after 50+ runs

[Hormesis]

and changing weapons so i can gather nightmare, each weapon is at least past 8, i feel like i got a pretty good idea of the balance in this game. and chronos, the cyclops and cerberus are HILARIOUSLY imbalanced. i just killed chronos with the axe, at 8 heat and using a ranged build (his special) and was able to kill chronos (my max hp was 110) w/ full health at the end, 5 death definaces remaining, and 2 more heals available. i try that same thing with a melee focus and i'm lucky to not use all 5 of my death defiances. same thing is true for cerberus and the cyclops. range = no hit run, melee = lucky not to die. the discrepancy is too blatant to ignore. can melee be good? yes but it's substantially more difficult w/ exactly the same reward. this becomes even more true when you're at the high heats (i've only done 16).

it would be fine if the ranged wasn't stupidly powerful while running through the stages, since you'd be forced to build both a melee and ranged approach, but the same is still true. you can clear fairly easily with melee, but cast, step away and use your weapons ranged attack is infinitely easier. ever since i started using almost exclusive ranged oriented builds for all weapons, i've finished every run (dozens), except 1. and i lost 3 death defiances at the very end since i wanted to kill him while he was casting the insta gib move.

tl;dr: ranged >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> melee, especially on cerberus, the cyclops and chronos.

[Node]

Yep!

And some crazy OP combos:

* Hook knives with Aspect of Pan. Throw in an aphrodite special and the amount of dmg pumped out at range is quite insane. And if you're lucky to also get the one where you shoot 16 blades all around you, you basically hit a mob 32 times. I think I probably 5-6 shot cerberus with this combo. Pretty ridiculous.

* Starter staff with wave flourish (poseidon special), and get the 2 shot per special upgrade. Absolutely broken. Just max out the flourish both in rarity and/or power poms, and you destroy everything as if a hot knife through butter.

* Skulls with frozen stroke (demeter attack), and get the +2 skull upgrade. Even better is the combo'd with the upgrade to make them auto return to you. You just dumpster on everything.

* Moonstone axe with the upgrade which makes it "fire in front of you". Also get demeter freeze strike. Get some kind of mana regen (I prefer hestia... who need the hp...). Hard pump everything that ups attack and omega attack. You'll destroy everything in incredibly fast time by shooting omega attacks in front of you then backing away.

[A Street Sweeper]

Agreed, Chronos needs more punish for ranged and less for Melee. I also sort of miss how the old ranged weapons worked. With the rail and the bow you could operate from range and do OK, but the damage difference if you worked them up close was massive.

[MerlinW]

If you want to play melee there are tools for that. Dodge, dmg reductions, curses, revenge dmg, etc. You can facetank every boss with the proper build.

[Wintermute]

Originally posted by MerlinW:

If you want to play melee there are tools for that. Dodge, dmg reductions, curses, revenge dmg, etc. You can facetank every boss with the proper build.

DMG reductions are pitiful though, at least compared to the first game. Static 10 from Hephaestus, static 10 from Aphrodite, and I think there's another 10 squeezed from somewhere else. That's with massively reduced health pool of Melinoe, which means much less EHP overall. And the numeric values don't come anywhere close to the actual tank build in H1.

Revenge damage is complete trash both in H1 and H2.

[MerlinW]

dodge:
arcane: 10% dodge
circe: 15% dodge
aphrodite infusion: 15% dodge
hermes: 10-15% dodge

dr:
keepshake: 15% guardian dmg reduction, -15% guardian life
aphrodite's weak curse: 10 - 25% dmg reduction
charon well item: 10% dmg reduction

other:
prometheus flood control: -2-4 dmg per hit
Echo can give you 50% dodge with 25 usages
Hades can give you -20% chronos life
Hestia's projectile nullifier sprint
Hermes's -30-60% projectile speed

if you can get ~25% dodge and ~25-40% dr almost every time (even more if you are using your boon keepshakes and reroll arcanes).
With that and some dps boons / hammer you should facetank everything, especially with the life or slow time hexes (latter is not working on chronos tho)

[Wintermute]

I'm dead sure Aphrodite Weak curse doesn't scale. Not with level, not with boon quality.

[MerlinW]

Originally posted by Wintermute:

I'm dead sure Aphrodite Weak curse doesn't scale. Not with level, not with boon quality.

