THIS is the most broken build in Hades 2 (until it's nerfed).

[@KimParkkinen]

Someone mentioned this in the chat during the video, but I've also been wondering if poseidons mana recovery would actually be pretty nice if you did not have to literally walk on top of the bubbles to collect them but instead they had a latching range, that after Mel passes that, they just start homing at her?

[@LadZeroUltra]

Its got some weird funk going on with certain aspects like Pan where it never seems to spawn enough bubbles compared to the amount of hits, and you can’t sustain yourself with it even at higher rarities. Range increase of like 30-50% would be fire tho

[@meph7425]

​@@LadZeroUltratrue, i feel like they adjust the drop rate per weapon, but i havent snooped around the lua codes to make sure

[@itzkingback]

Appreciate the content

[@Haelian]

Thanks so much!!

[@Shilag]

I think the main thing they need to buff for other sources of magick is to make them regen while channelling. I feel like that's the main reason Born Gain is so much better. If you're in a run where you're spending a lot of magic, that means you're channelling most of the time, constantly deactivating the regen (mainly Glamour Gain or regen things like Unseen and Chaos boons). Born Gain is good because it doesn't make for awkward downtime where you have to stop doing the thing you want with your build to let it regen, run around to collect stuff, use non-omegas, and so on. Also, what was the "sprint tip" at 9:40, if anyone knows?

[@DeanCalhoun]

someone is chat had said romantic spark is triggered by the sprint not the dash

[@Shilag]

@@DeanCalhoun Ah neat, thanks for that.

[@LoudmouthedCrow]

This doesn't apply to any god's regen boon other than Glamour Gain. There is a one second lockout on magic regen over time effects after you spend magic in any way, but Glamour Gain is the only god boon that wasn't reworked to trigger with a different condition and thus ignore the lockout. The lockout does affect the Unseen card, the new well item that gives you the old Silver Wheel's regen effect temporarily, and Chaos' magic regen boons. Really, I think Haelian has an extremely odd mindset about Born Gain being leaps and bounds above other regens. Most aspects don't need a magic regen boon at all with Hecuba until the Cerberus fight, or possibly even until Chronos, and literally any regen works well enough for those fights. If you're not using Hecuba, Born Gain might be marginally better than some regen that you have to actually play around until Chronos, but then it will actually just run out during Chronos unless you specifically route a lot more magic pickups than normal into your run. This is especially exacerbated by Vow of Hubris. Additionally, Born Gain just plain doesn't work with a lot of non-Omega move ways to spend magic (e.g. Mirrored Thrasher, sprint boons, Possessed Array) and thus isn't effortless at all for those builds. My experience is that basically any regen works just fine as long as you are capable of triggering it, although Glamour Gain is pretty awkward for heavy magic spenders, and Born Gain will actually kill 55 fear runs for Charon/Pan/torches.

[@gageneudigate2224]

While I agree Romantic Spark as a Duo Boon is fantastic, I think there’s a few reasons speed-runners still use Aspect of Pan w/ Poseidon’s Special: 1. It comes online immediately. Obviously, requiring a Duo boon to become “broken” is a tall ask. Getting Aphrodite’s Cast and Zeus’ Special AND getting another one of either which had the Duo can be tough. Pan w/ Poseidon is online immediately, and the only other “required” piece before the first boss for the fastest runs is the Hammer that provides 16 shots. Getting either Aphro or Hera (Demeter is good too) or both before the first boss is preferable, but even the fastest times don’t require both. 2. Bosses die faster. Obviously, the bosses died fast in this video, but getting the Hera/Zeus Duo sped them up tremendously. Perhaps Scylla would be faster with this build, but in general, each phase for Aspect of Pan takes 1-2 shots. With King’s Tide you’re basically guaranteed 1 shot (obv not necessary, but it’s a nice possibility). 3. Aspect of Pan is better at killing random stragglers in rooms and a bit faster at killing large groups, especially pre-Duo. Having to sprint over to random enemies can be rough. Pan is just a “click to kill a rando fish” and it’s a goner. Those are my thoughts on why it’s not used in speed-runs anyways, take them as you will haha.

