Part 13

A deep dive into the best and worst Legendary and Duo Boons in Hades II, helping you make informed choices for powerful builds and overcome challenging encounters.

Walkthrough:

1. Arctic Blast (Demeter): Accumulating 10 stacks of Chill deals 100 damage and removes Chill. This is often less useful than maintaining the Chill status effect, especially against high-health bosses.
2. Peer Pressure (Dionysus): Hangover-affected enemies spread Hangover to nearby enemies. This is generally less effective than using Dionysus's Call for spreading Hangover, as the individual stacks have limited utility.
3. Knockback Effects (Poseidon): While useful for environmental kills, these effects are less helpful in boss arenas with open spaces and against bosses like the Hydra that are immune to knockback.
4. Lightning Reflexes (Zeus): Strikes nearby enemies with lightning when dashing just before getting hit. The damage is low, and the utility is limited, often proving underwhelming even against bosses like Asterius.
5. Legendary and Duo Boons Overview: This section ranks and discusses various Legendary and Duo boons, focusing on highlights and lowlights rather than listing every single one. The author notes that most Duo and Legendary boons are good, but some are particularly strong or weak depending on the build and circumstances.
6. Good Boons:
   • Lightning Rod (Duo, Zeus/Artemis): A lightning bolt strikes enemies around unretrieved bloodstones every second. This boon is game-breakingly effective when combined with bloodstones or festive fog placed strategically, simplifying difficult encounters. It's especially powerful with Fully Loaded (Artemis Legendary boon).
   • Hunting Blades (Duo, Ares/Artemis): Slicing Shot seeks the nearest enemy. This boon, along with Vicious Cycle (Ares Legendary boon), makes Slicing Shot a reliable damage source against late-game bosses.
   • Crystal Clarity (Duo, Demeter/Artemis): Crystal Beam tracks enemies faster and deals +10% damage. This allows for safe setup of Crystal Beam pylons with solid damage output, remedying wasted damage from imprecise Casts.
   • Calculated Risk (Duo, Dionysus/Athena): Enemies’ ranged projectiles move 40% more slowly. This boon is beneficial for almost any build.
7. Bad Boons (Situational/Low-Value): The