Hades – Beginner Tips

Hades Beginner Tips

Hades is an action hack and slash rougelike. Expect to die, like, a lot. The average player will likely take ~25-30 so runs before they finish their first clear. Actual runs are pretty short in Hades. Full clears can take anywhere from ~20-50 mins depending on your skill, speed, weapon, etc.

Early runs are all about gathering resources to get permanent upgrades, learn how to use each unique weapon, understand enemy mechanics and the like. It will likely take you a while before you can reach, let alone, defeat the final boss. You’ll eventually get your first win and try new weapons or use the Pact of Punishment to add heat for new rewards. You’ll hopefully start to get to the final boss more consistently. Even after getting my first clear, there were gaps between new clears but eventually I started consistently getting to the last boss and picking up more wins and then I started picking up nice wins streaks and getting the clear with all weapons. My current highest win streak is 7, died against last boss with the sword which I’m pretty bad with.

I am playing with mouse and keyboard. Figure out the optimal keybindings for yourself at the beginning. I remapped dash to my right mouse button as dash is used constantly and set the option to dash to mouse cursor. I remapped special to middle mouse button. Find whatever works best for you to use attack, special and dash easily.

Room Rewards and Resources

Each room in Hades has a symbol over the doorway indicating what the room will reward for completing. Some buffs are more useful than others, some provide permanent upgrades, others are run-exclusive.

Darkness

This symbol means the room will reward Darkness. Darkness is a permanent resource which is used for buying upgrades at the Mirror of the Night.

Chthonic Key

This symbol means the room will reward a key. Keys are a permanent resource used for unlocking weapons, unlocking additional talents in the Mirror of the Night and resetting darkness spent in the Mirror.

Gemstones

This symbol means the room will reward gemstones. Gemstones are a permanent resource used for buying items at the House Contractor. This includes changes that affect your runs and cosmetic changes to the House of Hades. I suggest not spending anything on cosmetics until you have exhausted all the available gemstone upgrades that actually affect runs.

Nectar

This symbol means the room will reward nectar. Nectar is a permanent resource used to provide gifts to characters and improve affinity. All characters besides Hades will give a Keepsake (an item that can be equipped to provide buffs) when given their first Nectar. See separate section for Keepsake for recommendations on which ones to get on initial runs.

Daedalus Hammer

This symbol means the room will reward a Daedalus Hammer. Daedalus Hammer’s are run-exclusive buffs to your weapons. The buffs from the Daedalus Hammer can improve your attack, dash-attack and special and possibly even fundamentally change their mechanics. These buffs can be game changing; it’s not a stretch to say that this is the single greatest upgrade in the game.

God Boons

This symbol means the room will reward a boon from the listed God. Boons are run-exclusive buffs that provide buffs to your attack, dash attack, special and cast along with various passives. Also can provide a Call ability which can be activated based off your ‘God Gauge’ which fills up as you fight and do damage. Each God has their own themed boons.

A room with two Gods symbols listed is a ‘Duo Boon’ room. There are no enemies at the start,. There are two boons present. Select one and that God will give you their boon. Then the spurned god will summon enemies and try to kill you with special attacks of their own that you have to avoid. Once you kill all summoned enemies the spurned God will forgive you and give you their boon as well. Very rewarding but challenging.

Another thing to note is that Gods can offer replacements for existing boons you have. For example, if you have a boon to buff your attack from God X, then God Y can offer you his own boon to attack. However, the boon offered by God Y will be one better rarity than God X’s original boon. If you have an Epic boon it will be replaced by a Heroic quality boon – this is the only way to get a Heroic quality boon from the boon selection I believe.

Charon’s Obol

This symbol means the room will reward gold. Gold is a run-exclusive resource which can be used to purchase items at Charon’s shops or wells.

Centaur Heart

This symbol means the room will reward a centaur heart. Centaurs Heart’s are run exclusive buffs that increase your health by 25.

