If he's gotten to you you've already lost. It's clear that you've already taken extreme measures, but you haven't even taken advantage of the basics of the Pact of Punishment; even something as making the traps deadlier will weaken him and make your urns more deadly, but why fight him if you can make your minions kill him for you? Make your minions work overtime, and put them through a regimen of calisthenics and hard labor. Put out a summons for more minions while you're at it, and use a stick of middle managers and a carrot of benefits packages while you're at it to keep your minions in line. Start charging convenience fees too, Charon will love the extra free income so his greedy ass will definitely not complain.

Hold a kaizen to improve damage control, customs, inspections, and approval processes as well, those will make his weapons and smuggled Olympian boons less effective.

Oh, Zagreus doesn't want to implement the pact? Taunt him with bounties of Titan's blood and ambrosia. Or better yet, appeal to his pride and taunt him into agreeing to use more heat. Eventually he'll tire of the escape and he'll go back to sulking in his quarters like he used to.

The Narrator seems pretty good at killing Zagreus; you should ask him.

Take away that boys allowance

Just grab him and throw him far away so just dies lmao

Have you considered showing him love and understanding, in an effort to trick him into not laying waste to your realm and destroying your insurance premiums?

FYI, even though the game is relatively old, its still pretty common practice to refer to him as Redacted.

try to get Ares and Athena combo boon called Merciles End preferebly with athena dash. Hit him with an attack and dash through him.

It’s sometimes easier to dash through him when he attacks. Athena’s Devine Dash helps a ton.

Best advice I give to everyone, focus purely on not getting hit, as opposed to trying to do damage, and learning how to tell which attack he's going to do. If you can get those down, all that's left is to find opportunity to attack.

try going for Athena’s dash. Helped me learn him a lot, slow me down because I had the deflection, and now he’s swiss cheese. You got this!!

Trial and error. You just have to learn his patterns for the spin, rush and throw and know when to dash away. Also skull explosions can be dashed through.

A bit obvious, but do make sure you're packing Athena's dash when you face him. Also, try to face him in the later areas.

But all bosses do that.. I mean, hades is the same battle over and over again as well.. But i have zero problems beating him

I would say just keep practicing so eventually you can easily memorize his attack pattern. Also just always stay far the fuck away from him if possible. He seemingly swings that long ass oar outta nowhere and that's what used to get me the most.

He isnt as bad once you get his pattern

The duality of Hades players

is it the melee attack? I just dash through him when he does it.

gives you the best chance of avoiding the hurtbox and he can't do a full 180 degree turn before he's forced to do it again.

This is good advice if you know you'll win, but OP's struggling to beat him, so it makes sense for him to wait.

The first three links should be what you need to get past Redacted. The rest are for after you beat him and unlock the pact of punishment.

Leereamsnyder’s Hades 1 Build Guide!

Widely considered the Hades 1 Bible(jokingly but for good reasons). It is one of, if not the best Hades 1 guide out there.

Here is an old comment of mine going over the mirror options and my opinion on them in extensive detail.

YT: Hades 1 Boss fights guide.

YT: Haelian’s O to 32 Heat Guide. This video explains the Pact Of Punishment, really well in the first few minutes of the video.

YT: Haelian analyzes player data to determine how to beat 32 Heat.

Banana’s 32 Heat Guide. Banana’s guide has a section on working your way up to 32 Heat so it’s still useful even at low Heat.

Leereamsnyder on clearing 32 Heat W/ All Aspects.

Leereamsnyder on how to handle Tight Dead Line.

How to unlock all hidden weapon aspects in Hades 1

Have you tried turning God Mode on?

so i did not turn on god mode as when i look it up it felt like cheating but i did beat him thanks guys

Poseidon dash

Your health is a resource, don’t be afraid to use it. 

Consider the number of hits per button press. The more hits that come out, the more effective on-hit damage effects are (like Poseidon on the bow’s special, or Zeus attack on the rail). Attacks that have a higher base damage benefit more from percentage based increases. Like the shield’s charged attack, for instance. Put Aphrodite on the shield’s attack and it will almost single handedly carry you through the first three areas. 

Also on the shield - you can predict REDACTED’s attacks are going to come because there’s always a buffer between when he ends an attack and when he selects a new one. You can hold attack with the shield to block, fully mitigating the damage, then use the window of opportunity to nail some damage. 

Artemis has synergy with damn near every single other god, so if you are getting to Elysium and haven’t seen her yet, swap to her trinket at the end of asphodel and pick up some of her boons. Pressure Points specifically can be difference maker, as critical hits do TRIPLE damage. 

