What is your normal mirror setup, and why?

[GiantOctopodes]

As described! If there are ones where you commonly switch it up feel free to note that as well, and if you normally disable some or all via the Pact that's interesting too. I'm curious what folks normally roll with.

For me, it's most often this
Shadow Presence, +50% Backstab (I value better DPS vs 'hard targets' even if it takes some work to get than better alpha strike potential, and it's more fun to worry about backstab and thus positioning and facing)

Dark Regeneration, +30% Darkness collected as HP (It makes the Darkness troves also healing troves, and gives more incentive to collect them which I like. Plus it makes runs where bosses give darkness easier since the net healing provided is in my experience higher)

Death Defiance (In my opinion the single most important one, Death Defiance is the most valuable resource you can get in the game)

Ruthless Reflex, +50% damage and dodge after a near miss (Not a Double Dasher, +50% global damage boost and +50% dodge chance off an easy to trigger condition is just too good to pass up)

Boiling Blood, +50% attack and special damage to targets with a crystal in them (Same deal, +50% attack and special damage for shoving a crystal in them is tough to beat, and I value offense over defense typically)

Stygian Soul, regen crystals (Whenever running a non-cast build, I don't want to chase down crystals. I switch to Infernal Soul for Achilles, Hera, Beowulf, etc.)

Golden Touch, +15% gold on region clear (when not doing something overly hard, I switch to Deep Pockets if pushing the limits)

Thick Skin, +50 HP (I don't stay above 80% enough for High Confidence, my confidence is not that high XD)

Privileged Status, +40% damage with 2 status curses (it's typically double what you'd get from Family Favorite, ramps up faster, and status curses are useful in their own right)

Dark Foresight, +20% chance for gold laurel rooms (More boons is better than more rare boons in my opinion, my experience is that runs kinda suck without this)

God's Legacy, +10% Legendary and Duo boons (Same deal without this it's tough to build up to the really cool stuff imho, most of my runs start with a build concept centered on a duo boon or legendary, can't force that without this or at least not nearly as well)

Fated Pursuasion, reroll boon and well choices (Combos with the above to let you actually develop a deliberate build)

[Paranoia]

Fiery Presence: The difference between one-shotting and two-shotting an enemy is huge, even if it gets worse in a prolonged fight. Fists especially love it.

Normal Regeneration: I often find it more valuable to get health back before the Bosses, and fourth floor is reason enough in itself.

Death Defiance.
Ruthless Reflex.
Boiling Blood.

Shot crystals, I just want to spam them down and forget about them until returned.

Golden Touch, it is simply more Gold than the other option unless I need a first floor Shop.

Thick Skin: I am not a speed-runner.

Family Favourite, but it kinda depends on whether I go for some specific God or not.

Less Rooms, more Rare Boons, but mostly because I usually farm Darkness.

More Epic Boons.

Boon Rerolls. It just does more than rerolling rooms in just about all cases. The other option should allow rerolling Hammers to be even close as useful.

[Paranoia]

If one does not have more Boon rooms enabled, then getting more Legendaries and Duos is pretty redundant because one seldom gets enough Boons for it, so one might as well just get more Epic Boons to begin with. So those two options are pretty much paired.

[Jakkson K]

Shadow Presence is better for bosses, however Fiery Presence is better for most random enemies, so it depends on what you struggle against. And Fiery Presence procs on both first hit on shield AND first hit of HP for shielded enemies.

Cthonic Vitality. I prefer the consistent +3 health per room, especially when you get to styx you will be healing a ton from this. Also, darkness rooms aren't all that common in the places you need healing anyway. Key rooms are my go-to between darkness gems and keys as extra re-rolls are appreciated.

Death Defiance. The other option sucks entirely unless you die on every single encounter.

Greater Reflex. It just feels better for dodging enemy attacks. It is also difficult to know what the game considers a near-miss. More dodges in a row means more attacks dodged 100% instead of 50%. Also lets you use used dash boons more times in a row.

Boiling Blood. Obviously.

Infernal Soul. I prefer casts that don't stick into the target anyway, so infernal soul allows for WAY more casts, like even up to 3 or 4 per second on Ares cast, Demeter cast, Dionysus cast, curse of drowning, etc. If you do prefer casts that stick in, Stygian Soul is better.

Deep Pockets. It makes more money. You can only leave an underworld region 3 times in a run. Meaning for the other option to make more money you have to get 34 coins each time you do so. Meaning that unless you consistently beat every boss with ~300 coins on you, you aren't making any profit off of your mirror decision. And that is just barely being better. I usually don't beat bosses with any money as the shop is right before the boss.

Thick Skin. It is because I am bad at the game lol. Theoretically, the other option is way better, especially in a pierced butterfly run.

Priviledged status. Easy proc with demeter or dionysus or aphrodite boons and can be easy proc with any god after 2 boons. Also it deals way more damage. To get Family's Favourite to deal the same damage you need 8 out of the 9 gods to show up which literally can't happen. Sure it is more consistent, but I can usually keep 4 or 5 debuffs on a boss at once in a good run.

Dark Foresight. Real good. Quantity over quality of boons is always better.

God's Pride. Most of the boons you will be grabbing will be boosted by getting higher epic chance. Duo/Legendary chance is only worth it to complete the missions. Thy take a lot of set up to even acquire, and even with the +10% it can be difficult to get them to show up anyway.

