost Strike.
  • Start with Poseidon on dash, then grab whatever percentage-based attack shows up next and proceed per above. Splash Dash will kill weak baddies, soften up bigger ones, give you some space to charge an attack, and wreck the Styx tunnels (with Breaking Wave). However, the knockback will wreck your big ideas for Triple Shot.

Aspect of Chiron Bow

Winning combo

Dash-strikes on the bow charge much faster than regular attacks. Dash-strike, preferably away from a baddie, and hit them with an attack to tag them. Mash special and dash about as needed until they die or the tag expires. You can dash at the end of your special to cancel out of the animation. If you’re fast you can get off 3 volleys. Repeat.

Swift Flourish from Hermes is useful here to get off more volleys and reduce the special animation time even more.

Hammers of note

You want Concentrated Volley (bonus damage on consecutive special arrows) and Relentless Volley (more special arrows). There’s a persistent myth that Relentless Volley slows down your special that isn’t quite true: the standing animation is a little longer, but you can dash to cancel out of it at the same time as before, so it’s not any more dangerous in practice.

Piercing Volley is OK. Armored baddies are always a threat and shooting Theseus in the face is great fun, but it does reduce the distance of your special a little bit.

Flurry Shot speeds up the tagging part of the attack cycle. If you’re only getting offered attack hammers, they’re still great so you can pivot and use Chiron like a worse Zagreus Bow and still kick some ass.

Low Titan Blood?

The core gameplay is the same, but Dionysus on special is your best option until you get more arrows per volley.

Build recipes

  • Start with Dionysus on special. Attack one baddie, special to apply full hangover, then switch targets if there are multiple baddies. You crowd control by quickly applying full-stack Hangover around the room. You’ll get a feel for when it’s worth firing another volley or to let the hangover ticks finish the job. Get Aphrodite or Ares on attack for Privileged Status. Any of their duos can scale this up too. This is probably my favorite overall Chiron build. It’s strong even if you don’t get the good hammers or duos. See the Aspect of Chiron Bow with Drunken Flourish, Low Tolerance, and Curse of Nausea in action.
  • Start with Artemis on special. Get Aphrodite on attack and go for Heart Rend. With the two good hammers, this is wicked single-target damage. If you see Zeus, Smoldering Air could get you some some other damage options. See the Aspect of Chiron Bow with Deadly Flourish and Concentrated Volley in action.
  • Start with Zeus on special. Or Poseidon on special (with careful positioning, you can drill baddies into walls) and go for Sea Storm. You won’t trigger a lightning bolt on every special arrow (there’s a cooldown period, unfortunately), but it’ll still trigger 2 bolts per volley and those bolts do AOE damage—something Chiron otherwise lacks. You can fire at weird angles to try to trigger 3 bolts per volley. Scale this up with more Zeus boons, more Poseidon if you went that route, Smoldering Air, and global damage boosts like Pressure Points & Hunter’s Mark or Billowing Strength.
  • Start with Demeter on special. That’s solid damage and it’s easy to maintain full Chill for safety. Arctic Blast is a decent add because the explosion will give you additional burst damage, some crowd control, and you’ll be able to reapply more Chill quickly enough. Put another status on attack for Privileged Status. This is a good build to go for Demeter’s legendary.
  • Start with Aphrodite on attack, then take whichever of Artemis, Dionysus, Demeter, or Zeus shows up first for your special and proceed per above.
  • Start with Poseidon on dash, then take whichever of Artemis, Dionysus, Demeter, or Zeus shows up first for your special and proceed per above. Tidal Dash will kill Numbskulls and other weak baddies while you attack and special the beefier ones. Look for Breaking Wave; you’ll thank me when you get to the Styx tunnels.

Aspect of Hera Bow

Winning combo

Dash-strikes on the bow charge much faster than regular attacks. Load your casts, Dash-strike, preferably away from a baddie, and hit them with an attack-cast blast.

You want to load up only the minimum number of casts to kill something in one shot. Like, don’t fire all 3 casts at a single Numbskull. (Don’t even load a cast for a single Numbskull, but you get my drift.)

You don’t have any way to quickly retrieve your bloodstones if you don’t insta-kill something, so fall back to repeated dash-strikes like the Zagreus bow until you load up the casts again.