[@gabrielborges7129]

Yeah, I didn't get why he said that lol. The build that he got took like 6 boons to get good, plus rarity on a few boons, plus passive damage boons, no speedrunner would ever click that many boon rooms when they could get a skip in a non-menu room. It really doesn't matter that he's dealing 2500 damage to enemies, everything will be dead with like 500 damage tops, which you can get with Pan/Poseidon chamber 1. And we're not even accounting for hammers, or using agressive keepsakes like Antler or Droplet to delete enemies even faster.

[@LordCartmanGaming]

I played the Olympian update this weekend for the first time and boy did they improve. Not only do I really love the new area and Prometheus as its boss, but it feels like I had 0 bad builds. Sure some were way better, but even the worst RNG got myself builds that were viable. I think now I will wait for 1.0 but it is just such a good game that I might play early access until it is finished, and then restart again lol

[@dodang_9147]

Romantic spark used to be 200% damage. they technically already did nerf it. this is usually the build done on aspect of erios for special. idk, special on torch kinda sucks and you need blitz to make torch special do anything. it is also something that you can do on spin to win axe using the psychic whirlwind hammer. it allows you to charge the spin and then press sprint while your spinning. for long while, many players said that zeus attack and special were bad offensive and they are bad offensive but if you put on correct type of attack, it is very strong.

[@allahamada8083]

It was 200 percent and now it's + 100 percent, it's the same they just changed the wording

[@DiaSwordPlay]

died 2024 born 2024 welcome back merciful end

[@baeguevara354]

Hot take: Hera’s magic regen doesn’t need to be nerfed. It’s strong for most builds, but for very magic-heavy builds, you often prime all your magic and have no magic left for the Chronos fight. Imo, Born Gain and Ionic Gain are tied for best magic regen, with Warmth Gain and Lucid Gain also being very strong in the right situation. Supergiant should buff the hell out of Fluid Gain, fully rework Fixed Gain and Tranquil Gain, and sliiiightly buff Glamour Gain

[@LoudmouthedCrow]

Glamour doesn't work at all during magic regen lockout (for one second after spending magic, regen over time effects don't work), which is one problem with it; another problem is that you can't _not_ regen magic with it, which means it constantly turns off Huntress. Glamour Gain and Fixed Gain are both interesting and in an odd but unique spot of prioritizing something that isn't magic regen for the the magic regen slot. Fluid honestly works fine for anything that isn't Charon thanks to Hecuba; it's not like you need to regen that much magic on this patch thanks to starting with 60 extra base magic plus 100 regen per encounter, and the increased base magic pool helps Fluid Gain a ton with keeping up. Could maybe use a slight increase to the base drop chance to prevent totally whiffing on bubbles for too long.

[@ResonanceRetroData]

7:19 to be fair, it took me a while to start picking Born Gain too. before you run the math, the idea of swapping any other gain which is infinite magick in some way for a gain that gives you a hard finite limit on how much magick you have is scary. it isn't immediately intuitively obvious that the sheer amount of finite magick Born Gain gives you is MORE than enough for any encounter in the game, so without having it explained or doing the math Born is just a really scary and unappealing looking boon to a new player

[@wildstorm3486]

Which I understand. In order to prime all your magic with Born Gain. You either need to have the most magic hungry builds in the game, really neglect picking up extra magic or have tons of boons that prime your magic away until you lose the boon. Examples being Static Shock, Trusty Shield, Flood Control, etc… With 100 magic a common Born Gain gives you 300 magic per room. Bump that up to 150(with Hecuba) and it doubles your over all magic to 650. Bump it up to 200 and you have 1,100 magic!!! That’s insane that with The Titian arcana card, Hecuba mana boost and 1 mana bottle(190 total magic) and common Born Gain. You effectively have 900 magic!!! Sure all the other Gains besides Fixed Gain are ♾️ magic but they all come at a cost.

