In this article, we will be taking a look at Hades 2, the follow-up to Supergiant’s successful rogue-like game. Much akin to the first game, you will have access to a myriad of boons from the pantheon of gods on Olympus and more, and can be spoiled for choices.
Introduction
Today, we will be taking a look at some of the combinations of boons and buffs that will help you bring out your full potential in your task of taking down the Titan of Time, Chronos, or Typhon, the Father of All Monsters, atop Mount Olympus.
This build is a late-game build that we can put together once we have unlocked different aspects of the weapons in Melinoe’s arsenal. For this particular build, we will be using the Aspect of Pan for the Sister Blades, Lim and Oros. The Aspect of Pan will allow the shots from our specials to home in on foes caught within our binding circle, making it an excellent tool to focus down specific enemies using our ranged option.
Arcana
In Hades 2, we can meditate at the Altar of Ashes at the beginning of each night before heading out to increase our strength and upgrade ourselves, but the amount of Arcana that we can use is limited by the amount of Grasp available to us, which can be upgraded using the Psyche resource.
For this specific build, which is aimed at early runs and bringing out the best offensive capability early on in the game, we will be focusing on early Arcana cards available to us to make the most out of the tools we have.
The first Arcana available to us, and the one we will be using for this build, is the Sorceress.
This card costs 1 Grasp to equip and will increase the charge speed of our Omega versions of attacking moves.
Next, we will use the Wayward Son Arcana, which is another card costing 1 Grasp.
It will allow us to recover health points after each encounter, and at the base level of the card, it enables us to regain 3 HP. This card helps with sustain during our runs and is one of the more valuable Arcana to use.
The Huntress card requires 2 Grasp to use and will increase the damage of our attack and special when our Magick is not at full capacity.
Since we will be using our charged Omega attacks that consume the resource quite often, we will benefit highly from having this card equipped.
Next, we will be using the Unseen Arcana.
This card is one of the more expensive ones, costing 5 Grasp to equip, but it plays a crucial role, especially in this build, as it restores our Magick by a set amount every second depending on the card level.
By having the Unseen card, we will also have the Moon Arcana active, as the card activates whenever we use any surrounding cards.
The Moon card makes it so that our Hex charges automatically, regardless of whether we are using Magick or not. When we are actively using our charged Omega attacks, it will greatly speed up our Hex buildup.
The next Arcana card we will be using is the Messenger.
This card costs 1 Grasp and makes us immune and impervious to all attacks for a second while speeding us up whenever we cast our Binding Circle. This adds an additional dodging component to one of our offensive tools in this build, enabling us to be more aggressive in our approach.
We will also be equipping the Swift Runner Arcana, which requires 1 Grasp to activate.
This Arcana increases our sprint speed, making it easier to dodge enemy ranged attacks while sprinting, and also enables us to pass through enemies while sprinting. The added mobility from using this card is invaluable, allowing us to go on the offense using agility and speed.
Next, we will be using the Origination Arcana card for our build.
This card costs 5 Grasp to activate and enhances the damage we deal to any foes inflicted with two curses from our Olympian relatives. This will greatly boost the damage dealt against enemies.
Then we will be using the Excellence Arcana card. This card requires 5 Grasp to activate and can be very powerful, as it grants us a chance for our common boons to be of higher rarity, making them more powerful.
Next, we will be using the Persistence Arcana card, which requires 2 Grasp.
This card increases our maximum health points and Magick by a set amount depending on the level, giving us more room for error with the increased health.
We will also be looking to activate the Artificer card, requiring 3 Grasp.
This Arcana gives us a chance for some minor finds, such as Ashes and Bones, to become major finds such as Boons and Daedalus Hammers, giving us opportunities to grow more powerful during a run.
Finally, we will be using the Death Arcana.
This card requires 4 Grasp to equip, and its high cost is worth it as it grants us Death Defiance. This acts as an extra life, allowing you to return with 40% of your max health and Magick upon dying, increasing your chance of successfully finishing a run.
This particular combination of cards ranges from 1 to 5 Grasp to activate and, in turn, awakens the Centaur Arcana card.
Having this card increases both max health points and max Magick whenever we pass through 5 locations, ensuring we have a substantial amount of health and Magick when we finally face the final boss.
All these cards combined will require 30 Grasp to activate and will make us powerful on our runs, as well as in accomplishing Night’s Testament challenges.
Keepsakes
At this point in our game, we will have unlocked the upgrade to change Keepsakes between each region.
At the start of the run, we will be taking the Cloud Bangle, which is a Keepsake we obtain in return for gifting the King of the Olympians himself.
This Keepsake will make it likely that the very first boon we come across will be a boon from Zeus and will allow us to increase the rarity of one of his boons, making them more effective.
At the end of the first region, we will be switching to the Aromatic Phial that we receive from Narcissus himself in Oceanus.
It is important to remember to switch to this Keepsake before drinking from the fountain to restore our health, as it will help us restore a higher amount. In addition, it will also enhance one of our boons to the highest rarity.
This is generally better to take early on since we will have fewer boons in our repertoire, giving us a higher chance of increasing the rarity of our main damaging boons.