As a cast-focused weapon, Hera loves Chaos, Hermes (especially Quick Reload and Greater Recall), and the Well. Snow Burst from Demeter gives you another source of damage and a way to pick off packs of weak baddies while loading your casts for bigger targets. Ravenous Will will affect all your casts if you load them all at once. If you’re seeing Artemis, Exit Wounds is solid, and flexing for Fully Loaded will make your day.

Hammers of note

See the Zagreus aspect above for discussion of attack hammers. Flurry Shot is a high-risk/high-reward choice as you can get your cast blasts out instantly, but you lose the ability to adjust your aim before firing.

Low Titan Blood?

Hera is strong at low levels, but you’ll have to fall back to your attack more often against bosses while you wait for the stones. Or get Quick Reload from Hermes. Or try Stygian Soul with Dionysus cast.

Build recipes

  • Start with Aphrodite cast. Because you’re effectively loading the cast into a cannon, the drawbacks of Crush Shot suddenly disappear. Pom it as much as you can. Not much will survive getting hit by 3 Aphrodite casts all at once. You’ll want to get baddies in a tight bunch to take advantage of the small AOE. Any other status effect on attack is an easy Privileged Status. Adding Demeter for Snow Burst and Killing Freeze rocks. Slotting Zeus somewhere and going for Smoldering Air is a good way to round things out. Top speedrunners Croven and cgull have written the bible on this build. See the Aspect of Hera bow with Crush Shot in action.
  • Start with Dionysus cast. Go with Stygian Soul here and enjoy launching a Bomb Arrow every few seconds into groups of mobs. Fully Loaded, Chaos, and Prometheus Stones for more casts make this a world-beater. Mirage Shot is bugged here and does +100% damage (not +30% damage), so find a slot for Poseidon (dash) and Artemis (attack) to unlock that. Snow Burst is slightly less appealing, but Ravenous Will is amazing here. Slotting in Zeus somewhere to unlock Scintillating Feast is a solid take, too. See the Aspect of Hera bow with Trippy Flare in action.
  • Start with Athena cast. Pom it aggressively. If you load extra stones, the remaining casts after the first dead baddie will continue on, so try to get baddies in a straight line and aim at the front-most one. Athena cast is weird in that its AOE blast can sometimes trigger the backstab hitbox of baddies. So: add Aphrodite in a primary slot to unlock Parting Shot for a damage boost. Blinding Flash for more backstab damage will make that extra-strong. Lightning Phalanx is also good.

Aspect of Rama Bow

Winning combo

There are two broad consensus ways to approach Rama.

The cheesy method is to spam the special: it’s weak but bounces around and fires fast, so load that up with Zeus or Dionysus or maybe Ares and, well… that’s it. It works ok!

On the other hand, you can do this: dash around, tag as many different enemies as you can with the special, then dash-strike (it’s much faster!) to build up the biggest attack you can muster against the biggest, slowest target. Or, even better, a few baddies in a line because the attack pierces. Then everything dies either via the direct hit or the Shared Suffering damage. It’s harder to pull off, but it’s deeply satisfying. See the Aspect of Rama bow in action.

You don’t need to tag every baddie with your special; do one or two volleys before switching to attack. Shared Suffering works against single baddies, so it’s not just for crowds.

Because it is capable of both massive single-target damage and crowd control with effectively infinite AOE via Shared Suffering, Rama is a uniquely powerful aspect. It’s probably my favorite. Watch me clear at 50 Heat in just over 11 minutes with the Aspect of Rama.

Hammers of note

For Shared Suffering builds, Twin Shot, Triple Shot, Perfect Shot, and Point-Blank Shot are instant takes (in that order for me). Triple Shot is even better here, because Rama’s attack hits a larger arc. Ideal combinations are Twin + Perfect, or Triple + Point-Blank. Watch me clear at 50 Heat with the Aspect of Rama, Twin Shot, and Perfect Shot.

Explosive Shot can be great if you can work with it and don’t have Perfect Shot; it’s a solid second hammer with Twin or Triple. Chain Shot is decent for regular rooms if you have trouble lining baddies up. Sniper Shot is underwhelming.

If you’re focusing on the special, Relentless Volley is what you want.

The Rama-exclusive Hammer, Repulse Shot, is actually worthless.

Low Titan Blood?

With weaker Shared Suffering, special-spamming builds are a little more appealing here.

