For the boons i definitely feel like that’s kinda more just bad RNG, not exactly a gameplay flaw. But for the rat fight, have you been using your cast often? Because by DEFAULT it has the ability to stop enemies in their tracks, and I’m pretty sure for minibosses they’re not immune to this unlike bosses, or at the very least they get slowed down (but admittedly it has been a long time since I played hades 2, so I could be wrong.)

As for hades 2 having a lot more resources to collect: that is 100% true, but I honestly really do think grinding in hades 2 is a LOT easier then in hades 1, because you are just given a lot more tools to help you out. First you can do an incantation where Selene will let you know if they’re any collectibles in a cleared room and she’ll even guide you towards them, especially useful in the mourning fields. Speaking of the mourning fields, you can also unlock an incantation to be able to interact with the golden bows (those withered trees) that will also highlight and lead you towards the major collectibles like boons and such. Also another tip for the mourning fields is that you should follow the golden pedals on the ground, they’ll lead you towards the major collectibles and the room exits along with the golden bows.

Then when it comes to actually collecting said resources, pretty early on you’ll unlock the ability to find, recruit, and bring pets along with you on your runs, these pets won’t only increase your chances of finding a specific resource during a run, they’ll also auto collect them for you, albeit you still need to interact with said resources, but certain pets like Frinos (the frog) or Toula (the cat) will skip whatever minigame is tied to the resource and just auto collect it. Hell there’s even a late game incantation that will allow you to just auto collect everything when you leave a room, no need to run around and collect them.

Again I feel like hades 2 grinding is WAY easier then hades 1, since in hades 1 the ONLY way to grind was by interacting with the pact of punishment, and the biggest flaw with the pact is that if you make it all the way up to hades with a specific weapon, only to then die to him, you’ll basically have to waste a whole run with that weapon and miss out on collecting other boss resources just to make up for that one Titian blood you missed.

I sympathize with you so much mate. Hades 1 had so much less of the annoying crap that this game has. Just a few things from me:

->Sometimes when you come back from previous night, you go to the Training grounds. Then you forget something - you want to use the pot, you go back to the main area and you see that stupid scene for the Xth time - where witches are chanting over the pot.
Like, what the hell is this ♥♥♥♥ and why do I have to see it? I want to use the pot, NOT CHANT NEAR IT FOR GODS SAKE. Like, I get it, they are witches, they do chanting, magic etc. JUST LET ME USE IT. So I have to go back to the training grounds and then come back to the main area again so I could use the damn pot. Ugh.

->Then there's the unrandom randomness and just bad RNG. Like, yeah, I get the randomness is...random. Yeah. But the first game did not have such nonsense. What I mean is:
If you use the Dream thingy with Hypnos - where you go through 4 regions in random order - You are sometimes thrown to the UPGRADED CHRONOS fight in the first go. The region barely gives any boons and you end up in a situation thats almost impossible to win. Literally. YOU HAVE TO FIGHT A FINAL BOSS WITH NOTHING. Absurd.
- Then there's bad reward RNG. I do the Chaos challenge and I get a "choice" - 3 or more times in a row - Ashes or Bones. Once again, when that happens you arrive at the boss with practically nothing. Random my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ass.

->Speaking of bosses, the bosses, unlike in the last game, are built with "cheap ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" in mind. That includes that rat boss you mentoned, that you can barely see in the ocean of mines.
Like, Every boss (especially an UPGRADED boss) beyond the first has some sort of nonsense that covers the whole map with cheap ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that is impossible to avoid. Perfect examples are:
-On the mountaintop, the Eye of Typhon when it shoots out its sperm all over the map.
-Cerberus (UPGRADED) when for SOME reason you are forced to fight in a small arena when the said boss has massive area attacks. Stupid.
-Typhon, who also uses massive area attacks - again, I mean the sperm attacks. It' even worse with upgraded version of the bossfight when you have to fight 2 bosses instead of one and the field is full of cheap nonsense.
-The bossfight in the Oceanus is pretty cheap as well, what with the Charybdis firing its sperm everywhere too.

Like, the bosses are beatable, yes, and I am at the end of the game. But imagine doing any of these as your first with ♥♥♥♥ all for damage. Yeah. Fun aye? I have reduced nightmare but some achievements still require you to fight the stupid upgraded bosses. What a drag...

