Zeus's Boons feel lackluster compared to the rest...

[WildBastion]

So, first, this game is amazing.
This has to be my favorite rendition of Greek mythology, and the writing, music, gameplay and visuals are all top notch!

On topic, I feel like Zeus and his boons are sub-par compared to the alternatives. This isnt to say they are bad, but they feel underwhelming.
I kinda think all lightning effects should do bonus damage to armor.
This would offer a nice niche for them, and would be easily balanced.
Something like 30-50% more damage on armor would do it.

Since armor is usually metallic, lightning doing more damage would make sense, and doubly so seeing how the lord of the gods should have some overwhelming power.

What do you guys think? Am I wrong? Does Zeus get to be top tier with certain weapon/boon combos? Is he more useless than I have made him out to be? I would love your thoughts!

[chris.ferrantegerard]

Zeus is good with fast hitting weapons (ie: Rail). Also, does better with multiple boons, his boons tend to synergize when you get multiple of them I think.

[Tumalu]

Zeus attack is really strong on rail and gloves; it can be like +200% on rail, plus splash damage.

The special is very powerful on a lot of options; for example, Spear special gets double lightning since it hits twice with a little delay, and it's mega-powerful on Shield's Aspect of Zeus where the special just hits lightning a few times a second.

[zverozvero]

Lightning flurry is great on bow and Zeus aegis aspect. Lightning strike gives alot to fists and mentioned rail basic attack. Check what damage each strike does and how much damage lightnings add. Those easily go over 60% damage for many weapons basic attacks and add reliable aoe/chain effect that can get amplified with Jolted which goes well for activating 40% more damage mirror buff (priviledged status i think). Further boons can get chance of double proc lightning and extra chain lightning on top of that. It adds up fairly quick.

Armor rend that dont go from Hammer is somewhat exclusive to Artemis as her boons add pure damage with chance of more damage and even more damage to armor while at it. Adding this to some one else would dilute it a bit.

[WildBastion]

Yeah I have noticed that Zeus boons work well with gun and shield special. The lightning adds a flat damage amount to the smaller attacks, and makes them acceptable.

Originally posted by zverozvero:

Armor rend that dont go from Hammer is somewhat exclusive to Artemis as her boons add pure damage with chance of more damage and even more damage to armor while at it. Adding this to some one else would dilute it a bit.

I thought that Artie's gimmick was the seeking shot and crit? I find her rarely, so perhaps I just haven't come across it yet.

Either way, I think that Zeus being good on only one action on the shield and for the gun seems to be lackluster when Miss Love Goddess offers such high special damage with a commonly found boon.

Thanks for input all! It's nice to see your thoughts.

[Songbird]

Zeus is split into two halves: chain lightning (attack and cast) and lightning bolts (special, dash, revenge, "perfect dodge", and call, plus Scintillating Feast and Sea Storm).

Chain lightning on attack is very good at base with attack speed (primarily rail), and only really gets stronger with Jolted and his legendary (the chain to multiple targets thing is garbage and only serves to unlock the legendary). Notably, Aspect of Eris' buff scales its damage (as it scales ALL damage) as do Privileged Status/Family Favorite and Billowing Strength. The chain lightning spell is just bad IMO, but maybe I just think all casts need to match the loftier standards of Phalanx Shot/Flood Flare/Trippy Shot/Slicing Flare to be worthwhile... no, never mind, it's just bad as it doesn't lead into any strong duos or really ever get stronger.

The lightning bolts from his call and certain specials like Aspect of Zeus are okay to good, but you need double strike chance and jolted for them to be insane (legendary is even better), similar to how Ares needs Impending Doom and poms on both that and the base Doom effect so he can scale doom damage quadratically. (His dash is just plain bad without these boons but moves to pretty good with them, but you probably want more than just his dash if you're investing that much into Zeus...)

Remember that % boosts to damage most just stack additively, so stuff like Aspect of Eris' damage boost has a greater net effect on stuff like Zeus attack (where it boosts the full 15+15 or so damage) than on Aphrodite attack (where it only boosts the base 15 damage).

Also, people say Zeus is good on bow special, but it's really not that great... the ability has an internal cooldown of 0.3 seconds against a single target, so it doesn't hit more than once or twice with shotgunning or Chiron, and Ares generally outdamages it when you use it as a spread or with Rama special (though it's not too bad on those).

[Quothe]

IMO, Zeus is prolly the strongest overall if you plan ahead of time to build for him. If you run a cast based weapon (i.e. Achilles spear, Poseidon Sword) his cast is amazing because it chains between enemies. If you run a fast hitting Attack or Special based weapon (i.e. Rail, zeus shield) it rapidly scales up. A common attack boom more than doubles the rail's damage, and the legendary boon roughly doubles that, and the special roughly does the same for the shield. Combined with eris aspect, and it gets really bonkers. Oh, and with the duo boon sea storm and poseidon dash everything gets even more awesome, dealing ~100ish damage per dash, before your dash attack or wall slams.