If you aren’t certain about weapons, give the Rail a try. Zeus or Poseidon on attack, Artemis on special, Dionysus on cast for the stun. Lob bombs and if you get any hammers, look for rocket bomb and spread bomb. Those two go crazy together. 

And don’t be afraid to change up your keybinds to make the game more ergonomic to play - I play on my keyboard and mouse on computer and moved my cast button and it made the game a much more pleasant experience. 

Hope you get it! Good luck! 

It’s possible, but as others have mentioned it is extremely difficult.

To elaborate a little bit, first you straight up need to be great at the game. While hades is not exactly the highest skill cap game, you need to know the fights inside and out and be ready to be flexible as you don’t get to pick your boons.

This is the easy part however.

Remember that max heat also disables the mirror, makes it so you can’t heal, buffs every boss, and has you on a strict timer - not to mention you have enemies buffed to hell and back with HP / damage / etc.

IMO the timer mixed with randomness of boons is really what makes the run challenging / impossible as you need your random boons to line up extremely well to even make a run possible, then you need to play perfectly.

Man and here I thought I was a badass for beating 36 heat!

Max heat runs are extremely dependent on getting the exact correct RNG. It's possible, but really rare and difficult.

Have a look at videos like this for more information: https://youtu.be/5L7_3MrG_08?si=6v8UCyW9h9N_LiEg

only 2 people on the world did it- you dont need to do any max heat run believe me

Sure there is. Mechanically and knowledge- wise, the game really isn’t that hard. Can everyone do a 64 heat run? No, not at all. However, I’d be willing to wager that anyone that can do 50 can do 64 with enough runs - as it is extremely rng dependent. Are the vast majority of those people willing to do the thousands of runs it’s going to take? Probably not.

I’d also be willing to bet that more than 2 people have beat 64 heat - those are just the two streaming / posting / trying for records.

Hiding behind a column during Hades tri-beam attack helps a lot. I didn't realize this until the umpteenth try. I suggest looking into this sub and scrolling through the rate this -insert good or goddess-boon column. It has helped me a lot with my builds and picking out which boons work the best.

Poms are also your friend when it comes to leveling up.

Just play Hades 2 its not like story telling game each run and nights have thier purpose

Congrats on doing this well on your first time playing the game! Getting to [Redacted] after so few attempts is pretty awesome, I definitely want able to do it that early my first time playing. Just remember that deaths progress the story, so you shouldn't feel bad about dying.

As for that attack, my strategy is to always hide behind the pillar that is further away from skulls. During phase 2.2, [Redacted] shoots out lasers in a full circle so you need to hide. Hope this helps, have fun!

I hang out by the pillars to make sure I can block the beams. I take my time too, if he’s not attacking me in phase 2 and there’s a lull, sometimes I just go to pillar instead of pressing the attack because he’s probably about to laser my ass. I don’t remember a 3rd phase though?

When he's charging up for his tri-beam, dash through him fron the front so that you immediately get behind him and dash from side to side while making sure you don't get hit. When he's doing his circular beam attack, you can get in the middle and "hug" him while hacking away. Phase 2 is easier than Phase 1 for me, especially when I have divine dash to dash through his green urns and trigger them so you get more space to move around. You don't have to worry about Phase 3 up until your first escape and unlock the Pacts of Punishment and turn on Extreme Measures (there's an extra unlockable you need to buy from the Contractor to enable Extreme Measures 4, which enables Phase 3). Only turn on Extreme Measures 4 when you consistently kill normal Hades with minimal damage and/or not losing defiances, which in my experience would still not be enough until you get a few runs of EM4 (it's really hard and I only turn it on for heat 20 runs, but not on heat 32).

AHHHH Congrats! This is exactly how mine went, haha. AND I play in God Mode 🥹🥹🥹 enjoy that last Skelly statue!

Well done, its a great feeling isn’t it.

No victory or first achievement posts or screenshots.

Of course it feels great when finally defeating [REDACTED], beating xx heat, unlocking something or earning an achievement. But consider if even 0.1% of users of this sub posted these experiences it would be a flood of low value content. These are not "obligatory" posts.

You can share that sort of content on the official Supergiant Games Discord server in the #hades-victory-boasting and #hades2-victory-boasting channels.

I think its part skill issue and the bosses being a bit too strong. The strategies that we used for their previous forms don't work as great with them like rushing Unrivaled Prometheus would just kill you ASAP. My tips would be to plan your run knowing what you're up against and use all the broken things at your disposal (scorch is bonkers now) Good luck!

