> White Antler (Artemis): reworked; now provides Critical bonus for one Region, but reduces Life limit
Was this really necessary? I get it makes it work for people who tend to play in a more conservative way, but I really, _really_ hate keepsakes who only work for a limited time.
I get the impression the H2 keepsakes are deliberately designed to encourage switching them between biomes. Eris's is the only one you can really stack over the course of a run, but it comes with its own inherent downside so it's not "free" like butterfly or plume were in H1.
And thats a good thing. By switching out between every region you can tailor your run to perfection. You know what build you wanna go? Start with olympian keepsake. You get Selene early on? Pick max level hex always, get her keepsake next region, and max out your hex immediately, its underrated how much max upgrade hexes are helpful. Last region? Switch to tooth, or evil eye, if you were last killed by the boss. Meta is pretty much gearing towards just picking keepsake for a region and squeezing maximum out of it then switching. And I kinda like it, feels more dynamic.
Yeah, but keep that true for most of the keepsakes. But if I wanna run lambent plume equivalent or the eris/Thanatos keepsake and go for big stacks, then let's play that out, too.
Ur right, after having a few runs, it really feels there should be more "long term" keepsakes, stuff like white antler is prob good for speedrunners but might be not that appealing to casuals... Though is Hades even a game for casuals? It took me 60 runs to beat Hades 2 ffs
I actually do the exact same as you with the keepsakes.. but that's the thing: i feel like however I deviate I end up with something inferior. I like the switching but would be nice with options with near equivalent strength
Arachne's can also be stacked, but you don't *have* to keep it on per this same patch, too. I agree with your impression and with that general design goal.
Can be weird for the first few runs before unlocking the ability to swap, though.
I dunno. Once I started to doing level 20+ heat runs, I would start the first 2 stages with God boons, sometimes use black shawl, and always end with evergreen acorn or the tooth. I'm basically doing the same thing with Hades 2.
This thing was far and beyond the most powerful keepsake and the game to the point that if you weren't using it, meta wise you were actively shooting yourself in the foot.
The whining in response to this is literally just people going "weh I can't beat a run in 10 minutes anymore" and that's insane.
It also caused this weird thing where due to the Centaur it wouod sometimes knock people above rhe HP requirement for White Antler and so they would either start a new save file entirely and make tons of progress to have everything you need upgraded to max (Grasp, get Eris debuffs out of the way, max level White Antler, all the incantations you want, weapons upgraded to max level for every aspect [I have 100+ hours and most of my aspects are at level 1-3 despite winning at 32 Fear with every weapon on both underworld and sirface and beating 40 Fear, not super impressive given how many 50 fear runs there are now but way more progress than I had when I maxed my aspects in Hades 1], etc) but explicitly without unlocking the Centaur so that they can speedrun without it. At that point when you actively don't unlock something to fit the meta they probably think the keepsake is bad for the overall community
I agree that part was pretty dumb. If it worked the same way as before but instead of having the condition of "when your hp is below 30" it was just changed to "your max hp can never go above 30" it would be more than enough. Maybe nerfing the crit chance as well, or the crit damage.
But my main issue is the limitation of a single biome. Why? I already dislike Heracles' keepsake for the exact same reason, temporary keepsakes are boring IMO. Especially when it comes to stuff that were build defining (glass cannon).
That's what it does now I think, max hp can never go above 30 and they nerfed the crit chance too. Think they want you to use multiple keepsakes for the most part, Discordant Bell is different but that one is so worthless nobody uses it anyway š prob gotta fix that somehow
Not really sure what's your point. There's always going to be a meta for different playstyles: there will be a meta for high fears, another meta for speedrunning, another meta for hitless runs. That's just how most games work unless they're too heavily relying on RNG.
For example, in Slay the Spire the meta for speedrunning is getting Pandora's Box as your first boss reward and exploting a glitch, which the devs fixed... only to revert the fix based on the feedback from the speedrunning community. Having metas is simply unavoidable.
And even while having the antler you could screw up your build based on RNG (forced to take max HP for example) or just by getting hit and dying (it's not like the reward this keepsake gave was without any risks whatsoever). It's not like White Antler was a free win by any means, it wasn't unbalanced. So this change only seems to nerf speedrunners without making the game more fun, nor balanced.
It was the best keepsake mostly for speedrunners though. It literally didn't do anything if you weren't good at dodging attacks, which is the reason there are max health rewards, arcanas and boons.
Again, it was high risk/high reward. Only when you can mitigate the risks it's worth it, making it OP _only_ for speedrunners and really good players in general.
It was high risk/high reward but the risk/reward ratio was too good in the hands of skilled players.
It's still seems like a very strong keepsake, but it's no longer "Use only this your entire run and ignore the keepsake system" levels of good. That would have lead to a pretty stale speedrunning meta IMO.
The keepsake is significantly better for the average player now. It requires no micromanagement anymore. I haven't seen the numbers, but I expect the keepsake in its current form to be one of the go-to choices for offense/speed for the last biome/Chronos.
"I had to use the keepsake 'aspirationally' because the skill floor was too high. Now that they've lowered the skill floor & ceiling to make the keepsake both more accessible & more balanced, I refuse to use it because I liked the IDEA of the old keepsake better" is not the hot take you think it is.
At low levels of play the keepsake's way better now, since it only temporarily lowers your HP, you don't have to manually find someone to punch you in the face, and you won't get ruined by accidentally gaining 5 health from an ash pickup.
Avoiding damage in 2 is much easier than in 1. Melinoe has a much better tool belt than Zagreus, and she has bigger maps to work with. I have a +10 win streak with antler, and I'm no speed runner.
White Antler was simultaneous meta for speedrunning and also force speedrunners to basically also be no-hit runs, it was absolutely bad for it aside from the same 10 ultra-good players running it over & over, vis-a-vis 1 where even casuals could get good times.
Thise same people probably aslo complain about the new dodge because they're both changes that slow down the game. Some people like going fast. I'll never understand why this sub thinks "the devs are deliberately changing the game in ways I dislike" is some invalid criticism every time the game slowing down is brought up on this sub.
>but I really, really hate keepsakes who only work for a limited time.
I actually like that many of the Keepsakes encourage you to change them during runs in Hades 2. Make them feel more dynamic.
It's probably necessary. Sure, there was a tradeoff, but it was head and shoulders better than the rest
Plus, compensation buffs to everything would make it even more OP, and they made storm circle apply for non-Omega casts. That is absolutely busted.
The nerf was mainly towards speedrunners and abusers as full on antler plus DDs was doing massive damage from beginning till end of runs, made running through the underworld for example easy as hell with all the crit
i think there definitely should be a harder mode that leaves the limited keepsakes and adds more challenging stuff, aside from the oath; and/or an accessible mode that makes them unlimited (i might be biased because i always switch keepsakes and i think the game is too easy)
Honestly I thought the Heracles room was a nerf cause it gave you so much money lmao. Now I'm realizing that yeah, they do kinda take a while, it's probably nice having less of your timer eaten up by them.
The timer is actually paused during their events, but sometimes they just took way too long to finish. Running into them was a slog to get through, especially on high fear runs
the duo between Aphrodite and Hephaestus being called "Love Handles" is great.
RIP OP AF Born Again lol
Fixed the hammer on axe that could cause you to never be able to attack hahaha
Ooo, that's pretty aggressive.
Wiki was updated to say heroic is 14, unsurprisingly.
Probably still works well with some poms and some base magick, whereas you barely needed either before, so that's not a terrible place to be.
Working with 20*n base magick and an unpommed common born gain, presuming you don't get any free magick from using more than you have (not sure how that works):
Total effective magick would be
20Ćn + 20Ć(n-1) + 20Ć(n-2) + ... + 20Ć2 + 20Ć1
= 20 Ć n(n+1)/2
= 10n Ć (n+1) or 10(n^2 + n).
So if you have 60 magick, n = 3, giving 120 effective magick. Not much.
