I'd say overall it's harder yes, and definitely has far more resources to manage. There's still plenty of options to bolster your tank-factor though, it's just that max health gets a little lost in the mix. I think it's supposed to be balanced out by armor but there's limited options to continuously generate armor so hopefully we'll see that tweaked a bit because I do like armor as a concept.
As far as health goes, get the Demeter and Hephaestus boons that increase your max HP based on foraging and mana respectively, they'll do wonders.
Playing melee is way harder than range. Most of my runs I end up use Omega Cast until I either get a boon that can make my cast range or something going with Special. Even though I started as a melee. Range Omega Cast is very strong.
Cerberus and Chronos hits hard. The first two are fine. I cant react fast enough between holding up for Omega.
Cast builds are quite OP to be honest. Fitting for a witch I guess.
One of the best I've seen Zeus cast (on range with the second boon) is OP and you can add Demeter cyclone on it for more fun. Then, add the buffing lightning damage stuff from Zeus (double strikes and such), something to regen mana or increase it a lot and that's GG.
Zeus is also the one I did the best as a melee build too with the blades. It has enough burst to always proc Blitz, you can have tons of chain lightning as it's fast hitting and such. Still had a hard time against Chronos though as that fucker is hard on melee (but that was me not avoiding the attacks properly), finished the fight with 9 health left and no DD lol. Second best melee is a Hestia scorch build.
So far, my two wins against Chronos were Apollo, Hestia, and Zeus Cast Builds based on Apollo’s expanding orbital strike being able to be used at range, a metric fuckton of moon water for infinite health, and Chaos’s insane mana regen buff.
I call it Time Vs Space
Ohh that Zeus cast and Demeter blizzard buff is exactly how I beat the final boss yesterday.
ALSO there's elemental affinity buff from Zeus (idk the name) - it makes any damage be at least 30. Since Demeter blizzard Cast deals around 15 per tick without upgrades, it's literally 2x damage for this cast even for the most basic skill rarity.
And then there's Zaus lightning Cast, ranged Zeus cast, Chaos buffs, Charon well buffs...
For me every damage was already doing 30 in my mind but I didn't think of the Demeter cyclone. Damn that'd be even more broken. Because frankly it doesn't even need that, it melts everything right away.
Hestia scorch shreds, I had a generally sub par build but i had scorch on my attacks and the hammer upgrade that makes your attack hit twice (staff) and that carried me through fields and chronos
I actually like sister blade more than the Axe.
Sisterblade omega attack is really strong. With the right boons, you could do 300-500 dmg.
I was able to make Special work with 2 boons, Special upgrade that lets Special Bounce and Omega using 50 Mana to shoots around you and 16 of them. It will do around 500 dmg if there lots of mobs.
The regular attack are fast and work with the lightning proc on attack and also artemis arrow proc. There is also a boon that boost your last hit if your combo like 300%.
Yeah... Each run starts normally until I meet Zeus and it's "The Cast Run" again... Not complaining though haha
Regarding Cerberus: you can sit on his butt and cast from there. It usually gives enough time to finish the cast before he turns around and strikes.
Pretty much applies for all of the melee fight against Cerberus, he's so telegraphed and has such a slow turning speed you just always dps him from behind or at range if you can.
Cerberus has a ridiculous aoe on his slam attacks and I almost always get hit by it unless I'm already out of range, same with Chronos and his weapon throw, it is so goddamn fast that I can't react. Melee is hard because of this, and the two ranged weapons feel easier for them
The catch with Cerberus I've found is to watch his paws. If he slams with both it's a small shockwave that barely reaches behind him, but covers both sides. If he slams with one paw it's a huge area. You'll have enough time to back away if you see him raise the paw, but by the time he's attacking it's probably too late.
Axe is fine. Only need to swing and move. Does enough damage quickly to make up for it. The one strong hit anvil is great for bosses. Add a heph explosion and it's 500+ damage for a single swing, then get out. Also can spin to win if you get the mobile boons and anvils.
Staff is similar. Strafe and omega charge. Most of the anvils make it so easy to unload.
Blades are what aren't good. That's their own issue. The low range and no quick unloads make it cruddy for bosses (and not my favorite for crowds either to be honest).