Build recipes

  • Start with Aphrodite on attack. Take whichever of Zeus, Dionysus, Ares, or Demeter shows up next for your special. You’re in good shape. See what shows up to boost your attacks and dash-strikes (hammers, Chaos, Hunter Dash, Hydraulic Might) or your special.
  • Start with Artemis on attack and enjoy the big-dick crits. Add Aphrodite on special to unlock Heart Rend to make them even bigger, particularly with the beefiest damage boost hammers like Perfect Shot or Point-Blank Shot. Add Zeus and go for Smoldering Air. If your first boon offers a high-rarity Hunter Dash, consider taking that over a common Deadly Strike and pick up a percentage-based attack boon later. This scales up with attack hammers, Hunter’s Mark, whatever goodies you can get on your special, and Chaos for more attack and dash-strike damage.
  • Start with Zeus on special, and go for All the Zeus. Your special, especially with a Pom or two, will one-shot a lot of Tartarus and soften up bigger targets before you switch to attack. Look for Static Discharge and grab the biggest percentage boost you can on attack.
  • Start with Dionysus on special. It’s pretty quick to get to max hangover with the special. Switch to attack afterwards. Aphrodite on attack is good for Privileged Status and unlocks Low Tolerance. Add Artemis for Pressure Points, Hunter’s Mark, and Splitting Headache. Dio’s cast will unlock Black Out, and stunned baddies in the fog are easy targets for a power shot.

Twin Fists of Malphon

Aspect of Zagreus Fists

OK maybe this is the best Zagreus aspect. At least for the early game. Built-in dodge chance is incredibly strong, considering you can dodge everything.

Winning combo

Dash-strike in, hold down attack for 2–5 punches, then tap dash to cancel out of the combo into a dash-strike. Repeat. The dash-strike hits harder than regular attacks, so you want to weave that in as much as you can both for the extra damage and to avoid delays in your attack cycle. If you need to dash to dodge attacks, stop holding down attack so you don’t lose the invulnerable frames while you’re dashing.

For bosses and armored foes, you’ll be dashing to avoid attacks, but otherwise it’s the same full-on attack assault.

I didn’t know this for a long time, but you can roll a dash-strike into the dash-special. Tap dash and attack together, then quickly hit special is the most reliable method I’ve found. It’s a fast combo that, depending on boons and hammers, insta-kills a bunch of stuff in Tartarus and Asphodel. If you’ve got something spicy on your special it’s the fastest and safest way to get it out there.

You’ll be attacking quickly all the time, so all builds scale up with calls, Pressure Points, Support Fire, or assorted global damage boosts like Strong Drink and Billowing Strength.

Hammers of note

Most of the attack hammers are fine. Breaching Cross is easily the best; +900% damage to armor is nuts when stun-locking unarmored baddies is a core part of the gameplay. Rolling Knuckle will beef up the dash-strikes that you’ll be doing constantly.

Long Knuckle is great for a little more breathing room and stun-locking bigger groups of baddies; even better, it makes Tidal Dash viable because you can still smack baddies after knocking them back with a dash-strike.

Heavy Knuckle can work, but I only take it if I see the hammer before the first god. Odds are I have Zeus or Dionysus, and I want faster attacks with them.

The special hammers, especially Explosive Upper, make the dash-strike dash-special more appealing, but honestly other aspects take better advantage of these. If you’re doing a Merciful End run, Kinetic Launcher is ok because it’s by far the fastest special.

Low Titan Blood?

The basic gameplay is unchanged, but you’ll get hit more.

Build recipes

  • It’s training day, boyo! Start with Demeter on attack. This is not the fastest way to kill things, but that’s the point. Slow down enemies, especially bosses, and take your time watching and learning the windups for their attacks. Because it’s fairly easy to get to 10 stacks of Chill with the fists and you have to be up close to do it, success here will holistically improve your game across the board. If this is easy for you, turn on some Forced Overtime and try again.
  • Put Zeus on attack. All the Zeus is excellent on the Fists. Look for Static Discharge, Splitting Bolt, and a decent call to round out your damage for tough baddies and bosses.
  • Merciful End is amazing on the fists. Dire Misfortune (repeated attacks will beef up the Doom drops) is a good take if you aren’t being offered the duo. The dash-strike-upper combo can do in a pinch if you got the duo but not Divine Dash.
  • Start with Dionysus on attack. Aphrodite on dash for Privileged Status is a great next step. This is especially nice to spread hangover around a gang of baddies. If you get Bad Influence (global damage boost if 3 or more baddies have hangover), your damage can spike here. Trippy Shot and Zeus’ Aid are great additions.
  • Here’s an unusual one for me: start with the Lambent Plume, stick with it, and haul ass. You’re going for as much dodge chance as you can. You’ve lost a lot of control over your build, but with the aspect’s built-in dodge chance and Greater Evasion or Second Wind from Hermes, you can be nearly invulnerable for the final boss. Athena on attack can deflect even more attacks. Aphrodite on attack or dash will make sure anything that does hit you hurts less. This is a useful build if you need a clear with the Heightened Security pact for the prophecy.