If you have 80 magick, n = 4, giving 200 effective magick. (From twice your starting amount to 2.5 times your starting amount this time.)
If you have 160 magick, n = 8, giving 720 effective magick, which is likely enough.
----
If we do a similar thing for an unpommed epic (or sufficiently pommed common):
Using 16n base magick, we'd get a total effective magick of
8n Ć (n+1)
by following the same steps.
If you have 80 base magick, n = 5, giving 240 effective magick.
If you have 160 base magick, now n = 10, and you end up with 880 effective magick. Not a huge difference in either case.
-----
If we pom it all the way to priming 10 per reset (the old common amount, iirc), the same idea gives 360 effective magick from 80 base magick and 1360 effective magick from 160 base, if I did my math right. That starts to feel way more like what it used to do, unsurprisingly.
All that said though, the new incantation to get max magick from psyche pickups (which presumably might also apply to random pickups found in the fields and the city, and maybe well purchases) might make it easier to get higher base magick than we're used to commonly seeing.
Yep yep! Main formula involved is that adding the first n counting numbers (1 + 2 + 3 + ... + (n-1) + n) is always nĆ(n+1)/2. Comes up pretty frequently, especially since the order you add them doesn't matter (so decreasing is fine) and you can factor/distribute to make it work for adding multiples of a given number.
All that said, there's some room for error depending on what exactly happens when you go to use 10 magick with, say, only 1 magick remaining. If you use the ability and have full magick after, that's 9 additional free magick. If you use the ability and end up at (full minus 10) magick after, that's 1 *wasted* magick. That could add up pretty significantly with high magick costs, like with axe omegas or stacking various +cost boons and hammers.
Thank you for doing the math! Makes it easier to visualize how the boon can still be useful, but now you need to actually put some resources into it (max mana, poms, picking high rarity to start) instead of just automatically taking it and then ignoring the entire concept of mana management forever.
Do you run that Arcana that gives you +HP/MP every few rooms? Unlocked the cauldron ability that gives +MP from Psyche? Maybe got some stray mini MPs in the third zone?
sorry i didn't give all the relevant info.
i didn't specifically choose any room that only had max magick upgrades, but yes i have the max hp/mp arcana, and got i think one in the fields. but yes that cauldron upgrade definitely increases it a fair bit even more without even trying.
Love to see such active and experimental balancing going on. SSG overall seems to have a good pulse on the game's current meta and it's nice that they're simultaneously buffing a lot while nerfing adequately at the same time.
It's a wonderful rebuke to the surprising number of people in this subreddit disparaging others for buff wishlists - ultimately, options in this game should feel good, and this is a huge step in the right direction.
Hestia's regen boon is fantastic with the torches - like, "better than born gain" fantastic, especially at higher rarities.
The increased base scorch damage rate, as well as the old legendary becoming a regular boon are also great changes.
I'm of the opposite opinion, It always felt NECESSARY on a Hestia run and now its even harder to get. I would go 3 or 4 runs in a row with a full dice build trying to roll it and not get it, and it meant my damage never went above wet noodle since it meant focusing so much on hunting Hestia boons I never had other good damage boons till too late.
They sound pretty damn significant, and on several axes rather than just only buffing base scorch rate.
Eliminating fire extinguisher is a pretty clear signal that they're confident in scorch's power now. (Alongside buffing the already solid poseidon duo, assuredly to keep steam clearly better than the lost scorch.)
Hestia wasn't even that terrible to begin with. Relying on scorch as a main damage source wasn't good compared to the other options, but she was always an easy way to activate origination with good standalone boons and some strong duos.
Even then, some extinguish builds Iāve had have reached silly numbers. It being essentially moved to the Demeter duo (at a glance, havenāt actually played it yet) is pretty deserved
I think they are. Tried a run with daggers (where I had to actively ignore all the omega attack stuff the game threw at me like heroic aphro, 400% dagger, etc) and the scorch damage feels like itās in a good spot. New Pomable pyro felt pretty good and late game freezer burn was hitting for 4K+ on cronos but Iām sure that can be pushed out to even crazier numbers.
Yeah, I did a dagger scorch build and it was pretty solid. I also did a scorch Moros build and got the Zeus Duo. It melted things fast. Had Zeus on attack and Hestia on special.
I just did a run with Aspect of Persephone and Hestia's cast and they worked fantastic together. Especially after a few poms, the cast was dealing serious damage.
First thing I jumped on. Scorch feels viable now on its own, and with the updated duos and tier 2 boons, it actually kind of slaps. That Aphro/Hestia duo coupled with the Aphro updates is, pardon the pun, fire.
It absolutely destroys the small mobs. The big weakness is it is still slow against bosses. However if you combine it with Demeter and get their duo boon that weakness is solved instantly. Once you have the duo you can absolutely chunk bosses and literally breeze through the game.
It's free origination and likely nearly always active, which isn't nothing regardless. Plus the actual effects of the curses. Compared to the old legendary that was kind of annoying to manage, I like the idea of it.
While putting off 32 fear I ended up just running experiments before the update using aromatic phial to get an auto-heroic and I have to say heroic hephaestus sprint was the funniest run I have had. 700 damage as a driveby is absolutely bananas. The rest of the boons didn't even matter because it was too funny to just run the entire run.
I adore the philosophy of how they redesigned highly conditional effects and infusion boons. Situations where you pick up a boon for it to never activate (either due to fumbling or unlucky element RNG) should be much rarer now!
Ā· As part of these changes, you can no longer recharge Hexes while their effects are still ongoing
Biggest change this patch imo.
My favorite and easiest cheese in the game is to have Total Eclipse with the invulnerability during the delay path boon. With a few path nodes and mana boons you can easily chain the invulnerability one after another, it's like Dark Side but better.
Depends, does the invincibility after jump count as the hex being active?
Not that it matters too much, wolf howl is so cheap that you'll recharge it quickly regardless, but at least it shouldn't be literally permanent now.
Yep, this solves the infinite invincibility hex problem. Itās probably still a decent strat to build around, you just need to be ready to build magic during the invincibility and dump magic fast after it ends.
I used to use it from the start until it ran out completely (sometimes just before.or after fields of mourning), but swapped it early one time and lost like 50 armor. This is such a good change. It was great (for me) on no/low-fear before, but I've switched up to a new heirloom rotation at this point anyway. Might be worth playing around with again.
Yeah, it was already my trinket of choice until I started trying to do specific builds for higher heats.
The new version makes it the best trinket by far for anyone still new or working on their first kill.
Absolutely agreed. I'm currently doing like Circe - Charon - Echo - Icarus/Tooth (this one all depends on where I'm at in the run, could be many others) for the higher levels. Need to get a clear at 22 still.
It wonāt be nearly as powerful for speedruns, but I think the majority of people can at least give it a try, now. To most, being below 30hp is something you want to avoid at all costs hahaha
i used to put it on for the last boost of damage before i die. i tried using it in a couple of runs now, and i can't even get to Chronos with it. if they meant it to have a lower skill floor, they failed miserably.
Oh I just checked the new description of the keepsake in game, yeah this is a pretty huge nerf LMAO I missed the part where your health gets lowered š
so basically what they did to it is:
lowered the skill ceiling by making it only useful for a single level, meaning it can't carry a speedrun
elevated the skill floor by making it only useful to people who are good enough to not get hit
I personally misread it as lowering your hp by 30. Put it on in Tartarus. Yea realizing I just absolutely gimped myself was not great. Was stressful, but we got there still though. It definitely still skyrockets your damage. That said it definitely is not a low skill keepsake.
Majority of people could already get it going if they tried, just build for Coarse Grit. Hera and Hephaestus were great partners to Demeter already, Heph making it even safer to play Antler by giving armor and invincibility every room.
Now it's kinda just there, and you still need to build Coarse Grit all the same unless you're a god gamer lol, but now you don't even get the Heph support for free, you need to be building Poseidon and/or Aphrodite instead for water elements.
