Part 20

Unlock the full potential of Hades' Aspect of Guan Yu and Aegis Shield in this comprehensive guide. Learn strategies, boons, and upgrades for these powerful weapons.

This section details two powerful but challenging weapons in Hades: the Aspect of Guan Yu and the Aegis Shield. Both offer unique playstyles with significant drawbacks that require careful consideration and complementary builds to overcome.

Aspect of Guan Yu: This aspect drastically reduces your maximum health by 70% at Aspect level 1, and 50% at max level. Your Special is converted into a one-way missile, and your Spin Attack becomes a life-absorbing charged blade rift projectile. While your dash attack remains unchanged, your standard jab combo is too slow for groups, your Special charges too slowly to be spammable, and your charge attack charges too slowly and creates too small a vortex to reliably restore health. The core challenge lies in compensating for your drastically reduced health pool.

Complementary Upgrades for Guan Yu: Quick Spin, Massive Spin, Winged Serpent, Triple Jab, and potentially Serrated Point. Serrated Point triples dash-strike hits but reduces dash distance by 25%, requiring Hermes boons for mobility.

Complementary Boons for Guan Yu: Life Affirmation (Aphrodite) to mitigate health loss, high-frequency percentage-based Attack boons (Demeter, Athena, Aphrodite, Artemis), defensive/status boons (Athena/Aphrodite, Divine Dash, Heartbreak Flourish), and defensive Hermes boons (Greatest Reflex, Quick Recovery, Greater Evasion, Hyper Sprint, Greater Haste).

Aegis – Shield of Chaos: The Aegis presents a perplexing playstyle with situational techniques for both its Attack and Special. The Attack is a low-reach sweeping melee attack with knockback, which can be held to enter a defensive stance and charge into Bull Rush, a directed tackle. The Special throws the shield, which bounces between enemies before returning, but leaves Zagreus defenseless while it's in flight. The Attack's knockback is not ideal for spamming, and the Special is unreliable against groups and leaves you vulnerable.

Aegis Attack: Low-reach sweeping melee, moderate damage, causes knockback. Holding Attack after striking initiates Bull Rush, a charged tackle.

Aegis Dash Strike: Similar to standard Attack, with reduced traction at the end.

Aegis Special: Thrown shield bounces between enemies, low base damage, returns to Zagreus. Attack cannot be used while Special is in flight.