Pom of Power

his symbol means the room will reward a Pom of Power. Pom of Powers are run exclusive buffs to your boons. They increase the level (not quality) of the boon.

Charon’s shop sometimes sell as ‘Half-slice Pom’. It has the same affect as the standard Pom but you the boon buffed is selected at random instead of you being offered a choice of three to upgrade. It’s also a lot cheaper to buy than the standard Pom. If you have only a single boon or two that you both would like upgraded than it’s a good buy.

Some other things of note:

There will always be a shop just before the final boss of each section and one mid-way through. There may be an alternative path instead of the shop before the final boss, in this case, whatever is listed as a reward is given without combat. Rooms with a ‘Skull’ symbol mean the room is extra difficult but also more rewarding. There may be a tough mini-boss here or a lot of armoured enemies. Completing the room will reward you will bonus resources, higher quality boon, double Pom effect, etc. Permanent resources are excellent early on when you’re trying to unlock new buffs to make future runs better.

Generally I’d rank rooms as:

Daedalus Hammer (can potentially be run changing) > Shop (if you’re nearly dead and want to gamble on getting health buff for sale) > Duo Boon > Boon = Heart of Centaur = Pom Of Power > Darkness = Gemstones = Key = Nectar (value will be higher the newer you are as you’ll want to upgrade stuff rather than actually be trying to complete a run) > Gold > Shop

Early on get a few nectar to unlock a couple of good keepsakes. Grab darkness so you can Death Defiances and your double dash ASAP. Keys whenever you can get them to unlock new mirror talents and weapons.

Mirror of the Night Upgrades

The Mirror of the Night is the primary permanent upgrade system in Hades. it is located in your bed chambers. Darkness is used to unlock ranks in talents. Each talent has an alternative option which can be bought as well. You can only use one of these options at once through.

Keys are used to unlock additional talents for purchase. Also, you can reset your darkness spent on the mirror at any time at the cost of one key.

Slot 1:

Shadow Presence

• Each rank gives you +10% damage when you strike foes from behind.
• 5 (+50% damage)
• Cost: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 (Total: 100)

Fiery Presence

• Each rank makes you deal 20% damage when you strike undamaged foes.
• 5 (+100% damage)
• 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30
• (Total: 100)

I strongly recommend Shadow Presence. You’re going to be doing a LOT of backstabbing in Hades unless you’re doing a pure cast build.

Slot 2:

Chthonic Vitality

• Each rank restores 1 Health when you enter each chamber.
• 3 (+3 Health per chamber)
• 10 / 20 / 40 (Total: 70)

Dark Regeneration

• Each rank makes +30% of any Darkness you collect restore your Health by that much.
• 2 (+60% restored)
• 30 / 60 (Total: 90)

Dark Regeneration gives you health boost whenever you pick up darkness. Early on this can be better if you’re trying to farm up Darkness in your early runs. Bosses will reward darkness after the first kills. Chthonic Vitality is much better once you start getting to Styx through. Styx has tons of small chambers where the Chthonic Vitality’s small health buffs will start to build up and there’s not much Darkness there. Farther on you’re in your save you’ll be skipping Darkness in favour of getting great God boons instead for clears.

Slot 3:

Death Defiance

• Each rank restores you for 50% Health 1 time when your Life Total is depleted.
• 3 (3 extra chances)
• 30 / 500 / 1000 (Total: 1530)

Stubborn Defiance

• This restores you to 30%Health 1 time per chamber when your Life Total is depleted.
• 1
• 600

I strongly recommend Death Defiance. Get the first upgrade ASAP. It will give you a rez when you inevitably die. You can get 2 ranks in it (2 rezes) cheaper than you can pick up Stubbon Defiance. Stubborn Defiance can be useful if you’re having issues if you’re having issues in individual chambers. Death Defiance is much for boss fights which realistically will be the biggest cause of deaths. You can also refresh lost ones (Athena has some boons which affect Death Defiance and refreshes a lost defiance, Well of Charon can sell an item for 200 gold to refresh one lost defiance and Patroclus in Elysium can refresh ALL lost defiances including Skelly’s if you used that one up as well) Maybe in really high heats where everything wants to kil you Stubborn Defiance is better.