->Then there's the annoying characters. Christ alive, Hades 1 had charismatic characters, but THIS game...has at least two that get on my nerves all the time.
-The annoying, constantly complaining, crying and sniveling Strife, that for some reason is allowed to impede your progress. It's too bad that we can't kill characters off completely. She would be first on my list. It's funny that you can even bang her, because - let's face it - who would?
-The cringy, edgy Prometheus and his chicken, who once again we for some reason can't kill off completely. I know, the story is dumb, what with the "have to keep them alive to keep the time going and kill INFINITE NUMBER of Typhons and Chronos".

That's pretty much it. Well, there's the dumb story I mentioned about the INFINITE number of Chronos and Typhons that we have to kill to "keep time flowing". But that can be ignored I guess - devs probably couldn't think of any other reason why Mel has to keep fighting.

Prometheus also just has a ton of health, trying to get to the end of the second act takes forever.

I agree that I kind of hate the second act bosses, except the cyclops is funny enough.

Originally posted by isanthraxbayad:

Prometheus also just has a ton of health, trying to get to the end of the second act takes forever.

I agree that I kind of hate the second act bosses, except the cyclops is funny enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66Epyt2O5Ns

The game is very very annoying! It's an elaborate yapping in a video game form. Having to optimize Selene boons at every run. Entire rooster of the bosses modelled after Theseus&Asterius EM. Contrast between very small and very wide rooms. One can go on and on... This is the kind of ♥♥♥♥ that tilts me personally.

I still didn't like the currency stuff, but unlocking the Aspect of Persephone made the entire game so much more manageable.

I did absolutely HATE Selene's boons though. The healing one and the nuke are good, all the rest of them are all completely useless against bosses. Not being able to reroll was upsetting, If I got the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ones I would just restart.

Originally posted by isanthraxbayad:

I still didn't like the currency stuff, but unlocking the Aspect of Persephone made the entire game so much more manageable.

I did absolutely HATE Selene's boons though. The healing one and the nuke are good, all the rest of them are all completely useless against bosses. Not being able to reroll was upsetting, If I got the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ones I would just restart.

I hated most of them too, but the revival of one enemy ha to be the one of the best boon in the game. Upgrade it so your pet would not disappear and stay forever, upgrade it's attack speed - the bossfights, especially Typhon becomes easy as hell lol

In fact the first time I defeated Typhon was purely because of this boon - I summoned the eye spermy enemy who had max attack speed and I barely had to do anything lmao

Originally posted by isanthraxbayad:

I still didn't like the currency stuff, but unlocking the Aspect of Persephone made the entire game so much more manageable.

I did absolutely HATE Selene's boons though. The healing one and the nuke are good, all the rest of them are all completely useless against bosses. Not being able to reroll was upsetting, If I got the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ones I would just restart.

Useless against bosses? No.

I linked a video in this thread of an upgraded Twilight Curse being effective against Prometheus. This was after you complained he had too much health, he died in less than one minute.

Most of the Hexes are effective against bosses, especially with Path of Stars upgrades and their Godsent abilities.

You should read what the Hexes do and their descriptions, because what you’re saying is provably false.

The previous poster pointed out how Night Bloom is very strong.

Upgraded Phase Shift is ridiculously good against bosses.

Many forum posters here swear by Lunar Ray and how it can melt bosses, basically it’s a laser beam of death. But it just needs to be upgraded.

Wolf Howl is one of the best escape abilities in the game and can be cast constantly. It trivializes a lot of boss mechanics, and Vow of Rivals mechanics, including the Chronos one shot kill attack.

Dark Side is literal invincibility against everything, total damage immunity, and paired with Aphrodite it can deal very respectable damage.

>Many forum posters here swear by Lunar Ray and how it can melt bosses, basically it’s a laser beam of death. But it just needs to be upgraded.

I could oneshot almost everything with Persephone Aspect Aphrodite Omega Specials, which also made me immune. Why would I waste time sitting still doing less damage. Bosses in this game don't let you sit there and do that, regular enemies will just snipe you.

Compare this to just throwing a nuke with time stopped, and continuing charging around invincible.

The time slowdown one is good though, I'll give you that.

To be honest all boons are useful in one way or the other, it's just that you find one boon that fits you the most and you think - why bother with others.