Aspect of Talos Fists

Winning combo

Fire a cast, yoink 'em into the cast with the special, then wail away or cast some more, basically. The order of operations might change if you have a fast or short-range cast.

For Forced Overtime where the standing special is frankly too slow, you can roll a dash-strike into a dash-special, which still pulls things toward you and applies the debuff. Knowing this made this aspect hugely better for me on higher heat. You tap dash + attack together, then quickly tap special. Another safety tactic is to do a standing special to pull baddies over, then dash to cancel out of the uppercut. You can also target baddies through barriers or across chasms.

Not gonna sugar coat it: the Magnetic Cutter is possibly the least reliable move in the game. I’m not sure if it’s a me thing or an auto-aim thing but I’m never 100% sure if I’ll yoink something or start punching air and hoping something will eventually occupy that air, and even then it seems like a 50/50 chance that the debuff gets applied.

This aspect encourages and rewards builds with a balance of attack, special, and cast. Because you’re close-up after the Cutter, Aphrodite’s cast is more useful than usual here.

Hammers of note

Breaching Cross is always welcome. Heavy Knuckle is solid here, as the big base damage goes even higher with the Magnetic Cutter debuff. Watch me clear at 50 Heat with Talos and Heavy Knuckle.

Quake Cutter can give you a big burst of damage if you’re doing regular specials (it doesn’t work on dash-special, sadly). The quake damage gets boosted with boons that increase special damage, so it can add up.

If you’re big on the dash-strike-upper combo, Explosive Upper is great.

Low Titan Blood?

At lower levels, Heavy Knuckle is less appealing and you won’t have as much added damage from casts.

Build recipes

  • Start with Dionysus on attack. Keep looking for Dio for cast. You can launch the cast on top of you then yoink baddies over. This is an excellent Black Out weapon. Aphrodite on special or dash can give you Privileged Status and Low Tolerance. Demeter or Zeus or both can power up your cast with Ice Wine or Scintillating Feast.
  • Start with Ares on attack. If you see Poseidon soon after, get his cast, pom it a bunch, and go for Curse of Drowning, which has miniscule range but Talos can take advantage. If you see Athena first, go for Merciful End. (Merciful End is better. Much.)
  • Start with Poseidon on special. Yoink, smack ’em back, yoink, repeat. It’s funny. If you yoink baddies across gaps or barriers, it’ll trigger Poseidon’s tier-2 boons like Breaking Wave. Pulling and smacking them around also applies Rupture damage with Razor Shoals. Put Zeus on attack and look for Static Discharge so you have something decent against bosses and to unlock Sea Storm.
  • Start with Poseidon on cast. Add Demeter in a core slot to unlock Blizzard Shot. The problem with Blizzard Shot is that if you fire it point-blank at a baddie, the shot knocks them away from the initial tight cluster of shards. Talos solves that. Cast, yoink, watch ’em take hundreds of damage from the shards. Flurry Shot from Hermes is nice here. Artemis attack to unlock Mirage Shot is a nice bonus. Heavy Knuckle in particular can round out your damage options. I stole this idea blatantly from Supergiant Discord user Nyaanyaa Mewmew and it stomps.
  • Hammer-specific, but I like Artemis attack with Heavy Knuckle. With a lodged bloodstone and the Cutter debuff and backstabs you’ll be chonking out 300–400 damage crits in a hurry. Aphrodite on special or dash or cast will unlock Heart Rend. Or you could try for Athena on special for Deadly Reversal, and put Athena on dash to trigger it more often. Swift Strike is useful here. See the Aspect of Talos fists and Heavy Knuckle in action.