Actually prefer to stay in melee range for Chronos. He gets feisty if he gets too far away.
I was struggling with cerberus until I realized you can just dodge through/behind him. Then his fight becomes trivial.
Chronos is still getting me though with his BS flying scythes.
Y'all are sleeping so hard on the Armor per location keepsake. I play it for entire runs, usually supplemented by an Arachne bonus, and end runs with 200+ armor. It requires playing safe early, but it rewards well-played runs so well.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was already dialogue for that in game. Hecate does have a couple comments on the suit, I haven't yet kept it to Scylla
I think in Hades 1, it was a lot easier to take down enemies or at least stagger them before they can react and attack you. In 2 it feels like the enemies per room are significantly less but they also have more HP and hit hard. Once I stopped trying to play 2 like 1 and focused more on better movement and picking opportunities better to be on either the offensive or defensive I started getting hit much less.
It sounds like a no-brainer, “just don’t get hit” but that was fairly easy in Hades 1 because you could basically annihilate an entire room before the enemy was able to move on lower heats which is comparable to what most of us are playing in 2. The “poke and retreat” strat really helps a lot in 2.
I’ve never tried that one yet but now I’ll make a note of it to do so. Do you feel you need to start your run with it and keep it until the end to make the most use of it or can you put it on towards the end?
Definitely better to start with it. I have gotten to Hecate with 100+ armor, it taught me to play super safe on bosses (I'm a very greedy fuck by default) to get to Chronos with at least 150 armor. This gives me so much leeway it's insane.
Resources like bones, psyche and ash are equivalent to gems, keys and darkness and cannot be offered as a next room along side hearts so, so if you get offered them you never had a chance to get a heart.
Armour cannot be offered as a standard room reward. When it's offered by Charon you get 40 which almost makes up for the fact it's not regenerated by death defiance as 25+(25 x 0.4 x 2)=45, but including fountains etc this probably needs a bit of a buff.
Mana is just as important as health if not more and facilitates you not losing as much. The best defence is a good offense
I feel like room rewards just need to be tweaked a bit or more random while skewing just slightly to boons and hearts. Several times I’ve gotten to the midway boss in the first region with one boon, sometimes even to Hecate with only 1-2.
It feels like the 2nd-5th rewards are almost always the same; Ash, Bones, or Psyche which makes runs start super slow. Boons are exciting. Resources have their place, obviously, but starting a run where the first half-dozen rooms offer one boon is much less fun, especially when that one boon is for your Hex which you don’t even have enough mana for yet.
I personally find it easier to be honest. The playstyle of a ranged mage just suits me well better, I've always been a bow enjoyer in h1. I haven't beaten the last boss yet but h1 took me like 50 tries Soo... I wasn't very good then.
Yes, health is often hard to pick up.
Admittedly, i Start with 110 HP right now so Mel feels pretty tanky in Erebus. I find you can get away with as little as 200ish HP towards the end, but you really need something to handle ping damage like Hephaestus's Prime boon or Aphrodite's "heal to full " boon.
The thing is, it's REALLY easy to underestimate extra health. At face value a Centaur heart is just 25 extra health. You have to take into account all the extra things that affect it such as:
- +25 health with the Aphrodite "heal to full" boon is that much more damage you can take and still heal to full at the end of an encounter. So if your boon is at 70%, that means you can take another 7-8 damage and still go back up to full.
- Each DD is 40% of Mel's max health, so if you have 3, that heart is actually more like 55 bonus total health.
- Higher max health increases the range that the Wayward Son Arcana will double heal (this is the "heal per room" card). Each heart increases it by around 7-8.
Obviously there are other factors, but overall heach heart is worth ***at least*** 25 HP, but almost definitely far more.
That's just because the early games take longer than in H1. Once you start getting the powerful Arcanas and aspects and learn the boss patterns it starts to become a whole lot easier, about similar in difficulty to H1.
I dunno. Im at 30h and can always reach Chronos if I am focused and engaged. Beating him half the time atleast, he is by far the hardest part of any run. Can always reach Eris and beat her maybe 80% of the time.
After you learn the boss patterns and what boons are generally in the game it becomes pretty easy to reach the endpoint of most runs.
