32 Fear thoughts, experiences?

[Tim]

Was wondering what everyone thought about it so far. Gonna write a lot to start things off.

I find we're lacking some "fun" conditions from the first game's Pacts. Obviously we don't get Extreme Measures out the game since those are so much work and add new dialogue, but I'm sad we don't get Benefits Package (perks), Underworld Customs (forced boon selling), or a more gradual equivalent to Routine Inspection (reduced Mirror of the Night options); Vow of Abandon is all-or-nothing and a surprisingly bad deal at only +5 Fear.

One major exception: Vow of Arrogance. Love this one! It draws attention to how freely we get to manipulate boon rarity. You end up being happy with a Common boon since you can convert it into a Heroic... That encourages you to only draft Rare or better so there are fewer targets for that relic... And rarities above Common aren't so bad thanks to Rarify; you end up being guaranteed an Epic or better, functionally, by taking advantage of relics. And it makes Magick potions way more appealing than in normal play.

Vow of Forsaking is an interesting one. Encourages you to spread Gods around. I have more than once screwed myself by greedily choosing the same God over and over in a run and getting forced to take build-ruining Sacrifice boons or Legendaries/Duos that primed my run into oblivion.

Vow of Bitterness is MEAN. I wish you could select this in different tiers to affect 1/2/3/4 biomes. It draws attention to how readily this game throws boons at you, but it's still a kinda "feel bad" pick and affects weapon aspects VERY unevenly. Makes Origination surprisingly risky with all the ways you can screw yourself out of Curses, and so I forsake it on higher heats. Not sure if this is a mistake or not, lol, but focusing on a single core boon gets better results for me that rotations.

I ended up beating 32 Heat with Aspect of Momus on Staff with Aphrodite on the special. I wanna try other weapons, too, but that seemed the most obvious thanks to the surprisingly generous "nearby" distance, the absolutely wild damage bonus, and the inevitability of netting at least 1 Special-affecting hammer.

[Knavenformed]

I won't do any of the statistical debuffs for the sake of "challenge", just the easiest way to unlocks and I definitely feel the lack of "fun" conditions

Pretty much the only one that adds to the experience is randomized spawns from future areas, definitely need some more unique dangers to the list

[BROLY 32]

I did it once and I won't do it again.
I didn't find it fun or enjoyable.

[Tim]

I finished up 32 Fear with all Aspects. I was surprised how many builds worked. I tried to go out of my way to use weapon mechanics instead of just using Omega Casts. My big exception was Aspect of Circe on staff; just threw the double attack hammer on that thing and went wild.

The hardest was Aspect of Melinoe on torch. Great on low Fear, ROUGH early game on high Fear since it's magick dependent with low base damage. Recommend combining it with an offensive Sprint boon.

Moros was tough, too. You need 3 Boons for it to function (attack, special, gain). Anything Boon-hungry spamming Omegas, you gotta get Born Gain ASAP. Way more reliable than building around attack/special first, and it lets you take Vow of Panic for free.

Aspect of Melinoe on axe... I didn't like any of the hammers you think would go great with it, like the chop. That+the finisher are so awkward compared to the basic swipes that I never wanted to finish a combo. If there was a hammer that got rid of the combo finisher but made swipes faster, that would be my ideal! Anyway, I tried out Romantic Spark on it and loved it. Netting multiple enemies with an axe swipe and dodging through them all is sooo satisfying. And I thought it fit with the low recovery time effect.

Everything else was straightforward to build around. The main problem was time—rank 2 Vow of Desperation is sooo tempting, but many Aspects start slow in the first biome and need the leeway.

[paincanbefun]

i'm at like 20 fear. i like making health and damage higher but i dislike removing boons, healing, and the other stuff

i don't really feel like this changes my access to the game however. I have almost everything unlocked and if I want to see that last statue, then i'm ok with having to do some tryhard stuff

i will say that my incentive to keep running it will drop after i grind up all the nightmares and unlock every weapon

[RealVanillaSmooth]

I think Hades 2 Fear is a lot more difficult than the PoP in Hades 1. Part of it is because Melinoe has half the health that Zag had and revives using death defiance with less health as well (basically, after you use a single death defiance without any healing a single hit is going to kill you again). It's also more difficult to really get through the first biome because the stages are SOOOOOO tiny and there will be stages where you get ranged enemies that all have armor who will one shot you if you die even a single time.

