I'm stuck and need some help

[MindfulOcean]

I've cleared Asphodel once, but I can't do it consistently with any weapon. The hydra heads take up too much space and those seeking missiles from the big hydra head are hard to dodge even with the shield. My one and only clear came with the gun, when I had the upgrade that gives the special a huge radius and damage boost.

Even if I could make it to Elysium on the regular, I was starting to struggle with the way enemies can respawn. I was having serious trouble killing them fast enough to prevent the respawn.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Lorska]

First of all I'd recommend that you have keepsakes from both chaos and hypnos by giving them nectar.
Instead of hypnos you can also get the ones for Aphro, Dio or Athena.
That lets you flex into high % multipliers, damage reduction, hangover builds or simply reflect at any point.
Getting a good chaos boon early by starting with the egg is just a great way to start your run.

Secondly you should think of the weapon you are most comfortable with. I would personally refrain from using the bow, use the gun if you wanna go for hangover or a safe special focused build that requires a good deadalus boon however or use any of the melee weapons if you want higher dps at more risk.

Max extra maximum health and extra death defiances ASAP. I'd also take the healing from picking up darkness for sustain during your run. This makes it so treasure boxes and bosses you already beat give you a large amount of health.

This should give you a fairly smooth run through Tartarus and Asphodel. Elysium can be tricky until you learned how the enemies work and how you can abuse their fighting styles, but playing it safe there is usually recommended.

If you decide on a hangover build instead of going attack/special with high damage multipliers, remember that poms are essential on your hangover applier, and having less boons is good for you so you can upgrade it consistently.

This is how I beat the game at the start. Dio+Aphro with hangover on gun attack and lots of damage reduction boons.

[sunshine]

My advice in one word: DASH!

Weapon doesn't matter, boons don't matter, keepsakes don't matter. They all can be strong in the right combination. You gotta dash more.
Dash gives you invuln frames and lets you dodge damage.

The first 2 are the easy levels of the underworld and the easy bosses. But don't worry everyone struggled at first. Invest your darkness in the mirror (more dashes, more death defiances, multiple damage bonuses on cast / bloodstone + status effects + backstab) and learn the attack patterns of the enemies and most importantly learn to dash to avoid taking damage.

It'll get easy in no time and you can die on the next boss repeatedly and then the one after :)


PS: If you put Athena on Dash you become basically unkillable.

[Eibon]

The Shield was the weapon I first cleared the game with, because it can block literally anything. When the Hydra does its massive volley of projectile attacks, just hold the attack button and face it until it's done, and you will take no damage. Furthermore, if you fully charge the Bull Rush attack, you can basically zoom through all the projectiles, immediately about face, and charge it again, letting you force the boss to swivel to track you (thus giving you time for attacks) and allowing you to put your shield back up.

Combining Ares' Doom effect with the Shield special is also super powerful, and is basically the build I always go for. Aphrodite or Dionysus on attack is excellent support for it.

Try to look for something like Zeus or Poseidon for your cast with those Boons, as they will give you good AOE capabilities.

For the Elysium enemies, you can essentially stunlock enemies with red health bars. The souls they release when the body dies have very weak armor (if they have it), so just quickly attack them to strip armor. Once the soul's armor is stripped, any attack will interrupt the respawn process. The soul also has to physically move to one of the spectral weapons on the battlefield in order to respawn - that's what dictates their pathing.

[Marmy]

just get athena's deflect on either your dash or attack and try to deflect the projectiles, especially good with the spear and shield. else just use shield's bull rush blocking while standing just beyond the hydra's headbumping range and you should be golden.

i usually force athena with her keepsake first, get either dash or attack and then force artemis in asphodel (cause i have the keepsakes library unlocked in every end-room) with her keepsake to get her call since it does mad damage (up to i think 400 or 500 in one call and up to 4k damage in her ultimate call) and doesnt force you to be close to your enemies and makes you take zero damage from hydra's headbumps (which is why i usually stay away from ares, zeus, poseidon and dionysus call, they all require you to be close to the boss which makes the probability of getting hit skyrocket, else i go for aphrodite's call and wait for the ultimate call which does 2500 damage in one swoop but the inbetweens are useless)(PS: every hydra stage has about 2500HP so if you fill up the god gauge for aphrodite's call and get to the ultimate just after the laststage of the hydra just use that instead of trying to manually damage the head.)

