04:18 – my build
Decided to check out this roguelike action RPG last year since it was apparently talked about a lot online, and found something I ended up enjoying a lot. There’s something really addictive about the game, as soon as you fail your first run and climb all over again, trying to get higher than last time. It took me dozens of attempts to get my first successful run as I kept improving my skills, and then it was basically a different game entirely with all the weapon aspects, boon combos, builds and punishments making it a new experience. Every once in a while, I will open my file and do a run for the sheer amusement of it.
Here is a video of a recently fresh file I started to experience the game without all the mirror abilities and everything ready to destroy the game on the higher difficulties (Heat). It’s uncanny how different everything is when you can’t even dash a second time, recovery is non-existent and you die in Tartarus just by virtue of being inattentive a couple of times. And it’s even worse if you try to do it on Hell Mode.
Previously during my first four runs, I couldn’t further than Styx, not even reaching the final boss and dying in one of the rooms. This time I used the Darkness that had accumulated mainly from beating the same bosses with the same weapon, buying myself one Death Defiance, a Dash, two Cast upgrades for the normal-feeling 3 Cast Zagreus and maxed Chthonic Vitality for the essential +3 HP recovery per chamber, which is vital when base HP is low. The keepsakes I had were Cerberus, Skelly and Megaera.
The luck on this run was something extraordinary, though I almost spoiled it by using up two Death Defiances (one Skelly’s) on Theseus and Asterius, after which I had no other choice but to switch to Megaera’s keepsake for Styx, as I’d used the Cerberus +HP keepsake earlier. I was lucky to get an Athena boon for the extra Death Defiance (even if you don’t need it, you feel better psychologically with more DDs still intact), but most importantly I had god tier offence for what was somebody’s 5th run of the game.
I generally love Zeus/Poseidon builds in this game when you’re able to get the Sea Storm Duo Skill to make Poseidon’s effects have lightning effects like Jolted, and here the curious thing is that I had Poseidon on every offensive action but attack and special. Normally, there’s no way I’d get a duo skill like Sea Storm on an early run without the mirror abilities maximising your chances at getting a good boon, but this was the first run Chaos appeared, and I got a boon increasing the chance of Rare skills, after which I met Eurydice and obviously opted for the last service, making the next three boons rare. The first boon I got following that was Hermes Dash +3 (this basically makes you invincible, as there’s only a tiny window when the enemy can hurt you) and Sea Storm was next.
The build was relatively weak until Elysium, as I had no Poseidon attacks besides the call, which takes a while to trigger in a few fights, but here I got both the Tidal dash and the cast. The dash is quite a sight to behold when you chain five of them and just start wildly hitting the enemies against the wall.
In Styx, I had an extremely scary Sea Storm with all Poseidon attacks packing Jolted, High Voltage and Splitting Bolt. Then it was just a matter of time until I splashed water around everybody for an embarrassing defeat for Dad.
I initially started recording before Theseus and Asterius, but the file was corrupted somehow. Would’ve been cool to show off how I went from nearly getting a game over to beating the game for the first time.
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