Fated Persuasion. Need I say more?

[GiantOctopodes]

As a note, Darkness Rooms aren't ever worth it for the healing, 12 darkness is only 4 HP back. But a Darkness Trove where you get 120 darkness is 40 HP back, or the equivalent of 13 chambers. Meanwhile bosses you've already cleared, such as when you're done with bounties, give 50/100/150 darkness (or 16/32/48 health), and other sources of darkness come up, like from Bouldy, or offers of 35 darkness in Charon's well, etc.

This makes them quite even and often leads to Darkness providing superior healing in my experience, especially since chambers where you're already at 100% don't do anything and for me massive HP loss tends to be clustered at the boss fights. Not to mention over healing - it doesn't matter if I'm at 75% or 85% once I hit the well in Styx, after all, since it heals to full either way. The main reason I prefer Darkness healing though is to incentivize darkness acquisition for myself since theoretically I would need 380,000 or so to unlock everything, and thus I want a reason to pick it up at every opportunity. Turning it into a source of health helps.

In terms of Golden Touch, you need to have a total of 670 gold when going through for it to be more worthwhile, meaning on average 230 gold. However the gold you get as a reward for previous floors counts towards that. On low heats I hit that quite easily, I would often leave Elysium with 500+ gold from that area alone, and thus it was a huge help towards getting the Titans Blood or Diamonds in Styx. On medium to high heats I still typically get enough money through to make it more value, but at very high heats or if trying something excessively difficult like a Guan Yu run I go Deep Pockets because I want more boons earlier and don't ever want to be incentivized to hold on to money, I need to be shelling out for every advantage possible as often as possible.

Finally Stygian Soul vs Infernal Soul, just so you know, for things that don't get stuck in enemies Stygian Soul is often superior. Think of Demeter's cast - Baseline, it's 5 seconds duration, and the crystal won't come out and get collected until it's done. If you have Stygian Soul, you can cast at the 0 second mark, again at the 3 second mark, and your 3rd comes out at the 6 second mark, around when you would be collecting normally, so it's worse. But that assumes you were already where the crystals were coming out. And it assumes you don't have duration boosts from Glacial Glare. If you have a 3 second duration boost from a reasonably high rarity and level Glacial Glare, Stygian is already straight up better ignoring travel time. Or, if on average you are 1.5 seconds away from the crystals, and have to go collect them and return to recast at the new position, Stygian is straight up better. If you have Glacial Glare *and* travel time? It can get significant.

Trippy Shot is the same, you'll get multiple casts before the first expires with Stygian, and also Blade Rifts though to a lesser extent. Now if you have something that *does* get stuck, and your alpha strike kills the enemy, and you get them back right away as a result, obviously that's where Infernal shines. But even then, to get them back right away the enemy needs to have been at point blank range, otherwise you've got travel time to retrieve them. So best case for Infernal is Achilles Spear with Aphrodite cast, as you'll annihilate the target and get the crystals back right away to repeat. Worst case is actually those things with set duration where it's impossible to get the crystals back faster and likely you'll want to move on before you can retrieve them, requiring you to double back.

The reason I like it even for stuff that gets stuck in while running non-cast builds is just because on non-cast builds it's common for a cast or even 3 to not come close to killing hard targets, so I just want to consistently have one available to shove in the enemy, without having to run around and retrieve them afterwards. If the alpha strike wouldn't have done it anyway, why focus on that and all.

[Jakkson K]

casting 3 shots at once I find works better than casting once every 3 seconds. With boss battles specifically I was talking about stuck in casts with stygian. I can often get up to 5 casts stuck into the boss at once. Demeters cast being 5 seconds meaning you can keep maybe 3 up at all times with stygian by being vigilant. Same amount of vigilant will keep the same three up with infernal and not pressing the cast button one time won't set back your dps for up to 9 seconds.

Also for all DPS casts, you want to stack the dps all at once for instant effects, especially when the cast applies a debuff that stacks. Getting the max stack faster is better than keeping it up for longer more consistently.

[GiantOctopodes]

Eh we'll agree to disagree, imho keeping it up for longer more consistently is better than getting to max stack faster, since often the +40% damage buff from the double curse is more important than the difference in effect for greater stacks. Also there's no benefit to having more than 1 crystal in something, you don't get increased benefits with increased crystals. To each their own though and if you find it works better for you by all means, not at all saying it's wrong. I was just pointing out that Stygian offers greater relative advantages for non-stuck than stuck casts since stuck have greater options for expedient recovery, while Stygian can actually outpace the output on non-stuck casts, especially considering travel time. Doesn't mean it's right for everyone, of course.

Also just FYI for the "near miss" thing with Ruthless Reflex, the game will actually pop up text on you which says "near miss" when it's triggered and you'll have a little effect around you for the 2 seconds while it's up, making it easy to differentiate. And agreed 0% is always better than 50% for the hit rate, but I find sticking at optimal range for my target and using i-frames from dash to guaranteed avoid damage and give myself a large damage boost is both more effective and more fun for me than constantly dodging out of range and having to get back in, the 50% dodge is just handy if you miss your i-frame window accidentally since no one is perfect and certainly I'm not.