As a general pick up without a plan, Zeus isn't very good, but I ALWAYS take a god keepsake to start a run to ensure I get part of the combo I want, then swap to another after the first boss to get the second part (i.e. athena/aphrodite, zeus/poseidon, ares/athena)

That's my viewpoint from playing from playing on the switch at least.

[zverozvero]

Originally posted by Songbird:

Also, people say Zeus is good on bow special, but it's really not that great... the ability has an internal cooldown of 0.3 seconds against a single target, so it doesn't hit more than once or twice with shotgunning or Chiron, and Ares generally outdamages it when you use it as a spread or with Rama special (though it's not too bad on those).

At some distance Chirons guided shot arrows stream in a way it makes for 3+ procs reliably. Point blank flury gets taxed by cd more.

On its own lightning boons line is splash of course. Same as crit on Artemis. With no extra boons to alter/enchance Zeus really starts to shine on Punishment options of more enemies spawned and double blessed Elites. Cloning monsters with speed or shielding on top... yikes.

[meiam]

I think if your planning on using bow chiron you're better off going dio on special and ares on attack, since you have to alternate between the two. Zeus is better for fist/rail/zeus aegis where the damage is constant.

[Donathan Cheadledge]

2 things:
-Zeus boons are pretty bonkers on fast attacks (fist attack, gun attack, aegis special), esp if you stack up and get jolted.
-Some of his duo boons are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane in casting builds. If you can get dionysus and artermis zeus duos in the same run you've won.

[Songbird]

Originally posted by Quothe:

IMO, Zeus is prolly the strongest overall if you plan ahead of time to build for him. If you run a cast based weapon (i.e. Achilles spear, Poseidon Sword) his cast is amazing because it chains between enemies.

Chaining between enemies is wonky and makes it very unpredictable where your bloodstone ends up. Often it ends up in some random corner of the room instead of embedding in enemies at all. I'd take Phalanx Shot, which hits harder in a massive AoE, deflects while it travels, and has ridiculous homing capability, plus can be upgraded to do insane boss-killing damage with Parting Shot, over it any day. Or Flood Shot, which hits an even larger area and can be upgraded with rupture and wallslam booms to utterly melt rooms (but isn't as good against bosses as Phalanx).

[Quothe]

Originally posted by Songbird:

Originally posted by Quothe:

IMO, Zeus is prolly the strongest overall if you plan ahead of time to build for him. If you run a cast based weapon (i.e. Achilles spear, Poseidon Sword) his cast is amazing because it chains between enemies.

Chaining between enemies is wonky and makes it very unpredictable where your bloodstone ends up. Often it ends up in some random corner of the room instead of embedding in enemies at all. I'd take Phalanx Shot, which hits harder in a massive AoE, deflects while it travels, and has ridiculous homing capability, plus can be upgraded to do insane boss-killing damage with Parting Shot, over it any day. Or Flood Shot, which hits an even larger area and can be upgraded with rupture and wallslam booms to utterly melt rooms (but isn't as good against bosses as Phalanx).

I'd disagree, while it has issues, it also does a lot of damage and hits enemies further away from each other, and allows you to still take tidal dash and sea storm which is a pretty huge damage increase. Plus, your cast not getting stuck in an enemy is actually a blessing sometimes as you can easily retrieve it and cast again. This is less of an issue with poesidon sword or hera bow, but it's big for the spear which has no way to get its cast back quick. But honestly, I usually have no issue with the cast's targeting as long as I don't expect it to bounce through a wall or pillar for example, which makes it outstanding in the more open areas of Asphodel. The biggest benefit of Zeus cast is enabling sea storm though. Sea storm is one of the strongest boons in the game, and adds a lot of extra damage.

Phalanx shot's AoE also isn't massive, it's ok, but it's barely bigger than a base zeus lightning bolt. Enemies have to actively group up to get hit in my experience. That's not to say Athena's cast is bad obviously. It's amazing, especially if run with the bow and aphrodite as it will naturally backstab from the front with the bow.

If you go flood shot, you should just go for artemis as secondary projectiles are more useful for triggering wall slams and rupture damage, especially more useful if you get the %damage increase vs bosses, but the issue there is the cast itself is too low damaging for a purely cast based build unless you're running hera bow (or poseidon sword I suppose) and can quickly get your cast back (or get lucky with hermes, which is a big gamble in my experience).