Hades 2 Early Access Patch 2

Key Takeaways

• Buffed the odds of encountering an Olympian to more (especially early) to more closely match the original Hades.
• Rebalanced weapons & Aspects based on community feedback, buffs for the underperformers and nerfs for the overperformers.
  • The Umbral Flames got a buff to their attack along with most other Moves.
  • The Moonstone Axe's special has been reworked to provide a lingering barrier.
  • Witch's Staff Aspect of Momus has been reworked each of your Omega Moves now fire in succession.
  • Umbral Flames Aspect of Eos was reworked to focus more on your Omega Attack.
  • Argent Skull Aspect of Persephone now builds Glory faster but only your Omega Cast builds glory.
• Along with Weapons/Aspects, Daedalus Upgrades have been rebalanced and reworked.
  • Dual Moonshot (Staff) now affects your Omega Special but has reduced range.
  • Melting Coil (Umbral Flames), formerly Melting Comet: no longer fires in a straight line.
  • ADDED: Flick Knives (Sister Blades), which causes your Dash-Strike to fire Special knives.
  • Marauder Slash (Axe) now affects your Omega Attack and has been renamed to Rapid Slash.
  • the already powerful Colossus Driver (Skull) now affects your Omega Special in addition to its previous effect.
• Lots of general bugfixes!

General Gameplay

• You now can encounter up to one additional Olympian each night (as in the previous game).
• You now are likely to find one more Boon or other major reward while in Erebus.
• *Increased invulnerability duration after your Death Defiance effects activate.
• *Improved rewards of Ash and Psyche can now be found in Oceanus and the Rift of Thessaly.
• *You now can press-and-hold to harvest repeatedly from Crescent Pick Outcroppings.
• *Toula should now stay closer to you in Encounters, especially in the Fields of Mourning.
• *Nemesis no longer offers Death Defiance items if you do not need to refill the effect.
• Reduced Gold cost of Selene's Boon when available in Charon's Shop.
• Minor adjustments to the order in which Olympians may first appear early on.
• Normalized chances of finding Fishing Points in various regions.

Nocturnal Arms & Abilities

• *Witch's Staff: Special knocks foes away, but is slightly slower; Omega Special is faster.
• *Sister Blades: Special staggers standard foes longer; Attack visual FX better match the hitbox.
• *Umbral Flames: Attacks are stronger and faster; Omega Attack channels faster and uses less magick; Special gives a speed boost, but has reduced damage; Omega Special can be channeled while moving.
• *Moonstone Axe: reworked Special provides a lingering barrier; Omega Attack channels slightly faster; Omega Special channels faster.
• *Argent Skull: Omega Attack channels faster and hits a larger area.

Aspects of the Nocturnal Arms

• Witch's Staff (Circe): adjusted activation and duration of Serenity effect; Serenity now adds Omega bonus damage that scales with this Aspect's rank.
• Witch's Staff (Momus): reworked; each of your Omega Moves automatically fires several times in succession from where you use them.
• *Sister Blades (Artemis): you will Block again if the effect recharges while you are channeling; Block now takes priority over Dodge and similar effects.
• Umbral Flames (Eos): reworked; Omega Attack now fires a slow shot that occasionally creates damage blasts and also copies your Specials.
• Moonstone Axe (Melinoë): reworked; now adds Power and Max Life.
• Moonstone Axe (Thanatos): reworked; faster Attack adds Critical chance to Omega moves.
• Argent Skull (Persephone): you now earn Glory much faster, but only by using your Omega Cast; improved control responsiveness during Omega Special

Keepsakes

• Moon Beam (Selene): increased bonus to Path of Stars upgrades.