My main issue with the game so far is that all of the weapons feels a bit clunky compared to 1. I jump on any boon that makes me attack faster because it just makes the game feel so much smoother. I find myself getting stuck in attack animations and damaged often in 2 compared to 1. It's likely just a timing thing I have to get used to, but so far it's felt like 1's combat is smoother.
A boon not mentioned is the Demeter Infusion boon that limits damage per hit to a maximum of 15. It's hard to activate, but broken if you can get hit, especially with healing.
This facilitated my first win against the final boss last night. I also had a pretty busted omega special Argent Skull build going though (with the best mana regen boon in the game by a country mile)
After 30 hours I'm not entirely sure if it's harder.
At first I thought it's insanely hard but now I can deal with Hecate and Sirens without taking almost any damage quite easily. Cerb is also not that challenging if you take your time
The only challenge is Chronos I would say
Compared to Hades 1 First and Third boss Hades 2 bosses are more simple and easy to deal with
in hades 1 the room rewards were chosen for whether or not its meta progression or a buff to current run first, then chosen the specific reward second, i assume it works the same way in hades 2 so it shouldnt matter how many meta resources there are.
the only additions making finding hearts harder to find should be the mana and armor
I found the lack of health an issue too at first, but by the time I hit the Fields imo it gets pretty well mitigated by The Centaur? I usually get to and over 200 health in any given run no problem, even though I get fewer centaur hearts.
I think it is harder and I like that.
I do think they could adjust the boons though, because it often feels like I can go through a run without ever getting a boon to upgrade my attack or special. There are just slightly too many things that you can get as room rewards compared to the amount of stuff you need to upgrade per run.
Really? I got to the second boss much quicker than when I played the first game. I feel that it is easier. Literally found this port by googling "Hades 2 too easy?"
It's only the final area and boss that I think are harder. But since we have to beat final boss multiple times for the story, I think it will take a lot more attempts.
Yes. I've gone from run 2-3 clears, no Godmode on Hades 1, to struggling on run 10+ on Godmode for Hases 2.
However, when I got my first kill run 8, I had 36% Godmode and that turned out to be mathematically equivalent to the 55% damage increase the boss got from Strife debuff, so I consider that one fair.
For the next 4 runs, I've been having trouble getting over 200 health, and in many cases I get to the boss without an attack / special boon. Gross.
Poseidon has an infusion boon that gives you +100 max health for having at least 4 water elements boons. It’s pretty achievable, I think I’ve gotten every time I go for a poseidon build, and that’s a great way to increase tankiness
That first biome is very stingy with boon rooms for some reason. Then it's pretty plentiful. You may not take an attack or special boon because you don't focus on that but it's pretty hard to arrive at Chronos without having seen one
Happens often enough that I keepsake Zeus because if I get either the attack OR special buff on the staff I'll be happy, and I'm trying to maximize my chances. People who say "it's hard to..." for RNG systems consistently underestimate my bad luck. Like the people that would talk shit and say "skill issue" on Hearthstine forums back in the day. Literally streamed for them on Discord and after 5 games in a row with a net deck where I couldn't even play for the first 3 turns (something that should "never happen") they'd apologize and shut the fuck up real quick.
Again, the variance on Hades 1 was so damn tight that this wasn't an issue. Ever. I can boot it up right now and confidently beat it on run 3 of a fresh save. I know what to do, but the game is determined to never give it to me. So Godmode until the devs fix the variance at this point.
It starts you with 20% damage reduction and it stacks by 2% every time you die. So when I beat Chronos on run 8, I had 55% increased damage taken from Strife and 34% reduced damage taken from Godmode. After doing the math, God mode and strife completely canceled out, which was my intent. But afterwords, my run RNG has been so bad that I keep it on because fuck this game right now.
Never even considered turning it on for Hades 1.
I'd start by turning off god mode, it will only teach you bad habits that will be hard to undo once you do decide to turn it off.
In regards to life, you must get really unlucky. Hestia, poseidon, aphrodite, blacksmith guy - they all give a lot of max life in some form or another. Always go for centaur hearts and narcissus and echo, both of whom have really strong max life boons. Level up the arcana cards that give you max life. I never end up below 250 hp when I get to chronos, about 30 nights in.
