Replace King's Ransom and Queen's Ransom Duo Boons

[Josqua]

Suggestion for new Zeus + Hera Duo Boon: "Marital Bond" (or some similar name)
Effect:
"Each Boon of Zeus gains Lv. for each Boon of Hera owned, each boon of Hera gains Lv. for each boon of Zeus owned.

- Bonus Lv. per Boon: +1"

This would make the Duo boon not being build killers by removing the sacrifice mechanic that essentiall gave up 1/4th to 1/3rd of your overall build for some levelup to the boons of one god, which was a reason to never ever take these duos, while at the same time keeping the levelups balanced for affecting a higher number of boons, because it only adds +1 level per boon instead of 4.
So for example with 5 Zeus Boons and 3 Hera boons the duo would then give each of the 5 Zeus boons +3 levels and each of the 3 hera boons +5 levels.

[Josqua]

I mean the Hitch effect from hera even synergizes super well with Zeus' bouncing chain lightning to quickly stack up damage on masses of small mobs, so when someone has a build with both gods, why would they ever want to sacrifice one of the gods' boons.

[Songbird]

Yeah, these duos are really obviously bad and more there for humor than anything, but I almost wonder if they're an intentional balancing mechanism because Hera (or specifically Hitch) and Zeus's boons are both so crazy good. It's the same idea as Family Trade: Supergiant seems to massively overestimate the value of poms and underestimate the value of boons. Family Trade required you to give up two boons to sidegrade an effectively random third; Ransoms require you to give up a boon to give up more boons to upgrade some of your boons. But getting four poms on something is barely more than twice as strong as one.

[Josqua]

Yeah thats one more reason this change would be good: having less levels but distributed to more different boons is better then having more levels distributed to less boons, because the level up bonuses are non linear and quickly drop off to where they more or less dont really do anything anymore after level 3 or 4.

[Josqua]

I just had a run with a really fun build with Aspect of Pan (Daggers), Lightning Lance, Engagement Ring, dying wish, Thunder Flourish and Static shock, + a lucky daedalus hammer where specials also bounce between foes. It cleared lots of enemies within my casts and even the vicinity around the cast thanks to the bouncing stuff very quickly. And i couldnt even use any duo boons, despite being offered both sides of the ransom duo multiple times. Such a replacement Duo boon would really just have been the cherry on top on that build by increasing its overall damage output a little with the few extra levels.

[Biscuits! Werewolves!]

+1 agree with OP. And if they want to give it a little funnier name maybe call their Duo Boon "Couples Counseling" or something like that.

[hilfazer]

Or maybe something like:
Blitz stays on Hitch afflicted foes for 10 seconds.
Similar to Cold Fusion from the prequel.

[Josqua]

Why would you want to have blitz effects stay longer tho? they get removed anyway after being triggered, you usually want them to trigger as quickly as possible, or if you have the additional boon where they deal bonus damage if they expire without being triggered, you dont want to wait even longer for that to happen.
Hades 1 Cold Fusion improved the "jolted" duration which was a secondary status effect from tier 2 boons of zeus that actually was useful to have around longer, because it could trigger multiple times from what i remember.

[hilfazer]

My suggestion is more similar to Cold Fusion than you think. Blitz would be able to trigger (as in deal damage) multiple times during that duration.
You can think of as automatic reapplication.

[Kenny Rogers]

My first glance was this duo was junk but I was given two attempts to take it in one run... my flames Hera special went up to +21, +300% and the +hitch damage boon also buffed to similar levels. I melted everything from that point on with one button, including Chronos.

I'm not sure what to make of these "horrible except for when they're broken" boons.