Take Luanr Ray for example - overall it's crap and literally makes you a target, unless you get that upgrade where where it aims for you.

Originally posted by isanthraxbayad:

>Many forum posters here swear by Lunar Ray and how it can melt bosses, basically it’s a laser beam of death. But it just needs to be upgraded.

I could oneshot almost everything with Persephone Aspect Aphrodite Omega Specials, which also made me immune. Why would I waste time sitting still doing less damage. Bosses in this game don't let you sit there and do that, regular enemies will just snipe you.

Compare this to just throwing a nuke with time stopped, and continuing charging around invincible.

The time slowdown one is good though, I'll give you that.

Dude, I'm not going to argue with you. MegaMrFreeman already pointed out that Lunar Ray can aim for you, and there's Path of Stars upgrades and Godsent abilities which make it very good. The Godsent ability with Apollo makes it very powerful.

I think you're getting hung up on Hexes at their base level - nobody is gonna argue a base level Hex isn't great. It needs Path of Stars upgrades/Godsent abilities to really excel, that's specifically why Godsent abilities were patched into the game, they used to not exist in early builds of the game/Early Access.

This player even used Lunar Ray to defeat the Surface while Mel was still actively inflicted with the Surface curse. As far as I know, this was a world first accomplishment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05GWg1zYd5Q

This accomplishment was only made possible by creative and clever use of Selene's Lunar Ray.

I'd recommend going to Haelian's YouTube page and watching some of his videos. He makes it easy to understand all the essentials of the game. He explains stuff and demonstrates how to use everything, from low fear to high fear.

He is also extremely good at the game, so you can watch his gameplay style a learn a lot about Boon combinations which work, how to use weapons, how to use Hexes, etc.

There's gaming skill, which is a factor, and then there's game knowledge, which is probably an equally important factor. Knowing all the mechanics and knowing how everything fits together, etc. is very important and will improve your experience dramatically.

I think Prometheus wouldn't be as hated if he didn't have the simon says attack

Originally posted by GrimAtrament:

I think Prometheus wouldn't be as hated if he didn't have the simon says attack

It'll never happen (since they're basically done with the game), but it would be cool if he had simon says on a rotation of possible attacks.

Let's say instead of simon says, he could do a series of multiple projectile kicks that you'd dodge, or he'd summon his birb, or summon projectile minions, or maybe run up to you and do some Street Fighter moves in a combo.

That way, they could keep simon says in the game, but it would spice up the general encounter and make it less predictable. It would make it trickier for experienced players, and it would satisfy players who don't always wanna deal with simon says.

I tried using the Lunar Ray for the 32 heat challenge and it was terrible, even with all the upgrades. If there is some hidden good upgrade I just haven't gotten then okay fine, but that doesn't make me ever want to pick it again. I died to Chaos's last phase. I tried again, rolled the heal and won easily.

I guess we'll agree to disagree.

Originally posted by isanthraxbayad:

I tried using the Lunar Ray for the 32 heat challenge and it was terrible, even with all the upgrades. If there is some hidden good upgrade I just haven't gotten then okay fine, but that doesn't make me ever want to pick it again. I died to Chaos's last phase. I tried again, rolled the heal and won easily.

I guess we'll agree to disagree.

I mean, I'm not gonna debate that one, I suggest folks use Moon Water all the time. I've lost count of how many times I've yapped about Moon Water. Lunar Ray is a forum favorite, but it's not my personal favorite.

My favorites are:
Moon Water (I'm almost exclusively a Strength player, so this is top tier)
Twilight Curse (Path of Stars + Godsent is very good. Viable at 32+ Fear, it becomes even better with more Fear, if you think about it)
Total Eclipse (you seemed to already like this one. It's strong)
Wolf Howl (underrated & extremely good Hex. Get out of jail free card on a short cooldown)
Phase Shift (can carry runs with Demeter's Godsent, an excellent boss killer. Speedrunners even use this)
Night Bloom (revived minion is ridiculously strong, also a forum favorite)
Dark Side (I used to use this a lot, especially when I was newer)
Lunar Ray (forum folks like this Hex a lot and swear by it. With Prominence + Shine of Apollo I think it's significantly better)

Grats on the 32 Fear clear, too!