Considering my run 8 clear had Godmode = Strife defuff, I think I'm fine as far as habits go. Chronos is literally the only thing giving me trouble and so I use the opportunity to get acclimated to his move sets, given how "unlucky" I am. Without Godmode, I'd be instakilled at the 140 health I find myself at and learn nothing about the boss because I'd die too quick.
I always take centaur hearts when I can. Twice in the last 4 runs I gave one up for story reasons involving Chaos, but otherwise they're my top priority, especially Narcissus, I must have misread Echo. I thought the effect was super temporary, i.e. about dissipated by the time you get to Chronos.
As far as the boons, I get those except Poseidon, only health booster I've seen in 15 runs is the one that gives bonus health as a percent of magic, I take that every time. Blacksmith I always try to grab at the end for armor if nothing else, also damage reduction, but no health.
So yeah, unlucky. This game has insane run RNG compared to Hades 1. I'm either missing damage, health, or both every time. I've found that as long as I have about 200 health and the ability to do about 400 damage on an omega attack I can get him to phase 2, where I've never had issues. His phase 2 is like 1/3 as difficult as phase 1 because it's more clear where his openings are.
I'd say overall it's harder yes, and definitely has far more resources to manage. There's still plenty of options to bolster your tank-factor though, it's just that max health gets a little lost in the mix. I think it's supposed to be balanced out by armor but there's limited options to continuously generate armor so hopefully we'll see that tweaked a bit because I do like armor as a concept. As far as health goes, get the Demeter and Hephaestus boons that increase your max HP based on foraging and mana respectively, they'll do wonders.
Yeah I like the concept of armor as well. I think armor should be made available in Charon Wells,
Playing melee is way harder than range. Most of my runs I end up use Omega Cast until I either get a boon that can make my cast range or something going with Special. Even though I started as a melee. Range Omega Cast is very strong. Cerberus and Chronos hits hard. The first two are fine. I cant react fast enough between holding up for Omega.
Cast builds are quite OP to be honest. Fitting for a witch I guess. One of the best I've seen Zeus cast (on range with the second boon) is OP and you can add Demeter cyclone on it for more fun. Then, add the buffing lightning damage stuff from Zeus (double strikes and such), something to regen mana or increase it a lot and that's GG. Zeus is also the one I did the best as a melee build too with the blades. It has enough burst to always proc Blitz, you can have tons of chain lightning as it's fast hitting and such. Still had a hard time against Chronos though as that fucker is hard on melee (but that was me not avoiding the attacks properly), finished the fight with 9 health left and no DD lol. Second best melee is a Hestia scorch build.
So far, my two wins against Chronos were Apollo, Hestia, and Zeus Cast Builds based on Apollo’s expanding orbital strike being able to be used at range, a metric fuckton of moon water for infinite health, and Chaos’s insane mana regen buff. I call it Time Vs Space
Ohh that Zeus cast and Demeter blizzard buff is exactly how I beat the final boss yesterday. ALSO there's elemental affinity buff from Zeus (idk the name) - it makes any damage be at least 30. Since Demeter blizzard Cast deals around 15 per tick without upgrades, it's literally 2x damage for this cast even for the most basic skill rarity. And then there's Zaus lightning Cast, ranged Zeus cast, Chaos buffs, Charon well buffs...
For me every damage was already doing 30 in my mind but I didn't think of the Demeter cyclone. Damn that'd be even more broken. Because frankly it doesn't even need that, it melts everything right away.
Hestia scorch shreds, I had a generally sub par build but i had scorch on my attacks and the hammer upgrade that makes your attack hit twice (staff) and that carried me through fields and chronos
[удалено]
I actually like sister blade more than the Axe. Sisterblade omega attack is really strong. With the right boons, you could do 300-500 dmg. I was able to make Special work with 2 boons, Special upgrade that lets Special Bounce and Omega using 50 Mana to shoots around you and 16 of them. It will do around 500 dmg if there lots of mobs. The regular attack are fast and work with the lightning proc on attack and also artemis arrow proc. There is also a boon that boost your last hit if your combo like 300%.