Slot 4:

Greater Reflex

• Each rank lets you chain +1 Dash before briefly recovering.
• 1 (+1 dashes)
• 50 (Total: 50)

Ruthless Reflex

• If you Dash just before getting hit, gain +50% damage and dodge chance for 2 Sec
• 1
• 75

I strongly recommend Greater Reflex. Dash is vital in Hades and double dash will help you quicky get out of boss AOEs, allow for more mobility and safety. Make it a priority ASAP, it will help a lot against first act boss.

Slot 5:

Boiling Blood

• Each rank gives you +10% Attack & Special damage to foes with Cast Ammo in them.
• 5 (+50% damage)
• 10 / 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 (Total: 250)

Abyssal Blood

• Each rank reduces foes’ speed and damage by -5% while they have Cast Ammo in them.
• 5 (-25% speed and damage)
• 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 (Total: 300)

Both are fine, pick your favourite.

Slot 6:

Infernal Soul

• Each rank gives you +1 Cast Ammo for your Cast.
• 2 (+2 Cast Ammo)
• 20 / 80 (Total: 100)

Stygian Soul

• Your Cast Ammo regenerates, but no longer drops. Each rank makes this 1 Sec. faster.
• 5 / 4 / 3 Sec.
• 0 / 60 / 120 (Total: 180)

Infernal Soul lets you chain your casts immediately but you need to retrieve them after they get dislodged. Stygian Soul lets you regen your bloodstones and can’t do burst, however, is pretty consistent and is amazing if you get extra bloodstones somehow (temporary via Well of Charon or permanently via Chaos buff). Both options are god.

Slot 7:

Deep Pockets

• Each rank grants you 10 Obols at the start of each escape from the House of Hades.
• 10 (+100 Obols)
• 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 (Total: 525)

Golden Touch

• Each rank grants you +5% Obols of your total each time you clear an Underworld region.
• 3 (+15% Obols)
• 70 / 90 / 110 (Total: 270)

Deep Pockets is better early on in a run. Golden Touch is better late in a run.

Slot 8:

Thick Skin

• Each rank adds +5 Health to your Life Total.
• 10 (+50 Health)
• 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 (Total: 625

High Confidence

• Each rank gives you +5% damage, while you have 80%Health or greater
• 5 (+25% damage)
• 50 / 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 (Total: 750)

Strongly recommend Thick Skin. The extra starting health will give you more leeway to hit up chaos portals, take on more challenging rooms and fight against the bosses. The buff from High Confidence is a little too restrictive in it’s health requirement.

Slot 9:

Privileged Status

• Each rank gives you +20% damage vs. foes afflicted by at least two Status Curse effects.
• 2 (+40% vs Status_Curse)
• 50 / 500 (Total: 550)

Family Favourite

• Each rank gives you +2.5% damage for each different Olympian whose Boons you have.
• 2 (+5% damage per Olympian)
• 50 / 150 (Total: 200)

Strongly recommend Privileged Status. It’s not too hard to get 2x curse effects and apply it. Demeter, Dionysus, Aphrodite all good options. Zeus with a tier 2 boon). Family Favourite also requires you to spread your boons around between different Gods making it harder to get higher tier ones from specific ones and you don’t get that much of a buff to compensate.

Slot 10:

Olympian Favour

• Each rank adds a 1% bonus chance for a Boon to have Rare effects.
• 40(+40% chance)
• 50 per rank (Total: 2000)

Dark Foresight

• Each rank gives you +2% greater chance for Gold Laurel rewards (Boons, Hammers, and Poms).
• 10 (+20% chance)
• 150 per rank (Total: 1500)

Personally I like Olympian Favour a little more. Better quality boon is better than normal chance Boon and Poms.

