UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
edited January 2020
Doug's Hades Weapon Aspect Tier List
(Bold = best aspect for that weapon
S Tier: Chiron Bow - Slap Dionysus boon or any +% damage (Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite, Demeter) on the special, and try for the +4 special arrows hammer buff Chaos Shield - DOOM SPECIAL
A Tier: Eris Rail - +60% to *all* damage for 8s after standing in your special is nuts
Hera Bow* - this works particularly well with AoE casts like Poseidon, or awkward to aim ones like Dionsysus. Does not work as well with Ares' Blade Rifts.
Zagreus Shield - Shield is good. Shield with damage reduction is good.
B Tier: Nemesis Sword - pair it with a high damage main attack, particularly Artemis Zagreus Spear - Aim for a good Special with this one, bonus if you can get the +7 bounces hammer
Achilles Spear* - +150% damage for your first two casts after rushing to your spear is nuts. Do not take the bouncy special upgrade with this one though or you'll have a hard time controlling where you end up.
Zagreus Bow - Bow is good. Bow with more crits is good.
C Tier:
Poseidon Sword* - +50% cast damage all the time, and the ability to get your bloodstones back faster for extra casts. Pairs especially well with the Artemis boon that makes the stones popping out hurt.
Zagreus Sword - Move faster, dash further. Nice, but not amazing.
Zagreus Rail - Reloading less often is good?
D Tier:
Hestia Rail - bonus damage after a manual reload is eh.
Hades Spear - the sweep is slow and clumsy and rarely worth using, making it better doesn't really help with that
F Tier:
Zeus Shield - This is just weird to control and feels bad to use.
I had a Guan Yu with both the Daedulus upgrades that gave increased charge speed and size and damage, and it applied poison stacks on hit. It was pretty good.
Picked this up today, one of my sword runs featured the crit/damage boost from Artemis, the general crit chance boost, the attack speed boost from Hermes, the Daedalus upgrade to convert the sword combo to one big slice, and the Daedalus upgrade to back attacks.
1200+ melee crits on the Theseus' rear was the height of absurdity. Ended up dying in the next area because poison lasts way too fucking long. Fun while it lasted though.
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
Spear is far and away my favorite weapon
It stabs, it throws, it flies back, it has a charge move I never ever use because it requires you to stand still for an hour
I should load this up again and see if my cast and dash are still messed up and on the same input for some reason
Picked this up today, one of my sword runs featured the crit/damage boost from Artemis, the general crit chance boost, the attack speed boost from Hermes, the Daedalus upgrade to convert the sword combo to one big slice, and the Daedalus upgrade to back attacks.
1200+ melee crits on the Theseus' rear was the height of absurdity. Ended up dying in the next area because poison lasts way too fucking long. Fun while it lasted though.
If you’re talking about the poison in the Temple of Styx, you need to run over to a fountain and cure yourself - it won’t go away on its own.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I played this game at a friend's house, absolutely wrecked with the spear. I'll probably pick it up after it gets a final release.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Super dumb run. Quick attack mark(w/ Doom because why not) into special spam that applies chilled, with the boon that detonates chilled targets. Was one short of 10 arrow specials so targets were "only" detonating every second special. It wasn't the fastest for trash but bosses exploded.
Maybe I just had a bad combo when I tried the bow run, using Fearghaill's suggestion above, but the fact that you have to stop moving every time you use the special was absolutely killing me.
Chilled as an effect is super powerful though - the fact that it works on the bosses is a huge help.
Had the easiest run ive ever had last night. Shield (Zag aspect), deflect on dash, +3 dash, + damage to dash. all I have to do is dash back and forth through a boss until its dead. no damage to me at all.
Now if only i had that for sword. thats the weapon i suck the most at.
Observations:
-Extreme Measures on Hydra is neato
-Middle Management on the Asphodel midboss(medusa head+stalagmite) is fucking awful. It's not all that bad everywhere else.
Chill effects, chill effects, chill effects. Get Demeter boons.
Chill makes the enemies move slower so you get a lot more warning before their attacks.
Hmmm. I don’t remember when I first found her boon. I think they have a chance to appear any time? It’s white with a eucalyptus-looking branch on it.