It's additive, with heroic it's 12.5% + 15% by the keepshake

Weak: Curse: Afflicted foes deal at least 10% less damage. Lasts 3 Sec.

for example:
Rapture Ring: Your Casts drag foes in and inflict Weak.
- Common: Weak Damage Reduction: +10%
- Rare: Weak Damage Reduction: +15%
- Epic: Weak Damage Reduction: +20%
- Heroic: Weak Damage Reduction: +25%

[Wintermute]

Originally posted by MerlinW:

Originally posted by Wintermute:

I'm dead sure Aphrodite Weak curse doesn't scale. Not with level, not with boon quality.

Weak: Curse: Afflicted foes deal at least 10% less damage. Lasts 3 Sec.

for example:
Rapture Ring: Your Casts drag foes in and inflict Weak.
- Common: Weak Damage Reduction: +10%
- Rare: Weak Damage Reduction: +15%
- Epic: Weak Damage Reduction: +20%
- Heroic: Weak Damage Reduction: +25%

I stand corrected then.

[krlb]

Sister Blades work pretty good on Cerberus: omega attack can evade most of his attacks, even when escape routes are blocked.

[FadingHope]

You're right across the board, can't even imagine beating the doggie or cyclops melee, especially the latter, not to mention the boss. Luckily, there's at least half a year of EA ahead of us and dozens of balance patches.

[Pwncaker]

Melee needs some slight tuning for sure. Even in the first game, I usually did dash/dash strike builds with melee unless I was able to get crazy AP scaling early on or double attack hammers. I've been trying to do melee builds and as soon as I went for a ranged build, I easily cleared Chronos. It seems even worse on the surface with all of the AOE and ranged attacks flying your way.

[Yeet]

I personally feel like its the opposite for me, i love the axe and the daggers and always kill cerberous and the cyclops easy and would only get hit once or twice. i personally can not do that with the range builds like you. maybe they need to look into it or were just opposites?

[Hormesis]

Originally posted by Yeet:

I personally feel like its the opposite for me, i love the axe and the daggers and always kill cerberous and the cyclops easy and would only get hit once or twice. i personally can not do that with the range builds like you. maybe they need to look into it or were just opposites?

well if what you're saying is true, and you can finish a chronos/cerberus/cyclops with only being hit once or twice with a melee build, it's taking you 10 times longer than it would with someone using ranged. that's simply a product of you having less windows to deal damage, when compared to someone using ranged. maybe you're just far more patient and far more skilled than me. doesn't change the fact that an imbalance exists

[mccloud]

My favourite is the axe. In melee. Kinda popular build but I still like it. If you get :

- last strike of combo strikes twice (hammer)
- your attack is now a 300dmg single hit (hammer)
- Aphorodite or Apollo main attack, raise them as much as possible with poms
- arkana card that gives more damage to targets in casts (The Furies)
- (optional) Aphro cast - makes targets inside cast Weak and another Aphro boon that grants more damage to Weak enemies (forgot the name)
- (optional) if you can get Hermes' main attack attack speed boon (+15% attack speed), you are a god.
- (optional) Aphro's heal when you exit a room is godlike, especially if you suck at dodging. The more HP you have, the more it heals.
- (optional) Chaos +attack damage boon (50%+). Or HP (up to +99HP). Massively helpful.

With this, and +200HP or more (usually 300HP+ by the end), you can just sh*t on Chronos with 2k+ hits non-stop. Without crits. Cast - attack - attack - cast, repeat, everything dead. If Artemis shows up and gives you crit chance, it just becomes silly. My first such run I just yolo-ed him, ignoring the mechanincs and the first (and only) death defiance triggered just before he died the second time - definitely could've prevented that one if I paid attention lol. But I had nearly 400HP (and 4 defiance) so... who cares about mechanics lol. Or adds, the more the merrier, everything melts under the axe AoE swings all the same.

Granted, you need at least the two hammers to build it like this, and either Aphro main attack or Apollo to make it shine. It takes some luck. But with those 3 secured, it is pretty much game over.

There are more fun builds with the axe, and stronger, but if you want pp-boosting build, this is the one.

The survival in this build comes from huge damage and AoE, plus your special - you don't have to fire it, actually it's better if you don't. But just tapping it gives you an impenetrable sheild. On demand. No CD. Which other weapon has that ? Gotta get used to using it, though. Combine that with the AoE attack that (especially in Apollo's case) can strike from far away if you aim it properly and you don't really need to be toe-to-toe with the mobs. Every single strike hits like a truck and usually one-shots, so there is no rush to spam, dance between defense and offense. The frog companion also helps.