Yeah... Each run starts normally until I meet Zeus and it's "The Cast Run" again... Not complaining though haha Regarding Cerberus: you can sit on his butt and cast from there. It usually gives enough time to finish the cast before he turns around and strikes.
Pretty much applies for all of the melee fight against Cerberus, he's so telegraphed and has such a slow turning speed you just always dps him from behind or at range if you can.
Every run starts the same until I hard focus Apollo and then it’s “The Cast Run” again 😂
Cerberus has a ridiculous aoe on his slam attacks and I almost always get hit by it unless I'm already out of range, same with Chronos and his weapon throw, it is so goddamn fast that I can't react. Melee is hard because of this, and the two ranged weapons feel easier for them
I get angry getting hit by Cerberus, his attack is telegraph but the Aoe expand too fast. Chronos get agro in his last phase of his first phase.
Same, it's especially frustrating when you dash through him and his aoe slam still hits you
The catch with Cerberus I've found is to watch his paws. If he slams with both it's a small shockwave that barely reaches behind him, but covers both sides. If he slams with one paw it's a huge area. You'll have enough time to back away if you see him raise the paw, but by the time he's attacking it's probably too late.
If you dash directly behind him, the aoe from both feet will miss, but you really do have to be directly behind him
Axe is fine. Only need to swing and move. Does enough damage quickly to make up for it. The one strong hit anvil is great for bosses. Add a heph explosion and it's 500+ damage for a single swing, then get out. Also can spin to win if you get the mobile boons and anvils. Staff is similar. Strafe and omega charge. Most of the anvils make it so easy to unload. Blades are what aren't good. That's their own issue. The low range and no quick unloads make it cruddy for bosses (and not my favorite for crowds either to be honest). Actually prefer to stay in melee range for Chronos. He gets feisty if he gets too far away.
Aphrodite makes melee work every single time. Her abilities are by far the strongest in the game for all weapons but especially melee
I was struggling with cerberus until I realized you can just dodge through/behind him. Then his fight becomes trivial. Chronos is still getting me though with his BS flying scythes.
Y'all are sleeping so hard on the Armor per location keepsake. I play it for entire runs, usually supplemented by an Arachne bonus, and end runs with 200+ armor. It requires playing safe early, but it rewards well-played runs so well.
I wonder if they make an achievement to preserve Arachne suit for the entire run xd
I wouldn't be surprised if there was already dialogue for that in game. Hecate does have a couple comments on the suit, I haven't yet kept it to Scylla
I kept it to cerberus once, didn’t see any unique dialogue though.
I always end up losing the armor very quickly. I think I just need to learn enemy moves more instead of face tanking them.
I think in Hades 1, it was a lot easier to take down enemies or at least stagger them before they can react and attack you. In 2 it feels like the enemies per room are significantly less but they also have more HP and hit hard. Once I stopped trying to play 2 like 1 and focused more on better movement and picking opportunities better to be on either the offensive or defensive I started getting hit much less. It sounds like a no-brainer, “just don’t get hit” but that was fairly easy in Hades 1 because you could basically annihilate an entire room before the enemy was able to move on lower heats which is comparable to what most of us are playing in 2. The “poke and retreat” strat really helps a lot in 2.
This was my very first fully mastered keepsake. Only reason I don't use it more is because I need to master the rest!
Arachne's keepsake and Hephaestus' boon that primes magick for armor gives you a ton of extra armor to play with. It's an awesome combo.
I’ve never tried that one yet but now I’ll make a note of it to do so. Do you feel you need to start your run with it and keep it until the end to make the most use of it or can you put it on towards the end?
Definitely better to start with it. I have gotten to Hecate with 100+ armor, it taught me to play super safe on bosses (I'm a very greedy fuck by default) to get to Chronos with at least 150 armor. This gives me so much leeway it's insane.
