Hades 2 Pro Tips: 15 Tricks That Actually Win Runs

Everyone has a list of tips and tricks that boils down to dodge better and learn the patterns. This is not that list. These are the strategic decisions that determine whether you clear a run or die three rooms from the boss. I learned most of these the hard way.

Reject boons like they personally offended you

The game offers you a boon choice at almost every room. You do not have to take one. You can choose the door with gold, health, or a hammer instead of a boon. And sometimes you should, even when the boon seems good, because a so-so boon dilutes your pool and makes it harder to find the Duo or Legendary you actually need.

Boon offerings are partially weighted by what you already have. If you take an Apollo boon you do not really want, the game now considers Apollo active in your pool, and future Apollo boons become more likely. This makes it harder to force your preferred god. I aim for three or four gods maximum in a run. Any more than that and the boon pool gets too diluted to find synergies. Took me way too long to figure this out, honestly.

Chaos gate math will surprise you

Chaos gates offer a temporary curse lasting four to eight rooms, followed by a permanent blessing. New players look at take fifty percent more damage for seven rooms and nope out. The math, though. Seven rooms sounds like a lot, but rooms in Underworld biomes take about thirty to sixty seconds each. That is maybe seven minutes of suffering for a blessing that can double your damage output for the rest of the run, which is another thirty to forty minutes.

The only time I skip Chaos gates is if the curse would directly kill me in the upcoming boss fight. Like take extra damage right before Hecate when I am at low health. Otherwise, the risk-reward is almost always worth it. You just gotta trust the process.

Selene's Hex is not random, you can influence it

The three Hex options Selene offers are randomized. But the Hexes you have used in previous runs affect the pool. If you keep picking Lunar Ray and using it successfully, Selene becomes more likely to offer Lunar Ray again. The game tracks your Hex preferences, sort of like it learns what you like.

Also, the Path of Stars system at the Crossroads lets you invest Darkness to improve specific Hexes. A fully upgraded Lunar Ray deals close to triple the damage of the base version. Pick one or two Hexes you like and invest in them rather than spreading upgrades across all of them. I spread mine across everything at first and regretted it.

The Surface route needs its own Arcana setup

Your Underworld Arcana board should not be the same as your Surface board. The Surface has fewer healing opportunities, more environmental hazards, and bosses with instant-kill mechanics. Looking at you, Storm Giant platform falls.

For Surface runs, equip the Wayward Son (heal on room clear) even if you normally skip it. The Unseen (extra death defiance) is non-negotiable. Drop offensive Arcana cards that require setup time. The Surface enemies are more aggressive and you rarely get breathing room. Also, Poseidon boons gain value on the Surface because knockback can push enemies off cliffs in Thessaly. Free kills. Not even kidding.

Always start with a god Keepsake

Your first Keepsake should always force a specific god you want to build around. The first room of every biome has a higher chance of offering boons, and if you have a god Keepsake equipped, it guarantees that god appears first.

Swap off the god Keepsake after biome one, or biome two if you are still fishing for a core boon. The Coin Purse for bonus gold or Cerberus's Collar for bonus health are good mid-run Keepsakes. For the final biome, switch to the Skull Earring (bonus damage at low health) or the Acorn (absorbs boss hits). I know it sounds like micromanagement, but this rotation single-handedly improved my clear rate by maybe thirty percent.

Hammer rooms are the highest priority, always

Daedalus Hammers appear exactly twice per run, in fixed room slots. They are never offered as normal room rewards. When you see a hammer door, you take it. No exceptions.

A good hammer can define your run. A bad hammer can at least be sold at the Wretched Broker for gold. Skipping a hammer room means you permanently lose that hammer for the current run. You do not get a third hammer opportunity to compensate. I skipped one once thinking another would show up. It did not. Never again.

Buy the Chaos Gate reveal incantation immediately

The Cauldron incantation Eye of the Abyss reveals which rooms contain Chaos gates on the map before you enter them. This lets you route through Chaos gates intentionally rather than stumbling into them randomly. Given how powerful Chaos blessings are, this is one of the highest-value incantations in the game and it costs almost nothing to craft. Craft it the moment it appears.

The Mourning Fields fountain is hidden

There is a healing fountain in the Mourning Fields that is not marked on the map. It is in a room with a large statue of a weeping woman, off the main path. You need to intentionally enter a side door that looks like it leads to a regular encounter room, but instead it is a room with the fountain, a Chaos gate sometimes, and no enemies. I found this by accident around run forty. It changed my Underworld survival rate dramatically. If you are struggling in the Fields, look for the weeping statue door.

Pomegranates go on your core boon, not your cast

Pomegranates upgrade a random boon you have. The best target is your main damage-dealing boon, usually your attack or special. Not your cast or dash, unless your build specifically revolves around those. A level five Zeus attack boon does significantly more damage than a level one, and since you use your attack dozens of times per room, the value compounds. Obvious in retrospect, I guess, but I was throwing poms at my dash for the first couple dozen hours.

Cancel Omega Moves when things go wrong

If you start charging an Omega Attack or Special and realize you are about to get hit, dashing cancels the charge. You lose the Magick you spent on the charge, but you save your health. Better to waste Magick, which regenerates, than health, which does not, unless you have specific healing boons. Magick is free. Health is precious.

The Crossroads garden grows reagents

After certain incantations, the garden in the Crossroads near Persephone starts growing reagents that you can harvest between runs. This includes rare plants like Nightshade and Moly. Check the garden after every run. The plants do not auto-harvest and they despawn if you run too many times without collecting. I lost a Nightshade plant this way and it still bothers me.

Never decline a Nemesis challenge

When Nemesis appears in a room and challenges you, always accept. Even if you lose the contest, you get dialogue progression that unlocks her hidden Aspect for the Sister Blades. If you win, she drops Cinder and sometimes Titan Blood. Resources you cannot get elsewhere, or at least not easily. Beating her is not even that hard once you know her patterns, she telegraphs everything.

Save your Cast for boss stagger windows

Against bosses, do not throw your Cast on cooldown. Wait for the boss to finish an attack combo during their recovery window and then cast. The slow field from Omega Cast extends the recovery window slightly, giving you more time to unload damage. Casting randomly during the boss's active phase wastes the slow effect because the boss is already in an attack animation and the slow barely affects them. Timing matters way more than frequency here.

Arachne's dress gives you free armor, always take it

Arachne the spider weaver appears in certain Underworld rooms and offers to make you a dress. It takes a few rooms to complete, then you return to collect it. The dress gives you a temporary armor bar, basically a second health bar that absorbs hits before your real health is touched. This is huge for boss preparation. If you see Arachne early in a biome, always accept her quest. The armor bar is effectively a free death defiance. Kinda broken, honestly, but I am not complaining.

Stop restarting runs for bad starts

I see this advice online constantly: just restart if you do not get the boon you want in room one. Do not do this. Hades 2 rewards persistence. Even a scuffed start can turn into a strong run if you adapt. And more importantly, every run gives you resources (Darkness, Ashes, Psyche, reagents) that permanently improve your save file. Restarting throws away guaranteed progression for a chance at slightly better RNG.

I have cleared runs where my first three boons were Commons from gods I did not want. You adapt, you pivot, you make it work. That is the game. If you are restarting runs, you are playing a different game than the one Supergiant made, and you are probably having less fun too.