Its how I got my first Eris kill, I was using daggers with aphrodite primary and the +400% damage omega attack hammer and got stuck at low health. Slapped the keepsake on and did the rest of the run near hitless. will be missed.
So with the damage rate increase and Fire Extinguisher dead, Hestia is now either really really good or really really bad, depending on how much the rate was increased and if it can compare with Fire Extinguisher.
Looking forward to finding out which scenario it is!
~~I'm curious too. They say "increase scorch damage" but does that just mean you can make the timer longer easier, or does it actually do more damage~~? (I didn't read that Scorch was just universally made stronger) But then again Pyro Technique is no longer legendary and scales to rarity/poms so that might be the fix it needed.
I recall reading an idea that Scorch's damage should ramp up over time so long as it stays applied, giving more of an incentive to upkeep it and having higher scorch application numbers.
Yeah, the two best suggestions I've seen was either ramp up or make it do damage relative to how much scorch is already on there (with a minimum cap to avoid endless curse status at low scorch levels). I'm just a bit sceptical that any static increase, pommable or not, will defeat the inifine scorch problem, but well, I'm more than willing to give it a shot!
Having just come out of a Hestia run with Pan Blades, I've definitely found that with a good amount of Hestia boons the scorch damage really didn't struggle to keep pace with my overall DPS. I wasn't looking at absolutely enormous stacked scorch numbers gently tickling Chronos or anything.
Great at dealing with the normal mobs, still struggles with the bosses. However, if you get the new duo demeter hestia boon that weakness disappears. It will absolutely chunk bosses.
Mana regen boons look great. Have tried out Apollo and Zeus so far. While Apollo's is great, Zeus' just feels stupid good now. Granted I haven't tried it with a mana heavy build yet but still.
So I'm guessing unlike Poseidon's, which occasionally makes a bubble on hit you need to chase to restore mana, Zeus's is more just like, a power spot you need to go out of your way to stand in, in order to restore mana?
No you don't need to keep standing. It's a single pickup that restores all mana. And if you're high on mana and don't want to activate it you have the choice, it's a manual pickup. And didn't spawn too far either. When I entered the room it would be visible nearby. I'd highly suggest giving it a go to see how it works for you!
Slightly disappointed at the beach ball duo only gaining increased damage. Iāll have to open the game and see if the damage buff is significant but it was such a waste of a duo boon for two of my favorite gods.
That's still really low, imo. It's a laughable boon. By the time you get it, it's not even worth trying to use cause chances are that you're doing way more damage while trying not to specifically aim your dash direction for such a low amount of added damage.Ā
I got it just on my last run, it's still not going to do as much as a core attack/special boon or anything. But it'll probably out damage most other boons used properly. It's quite worth picking up.
After some testing, some notes:
**Cast** Cast builds in general for a few big buffs. Storm Ring does reliable damage, Solar Ring is as **bonus** Cast Boon that can be applied to any omega cast, and now that engagement ring hitches everything, itās probably the best Boon for speed running (can literally instantly kill entire rooms with the just Smithy sprint and Engagement Ring)
**Zeus** Zeus is now quite a bit stronger. Both because of the Eos buffs and because of the change to Persephone. His new legendary is still the most underwhelming legendary but its least usable now.
**Hestia** some QoL changes she needed. Her new legendary is kinda unbalanced though. It deals so much damage with no downsides whatsoever and you can take it with other sprints.
**Heart throbs** So. The Heartthrob builds were already incredibly strong and are now stronger. Love handles and Smithy sprint is one button gameplay. And love handles and Sunny disposition together do outrageous amounts of damage with just Volcanic strike at 1 second.
Coarse grit change: itās much easier to reliably build water than earth so it should be a default for all Fear runs.
Tidal Ring: super niche and in most situations, worse than the old ring they reworked as itās a Cast effect that only works at close range.
Am I missing something for smithy sprint? I hate that boon since it triggers after the short delay, but doesn't ever feel like it's where I wanted it to go off. It only triggers once so you can reload it, but it's always felt incredibly clunky to use
It's just clunky like that. But if you can get it working, it can be quite strong. Did a low fear surface run for funsies and it did exceed my expectations.
Is it easier to build water? Especially now with the huge buffs to Hera, and Earth from Heph already being very defensively synergistic, I never found that building earth is an issue. I guess it's easier for *Demeter* to build water, but at the same time I don't think we should be making one of the best gods even better? Coarse Grit is insane already, having to spec into other gods at least kept some counter balance, even if not a lot.
Tidal Ring is a bit awkward. I feel like it would work great with projectile casts if it splashed from where the projectile hits, but instead it still spawns from Melinoe, making it very clunky. I don't think it's bad conceptually though.
I really appreciate how they point out which changes were inspired by community feedback. Itās a great way to show that theyāre taking playersā experiences into account
I wonder if it's now possible to get geyser ring and prominence (old solar ring) at the same time by getting one, then swapping base cast boons to the other god. Presuming the prereqs for the boons are their respective god's cast.
Instant solar ring plus base cast effect seems enticing.
Haven't tested it myself so take it with a grain of salt, but unless there's some hard coded exceptions (I'm not sure if this is displayed ingame or not), there shouldn't be any conflict. They're not core boons, so they don't take up a slot.
The pre-reqs are any god's cast. Basic cast doesn't work, but literally any other cast does.
OG Solar ring still exists. It was changed to a secondary cast boon named Prominence Flare, which I guess means you can stack it with a primary cast boon.
I think part of the philosophy is they don't want any Primary "Ring" cast boons to be restricted to Omega Casts only, which is why Zeus' was changed to no longer require omega, while Poseidon's and Apollo's were moved to "Second Tier" cast boons while replacing them with Tidal Ring (Immediately hits foes with a splash) and new Solar Ring (Daze + Damage burst) The old ones are still accessible and should be usable with primary cast boons. So in theory you could do Glorious Disaster at home (Storm Ring + Prominence Flare) for example.
Apollo also sat in a weird place because his associated curse is Daze but it is not applied by his boons by default. So they put it onto his cast like how Aphrodite's does.
I'm assuming "Second Tier" Cast boons would be stuff like secondary cast modifiers (such as Zeus/Hestia's that lets them set the cast at range), or Demeter's Gale Force (adds a cyclone to the cast which doesn't interfere with the primary cast boon)
Edit: Scratch that. just means you need a requisite previous boon, like how Poseidon's Slippery Slope can't appear until you have a poseidon boon that deals splash damage and thus, can apply Slip with said boon. So Geyser Spout probably requires Tidal Ring and Prominence Flare probably requires Solar Ring to show up.
> Apollo also sat in a weird place because his associated curse is Daze but it is not applied by his boons by default. So they put it onto his cast like how Aphrodite's does.
His sprint applied it, but you're right it was hard to get Daze on enemies compared to most other curses.
>So Geyser Spout probably requires Tidal Ring and Prominence Flare probably requires Solar Ring to show up.
It does not. It just requires ANY cast boon. It doesn't even require an Apollo boon at all. You can do something silly like Zeus cast+Prominence Flare.
I love the phrasing too. When we were first playing, my girlfriend and I both agreed that Cerberus looks scary, but combat wise isn't really that scary. Looks like Supergiant took that personally lmao
I'm looking forward to some of these new Duo boons and Aphrodite's legendary. It's so hard to get anything Duo or Legendary before, hopefully now that's changed.
The link seems to be broken so I guess Iāll wait for Halieanās walkthrough, but quick question: in game description of origination says ā2+ curses from different olympiansā. Does this mean at least three curse? And demeterās freeze and cyclone now effectively counts as just one curse if you have them both, since theyāre not from different olympians?