A lot of the oaths are really anti-fun IMO. I made a post a while ago about how it looks like at higher fear runs you are offered less boons, but I've also noticed a lot more rooms with armored enemies as well. This one I can't be sure on but I am pretty confident there is a hidden slider in Hades 2 that offers you less boons the more and more I play at 20+ fear (my completion range is 20-26).

I am nowhere close to completing the game at 32 fear. Erebus is where the majority of my high fear runs end just because you are such a victim of RNG but your chances of completing a run increases significantly if you can just get past Erebus.

Issue eventually becomes Chronos one shotting you even if you have 100+ life at these runs and basically leaves zero room for error. His attacks aren't too bad but he has two startup queues that are very similar (his scythe throw and his cleave) which creates a 50/50 mixup where you either need to dodge into or away from him. This is really combated by staying close-ish to him (not close enough to where he does his instant speed cleave) and getting behind him. But with 20% more health and faster moves and likely little to no death defiance by the time you get to him, actually beating him at high fear runs is extremely challenging.

Hades of course had this in the first game as well and was IMO arguably more punishing but the main difference is that Zagrus was just stronger and had more agency progressing through the game until you actually fought him. Highest PoP completion in Hades was 38 by the time I stopped playing, highest fear completion in Hades 2 is 26.

It's pretty clear to me at least that the oaths, point-per-point, are more punishing than that pacts.

[Falco]

I agree that there could be some more options for fear testaments. Especially some that punishes non-magick.

[Hormesis]

for me clearing 32 chronos and 32 eris was a one and done. although the same could pretty much be said about Hades 1 so it's not much different. although i'd say F32 in hades 2 was easier than H32 in hades 1

[Ol' Grog]