[@ResonanceRetroData]

@wildstorm3486 yeah for sure, when you run the math it's clear how incredibly worth it Born actually is, it sounds scary at first but it's absolutely the best gain and you'll basically never prime out if you aren't doing anything crazy

[@LoudmouthedCrow]

@@wildstorm3486 The thing is that at high fear, all of your downsides and caveats become realities. You take Hecuba, sure. But you generally take Static Shock on sight for barrier clear. You actively roll for Trusty Shield almost every run. You take Snow Queen as your number 2 or 3 choice from Demeter, and in the rare situation that Poseidon makes his way into your god pool, Flood Control is very strong with Strength as well. You have Hubris going off all the time. At 53 fear, you lose Centaur for possibly most or all run. At 55 fear, you lose Titan as well. There's a very real chance you prime out with Born Gain when playing underworld. It's much less likely for surface, but that's because we don't have a true final boss for the route yet (and Prometheus doesn't have the crazy tankiness of Cerberus.) Born Gain may be free under those relaxed conditions, but I'd argue that you could also just not have magic regen for half or more of the run, then take literally any regen and do fine with most weapons. It's pretty much just Charon that is demanding enough that it has to play a specific magic regen (and it still makes it out of Erebus with no magic regen on 55 fear these days), as well as Blood Lines torches (which is kind of a meme build).

[@wildstorm3486]

@@LoudmouthedCrow those are all excellent points. And I agree with all of them.

[@noordinaryjoe9972]

So is Romantic Spark this game's version of Merciful End from Hades 1? Kinda seems like it to me

[@justarandomdood]

Went from hugging Dad to hugging all enemies, thank you SGG for the nice game

[@theformation3781]

I think a decent nerf to born gain can be "Whenever you run out of magic, restore all the magic spent up to X times per encounter", where X is dependent on the number of poms and boon rarity (common being 3-5 times, idk the exact balancing) so it retains the identity of it scaling exponentially to magic limit increases and priming magic affecting it severely, but now you have to actually work for the magic and can't make builds that spam weed killer+bloodline omega moves, and rarity actually affecting it instead of now where common born gain just blows everything else out of the water.

[@Delicoms]

Maybe born gain should be nerfed but honestly I would prefer other magic boons get buffed. The rest are just kind of a pain of get working even if you try to synergize with it. Only a few are optimal at times (mirrored thrasher + hearth, or Charon + lucid gain)

[@RedDiomedes]

Born gain needs to prime the magic until the next biome or something. The only reason to not take it is if your chasing a different gods duo

[@lvl27_cubone96]

It's interesting that the closest thing to Merciful End in this game is just as busted as that duo was. It's spicy. Especially on the torches, I was a big fan of this once I found it. I could probably pilot it much better than when I first used it now, especially between my 200 hours and watching your vids. Side note, I think this would be awesome on the coat attack. It's basically merciful end fists at that point Also I like Glamour Gain, but pretty much only because it's curse application that you literally don't have to do anything except get sorta near stuff.. It's half of origination, hands-free On the subject of regens though, I don't really feel like the game is in a spot where taking things other than born gain feel "bad", but their more niche use cases make them less appealing when you can just sprinkle hera into a build like she's designed. right now. In some cases, there is stuff as busted as born gain on other weapons, like lucid gain charon or warmth gain staff attack with the double strike hammer. It's just too niche in those instances for any other given setup. Fixed gain could probably use a little something though. This isn't a game that really has a lot going for willfully taking damage.

[@haihuynh8772]

Feels like fixed gain is meant to go with the armor perks, but that's pausing to eat shit once every room to restore less magic than just popping your cast and wait a bit.

[@soraearth]

This build might actually help me beat 32 fear upstairs. Thank you for always making great content!