Once we’ve gotten through the second region before the third, we will be switching to the Concave Stone, which will allow us to take one more boon from one of the gods’ gifts.
This will enable us to bolster ourselves with more boons, increasing our power in preparation for the final region.
For the last region, we will be taking the Luckier Tooth from Captain Schelemus, which will give us an additional chance to restore life points once we have run out of our Death Defiances from other sources, giving a higher chance to succeed on our runs.
Familiar
At this point in the game, we will have unlocked the ability to bring along one of our Familiars on our runs, and for this build, we will be taking Hecuba, the loyal hound.
She can be found in the Mourning Fields, which is the third region on your way down to Tartarus, and can be bonded after you’ve met her three times.
Hecuba will occasionally stun enemies in an area, giving us a form of mini-crowd control, and will also fetch mana balls that restore our Magick.
Having Hecuba as our Familiar will increase the chance of buried resources appearing, and she also has a chance to dig up food that can restore our health, helping with our sustain immensely.
Boons
Among the plethora of boons offered by the gods, we will have 5 main slots that will affect and upgrade our moves.
First, regarding the boon relating to our regular attacks, we will take one of the boons from Poseidon, the God of the Sea, with Wave Strike.
This will add splash damage to our attacks and knock away all foes behind the target. This grants our attacks crowd control in the form of pushback and will help prevent us from being surrounded.
For our Special, we will be taking the boon from Zeus, the God of Lightning, with Heaven Flourish.
This enhances our special throws to inflict Blitz, which summons thunderclouds above the heads of affected foes. These clouds will be struck with a bolt of lightning after either taking 120 damage or after 4 seconds, whichever condition is met first.
Since we can focus our special strikes on foes caught within our Binding Circle, the Blitz can be inflicted and triggered reliably, and the burst damage from the lightning bolt can easily take out most enemies.
With our Cast, placing our binding ring on the ground, we will be choosing the Anvil Ring boon from Hephaestus, the God of the Forge.
This will make it so that any foes caught within our circle will be hit with 3 hammer strikes from Hephaestus, dealing consistent damage. This is useful for applying uniform damage with our Casts, in addition to our attacks and specials.
For our Sprint, we will be using the Frigid Rush boon from Demeter, the Goddess of the Seasons.
This boon will surround us with a gust of cold wind that slows down incoming projectiles and damages enemies whenever we sprint.
This adds a defensive layer to the build, helping us dodge ranged attacks more easily, in addition to slowing down and damaging foes that are trying to surround us.
For our Gain slot, we will be taking the Grisly Gain boon from Ares, the God of War.
Once taken, we will spill plasma from our foes whenever we strike with our weapons, and collecting this plasma will restore Magick while also increasing our attack speed and movement speed.
These five boons will occupy our core slots when we are on our runs, but they do not necessarily need to be the only boons we use.
There are combinations of boons that can greatly improve the damage we can deal when using the Sister Blades, and the first of them is the Cut Above boon from Ares.
This boon will cause a falling blade to appear above the head of any foes struck by our Omega-charged strikes, and since we will be using our charged specials quite often with the Aspect of Pan, we will be raining down thunder and blades on top of our foes.
Following this, we will be looking for a boon from the God of Light, Apollo, with the Super Nova boon.
This boon will increase the size of our Casts, with the size scaling by rarity, allowing us to catch more foes within our Binding Circles.
This synergizes well with the Aspect of Pan for Lim & Oros, as we will be able to bounce our specials between more foes that are caught within the larger circle.
Next, we will be choosing the Meat Grinder boon, another boon from the God of War.
This boon will form a Blade Rift within our expanding Binding Circles, raining down a blade every second upon our foes and increasing the damage dealt by our Casts.
Additionally, we will take the Static Shock boon from Zeus at the cost of priming 50 Magick.
This will enhance all our attacks and specials with Chain Lightning that will bounce up to 4 times. Since the Sister Blades have a very fast attack speed, and combined with the bonus from gathering plasma, we will be able to fire off a storm of chain lightning quite easily with our strikes.
Next, we will be looking for the Power Surge boon, another gift from the King of the Olympians, since it will allow us to call down a lightning bolt upon a random foe whenever we use Magick.
Using the Aspect of Pan, we will be relying on spending Magick to use charged specials quite often, and as such, we will be calling down a lightning bolt whenever we throw our Omega Specials.
Afterward, we will take the Double Strike boon from Zeus, which gives all the lightning bolts we call down a chance to strike again.
Although the initial 10% chance seems low, since we will be able to call down lightning bolts using the myriad of boons from the God of Lightning, Double Strike will trigger more often than expected and can deal a considerable amount of burst damage.
Then, we will be taking another boon from Zeus, the Arc Flash.
This boon will instantly activate the Blitz thunderclouds we have inflicted upon foes with our specials, while also increasing their damage whenever we hit with an Omega move. This helps us inflict thunder damage more efficiently and increases our overall damage output.
Next, we will boost our survivability by choosing the Spiritual Affirmation boon from the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite.