Aspect of Demeter Fists

Winning combo

Dash-strike in, hold down attack for 2–5 punches (dash early if you’re about to get surrounded or hit), then tap dash to cancel out of the combo into a dash-strike. Repeat. The dash-strike hits harder than regular attacks, so you want to weave that in as much as you can both for the extra damage and to avoid pauses in your attack cycle. Bounce between groups of baddies to keep them stun-locked as best you can.

Once you see the little indicator that the Giga Cutter is charged, rip it for a huge burst of damage. Hitting multiple baddies charges the Giga Cutter faster, so prioritize tight-knit groups.

I’ll sometimes reserve the Cutter for armored baddies to instantly strip armor. The charged special counts as multiple hits, not one huge one, so you might still kill ’em if the first few hits removed their armor.

For real mastery, you can roll a dash-strike into a dash-special. You tap dash + attack together, then special. This is a fast, repeatable combo that stun-locks and can exceed the damage of the attack combo if you have some decent special boons and hammers. If charging the cutter isn’t a priority, it’s great for weaker baddies or to more safely roll into a Giga Cutter.

You’ll be attacking quickly, so all builds scale up with calls, Pressure Points, Support Fire, and global damage boosts like Strong Drink and Billowing Strength. Hunter Dash and Chaos dash-strike boons do boost the dash-special.

Hammers of note

Because so much of Fist gameplay involves stun-locking, Breaching Cross is incredible.

Most of the Special hammers are great here. Explosive Upper is the strongest, but I find it a bit harder to aim and a little fussy to pull off the dash-special. See the Aspect of Demeter with Explosive Upper in action.

My other favorite is Kinetic Launcher. At close range you can fire it immediately and it doesn’t leave you wide open for counter-attack like a lot of the specials. If you charge it up, it gives the fists the rare ability to hit Snakestones and witches that have floated over chasms or lava. It even has a Power Shot like the bow!

You’ll be killing a lot of things with the special, so Draining Cutter is handy for survivability.

Avoid Heavy Knuckle; you don’t want to take longer to charge the Cutter.

Low Titan Blood?

It’s only so-so at low levels. The basic gameplay is unchanged, but your burst damage is lower.

Build recipes

Aspect of Gilgamesh Fists

Winning combo

This is a weird one, with slow, sweeping 60-base damage regular attacks, and a weaker-than-usual dash strike. And your dash is shorter?! And the dash cooldown is longer?! But you have 2 extra dashes! And you can hold down dash to do multiple dashes; this is the only aspect in the game where that’s available.

Dash-strike in or dash through a baddie, then hold (or tap, more on that in a second) attack to chonk, ideally backstabbing, as many of those massive attacks as you can.

If you’re feeling ballsy, instead of dash-striking to open, dash-attack-special to apply Maim. 25% more damage and up to 400 extra at the end is good! But taking 50% more damage? That’s bad. Aphrodite can mitigate this with Weak.

The input buffer for additional attacks and dashes is too greedy, in my opinion: if you hold attack at basically any point during a standing attack or a dash-strike, you’ll attack again even if you didn’t “mean” to. And because the standing swings are slow, you might get hit. Try tapping attack for each swing (or tap attack + dash together for dash-strikes) instead of holding attack down like you might do with the other Fist aspects. This advice came from Ananke’s comprehensive Fist speedrunning guide and greatly improved my play with this aspect.

This is a fantastic Ruthless Reflex aspect, as you’ll still have 3 dashes and the 50% dodge buff is handy when you’re possibly taking +50% damage. Dash liberally to trigger the buff, then go in for the kill.

Hammers of note

Dash-strikes are weaker on this aspect, so Breaching Cross is slightly less good, but it’s still good.

Explosive Upper lets you apply Maim to an area, which is useful if you’re confident the area won’t start wailing on you.

Maim’s end damage will trigger Draining Cutter; that’s nice.

You know what I’m looking at the wiki and I’ve never been offered Rending Claws, the Gilgamesh-specific hammer. Huh. It sounds good.

Low Titan Blood?

The Maim end damage is lower, but otherwise gameplay is unchanged.