Slot 11:

God’s Pride

• Each rank adds a 1% bonus chance for a Boon to have Epic effects.
• 20 (+20% chance)
• 100 per rank (Total: 2000)

God’s Legacy

• Each rank gives you +1% greater chance for a Boon to be Legendary or a Duo (if possible).
• 10 (+10% chance)
• 250 per rank (Total: 2500)

Personally like God’s Pride better. I find getting an epic quality boon easier better (and can potentially upgrade to a different God’s boon as heroic quality later)

Slot 12:

Fated Authority

• Each rank gives you 1 die, used to randomly alter the reward for the next chamber.
• 8( 8 dice)
• 500 / 750 / 1000 / 1250 / 1500 / 1750 / 2000 / 2250
• (Total: 11,000)

Fated Persuasion

• Each rank gives you 1 die, used to randomly alter Boon and Well of Charon choices.
• 4 (4 dice)
• 1000 / 2000 / 3000 / 4000 (Total: 10,000)

Fated Authority is useful for swapping out chambers with rewards you don’t like and hopefully get something more useful. Fated Persuasion is useful for changing offered boons if you don’t like the selection you get. Fated Persuasion gives you a lot fewer rolls and costs a ton of pick up. I think I’d give Fated Persuasion a slight edge, it helps if you’re looking for specific boon or got offered bad quality boons from a God to try again, also, if you’re low on Death Defiances then you can try to reroll a Well of Charon for a Kiss of Styx. They’re both good overall through.

Weapons

You start off with the sword (Stygian Blade) unlocked by default. As you play through more runs, you’ll get to unlock additional weapons with keys.

Every weapon is ‘balanced’. I’m not saying you’ll do as well with each one, I’m saying for every weapon somebody will claim it’s the best one and OP and somebody else will claim it’s the worst one and complete trash. It really comes down to your preferred playstyle and how you play. Personally, I leaned towards more ranged approaches.

Honestly, you’ll have to play each weapon itself to get a good feel for each other and whether you enjoy it. The game has a mechanic to encourage switching weapons, ‘Dark Thirst’. Weapons that have ‘Dark Thirst’ give you a 20% bonus to any Darkness you find which helps you unlock talents on the mirror faster.

As you play, you’ll collect Titan’s Blood which can be used to level up the starting aspect of the weapon and unlock other aspects that have different buffs and / or abilities. I haven’t unlocked too many of these yet so I’m not going into too much detail about the different aspects expect for a few I like.

Sword (default): Medium range melee option. Attack and Dash-Strike will be your primary attacks. It has a three-swing long combo and the special creates a small burst around you after a short jump, and leaves you stationary for a short time.

Bow (1 key): Currently my favourite weapon. It’s attack can be charged to increase distance and damage, firing at right moment will do a powershot for more damage. The special sprays arrows in a cone in front of you. Enemies that are closer to you will take more damage from special because they get hit more. I’m told that dash-attack is supposed to be good with it but I’ve never felt comfortable with it with K+M setup. I’ve mostly been playing with the Aspect of Chiron which reduces the number of arrows the special fires (the more titan’s blood you put into the weapon, the more arrows special gets) but makes the special all target the last enemy you hit.

Shield – Defensive / Offensive mix. Attack is a single swing that hits in an arc and knocks back enemies. Holding down the attack button will block frontal damage while charging ‘Bull Rush’; releasing the attack button performs a shield bash forwards, dealing damage to enemies hit. The special throws the shield, which bounces between enemies and objects before returning. I’d suggest getting the Shield of Chaos aspect, it seems to be the best. My favourite upgrade for shield is ‘Charged Flight’, which replaces Bull Rush with an ranged attack letting you keep up a block while going pew-pew from safety.

