Best Hades Sword Aspect TIER LIST
Wondering what the best Hades sword aspect is? This Hades Sword Aspect Guide is the guide for you. Best Hades Sword Aspects broken down & reviewed!
If you’re playing the wonderful new aRPG Hades, you’re going to want to learn everything you can about the various weapon aspects so you can know which weapons you want to focus on leveling up with your Titan Blood.
This Hades Sword Aspect Guide will cover all of the Hades Sword Aspects that are available so you can know the pros and cons of each one.
Best Hades Aspects Tier Lists
Sword – Spear – Shield – Bow – Fist – Rail
Hades is fairly well-balanced, so keep in mind while you’re reading through this list that some weapons may simply fit certain builds or playstyles better. Even if there is a weapon that’s generally better than the others, another weapon may be better for you. That’s why I’m putting a big focus in breaking down the pros, cons and potential build synergies for each of the Hades Sword Aspects.
Without further ado, here is the Best Hades Sword Aspect Guide.
S Tier – Best Hades Sword Aspects
In general I wouldn’t say any of the swords in Hades fit into S Tier. The general moveset for swords is very middle-of-the-road well-balanced. In terms of strength, speed, range and hitstun they’re pretty much in the middle of the pack in every category.
Their hammer upgrades aren’t particularly compelling either. For most builds, the hammer upgrades, apart from the generically useful attack speed bonus, don’t add very much to the efficacy of the weapon at all. So, nothing in S Tier when it comes to Hades Sword Aspects.
A Tier – Best Hades Sword Aspects
Aspect of Poseidon
This list is going to be pretty controversial, I think, because it goes against the conventional wisdom you see on the internet right now. I think Aspect of Poseidon is the best of the Hades Sword Aspects simply because it’s the go-to weapon for a casting build. Its competitors are less the other swords and more Aspect of Hera and Aspect of Beowulf, the casting-focused bow and shield.
Hera and Beowulf are both somewhat clunky in terms of gameplay, whereas the Aspect of Poseidon simply provides an immense amount of bonus spell-damage and a special ability that provides insane bonus damage when combined with Artemis’s Exit Wounds boon, which deals damage whenever shards are dislodged from enemies.
For that reason, Artemis is probably the best overall casting boon for the Aspect of Poseidon due to her spell inflicting shards and her legendary providing bonus shards. Poseidon’s own spell, which also inflicts shards, would be the runner-up. Either way, you’re going to want to be looking out for Exit Wounds and Fully Loaded from Artemis, Mirage Shot from Artemis/Poseidon and Blizzard Shot from Poseidon/Demeter if you went with Flood Shot instead of True Shot.
Of course, Hunting Blades is a perfectly viable casting build as well, and arguably better, though it doesn’t make use of the synergy with Exit Wounds that Aspect of Poseidon provides.
If you manage to get the full Artemis build together (or, really, any of the major casting builds), you can chunk off bosses in a matter of seconds, including Hades.
B Tier – Best Hades Sword Aspects
Aspect of Arthur
What makes Arthur good among the Hades Sword Aspects is not only that it gives additional survivability, but that its base damage is extremely high. That makes it pair well with any of the attack boons that increase damage by a percentage, such as Athena, Poseidon and Artemis. It’s a great candidate for the standard Aphrodite/Artemis build using Heart Rend. Activate Weak by getting Aphrodite’s special flourish, and then blast away with Artemis’s attack for big crits that approach 1000+ damage.
However, if you don’t mind losing out on a little bit of damage, I actually prefer Athena/Aphrodite, because the combined damage reduction of Aphrodite’s weak status effects and Athena’s various deflection and damage reduction skills pairs well with Aspect of Arthur to double-down on its tankiness so you can go toe-to-toe with Hades or any other boss and just man-fight them to death.
Athena’s attack boon performs nicely on Aspect of Arthur as well since the arc of its swings is so wide and meaty.
One thing you want to keep in mind with this weapon is that you can work around its slowness by incorporating dashes into your attack pattern. If you dash while Zagreus is revving up the attack animation for one of the big swords in the second and third hit of his combo, you’ll get the invincibility frames of the dash and then the hit will come out immediately when the dash ends.
Aspect of Zagreus
Another controversial pick, as most people would consider Aspect of Nemesis to be better than Aspect of Zagreus, since its damage potential is so much higher.
I put Aspect of Zagreus in B-Tier for one reason and one reason only. If you grab Athena’s attack and dash and manage to pick up the attack speed hammer, the lifesteal hammer, and the attack speed boon from Hermes, you can pretty much faceroll the rest of your run by just mashing attack and healing through all the damage you’d potentially take.
Even on high heat, if you get the lifesteal and even one of the attack speed upgrades, you’re basically unstoppable. With both attack speed boons and the innate bonus from the weapon, your attack speed becomes comically fast. Athena is not necessary if you’re avoiding even a little bit of damage. You could use some other attack boon if you like, but with Athena you pretty much don’t even have to pretend to try. Just mash the attack button from beginning to end. Between the lifesteal, the attack speed and the deflection, there’s pretty much zero risk of death.
It isn’t terribly difficult or uncommon to get most, if not all, of the necessary boons to make this weapon and instant win and while Nemesis can execute the same build with more damage, it doesn’t synergize quite as well since its attack speed is lower and you have to interrupt your constant healing by regularly making use of its special skill.
C Tier – Best Hades Sword Aspects
Aspect of Nemesis
Nemesis has a nice bonus that dramatically increases damage, but I feel the gameplay style that it encourages isn’t particularly powerful, mostly because 3 seconds is only about long enough for one attack string. That means you have to do special-attack-attack-attack and repeat that for every single attack string.
It’s tailor made for the typical Aphrodite special/Artemis attack combo, which also encourages you to start off combos with a special attack. With that, you’ll be critting roughly half the time and the damage is pretty impressive. Still, while that’s probably the best thing to do with this aspect, it’s not the best thing to do with a sword.
Even when all the stars align, this combo doesn’t feel as broken or OP as the craziness you can achieve with an Aspect of Poseidon casting build that melts bosses in 3-5 seconds, a tanking Aspect of Arthur build that takes no damage or an Aspect of Zagreus lightspeed rocket lifesteal build that recklessly slaps enemies around from beginning to end.
For that reason, I have to rank the Aspect of Nemesis at the bottom among the Hades sword aspects. Still, that’s C Tier. C Tier’s not bad.
That about covers it when it comes to the best Hades sword aspects. Be sure to check out more Hades Game Guides, check out the Main Page for everything the site has to offer and click here to subscribe to my new Bright Rock Media YouTube channel where I’m posting game reviews, site updates and occasionally some other types of content.
