Part 14

Learn about Hades II Duo Boons like Ice Wine and Exclusive Access, and Legendary Boons like Divine Protection and Splitting Bolt.

Ice Wine (Duo, Demeter/Dionysus) – Trippy Shot immediately blasts an area with freezing festive fog that adds +50% damage and inflicts Chill.

Ice Wine is a remarkable improvement to Trippy Shot, causing it to detonate immediately at range with an area-of-effect attack, adding +50% damage, and imparting Chill over an area.

Exclusive Access (Duo, Dionysus/Poseidon) – Any boons you find will have Epic or better rarity.

Sweet Nectar (Duo, Poseidon/Aphrodite) – Any poms of power provide +1 boon level.

Exclusive Access and Sweet Nectar can hyper-power your build if secured early. Be cautious chasing Exclusive Access on high-Heat runs, as Poseidon and Dionysus boons can be detrimental to certain weapons, like the Aspect of Gilgamesh, potentially leaving you underpowered. Exclusive Access is preferred over Sweet Nectar as it synergizes well with the Pom Blossom keepsake. However, Sweet Nectar does not directly boost Pom Blossom benefits, and boon level scaling can lead to diminishing returns when using both. Securing a Duo boon typically requires at least two primary boon slots to be filled, so Exclusive Access often serves to acquire Epic-grade supplementary boons unless you risk using the Pool of Purging.

Divine Protection (Legendary, Athena) – You have a barrier that negates an instance of damage; cooldown is 20 seconds after use.

Divine Protection is one of the best ways to negate damage during lengthy fights, especially against Hades, who hits hard. The 20-second cooldown allows for multiple damage negations throughout a battle, which is crucial when his blows deal 40 damage each. It is comparable to the defensive utility of the Lucky Tooth and Broken Spearpoint keepsakes.

Splitting Bolt (Legendary, Zeus) – Each time your lightning effects damage an enemy, spawn an additional 40-damage lightning orb.

While most builds benefit from scattering boons from multiple Olympians, a mono-Zeus build focuses primarily on Zeus boons to maximize the chance of acquiring Splitting Bolt. This build is viable for most weapons, with exceptions being the Eternal Spear Aspects (excluding the Aspect of Lucifer) and other hidden Aspects. When pursuing a mono-Zeus build, Static Discharge and Heaven's Vengeance can generally be ignored as they are too slow to synergize with Splitting Bolt. All other Zeus boons can stack to create significant area-of-effect lightning damage.

Cold Embrace (Duo, Demeter/Aphrodite) – Your Crystal Beam fires directly at you, dealing +30% damage and lasting +4 seconds longer.

Cold Embrace cripples your Crystal Beam by forcing it to fire directly at you, requiring you to position yourself behind enemies, stop moving, and hope not to be attacked while retrieving your bloodstones. This is a poor trade-off for a mere +30% damage increase and +4 seconds duration, especially since Crystal Beam is already effective on its own, particularly with Glacial Glare. While it can technically work with the Aspect of Hera by allowing you to shoot past enemies to set up pylons behind them, better Cast options exist.

Smoldering Air (Duo, Zeus/Aphrodite) – God Gauge charges automatically (5% per second) but is capped at 25%).

Smoldering Air is generally a mild upgrade at best and a crippling limitation at worst, especially when not running a Dionysus Call boon. The cap of 25% on the God Gauge significantly hinders its effectiveness.