Spear – Long range melee option. Main attack is long-range stab attacks. Holding the attack button can lets you use a spin attack doing damage in wide radius. The special throws the spear, which will damage enemies along its path until it stops. Activating special again recalls the spear, which will deal damage on the way back. Not one of my favourites, I find it a little clunky. Spin attack is a little tricky to use and I’m not too fond of the base special. I think my spear clears were both by turning the special until a ranged explosive attack that didn’t need to be returned.

Fists – The short range melee option. The main attack is a fast 3 hit combo at close range. The special is an uppercut that hits twice. Unique in that it has a dash special, if the special is used while dashing it will uppercut faster but only hit once. Do your combo, dash special, do your combo again. The range is really short so it can take a bit of getting used to but is pretty good for DPS.

Adamant Rail – It’s basically a grenade launcher. The base attack is a 12 ammo clip that needs to be reloaded (either manually via ‘R’ or automatically after running out of ammo). The special lofts a grenade at a target area that takes a few seconds to land but explodes in a large radius. The base attack itself is fairly weak. I find it best for stacking debuffs (Demeter, Diosynis, Zeus all good options) and using the special to blast everything to kingdom come.

Gods and Boons

Aphrodite gives boons that inflict Weak and Charmed on opponents, as well as improve survivability. Good for attack and special, her cast has a really short range, but her call is pretty good.

Ares gives boons that inflict Doom, create Blade Rifts, or increase the damage of your attacks. Not really a big fan of blade rifts. The invulnerability from call can be kind of useful but he’s probably the god I’ve used the least.

Artemis gives boons that grant Critical hits and improve Cast abilities. A good god for attack, special, support and casts but does not have a really good way to trigger status affect for Privileged Status, Marked requires multiple enemies to work I believe. Her call is a fantastic boss killer through.

Athena gives boons that allow abilities to Deflect projectiles and improve various defensive options. I don’t personally care for using Athena on my attack or special but her cast is pretty good, her call basically makes you invulnerable for a long time maxxed out and her dash is S-tier. Deflection on dash is amazing. Has some support skills that help with Death Defiances.

Demeter gives boons that add Chill to abilities, improve healing, and various debuffs. Chill is a nice status effect, slowing down enemies, lasts a while and stacks easily. Her attack and special are good, her cast is kind of interesting (drops an object that fires a slow moving laser beam, I’m still on the fence if its good or not lol) but don’t care for the call.

Dionysus gives boons that inflict Hangover, create Festive Fog, and improve survivability. Hangover is good for triggering Privileged Status, his attack and special are both good and excellent on fast attacking weapons. Festive Fog is good for staggering unarmoured enemies and other buffs can be useful.

Poseidon gives boons that add Knockback to abilities and improve room rewards. Not one of my favourite gods overall. Knockback can be quite annoying on closer range melee weapons like fist and sword as you need enemies near you to chain your combos. Maybe better with a bow. Knockback on dash and cast isn’t bad through, call is decent but I find it kind of hard to control. And some of his other buffs aren’t exactly super exciting.

Zeus gives boons that add chain lightning to abilities, or cause lightning to strike nearby enemies. Best used with fast attacking weapons such as the Rail or Chiron’s Bow. His status effect ‘Jolted’ requires a tier 2 boon. Not as good all around as some of the other Gods I’d say but not terrible either.

Hermes is unique among the Olympian Gods as he doesn’t give boons that give you a skill to your attack, special, dash, cast, call, etc. Instead Hermes provide boons that are all passive in nature, giving you buffs in such thing as mobility, attack speed, special speed, dash capabilities, cast recovery and more. Usually like to grab a Hermes boon when I see one available.

Another very unique God, Chaos boons require taking on risk for future reward. First, in order to get a Chaos boon, you must jump down at ‘Chaos Gate’. Using one of these will take a decent chunk of your health which can be an issue for early players. Next the boon applies a penalty to you for X number of rooms. This can be slowing you down, making dash worse, taking damage if you cast, etc. In exchange, when you finish clearing X rooms, the boon evolves giving you a nice buff to something or other.

