Here’s another tier list for you! This time we are looking at the cast boons. The last time we ranked the cast boons was in March of 2020 so it seemed fitting to revisit the topic. This video doesn’t include the Duo boons in my considerations. That will come in another video. Thanks for checking out the video!
0:00 Intro
1:40 Tier Explanation
3:11 Aphrodite Cast
4:12 Demeter Cast
5:57 Zeus Cast
7:30 Poseidon Cast
8:56 Athena Cast
10:51 Ares Cast
12:45 Dionysus Cast
15:08 Artemis Cast
16:11 End Summary
16:31 Outro
Old Cast Boon Vid: https://youtu.be/fQgiTaT2XSY
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Hades is a god-like rogue-like dungeon crawler that combines the best aspects of Supergiant’s critically acclaimed titles, including the fast-paced action of Bastion, the rich atmosphere and depth of Transistor, and the character-driven storytelling of Pyre.
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As the immortal Prince of the Underworld, you’ll wield the powers and mythic weapons of Olympus to break free from the clutches of the god of the dead himself, while growing stronger and unraveling more of the story with each unique escape attempt.
UNLEASH THE FURY OF OLYMPUS
The Olympians have your back! Meet Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, and many more, and choose from their dozens of powerful Boons that enhance your abilities. There are thousands of viable character builds to discover as you go.
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Thank you for your content and your videos. I’ve absolutely fallen in love with Hades and I think a lot of the credit can fall on you. You’re my go-to hades channel. I have very much enjoyed learning about the game and developing my skills in the game while watching your stuff. Thanks for your dedication and work and information. Also you have a winning smile my mans.
Interesting. Excellent video as always paul! Love the thought and analysis you put into these. I feel like any hades tier list willhave some controversy because everyone plays differently, with different weapnons at different ranges. The game is so balanced that many different approaches are viable. Aphro cast is good because its strong, its definitely better on hera or beowulf aspect, its short range is a big hit for me. I feel like players who are more skilled/ attentive than me can make aphro cast work without much trouble, but I think we underestimate just how powerful being able to hit at range can be. If i dont get close, I cant get hit right? Just taking that risk gets me hit a lot more with aphro cast. Whereas with a ranged cast, its fire and forget. I like Zeus cast as well, I feel like the base damage on it is a little low. Its also hard to control where it ends up (which target the stone sticks in) which makes it harder to benefit from the debuffs of having a cast stone embedded in a target. Zeus cast room clear is really good, altho against bosses it suffers much more. Demeter cast is interesting, with certain Duo boons it can be good or serviceable, but I would have expected the beam to be D tier. I have to confess, I havent played with demeter cast too often, so your mileage may vary. Maybe if I fiddled with it more, and learned more about how to use it well, I could get it to work for me. But in general I find Demeter cast tracking is too slow to be effective at all against most enemeies in asphodel or elysium. In tartarus and styx it works better, because most of the enemeies there dont move as much, or the big ones in styx are slow and the fast ones can be eliminated easily. It does better against bosses in theory, but again without faster tracking, the furies and sometimes even hades are too mobile generally to get consistent damage out of it. It requires more understanding of your enemies and how they move in order to be effective, again, fire and forget casts are easier. With EM, theseus moves a lot but asterius is somewhat easier to hit when he spins, and without EM I would think asterius' jumps and theseus shield make it harder to land demeter cast (without getting the cast behind theseus, which is something i havent tested). Ares is an interesting take, I think its good to point out that without the duo boon it is defeinitely different, and, dare I say, it gets maybe a little overrated because of the duo boon. Still, I might have blade rift at A tier, because esp with stygian soul it would be easier to use, getting the cast stones back with blade rift can be a pain otherwise. But the ease of use of it, to just shoot in an enemies direction and watch it build up a lot of damage is very nice. The lob on dio cast is a little harder, the lbo itself is slow, aiming even slower, but it hits like a ton of bricks. Moreover, the lob crosshair (at leqst on switch) will automatically start on an enemy, So if you just move so only one or two emeies are on screen, you can easily manupulate who it targets, and then just tap the cast button and let her rip without standing still. The AOE stun can also be very useful for allowing other weapons that require you to get very close ()e.g. fist and sword) to be much more easy to use, if i remember correctly, doesnt it stun armored targets as well? I have to check again, but if so, definite S tier for me. And even without that, I might still leave it at S tier. It rarely takes many dio cast shots to strip armor from foes entirely, and the ability to stun targets completely rom range before moving into finish them off with almost no risk is literally OP to me. But like I said, YMMV. I fid the lob mechanic very easy to get around, partly because I like to play at range, but other people might find it harder to work around, especially if you like to play up close to enemies or at high speed (read, tight deadline).
I was waiting for this video, thank you JP for getting so many people in the game (myself included) and keep making excellent content. Now cant wait for the version that takes in mind duos etc. 😀
Demeter cast on Beowulf shield is my favorite! Maybe not the best… but my favorite 🙂
Great stuff New to game so tight work!
Yeah, 100% agree on Ares, tried it out with Poseidon sword and it was really painful to use when I didn't get the Artemis duo.
If he disagrees with anything I think then he better correct himself!
I agree with Ares but as a keyboard player, I'd put Dionysus at S just below Zeus.