Build recipes

  • Ok Gilgamesh Fists are potentially the best Merciful End aspect. The built-in extra dashes are insanely good if you get the duo and Divine Dash, Ruthless Reflex can be a global damage boost, and Maim will also boost overall damage. However, compared to Demeter Fists, you have less to fall back on if you don’t get the duo.
  • Start with Poseidon on dash. Pom it aggressively. Abuse the extra dashes by dashing all around baddies; I recommend tapping—not holding—dash against regular baddies so you don’t smack them too far away and waste dashes; against bosses, if you’ve got an opening, go ahead and turbo dash. The damage boost from Ruthless Reflex outweighs the 4th dash from Greater Reflex, in my opinion. This scales up with Rending Claws, more Poseidon or flat damage, and more global damage boosts. You can also put Zeus somewhere and Poseidon in another primary slot to unlock Sea Storm.
  • If Tidal Dash knockback is giving you fits, any damaging dash with Ruthless Reflex and Maim can do some good work. Stick to “naked” dashes, not dash-strikes, until you trigger Ruthless Reflex. Then you can chonk with the mitts if it feels safe. If that sounds like it shouldn’t work, watch me clear at 50 Heat with Gilgamesh and Thunder Dash.
  • With the big standing swings, Aphrodite on attack is solid. Weak mostly nullifies the penalty from Maim. Add Zeus on dash or call and go for Smoldering Air.
  • Start with Athena on attack for a big sweeping deflection arc. Then go for the AAA build with Aphrodite on dash or special. See the Aspect of Gilgamesh fists with Divine Strike in action.
  • Start with Dionysus on attack. You can quickly get to max hangover in 2 passes of dash-strikes, and with Ruthless Reflex the hangover ticks do extra damage while the buff is active. Look for more flat damage sources or Dio-friendly duos.

Adamant Rail

Aspect of Zagreus Rail

Winning combo

The Rail is a melee weapon. Fight me.

Remap your controller! The default mapping with Reload on the stick is awkward. I move Reload to the right bumper and Interact to the left. The codex can go somewhere less urgent.

Launch a special at a baddie, dash into gun range, and hold attack to start blastin’. You can hold attack and tap dash while you’re blastin’, which you want to do because (a) you want to not get hit, obv and (b) it fires a smidge faster while you’re dash-striking. When you’re out of ammo or the baddie dies, launch another special, hit reload, and repeat. When you hit reload, you can dash out of it to cancel the animation so you don’t stand there.

This strategy rewards close-up blastin’-’n’-dashin’, so Poseidon and Ares on dash are strong takes.

Also, the closer you hug baddies, the more likely you are to hit them with the special, which you want to do because the special hammers for the rail are insane. If your dash game isn’t strong, you can get away with spamming specials.

Hammers of note

You want the special hammers. You can squeeze out Triple Bomb shockingly fast. Targeting System gives bonus damage and slows down baddies, which isn’t fair. Cluster Bomb gives you some flexibility to either spread specials around or get in close and drop all 5 on top of you. Rocket Bomb is faster and more powerful than the base special, and can be combined with Cluster or Triple Bomb, which rules.

Special shout-out to Hazard Bomb, with an absurd 4x multiplicative (not additive, like most percentage boosts) damage bonus and easily the best hammer icon. Any decent boon on special will give you 700+ damage area blasts. You can probably see a path to victory with that. Get Battle Rage from Ares and, oh god, it’s glorious. Fire it at yourself and kite baddies through the blast radius. Watch out for ricochets off walls. Even if you’re caught in the middle, you can dash as it lands to avoid damaging yourself. Pro-tip: Hazard Bomb takes longer to land but doesn’t increase the cooldown period between specials, so you can have multiple bombs out at once. See the Aspect of Zagreus Rail with Hazard Bomb in action.

If you’ve powered up the aspect and mastered up-close blastin’-’n’-dashin’, you’ll love Spread Fire. See the Aspect of Zagreus Rail with Spread Fire in action.

Compared to those, I think the attack hammers are just OK. If you don’t have a feel for reloading, Delta Chamber and Flurry Fire will make you do less of it.

Low Titan Blood?

Other than making Spread Fire awesome, I have mixed feelings on the bonus ammo. You have to reload less often, but you empty the base 12-shot clip in roughly the cooldown period between specials, so that’s a good hint for when you can fire another special.