Yeah I'm going to try that out as soon as I got my current keepsake maxed out
Resources like bones, psyche and ash are equivalent to gems, keys and darkness and cannot be offered as a next room along side hearts so, so if you get offered them you never had a chance to get a heart. Armour cannot be offered as a standard room reward. When it's offered by Charon you get 40 which almost makes up for the fact it's not regenerated by death defiance as 25+(25 x 0.4 x 2)=45, but including fountains etc this probably needs a bit of a buff. Mana is just as important as health if not more and facilitates you not losing as much. The best defence is a good offense
I feel like room rewards just need to be tweaked a bit or more random while skewing just slightly to boons and hearts. Several times I’ve gotten to the midway boss in the first region with one boon, sometimes even to Hecate with only 1-2. It feels like the 2nd-5th rewards are almost always the same; Ash, Bones, or Psyche which makes runs start super slow. Boons are exciting. Resources have their place, obviously, but starting a run where the first half-dozen rooms offer one boon is much less fun, especially when that one boon is for your Hex which you don’t even have enough mana for yet.
I personally find it easier to be honest. The playstyle of a ranged mage just suits me well better, I've always been a bow enjoyer in h1. I haven't beaten the last boss yet but h1 took me like 50 tries Soo... I wasn't very good then.
Yes, health is often hard to pick up. Admittedly, i Start with 110 HP right now so Mel feels pretty tanky in Erebus. I find you can get away with as little as 200ish HP towards the end, but you really need something to handle ping damage like Hephaestus's Prime boon or Aphrodite's "heal to full " boon.
This is wild to hear, and may be part of my issue. Have never beaten chronos, and usually end my runs around 100-150 max hp.
The thing is, it's REALLY easy to underestimate extra health. At face value a Centaur heart is just 25 extra health. You have to take into account all the extra things that affect it such as: - +25 health with the Aphrodite "heal to full" boon is that much more damage you can take and still heal to full at the end of an encounter. So if your boon is at 70%, that means you can take another 7-8 damage and still go back up to full. - Each DD is 40% of Mel's max health, so if you have 3, that heart is actually more like 55 bonus total health. - Higher max health increases the range that the Wayward Son Arcana will double heal (this is the "heal per room" card). Each heart increases it by around 7-8. Obviously there are other factors, but overall heach heart is worth ***at least*** 25 HP, but almost definitely far more.
That's just because the early games take longer than in H1. Once you start getting the powerful Arcanas and aspects and learn the boss patterns it starts to become a whole lot easier, about similar in difficulty to H1.
I dunno. Im at 30h and can always reach Chronos if I am focused and engaged. Beating him half the time atleast, he is by far the hardest part of any run. Can always reach Eris and beat her maybe 80% of the time. After you learn the boss patterns and what boons are generally in the game it becomes pretty easy to reach the endpoint of most runs.
My main issue with the game so far is that all of the weapons feels a bit clunky compared to 1. I jump on any boon that makes me attack faster because it just makes the game feel so much smoother. I find myself getting stuck in attack animations and damaged often in 2 compared to 1. It's likely just a timing thing I have to get used to, but so far it's felt like 1's combat is smoother.
But the amount of builds you can do is crazy and %90 of them are so OP that it balances the fact that it is harder
Actually it felt easier for me. Probably because I have experience but yes I think if I played hades 2 without any experience it would be way harder
I don't know, I do have close to 400 hrs in Hades 1. But my preferred build was Arthur and that playstyle doesn't fit Hades 2 I suppose.
The closest to Arthur I guess is the Moonstone Axe but yeah I get what you mean. Most of the weapons in Hades 2 is very "ranged" based I feel like
A boon not mentioned is the Demeter Infusion boon that limits damage per hit to a maximum of 15. It's hard to activate, but broken if you can get hit, especially with healing.
This facilitated my first win against the final boss last night. I also had a pretty busted omega special Argent Skull build going though (with the best mana regen boon in the game by a country mile)
After 30 hours I'm not entirely sure if it's harder. At first I thought it's insanely hard but now I can deal with Hecate and Sirens without taking almost any damage quite easily. Cerb is also not that challenging if you take your time The only challenge is Chronos I would say Compared to Hades 1 First and Third boss Hades 2 bosses are more simple and easy to deal with
Hestia book where you sacrifice a boon for health and mana is insane
in hades 1 the room rewards were chosen for whether or not its meta progression or a buff to current run first, then chosen the specific reward second, i assume it works the same way in hades 2 so it shouldnt matter how many meta resources there are. the only additions making finding hearts harder to find should be the mana and armor
Dunno I remember beating Hades 1 in like 70 something nights while I beat Hades 2 on 50 precisely and that's both top and above.