I love love love Cast builds so much, and I agree with a lot, if not all, of what you said about the tier 1 Cast boons in this video, though I think I like them all regardless of which tier they ended up on. I might actually slightly favor the boons closer to the bottom of the list because incidentally, they seem to be the ones that have the most options in terms of Duo boons and I really like getting those. Looking forward to the continuation of this discussion that includes the Cast-related Duo boons!
I'm mostly upset because Patroclus is SS tier. There exists no circumstances I don't want to see my sad myrmidon. Oh wait this is about casts…
Agree that vanilla Ares is prob the weakest cast but fully powered up with the duo and the legendary it’s the best.
Athena cast with Zeus duo is ridiculously OP, bouncing that cast is insane. Surprised you didn’t mention it! 😄
I largely agree, except that I would put Demeter in D tier and Ares in C tier. They both only work in a few situations: slow or stationary big targets, but with absolutely no other boons, Rift has some crowd control possibilities while crystal does not.
If you miss with rift, it has some value as a trap because it will stack some damage on an errant foe, whereas if you miss with beam, you might as well forget it exists. It might do one tick of damage before the enemy moves. Also if you accidentally drop a crystal next to a wall, it is completely wasted, if you throw a rift at the wall it bounces to at least have a chance to be useful. I honestly do not think it would be broken if they added Chill to Crystal beam by default, which as a personal pet peeve has messed me up a few times now.
Cast builds are the most fun imo, especially with the Hera aspect bow
Festive Fog + the Zeus Duo Boon + all that extra lightning stuff you can stack = good times
I would probably swap Ares and Demeter just because I generally find it easier to make Ares "work" for me than Demeter, and then maybe also swap Aphrodite and Dionysus for the same reason.
LOVE the content! This is somewhat unrelated to the actual tier list but I hate how unclear it is how much damage Demeter and Ares' cast does. It say x damage per tick, but doesn't say how often it ticks.
Just a tip for future vids! May want to say how much damage each does. Would be very helpful for newer players. (Obviously that's on the devs, not you, to make that clear.)
Artemis is S tier just for the shield bros. I hate those guys.
athena and poseidon are my favorite boons to use with the aspect of hera!
if you didn't use achiles spear, zeus cast is only good in tartarus though
Dionysus is an A for me. If you get the Demeter duo (Ice Wine) it's S tier. I've beaten Hades around 50 times and my most DPS ever was with this cast setup and the Poseidon sword! Also key is the Hermes boon that lets you lob 3 successive casts…
I've never tried the Hera bow, thanks for the suggestion!
You forgot about lightning phalanx I think?
Only thing I really disagree with is the placement of Area and Demeter, I honestly believe those should be switched.
Just subscribed! Your channel was recommended when I looked up Hades guides. I am definitely going to check out your streams as well! Thank you for the great content. I can honestly say that I have become a better player.
Ooo updated tier list! Slicing shot deserves better though if only because it can put out insane dps against bigger, slower enemies.
I agree with this list. You should make another list of how they stack when FULLY equipped.. as in Duo + secondary boons added. I've had Ares/Artemis boom with both upgrades .. easy win.
Or Dionysus with festive fog buffs .. win.
Is this music from katana zero
I want to live in a world where Cold Embrace makes Demeter beam come from your chest.
I find Festive Fog easier to use than Crush Shot but that's just me
I'm typing this as you go through them, and I'll make sure to have a spread too. Trying to think of them on they're own but that's tough.
Aphrodite – D
Demeter – C
Zeus – S
Poseidon – A
Athena – A
Ares – B
Dionysus – B
Artemis – C
Dionysus Cast on mouse and keyboard is far superior than you find on a controller is the only difference of opinion I think, nice vid.
This is February, and you choose now to put Demeter near the bottom knowing full well she already is not a fan of humans. The day this comes out we get 8 inches of snow and ice. Not a coincidence sir, love your Demeter, love her lasers of love and doom for all of our sakes'
I usually pick up slicing shot bc I really like hunting blades
I'd swap Aphro and Dio. Also Poseidon is borderline S tier…maybe A+ tier.
I love using the Dionysus cast! Pair it with the rail and just run around lobbing everything
Now I want to see a tier list of additional casts for duo boons
I used to love Athena's cast! I have definitely skipped over zeus' cast. I'll definitely look into it next time I play. Been spending a bit of time with Slay the Spire these days. Check it out! Would love to hear what you think about it.
I think Ares and Demeter are my 2 favorite casts. I guess I take my time.
Katana Zero OST
I approve
I love the characters popping up
Gotta disagree with Zeus cast being the top – how is this gonna help you against Hades? Ultimately that's all that matters
Nice use of the Katana Zero OST
I think this a fair list when you consider it's just the base cast. Think of this as a 'floor' list. Listen to the analysis though for the boosts and how the casts can move from additional boons for more of a ceiling view
the nice thing about Slicing Shot is that it goes right through Shields, so the Shield exhalted and Theseus get absolutely destroyed since they're so slow at moving, they basically stay inside the aoe for most of the duration. And also it doesn't go off edges to get stuck out in limbo were you can't collect it. Like flood shot will go out waaay far if you shoot it toward lava or the white rivers of Elysium, Slicing shot conveniently stops at the edge
The issue with tier lists like this is that there are different formats to consider. The tier list for super high heat is always different from the speed run tier list, for example.
I supe the living hell outta ares cast. I use it as a poor mans Demeter aid and it causes hefty damage. I disagree with you on that and I personally think that crush shot should be lower tbh. That depends on power poms so much.
The Orpheus costume was awesome!