This will give us additional max health and Magick from Centaur Hearts and Magick Potions. Since it also works retroactively for all the bonuses we have taken before the boon, it greatly bolsters us no matter at which point in our run we find it.
Then, we will be looking for a Duo Boon between Hephaestus and Zeus with the Master Conductor boon.
This will make our Chain Lightning bounces deal increased damage per bounce while also bouncing off of ourselves.
Finally, we will be looking for the Legendary boon from the King of the Olympians, Shocking Loss.
This boon gives us a chance to call down a powerful lightning bolt that can outright destroy a foe when we first damage them. This instant death effect can be especially powerful when it takes out armored foes, allowing us to clear later encounters with ease.
At this point in the game, we will have met Selene, the Moon Incarnate, and will have our Hex ability available to us.
From among her gifts, we will be taking the Twilight Curse hex for this build.
This hex launches a curse that will turn 5 enemies into sheep that we can easily decimate, helping us clear out mobs of enemies.
The hex can be upgraded to bounce to more foes and can also increase our damage in the encounter after using it, which is extremely helpful in boss fights for handling adds and smaller foes.
Weapon Upgrade
Regarding the options we get from using the Daedalus hammer, we will be looking to enhance our overall damage output of using Lim & Oros by upgrading our specials since we will be using the combo of casts and then following up with our homing specials.
The Dancing Knives upgrade will increase the damage of our specials and allow them to bounce to 2 foes.
Combined with our chain lightnings, our specials can bounce between a group of enemies quickly, taking them out.
The Hidden Knives upgrade for the blades will increase the damage of our specials even further by 20% while adding to the already increased number of shots from the Aspect of Pan.
Since our specials will home in and bounce between the foes caught in our binding circles, this can easily add up to a high amount of damage.
Playstyle and General Tips on Runs
For this build, the playstyle is a little different from other builds using the Sister Blades as instead of relying on our fast attacks and slices, we will be relying more on our casts and ranged specials to deal with our enemies.
The expanding Super Nova Casts can easily bind the majority of enemies in an encounter, and afterwards, we can spam our charged specials or regular specials to inflict massive damage without the need to aim, as they will home in and bounce between the foes caught in the circle.
When fighting against bosses, it can be tempting to get in close and personal and slice away using the fast attack speed, but more often than not, this is a highly risky affair since you will be trading damage as you will be too close to dodge away from any incoming big area of effect attacks.
The safe option is to whittle the bosses down using the special when they are doing the area of effect attacks and go in for quick slices at the end of the attack, before they start the next one. Since our specials can deal a significant amount of damage owing to the Heaven Flourish and Aspect of Pan, it is generally more favorable to rely on our specials instead of our attacks to take down most of our adversaries.
At this point in the game, we have our fair share of runs under our belt and most likely, we will have all the ashes required to unlock all our arcana cards.
But, the ashes can still be used to create ingredients, so they are not completely irrelevant in our later runs. Even so, depending on what you are looking to upgrade in the crossroads, we can go for either the bones or ashes.
While ashes still have their use, the bones will allow us to buy moondust, which we can use to upgrade our arcana cards, and depending on the level of the arcana cards, it can be favorable to prioritize the ashes around the 20th–30th run.
Also, investing in at least three centaur hearts so that our max HP can reach 100 is helpful when using the blades, as we are prone to taking damage with our close-ranged attacks.
The additional health will allow us to scale our damage further and will help increase the overall damage when using this build.
When faced with choices between an upgrade that is not a boon you are necessarily aiming for and gold coins, it is generally better to go for the coin route as you will then have access to more options that you can choose between at the Boatman, Charon, whenever you run into him.
But if you are certain that you will not be able to gain enough coins to afford multiple purchases, you can go for the upgrade route.
Going for Poms of Power will also allow us to level up our boons, increasing our damage, and for this build, I suggest upgrading the Double Strike boon as much as possible since it will increase our chance to call down an extra lightning bolt significantly, raising our damage output substantially.
Conclusion
While playing with the Sister Blades has a tendency to draw you towards an aggressive playstyle, going in for quick combos can be a weakness instead of a strength, as we really need to be in close range for our attacks, and relying on specials will help alleviate some of the weaknesses when using this blade and the weapon.
The omega attack can be extremely useful to get out of tricky situations as it will teleport you to the back of your target if possible and right to the target if there’s no room at the back. Owing to the fast charge speed, in certain situations, this can be used to get out of the way of incoming danger quite efficiently.
With other aspects of the Sister Blades, the attacks are the main source of damage, but with the Aspect of Pan, we will be relying more on our specials and casts instead of our attacks. We will be relying on our attacks mainly for crowd control and pushing enemies back instead of damaging them, and that will change the playstyle of the weapon a little bit, making it a slightly safer approach compared to the more close and personal playstyle of the other aspects.
So, this wraps up my article for the Aspect of Pan of the Sister Blades, Lim & Oros build for Hades 2. I hope you find this helpful in your conquest against Chronos, the Titan of Time, or Typhon atop Mount Olympus, and may you find success in all your runs. If you have any tips, feel free to leave them in the comment section below!!
