admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I thought I liked the spear but I think I actually don't? It feels like a hybrid of a melee and ranged weapon in a bad way and all of the attacks feel just a little too clunky.
I thought I liked the spear but I think I actually don't? It feels like a hybrid of a melee and ranged weapon in a bad way and all of the attacks feel just a little too clunky.
I dunno. Someone sell me on the spear.
Get the Chain Skewer hammer upgrade
Alternatively, charge the regular attack, and then instead of releasing it normally, dash in the direction you want to hit
The Hades aspect for the spear is pretty terrific when you level it up. Charge your spin as enemies are spawning and you start each engagement with a lot of damage and something like a 70% damage bonus on everything your swing hits. It turns a "why would I use this" move into a core gesture, which is always great.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
That’s actually about where I am with the spear. It was my first clear weapon, but the more I’ve gotten used to others the clunkier it has felt. I wasn’t huge on sword until I got the hidden aspect, but now that has caused the spear to drop solidly to my least favorite weapon.
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I like the base spear, and I rely a lot on the ranged attacks with it. I specifically don't do chain skewer though - it's all about the recall for me. There's an ability that gives the spear bonus crit chance and armor piercing on recall that I really like - combine that with like a backstab Chaos boon and some Artemis boons and you can do some very impressive crits with it
I look forward to never again taking a non-optimal boon for the sake of getting materials, but right now I like getting the materials and filling the list
The spear is interesting to me because I think my first impression of it—triple stab with Athena boon on Attack—gave me a kind of skewed impression about how powerful it is
I think in my heart of hearts I'd probably want Doom on its special, maybe with Chain Skewer. Are there any hammer upgrades that are particularly good for the Aspect of Achilles? I do like the damage bonuses you get with it and the ability to reposition yourself in a flash
I like the spear a lot but it took me a while to get a 32 heat win with it. Though "it took me a while" when I've only won with Sword and Spear at that heat doesn't mean too much I guess. It took ~8 attempts probably.
Achilles' Spear is one of the best for cast-based builds. +150% damage on a cast is huge for big hits. I had a Freezing Trippy Fog that hit for 1400 damage with the spear buff active. Instant kill any enemies and chunked bosses down. I love that playstyle.
If you're okay with a high risk-reward setup then I think the secret spear is actually great for a high heat run. It has innate healing so you can turn on -100% healing and just heal from your weapon. If you can get the Daedalus hammers that improve spin attacks you're pretty much golden. It's a bit weak against bosses though so tempering your level of extreme measures would be key.
Here is a run that I thought was going to be hopeless until I got two hammers in Elysium; the first had Shadow Slash, when I already had Excruciating Ambush, and when World Splitter came up... I guess the rest wrote itself
I was critting Theseus, Asterius, and the final boss for about 1400 apiece, and would have been getting even more if I had been using a shot-based cast like Aphrodite or Artemis
A run coming together very late in the game is satisfying
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
My favorite runs are the ones where I lose 1-2 death defiance through Elysium because my build is a complete shitshow and then everything clicks and I tear through the rest of the run.
My favorite runs are the ones where I lose 1-2 death defiance through Elysium because my build is a complete shitshow and then everything clicks and I tear through the rest of the run.
Often bolstered by finding Patroclus, but still.
That just happened to me, I took the sword upgrade that reduces your max health but Attacking gives you 2 health. It wasn't a great build but I managed to squeak though with lots of incidental damage sources, healing by beating up those flaming skulls.
I just had a run with the aspect of Poseidon where I went deep through Artemis's boons and some lucky chaos rolls. Basically, Poseidon call, the damage on dislodge, mark on crit, Artemis cast, 40% move speed bonus damage for move speed and the health on attack (+flurry) hammer abilities -- oh, and bonus bloodstone
I would do a significant fraction of Hades' health bar -- like a quarter -- just with one set of casts and recoveries. It was nuts, just an insanely fast fight.
I finally made it to the last boss, hooray
I got absolutely bodied, only took away about half his health. Had a fun shoeld build that really only came together late, lightning on cast and on Poseidon knockback, with the dash and attack knockback boons, and the Ares/Zeus duo that auto triggered lightning every few seconds and an epic version of the AoE upgrade for the lightning strikes.
Fun fact: Benefits Package can give those mini-chariots a laser that links them, which I also discovered in an Erebus gate. Did not last long.
Also, the benefit that means enemies periodically give surrounding enemies a shield? Is hell in rooms full of armoured skulls. Luckily I had Ares blade boons, but oof, rough.
Discovered in my last run that Athena's deflect on Attack is pretty funny with the hidden sword.
Against waves of ranged enemies, I used the defensive aura to slow bullets down which made timing the reflects really easy. The Exposed boon works nicely for melee enemies too, since it sets you up for great backstab combos (helped by the deflect boons also giving a good +% damage increase).
I wouldn't consider it broken, but it ended up a much more functional choice than I would've guessed before picking it up.
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Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
Discovered in my last run that Athena's deflect on Attack is pretty funny with the hidden sword.
Against waves of ranged enemies, I used the defensive aura to slow bullets down which made timing the reflects really easy. The Exposed boon works nicely for melee enemies too, since it sets you up for great backstab combos (helped by the deflect boons also giving a good +% damage increase).