Keepsakes

Keepsakes are items that you can equip for buffs during an escape attempt. You acquire them by gifting characters with Nectar. When given their first Nectar, the character will reward you with their Keepsake. Hades is the exception; his keepsake does not come until you complete the normal ending so do not waste any of your Nectars on him early on.

Keepsakes can be equipped in the display case in the courtyard besides your weapons. Once a keepsake is equipped, it cannot be removed, only exchanged for a different one.

Keepsakes can be changed mid-run if you have bought the Keepsake Collection, Regional upgrade from the House Contractor. In the room after each boss you’ll find the Keepsake Collection. Switching keepsakes and closing the collection will lock you into using this keepsake until the next collection point. If you close the collection without changing keepsakes you can still open the collection to change it. This plays an important role in longer runs as some keepsakes provide most benefit at the start and others are more useful later on.

FYI, this is not a list of all keepsakes, but a list of some useful general keepsakes to start a fresh run off with.

Another type of keepsake that is useful for runs are the God ones. They provide ‘The next Boon you find will be from [God], +10/15/20% chance to be Rare or better.’ These are excellent for getting a particular God for a build you want. Some Gods are much better for some weapons than others. The other keepsakes are good, general keepsakes, God keepsakes are best used at start of runs to get the build you want, then switched out after first boss for a good general keepsake. Give Nectar to the Gods whose playstyle fits with your favourite weapons most..

Combat and Bosses – Tartarus and Asphodel

If you’re having issues with general combat in zones and bosses in the game, here are some tips.

Tartarus

The easiest zone. Not too much really to worry with here. Many enemies are fairly easy, slow to move and attack. Louts are one early danger, their charge attack can hurt, not too much else too difficult here. The little witches and brimstones are pretty fragile and can be burned down quickly.

Meg

When Meg bends over she’s going to dash forwards. It has a really long tell so should be easily to sidestep. After the attack she’ll stay at the end of the charge path for a while and this is when you’ll be doing a lot of your damage.

She has AOE whip attack centred on herself if you’re too close to her. Dash away from her to avoid it if you’re in melee range, unless go pew pew from ranged.

She summons multiple AOE circles on the ground centred on you that do large damage. She always does it the same number of times with same size. Just focus on dodging unless you’ve got the skill to dash next to, hit and avoid the next AOE wave.

She has a projectile volley. You can destroy them with your attack, block with sield, etc. Has long range but not too my damage. You can run away to make it easier to dodge the individual projectiles.

She will summon several minions but it’s best imo to mostly ignore them unless they get in your way. Also there are several traps in the room, watch out for the room or maybe kite adds and Meg over them.

Every 25% she’ll become invulnerable for a short time.

Once you’ve got some experience in the game and some upgrades this is pretty much zzzzz

Asphodel

One important thing to note, stepping on the lava will deal damage to you. Be careful with your dashes here. Enemies are tougher and more challenging in Tartarus. A number of enemies will jump around while throwing bombs. Dash around with them, dodge the bombs and dodge away form them after you kill one as they will drop a bomb on death. There is a nastier version of the witch here which will throw projectiles around. Gorgon are somewhat rare but quite annoying. They fire slow moving projectiles that petrify you, dealing damage and leaving you frozen in place for a short time. Dodge the projectiles and burn them down. Dracon are another annoying one, they burrow into the ground and pop up near you and fire multiple homing projectiles. Annoying to track them down and dodge all the projectiles as they usually come in a pack. Skull-Crusher are only challenging if fought along with other enemies. It lifts itself into the air, tracks you down (you can see its shadow) then falls down on your current position. You need to bait him into falling by staying still then dashing when he comes down and burning him down with backstabs. The final enemy of note is the Wave Maker, a ghoul that fires a wave attack at you. It can travel a long way and is really fast so it can be hard to dodge. Good idea to burn these guys down fast when you encounter them.

