Hades 2 Beginner Guide: 10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting

I died to the first boss in Erebus six times before I figured out how dashing actually works. Not the dash itself, that part is obvious. I am talking about the fact that you can hold the dash button to sprint, and sprinting makes you invulnerable during the startup frames just like the original Hades. The game never tells you this.

That is pretty much the Hades 2 new player experience in a nutshell. Supergiant assumes you played the first game, or at least that you are willing to experiment. So here is everything I learned the hard way across about 80 hours with Melinoe.

Pick the Witch's Staff first, seriously

I know the Sister Blades look cooler. Everyone wants to be the fast dual-wielding rogue type. But the Staff (officially called the Witch's Staff, or Descura) gives you range, crowd control, and a Special that hits in a wide arc. When you do not know enemy patterns yet, standing three feet away and poking things to death is way safer than dashing into a pack of Shamblers and hoping for the best.

The real reason though: the Staff's Omega Attack is a massive channeled beam that melts the first two biomes. Hold down Attack, burn your Magick bar, everything dies. You can learn the other weapons later once you have some Darkness and Arcana cards under you. Kinda obvious in hindsight, but I tried the Blades on run two and got absolutely wrecked.

One thing I noticed after trying all six Nocturnal Arms: the Moonstone Axe hits like a truck but the wind-up animation is so long that you will eat damage constantly if you do not know enemy tells yet. Leave it for run 20 or so, honestly.

Arcana Cards are your actual progression, not Keepsakes

New players tend to obsess over Keepsakes. And yeah, getting Zeus's or Apollo's Keepsake early is good for forcing specific boons. But the real meta-progression that makes runs easier is the Arcana Card system. You unlock it at the Crossroads after a few runs, and it replaces the Mirror of Night from the first game.

Here is what I recommend unlocking first: The Wayward Son (restores health when you exit a room), The Furies (bonus damage to enemies with cast effects on them), and The Centaur (increases your max health). That trio alone will carry you through Erebus while you are still learning.

Each Arcana card costs Grasp to equip, and your total Grasp increases as you collect more Psyche during runs. You cannot equip everything at once, so you have to make choices. Early on, lean defensive. Once you stop getting hit, swap to offensive cards. It is that simple, more or less.

Your first 10 runs are for farming

Do not try to beat Chronos on run three. It is possible, technically, but you will have a miserable time. Instead, treat your first 10 runs as resource gathering expeditions.

Pick up every Silver, Bronze, and Psychic dust you see on the ground. These are crafting mats for the Cauldron incantations that unlock permanent upgrades at the Crossroads. Finding Daedalus Hammers is even more important. Each hammer modifies your weapon in a run-defining way, and the game offers two per run. Never skip a hammer room, no matter what else is behind the other door.

Talk to every NPC at the Crossroads between runs. I mean it. Hecate, Odysseus, Nemesis, and eventually others unlock new systems through dialogue. Sometimes they even give you free items. You can also buy the fishing rod from the Wretched Broker, and fishing spots in certain encounter rooms give you resources for Cauldron recipes. Not the most exciting activity, I know, but the returns add up over time.

The Cauldron itself is a new system that did not exist in the first Hades. You bring reagents to it and perform incantations that unlock permanent improvements: more Grasp for Arcana, extra weapon Aspects, even the ability to reveal boon rarity on doors before you pick them. Some incantations also unlock entirely new NPCs at the Crossroads. Check the Cauldron after every run to see what you can craft. That is basically my pre-run checklist and I still do it even on save file three.

Understand the two routes

Hades 2 has two entirely separate paths. The Underworld route goes down through Erebus, Oceanus, the Mourning Fields, and Tartarus, ending with Chronos. The Surface route goes up through the City of Ephyra, Thessaly, and Mount Olympus, ending with a different final boss.

You start with only the Underworld route. The Surface route requires a specific Cauldron incantation (the Unraveling the Surface one, which needs Moly and other ingredients you find during runs). The Surface is generally harder, with more aggressive enemies and environmental hazards, but it also drops different upgrade materials.

I recommend clearing the Underworld at least once before seriously attempting the Surface. The Overworld bosses hit harder and the rooms are larger, which means more ranged enemies shooting at you from off-screen. Not fun when you are still figuring out which button does what.

How Melinoe's combat actually works

Melinoe plays differently from Zagreus. Her core mechanic is Magick, a regenerating blue bar below your health. You spend Magick on Omega Moves, which are charged-up versions of your Attack, Special, and Cast. Hold the button down, your character flashes, release for a powered-up version. Took me about ten runs before it clicked that I should be using Omega Attacks more than regular ones.

Omega Cast is probably the most important one for beginners. It creates a large circular field that slows enemies, deals damage over time, and sets up boon synergy. Put a cast circle down, stand in it, and enemies have to walk through a blender to reach you.

Selene's Hexes are another new system. Selene appears as a room reward, like boon doors, and offers you a choice of Hexes. These are essentially ultimate abilities on a cooldown. My favorite early-game Hex is Lunar Ray, it fires a massive beam that tracks enemies and does absurd damage. The cooldown is long, but it will erase an entire wave of enemies or chunk a boss. No exaggeration.

Oh, and Hestia's boons are secretly the best for new players. Her Scorch status effect applies a damage-over-time burn, and her Sprint boon leaves a trail of fire. You can literally just sprint around the room and let Scorch do the work while you focus on not getting hit. I guess you could argue Demeter's Frost is better for safety, but Scorch clears rooms faster and dying less often is more fun than playing it perfectly safe.

Small things that made my life easier

The sprint-dash-sprint rhythm: dash once for i-frames, then sprint for speed, then dash again. Chaining these together makes you nearly untouchable. Demeter's freeze boons, hers are called Frost effects, are incredible for boss fights. Freezing Chronos for even half a second interrupts his attack patterns and gives you a window to unload. Sort of like having a pause button in a game that does not let you pause.

Do not sleep on the Wretched Broker's shop. He sells Asphodel, which is needed for weapon upgrades, and sometimes rare reagents like Nightshade that you need for high-level incantations. His inventory rotates every few runs, so check often.

If a door has a Chaos gate, take it. Chaos boons work similarly to the first game: you accept a temporary curse (like taking more damage for several rooms) and then receive a permanent blessing (like a big attack boost). The curses hurt, but the payoff is almost always worth it if you can survive the penalty rooms. And for the love of Olympus, pet Cerberus between every run. He is in the Crossroads, to the right of the training area. It does nothing mechanically. I do it anyway.