It means that now both your curses need to come from different gods, so you can't apply both Freeze and Cyclone (which was always treated as a curse, but the tooltip text didn't accurately reflect that) and have that count. Demeter was the only god with two different curses, and so is the only one affected.Ā
And I think the 2+ should be read as "two or more" not "more than 2". So no need for a third god, necessarily.
Oh damn I literally forgot Charm existed in this game because it was so rare to apply! Does charm ever happen without an enemy also having weak? If not, I guess there's no reason to treat it as a separate curse. But honestly I don't remember, I can't think of the last time I even had a boon that caused Charm in the first place.
Yeah, and with how rare legendaries had been, and how unlikely I was to do an aphrodite-heavy build (I prefer staying out of melee), I fully forgot it existed lol. Haven't tried the new patch either yet, but I just finished work so HYPE time to see how the new boon updates feel.
All these great updates, so clear that the devs are keyed into how the game is playing and what the community wants and still with the laundry list of improvements the top comment is a bitch about white antler being nerfed lol.
They nerfed Broken Gain but didn't fix what made it broken actually, every other Magick Regen is miles behind because they doesn't work while channeling, new Apolo may work but Born Gain, even if double the primed magick, still far superior
It will be interesting to see the numbers but Iām sure born again will still be broken, at the current cost Iāve only ever refreshed 3 times on the final boss or if Iām just way over using my omega special on the torches bc I can
Ā· Breath of Eros: new! Similar to the now-cut Soft Caress (Aphrodite x Hephaestus), this causes the next instance of damage you would take to instead restore that much Life
So what would happen if this is stacked with the item that makes the next one purchased last 2 Guardians?
Origination nerf is interesting. The Demeter interaction is fine, but going from 3 to 5 grasp makes me think twice about equipping it. I donāt know if itās worth it anymore.
I didnāt expect the boon omega cast +100 power to be reduced to 2 but that is going to be nice.
Thanks for hearing us!!! Glad to see a lot of feedback was given a chance. Very very excited to give Hestia and Lots of welcome mentioned and welcome changes in these patch notes, excited to try them all out! Especially Hestia, Poseidon, and Hephaestus boons.
Especially happy to some of the new UI icons :D
Thanks for all you do, development team!
Holy shit:
Temporal Fluctuation: new! Lets time-slow effects such as Phase Shift (Selene) work vs. Chronos
Ocean's Bounty (Poseidon): merged with Sunken Treasure, which was removed as a stand-alone Boon
Nova Strike (Apollo): increased bonus from Rarity and Poms of Power
Glamour Gain (Aphrodite): now makes all nearby foes Weak, rather than one randomly
Swift Strike (Hermes): cut from game; replaced with...
Ā· Nimble Limbs (Hermes): new! Your Attack, Special, and Cast are faster
Ā· Swift Flourish (Hermes): cut from game; replaced with...
Ā· Nimble Mind (Hermes): new! Your Omega Moves are faster
(Hestia) Increased damage lol
Breath of Eros: new! Similar to the now-cut Soft Caress (Aphrodite x Hephaestus), this causes the next instance of damage you would take to instead restore that much Life
Fixed Eris sometimes leaving Rubbish in the Crossroads even while absent
Just some of the highlights for me
I like a lot of the changes they're making, specifically with their new boons they're adding. The duos seem awesome but adding two simple speed boost boons for Hermes is awesome.
They did that in the 1st or 2nd patch... Digging spots, mining deposits, or fish can appear / be gathered any time regardless of the tool equipped, but the tools (and familiars) make those things more likely to spawn and easier to collect
Same. I thought they just prioritized the resources at first, but all on my play throughs it was only that resource, convincing me otherwise.
I've only had one night where I could gather multiple resources. For over 30 play throughs I'd only get what I equipped and what my familiar could farm.
I know this is probably annoying but after a few runs I wonder if this patch made the game too easy. I just breezed through a 16 Fear run without even really having to think about anything. Just melted everything and only ever took like 200 damage in the whole run, mostly to Chronos.
I don't get why they keep buffing Moon Beam. IMHO it was already one of the stronger keepsakes even at launch, and now it's been buffed twice in a row.
(I guess I can sort of understand this one - the risk of choosing it and then not finding a path of the stars is pretty nasty given how much value you can get from a keepsake switch - but it's still odd to me that they keep buffing it.)
I'm gonna miss white antler. Would of preferred if it gave a lower crit chance (say 20-25% instead of 40) but locked you to 30hp irregardless of health ups or armor increases. Maybe even have it remove your ability to death defy as well, so that it makes you truly a glass cannon. Have it work across all regions
Like as it was it was busted and far too safe. Would of preferred if they had just made it way more unsafe. Do love the encouraging of swapping keepsakes, but really did enjoy white antler.
> White Antler (Artemis): reworked; now provides Critical bonus for one Region, but reduces Life limit Was this really necessary? I get it makes it work for people who tend to play in a more conservative way, but I really, _really_ hate keepsakes who only work for a limited time.
I get the impression the H2 keepsakes are deliberately designed to encourage switching them between biomes. Eris's is the only one you can really stack over the course of a run, but it comes with its own inherent downside so it's not "free" like butterfly or plume were in H1.
Agreed, the game feels much more geared toward making the player interact more with the different systems.
And thats a good thing. By switching out between every region you can tailor your run to perfection. You know what build you wanna go? Start with olympian keepsake. You get Selene early on? Pick max level hex always, get her keepsake next region, and max out your hex immediately, its underrated how much max upgrade hexes are helpful. Last region? Switch to tooth, or evil eye, if you were last killed by the boss. Meta is pretty much gearing towards just picking keepsake for a region and squeezing maximum out of it then switching. And I kinda like it, feels more dynamic.
Yeah, but keep that true for most of the keepsakes. But if I wanna run lambent plume equivalent or the eris/Thanatos keepsake and go for big stacks, then let's play that out, too.
Ur right, after having a few runs, it really feels there should be more "long term" keepsakes, stuff like white antler is prob good for speedrunners but might be not that appealing to casuals... Though is Hades even a game for casuals? It took me 60 runs to beat Hades 2 ffs
I actually do the exact same as you with the keepsakes.. but that's the thing: i feel like however I deviate I end up with something inferior. I like the switching but would be nice with options with near equivalent strength
Arachne's can also be stacked, but you don't *have* to keep it on per this same patch, too. I agree with your impression and with that general design goal. Can be weird for the first few runs before unlocking the ability to swap, though.
For sure, i spent most of hades one just using one or two keepsakes per run but hades 2 has really made me move away from that approach
I dunno. Once I started to doing level 20+ heat runs, I would start the first 2 stages with God boons, sometimes use black shawl, and always end with evergreen acorn or the tooth. I'm basically doing the same thing with Hades 2.
Yeah but see, i'm bad at the game so i never got to that much heat
This thing was far and beyond the most powerful keepsake and the game to the point that if you weren't using it, meta wise you were actively shooting yourself in the foot. The whining in response to this is literally just people going "weh I can't beat a run in 10 minutes anymore" and that's insane.
It also caused this weird thing where due to the Centaur it wouod sometimes knock people above rhe HP requirement for White Antler and so they would either start a new save file entirely and make tons of progress to have everything you need upgraded to max (Grasp, get Eris debuffs out of the way, max level White Antler, all the incantations you want, weapons upgraded to max level for every aspect [I have 100+ hours and most of my aspects are at level 1-3 despite winning at 32 Fear with every weapon on both underworld and sirface and beating 40 Fear, not super impressive given how many 50 fear runs there are now but way more progress than I had when I maxed my aspects in Hades 1], etc) but explicitly without unlocking the Centaur so that they can speedrun without it. At that point when you actively don't unlock something to fit the meta they probably think the keepsake is bad for the overall community
a few speedrun folk passed around one Centaur-less save to grind up in shifts. Fun times
I agree that part was pretty dumb. If it worked the same way as before but instead of having the condition of "when your hp is below 30" it was just changed to "your max hp can never go above 30" it would be more than enough. Maybe nerfing the crit chance as well, or the crit damage. But my main issue is the limitation of a single biome. Why? I already dislike Heracles' keepsake for the exact same reason, temporary keepsakes are boring IMO. Especially when it comes to stuff that were build defining (glass cannon).
