Sister Blades, Aspect of Pan Build Guide

The Sister Blades, Lim and Oro with the Aspect of Pan achieve tremendous damage by unleashing a flurry of daggers against your foes. You combine a Cast with your Omega Special to strike foes with the seeking daggers, this Aspect provides multiple hits and high single target damage. This is where Poseidon comes in, providing the much needed Splash damage to create a well rounded package capable of clearing Fear 32. There are many ways to build, the Sister Blades, Lim and Oro so feel free to experiment with different Arcana, Boons, and Keepsakes!

Weapon Aspect

Invest into the Aspect of Pan for +5 Blades from your Omega Special. You have two ways to overlap these blades on your foes. First, stand in melee range and fire the Omega Special from point blank range. But you can also drop a Cast on your desired target so the blades from your Special seek them allowing for full overlaps even at a distance.

This has a lot of synergy with many Hammer of Daedalus upgrades. Hook Knives cause the blades to return, dealing damage to foes twice making this one of the best upgrades to take. With Dancing Knives, the blades bounce for even more AoE (area of effect). Boundless Flurry provides great quality of life by lowering the channel time for your Omega Special, this is the second best upgrade. Sureshot Flurry provides a way to increase your range and counteract the penalty from Hook Knives. With Sureshot Flurry your knives easily overlap, making the build easier to play.

Spiral Knives on the other hand is a bit more hit-or-miss. On the one hand, this raises the baseline to 16 blades, making for a lot of potential overlaps. However, it changes the firing pattern to a ring around Melinoe. If you attempt to fire your Omega Special at a distance to strike a foe in your Cast, there's a good chance that half the blades miss as they'll run out of duration before reaching the target.

Author's Note: Some people swear by Spiral Knives because with perfect play it does incredible damage, but the build has plenty of damage even without it. Personally, I don't like using it because I'd rather have something that works well even when I make a mistake.

Arcana, Keepsakes and Familiar

Before you set out each night, you need to choose your active Arcana, Keepsakes, and Familiar. Which Familiar you use is up to you, Frinos provides some defenses and Toula adds a Deaths Defiance plus some damage. You have the option to switch up Keepsakes between each region but the remaining choices are fixed for the entire run.

Arcana

Because this build relies on your Cast and Omega Special combo, you want good Magick recovery. Start with general purpose staples like The Titan and Eternity.

From there, focus on activating The Centaur and Divinity. Activate all cards within the first row, as these Arcana offer highly cost efficient bonuses. Use The Unseen to ensure Magick recovery and Strength for the damage and defense it provides.

After that, allocate your remaining Grasp based on personal preference, you can take additional damage, defenses, or utility.

Learn more about the Arcana in Hades 2 with our guide.

Keepsakes

• Start with the Vivid Sea from Poseidon to ensure you have access to Wave Flourish.
  • Good damage alternatives are Hestia's Everlasting Ember and Aphrodite's Beautiful Mirror.
• Defensively Barley Sheaf from Demeter is your best bet she enables Freeze via Arctic Ring or Arctic Strike.
• The Transcendent Embryo from Chaos, Concave Stone from Echo, and Blackened Fleece from Medea are all good Keepsakes to use when you don't need the favor of a specific Olympian.
• For the final zone, Knuckle Bones from Odysseus gives you a damage reduction and reduces the final boss's health.
  • Alternatively, use Skelly's Luckier Tooth for an additional Death Defiance.

Boons and Upgrades

You can play Aspect of Pan with a variety of Boons, but this build focuses on proccing Poseidon's waves to flood the room with damage. Wave Flourish is your best bet due to triggering a 20 damage splash when striking enemies. This gives your Special a knockback effect which is highly effective at interrupting enemies. It pairs well with Poseidon's Legendary Boon King Tide which amplifies splash effects against bosses.

If you're unable to obtain Wave Flourish, Flame Flourish from Hestia is a good alternative as it allows you to stack the damaging Scorch Curse. Flutter Flourish from Aphrodite is a strong direct damage alternative but requires you to build differently and get your AoE clear from another Move.

Your other big upgrade comes from the Hammer of Daedalus. Hook Knives doubles your damage and gives your Special projectiles a Backstab effect. This is not mandatory but it does significantly boost your damage output. Boundless Flurry is a good alternative as it makes fully channeling your Omega Special much easier, especially on Chronos when you do not benefit from The Sorceress's time slow.

