Hera Bow: Explained

Sorry for the late upload! Last week was ROUGH to say the least. But I'm still on it!
Watch live at / duunk0

[@alexanderalfonsson5874]

I started playing Hades just a couple of weeks ago and I gotta say your videos are very informative. Like there's no way I can play like that but it still really helps to have it explained what you're supposed to strive for.

[@yagami999913]

These are a goldmine as a new Hades player ! Keep it up ! 👍

[@Strummify]

As a new player starting to play 10+ heat this is amazing stuff, thsnk you, subscribed

[@OrionJA]

I'm surprised you didn't go for Exit Wounds even with Quick Reload already acquired. Your level 3 crush shot does about 180 base damage, IIRC, which means your mirage shot if you get it would add about 55 upfront burst damage per gem. But Exit Wounds adds a delayed 100 damage per gem to the target they lodge in. The fact that you have to wait for it to pop is annoying, but it's also a one-boon investment and not 2. Plus if you get lets of poms it gives you something else to invest in once crush shot hits diminishing returns.

[@linus8639]

these videos are really helpful with deciding what to upgrade👍

[@bacchus9389]

Thanks so much for this guide! Very helpful, it’s nice to have a video guide that’s this well explained

[@ethanglasgow7612]

Thanks for the guide. Never used to use Hera bow that much, but now consider it probably one of my favorite weapons. I like how versatile it is, with the build only truly needing Aphro cast and snow burst to do ridiculous damage. Definitely the most consistently powerful bows in the game

[@AronFigaro]

First time I tried to do this, Aphro WOULD NOT give me crush shot. Did not matter, had tidal dash sea storm in tartarus lol. Sea storm go brr. Ended up with aphro attack getting me smoldering air with zeus call and I never really used my weapon after asphodel.

[@NickMaovich]

bruh this is pure massacre This is just how powerful things appear to be in a good player hands. And then there is me with Stygian Soul and Dio cast having fun on 4 heat :D

[@xxxxSylphxxxx]

Funnily enough, I just beat a 32-heat run with Extreme Measures:4, using Stygian soul and Dionysus's trippy cast with hera bow! IE, your instinct is great! If you can get a second mana crystal in Tartarus, the rest of the build doesn't really matter. I had terrible luck, all the wrong boons in the wrong places, but still smashed the game up. That AOE repeating stun is just incredibly for a ranged strategy. (As long as you don't have tight deadline, combat takes forever!) The annoying part about Hera and stygian soul is that upgrading Hera with titan blood is actually a *DIS*advantage most of the time; and there's no way to remove weapon upgrades!

[@theodor3gabriel]

Could someone explain to me the Blown Kiss bug he refers to? Didn't find anything on Google

[@croven2103]

Blown Kiss is a bit odd on Hera. It gives you a larger AoE and can still give you the boost on undamaged foes (if your arrow doesn't hit the enemy before the cast), but it can also often make your cast just miss when it would otherwise hit, by firing behind the enemy instead of actually hitting the enemy. It's a bit wonky, hope that explanation made sense

[@SalamiCheeks]

I’ve always thought trippy shot with schintalating feast (however you spell it) or ice wine was legit

[@ethanglasgow7612]

It’s still viable (imo) but not that great. A lot of the time you run trippy shot you want Stygian soul, which really fucks with your early game room clears on Hera, on top of ruining snow burst. If you can get a consistent early chaos with +1 cast, then it would be good, but that’s just not consistent. Much easier to just get snow burst + pommed Aphro on cast

[@schrubbel]

Awesome guide! Is Blown Kiss still buggy? Anybody knows?

[@UnseenMercenary]

For chaos boons, are there times where taking a cast damage buff would be better than an extra cast or is an extra cast always gonna do more damage?

[@UnseenMercenary]

Also a follow up question For rooms with loads of small enemies that have armor, would you use your casts on them then?

[@qwertyutopiawillrule]

I never did any hades speedruns and don't play as much anymore, so take this with a grain of salt. In the early game you always take a 4th cast because as long as you have a couple poms in your cast, every enemy aside from (mini-)bosses is going to instantly die if you hit them with all 4 casts. If you get a strong build going - namely having a lot of poms in Aphro cast, mirage shot, and a 4th cast - you would still want to take an extra cast for the same reason. Even though taking a 5th cast only gives a 25% damage increase against (mini-)bosses as opposed to potentially over 70% from an epic cast damage boon, against any other enemies the extra cast damage is overkill. All but the tankiest armored enemies will die instantly. And some of those same enemies still won't instantly die if you take the maximum possible cast damage boon over a 5th cast. Having extra casts makes clearing the majority of rooms easier and faster than having cast damage boons from chaos, especially when you can do a lot of aoe damage with epic snow burst. If you don't have snow burst though, there's much less of an argument to take a 5th cast over the extra damage. The only other reason to take cast damage is if you want to see chunkier damage numbers on bosses at the cost of your room clearing being slower overall. As for using casts on small armored enemies, use your casts. It's faster to load casts and shoot once than it is to power shot twice.

[@UnseenMercenary]

@@qwertyutopiawillrule Oooh I see. Makes a lot of sense, thank you :)

[@GreystripeWarrior]

Honestly your chaos pick mostly depends on the curses, it’s going to be very rare to have both options with curses that don’t slow you down

[@ethanglasgow7612]

I’d say that more casts will deal more damage most of the time with hera simply because you can add the snow burst DPS with the additional DPS of the casts. Tho, really it’s super rare to have +1 cast and cast damage with similar curses on chaos. I’d take whatever is there and has the lesser curse