I wouldn't consider it broken, but it ended up a much more functional choice than I would've guessed before picking it up.
Something has finally clicked for me in this game (probably that I've finally figured out how to deal with Theseus).
I went from one clear in like 40 attempts to 3 clears in a row with different weapons.
I had a super fun rail clear where I had homing 3 shot no reload artemis attacks, the artemis homing arrow on hit, and homing ares rift casts. I just ran away blindfiring and won.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I put on Extreme Measures 3 for the first time on a 6-heat bow run and lmao @ upgraded Theseus
luckily I had an extremely good shoot-and-scoot build with Hera aspect and Dionysus cast, plus Hades on attack, Aphrodite on dash, and their duo. So I could just chunk them for ~1000 and then dash around them while they take continuous doom damage. Ultimately only lost one DD and that was to Hydra.
I just started playing last week and I made it to the surface last night on run 11. The boss there made me real deal real quick (no Death's Defiance at that point) but I felt pretty good about it.
I celebrated by starting another run in which I unlocked the last of my weapons (rail) and took it for a spin. Meet Demeter and her chill status for the first time and then proceeded to eat shit in Tartarus. This weapon is going to take some getting used to...
Lucifer Rail with Poseidon boon on attack turns it into a hilarious super soaker.
Fucked up that run when I picked up a duo Ares/Poseidon cast and just not being able to wrap my head around it, but it was pretty fun until then.
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I dunno. Someone sell me on the spear.
Get the Chain Skewer hammer upgrade
Alternatively, charge the regular attack, and then instead of releasing it normally, dash in the direction you want to hit
I never again have to take a boon to finish a prophecy.
Still missing a spear and a fists upgrade for their prophecies, though.
The spear is interesting to me because I think my first impression of it—triple stab with Athena boon on Attack—gave me a kind of skewed impression about how powerful it is
I think in my heart of hearts I'd probably want Doom on its special, maybe with Chain Skewer. Are there any hammer upgrades that are particularly good for the Aspect of Achilles? I do like the damage bonuses you get with it and the ability to reposition yourself in a flash
Achilles' Spear is one of the best for cast-based builds. +150% damage on a cast is huge for big hits. I had a Freezing Trippy Fog that hit for 1400 damage with the spear buff active. Instant kill any enemies and chunked bosses down. I love that playstyle.
If you're okay with a high risk-reward setup then I think the secret spear is actually great for a high heat run. It has innate healing so you can turn on -100% healing and just heal from your weapon. If you can get the Daedalus hammers that improve spin attacks you're pretty much golden. It's a bit weak against bosses though so tempering your level of extreme measures would be key.
Here is a run that I thought was going to be hopeless until I got two hammers in Elysium; the first had Shadow Slash, when I already had Excruciating Ambush, and when World Splitter came up... I guess the rest wrote itself
I was critting Theseus, Asterius, and the final boss for about 1400 apiece, and would have been getting even more if I had been using a shot-based cast like Aphrodite or Artemis
A run coming together very late in the game is satisfying
Often bolstered by finding Patroclus, but still.
That just happened to me, I took the sword upgrade that reduces your max health but Attacking gives you 2 health. It wasn't a great build but I managed to squeak though with lots of incidental damage sources, healing by beating up those flaming skulls.
Sounds like a lot of run-cast-run-cast-run-cast-ohgodwhy-run-cast
I would do a significant fraction of Hades' health bar -- like a quarter -- just with one set of casts and recoveries. It was nuts, just an insanely fast fight.
That's basically the worst combination for me, and I don't plan ahead enough with fists to get a cast like, Poseidon to take them out.
I had aphrodite
you can just run/dash away from them and they'll suicide on their own after a while
This is a coward move. The fist special has just enough range to kill the chariots from outside their explosion range.
Evading the chariots is good practice for Asterius
I got absolutely bodied, only took away about half his health. Had a fun shoeld build that really only came together late, lightning on cast and on Poseidon knockback, with the dash and attack knockback boons, and the Ares/Zeus duo that auto triggered lightning every few seconds and an epic version of the AoE upgrade for the lightning strikes.
Also, the benefit that means enemies periodically give surrounding enemies a shield? Is hell in rooms full of armoured skulls. Luckily I had Ares blade boons, but oof, rough.
I wouldn't consider it broken, but it ended up a much more functional choice than I would've guessed before picking it up.
I went from one clear in like 40 attempts to 3 clears in a row with different weapons.
I had a super fun rail clear where I had homing 3 shot no reload artemis attacks, the artemis homing arrow on hit, and homing ares rift casts. I just ran away blindfiring and won.
I celebrated by starting another run in which I unlocked the last of my weapons (rail) and took it for a spin. Meet Demeter and her chill status for the first time and then proceeded to eat shit in Tartarus. This weapon is going to take some getting used to...
Fucked up that run when I picked up a duo Ares/Poseidon cast and just not being able to wrap my head around it, but it was pretty fun until then.
Zagreus: Fine, I'll be up there to kick the shit out of you again soon.
Finally got through again. And with the shield this time.
Of course I realized today that I'm missing one miniboss for the fate and it's definitely in Nyx, so I guess I'll be running them again.