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
I haven't tried a brand new save to confirm but the first time I got a Demeter boon Zag made a comment about the cold reminding him of the weather on the surface which has led some people to speculate you need at least make it to the Final Boss at least once before she shows up, but I have no idea if that's true
as for the Hydra... it's definitely easier with a ranged build, just gives you more space to dodge stuff. Athena dodge really helps thanks to the deflect.
In general though, take your time and play defensively with the big head. Once you learn the major attack patterns (lunging bite, AoE stomp, slow and fast projectile swarms) they're all pretty dodgeable. A big tip if you need to be up close is constantly dash *through* the head, and dash often. Dash-strike through, hit a couple times, dash away. Dash in, hitx2, dash through, hit x2 (actual number of hits will depend on weapon speed), dash away, repeat. Unless you're using the time limit pact of punishment you don't need to rush the big head phases. I'd be careful using your Cast too much against the big head as you usually want all 3 bloodstones available when the littles pop up.
For the small heads, here is where you want to throw everything you've got. I'll usually pick a small head off to one side, immediately dump all 3 Casts into it, burn it down and collect the stones, and then move on to the next one. There's only 2 small head phases now (3/6) instead of the 2/4/6 before. If you have a good Call, I usually try to save it for the second small head phase, it will usually be fully charged by then and some of them can completely take out 1-2 heads pretty quickly.
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
Also if you want a major damage boost, save up 12 keys and 150 darkness for the Privileged Status mirror buff and try to build for that. Basically any time you can get 2 different gods status curse effects on an enemy at the same time, you deal +50% damage to that enemy. Some gods are easier than others with this. Aphrodite, Ares, Demeter, and Dionysus all include a curse on their basic attack/special/dash boon, while the others need a secondary boon (Athena's Expose, Artemis Marked, Poseidon's Rupture, Zeus' Jolted. Get one of those on your main attack, and one on your special or dash (or cast, though the others can be used more often) and you will see a huge boost in how fast stuff dies.
This game rewards burst damage in a huge way. The only defense bosses have against burst damage is their invulnerable periods, and the snake heads don’t get that. They have armor, but it doesn’t really help.
They’ve tried to tamp down on Artemis but her boons are still above and beyond anything else in this regard.
With the adamant rail, you can get the rocket special and the cluster bomb upgrade (5 bombs in a spread), pair that with the Artemis special bonus to crit, and just annihilate everything.
In my last run on 5 Heat, I ended up with this setup:
Artemis special crit +damage
Chaos special +damage
Aphrodite attack weak
Demeter cast
Artemis/Demeter duo (this power melts bosses including the final boss)
Artemis crits do more damage
Aphrodite enemies with weak take more damage
Demeter if all casts are out enemies take more damage and you take less damage (if you are using her beams this should always be true)
Demeter if all enemies in a map are chilled they decay
Demeter your cast chills
Rocket bombs/cluster bomb
I would dash in to the final boss and shoot him point blank and do anywhere from 2,500 to 5,000 damage. Then also use my cast and start ice melting him. It was silly.
Edit, Demeter also has an incredible boon that will take a number of your booms, drop them to common, and then grow them to heroic after nine encounters.
Eurydice’s ability to turn two random booms heroic is also so so good.
I think part of the problem is not just that Artemis, etc. are strong(I think they do need to be strong at low Pact levels so that they are not unusable at higher Pact levels) but that even even without Pact levels some of the flat damage boons scale baaaaadly, even if you lean into supplementary boons for it. Dionysus' hangover damage for example - it's great at the start but because it has a cap on how much can be applied and the severe diminishing returns on further levels of it it drops off a cliff hard by the time you reach Elysium enemy health pools. I've tried runs with them multiple times but I just haven't been able to get it to work.
I think part of the problem is not just that Artemis, etc. are strong(I think they do need to be strong at low Pact levels so that they are not unusable at higher Pact levels) but that even even without Pact levels some of the flat damage boons scale baaaaadly, even if you lean into supplementary boons for it. Dionysus' hangover damage for example - it's great at the start but because it has a cap on how much can be applied and the severe diminishing returns on further levels of it it drops off a cliff hard by the time you reach Elysium enemy health pools. I've tried runs with them multiple times but I just haven't been able to get it to work.
yes this is definitely a huge problem. Like, give the rail special a +100% bonus and it applies weak? Ok, cool, it's now doing 120 damage a hit, and if you get the triple bomb that's 360 if they all hit. But at the end of the day you're going to be facing a boss where that just does not cut it, especially once you start adding pacts.