Lernie

The Hydra has a rotating primary power and a ground slam. The primary power includes fireball spit, bolt spam, ghoul summon eggs (btw kill them if you can, they come out with armour from main head), bolt wave, rock drop.

Hang back, see what his trick is and dash in hit him a bunch then dash out before he does ground slam. Wait for the primary attack, deal with it and then dash back and repeat.

At 66% health, he becomes invulnerable and summons a number of trio of hydra heads. They have a random assortment of weaker versions of the Hydra’s possible powers. Each is armoured as well. Do your best to avoid damage while hanging away from the main head and burn each summon down.

Once they’re dead continue fighting Hydra, but be warned his powers will be stronger now. He’s still fairly easy and continue until he’s at 33% health. He once again goes invulnerable and now summons five extra heads. Depending on which powers each of the head’s get this can get really hectic to avoid damage especially if multiple gets the bolt waves. Kill the heads starting from the right (or left side, whatever you prefer) and make a loop around until they’re all dead.

Hydra powers get really amplified now. He’ll do three consecutive ground slams so hold back on your dodge until he stops. Hi primary power also is stronger with multiple bolt waves, tons of fireballs, 3 ghoul summoning eggs, super fast tiny bolts, etc. Dodge the attacks, use pillars for cover, dash and hit him and dash out before he ground slams. Rinse and repeat until victory.

Combat and Bosses – Elysium and Styx

Elysium

This is where the difficulty starts to spike. Almost every enemy is annoying here. You’ll be fighting lots of Exalted here. They have the unique mechanic that when they die the spawn a ‘soul’ and will regenerate if you don’t kill the ‘soul’ quickly enough. Brightswords are fast melee dashers and Longspears are leaping spear users with wide reach but aren’t too challenging. Strongbows do heavy ranged damage but have to aim first before they fire. A targeting retinal will appear over your head if they’re aiming for you, dash behind walls to break their attack. The most annoying one by far is the Greatshield. When not stunned or attacking, it uses its shield to protect it from frontal attacks. Has a shockwave style attack and fast spin attack. The primary strategy to fight them is to bait out their attack then dash behind them and open up from behind them. If they don’t have armour you can usually keep them locked up until death. Otherwise you’ll have to back off and bait off another attack.

Next are the annoying chariots. Flame Wheels are tiny kamikaze chariots. charging you and exploding. Try to dash around and kill them with ranged abiltiies. The Nemean Chariots are their big brother, they can charge you when you get close, dealing high damage and knocking you back. Dash away from them until their charge wears off then dash behind them and backstab to death.

Another version of the witch with a large projectile that splits into multiple smaller ones. Can quickly become a bullet hell. Voidstone summon a shield that makes other enemies invulnerable. Burn the Voidstone to remove the shield. Soul Catchers are big pink balls that summon endless waves of slowish butterflies. Not too bad by themselves, annoying if you have other enemies mixed in with them. Kite around them to avoid their butterflies and loop back and attack them from behind. Depending on your build,the mini-boss version of it can be a brutal fight.

Theseus and Minotaur

Kite Minotaur away from Theseus. Try to DPS him down as fast as you can. When he does his attack, he will do some some attacks in front of him then jump to your current location so move around the edge of area behind pillars. Always keep an eye out for the targeting retinal over you, that means Theseus is going to throw his spear at you. Dash through pillars if you need to, not around. Do the same when the bull charges you, he will get stunned when he hits the pillar.
At low health he’ll get a buff and start throwing ranged bolts on jumps.

Theseus only takes damage from the behind which makes him tricky to fight. After he throws his spear, he will turn his back, get in some blows then hide behind pillar. Rinse and repeat to 50%. Then Theseus will get boons from the Gods and you need to get some blows in to him while also dodging the God’s attacks. Also, if you get too close to him he will do a frontal spear swing, dash through him to avoid, maybe get some blows in while you can.

