Thread by @AlexandraErin

.........kind of sad that the main thing Torchligh 3 has done for me is make me want to play more Hades.

For anyone just getting on the Hades train, here's some strategic tips that made it easier for me when I figured out:

1. Pump your darkness points (XP) into Stubborn Defiance or Death Defiance. They're expensive but change the game and extend your runs.

Those two skills occupy the same slot so you can only use one of them on a given run, and they're expensive enough to be sort of mutually exclusive at the beginning.

I would use Stubborn Defiance until you have managed to upgrade Death Defiance all the way.

Stubborn Defiance gives you one "extra life" in each room, non-transferrable. Death Defiance gives you 1 per skill level (maximum 3) for a whole run.

I've been using Stubborn Defiance because I got sick of running out of lives before the big hard fights but I think I wind up using it in fewer than 3 rooms a run, which means I should switch to Death Defiance, statistically.

Boiling Blood is another worthy skill. It buffs your damage against enemies who are "carrying" your magic charge (got hit recently with a Cast attack)... super great in boss fights, where you really need to focus your offense on a single large and powerful target.

Bear in mind that some of the god boons that change your Cast attack fundamentally alter it in a way that's incompatible with boiling blood. The Ares one that replaces it with a swirling blade rift, for instance, I don't think works with it at all.

Anything that increases your HP or your damage is good. When you're learning how to play I suggest prioritizing Centaur Hearts as a reward early on because more HP = longer runs. You'll learn the game faster and collect more of other resources that way.

Each time you give a Nectar bottle to a given NPC for the first time you get a token. If you give your first one to Cerberus you'll get a token that doubles your base starting HP. Another game changer. You can only use one token at a time, though.

Spend your gemstones with the contractor to build the Fountain Rooms as soon as you can. A fountain room is a breather room (no enemies), with a normal chamber reward and a fountain that will heal you once. You can get one per region. You aren't guaranteed to find them.

Sometimes it's worth going to a Charon Shop room just to through another chamber without a fight, even if you don't have the $$$ to actually get anything.

When you're choosing gods, Athena offers the best defense, and Aphrodite offers the most raw damage. Dionysus offers damage over time. Hermes, and to a lesser extent Ares and Athena, are good at offering passive buff boons that don't override/interfere with other boons.

I should point out that you get this reward even if Cerberus isn't your first Nectar recipient. It's just a good, sound investment to make early on. More HP = longer runs = faster learning and more rewards to upgrade your character and the game.

https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1319324301846261762

A lot of the healing in the game (fountains, I think, and the Defiance skills, and Dionysus's "Afterparty" buff) is based on percentage of your health so those Centaur Hearts and the Cerberus token can pay off for you multiple times throughout a run.

You will never get more than two Daedalus Hammers in a run. You can get less if you consciously avoid the choice when it's offered, but the game will try really hard to make sure you get them.

Your choice of weapon is literally game changing and will probably depend a lot on your preferred playstyle.

I main the shield, for two reasons: almost unbreakable defense, and indirect fire on the Special throwing attack.

Like, I can get a lot of mileage in the last two boss fights (and the optional fight against Charon) by just hiding behind pillars and throwing the shield out at an angle. It's not a "homing missile" but when it bounces it will bounce towards a foe, if possible.

The Daedalus upgrade "Dread Flight" allows the shield to hit 5 successive opponents before returning to you. It's room-clearingly good. You barely have to move.

The first time I won a Thanatos challenge (a "who can kill the most d00ds?" bet against the god of death, who doesn't even have to fight, he just marks souls and then takes them) was with Dread Flight and Drunken Flourish (damage over time on your Special) and I just mashed Q.

I have figured out a bunch of specific strategies that work for me, though each one requires getting a specific combination of semi-random upgrades, so my best advice is: focus on making your runs last longer and getting farther. You'll advance your in-game and meta-game skills.