Daedalus Hammer Upgrades

• Marauder Wallop (Staff): cut from game; replaced with...
• Rapid Thrasher (Staff): new! All your Attacks become faster.
• Double Wallop (Staff): cut from game; replaced with...
• Wicked Thrasher (Staff): new! All your Attacks gain bonus Power.
• Double Cataclysm (Staff): cut from game; replaced with...
• Mirrored Thrasher (Staff): new! All your Attacks hit twice, but you take more damage.
• Rapid Moonshot (Staff): also affects Omega Special.
• Dual Moonshot (Staff): also affects Omega Special; reduced range; renamed from Double Moonshot.
• Shimmering Moonshot (Staff): also affects Omega Special.
• Aetheric Moonburst (Staff): increased Magick restoration from Power Shots.
• Concentrated Flurry (Blades): cut from game; replaced with...
• Melting Dart (Blades): new! Your Special destroys a large percentage of a foe's Armor.
• Flick Knives (Blades): new! Your Dash-Strike also fires several Special knives in a fan pattern.
• Rapid Onslaught (Blades): reworked to also affect Omega Attack; renamed from Marauder Slice.
• Hook Knives (Blades): slightly reduced speed of knives returning to you.
• Furious Fire (Flames): cut from game; replaced with...
• Mega Spark (Flames): new! All your Attacks travel farther and deal more damage
• Inverted Spark (Flames): new! Dash to make shots from Attacks reverse direction and hit foes again
• Leaden Spark (Flames): new! Your Attacks knock foes away and have bonus Power
• Sustained Spark (Flames): also increases move speed, instead of reducing; formerly Sustained Fire.
• Melting Coil (Flames): no longer fires straight; also affects Omega Special; formerly Melting Comet.
• Origin Coil (Flames): also affects Omega Special.
• Rapid Slash (Axe): reworked to also affect Omega Attack; renamed from Marauder Slash.
• Giga Cleaver (Axe): removed two-stage channeling (it always double-fires but uses more Magick).
• Dashing Heave (Axe): removed damage bonus; instead, it now hits twice.
• Sidelong Crash (Skull): cut from game; replaced with...
• Mega Driver (Skull): new! Your Specials travel farther and you take less damage while using them.
• Colossus Driver (Skull): also affects Omega Special
• Hexes of Selene.
• Wolf Howl: reduced Magick-spend requirement.

Additional Gameplay Fixes

Hexes of Selene.

• Wolf Howl: reduced Magick-spend requirement.
• Twilight Curse: greatly reduced Magick-spend requirement; reduced foes afflicted; reduced cast time.
• Night Bloom: reduced Magick-spend requirement, effect duration, bonus damage, and cast time.
• Lunar Ray: greatly reduced Magick-spend requirement; reduced damage; reduced cast time.
• Moon Water: slightly increased Magick-spend requirement; slightly reduced healing.
• Dark Side: slightly increased Magick-spend requirement.

Foes & Encounters

• *Chronos: various fixes and adjustments; there should be fewer cases where he's patently unfair.
• Infernal Cerberus: minor adjustments to some attack patterns in the first phase.
• *Eris: grenade attacks no longer wildly bounce around.
• *Polyphemus: reduced effectiveness of Mutant Sheep.
• *Goldwrath: reduced accuracy and tracking of beam attack.
• Queen Lamia: slightly increased Armor; increased speed; other minor changes.
• Reed-Stalker: increased projectile speed and target distance; reduced rotation speed.
• Mourner: slightly increased rotation speed; slightly increased speed while attacking.
• Lamia: slightly increased life and Elite armor.
• *Dire Shambler: reduced tracking speed between attacks.
• *Hippo: self-destruct area should more closely match the visuals.

Level Design & Environments

• *Driftwood resources are more common in the Rift of Thessaly (a further increase since last patch)
• *Burning Oil Slicks in the Rift of Thessaly will extinguish after Encounters, though may be reignited.
• *Adjusted Oil Slicks in some locations in the Rift of Thessaly.
• Minor fixes to several locations

Fated List of Minor Prophecies

• Clearing Original Sins no longer requires choosing the very rare Barren curse from Chaos.

Chaos Trials

• *Trial of Heartache: reduced difficulty and adjusted based on Aspect changes.
• *Trial of Haste: reduced difficulty and adjusted based on Aspect changes.

Oath of the Unseen

• Vow of Forsaking: no longer helps ensure you quickly get Duo and Legendary Boons.

