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Melinoë has her hands full in Hades 2: along together with her missions to the House of Hades and Olympus, the god Chaos has also decided to take interest in her and the conflict. The Pitch-Black Stone sits ominously in Melinoë’s training grounds.
The Trial of Blood is one in all the harder of Chaos’ trials, rating in at five out of 5… eyes? It challenges Melinoë with the duty of traversing the Rift of Thessaly and besting the goddess of Strife, Eris, with the Sister Blades, the White Antler, and a cat. The initial loadout for the Trial of Blood can get a bit complicated, and also you’ve still got some ship-hopping to do.
What Is The Loadout?
For the Trial of Blood, crucial features you begin with are the weapon, its Aspect, and the Keepsake. Those are the Sister Blades within the Aspect of Artemis, and the White Antler. You will not have the opportunity to try the Trial of Blood until you unlock all three of this stuff.
The Sister Blades are quick and mobile. The Aspect of Artemis gives you a Parry and Riposte: when Channeling your Omega Attack, you will have a likelihood to Parry, stopping damage from most kinds of direct attacks, then Riposte, making you Impervious for pme Sec and giving your next nine strikes a +50 percent Critical likelihood.
Artemis’ keepsake, the White Antler, also increases your Critical likelihood, starting at +20 percent and increasing as you upgrade the keepsake. It also sets your Maximum Life to 30. When it’s possible to start out a run with 100 Life, 30 is sort of the downgrade.
While Chaos’ trials dictate which weapon, aspect, keepsake, Boons, Arcana, and familiars you begin with, any upgrades you make to Melinoë and her tools and companions will carry into the Pitch-Black Stone. Similarly, encounters within the Pitch-Black Stone apply towards upgrading your keepsakes.
Some Trials also offer you a particular Familiar, Arcana, and Boons to start out out with. Here, you will have the cat, Toula! While she does have a pleasant attack, for this trial, she brings to the table a single Death Defiance. Once you only have 30 Life, it’s a worthwhile one.
Your Chaos-made Arcana spread consists of only two cards: The Lovers and Strength. The Lovers gives you one instance of injury resistance in Guardian Encounters. Within the Rift of Thessaly, this may likely just be Eris, though there may be a likelihood of encountering Charybdis as well.
The heavy lifter here is Strength. This card gives you a damage reduction and a +25 percent damage dealt so long as you will have no Death Defiance effects. You can theoretically pop your Death Defiance early and deliberately to be able to get that damage boost, but since Toula’s Defiance only restores 10 Life, you are more more likely to put yourself at an obstacle. Higher to save lots of Strength for when that Death Defiance goes naturally.
What Are The Trial’s Boons?
You begin out with a handful of Boons from Artemis, Aphrodite, and Poseidon, meaning you’ll likely only see Aphrodite and Poseidon throughout the Rift of Thessaly.
Flutter Strike, from Aphrodite, gives your attacks an additional +120 percent damage against nearby foes. Glamour Gain inflicts her special condition, Weak, on nearby foes, and enables you to regularly restore Magick when any nearby foe is Weak. Finally, Broken Resolve makes your Weak effects stronger.
Weak foes deal less damage.
Poseidon’s Heroic Boon, Flood Control, reduces any damage you’re taking by five, but Primes 30 Magick. The Sister Blades aren’t a brilliant Magick-dependant weapon, so this likely won’t cause much of a problem, especially with Aphrodite’s Glamour Gain.
Finally, your Boon from Artemis is First Blood. Any foes with at the least 80 percent Life or Armor may take Critical damage, increasing your likelihood by 30 percent.
Into The Rift
The Trial of Blood is simple if you happen to give it some thought. Just don’t get hit. Easy.
Really, though: damage reduction can only achieve this much. Especially once reaching Eris, whose attacks get stronger the more hurt she is, one attack could mean the top of a run. The Trial of Blood forces you to concentrate to each detail on the screen and stay ahead of all of it.
Artemis is here to enable you obliterate anyone in your path: every little thing she offers for this Trial increases your Critical likelihood, with some damage prevention thrown in for good measure. It’s very easy to kill most enemies in a success or three. It just becomes a matter of ensuring you hit first.
Boons In The Rift
You’ll likely just see Poseidon and Aphrodite within the Rift of Thessaly, but there’s also a likelihood of Hermes showing up. Plenty of what you select can be about finding what works best for you.
For instance, you may favor Poseidon’s knockback Boons, keeping distance between you and foes that would potentially hit you; or you may lean into the proximity features of Aphrodite’s, and forego those knockback abilities to maintain your enemies close and profit from Flutter Strike and Glamour Gain. You may try the Trials as often as you wish, so there’s no harm in some trial and error to seek out what works best for you. Within the meantime, though, some are almost all the time going to be easy picks.