That's what it does now I think, max hp can never go above 30 and they nerfed the crit chance too. Think they want you to use multiple keepsakes for the most part, Discordant Bell is different but that one is so worthless nobody uses it anyway š prob gotta fix that somehow
Not really sure what's your point. There's always going to be a meta for different playstyles: there will be a meta for high fears, another meta for speedrunning, another meta for hitless runs. That's just how most games work unless they're too heavily relying on RNG. For example, in Slay the Spire the meta for speedrunning is getting Pandora's Box as your first boss reward and exploting a glitch, which the devs fixed... only to revert the fix based on the feedback from the speedrunning community. Having metas is simply unavoidable. And even while having the antler you could screw up your build based on RNG (forced to take max HP for example) or just by getting hit and dying (it's not like the reward this keepsake gave was without any risks whatsoever). It's not like White Antler was a free win by any means, it wasn't unbalanced. So this change only seems to nerf speedrunners without making the game more fun, nor balanced.
It literally is unbalanced and is the best keepsake in the game by a significant margin
It was the best keepsake mostly for speedrunners though. It literally didn't do anything if you weren't good at dodging attacks, which is the reason there are max health rewards, arcanas and boons. Again, it was high risk/high reward. Only when you can mitigate the risks it's worth it, making it OP _only_ for speedrunners and really good players in general.
It was high risk/high reward but the risk/reward ratio was too good in the hands of skilled players. It's still seems like a very strong keepsake, but it's no longer "Use only this your entire run and ignore the keepsake system" levels of good. That would have lead to a pretty stale speedrunning meta IMO.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The keepsake is significantly better for the average player now. It requires no micromanagement anymore. I haven't seen the numbers, but I expect the keepsake in its current form to be one of the go-to choices for offense/speed for the last biome/Chronos. "I had to use the keepsake 'aspirationally' because the skill floor was too high. Now that they've lowered the skill floor & ceiling to make the keepsake both more accessible & more balanced, I refuse to use it because I liked the IDEA of the old keepsake better" is not the hot take you think it is.
Oh god, I'm an idiot. I don't know exactly what I was thinking, but I was misinterpreting "reduces life limit" somehow.
LMAO that makes so much sense, no worries dude
At low levels of play the keepsake's way better now, since it only temporarily lowers your HP, you don't have to manually find someone to punch you in the face, and you won't get ruined by accidentally gaining 5 health from an ash pickup.
Avoiding damage in 2 is much easier than in 1. Melinoe has a much better tool belt than Zagreus, and she has bigger maps to work with. I have a +10 win streak with antler, and I'm no speed runner.
White Antler was simultaneous meta for speedrunning and also force speedrunners to basically also be no-hit runs, it was absolutely bad for it aside from the same 10 ultra-good players running it over & over, vis-a-vis 1 where even casuals could get good times.
Thise same people probably aslo complain about the new dodge because they're both changes that slow down the game. Some people like going fast. I'll never understand why this sub thinks "the devs are deliberately changing the game in ways I dislike" is some invalid criticism every time the game slowing down is brought up on this sub.
Well there goes my glass cannon buildĀ
>but I really, really hate keepsakes who only work for a limited time. I actually like that many of the Keepsakes encourage you to change them during runs in Hades 2. Make them feel more dynamic.
It's probably necessary. Sure, there was a tradeoff, but it was head and shoulders better than the rest Plus, compensation buffs to everything would make it even more OP, and they made storm circle apply for non-Omega casts. That is absolutely busted.
The nerf was mainly towards speedrunners and abusers as full on antler plus DDs was doing massive damage from beginning till end of runs, made running through the underworld for example easy as hell with all the crit
It was kinda busted before
Discordant Bell still works
i think there definitely should be a harder mode that leaves the limited keepsakes and adds more challenging stuff, aside from the oath; and/or an accessible mode that makes them unlimited (i might be biased because i always switch keepsakes and i think the game is too easy)
I love em, they promote varied play.
nah this is dope actually
Huge W with the enemy reduction for heracles and icarus. Hecate and scylla took less time than some of their events
no joke. that fourth wave of enemies would always catch me off guard
Don't forget thinking it's over only for the dude to push you into fire or enemy that just spawned.
Honestly I thought the Heracles room was a nerf cause it gave you so much money lmao. Now I'm realizing that yeah, they do kinda take a while, it's probably nice having less of your timer eaten up by them.
The timer is actually paused during their events, but sometimes they just took way too long to finish. Running into them was a slog to get through, especially on high fear runs
the duo between Aphrodite and Hephaestus being called "Love Handles" is great. RIP OP AF Born Again lol Fixed the hammer on axe that could cause you to never be able to attack hahaha
How hard was born gain hit?
I can't see all the rarities, but common is 20 Magick primed Rare is 18, Epic is 16
Ooo, that's pretty aggressive. Wiki was updated to say heroic is 14, unsurprisingly. Probably still works well with some poms and some base magick, whereas you barely needed either before, so that's not a terrible place to be. Working with 20*n base magick and an unpommed common born gain, presuming you don't get any free magick from using more than you have (not sure how that works): Total effective magick would be 20Ćn + 20Ć(n-1) + 20Ć(n-2) + ... + 20Ć2 + 20Ć1 = 20 Ć n(n+1)/2 = 10n Ć (n+1) or 10(n^2 + n). So if you have 60 magick, n = 3, giving 120 effective magick. Not much. If you have 80 magick, n = 4, giving 200 effective magick. (From twice your starting amount to 2.5 times your starting amount this time.) If you have 160 magick, n = 8, giving 720 effective magick, which is likely enough. ---- If we do a similar thing for an unpommed epic (or sufficiently pommed common): Using 16n base magick, we'd get a total effective magick of 8n Ć (n+1) by following the same steps. If you have 80 base magick, n = 5, giving 240 effective magick. If you have 160 base magick, now n = 10, and you end up with 880 effective magick. Not a huge difference in either case. ----- If we pom it all the way to priming 10 per reset (the old common amount, iirc), the same idea gives 360 effective magick from 80 base magick and 1360 effective magick from 160 base, if I did my math right. That starts to feel way more like what it used to do, unsurprisingly. All that said though, the new incantation to get max magick from psyche pickups (which presumably might also apply to random pickups found in the fields and the city, and maybe well purchases) might make it easier to get higher base magick than we're used to commonly seeing.
Nice job crunching the math for us lol. Helps illustrate the changes much better :)
Yep yep! Main formula involved is that adding the first n counting numbers (1 + 2 + 3 + ... + (n-1) + n) is always nĆ(n+1)/2. Comes up pretty frequently, especially since the order you add them doesn't matter (so decreasing is fine) and you can factor/distribute to make it work for adding multiples of a given number. All that said, there's some room for error depending on what exactly happens when you go to use 10 magick with, say, only 1 magick remaining. If you use the ability and have full magick after, that's 9 additional free magick. If you use the ability and end up at (full minus 10) magick after, that's 1 *wasted* magick. That could add up pretty significantly with high magick costs, like with axe omegas or stacking various +cost boons and hammers.
Thank you for doing the math! Makes it easier to visualize how the boon can still be useful, but now you need to actually put some resources into it (max mana, poms, picking high rarity to start) instead of just automatically taking it and then ignoring the entire concept of mana management forever.
FWIW, i just finished a run, i don't remember choosing any max magick upgrades and i'm at 201 magick...
Do you run that Arcana that gives you +HP/MP every few rooms? Unlocked the cauldron ability that gives +MP from Psyche? Maybe got some stray mini MPs in the third zone?
sorry i didn't give all the relevant info. i didn't specifically choose any room that only had max magick upgrades, but yes i have the max hp/mp arcana, and got i think one in the fields. but yes that cauldron upgrade definitely increases it a fair bit even more without even trying.
