Hades 2 Weapon and Aspect Overview (2024)

This guide provides an overview of the 5 weapons available in Hades 2 and their various aspects. Each of the Nocturnal Arms offers a unique playstyle and move set. This is then customized through Boons, Aspects and Daedalus upgrades to create a new build each run. Understanding each weapon's strength is the key to achieving victory.

To unlock weapon Aspects in Hades 2 you need the Aspects of Night and Darkness Incantation. After that your weapons default to the Aspect of Melinoe, you need to spend resources to unlock the others.

Witch's Staff

You begin with the Witch's Staff, Descura already unlocked. This is a great, beginner friendly weapon due to the combos being easy to use. Your Omega Moves unleash devastation across wide swathes.

Descura is a well balanced weapon making it suitable for a wide variety of builds. Boons from Apollo are nice for increasing your area of effect (AoE) as that's one thing the Witch's Staff lacks by default. In addition, if you're building heavily into the Attack or the Special, consider grabbing a utility boon on the move you aren't building into. Some examples include Demeter to Freeze enemies, Hera to apply Hitch allowing for more AoE, or Hephaestus to trigger Blast for extra damage.

Weapon Aspects

The Aspect of Melinoe is great for quality of life and channeling faster makes Omega Moves easier to execute without the Sorceress Arcana. Aspect of Circe rewards you for striking aggressively with your regular moves to empower your next Omega move. This is a great Aspect for Omega-focused builds due to the Magick restoration from Serenity.

Finally, the Aspect of Momus supercharges your Omega moves by causing them to repeat on a delay. This is incredibly Magick efficient and allows you to weave between normal and Omega Moves. With a 1.5 second delay between bursts at rank 5, you need to use an Omega Move every 4.5 seconds to maximize your damage. This has a particularly interesting interaction with the Omega Cast, releasing pulses of damage every 1.5s without refreshing the snare.

Sister Blades

The Sister Blades, Lim and Oros cost 1 Silver to unlock. Unleash a flurry of blows with the Sister Blades, the Dash-Strike is especially useful as it positions you behind enemies. While the Attack is very close range, you can use the Sister Blades Special to strike foes from a distance.

When using Lim and Oros look for Attack boons from Hestia or Aphrodite. You can stack Hestia's Scorch rapidly with your combo, and the weapon's limited range ensures you're always at the optimal distance to take advantage of the bonus damage from Aphrodite. How you build your special is a bit more situational, if you're using it to shotgun enemies go with Hestia. If you're using it as a ranged interrupt consider Demeter or Poseidon.

The Sister Blades are well positioned to deal backstab damage as your Dash Strike places you behind enemies. Skulking Slice gives your Attack a large backstab bonus and Hook Knives cause your specials to return backstabbing foes as they do. Many of the Daedalus Hammer upgrades allow you to customize the Special to focus on coverage or single target damage.

Weapon Aspects

Using Aspect of Melinoe requires careful positioning but offers a lot of damage against bosses. Being able to backstab off your Dash Strike allows you to get behind enemies reliably. Aspect of Artemis on the other hand is a defensive Aspect allowing you to Parry abilities while keeping your damage uptime high due to a +50% Critical Strike bonus on Riposte. Keep an eye out for the glowing Parry icon near your health bar.

Then lastly Aspect of Pan turns the game into a bullet hell for your enemies! Your Omega Special releases a cloud of knives that seek enemies in your channel dealing massive damage.

Umbral Flames

Spend 3 Silver and 3 Cinders to unlock Ygnium, the Umbral Flames. This is the most difficult weapon to use due to the lower single target damage. The Special is powerful but doesn't interrupt enemies, allowing them the opportunity to strike you before they're killed.

Ygnium's biggest weakness is single target damage. To counteract this try to get a high rarity Boon from Aphrodite or Demeter. The Special and Omega Special deal high damage but their execution speed is a bit slow, leaving you vulnerable to enemy counterattack if you don't freeze foes or weave in an Attack to interrupt them.

Daedalus upgrades like Crushing Comet, Melting Coil, and Triple Helix modify your Special. Crushing Comet gives your Special +50 Power but causes it to dissipate after striking a foe. Melting Coil gives your Special and Omega Special anti-armor properties, completely trivializing encounters with armored foes. Triple Helix adds an additional projectile to the Omega Special turning you into the center of your very own fiery vortex.

Weapon Aspects

The Aspect of Melinoe enhances your Omega Special. As the flames last longer you can spend more time using other Moves while running through enemies to maximize your damage. On the other hand, the Aspects of Moros and Eos both enhance your Attack to boost single target damage. Aspect of Moros enables an Attack-Special combo playstyle, whereas Aspect of Eos is all about firing off Daybreakers for big explosions.

Both of these Hades 2 weapon Aspects take a bit of practice but reward you for holding your Attack to set up bursts of damage. Keep an eye out for the Daedalus upgrades which modify your Attack to further enhance its damage.