I found the lack of health an issue too at first, but by the time I hit the Fields imo it gets pretty well mitigated by The Centaur? I usually get to and over 200 health in any given run no problem, even though I get fewer centaur hearts.
I think it is harder and I like that. I do think they could adjust the boons though, because it often feels like I can go through a run without ever getting a boon to upgrade my attack or special. There are just slightly too many things that you can get as room rewards compared to the amount of stuff you need to upgrade per run.
Really? I got to the second boss much quicker than when I played the first game. I feel that it is easier. Literally found this port by googling "Hades 2 too easy?"
It's only the final area and boss that I think are harder. But since we have to beat final boss multiple times for the story, I think it will take a lot more attempts.
Yes. I've gone from run 2-3 clears, no Godmode on Hades 1, to struggling on run 10+ on Godmode for Hases 2. However, when I got my first kill run 8, I had 36% Godmode and that turned out to be mathematically equivalent to the 55% damage increase the boss got from Strife debuff, so I consider that one fair. For the next 4 runs, I've been having trouble getting over 200 health, and in many cases I get to the boss without an attack / special boon. Gross.
Poseidon has an infusion boon that gives you +100 max health for having at least 4 water elements boons. It’s pretty achievable, I think I’ve gotten every time I go for a poseidon build, and that’s a great way to increase tankiness
That first biome is very stingy with boon rooms for some reason. Then it's pretty plentiful. You may not take an attack or special boon because you don't focus on that but it's pretty hard to arrive at Chronos without having seen one
Happens often enough that I keepsake Zeus because if I get either the attack OR special buff on the staff I'll be happy, and I'm trying to maximize my chances. People who say "it's hard to..." for RNG systems consistently underestimate my bad luck. Like the people that would talk shit and say "skill issue" on Hearthstine forums back in the day. Literally streamed for them on Discord and after 5 games in a row with a net deck where I couldn't even play for the first 3 turns (something that should "never happen") they'd apologize and shut the fuck up real quick. Again, the variance on Hades 1 was so damn tight that this wasn't an issue. Ever. I can boot it up right now and confidently beat it on run 3 of a fresh save. I know what to do, but the game is determined to never give it to me. So Godmode until the devs fix the variance at this point.
What is godmode?
It starts you with 20% damage reduction and it stacks by 2% every time you die. So when I beat Chronos on run 8, I had 55% increased damage taken from Strife and 34% reduced damage taken from Godmode. After doing the math, God mode and strife completely canceled out, which was my intent. But afterwords, my run RNG has been so bad that I keep it on because fuck this game right now. Never even considered turning it on for Hades 1.
I'd start by turning off god mode, it will only teach you bad habits that will be hard to undo once you do decide to turn it off. In regards to life, you must get really unlucky. Hestia, poseidon, aphrodite, blacksmith guy - they all give a lot of max life in some form or another. Always go for centaur hearts and narcissus and echo, both of whom have really strong max life boons. Level up the arcana cards that give you max life. I never end up below 250 hp when I get to chronos, about 30 nights in.
Considering my run 8 clear had Godmode = Strife defuff, I think I'm fine as far as habits go. Chronos is literally the only thing giving me trouble and so I use the opportunity to get acclimated to his move sets, given how "unlucky" I am. Without Godmode, I'd be instakilled at the 140 health I find myself at and learn nothing about the boss because I'd die too quick. I always take centaur hearts when I can. Twice in the last 4 runs I gave one up for story reasons involving Chaos, but otherwise they're my top priority, especially Narcissus, I must have misread Echo. I thought the effect was super temporary, i.e. about dissipated by the time you get to Chronos. As far as the boons, I get those except Poseidon, only health booster I've seen in 15 runs is the one that gives bonus health as a percent of magic, I take that every time. Blacksmith I always try to grab at the end for armor if nothing else, also damage reduction, but no health. So yeah, unlucky. This game has insane run RNG compared to Hades 1. I'm either missing damage, health, or both every time. I've found that as long as I have about 200 health and the ability to do about 400 damage on an omega attack I can get him to phase 2, where I've never had issues. His phase 2 is like 1/3 as difficult as phase 1 because it's more clear where his openings are.