I did not expect to get the biggest crits with this... | Hades 2 

Hephy's legendary should upgrade your hammers. You have the hammer that gives you 2 extra skulls, now it gives you 3 extra. You have a hammer that makes you attack 30% faster, now you attack 45% faster. Etc.

What’s weird is Hephaestus’ legendary upgrades your weapon, which thematically makes sense, but mechanically, Hephaestus is the god that cares the least about your weapon choice. His boons do flat damage on a cooldown, so it doesn’t matter how much damage the weapon deals or how often it hits, or even how many things it can hit, etc.

My experience for room temp was using hephy cast, it's a blast effect. Throw freeze on a fast hitting attack, and the three rings from hephy cast let you keep re-freezing an enemy in place in your cast.

I remember during the the tech test supergiant streamed, they said that the blast vfx are currently unfinished. Maybe thats why its hard to gauge the aoe

personally my fave thing about hephy is his mana regent its obv not the best but i think that the idea behind it is better than the others. for example you could do something like: hesphestus: restores flat % mana always, and you take x/rank less damage aphrodite: restore mana per second for each nearby enemy with weak, your weak effects are X/rank stronger apollo: attacks restore 1 mana. increase attack speed by x/rank etc. this means hera will still always be the best for mana regeneration if you just want regeneration. BUT! it gives a good reason to choose other mana regen boons anyway for other effects.

I think one thing that would make Heph feel better in general is if instead of meaning a second hit on a delay, Vent made it so that they take some amount increased damage from all sources except blasts. Would fit the role he mostly has as the god you put on your less-used of attack and special.

It seems like Room Temperature is detrimental to Origination, honestly. Needong to re-apply it all the time makes it much more tedious for no apparent benefi.

Heph and Zeus Blitz really work well together too. Just massive burst and if you don't get back to them again in 5 seconds, Vent will trigger yet another Blitz. It's nasty.

What if Hephy gave you more damage% (or +base power?) the more armor you had and you leaned way harder into armor synergy? He already has a bunch of survivability tools (armor, invuln, mana->health scaling), so you could be the bruiser archetype. E.g. a secondary boon might be that every time you apply a blast effect you gain x armor.

Hephaestus Legendary idea: *replace* 1 hammer (not counting Experimental Hammer) with 1 Hammer of your choice

Heeey, I had a very similar build a few days ago (juiced up Smithy Sprint + Vent + stellar slam), forgot on which aspect, though, but suspect it was Thantaos, since I had quite a lot of crits on my sprint and got pleasantly surprised at getting some fairly consistent 2+K damage per crit. That was satisfying to watch. But 4176 is bonkers ! As for Hephaestus's compatibility with Daedalus hammers, I kinda remember one of the characters of H1 saying Hephaestus was actually jealous of Daedalus's hammers being all over the place, that's why he sit the first game out. But now, in this one, he seems to be rather appreciative of Daedalus's talent, so I don't know. It's one of the minor writing inconsistencies between the 2 games (or maybe it was intentional, to see the effects of gossip compared to first person account). If Hephaestus really is interested in Daedalus talent, maybe it could be fun to have him do something specific when equipped with Icarus experimental hammer, like upgrading its effect or something. Or his legendary could give us a conscious anvil, removing one hammer & giving 2, but you get to chose which one you remove and which ones you get ?

That intro though 💀

one cool thing you could've done with Room Temperature in this run was get Psychic Whirlwind to just spam Omega attacks while sprinting not like it'd be broken damage but being able to just run around freezing everything over and over until all the enemies are dead sounds goofy fun to me, maybe I'll try it out someday

not sure if this is intended or not. but when i was playing a demeter, heph combo build with the axe and the smithy sprint, i was able to charge my demeter omega attack, dash to the area i wanted to spin, but i'd hold down the dash button while in the spin attack and it would activate 1 second into the spin attack. allowing the duo to actually apply freeze at the start, bomb clear it mid spin and immediately reapply it. you could essentially keep things locked down forever just spinning and exploding. anyways, i think heph needs his entire kit reworked. just because he was the blacksmith god doesnt mean everything he does has to be an explosion. i dont have an immediate idea for how to fix him. but perhaps moving him down the god ladder and place him with herm, artemis, selene (omg i hate selene), or even the deadalus hammers. and in my opinion, the hammers already provide the function of what hephy should have provided if hes truly the god of the smith.

