Hades II - Hephaestus Dash Insane Damage (Smithy Sprint Build in Early Access)
3Everybody's been playing the early release of Hades 2 since that became available, with a lot of the discussion revolving around the inability to dish out reliable damage against the opposition, which was supposedly far more easily achievable in the first game (it definitely wasn't on your first runs, even with Merciful End luck involved). This is one of the reasons the second game is arguably tougher and more tedious as far as grinding is concerned, with resources being far harder to accumulate over runs. I'm sure this will be changed when the full release is here.
Here I show a way of having ludicrous damage output that could work with any weapon or build, without necessitating any particular Daedalus Hammer upgrades or, God forbid, Chaos boons to get the kind of punishment that you could achieve with specific Sister Blades or Moonstone Axe hammers, which is a relief. I feel like a lot of Apollo (love that range tbqh) or Aphrodite builds won't work consistently enough because you may end up robbed of the hammer you want the most.
Sprint is an interesting addition to the Hades formula, in some ways substituting the old Dash ability, which was crucial for both defence and offence (Tidal Dash first and foremost as a key speedrunning tool, but also applying weak for Heart Rend builds and Athena dealing with spreaders). It's now limited to a single slow dash that's apparently nowhere as abusable, so players need to examine Sprint and its boons to account for their existence in the roguelike builds they craft. Occasionally, when dashing is clearly insufficient for escaping from the clutches of perdition, it's sprinting that gives you that much-needed mobility boost to avoid damage unscathed, considering how intimidating enemy attack ranges can get.
This video is a demonstration of using Smithy Sprint to make progress without a secondary source of respectable damage output (ideally, you want one, say, for better or primary ST damage). You pick Hephaestus's keepsake and reset/reroll until you get Smithy Sprint. Increasing its rarity to Rare gives you a big increase in damage against healthier foes and bosses right off the bat. Chaos and Zeus both serve to decrease the skill's magick cost (not the brightest idea on some runs when you want to spend MORE magick to activate Moon Water earlier), speed up our magick recovery at the cost of max MP with Ionic Gain (also occasionally not such a great idea, especially if you prime a lot of stuff and don't increase your max magick limit as much as you would then be obliged to).
For later floors, my keepsake plan is to use a lot of defensive stuff to assist in survival. In Oceanus, I lose a lot of health on my way to the boss (I would argue the hardest boss until the endgame), mostly explained by the gold ring challenge in Asphodel, which I find troublesome. Artemis and her Death Warrant, which is Hades 2's way of inflicting Marked is extremely helpful for offence, occasionally tripling our Smithy Sprint damage.
As you can see, I still haven't got the Scylla strategy down perfectly to avoid taking most of the damage and lose not one but two DDs, which seem to appear less in shops (and shops themselves appear a lot less in this game?) but which you can "sorta" restore if you're lucky with Echo's boons in the third area, The Fields of Mourning, which means the run will be harder to finish later. This was also one of my earliest entries into The Fields of Mourning ever, so I was surprised a couple times by the enemies, like the punching foes you encounter, suffering a lot of punishment.
I definitely should've taken Echo's door in The Fields of Mourning instead of Hephaestus, though I really wanted Furnace Blast for Vent status whenever Smithy Sprint triggers the blast, though it is only useful against bosses, as most enemies tend to die in the 5 seconds it takes for Vent damage to go off, as substantial as it may be. Who knows, I may have got Echo's replenishment of Death Defiances I had lost, too.
You may take a run or two to truly get used to the timing and spatial properties of Smithy Sprint, but it's already taken me as far as my most successful runs in the game. I still have yet to beat the game, mind you. Definitely recommended considering all it takes to get going is a single Hephaestus boon, poms of power if you can get them (I got my first extremely late), some magick recovery which seemingly every Olympian grants, and possibly the Vent status from Furnace Blast. In hindsight, I do insist that everyone have another, primary or secondary, source of damage, like backstabbing. For support, nothing is better than Demeter's Cast with a skill lengthening the time Freeze lasts, which I wasn't lucky enough to land on this run.
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