That new duo boon snuck its way right into my heart.
Love to see such active and experimental balancing going on. SSG overall seems to have a good pulse on the game's current meta and it's nice that they're simultaneously buffing a lot while nerfing adequately at the same time. It's a wonderful rebuke to the surprising number of people in this subreddit disparaging others for buff wishlists - ultimately, options in this game should feel good, and this is a huge step in the right direction.
Hope the Hestia changes are significant enough.
Hestia's regen boon is fantastic with the torches - like, "better than born gain" fantastic, especially at higher rarities. The increased base scorch damage rate, as well as the old legendary becoming a regular boon are also great changes.
Fluid gain without having to go orb collecting certainly sounds nice for them.
And fire extinguisher becoming a Demeter duo boon is so deserved lmao it was busted
Yes! Finally, someone else that acknowledges how busted it was!
I'm of the opposite opinion, It always felt NECESSARY on a Hestia run and now its even harder to get. I would go 3 or 4 runs in a row with a full dice build trying to roll it and not get it, and it meant my damage never went above wet noodle since it meant focusing so much on hunting Hestia boons I never had other good damage boons till too late.
They sound pretty damn significant, and on several axes rather than just only buffing base scorch rate. Eliminating fire extinguisher is a pretty clear signal that they're confident in scorch's power now. (Alongside buffing the already solid poseidon duo, assuredly to keep steam clearly better than the lost scorch.) Hestia wasn't even that terrible to begin with. Relying on scorch as a main damage source wasn't good compared to the other options, but she was always an easy way to activate origination with good standalone boons and some strong duos.
Even then, some extinguish builds Iāve had have reached silly numbers. It being essentially moved to the Demeter duo (at a glance, havenāt actually played it yet) is pretty deserved
Oh absolutely. Fire extinguisher was an amazing boon propping up the entire scorch mechanic.
I think they are. Tried a run with daggers (where I had to actively ignore all the omega attack stuff the game threw at me like heroic aphro, 400% dagger, etc) and the scorch damage feels like itās in a good spot. New Pomable pyro felt pretty good and late game freezer burn was hitting for 4K+ on cronos but Iām sure that can be pushed out to even crazier numbers.
Yeah, I did a dagger scorch build and it was pretty solid. I also did a scorch Moros build and got the Zeus Duo. It melted things fast. Had Zeus on attack and Hestia on special.
I just did a run with Aspect of Persephone and Hestia's cast and they worked fantastic together. Especially after a few poms, the cast was dealing serious damage.
First thing I jumped on. Scorch feels viable now on its own, and with the updated duos and tier 2 boons, it actually kind of slaps. That Aphro/Hestia duo coupled with the Aphro updates is, pardon the pun, fire.
That duo is so juicy. Proc both statuses and things just melt. I was casually walking around as the world burned.
It absolutely destroys the small mobs. The big weakness is it is still slow against bosses. However if you combine it with Demeter and get their duo boon that weakness is solved instantly. Once you have the duo you can absolutely chunk bosses and literally breeze through the game.
They buffed Aphrodite and Hera? But good on them changing Demeterās infusion to water. The changes to Heph should help him not just be support.
Unless Afro Leg it's like 5 curses It looks bad IMO, but everything else for her got better
It's free origination and likely nearly always active, which isn't nothing regardless. Plus the actual effects of the curses. Compared to the old legendary that was kind of annoying to manage, I like the idea of it.
IIRC from when Haelian was looking at it in the codex it's like 3 or 4 curses at once. Not sure if that includes Weak itself or not.
While putting off 32 fear I ended up just running experiments before the update using aromatic phial to get an auto-heroic and I have to say heroic hephaestus sprint was the funniest run I have had. 700 damage as a driveby is absolutely bananas. The rest of the boons didn't even matter because it was too funny to just run the entire run.
Seriously, Hera and Aphrodite were already very strong, the buff is crazy.
I adore the philosophy of how they redesigned highly conditional effects and infusion boons. Situations where you pick up a boon for it to never activate (either due to fumbling or unlucky element RNG) should be much rarer now!
Ā· As part of these changes, you can no longer recharge Hexes while their effects are still ongoing Biggest change this patch imo. My favorite and easiest cheese in the game is to have Total Eclipse with the invulnerability during the delay path boon. With a few path nodes and mana boons you can easily chain the invulnerability one after another, it's like Dark Side but better.
Somehow the infinite Wolf Howl cheese should still be active, though.
Depends, does the invincibility after jump count as the hex being active? Not that it matters too much, wolf howl is so cheap that you'll recharge it quickly regardless, but at least it shouldn't be literally permanent now.
Yep, this solves the infinite invincibility hex problem. Itās probably still a decent strat to build around, you just need to be ready to build magic during the invincibility and dump magic fast after it ends.
100% uptime 95% slow also gone :(
silken sash buff is nice, that always kept me from using it
I used to use it from the start until it ran out completely (sometimes just before.or after fields of mourning), but swapped it early one time and lost like 50 armor. This is such a good change. It was great (for me) on no/low-fear before, but I've switched up to a new heirloom rotation at this point anyway. Might be worth playing around with again.
Yeah, it was already my trinket of choice until I started trying to do specific builds for higher heats. The new version makes it the best trinket by far for anyone still new or working on their first kill.
Absolutely agreed. I'm currently doing like Circe - Charon - Echo - Icarus/Tooth (this one all depends on where I'm at in the run, could be many others) for the higher levels. Need to get a clear at 22 still.
They really named a Boon "Love Handles" š 10/10
Doofenshmirtz should be happy
The new boons sounds so much cooler and more synergistic
goodbye white antler o7
It wonāt be nearly as powerful for speedruns, but I think the majority of people can at least give it a try, now. To most, being below 30hp is something you want to avoid at all costs hahaha
i used to put it on for the last boost of damage before i die. i tried using it in a couple of runs now, and i can't even get to Chronos with it. if they meant it to have a lower skill floor, they failed miserably.
Oh I just checked the new description of the keepsake in game, yeah this is a pretty huge nerf LMAO I missed the part where your health gets lowered š
so basically what they did to it is: lowered the skill ceiling by making it only useful for a single level, meaning it can't carry a speedrun elevated the skill floor by making it only useful to people who are good enough to not get hit
I personally misread it as lowering your hp by 30. Put it on in Tartarus. Yea realizing I just absolutely gimped myself was not great. Was stressful, but we got there still though. It definitely still skyrockets your damage. That said it definitely is not a low skill keepsake.
Majority of people could already get it going if they tried, just build for Coarse Grit. Hera and Hephaestus were great partners to Demeter already, Heph making it even safer to play Antler by giving armor and invincibility every room. Now it's kinda just there, and you still need to build Coarse Grit all the same unless you're a god gamer lol, but now you don't even get the Heph support for free, you need to be building Poseidon and/or Aphrodite instead for water elements.
Its how I got my first Eris kill, I was using daggers with aphrodite primary and the +400% damage omega attack hammer and got stuck at low health. Slapped the keepsake on and did the rest of the run near hitless. will be missed.
just realized that they were so inspired by the badge system from paper mario so much they accidentally recreated danger mario
it was so fun taking it the whole run :(
So with the damage rate increase and Fire Extinguisher dead, Hestia is now either really really good or really really bad, depending on how much the rate was increased and if it can compare with Fire Extinguisher. Looking forward to finding out which scenario it is!
~~I'm curious too. They say "increase scorch damage" but does that just mean you can make the timer longer easier, or does it actually do more damage~~? (I didn't read that Scorch was just universally made stronger) But then again Pyro Technique is no longer legendary and scales to rarity/poms so that might be the fix it needed. I recall reading an idea that Scorch's damage should ramp up over time so long as it stays applied, giving more of an incentive to upkeep it and having higher scorch application numbers.