The flat increases will make you instantly very viable for like 2/3 of the game and then you'll suddenly hit a wall where every fight takes a long time. Even if you're winning, the attrition equation will not be in your favor.
I do enjoy the artemis crit path with some other good pairing (athena is good too) because it just makes you actually feel like a god growing in power exponentially. it's cool.
I think part of the problem is not just that Artemis, etc. are strong(I think they do need to be strong at low Pact levels so that they are not unusable at higher Pact levels) but that even even without Pact levels some of the flat damage boons scale baaaaadly, even if you lean into supplementary boons for it. Dionysus' hangover damage for example - it's great at the start but because it has a cap on how much can be applied and the severe diminishing returns on further levels of it it drops off a cliff hard by the time you reach Elysium enemy health pools. I've tried runs with them multiple times but I just haven't been able to get it to work.
Dionysus works well on specific builds. The fact that Hangover immediately gets you 1/2 of the Privileged Status damage boost helps, if you can get one other curse on the special and Hangover on the attack or vice versa that's an easy +50% to the Hangover DoT as well as everything else. Where he really shines though is with Aphrodite. Weak and Hangover are the two of the easiest curses to apply, and their Duo boon lets you stack Hangover up to 8 instead of 5. Chiron's bow with Aphrodite attack and Dionysus special is incredible, or the reverse on any Rail build (AoE a bunch of enemies to apply Weak, and then machine gun some Hangover stacks on them)
I think part of the problem is not just that Artemis, etc. are strong(I think they do need to be strong at low Pact levels so that they are not unusable at higher Pact levels) but that even even without Pact levels some of the flat damage boons scale baaaaadly, even if you lean into supplementary boons for it. Dionysus' hangover damage for example - it's great at the start but because it has a cap on how much can be applied and the severe diminishing returns on further levels of it it drops off a cliff hard by the time you reach Elysium enemy health pools. I've tried runs with them multiple times but I just haven't been able to get it to work.
Dionysus works well on specific builds. The fact that Hangover immediately gets you 1/2 of the Privileged Status damage boost helps, if you can get one other curse on the special and Hangover on the attack or vice versa that's an easy +50% to the Hangover DoT as well as everything else. Where he really shines though is with Aphrodite. Weak and Hangover are the two of the easiest curses to apply, and their Duo boon lets you stack Hangover up to 8 instead of 5. Chiron's bow with Aphrodite attack and Dionysus special is incredible, or the reverse on any Rail build (AoE a bunch of enemies to apply Weak, and then machine gun some Hangover stacks on them)
I think to some extent that highlights the problem, just to make some boons like Hangover begin to work you first need enough keys/darkness invested to be able to run a multi-status build, but even then it's primarily as an enabler for the rest of your damage. As it is right now, given any other choice I feel like I'd get more out of dumping my darkness into minimum rarity so the boons that are good right out of the gate tend to start off even better, or if I do run a multi-status build it would primarily be to just use the presence of Hangover to make a Demeter/Aphrodite-heavy build even more dumb.
Oh, I don't even have that anymore I guess now it doesn't unlock until you kill the final boss so, probably gonna be a long-ass time before I get it.
Pact of punishment used to unlock by beating Hydra, now I think it's a contractor upgrade? I came back to the game after a period away and there was a conversation with Skelly with Zag asking what happened to his curtains.
Oh, I don't even have that anymore I guess now it doesn't unlock until you kill the final boss so, probably gonna be a long-ass time before I get it.
Pact of punishment used to unlock by beating Hydra, now I think it's a contractor upgrade? I came back to the game after a period away and there was a conversation with Skelly with Zag asking what happened to his curtains.
You have to beat the current last boss to unlock the Pact and it will unlock automatically.
Man I just can not get through Elysium
I got to the boss once, every other time I get fucking bodied by the enemies and the traps, especially the spear guys with their absurd range
i was trying the chiron bow after all the praise and i just cannot make that thing work at all, i always die in elysium where having to stand still to charge the bow is just death from a thousand different things.