Almost anything from Hermes is an excellent. Most are inclined to make you or your attacks faster, or make enemies slower.
- Nimble Mind: makes your Omega moves faster, minimizing the time where you’re at your most vulnerable (Channeling). Especially when the Aspect of Artemis is concentrated around your Omega Attack, speeding that up gives enemies less time to hit you while you’re slowed.
- Hard Goal: makes most foes’ ranged shots slower, and subsequently easier to see coming and avoid. It’s an underrated one, but plenty of enemies within the Rift of Thessaly have projectiles. It likely doesn’t work on Eris, but those pesky Sticklers and Blaskets pack a punch that you just’d do well to avoid.
- Nitro Boost: makes your Sprint 15 percent faster and offers you a barrier that ignores instances of injury, the quantity of hits blocked depending on the rarity of the Boon. That increased speed does wonders for avoiding Eris’ gunfire, and this damage barrier works in every encounter, not only Guardian ones, just like the Lovers card.
Aphrodite’s Boons are largely focused on dealing more damage and taking less damage. They have an inclination to be a bit bit less flashy, but are almost all the time a superb option. Just be careful for Life Affirmation—it makes any Max Life rewards stronger, which won’t enable you here.
- Shameless Attitude: it gives you a blanket damage bonus, but doubles the bonus if you will have at the least 80 percent Life. Anything to enable you kill enemies before they kill you’ll go a great distance, and if you happen to can keep your health up, all the higher.
- Healthy Rebound: heals you to 100 perrcent Life each time you exit a Location, provided you haven’t lost an excessive amount of Life—you would like minimum 80 percent for this to kick in. This requires you to first have Shameless Attitude.
- Sweet Give up: Weak-afflicted foes take more damage. This one requires either Rapture Ring, Passion Rush, or Glamour Gain, but luckily you begin with Glamour Gain. Rapture Ring or Passion Rush will help spread Weak around some more, in order that they’re still good grabs.
Poseidon has plenty of knockback abilities, which help offer you room to breathe when surrounded by enemies.
- Wave Flourish or Tidal Ring: A ranged Special with knockback from Wave Flourish pushes far targets even further, and Tidal Ring adds extra damage to your Solid. Tidal Ring could later be combined with Geyser Spout so as to add knockback.
- Island Getaway: Poseidon’s Duo Boon with Aphrodite gives you 15 percent Damage Resistance from nearby foes, and makes it so Boons of Aphrodite treat all foes as nearby—which pairs incredibly with Flutter Strike and Glamour Gain. You have already got Flutter Strike from Aphrodite for Island Getaway’s prerequisites, and from Poseidon you would like one in all Wave Strike, Wave Flourish, Tidal Ring, Breaker Sprint, or Fluid Gain. It may be a tad harder to nab, but when possible, is totally value it.
Daedalus Hammers
Since your starting Boons are geared towards close combat, if you happen to occur upon a Daedalus Hammer, it’s best to stay towards ones that upgrade your Attacks, though there are some exceptions.
- Explosive Ambush: Your Omega Attack deals 400 percent damage in a wider area, but uses +20 Magick. This pairs well with the Aspect of Artemis, but regulate your Magick limit.
- Skulking Onslaught: Makes your Attacks deal +150 percent damage when striking foes from behind. It will promote good habits: getting behind enemies will each increase your damage, and reduce your likelihood of being hit, as typically enemies need to be facing you.
- Melting Sickle: Your Special destroys 50 percent of any Armor, based on the full. That is the exception! In case you can whittle down an enemy’s armor from a distance, it makes ending them off much easier.
How To Defeat Eris
The strategy is straightforward: hit others before they hit you. The execution, a bit harder.
Eris is trouble. She’s got a gun, she’s having an excellent time, and also you only have 30 Life.
- Keep behind her: Plenty of her attacks show their path before she fires, and if you happen to’re fast enough, you’ll be able to get behind her or cover. Boons might help, but it surely’s also plenty possible without divine intervention. Close combat works well against Eris, because it makes it so much easier to slide behind her. She will only shoot in a single direction. Do not be in that direction.
- Kill the minions: She’ll summon little guys throughout the fight to assist her. They’re annoying and get in the way in which, and if you happen to’re focused on Eris and ignoring them, you are way more more likely to get hit. With Artemis’ criticals, they need to die easily–get them out of the way in which.
- Hit her!: Rise up close and private with the goddess of Strife! Make use of the Aspect of Artemis’ Omega Attack, and rack up those critical hits.
It’s tremendous if it takes practice. You are just killing a while, in spite of everything.