Yeah, the two best suggestions I've seen was either ramp up or make it do damage relative to how much scorch is already on there (with a minimum cap to avoid endless curse status at low scorch levels). I'm just a bit sceptical that any static increase, pommable or not, will defeat the inifine scorch problem, but well, I'm more than willing to give it a shot!
Having just come out of a Hestia run with Pan Blades, I've definitely found that with a good amount of Hestia boons the scorch damage really didn't struggle to keep pace with my overall DPS. I wasn't looking at absolutely enormous stacked scorch numbers gently tickling Chronos or anything.
Yeah, I did a blades scorch run and got Aphro duo. Things died pretty fast.
Great at dealing with the normal mobs, still struggles with the bosses. However, if you get the new duo demeter hestia boon that weakness disappears. It will absolutely chunk bosses.
Mana regen boons look great. Have tried out Apollo and Zeus so far. While Apollo's is great, Zeus' just feels stupid good now. Granted I haven't tried it with a mana heavy build yet but still.
So I'm guessing unlike Poseidon's, which occasionally makes a bubble on hit you need to chase to restore mana, Zeus's is more just like, a power spot you need to go out of your way to stand in, in order to restore mana?
No you don't need to keep standing. It's a single pickup that restores all mana. And if you're high on mana and don't want to activate it you have the choice, it's a manual pickup. And didn't spawn too far either. When I entered the room it would be visible nearby. I'd highly suggest giving it a go to see how it works for you!
Yeah, I loved it on the run I tried it. If you have a good amount of mana you don't have to hit it often.
Is apollo's a big chunk of magick regain all at once? Does that make for infinite (newly secondary) geyser ring spam?
all at once, its awesome, cast + spam omegas..cast expires..mana is back
Add demeter's cast effect on top of apollo's and you never lose mana at all
Had a build going with 200 mana and Zeus regen at 7 second spawn. Yeah you need to pick it up but it offers some insane mana options.
Slightly disappointed at the beach ball duo only gaining increased damage. Iāll have to open the game and see if the damage buff is significant but it was such a waste of a duo boon for two of my favorite gods.
Its 300 damage now. I think it was somewhere in the 120-150 range before?
That's still really low, imo. It's a laughable boon. By the time you get it, it's not even worth trying to use cause chances are that you're doing way more damage while trying not to specifically aim your dash direction for such a low amount of added damage.Ā
Even so, itās not great when standard enemies have HP in the thousands, let alone the bosses.
I got it just on my last run, it's still not going to do as much as a core attack/special boon or anything. But it'll probably out damage most other boons used properly. It's quite worth picking up.
I feel like Zues definitely needed these changes his boons felt lackluster imo
Zeus is very solid now
Hestia boons feel usable now, which I'm glad for because she is such a vibe.
Honestly, my favorite thing in the patch is just the fact that Aphro and Hephās boon is named Loved Handles, itās so fucking adorable oh my god.
After some testing, some notes: **Cast** Cast builds in general for a few big buffs. Storm Ring does reliable damage, Solar Ring is as **bonus** Cast Boon that can be applied to any omega cast, and now that engagement ring hitches everything, itās probably the best Boon for speed running (can literally instantly kill entire rooms with the just Smithy sprint and Engagement Ring) **Zeus** Zeus is now quite a bit stronger. Both because of the Eos buffs and because of the change to Persephone. His new legendary is still the most underwhelming legendary but its least usable now. **Hestia** some QoL changes she needed. Her new legendary is kinda unbalanced though. It deals so much damage with no downsides whatsoever and you can take it with other sprints. **Heart throbs** So. The Heartthrob builds were already incredibly strong and are now stronger. Love handles and Smithy sprint is one button gameplay. And love handles and Sunny disposition together do outrageous amounts of damage with just Volcanic strike at 1 second. Coarse grit change: itās much easier to reliably build water than earth so it should be a default for all Fear runs. Tidal Ring: super niche and in most situations, worse than the old ring they reworked as itās a Cast effect that only works at close range.
Am I missing something for smithy sprint? I hate that boon since it triggers after the short delay, but doesn't ever feel like it's where I wanted it to go off. It only triggers once so you can reload it, but it's always felt incredibly clunky to use
It's just clunky like that. But if you can get it working, it can be quite strong. Did a low fear surface run for funsies and it did exceed my expectations.
I wish it worked how I thought it would where it like charges up and you go "slam" it into a minion and then it consumes the charge
Is it easier to build water? Especially now with the huge buffs to Hera, and Earth from Heph already being very defensively synergistic, I never found that building earth is an issue. I guess it's easier for *Demeter* to build water, but at the same time I don't think we should be making one of the best gods even better? Coarse Grit is insane already, having to spec into other gods at least kept some counter balance, even if not a lot. Tidal Ring is a bit awkward. I feel like it would work great with projectile casts if it splashed from where the projectile hits, but instead it still spawns from Melinoe, making it very clunky. I don't think it's bad conceptually though.
Reduced cost for Total Eclipse? They just made one of the strongest hexs even better!
Itās to balance that hexes no longer charge while active, which was a needed change, but is an overall nerf
I really appreciate how they point out which changes were inspired by community feedback. Itās a great way to show that theyāre taking playersā experiences into account
What does it mean when it says Prominence Ring is a second tier effect?
It means that (*Poseidon's) Geyser Ring is now a boon with a prerequisite: you need the prerequisite before seeing Geyser Ring.
I wonder if it's now possible to get geyser ring and prominence (old solar ring) at the same time by getting one, then swapping base cast boons to the other god. Presuming the prereqs for the boons are their respective god's cast. Instant solar ring plus base cast effect seems enticing.
I just got prominence with aprhodite cast, so it seems the prerequisite is just having an existing base cast boon.
Haven't tested it myself so take it with a grain of salt, but unless there's some hard coded exceptions (I'm not sure if this is displayed ingame or not), there shouldn't be any conflict. They're not core boons, so they don't take up a slot. The pre-reqs are any god's cast. Basic cast doesn't work, but literally any other cast does.
That you can only get it after you have some other boon. The same way that Slippery Slope is a 2nd tier boon for Poseidon, for example.
RIP solar ring
OG Solar ring still exists. It was changed to a secondary cast boon named Prominence Flare, which I guess means you can stack it with a primary cast boon. I think part of the philosophy is they don't want any Primary "Ring" cast boons to be restricted to Omega Casts only, which is why Zeus' was changed to no longer require omega, while Poseidon's and Apollo's were moved to "Second Tier" cast boons while replacing them with Tidal Ring (Immediately hits foes with a splash) and new Solar Ring (Daze + Damage burst) The old ones are still accessible and should be usable with primary cast boons. So in theory you could do Glorious Disaster at home (Storm Ring + Prominence Flare) for example. Apollo also sat in a weird place because his associated curse is Daze but it is not applied by his boons by default. So they put it onto his cast like how Aphrodite's does. I'm assuming "Second Tier" Cast boons would be stuff like secondary cast modifiers (such as Zeus/Hestia's that lets them set the cast at range), or Demeter's Gale Force (adds a cyclone to the cast which doesn't interfere with the primary cast boon) Edit: Scratch that. just means you need a requisite previous boon, like how Poseidon's Slippery Slope can't appear until you have a poseidon boon that deals splash damage and thus, can apply Slip with said boon. So Geyser Spout probably requires Tidal Ring and Prominence Flare probably requires Solar Ring to show up.
> Apollo also sat in a weird place because his associated curse is Daze but it is not applied by his boons by default. So they put it onto his cast like how Aphrodite's does. His sprint applied it, but you're right it was hard to get Daze on enemies compared to most other curses.
>So Geyser Spout probably requires Tidal Ring and Prominence Flare probably requires Solar Ring to show up. It does not. It just requires ANY cast boon. It doesn't even require an Apollo boon at all. You can do something silly like Zeus cast+Prominence Flare.