Build recipes

  • Start with Zeus attack. It’s good on the rail. Any percentage god on special is worth taking, particularly Aphrodite to unlock Smoldering Air. If you’re comfortable with up-close blastin’-’n’-dashin’, Poseidon or Ares on dash are nuts. (But 👀 Eris.)
  • Hammer-specific, but if you get Spread Fire early, get Artemis or Aphrodite or Athena on attack and get blastin’. Watch me clear at 50 Heat with Spread Fire and Deadly Strike.
  • Start with Dionysus on attack. Aphrodite on special will round out your basic damage and unlock Low Tolerance. Artemis or Zeus are good additions if you see them. Because of the up-close blastin’-’n’-dashin’, this is a good Black Out build.
  • You can get some real chonky Doom drops with Ares attack and Dire Misfortune if you can lay on the bullets, but this will be underwhelming if you don’t see Dire Misfortune.

Aspect of Eris Rail

Winning combo

Remap your controller! The default mapping with reload on the stick is awkward. I move Reload to the right bumper and Interact to the left. The codex can go somewhere less urgent.

Launch a special at a baddie, dash towards the landing zone, and hold attack to start blastin’. Stay in the landing zone and get buffed. You can hold attack and tap dash to dash while you’re blastin’, which you want to do because (a) you want to dodge baddie attacks, obv and (b) it fires a smidge faster while you’re dash-striking. When you’re out of ammo or the baddie dies, launch another special, hit reload, and repeat. When you hit reload, you can dash out of it to cancel the animation so you don’t stand there.

The 75% global damage boost is maybe the strongest general-purpose buff in the game. With practice it’s easy to keep up, and then everything is better. Chuck out casts, fire more specials, blast on, and repeat.

This strategy rewards close-up blastin’-’n’-dashin’, so Poseidon or Ares or Aphrodite on dash are strong takes.

Hammers of note

Targeting System is always great. Triple, Cluster, and Rocket Bomb are excellent takes. It’s not super clear, but if you’re close to where a Rocket Bomb explodes, you’ll get buffed.

Unfortunately Hazard Bomb is less appealing because you have to be in the blast radius to get buffed and it’s slower. On the other hand you can dash as it hits to still get buffed and Hazard Bomb only does 1% damage to you, so maybe you won’t care?

Or you could get Delta Chamber, which has an in-your-favor bug where you’re still invulnerable while dash-striking. With extra dashes from Hermes you’re effectively untouchable even while constantly attacking.

Low Titan Blood?

Even at level 1, the 15% buff is pretty close to Billowing Strength or the first level of Family Favorite. Gameplay is the same.

Build recipes

  • The speedrunner special: start with Zeus attack. Add Poseidon dash and any percentage-boost god on special, preferably Artemis or Aphrodite. Scale up with more Zeus, more Poseidon, Pressure Points, Hunter’s Mark, Hammers, and Hermes. This is roughly what all speedrunners with Eris use, and it stays effective at high heat. One of the top speedrunners wrote the bible on this build.
  • The ultra-high-heat special: start with Dionysus attack. Full-stack hangover with the Eris global damage boost is great. Pom the attack lots. Compared to Lightning Strike, you’re trading slower normal room clears for more consistent damage (if you don’t have Static Discharge or Splitting Bolt, bosses can be a slog). It’s still plenty fast. Ricochet Shot can be helpful to spread hangover faster. Scale up with lots of Poms, Aphrodite/Artemis duos, more flat damage (Tidal Dash?), and more global damage boosts. Going for Trippy Shot and Black Out can be fun. Watch me clear at 50 Heat with the Aspect of Eris, Drunken Strike, and Delta Chamber.
  • Merciful End with a 75% damage bonus slaps, but it’s harder to get going than either of the above recipes.

Aspect of Hestia Rail

Winning combo

All right, now the Rail is a ranged weapon.

Remap your controller so it’s easy to reload. I moved reload to the right bumper, interact to the left bumper, and threw the Codex somewhere less convenient.

Reload. Fire the boosted shot. Reload. That’s the meat of it! Dash-strikes can keep you mobile while firing the charged shot.

If you hit reload, then immediately dash, you’ll cancel out of the reload animation instead of standing there.

Fire off your special as you can for additional damage and crowd control. Timing-wise it works out that you can fire off the special every other charged shot.