I'm wondering if maybe he should have a boon that cancels or shaves seconds off cooldowns after taking damage. This could also make his Fixed Gain more desirable since it lowers enemy damage, though I feel like the -10% damage from Fixed Gain should either be buffed to 20% by default or just increase through poms and rarity. These changes along with taking things like Demeter's Coarse Grit infusion, Python Scales from Charon's well, and some revenge boons like Hera's Nasty Comeback could make for some interesting Heph runs where there's actually some strategy in taking hits. Could help his duo with Poseidon to be less lackluster as well.

It's interesting that effects that cause you to use less magic effectively nerf hexes. I noticed during your run that once your cost on Smithy Sprint went from 10 -> 6, you basically never triggered Dark Side. Hex costs could be lowered by the same % amount of magic reduction. Could be a good way to buff Selene.

I quite like the legendary for Hephy to reroll hammers, though as you said, Legendary would happen way too late in the game to reliably benefit from the rerolling, so they could tack on like "50% more damage per acquired hammer." on top of that so that it feels worth it to pick up/go for even later in the game.

Smithy sprint is my favorite boon. All you need is the Apollo duo boon and a few poms and you are set with any weapon. love it.

Just out of curiosity why do you always seem to skip the well of charon that makes the next items expire in 2 guardians? Especially when you're done with the sirens that means it lasts the whole rest of the run. Seems like a pretty big, permanent (assuming you're past sirens) buff that gives 30-50% increase for very cheap.

Here's an idea for a good Heph boon: When you have multiple sources of Heph's damage proc (ex. Attack and Special), using them alternating back and forth reduces the cool down. Alternatively, using it between regular and omega hot reducing cool down.

Great run! However, Hestia Duo might be better than Demeter Duo since Chain Reaction explodes twice after blast effects recharges. If Heph Sprint is a Blast effect, it may strike twice each time it's activated. Haven't tried this, but it would be great if it works.

Instead of Dark Side you could've tried Wolf Howl from Selene, it can apply your dash boon and activate Smithy Sprint for free (sublime upgrade). It can get pretty ridiculous only running and jumping making bonk sounds LOL

Halve the cooldowns and allow it to get to 1 second through poms, or add a legendary that allows you to have the effects from your special/attack applied vice versa (so you get the bong + whatever is in your other slot)

Can we get a full video of whatever was happening in the first 8 seconds of the video? It was peak.

I think hephs boons should amplify the other boons if it’s a support god. For example every hammer sound creates an aura around Mel that amplifies damage for five seconds. So that way the downtime of the hammers feels less impactful to the overall gameplay. And would make it more meaningful to pom heph so that eventually the cool down overlaps with itself to boost the hammer strike itself. Making it something you can build into for endgame purposes. But if you wanted to use another boon with it then it’s fine because of the aura

I feel like Hephy could be a supplemental god like artemis or hermes because his boons are just so different and there’s not much incentive to go all in on him.

What if, and hear me out You remove hephy's attack and special. instead he grants special "hammer boons" that upgrade your aspect/allow it to inflict vent/other effect these would be independent from regular attack and special boons, e.g you can still take an attack boon on top of it. e.g you take the attack boon on the torches. you now have 3 options, one of which could be increased fire rate, omegas inflicting vent etc really lean into his supplemental aspect, and being the only god who can allow you to double dip on buffing your attack or special boons. to balance it, make it so that you can only take the attack or special in a run, and that you gain the other through his legendary.

ngl the reroll hammer idea sounds cool but I just be going into the game settings and enable it myself lmao

When he mentioned Dark side I was thinking, that the form should last longer, and ended up thinking it should be like the demon form or whatever it's called, in Darksiders, and just like, nah right?

I’m also okay with Hephie being supplemental and not necessarily a primary. I’m not always excited to see him unless I need some extra survivability or something, though. I was thinking scaling damage with the amount of armor you have in some way, which could fit the theme and give some incentive to prioritizing him in some niche builds, but I can also see that getting pretty crazy if you went HAM on armor like a Silken Sash run or something, so I’m not sure how that could be balanced outside of some sort of soft cap or diminishing returns.