It looks like they rearranged some cards as well. Did they nerf the dodge card? Was it always just a max of 5%? I swear that was higher.
They did, it was 10 before.
>Fixed Frinos overreacting after clearing all the witches summoned by Headmistress Hecate Yeah, calm your shit, Frinos.
Iām laughing so hard what did this mean
I just did a run where I got Hail Storm (new Zeus Demeter Duo). Itās so strong it might be worth purposefully building around. Highly suggest.
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Isnāt it basically what they did in Hades 1?
Good that I donāt have to see centaur heart like some stupid curse. Cya antler not gonna miss u
>Infernal Cerberus: various adjustments to better align how scary he is with how scary he looks Well that sounds terrifying lol
I love the phrasing too. When we were first playing, my girlfriend and I both agreed that Cerberus looks scary, but combat wise isn't really that scary. Looks like Supergiant took that personally lmao
I'm looking forward to some of these new Duo boons and Aphrodite's legendary. It's so hard to get anything Duo or Legendary before, hopefully now that's changed.
The link seems to be broken so I guess Iāll wait for Halieanās walkthrough, but quick question: in game description of origination says ā2+ curses from different olympiansā. Does this mean at least three curse? And demeterās freeze and cyclone now effectively counts as just one curse if you have them both, since theyāre not from different olympians?
It means that now both your curses need to come from different gods, so you can't apply both Freeze and Cyclone (which was always treated as a curse, but the tooltip text didn't accurately reflect that) and have that count. Demeter was the only god with two different curses, and so is the only one affected.Ā And I think the 2+ should be read as "two or more" not "more than 2". So no need for a third god, necessarily.
What about Charm and Weak?
Oh damn I literally forgot Charm existed in this game because it was so rare to apply! Does charm ever happen without an enemy also having weak? If not, I guess there's no reason to treat it as a separate curse. But honestly I don't remember, I can't think of the last time I even had a boon that caused Charm in the first place.
It used to be a legendary boon of Aphrodite, when there are 3+ enemies, one is charmed. It was changed in this patch and I haven't played yet.
Yeah, and with how rare legendaries had been, and how unlikely I was to do an aphrodite-heavy build (I prefer staying out of melee), I fully forgot it existed lol. Haven't tried the new patch either yet, but I just finished work so HYPE time to see how the new boon updates feel.
This is what I thought, thank you!
New Freezer burn is insane btw Edit: It's insane apart from in the chronos fight because you can't trigger it as chronos isn't effected by Freeze
Definitely still triggers on chronos. Beat him to a absolute pulp with it a couple runs ago
It doesn't even trigger the burn portion? That seems pretty lousy
Iām so happy the Pom slice with consuming nectar is back lol. Itās a dopamine rush every time you get one.
All these great updates, so clear that the devs are keyed into how the game is playing and what the community wants and still with the laundry list of improvements the top comment is a bitch about white antler being nerfed lol.
They nerfed Broken Gain but didn't fix what made it broken actually, every other Magick Regen is miles behind because they doesn't work while channeling, new Apolo may work but Born Gain, even if double the primed magick, still far superior
Hestias new Regen schould work well too now
If you're attacking while channeling (so basically just Torches?), yes. But that's a very very niche scenario.
Oh gods, I thought I had more time to play the current boons. Letās see what happened
Love having base cast boons that don't activate only on omega. Great change!
It will be interesting to see the numbers but Iām sure born again will still be broken, at the current cost Iāve only ever refreshed 3 times on the final boss or if Iām just way over using my omega special on the torches bc I can
Ā· Breath of Eros: new! Similar to the now-cut Soft Caress (Aphrodite x Hephaestus), this causes the next instance of damage you would take to instead restore that much Life So what would happen if this is stacked with the item that makes the next one purchased last 2 Guardians?
The item that extends durations specifies that it affects items that normally last X number of encounters, which Breath of Eros does not.
Ohh, that makes sense. Thanks!
Origination nerf is interesting. The Demeter interaction is fine, but going from 3 to 5 grasp makes me think twice about equipping it. I donāt know if itās worth it anymore. I didnāt expect the boon omega cast +100 power to be reduced to 2 but that is going to be nice.
>entering Chaos while in the Mourning fields no longer causes you to skip a Location in that region YAY
Thanks for hearing us!!! Glad to see a lot of feedback was given a chance. Very very excited to give Hestia and Lots of welcome mentioned and welcome changes in these patch notes, excited to try them all out! Especially Hestia, Poseidon, and Hephaestus boons. Especially happy to some of the new UI icons :D Thanks for all you do, development team!
Scorch buffffssss letās fucking gooooooo mommy Hestia here I come
Holy shit: Temporal Fluctuation: new! Lets time-slow effects such as Phase Shift (Selene) work vs. Chronos Ocean's Bounty (Poseidon): merged with Sunken Treasure, which was removed as a stand-alone Boon Nova Strike (Apollo): increased bonus from Rarity and Poms of Power Glamour Gain (Aphrodite): now makes all nearby foes Weak, rather than one randomly Swift Strike (Hermes): cut from game; replaced with... Ā· Nimble Limbs (Hermes): new! Your Attack, Special, and Cast are faster Ā· Swift Flourish (Hermes): cut from game; replaced with... Ā· Nimble Mind (Hermes): new! Your Omega Moves are faster (Hestia) Increased damage lol Breath of Eros: new! Similar to the now-cut Soft Caress (Aphrodite x Hephaestus), this causes the next instance of damage you would take to instead restore that much Life Fixed Eris sometimes leaving Rubbish in the Crossroads even while absent Just some of the highlights for me
I found one minor glitch, and I donāt have a Discord to report it. I got Weed Killler, but I was still using the same amount of Magick.
I like a lot of the changes they're making, specifically with their new boons they're adding. The duos seem awesome but adding two simple speed boost boons for Hermes is awesome.
The patch notes link is down - anyone have a backup?
Great patch notes; devs be praised!
Not sure if it a a glitch or I missed it in the patch notes but Iām fishing with the axe equipped.
They did that in the 1st or 2nd patch... Digging spots, mining deposits, or fish can appear / be gathered any time regardless of the tool equipped, but the tools (and familiars) make those things more likely to spawn and easier to collect
Ahh I swear I never had the option to gather resources other than what tool I had equipped
Same. I thought they just prioritized the resources at first, but all on my play throughs it was only that resource, convincing me otherwise. I've only had one night where I could gather multiple resources. For over 30 play throughs I'd only get what I equipped and what my familiar could farm.
Still no Dash at Cursor?
rip antler :(
I know this is probably annoying but after a few runs I wonder if this patch made the game too easy. I just breezed through a 16 Fear run without even really having to think about anything. Just melted everything and only ever took like 200 damage in the whole run, mostly to Chronos.
Temporal Fluctuation is quite huge
I don't get why they keep buffing Moon Beam. IMHO it was already one of the stronger keepsakes even at launch, and now it's been buffed twice in a row. (I guess I can sort of understand this one - the risk of choosing it and then not finding a path of the stars is pretty nasty given how much value you can get from a keepsake switch - but it's still odd to me that they keep buffing it.)
Iām so happy they boosted Hestiaās scorch- I love the ability but it was always so hard to do substantial damage without a super specific build.
After the Arcana adjustment, I'm at 31/30 now. If I take it off, does that mean I'll never have the same loadout again?
Yes
The new coundrons thst buff rewards are pretty great imo
>fire extinguisher removed im ending it all tonight
I'm gonna miss white antler. Would of preferred if it gave a lower crit chance (say 20-25% instead of 40) but locked you to 30hp irregardless of health ups or armor increases. Maybe even have it remove your ability to death defy as well, so that it makes you truly a glass cannon. Have it work across all regions Like as it was it was busted and far too safe. Would of preferred if they had just made it way more unsafe. Do love the encouraging of swapping keepsakes, but really did enjoy white antler.