There is no build in Hades until the run gives you one. You start each escape with a weapon and nothing else, and what you become depends on which gods turn up in the first four rooms.
What you can control is the shape of the run before it starts: which weapon, which aspect, which keepsake, and what the Mirror is set to. Those four decisions are the build. Everything after them is improvisation.
The Mirror is your permanent character sheet
Two columns, and each row offers a choice between them. You can switch freely for a small fee, so treat these as loadout options rather than commitments.
The rows that decide how a run feels:
Shadow Presence or Fiery Presence. Backstab damage against enemies facing away, or a flat damage boost. Fiery Presence is more reliable, Shadow Presence is much stronger if you play behind enemies deliberately.
Greater Reflex or Ruthless Reflex. An extra dash, or a brief slow-motion window on a perfect dodge. The extra dash is the correct answer for almost everyone and almost every weapon.
Boiling Blood or Abyssal Blood. More damage against enemies affected by your Cast, or damage while your Cast is in play. Boiling Blood pairs with builds that trap enemies, which is most of them.
Family Favourite is the quiet one. It boosts damage while you hold a boon from both Zeus and Poseidon, or the equivalent pairs, and it rewards taking the gods you already have rather than chasing new ones.
Boons, and the three that actually scale
Every god offers a different flavour of damage, and the differences are less important than the status curses.
| God | Curse | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Zeus | Jolted | Retaliates when the enemy attacks |
| Aphrodite | Weak | Reduces enemy damage output |
| Ares | Doom | Delayed burst damage |
| Artemis | Marked | Raises your critical chance against the target |
| Dionysus | Hangover | Stacking damage over time |
| Demeter | Chill | Slows, and stacks toward a burst |
| Athena | Deflect | Returns projectiles |
| Poseidon | Knockback | Displacement and wall damage |
Athena's Deflect is the survival pick and it trivialises several bosses. Take Divine Dash from Athena in any run where you are struggling to finish, because deflecting while dashing removes most incoming damage from the equation.
Artemis and Ares scale hardest into the late chambers. Aphrodite's Weak is the most underrated defensive tool in the game.
Duo boons are what a build is aiming at
Duos require boons from two specific gods on specific abilities, and they are worth building toward from around the third chamber once you can see which two gods keep appearing.
Curse of Longing, Splitting Bolt, Merciful End, Hunting Blades. These are the rewards that turn a decent run into a clear.
The practical approach is to take boons from at most three gods. Spreading across five means you have a little of everything and none of the duos, which is the most common reason a strong-looking run stalls in Elysium.
Keepsakes bias the next god you meet, so equip the one matching the god you want and swap it out after they appear.
Weapon aspects change more than the numbers
Every weapon has four aspects, and the fourth, hidden aspect is usually a different weapon wearing the same name.
Aspect of Arthur turns the sword into a slow, heavy blade with an aura that weakens everything nearby and gives you extra health. Aspect of Rama makes the spear a ranged weapon built around a homing throw. Aspect of Beowulf rewrites the shield entirely around a charged bull rush.
If a weapon feels bad, try its hidden aspect before writing it off.
Daedalus hammers appear twice per run and can double a weapon's output or change how it works. Two hammers on a single weapon is often the difference between a clear and a death in the final chamber.
Heat is where the game actually lives
Once you have escaped, the Pact of Punishment lets you add difficulty conditions for better rewards. Each condition has levels, and you pick which ones to stack.
The cheap heat, the conditions that cost you least for the most reward, is generally Hard Labour and Convenience Fee at low levels. The expensive heat is anything touching your healing or the boss fights directly.
Different weapons want different heat. Build a heat loadout per weapon rather than a single one you carry everywhere, because the conditions that barely matter with the rail can end a fist run in the second biome.
If you have not escaped yet, the Hades walkthrough covers the biomes in order.