Heavy spoilers within this small essay, read at your own risk. I'm going to enter this as spoiler text in it's entirety (starting at spoilerly section) as each individual instance is a little much for me to do individually. Heat/fear discussion begins third paragraph, but can't talk about heat/fear without talking about the ways we can combat it. Supergiant clearly learned a lot about modular difficulty from Hades. The concept fits beautifully with the roguelike format.
I'm a little bit shamed to admit I have 200+ hours in this build of Hades 2- I've had some time off work and amazingly the early access release coincided with that. I have close to 300 hours in the OG Hades on PC and another 100 or so on Xbox. I only quantify my playtime here to highlight that, in an extremely short period of time, Hades 2 has nearly eclipsed my total playtime for a game that hit the scene in EA 6 years ago. Both are top five games of all time for me personally.
I've thought a lot about heat vs. fear in my runtime over the last few weeks. There are some mechanics from Hades 1 that I found myself missing, purging pools being far and away the biggest item. Obviously this is an EA title so we may see their return in a future build. Underworld customs always felt like free heat to me with how often boons are offered in H1, particularly with certain mirror paths turned on. Even the least thought-out builds I played in that game had SOMETHING that was pretty easy to give up, and with rolls being granted on key doors (incredibly frequent, we swam in rolls in that game) I always felt pretty happy to get some free money from dropping something I didn't need. Hades 2 completely eliminates that and honestly I'm happy about it. You are generally committed to a boon when you pick it up in H2. Sacrifices are beneficial and optional, and Hestia's Burnt Offering provides a huge gain in both primary run resources which GENERALLY pays off and is again completely optional. I find myself thinking much harder about that first boon, the god pool, what keepsakes I want in each biome, and in particular the hammers for each weapon and what my focus of the run will be.
There are busted builds for every weapon. 32 fear is viable for every weapon. The skull is probably the most difficult for me to clear with that amount of fear, but oddly enough I've found that I care less about specific hammers for the skull that with other weapons. Momus is clearly incredibly broken and Double Moonshot will be nerfed in some way- it's far and away the most powerful build in the game right now and breaks a lot of the systems (no need for magic, stuns enemies, and incredible rate of fire). 32 fear was trivial with a poseidon special, double moonshot, and shimmering moonshot.
Ygneum's special is so strong, but I understand why it's not regarded highly. It's not a very intuitive weapon in the beginning. Aspect of Melinoe with triple helix just decimates everything on screen, particularly with Born Gain on magic regen slot (more on this boon in a sec).
All the aspects for the Axe are incredibly strong but this weapon seems fairly balanced to me. There's a big tradeoff in speed for how strong it is, and how good most of the hammers are. Charon takes a fair amount of setup, Thanatos is unbelievably strong but it's very easy to lose the crit buff (Artemis being a random encounter is such a great choice- she was a god i took every time I saw her in H1), and Melinoe is a standard weapon with neither of those buffs but a much more approachable attack speed.
Blades are amazing and my current favorite. Pan comes second in terms of strength to Momus, and just like Momus it's very dependent on hammers- but while there's ONE hammer that makes Momus god-tier, there are like 4 for Pan (Spiral, Hook, Dancing, Boundless). All of those hammers increase viability for 32 by a substantial amount.
This is the paragraph on Born Gain. We'll miss it after the nerf, I think. I'm sure those of you that have taken that boon with ANY weapon (excluding the Momus build above lol) have felt the difference in terms of how often you can use magic. Being able to spam Omega attacks with almost no concern for the magic you have makes every weapon completely viable right now, ESPECIALLY with the 1 COST arcana that slows down every enemy excluding Chronos. In terms of regen it's so far ahead of the rest of the pack. I take Hera every time I see her unless I need three different gods in the pool for a specific duo or legendary or general build setup. It's also incredibly fun to have this boon on as it eliminates downtime inherent to certain builds, so I'm torn between hating and loving this boon. I generally don't want to feel obligated to take a specific god when I see them and I feel that way about Hera right now. generally, I think Hera has a variety of very interesting synergies that feel different from other gods and I love that so it's not a waste of a god in the pool in any sense.
Magic regen in general is something that's driven a lot of my runs. It's so integral to a key global system in the game. I have found myself priming all of my magic on high fear runs to Zeus because Ionic Gain was the only regen boon I found in the first biome and Static Shock is sooooo tempting every time. Hestia's regen comes as a close second for normal regen boons- Aphro can be amazing but also debilitating, same with Apollo, Demeter, Heph. Unpopular opinion but with the frequency that you can take small amounts of damage, Hephaestus's regen is very strong but ironically doesn't trigger with armor which is another of his mechanics (it's late as I type this and I hope I'm not mistaken about that lol). Poseidon is great if you have a weapon that deals damage frequently.
All this to say that 32 fear is fully possible across the board IF you think carefully about your build and what vows to take. Bitterness is really harsh and I try not to itake it until 32. Arrogance is easy heat as long as you don't forget and take purple boon every time (I know I struggle with that). Wandering can be a little annoying but generally is worth the cost even at low heat. Suffering is utter pain but I prefer that to maxed out vow of blood. Dominance can be hard at 30% and isn't generally worth that last point- 20% is the most I take, generally. Revenant sucks and is one of the only things about this game that I'd vote to have removed, or SIGINIFICANTLY buff the amount of fear received for taking it. It's not hard, it just takes the fun out of the game for me personally. Panic is tough but there are lots of ways around it. Abandon is so hard that it should be worth double the amount of fear, maybe triple. If they keep it at 5, I'd like to see a scale where SOME of your arcana is locked (a little like the pact that removes aspects of your mirror starting from the bottom) for progressively more fear leading to no arcana. Alternatively, allowing the arcana card that randomly activates 5 cards at max upgrade every boss to remain in play with this fear on- some incentive to take that card, and another aspect of randomness which is always great in a game like this.
In summary I think the system is really hard, much harder than the Pact of Punishment. But that's great. This is a great game. I'm so happy that this is just the beginning of early access and there's so much more to look forward to.

[A Street Sweeper]

Originally posted by Ol' Grog:

Snip

Good read mate! Thanks for that.
I do find the keepsakes much more interesting in this one. I initially missed ones like the persephone one or the plume which made you stronger and stronger, but i was definitely wrong. There are too many that i would never pick still, but i love that it is an actual stop and think decision now at the start of each biome.

[Ol' Grog]

Originally posted by A Street Sweeper:

Originally posted by Ol' Grog:

Snip

Good read mate! Thanks for that.
I do find the keepsakes much more interesting in this one. I initially missed ones like the persephone one or the plume which made you stronger and stronger, but i was definitely wrong. There are too many that i would never pick still, but i love that it is an actual stop and think decision now at the start of each biome.

Shoutout to Ghost Onion. I haven't taken it once lol. Silver Wheel has saved so many of my runs, even though it doesn't seem great based on the description. Many a Tartarus made possible by good ol Hecate. For high fear Lion Fang makes the 5 minute deadline much easier in the first biome while you're setting yourself up.

[munderfire]

I hoped there'll be stuff like iv previous part, the one that have been changing bosses