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
i was trying the chiron bow after all the praise and i just cannot make that thing work at all, i always die in elysium where having to stand still to charge the bow is just death from a thousand different things.
dodge a whole bunch until you're clear, mostly. You also don't need to fully charge the shot as your primary fire is not your main source of damage, it's just a way to mark your target
or try for the Flurry Shot hammer upgrade which I use entirely to get one quick shot off before spamming special
I guess, the special hasn't really been hugely effective in the two runs I did. Yea it always hits, but doesn't seem to do much when it does. I'm sure I just need to seek out different god boons.
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
I guess, the special hasn't really been hugely effective in the two runs I did. Yea it always hits, but doesn't seem to do much when it does. I'm sure I just need to seek out different god boons.
Dionysus boon works really well on it on its own, otherwise you want to stack +% damage on it. Aphrodite Attack/Dionysus Special is particularly great. Otherwise if you want direct damage, Artemis is always good, or anything that does a combo of status effects between the attack and the special (Weak on the attack, Chilled on the special, for example). My last run used the attack/cast to get Privileged Status, and then I had Artemis and a +Special chaos boon, and the +4 special arrows hammer upgrade.
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
I haven't played in a while but whenever I used the bow I only ever used the special
Standing still to shoot stuff is for suckers, dashing behind enemies to shotgun them with the special is that good life
I guess, the special hasn't really been hugely effective in the two runs I did. Yea it always hits, but doesn't seem to do much when it does. I'm sure I just need to seek out different god boons.
It's not just that it always hits, but that every shot hits the same target. It's a great way to focus fire on a particular enemy and stack stackables, which is really useful on bosses.
Ok well something clicked for me and the Hydra is now super easy to deal with.
Anyone got any recs for taking down Theseus and the Minotaur quickly? While I don’t find them hard to deal with, they’re getting a bit tedious with how long I have to spend with them each time.
The biggest tip I have for clearing any boss faster is to ensure that you've angled your build to allow you to apply two debuffs for privileged status, and to shoot a cast into them. Get all the sources of extra damage, even if your casts/status application skills aren't hurting much on their own.
I ate an engineer
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
Ok well something clicked for me and the Hydra is now super easy to deal with.
Anyone got any recs for taking down Theseus and the Minotaur quickly? While I don’t find them hard to deal with, they’re getting a bit tedious with how long I have to spend with them each time.
I try to focus down the minotaur first, ideally keeping a pillar between me and Theseus as much as possible. When I can I try to save my Call for when I have Theseus on his own, and ideally when he hits 50% and starts asking for divine intervention. Beating Theseus quickly is tricky because of his shield, main thing I've found is that he does turn his back for a few steps after he throws his spear so you can bait that, hide behind a pillar, pop out and thwack him a couple times, repeat.
For killing him quickly, he does not shield himself at all during the first call on the gods, so if you can safely unload on him during that you can do a chunk. That's when I'll use a Greater Call, typically. Artemis can hit him for a ton at once, Ares and Poseidon make you Immune for the duration, as does Athena. With ones like Zeus and Dionysus I try to run in tight circles near him to avoid the incoming ring-on-the-ground damage but still hit him with the AoE
The other option is hyper aggressive dash-striking back and forth through him, if you've a build that allows it. I was doing a sword run with the time limit pact and had to burn him down in a hurry because the timer was up and I was losing 5hp/sec to that. I took some extra hits this way, but not too many and it did work.
Posts
(Bold = best aspect for that weapon
S Tier:
Chiron Bow - Slap Dionysus boon or any +% damage (Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite, Demeter) on the special, and try for the +4 special arrows hammer buff
Chaos Shield - DOOM SPECIAL
A Tier:
Eris Rail - +60% to *all* damage for 8s after standing in your special is nuts
Hera Bow* - this works particularly well with AoE casts like Poseidon, or awkward to aim ones like Dionsysus. Does not work as well with Ares' Blade Rifts.
Zagreus Shield - Shield is good. Shield with damage reduction is good.
B Tier:
Nemesis Sword - pair it with a high damage main attack, particularly Artemis
Zagreus Spear - Aim for a good Special with this one, bonus if you can get the +7 bounces hammer
Achilles Spear* - +150% damage for your first two casts after rushing to your spear is nuts. Do not take the bouncy special upgrade with this one though or you'll have a hard time controlling where you end up.
Zagreus Bow - Bow is good. Bow with more crits is good.
C Tier:
Poseidon Sword* - +50% cast damage all the time, and the ability to get your bloodstones back faster for extra casts. Pairs especially well with the Artemis boon that makes the stones popping out hurt.