Fight is indeed really challenging, getting Theseus down once he summons the gods is such a pain.

Temple of Styx

Can be a bit of an annoying area. A bit of random luck here on how fast you find the Satyr sack for Cerberus. One of the main mechanics here is poison. Many enemies will do it and it will deal damage to you over time. You can dispel it at the springs in each room but doing this during actual combat can be really finicky. I actually find many of the elite rooms easier and faster to clear. Many have fewer overall enemies and are less open compared to the large rooms and numerous enemies in other rooms.

Bothers will toss bombs at your current location. One of the easiest enemies to deal with. Crawlers are fast but low health rats. They spawn in huge numbers and try to swarm you. Burn down with any AOEs you have. Gigantic Vermin are giant rats that do a high damage melee attack and will create puddles of poison all around it. Can be annoying as if there are multiple they can fill up the space with poison puddles making it hard to avoid getting poisoned. Satyr Cultist are super annoying, firing a poison dart that does little initial damage but murders you with poison. Bait out the poison dart, dash to them and burn them down fast. Snakestones shoots multiple lasers in a spread at you. The lasers are fast and can do good damage quickly if you’re not in cover. Hide behind cover, wait for a gap in laser fire, then dash to them and burn down quickly.

Redacted

As the final boss of the game Redacted packs a real wallop. First he has two stages.

In the first stage, he has several attacks. First he’ll do a lunge with his spear towards you. His big damage attack is when he steps towards you and does a wide range spin attack. If you have extra dodges it helps make it easier to dodge away from it. Otherwise you can try to dodge through it. It hits for an absolute ton of damage. Finally he throws a flaming skull cast at you. If they hit you they inflict ‘Boiling Blood’ on you which makes you take a lot more damage. If they miss, they will stay on the ground for five seconds and if not destroyed will explode and unleash a medium range wave that will do heavy damage. You can either burn the skulls done, outrun the wave or dash through it to avoid damage. At 50% and 20% he will become invulnerable and spawn a number of random minions to support him before coming vulnerable again. The minions are the same both times but are different each run.

Once Redacted has being reduced to 0% health, he enters his second phase. He will detonate a heavy damage wave similar to the skull wave from himself. Make sure to dash through it or outrun it as it hits hard. His primary attack is two swipes with his spear followed by his Spin Attack. Occasionally he will attack laser like weapon that fires in three directions; when he is reduced below half health, it fires every direction instead. On the three laser part, you can dash through him and hit him from behind while he tries to turn the lasers around. With the full laser part, you must dash behind the pillars to avoid the laser. His other major attack is to summon multiple vases. When a vase is broken by an attack (either by Zagreus or Redacted), it creates a small zone of green hands that stuns and damages Zagreus with trap damage. If you have boons that do damage when you dodge this can be a good way to clear up the vases. He also keeps tossing the skulls.

After beating Redacted, give yourself a clap on the back and get ready to do it all over again.

God Mode

If you’re still having issues with difficulty there’s also God Mode. This is a special mode to help make the game easier for those having issues with the base difficulty. This grants a 20% damage reduction plus 2% per failed escape attempt. You can turn it on and off whenever you want I believe and it doesn’t impact story or achievement in any way.

This isn’t cheating. It’s the equivalent on playing a game on an easier setting. If this makes the game more enjoyable for you then go ahead and do it. If you want to struggle on with normal mode, remember it’s all about repetition and learning patterns. Find the weapon(s) that works, up the heat and collect more get Titan’s Blood. Use the Titan’s Blood to unlock aspects and max out the weapons you’re not great with so they have better buffs for 0 heat run. If you can get to Styx consistently, then you can stack gold gain and buy more from Charon’s mega shop. 1000 for the diamond, 1200 for the Titan’s Blood. He will have one or the other.