[@3b0ny.03]

with the whole born gain situation, i think a suitable nerf would be to make omega attacks cost more, and have poms affect how much more they cost

[@alik1986]

I just got this duo on this aspect the other day, and although I couldn't clear promethazine, it is quite good. I think having a lot of levels on it helped a lot.

[@temik061]

Hi, thanks for the video. Today I found another broken build. Dark side with cast->omegacast + geyser spout = tons of dmg while invulnerable. Especially good with persephone's scull, highly recommend.

[@Haelian]

We've done it a few times in the past, super fun. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJfSnGBvnKirZ7M

[@yaseenhussain4071]

This would be fun with pre-nerf heartthrob build as well. Just would be fun to see all the spinning orbs as you sprint into things. I mean this is already broken, but would like to see a heart throb build again

[@isaacashton5772]

hey Haelian, i would love to see any aspect with aphro attack/special, island getaway, and the broken hades death defiance damage boon. it would be something like +500 to 600% damage on all foes, i just know i can’t do it myself!

[@vbhvsgr]

The Icarus omega move explosions would have proc-ed on every special orb hit, it would have been amazing.

[@wiimaster6421]

For thos ecurious who also can't remember Zeus' old gain boon. You had to prime a bunch of magic and then zeus would gain like 10 every 1 or 0.5 seconds or so? There was really no reason to ever take it over anything else

[@antoinelelong1324]

I did a run with Athena's keepsake in erebus for early stalwart stand, and died every room to feed into hades' Last grasp (+8%dmg per DD used this night) and got to a +132% (i missed a few room you can achieve more) wwhich was a really fun run overall (i finished with artemiss' keepsake to die easier at the end + big numbers) don't know if this has been done already on your channel

[@Elkya95]

I had problems getting more Prometheus kills and thought I'd try this build to see if even I could pull it off. Just funny how badly i decimated him with this.

[@moonbather4724]

I thought "most broken build" was just going to be clickbait. I was wrong.

[@emeraldarrow8634]

I had a run that was basically this + beach ball and that went crazy

[@lukeskywalker17.08]

I wonder what if you get the hera duo after the double strike 😂

[@goatmeal5241]

What if Born Gain actually reduced your max magic (by a significantly smaller amount than the current priming, like maybe 5) each time it triggered? Then it's still enables the most mana-hungry builds, but you'd have to support your habit by continuing to take max magic rewards. It would be hard to think of a pomming structure that makes sense though... Maybe it works like the Pin: if you run out of magic, you get to use it infinitely for a couple of seconds (the duration which would increase with poms) and then if the combat isn't over your max magic is reduced but it's refilled.

[@wildstorm3486]

Hey I think I have a fun idea for a build people can try. I don’t know how practical it is but here it goes. Try build where you get Air Quality from Zeus and then pick up as many things as possible that would be affected by it as possible. I’m think of things like Arctic Gale, Frigid Sprint and Prominence Flare. And a few Zeus Boons as well. Oh sure you could get some of them higher with high rarity and or Lv’s. But the idea would be to use Air Quality to your advantage. If you have done this before you can ignore this Haelian.

[@Squircul]

oil up bwo

[@pexdark]

I think hera magick should be nerfed, others are fine but more niche Aphro is bad, but it applies weak which is useful for origination Apollo is great for geyser spout Poseidon is fine for multi hitters, like torches Heph imo should restore all magick because taking low damage is hard to do consistently (unless you do some shenanigans with chaos) Hestia is probably the worst one, since it's a set amount limited to non omega moves Zeus and dem are really strong, but they require most attention, so I think they're good (maybe Zeus could overcharge your magick by 50%?)

[@Squircul]

mreow

[@yuzmanito]

I feel like born gain is too good. Compared to that, fixed gain is absolute trash. I mean why would you want to get hit just to recover some magic? I agree that born gain can't be really nerfed no matter how much magic it primes, it needs a rework.