Hestia is one of the new gods to offer their powers in Hades II. Her Boons primarily focus on debuffing targets with Scorch, a Curse that causes enemies to take damage over time. While not impressive on its own, every hit with that applies Scorch stacks the Curse — this is where the Sister Blades come in. Their normal Attacks go through a series of hits quickly, allowing you to apply a high amount of Scorch in no time.
While this build takes some time to reach its full potential, once it does, it offers incredible damage against the enemies and bosses alike. In this guide, we will show you how to make a build that allows you to incinerate entire rooms filled with foes.
Playstyle & Best Aspect
- This build will primarily focus around the Sister Blades’ Attack — you will want to use this as much as possible.
- Your Cast will be useful as well, as it can be a secondary source of Scorch, as well as a ranged attack, and then also give some extra damage and effects depending on what Boons you get.
- The Special can be ignored, for the most part, but it can still be occasionally used if you give it a useful effect from another god or of you need a ranged attack.
- None of your Omega attacks are needed for this build (though Omega Casts will provide some extra damage), making it very Magick-efficient.
Best Aspect
Since this build mostly focuses on Scorch as your source of damage, the Aspect you choose won’t really matter.
The Aspect of Melinoë will probably give you the most extra damage, however. This one will make your Attacks and Specials deal extra damage when you’re behind an enemy. Even if you’re not particularly trying to, you’re still going to hit enemies from behind throughout your run, so this will help your damage a bit.
Best Arcana Cards
- The most important Arcana Cards to activate will be The Champions and The Fates, in order to get Hestia’s Boons quicker.
- If you activate The Boatman, this will also activate The Seer, giving you more rerolls.
- You can also activate Death, to greatly boost the damage of your Attacks.
- The Moon can be taken to boost your Omega Cast damage.
- After that, you can activate stuff like The Wayward Son, The Titan, Eternity, or Excellence, depending on if you want to focus more on survivability or utility.
Best God & Boons
The god you will want to focus on the most is Hestia.
In particular, you will want to get the Flame Strike Boon as soon as possible — this will give you the easiest and quickest way to stack Scorch on enemies.
Once you have that Boon, there are a few others you will want to add to your build:
- Natural Gas – gives the build a lot of area damage potential. With this Boon, any enemy with Scorch will explode and damage surrounding enemies when they die.
- Fire Extinguisher – gives you a lot of burst potential. It will cause your Scorch to detonate and deal damage instantly every time it reaches 300.
- Smolder Ring – this will help build stacks of Scorch quicker, especially for multiple targets.
Glowing Coal can also be taken in order to turn your Cast into a projectile and to add some extra damage. The Flammable Coating will make this build more effective against Armored foes. Pyro Technique can be taken as an alternative to Fire Extinguisher to make your Scorch damage tick twice as fast.
Best Daedalus Hammer Upgrades
The two Daedalus Hammer Upgrades that you want to shoot for are Rapid Onslaught and Final Slice.
Rapid Onslaught makes your Attacks faster, letting you accumulate stacks of Scorch even quicker. Meanwhile, Final Slice will allow you to spread Scorch to groups of enemies easier, while also dealing more damage. Alternatively, you can take Flick Knives if you add a Boon to your Special, so that it can be used without having to stray from your Attacks.
If you want to implement more Specials into your build, you can take Spiral Knives, Dancing Knives, or Hook Knives.
Other Gods and Helpful Boons
Here are a few other gods you can focus on that will pair well with Hestia’s Boons for this build, allowing you to deal extra damage, or add some extra helpful effects.
- Zeus – Ionic Gain, Divine Vengeance, Lightning Lance, Static Shock
- Zeus will greatly amplify the damage of this build, complimenting Scorch’s damage over time with extra direct damage.
- Static Shock will allow you to bombard enemies with chain lightning due to the nature of the Twin Blades’s Attack speed, while Divine Vengeance can give extra damage when you get hit.
- Since you don’t really need Magick in this build, you can take Ionic Gain as your source of Magick regen.
- Lightning Lance can be used as an alternative to Glowing Coal to turn your Cast into a projectile.
- Demeter – Frigid Dash, Rare Crop, Gale Force
- Demeter will help slow down your enemies, as will as give you some extra damage.
- Gale Force can make your Cast do even more damage, as the cyclone from it will also damage enemies on top of the Scorch provided by Smolder Ring. Frigid Dash can give you even more extra damage with its cyclones.
- If you want to Implement Specials in this build, Ice Flourish and the Duo Boon Freezer Burn can help amplify your damage further.
- Apollo – Blinding Speed, Self Healing, Super Nova, Light Smite, Extra Dose, Critical Miss, Dazzling Display
- Apollo can help spread your Scorch faster, while also providing some survivability and extra damage.
- Super Nova and Extra Dose can help you accumulate your Scorch quicker.
- Dazzling Display, Blinding Speed, and Light Smite will help apply Daze to enemies, then Critical Miss can provide some extra damage.
- As you will be taking a lot of Fire Boons, you can easily take advantage of Self Healing to provide some extra survivability.
And here are some notable Boons for the gods that will show up randomly or will appear in every single run:
- If you happen to find Artemis in your run, Support Fire will give you a lot of extra damage, as your Attack will be landing a lot.
- From Hermes, you can go for Swift Strike to make your Attacks even faster.
- Any Hex you choose to bring will work, though Night Bloom and Moon Water will be the least disruptive to your Attack spamming.
- Finally, if you decide to get a Boon or two from Chaos, one with Strike will increase your Attack damage, while one with Favor will increase the chance of you getting better Boons.
Best Keepsakes
You will always want to start your runs with the Everlasting Ember, so that you can ensure you get Flame Strike and other Hestia Boons as soon as possible.
After the first boss (and if you’re happy with the Hestia Boons you have), you can switch to the Keepsake of another god you want to pair up with. Once you’re comfortable with your Boon setup, you can use Discordant Bell to further increase your damage, or Luckier Tooth if you want a little more survivability.
This build takes some time to reach its full potential, but the wait will be worth it by the end. Once it’s ready, you will be able to literally burn down a group of enemies, along with some explosive finishes!