Zagreus Sword - Move faster, dash further. Nice, but not amazing.
Zagreus Rail - Reloading less often is good?
D Tier:
Hestia Rail - bonus damage after a manual reload is eh.
Hades Spear - the sweep is slow and clumsy and rarely worth using, making it better doesn't really help with that
F Tier:
Zeus Shield - This is just weird to control and feels bad to use.
Not yet ranked: Guan Yu Spear
*= best used for cast-based builds
1200+ melee crits on the Theseus' rear was the height of absurdity. Ended up dying in the next area because poison lasts way too fucking long. Fun while it lasted though.
It stabs, it throws, it flies back, it has a charge move I never ever use because it requires you to stand still for an hour
I should load this up again and see if my cast and dash are still messed up and on the same input for some reason
If you’re talking about the poison in the Temple of Styx, you need to run over to a fountain and cure yourself - it won’t go away on its own.
Super dumb run. Quick attack mark(w/ Doom because why not) into special spam that applies chilled, with the boon that detonates chilled targets. Was one short of 10 arrow specials so targets were "only" detonating every second special. It wasn't the fastest for trash but bosses exploded.
I love the bow so much.
Chilled as an effect is super powerful though - the fact that it works on the bosses is a huge help.
Now if only i had that for sword. thats the weapon i suck the most at.
-Extreme Measures on Hydra is neato
-Middle Management on the Asphodel midboss(medusa head+stalagmite) is fucking awful. It's not all that bad everywhere else.
Steam ID - VeldrinD | SS Post | Wishlist
Chill makes the enemies move slower so you get a lot more warning before their attacks.
Steam ID - VeldrinD | SS Post | Wishlist
as for the Hydra... it's definitely easier with a ranged build, just gives you more space to dodge stuff. Athena dodge really helps thanks to the deflect.
In general though, take your time and play defensively with the big head. Once you learn the major attack patterns (lunging bite, AoE stomp, slow and fast projectile swarms) they're all pretty dodgeable. A big tip if you need to be up close is constantly dash *through* the head, and dash often. Dash-strike through, hit a couple times, dash away. Dash in, hitx2, dash through, hit x2 (actual number of hits will depend on weapon speed), dash away, repeat. Unless you're using the time limit pact of punishment you don't need to rush the big head phases. I'd be careful using your Cast too much against the big head as you usually want all 3 bloodstones available when the littles pop up.
For the small heads, here is where you want to throw everything you've got. I'll usually pick a small head off to one side, immediately dump all 3 Casts into it, burn it down and collect the stones, and then move on to the next one. There's only 2 small head phases now (3/6) instead of the 2/4/6 before. If you have a good Call, I usually try to save it for the second small head phase, it will usually be fully charged by then and some of them can completely take out 1-2 heads pretty quickly.
They’ve tried to tamp down on Artemis but her boons are still above and beyond anything else in this regard.
With the adamant rail, you can get the rocket special and the cluster bomb upgrade (5 bombs in a spread), pair that with the Artemis special bonus to crit, and just annihilate everything.
In my last run on 5 Heat, I ended up with this setup:
Artemis special crit +damage
Chaos special +damage
Aphrodite attack weak
Demeter cast
Artemis/Demeter duo (this power melts bosses including the final boss)
Artemis crits do more damage
Aphrodite enemies with weak take more damage
Demeter if all casts are out enemies take more damage and you take less damage (if you are using her beams this should always be true)
Demeter if all enemies in a map are chilled they decay
Demeter your cast chills
Rocket bombs/cluster bomb
I would dash in to the final boss and shoot him point blank and do anywhere from 2,500 to 5,000 damage. Then also use my cast and start ice melting him. It was silly.
Edit, Demeter also has an incredible boon that will take a number of your booms, drop them to common, and then grow them to heroic after nine encounters.
Eurydice’s ability to turn two random booms heroic is also so so good.
yes this is definitely a huge problem. Like, give the rail special a +100% bonus and it applies weak? Ok, cool, it's now doing 120 damage a hit, and if you get the triple bomb that's 360 if they all hit. But at the end of the day you're going to be facing a boss where that just does not cut it, especially once you start adding pacts.
The flat increases will make you instantly very viable for like 2/3 of the game and then you'll suddenly hit a wall where every fight takes a long time. Even if you're winning, the attrition equation will not be in your favor.