Make sure you have upgraded all the arcana cards and your weapon aspects and keepsakes - that's your baseline

Then make sure you have a build in mind when starting a run and try to aim for it.

And then it's just pure skill and learning boss moves.

Aside from the more specific advice folks have given: Be patient with yourself and give yourself some grace with the learning curve.

It's easy to forget a year into EA, but we all struggled with the bosses in their Rival-Free form for the first few weeks after they were initially released as well. While the identity of the bosses themselves are largely unchanged in their rivaled form, in terms of attack patterns and strategies you're basically looking at 8 new bosses to learn at once.

It's going to take time to memorize and adapt your play style accordingly, let alone doing so on a consistent basis. And honestly, that's not an indictment of player skill or even boss difficulty - it's just the reality of having effectively doubled the boss pool AND having done so all at once instead of staggering them across multiple updates like they did with the Surface bosses.

Give yourself time to learn and practice without getting to frustrated by a self imposed timeline of when you 'should' have it down by. It's a LOT to take in at once, give yourself some grace and keep your head clear enough that it's more likely to stick.

Polyphemus : Play patiently, keep distance between you and the boss, and only rush in when you know it's safe. Also, Medea only has a few patterns, you'll get used to them over time

Eris : Stay close and play aggressively, go behind her when she prepares her laser. Try to pop the bombs with your attacks during her phase transitions.

Hecate : When she activates dark side, you can get a couple hits in but you need to get away quickly or you'll get hit by her attack spam. It can deal a ton of damage if you're not careful, definitely her most dangerous move.

Scylla : There's a lot going on, but staying mobile will naturally make you evade a lot of the projectiles. You can kinda run laps around the arena and hit whatever is close.

My only gripe is for Rivals 3 Underworld, like how can you even dodge or block in the first stage alone

Welcome! As a lover of this particular brand of progressive challenge, story, and fantastical build-craft, I personally couldn't be happier with hades 2.

It's been a while, but before I unlocked weapon aspects i found focusing on gods with chunky damage like Hephaestus and Zeus along with a freeze from demeter to be the most fun.

Welcome to the geeking out!

Take your time and explore different options, different paths. Unlocking certain dialogue triggers and story progression requires certain things to happen. Even just reaching the boss of a Region will trigger things. Talk to everyone you can who has a ! above their head. Skip nothing.

Make use of the Forget-Me-Not once you have it; it will make your life so much easier finding resources.

Change up your farming focus every now and again. I don't mean some mechanical focus (you used to be able to prioritize tools, but that just changed), I mean opting whether you want to go hard on a bunch of Psyche to level your Grasp, or Ash to unlock Arcana or other things, and so on. Gives a refreshing change of pace as you work to unlock things.

Get Nectar when you can. Every character that you can give Nectar to, give exactly 1 and no more until you've given just about every character 1 Nectar. This goes for Boon-giver gods especially. You may have figured this out already, but it's how you get Keepsakes, and you want to get them ASAP so you have them for runs.

Enjoy the story and dialogue. The gameplay is very fun, but half the draw of the Hades series is the story. If you played Hades 1, you'll know what I mean.

Lastly, take the time to learn enemy attack patterns and how to not take damage. It's a rougelite, damage has a habit of sticking. You don't have a timer.

Death to Chronos!

So, Boss1 shows you, that you take a huge amount of damage from all attacks, which means dodging and keeping distance is a valid and good strategy. Later on some skills let you regenerate health, but thats rare.

Boss 2 throws different dangers together, one on their own is very predictable, but 2 or even 3 is much to calculate with.

Boss 3 is a check if you are skilled enough to endurance a very long fight, as you have to run around a lot with distance weapons (meele is another thing), then it is dancing before and behind him (much easiert than with all overworld bosses, but also doable there)

Or if you do unholy amounts of damage, just throw all attacks out at once.

Sad thing with all bosses except Underworld 2 is, you cannot stack Burn on them, as they have either several phases or just have ways to loose/heal the burn.

Be sure to check the cauldron and swap tools every now and again. Every now and again it's good to do a run with the sole focus of gathering materials as some incantations are game changing.

When you're able to get companions Frinos can block the first bosses morph attack.

Also make sure you're giving 1 nectar to all characters you can. Not sure if you're new to hades in general but in the first game I didn't do this until beating REDACTED a few times thinking nectar was needed for something else.

Edit almost forgot you can level your Arcana and grasp. Early builds of Hades 2 it was hard to tell where to go to do so and IK many people didn't know how to do so for a week or so

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