Menus & UI & FX

• Added many new UI icons for Keepsakes, Weapons, Well of Charon offerings, and more.
• *Insight Into Offerings (Cauldron) now also lets you check each Olympian's list of offerings in the Book of Shadows while choosing their Boons (or the equivalent with other characters).
  • With the prior change, adjusted default key binding for Rarify; some custom bindings have been reset.
• *Added a warning when you are down to your last use of Death Defiance.
• *Opening the Book of Shadows should show entries for nearby characters more reliably.
• *Removed the Unused Grasp notification when exiting the Altar of Ashes while at a high Grasp limit.
• Updated Pitch-Black Stone screen to use Aspect-specific icons.
• Adjusted input action bar layout at the bottom of the Boon Screen and similar.
• Added borders to icons for Selene Hexes on the Gifts of the Moon screen.
• Added informational pop-up when using F10 to report bugs.
• Other minor changes.

Art & Visual FX

• *Reduced some full-screen flashing or strobing, such as from time-slow effects.

Music & SFX

• Added SFX for when certain active abilities such as Serenity are ready to use.
• Updated placeholder SFX for various Keepsakes.
• · Updated SFX for projectile collisions with Umbral Flames (Moros).

Voice & Narrative

• Unique voice lines should play more reliably when certain incantations are revealed in the Cauldron.
• Added voice lines when using Phase Shift (Selene) vs. Chronos (or trying to...)
• More voice lines should play when confiding in Frinos in certain contexts.

Miscellaneous

• *While brooding over the family portrait in the Crossroads, you may now snap out of it sooner.
• *You now can fully control the game using keyboard only if you rebind Attack and Special.
• *All timers now pause while in the presence of Charon.
• *An Anvil of Fates will no longer be offered in Tartarus if you have not found a Daedalus Hammer.
• *In the Hades Flashback, adjusted timing of hint for players who don't realize they are in control.
• Reduced requirements for the incantation Power to Pause and Reflect to be revealed.
• Melinoë now respawns in the center of her magick circle near her tent (she was a bit off before...).
• Improved compatibility with more types of controllers.
• Updated text for various upgrades and abilities.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Double Up (Poseidon) sometimes doubling Mystery Boons; clarified description.
• Fixed Nightmare resources dropping unexpectedly in Chaos Trials.
• *Fixed Omega moves occasionally becoming unresponsive after being chomped on by Polyphemus.
• *Fixed deadliest attack of Chronos occasionally hitting when Melinoë was in a supposedly safe point.
• *Fixed Umbral Flames Attack preventing Magick regeneration before channeling Omega Attack.
• *Fixed The Queen and Judgment (Arcana) appearing active while no others Arcana are active.
• *Fixed Hearth Gain (Hestia) no longer restoring Magick if chosen as a Sacrifice Boon.
• *Fixed certain later Oath Testaments for the Sister Blades sometimes not appearing as expected.
• *Fixed cases where you could go out of bounds using the Argent Skull in the battle vs. Chronos
• *Fixed more cases of some visual effects vs. Chronos lingering between phases or after the fight
• *Fixed Toula unceremoniously vanishing after you vanquish Chronos.
• *Fixed additional issues with Sun Worshiper (Apollo).
• *Fixed additional issues with Dark Side (Selene).
• *Fixed additional issues with Twilight Curse (Selene).
• *Fixed a visual issue where Headmistress Hecate could appear to slide after snared by your Cast.
• *Fixed Spark of Ixion (Charon) causing a Chaos Gate to appear in Asphodel.
• *Fixed Golden Boughs sometimes not marking all available rewards in the Fields of Mourning.
• *Fixed several narrative events that could play out of sequence.
• *Fixed Odysseus rather rudely walking away while in conversation with Nemesis.
• *Fixed Heracles sometimes leaping away forever.
• *Fixed Melinoë's voice reverting during her return sequence despite certain Circe enchantments.
• *Fixed incorrect Echo portrait in the Book of Shadows.
• *Fixed incorrect music playing in some Chaos Trials, or not playing as intended in some instances.
• *Fixed rare cases of a looping sound playing indefinitely.
• *Fixed a rare instance when objectives in the Training Grounds could overlap.
• *Fixed several minor issues on the Victory Screen that shows when you prevail.
• *Fixed additional miscellaneous issues when playing in ultrawide resolutions.
• *Fixed a rare crash in which the effect of Winter Harvest (Demeter) could repeat forever.
• *Fixed various other rare crashes.
• *Fixed several text errors.
• *Other minor fixes.

Quote of the Patch

Video

Early Access Updates

Written by: Tenkiei