Hades – How to Make a Build

Hades How to Make a Build – Build Types and Gods

Going through the game with a weird build works, but it might not be the best way to play. Like eating a bowl of cereal with a fork or even chopsticks, I mean yeah it works, but you might be struggling a little more than you think without realizing. Making smart choices might be the only thing separating you from a win.

The gamepedia or other steam guides are a great place to learn more about boons or status effects. Personally I think SouL’s guide is incredible work for one person and you should check it out. The gamepedia will probably be more familiar and expansive though.

So depending on which aspects of which weapons you like, I decided to sort builds into three types:

Big hits, small hits, and status effects. Keep in mind that maybe the sorting isn’t so clear at times. Almost every god applies a status effect, and gods can add a bunch of small hits to big hit builds.

Build Types

Big hits like critical strikes, or large Area of Effect specials, or Bomb Arrow builds are extremely satisfying, but usually slower and have large intervals between attacking again. These suck more against bosses, but make most of the game feel easy. My favorite examples are Adamant Rail triple special, Critical Sword, or Bomb Arrow variants. Spear special is ok, but lacking against bosses.

Small hits are the exact antithesis of big hit builds (duh). Great single target because of rapid attacks, but you’ll struggle a bit more on troves or double god rooms. Works great with a lot of status effects because you’ll apply them very often. Poison and electric base damage stack easily with spear or gun attacks. Artemis’ boon “Support Fire” is a crucial part of these builds, adding 33-50% more damage just with that boon alone.

If you started a gun run, whose attack is base 10 damage, and got support fire whose LOWEST boon level gives 15 damage, you got +150% damage right there. Zeus’ boon “Lightning Strike” is just as good. Gives 10 damage, but has an Area of Effect to other nearby enemies. Spear attack build, shield attack build, or gun attack builds fit in here.

Status effect builds are very slow damage per second compared to the others, but they’re SAFE. Thank you Supergiant Games for letting status effects work on bosses. Bosses can drag on for a long time, and status effects can take their time to do their work. You can apply them any way you like, although I prefer from long range. I think the best builds are: doom special with weak for shield/spear, poison with weak, or maybe even a revenge build.

The best boon to look for are Duo bonuses for the doom/weak “Curse of Longing” or poison/weak “Low Tolerance”. Revenge build comes together with “Vengeful Mood”. Personally I think Doom special shield is one of the easiest builds. Apply doom with special, then hide with Bullrush or dash away. Your special deals only 15 damage, but with doom hitting 50-100, you just boosted your special’s damage by 300%-600% but you still have the safe playstyle of the shield and it works from range.

One of the crucial aspects to this build is you get the “Privileged Status” perk from the mirror. It gives +50% damage on targets with two status effects. A bright X will appear next to their health bar and you’ll know it’s working. Usually you’ll be switching between all your attacks to constantly apply the status effects instead of one button like the other builds.

Cast Build

As of now relying on casts is not very viable unless you have: Artemis’ “Quick Reload” or “Fully Loaded”,or are using “Blade Rift” or “Festive Fog” which drop after a duration. I think only two builds are viable right now: “Blade Rift” + “Vicious Cycle” + “Hunting Blades” or “Tipsy Shot” + “Scintillating Feast” + Any additional lightning modifiers. They both offer enough damage for an entire run if you are lucky enough to find them, and then go entirely into survivability.

If your cast gets stuck in multiple enemies, you’re stuck with your lesser damage from your weapon, which is the main reason I don’t think casts are very good right now. Maybe if you went Poseidon Aspect of Sword, which dislodges bloodstones. I haven’t experimented much with it though, but going by common sense Artemis will be your god of choice because many of her boons are cast related.

What Gods For What Build

So based on which build you want, you want to pick your gods and pick your boons carefully. You only have a select choice and a limited number. In general,

• Big hits build should usually take the following gods as a priority:
• Artemis (for critical strike chance on attack or special, or Pressure Points”)
• Aphrodite (for Duo with Artemis or survivability)
• Ares for “Battle Rage” or “Urge to Kill”

Usually use either Zagreus Sword, Zagreus Bow Explosive shot, or Adamant Rail Triple Bomb.

• Small hits should usually take the following gods as a priority:
• Artemis (for critical strike chance or support fire)
• Zeus (for lightning attack)
• Dionysus (for poison attack)
• Athena (for deflect attack if you failed to find the previous two gods), or Ares (for doom if you failed to find any of the previous boons somehow and “Battle Rage” or “Urge to Kill”)

Small hit weapons are usually spear attack builds, Adamant Rail Infinity Chamber or Spread Fire,

Status effect builds should take the following gods as a priority:

• Ares or Dionysus (main damage status effects)
• Aphrodite (for duo with either of them and survivability), and any sort of Call ability. Your fights are going to last a long time, you’re probably going to get your call up several times during a boss fight. Revenge builds are a subset of status effect builds that NEED “Vengeful Mood”. I’ve made it work like once. It’s pretty good if you have enough survivability.

Gods that are good in any situation/build:

Hermes, Athena, Aphrodite. All of them give some sort of survival boost, or damage reduction.Quick Recovery, Greater Evasion, Greatest Reflex, Greater Haste, Second Wind, Bronze Skin, Sure Footing, the entire Weak status effect, Different League, and Spent Spirit. Hermes is just great overall, he can make your attacks +X% faster, which is more damage output.

What Builds For What God

To be honest, this is a meme section. You shouldn’t build around one god, it almost never happens. But I already made a section about favorite weapons so why not.

• Aphrodite: Status effect, but works with any build because weak is really good.
• Ares: Status effect, small hits
• Artemis: Big hits, small hits
• Athena: All rounder, but probably small hits for more often deflections
• Dionysus: Status effect, small hits
• Hermes: Status effect, small hits, but great for any build
• Poseidon: Sword or Shield for knocking things into walls. Sorry dude. You’re like one of the big 3 Greek gods of Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, but you’re the worst because you don’t hit bosses with your knockback so your build is limited. And I hate your call. Also needs 2 boons to apply rupture.
• Zeus: Small hits. NOT STATUS EFFECTS because you need 2 boons to find jolted and doom is just better jolted in my opinion. You can use jolted for “Privileged Status” I GUESS but it kinda sucks.
• Chaos: Big hits, small hits, usually based on which perk you took from them.

I’d like to see a future gamemode where you ally with only one god and have to fight followers of other gods in each seperate room, but maybe it’ll never happen.