Moonstone Axe

Pay 15 Silver to unlock Zorephet, the Moonstone Axe. You combine wide (but slow) sweeping strikes with a defensive shield from the Special to absolutely dominate the battlefield. Zorephet's Omega Attack is a whirlwind of slashes, continue charging this with up to 20 Magick to extend the duration.

Zorephet is a surprisingly flexible weapon that supports a wide variety of builds and playstyles. Both the Special and Omega Attack strike rapidly synergizing with stacking debuffs like Scorch from Hestia. Meanwhile, the regular Attack hits hard but tends to be a bit slow. This pairs well with most of the gods as you can pick a Boon for either damage or utility depending on your needs within the run.

Keep an eye out for the Daedalus upgrade Psychic Whirlwind which allows you to use your Attack and Special during the Omega Special. This way you can block enemy attacks while slicing and dicing! Use Unyielding Slash to make your Attack stronger and reduce the damage you take while executing it.

Weapon Aspects

The Aspect of Melinoe has a smooth beginner friendly playstyle. You hit harder with your Attack and have more life to survive your mistakes. Aspect of Charon creates a one-two punch playstyle. You drop your cast, then detonate it with your Omega Special. Alternatively, you can use this aspect solely to extend the duration of a damaging cast from Demeter, Hestia, or Zeus.

Finally, Aspect of Thanatos rewards you for avoiding enemy attacks. You can stack the Critical Strike chance bonus with your Attack up to a 13% chance to deal massive Critical Damage on your Omega Moves. If you're using Aspect of Thanatos, having the Furious Whirlwind Daedalus upgrade lets you rapidly charge your Omega Attack and gives 60% movement speed while spinning to avoid enemy strikes. This is a high skill cap playstyle that is extremely rewarding.

Argent Skull

Collect 2 Glassrock and 1 Bronze to access the Argent Skull, Revaal. The biggest quirk of this weapon is the ammo system, you only get 3 Attacks before you need to collect your skulls to recharge. Your Special provides much needed mobility in the form of a charge making for a highly mobile hit-and-run playstyle. Out of all the weapons and Aspects in Hades 2, Revaal has the most unique playstyle.

When using Revaal your upgrade path and optimal boons depend heavily on whether you build more into your Attack or Special. In general, this weapon isn't rapid fire unless you build into the Special. The Omega Attack causes each Shell to explode in a large AoE after being fired. Revaal's Omega Special grants iframes (invincibility frames, similar to your Dash) and destroys enemy projectiles allowing you to fearlessly charge into danger. A very powerful Special-focused playstyle revolves around the Daedalus upgrade Twisting Crash which causes the projectiles from your Omega Special to return.

Poseidon or Apollo add AoE and are particularly useful on your Attack. Aphrodite and Demeter provide damage to your Special making them excellent single target choices. Your Omega Special grants a lot of mobility and deals damage in a wide area and destroys projectiles.

Weapon Aspects

The Aspect of Melinoe rewards you for having more Shells and leaving them uncollected on the ground. Try to find the Daedalus upgrade Bolstered Array for +2 Shells. In general, you want to leave a couple of Shells on the ground when playing with this Aspect, then rapid fire the rest into foes for maximum damage. Aspect of Medea offers a close range explosive playstyle to clear hordes of enemies with the downside of a short delay.

The Aspect of Persephone focuses on you combing your Omega Cast and Omega Special. This can be difficult to control while continually charging. Try to corner enemies or use a Poseidon Boon to slam them into walls allowing you to get the maximum amount of damage from the continued charge.

Video

Here are Tenkiei's thoughts on the various weapons in Hades 2 and their Aspects.

Summary

There are 5 weapons in the Hades 2 early access, each of which has 3 aspects that change their properties and playstyle.

• The Witch's Staff combines a series of close range strikes with ranged projectiles from the Special to make a well rounded weapon. While these Moves have good range they lack AoE which is where the Omega Attack and Special come in, providing a linear Attack and explosive projectile.
• Your Sister Blades unleash a flurry of blows ending in a large slash. The Special is a single thrown dagger used to deal damage at a distance. The Omega Attack is a wide sweeping slash and the Special throws a fan of knives that overlap at close range.
• Use the Umbral Flames to strike your foes from a distance. Your Attack releases projectiles that bounce off terrain whereas the Special creates projectiles that spiral out from your location. The Omega Attack launches a steady stream of projectiles, whereas the Special creates 2 orbiting projectiles that follow Melinoe.
• Execute your enemies with the Moonstone Axe, its sweeping combos end in a heavy overhead chop and the Special creates a spectral shield protecting you from damage. The Moonstone Axe has an awesome Omega Attack where you spin-to-win unleashing a flurry of blows for a short time.
• Argent Skull, this is the only weapon with an ammo system. You begin with 3 Shells used to execute your Attack. Then, the Special is a charge which deals damage to the side when charged. The Omega Attack fires a shell at range which explodes dealing damage in a large area.