If you find yourself getting hit too often, use Arctic Ring from Demeter Freezes enemies within your Cast. It's not mandatory for Aspect of Pan, but greatly increases your quality of life. With this boon, you can aggressively drop your Cast on dangerous Armored foes and then safely burst them down with your Special. When facing swarms of enemies, Arctic Ring is your best friend, you Freeze them solid, charge up an Omega Special then watch as the splash damage from Wave Flourish clears the screen.

Additional Boons

In addition to the recommended Boons, here are a few things to keep an eye out for when playing Aspect of Pan.

• If you want to use Omega Moves more often, pick up Fluid Gain from Poseidon, as your blades strike they frequently generate bubbles with this boon.
• When playing Hestia instead of Poseidon, use Pyro Technique to accelerate your Scorch Damage.
• Poseidon's Water Fitness Infusion gives +15 Max Life per 4 Water Element. It's easy to pick up Water element boons from Poseidon and Demeter to fulfill the requirement.
• Because you drop your Cast directly on enemies, Gale Force from Demeter provides a reliable way to slow, and gives you more time to dodge.
• Slippery Slope from Poseidon provides a bit of extra damage and a second Curse to enable Origination if you have it active.
• Storm Ring from Zeus is a powerful Cast alternative if you want to maximize your damage output.
• Lucid Gain from Apollo and Glamour Gain from Aphrodite are solid alternatives when it comes to Magick recovery.
• The Sureshot Flurry Daedalus upgrade fires your blades forward, fully overlapping on any target.
  • This isn't necessary because the blades Seek enemies within your Cast but does mean you don't need to drop a Cast to maximize your damage.

Playstyle

Your goal in any encounter is to drop your Cast and then spam your Omega Special to delete foes. If an enemy isn't in your Cast the Aspect of Pan doesn't cause blades to target them so, stay close to ensure most if not all of your blades overlap. You need to be careful when fighting Chronos as it's easy to take damage from one of his attacks while channeling your Omega Special.

• Until you have a Special modifier the build does low damage, but once it has a Boon and a couple of levels from Poms of Power you can quickly dispatch most foes. From there your goal is to get any of the recommended Daedalus Hammer upgrades to take your damage to the next level!
• While a fully charged Omega Special does massive damage to bosses, for normal enemies you can fire a regular Special, or quickly charge to 6-12 Magick and then fire to dispatch them.
• Dropping your Cast, and then using your Omega Special is optimal for damage, but your Cast is also a powerful tool for Crowd Control against Armored targets, don't forget to use it defensively!
• You don't Attack much with this build, but you can always use your Attack to apply Curses like Hitch, Scorch, Blitz, or Freeze.
• When a new wave of enemies are spawning, you can pre-place your Cast to set up for a new volley of Knives.
• It's easy to interrupt regular enemies, or push them around using the Splash damage, but Armored foes are more dangerous. Keep your distance to avoid losing health to a nasty counter-attack.
• Aspect of Pan does a lot of damage so a defensive Hex like Twilight Curse or Phase Shift is your best option.

Bosses

Chronos in particular is a bit tricky unless you can slow time against him (unlocked via the Temporal Fluctuation Incantation). While you're progressing, make use of the damage from your Cast and Special for chip damage. Only charge an Omega Special when you have time and if you see him attacking, fire it and dodge!

When fighting in the Overworld, Eris has a small hitbox and moves around a lot which means it's difficult to overlap Knives from your special without dropping a Cast. The alternative Hestia Scorch version of the build performs particularly well here as you can use Hestia's Soot Sprint to destroy Eris's projectiles.

Video

Check out this video from Tenkiei using the Aspect of Pan.

Summary

Use the Aspect of Pan to release a flurry of blades that target anything within your Cast. This Aspect doesn't require specific boons but scales incredibly well with Poseidon's Wave Flourish and the Hook Knives Daedalus upgrade. Demeter's Cast Freezes foes to make them easier to deal with. Use Keepsakes to encounter Poseidon and Demeter while activating Arcana Cards to provide Magick, health, and damage. This build Freezes foes with the Cast then safely obliterates them with a single Omega Special.

Written by: Tenkiei