if you like the shield the best but get hit alot try going for Charged Shot from the daedalus hammer, just stand across the hydra outside of headbump range and shoot the piercing shots into its direction. while charging your Charged Shot you will be immune from any projectiles coming from the hydra head and since you're out of headpump rage you cant get damaged with those either.

after you defeat the endboss of the game you get access to a new god with new boons, if you still find yourself struggling with hydra go for their cast and just wait the boss fight outwithout taking any damage with that cast. it's only useful for the hydra bossfight tho...

For the elysium warriors: focus on max two at a time, while you hit them they are almost always stunned which makes them a) not do any damage and b) when they are their cute little ghostshells tryign to respawn you damaging them actually prevents them from rearming. another great boon is zeus' cast boon which makes your cast attack multiple enemies, so if you have multiple ghostshells one cast can get rid of them.
also, this is something i didnt actually observe until later but the ghostshells are always trying to rearm with the dropped weapons of their dead companions, so watch where those are and hit the ghostshells away from there with either the knockback on your sword, the knockback on your shield or any knockback gained from an attack poseidon boon.

[Ysen]

- Pay attention to the Hydra's movements. When the main head is going to do the purple projectile spam attack, it will pull back; this is very obvious if you're standing at the edge of its reach (as its other attacks will try to reach towards you). You can usually avoid all the projectiles by standing behind one of the pillar / brazier things.

- Dodge dodge dodge. Try to pick up the extra dodge charge talent from the mirror if you haven't already. More Death Defiance or more health is also nice. Note that dodging makes you invulnerable briefly, so you don't necessarily have to physically avoid the attack.

- The hydra heads have limited reach (aside from projectile attacks), including the main one. If you have a long-ranged weapon you can actually stand outside the reach of its slam attack and keep poking it whenever it's not doing projectiles. Even with the sword or fists, trying to stay near the edge of its range is often a good idea, as dodging if you dodge away its attacks may not be able to reach you even if your timing isn't great.

- Try to pick up at least one boon that gives you decent sustained damage so you can get rid of extra heads faster and finish the fight faster in general. This generally means one of the attack or special damage boons depending on weapon. Note Zeus and Dionysus boons are relatively good on attacks with low damage per hit (e.g. fist attack, rail attack) because they deal a fixed amount of damage. On high-damage, slower attacks (e.g. bow attack, rail special) you probably want one of the +% damage boons instead.

- If you have a call, it's often a good idea to try and save up a Greater Call for when all the extra heads spawn if you can. This can help you quickly and safely remove some heads, meaning less stuff to dodge while you fight the remaining ones.

- Cerberus, Hypnos and Skelly give keepsakes that are helpful early game if you give them nectar.

[Riash]

Dash, dash, dash :D
- You can dash through most projectiles if you time it right.
- Sometimes it makes sense to simply take the damage from an attack in order to keep dealing damage to the boss, or one of its heads.
- Athena's boons are extremely useful on the Hydra, as well as the other bosses. Her Dash boon (invurnerable while dashing) and Call help a lot.

It can be frustrating having to go through the entire gauntlet before the Hydra each time, but you'll eventually become really good at avoiding damage and learn which combos of boons you prefer. Also, eventually you'll be faster to react and know what to expect from certain encounters. After a while you'll get to the Hydra with a high HP and a couple of Death Defiance left.

Good luck!

[meiam]

I'll echo dash. Gautlet + athena dash ability just break the game (no heat) with almost 0 skill needed. Just hold attack and dash on cooldown. You kill everything before you're in any threat. Nothing else is needed, maybe get Aphro for damage boost but it's not particularly important.

[Non-Lethal Gamer]

try spamming dash on cooldown lol dash attacks are OP