I do enjoy the artemis crit path with some other good pairing (athena is good too) because it just makes you actually feel like a god growing in power exponentially. it's cool.
Dionysus works well on specific builds. The fact that Hangover immediately gets you 1/2 of the Privileged Status damage boost helps, if you can get one other curse on the special and Hangover on the attack or vice versa that's an easy +50% to the Hangover DoT as well as everything else. Where he really shines though is with Aphrodite. Weak and Hangover are the two of the easiest curses to apply, and their Duo boon lets you stack Hangover up to 8 instead of 5. Chiron's bow with Aphrodite attack and Dionysus special is incredible, or the reverse on any Rail build (AoE a bunch of enemies to apply Weak, and then machine gun some Hangover stacks on them)
the rail is just.....so good. the bow with the the auto-tracking aspect is also a wrecker.
I really think the melee weapons pale in comparison.
I think to some extent that highlights the problem, just to make some boons like Hangover begin to work you first need enough keys/darkness invested to be able to run a multi-status build, but even then it's primarily as an enabler for the rest of your damage. As it is right now, given any other choice I feel like I'd get more out of dumping my darkness into minimum rarity so the boons that are good right out of the gate tend to start off even better, or if I do run a multi-status build it would primarily be to just use the presence of Hangover to make a Demeter/Aphrodite-heavy build even more dumb.
Pact of punishment used to unlock by beating Hydra, now I think it's a contractor upgrade? I came back to the game after a period away and there was a conversation with Skelly with Zag asking what happened to his curtains.
I laughed out loud when Zagreus suggested the nickname upon arriving for the fight, and then I saw it above the health bar
You have to beat the current last boss to unlock the Pact and it will unlock automatically.
I got to the boss once, every other time I get fucking bodied by the enemies and the traps, especially the spear guys with their absurd range
i was trying the chiron bow after all the praise and i just cannot make that thing work at all, i always die in elysium where having to stand still to charge the bow is just death from a thousand different things.
dodge a whole bunch until you're clear, mostly. You also don't need to fully charge the shot as your primary fire is not your main source of damage, it's just a way to mark your target
or try for the Flurry Shot hammer upgrade which I use entirely to get one quick shot off before spamming special
Dionysus boon works really well on it on its own, otherwise you want to stack +% damage on it. Aphrodite Attack/Dionysus Special is particularly great. Otherwise if you want direct damage, Artemis is always good, or anything that does a combo of status effects between the attack and the special (Weak on the attack, Chilled on the special, for example). My last run used the attack/cast to get Privileged Status, and then I had Artemis and a +Special chaos boon, and the +4 special arrows hammer upgrade.
Standing still to shoot stuff is for suckers, dashing behind enemies to shotgun them with the special is that good life
It's not just that it always hits, but that every shot hits the same target. It's a great way to focus fire on a particular enemy and stack stackables, which is really useful on bosses.
Anyone got any recs for taking down Theseus and the Minotaur quickly? While I don’t find them hard to deal with, they’re getting a bit tedious with how long I have to spend with them each time.
Steam ID - VeldrinD | SS Post | Wishlist
I try to focus down the minotaur first, ideally keeping a pillar between me and Theseus as much as possible. When I can I try to save my Call for when I have Theseus on his own, and ideally when he hits 50% and starts asking for divine intervention. Beating Theseus quickly is tricky because of his shield, main thing I've found is that he does turn his back for a few steps after he throws his spear so you can bait that, hide behind a pillar, pop out and thwack him a couple times, repeat.
For killing him quickly, he does not shield himself at all during the first call on the gods, so if you can safely unload on him during that you can do a chunk. That's when I'll use a Greater Call, typically. Artemis can hit him for a ton at once, Ares and Poseidon make you Immune for the duration, as does Athena. With ones like Zeus and Dionysus I try to run in tight circles near him to avoid the incoming ring-on-the-ground damage but still hit him with the AoE
The other option is hyper aggressive dash-striking back and forth through him, if you've a build that allows it. I was doing a sword run with the time limit pact and had to burn him down in a hurry because the timer was up and I was losing 5hp/sec to that. I took some extra hits this way, but not too many and it did work.
I just... forget I have them
Steam ID - VeldrinD | SS Post | Wishlist