Part 11

Explore powerful boons in Hades II, including Aphrodite's Weak debuff, Ares' Blood Frenzy damage boost, and Artemis' Support Fire.

Good Boons:

Empty Inside (Aphrodite) – Weak debuff lasts 5 seconds longer.

Sweet Surrender (Aphrodite) – Weak debuff makes enemies 10% more susceptible to damage.

Broken Resolve (Aphrodite) – Weak debuff makes enemy attacks an additional 10% less damaging.

Weak is a great debuff to apply to heavy-hitters in difficult/boss fights, and the ability to make this debuff even more crippling for an even longer time is a delight that I suspect needs little further explanation at this point.

Blood Frenzy (Ares) – After using death defiance (a mechanic that allows you to survive a fatal blow), deal 15% more damage for the remainder of the encounter.

This is an odd pick, but it's basically a damage spike that applies to the late-game boss fights on successful builds, which is when such a bonus is needed most. Whereas other Ares boons either apply lesser damage bonuses more broadly (Urge to Kill) or larger damage bonuses more narrowly (Battle Rage), Blood Frenzy fights the right middle ground between the size of the damage boost and the situations in which it is deployed. Early- to mid-game players will probably prefer Urge to Kill for its +10% damage buff for all battles, but Blood Frenzy is often of more use in late-game battles, especially against three-phase Hades if you can stack a full set of death defiance with the Lucky Tooth Keepsake.

Also, I have no idea if it stacks upon using multiple death defiance in a single fight.

Support Fire (Artemis) – Fire a seeking arrow for 10 damage after an Attack, Cast, or Special hits an enemy.

Support Fire is much more situational than it may seem, as you really need to be hemorrhaging arrows to deal any substantial amount of damage, with 10 per arrow not being inherently inspiring. If you’re packing the Adamant Rail, spamming Attack and carrying the Delta Chamber upgrade will put Support fire to good use. Similarly, most Fists builds (non-Aspect of Gilgamesh) unleash Attacks at a high enough rate to make Support Fire a strong complement. Otherwise, a well-planted Shield of Chaos Aspect of Zeus Special will rack up individual hits, as will the Heart-Seeking Bow’s Special (especially if targeted via the Aspect of Chiron).

While it is strong within the right circumstances, Support Fire will always be a bit more underwhelming than it appears on its face, as the arrows first fire backwards out of you and take some take to reach their eventual targets, so it’s more useful for high-health foes whose health needs a good, long whittling down than it is for quickly dispatching enemies. Nonetheless, Support Fire is an excellent complement to the right weapon configuration, which necessitates mentioning here given Artemis’s shallow supplementary boon pool.

It is also worth noting that Support Fire can be combined with two other Artemis supplementary boons – Pressure Points and Hunter’s Mark – to provide solid critical hit output on high-frequency moves without the need for a Deadly Strike/Flourish boon. Pressure Points is already a viable supplementary boon that can be applied to just about any build, but pairing it with Support Fire allows each spawned Support Fire arrow to have a small critical hit chance. If then paired with Hunter’s Mark, your spammed rapid moves and arrows will both spread the Marked debuff across the chamber, effectively creating a solid critical hit chance throughout an encounter without occupying a primary boon slot. Even better, having Support Fire and Pressure Points opens up access to the Fully Loaded Legendary boon, even if you don’t have any of Artemis’s primary slot boons (though note that a primary slot boon *or* Pressure Points is a prerequisite for Support Fire).

Sure Footing (Athena) – Resist 60% damage from traps.

A bit of an odd selection here, I will admit, but traps are a sufficient pain as to merit a boon to offset their effects, especially if you get the Pact of Punishment (a system to increase difficulty) involved and jack up their damage output (hint: don't). Unless you possess perfect mastery of the controls and chamber layouts, an ill-timed 30 damage plus stun (or, heaven forbid, 150 damage plus stun with the Pact invoked) from one of Hades’ myriad exploding tower traps can be devastating, especially if it’s followed by a heavy blow from his spear. Dampening the blow with Sure Footing – especially if Epic, sparing you 90% of the damage – will often be more useful than, say, one of Athena’s weak revenge boon hits against Hades’ towering health pool (especially if you already have Divine Dash to help with deflection).

Blinding Flash (Athena) – Deflect abilities (redirect enemy attacks) also make enemies Exposed for 5 seconds, taking +50% damage from backstab.

With Divine Dash and Blinding Flash on a melee weapon build (especially for the Twin Fists), you can confer huge amounts of damage on resilient foes and bosses. Asterius is a particularly threatening opponent for melee weapon builds, but one of the few “safe” places to be is immediately behind him, and Blinding Flash can make it particularly worth your while. (As an aside, the same can be said for Chaos backstab boons – don’t overlook them, their damage increases are tremendous and most melee builds can simply dash behind enemies.)

Deathless Stand (Athena) – Death defiance makes you impervious for +2 seconds upon use, replenish 1 death defiance.

Last Stand (Athena) – Death defiance replenishes +10% health upon use, replenish 1 death defiance.

Replenishing death defiance is good. This is obvious, but thus bears mentioning here.

Rare Crop (Demeter) – Random boon(s) are selected and made into Common boons, then gain a rarity tier every 3 encounters until Heroic.

There’s almost never a bad time to have Rare Crop show up in your run, especially since each small room within Styx counts as one of the three encounters needed for each incremental rarity level upgrade. So long as you don’t leave the Demeter chamber to the end of your Styx exploration – so, you know, don’t do that – Rare Crop will provide you 1-3 Hero boons.