All builds scale up with Chaos, Hunter Dash, Hydraulic Might, Pressure Points, Hunter’s Mark, and hammers. If you see Ares, this is the aspect for Battle Rage. Hyper Sprint + Rush Delivery and Battle Rage can make things crit-for-5200 nuts.

See the Aspect of Hestia in action.

Hammers of note

Ricochet fire is probably the best take as it’s the easiest way to hit multiple baddies. Explosive Fire gives you AOE on the powered shot if you can get baddies into tight groups. Piercing Fire lets you line up baddies and hit a bunch like the Bow; you can also shoot Theseus in the face, which I enjoy.

None of those will help too much with boss damage, so the special hammers for the Rail are all solid. No shame in pivoting to a special-heavy build if you get offered Cluster Bomb and Rocket Bomb or Hazard Bomb. Triple Bomb is a little less appealing as it takes a little longer to launch the three specials, which is time you could be attacking and reloading.

Seeking Fire does nothing.

Low Titan Blood?

This one is not super at low levels, honestly.

Build recipes

  • Start with Aphrodite on attack for consistently high damage and Weak and All The Aphrodite goodies. That can be enough for a win. You’re halfway to Smoldering Air, so add Zeus in a primary slot (preferably call) and get that. Without Smoldering Air or Quick Favor, this is not a call-heavy aspect.
  • Start with Artemis on attack for big-dick crits. Aphrodite on special or dash will unlock Heart Rend, then Zeus (call) will unlock Smoldering Air. Chaos, Hunter Dash, and Battle Rage can even out the attacks that don’t crit.
  • Start with Poseidon on dash, then pick up whatever chunky percentage attack that shows up soon. Splash Dash can kill Pests and Numbskulls while you snipe beefier baddies, and it’ll help you wear down tougher baddies if you’re comfortable up close. Seek out Poseidon’s tier-2 boons, Hydraulic Might, and power up your attack in parallel.
  • This is an excellent aspect for the Shattered Shackle. Chaos, Hunter Dash, jerkies, and Battle Rage can power up your attack without removing the Shackle’s damage bonus.

Aspect of Lucifer Rail

Winning combo

Use the same basic pattern as Eris or Zagreus Rails: launch a special towards a baddie, start blastin’, hopefully the blastin’ or a baddie attack or something that you have on dash makes the Hellfire go boom. It’s fun.

Watch out: the beam doesn’t destroy projectiles. This bites.

You can have 3 Hellfires out at once, so stack them up while bosses are phasing.

Hammers of note

The special does big damage, and Triple Bomb lets you instantly get all three out there. You want this.

Lucifer has five aspect-specific Hammers, way more than any other hidden aspect. The beam ones are all OK. Triple Beam can pay off handsomely for crowd control or super-close blastin’. Be careful with Eternal Chamber: never reloading is fun, but you’re giving up substantial ramp-up damage and are more likely to ignore the special, which is bad.

Greater Inferno is interesting. You can set up a field of Hellfires and let the beefed-up pulses kill stuff, but… then you’re not doing ’splosions.

Low Titan Blood?

Greater Inferno is a little more appealing at low levels, because the Hellfire pulses are the same damage regardless of Titan Blood.

Build recipes

  • Start with Zeus attack. Throw any percentage god, ideally Aphrodite or Artemis, on special. Get Poseidon or Athena or Aphrodite on dash so you can dash into the Hellfires to detonate them reliably. You’re all set.
  • If you can keep the beam focused on a single baddie, any percentage god can add big damage as the focused beam damage ramps up. Concentrated Beam and Triple Beam are the go-to hammers. Demeter with Arctic Blast is great fun. Or…
  • This is a meme build known as the “Super Soaker”, but it’s hysterical if you get it running: start with Poseidon on attack. Add Zeus anywhere else. Get Sea Storm, and laugh and laugh as your blue beam triggers non-stop bolts. Fair warning: this is deeply underwhelming if you don’t get Sea Storm.
  • I’ve done Merciful End, which is funny but also effective. Dire Misfortune can be useful as you’ll stack up the Doom bonus damage real quick with the beam.

Further reading

Much of this guide comes from personal experience, but I’m pulling from tons of other smart people:

That’s it!

Did I miss an obviously useful aspect and boon combo? Is there something you’d like to see in action? Hit me up! I’m @leereamsnyder on Twitter or unexplainedbacn on Reddit.

© Copyright 2006–2023, Lee James Reamsnyder
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