26:25 Yeah Hephy's lego def needs a buff. Improving your weapon aspect by one level sounds fu in theory, but what does that actually do for most aspects? +7% attack speed on Than Axe? An extra blade on Pan Daggers? +7 health and power on Mel Axe? For Lego, that definitely just feels too weak, but I do like the concept. I think it should double the level of your current aspect, instead of increasing it by 1. +30% attack speed on Than Axe? +30 health and power for Mel Axe? Some aspects might have to be slightly reworked to make sense, but right now I don't see any reason to even go for Hephy's lego.

I’d say he needs a rework. His basic attack and special need to apply a curse or in-between the explosions which can be 10-20 seconds apart he still needs a smaller buff to attacks as well.

A cool solution I thought of for Hephs boons was when Leveling his Attack or Special the damage should increase instead of reducing cooldown. Then with the addition of a new complimentary boon that reduces the cooldown of your Attack and Special, that could be reduced even further by leveling that boon. It would make him easier and IMO more interesting to use with out guaranteeing him being to fast or too strong

Maybe Heph should have a tier 2 boon that increases damage if you only attack when you trigger blast?

does coarse grit work on Chronos's instakills? I know you can parry them with artemis daggers

the bing bong build of my dreams

Does this interact with Aspect of Artemis' riposte? It would be cool tho.

Could go the Monster Hunter route with Blast damage: Giving a chance to create a blast per hit, instead of having a cooldown.

Love me a good ding dong build

Quick Question: Why's nobody using Hephaestus? Overall, I can imagine few fun stuffs with his boon.

Is this from the stream yesterday 6/17/24? Hephaestus approved build!1!

I don't think they intended for heaphestus to feel like a god that supports rather than just letting you do more damage. None of the gods in hades 1 were really support gods. They all had their uses and could bring you a fun run without slowing you down to make them function. The problem is that hefy goes against the main thing of the game, going fast. Having a long CD on your attacks just slows you down, with his sprint being the only bearable one. If they wanted to fix how he works without gutting his kit, they could lower the damage and change the CD into a % chance (poming it could increase the % chance, thus making it good on fast attack and slow attacking weapons)... also, giving the blast a visual would be nice so we could see exactly how much larger the duo makes it. I also feel he should do something with hammers or specifically your weapon. Like, maybe his legendary could be a special heafestus hammer that has hammers that are special to heafestus and correlate to whatever attack boon of his you have? The caviot of vent should just be gone, since it gives an incentive to wait, which goes against what the game is partially about. Giving him better secondary boons to make the blast better would be good since they're probably really bad since I can't recall any of them, aside from vent. Maybe make a secondary boon that increases the damage of the blast by a %? I know he's built around giving you beefier defense, so maybe making a boon that coincides with your defense? Like giving you a % based damage increase depending on a % of your reduced damage taken %? I dunno, I just feel like they can do more than they have with heafestus, but he's just kinda boring right now, unlike the other gods who have better duos and legendaries. Like, how come there's only two duo boons related to hefy's blast? The blast is literally his entire kit, and the demeter duo would be better if it were the duo for hestia and hefy, in my opinion.

I think hephy should have lower cds on common, but about the same on heroic. the difference in cooldown is waaay too big

I'm a simple man. I see daddy Hephaestus thumbnail, I click and hit like.

Think Hephy's attack and special should just also come with a % increase, in addition to the blast effect. Comparing it to Demeter, it is pretty similar. Both gods' effects have a cooldown, and you could deal as much damage as Heph while an enemy is frozen, so why not just give Hephy the same consolation prize for when its on cooldown, and give the base weapon damage +40%?

I beat 48 Fear with the aspect of Charon and posted it to the hades 2 discord, people told me it was the highest fear posted for that aspect is that true? I'll smash my head at 50 Fear but the math is heavily against +2 shields and 5:00min deadline lol

I don't remember where, but I saw someone suggest that the game's title be changed to Hades II: Death to Chronos and I think that's a fire idea

hephy attack and special should just not occupy slots.

Did you know that the cat does not intercept Hecate's Hex ?

1st!

Maybe this is a dumb question... but what is origination? You always são something about triggering origination and I have no idea what it is. 😅