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There are a lot of new characters to meet and Gods to interact with inHades 2, and one of the foremost is the Queen of the Gods herself: Hera. The Goddess of Marriage and Birth, Hera’sabilities tend to revolve around strengtheningyour boons or tying enemies together with Hitch, which spreads damage between affected targets.
Some of her boons also have to do directly with Zeus, thoughthese are technically Duo boonsand will not be included in the list of best Hera boons below. In general, Hera’s boons can be exceptionally strong in certain circumstances, and have a heavy focus on improving your AoE via Hitch. But aside from a handful of ultra-powerful options, not very many are must-picks.
Situational: Hereditary Bane & Proper Upbringing
Hereditary Bane is a boon that’s only worth picking up if you are already specced heavily into the Hitch special effect, which is itself exclusive to Hera. You shouldn’t be offered this boon, which increases the Hitch effect length by 5 sec, unless you already have a way to generate Hitch. But even if you do, and are offered Hereditary Bane, this isn’t worth taking unless it’s one of the core parts of your build.
Proper Upbringing only works if you have at least 3 Earth, which isgranted by various boons. Its effect is pretty strong, as it upgrades all of your Common boons to Rare. But only take this if you know you may trigger it soon, already have 3 Earth, or need a way to upgrade a large number of Common boons.
9Uncommon Grace
Deal More Damage, If You Meet The Requirements
Uncommon Grace is a great boon under certain circumstances, but useless otherwise. With Uncommon Grace,Hades 2players will be able to deal bonus damage as long as the rest of their boons are not Common.
This is a big hurdle. Unless you have beenvery careful with your boon selectionsthusfar, or will be able to upgrade your boons with something like the Proper Upbringing boon, this will sit there and do nothing. Only pick this if you have been lucky enough to get Rare or above boons the whole way, or if it’s early enough in a run that you can targetonlyrare or epic boons from there on out – even if the upgraded boon isn’t the best choice on offer.
8Family Trade
The Next Sacrifice Boon You Get Is Upgraded
Family Trade takes advantage of the Sacrifice system that can sometimes apply to boons inHades. With this, you gain a higher chance to be offered a Sacrifice boon next, and that boon will be of a higher rarity than normal.
The problem with Sacrifice boons is that, sometimes, the boon you lose is something important for your build. You might be offered a Heroic version of Apollo’s Daze Sprint boon, but you’ll have to sacrifice a commonversion of Hestia’s Soot Sprint.
Only take this if you are desperate for better boons and don’t mind changing your build up.
7Nasty Comeback
Take Damage To Reflect Hitch On The Attacker
The Nasty Comeback boon is one of the least-useful Hera boonsHades 2players can get because it requires Melinoë to take damage. It’s a common theme acrossHadesandHades 2that builds that rely on taking damage are too risky to play effectively.
This boon makes it so that damage received is reflected onto foes for 5x the amount, and inflicts Hitch on them. But there are better ways to generate Hitch, and better ways to damage enemies, than by taking damage yourself – especially because Life restoration items are relatively rare.
6Keen Intuition
Omega Moves Deal More Damage At Max Magick
Keen Intuition is a pretty decent Hera boon that becomes much more powerful when taken with her Magick-generating boon, Born Gain. With Keen Intuition, Melinoë will deal significantlymore damage with her Ω Moveswhen her Magick bar is full.
Omega moves are some of the best attacks inHades 2, and there are a lot of ways to keep your Magick topped up via keepsakes, Arcana, and boons. Take this if you are building heavily into your Omega moveset, or have a very good Magick regeneration setup to take advantage of it more often.
5Sworn Strike & Sworn Flourish
Cause Hitch with Attacks or Specials
The Hitch debuff is great for taking on hordes of weak enemies, but not sogreat for attacking bosses one-on-one– even if virtually every boss summons adds at some point, AoE’s are just less useful against bosses than single-target abilities.
Both Sworn Strike and Sworn Flourish increase your damage output with Attacks and Specials respectively, in addition to generating Hitch. This is one of the better ways to generate the effect, which is no doubt useful against waves of enemies, but not very useful in one-on-one fights.
4Nexus Sprint
Sprint boons inHades 2tend to be either some of the game’s best or not worth picking at all. Nexus Sprint is one of the few that kind of falls in between, though – it’s not worth avoiding, because Hitch can be so useful in normal group enemy encounters, and this lets you spread it to an extra enemy while Sprinting.
However, it doesn’t increase your movement speed while Sprinting, and doesn’t offer any kind of special protections or offensive powers. Take this if you want to make group encounters much easier to handle, but avoid it if it requires sacrificing a better Sprint boon orif you are nearing the end of the game– Hitch is virtually useless against bosses.
3Engagement Ring
Casts Last Longer & Damage Spawning Enemies
Engagement Ring is the start of the truly great Hera boons inHades 2that are worth considering for most builds. This Hera boon makes it so that your Casts (and Ω Casts) last twice as long – and they cause a flat amount of damage to all enemies as they spawn in, not just the ones inside the Cast circle.
Place your regular Cast down at the very moment you enter a room, and watch as it dishes out a bolt of damage to everything that appears. The extended Cast time also works well with other Cast boons, effectively doubling the effect of Casts that deal Freeze or Scorch, for example.
2Bridal Glow
Upgrade Boons To Heroic… Temporarily
Bridal Glow is a real double-edged sword, but the edge facing away from you is much, much sharper. Maybe that metaphor doesn’t quite work, but regardless – the downsides of Bridal Glow are nothing compared to its upsides.
This boon upgrades a set number of boons to the maximum upgrade level, Heroic, with all of the statupgrades that come with the rank. However, after a decently large number of encounters, the boons selected will actually go down in rank.
When taken near the end of a run, or at least in the third/fourth areas – and given the large number of encounters before the downgrade – the selected boons will almost certainly stick with you until the final boss. The only time you should avoid this boon is if it is offered at the beginning of a run or as far as Oceanus, as it could downgrade your boons significantly by the end.
Compare this to Demeter’s Rare Crop boon, which works in reverse and increases the rarity of Common boons after a few encounters. Bridal Glow is the best option when taken in the latter half of a run, while Rare Crop is better taken towards the beginning of a run.
1Born Gain
Regain All Magick In Exchange For A Tiny Prime
Born Gain is, in a word, broken. The best Magick-regenerating ability inHades 2, this ability seems pretty bad on the surface. Whenever you run out of Magick, Born Gain will prime a small amount of your max Magick, then refill it.
However, this refill isinstant, can happen in the middle of an Omega Move, and the overall amount of Max Magick that is mathematically possible with this perk is astronomical.
With Born Gain, you won’t have much in the way of normal Magick regain – it doesn’t tick back over time. Instead, your effective Max Magick is multiplied by a magnitude of order, as whenever you run out, it instantly goes back to your new “max”.
Lets say you have 160 Magick, and you have the Common version of Born Gain, which primes 10 Magick. You use Omega moves until it hits 10/160, then go to use another. Your cast will not be interrupted, your Magick bar will instantly refill to 150/160, and the Magick used for that Omega Move will not be consumed.
Essentially, think of Born Gain asalmost limitless Magick reservesavailable the moment you need it. Pick this instantly if you see it offered – it is far and away the best Hera boonHades 2players can get, and it’s far and away the best Magick regeneration ability in the game.
