Best Hades Gods TIER LIST
Wondering which Hades gods are the best ones to shoot for? This Best Hades Gods Tier List will give you a rundown on all the different gods available in Hades.
If you’re playing the wonderful new aRPG Hades, you’re going to want to learn everything you can about the various Hades gods so you can know which ones to be on the look out for and which ones fit well with which weapons.
Hades is a fairly balanced game and most of the gods have at least one weapon aspect that suits them. Additionally, each of the gods have interesting duo boons, abilities that require two different gods to activate, which increases their utility, even if they’re not going to be your main focus.
For example, I’m going to rate Dionysus as a fairly low tier god, but if you’re using the Aspect of Chaos shield or the Aspect of Hera bow, Dionysus is going to be your god of choice for sure.
For those reasons, this tier list is going to be focused on explaining the pros and cons of each god and when they’re useful. The universality of their usefulness is going to be a major factor in whether or not I rank a god high tier. If a god is almost always an excellent choice, it’s more likely to be high tier, whereas if one of the Hades gods is situationally useful, it’s going to be lower tier. Of course, some gods are just generally weaker than others as well.
With all that out of the way, here is the Best Hades Gods Tier List.
S Tier – Best Hades Gods
Artemis
Artemis is similar to Zeus in that she’s generally a welcome sight even if you’re not using her as your main god, whether you’re doing a physically focused build, thanks to her Pressure Points boon, or a casting build thanks to her Exit Wounds and Fully Loaded boons.
Apart from that, there are a lot of weapons that favor Artemis as a first or second choice god. Aspect of Hestia, most bows, several casting weapons. She’s core to two of the most easily accessible broken builds in the game: Hunting Blades (duo boon with Ares) and Heart Rend (duo boon with Aphrodite).
Almost every weapon that has a mechanic that encourages you to alternate between a special attack and a normal attack will be made infinitely stronger by picking up Heart Rend.
When push comes to shove, when you’re trying to figure out the best build for a particular weapon aspect, it turns out to be Artemis or at least to include Artemis about 40%-50% of the time.
The main drawback to Artemis, or a reason why you might choose to focus on someone else, is that her attack multiplier isn’t very high, so on some weapons, especially slower ones, it oftentimes makes more sense to use a god with a higher multiplier like Poseidon or Athena.
Artemis is not always the best of the Hades gods, but she tends to be the best more often than the other Hades gods.
Zeus
Zeus isn’t always the best choice among the Hades gods, but he’s generally a solid option on almost every weapon. The rule of thumb is that if the weapon aspect you’re using has high attack speed, Zeus is a good choice. If you’re using the Rail with any aspect except Hestia, Zeus is going to be your god of choice. Otherwise, he’s usually not the first choice, but he’s almost never a bad choice. He’s decent on most swords, he’s pretty good on the shield special.
More than that, he’s usually a pretty decent second choice for most builds, since he offers great duo boons. If you’re using a slow weapon that might favor Poseidon, you’ll be happy to see Zeus for the opportunity to unlock their duo boon. Likewise, if you’re doing a Dionysus focused casting build, you’ll be on the lookout for Zeus.
Just, generally, you’ll find as you play the game that you’re almost never disappointed to get a Zeus boon. This doesn’t mean Zeus is far and away more powerful than the other Hades gods, just that he’s generally a welcome power-up.
A Tier – Best Hades Gods
Ares
Ares is another god that’s almost always a welcome sight, as he provides from universal damage increases. Aside from that, his Slicing Shot spell boon is incredible, especially if you get any of its upgrades, and if you get all of its upgrades, it’s inarguably the best spell in the game.
His spell sends out a spinning blade that slowly moves around the battlefield, repeatedly dealing damage. It upgrades to have a huge increased area of effect, to drag enemies along with it, to increase its damage with every hit, and to speed up and home in on enemies (this is the aforementioned Hunting Blades duo boon). If you manage to get all that, congratulations, you won the game.
His attack and special boons are no slouch either, as they inflict an extremely high damage status effect called Doom that deals a single tick of very high damage after a few seconds. If paired with Athena, you can make Doom deal its damage instantly as soon as it’s applied (the easiest way to do this is by spamming dash attacks with Ares attack and Athena dash) and that’s among the most broken, most extreme ways to most enemies instantly and take bosses from full to zero in just a few seconds.
The reason he’s not S Tier is that he’s a little more high risk high reward than Artemis or Zeus. If you go for a Slicing Shot build but you never get Hunting Blades or Engulfing Vortex, instead of being unstoppable, you’re going to be pretty milquetoast. Likewise, unless you get the Athena duo boon, since Doom doesn’t benefit from attack speed, it’s usually just a nice secondary effect for weapons that have a single-hit move they use only sometimes, like the Rail special or the shield’s Bull Rush.
Nevertheless, Ares is still among the best of the best when it comes to Hades gods.
B Tier – Best Hades Gods
Poseidon
Poseidon is an interesting god. His percentage damage bonuses are really high for both his special flourish and his attack boon, and they also knock enemies back. On top of that, he gets a variety of buffs to his knockback skills to makes them just downright execute normal enemies.
With Poseidon’s power-ups, when you hit a normal enemy against a wall or another enemy, it bounces around like a pinball and rapidly dies. So Poseidon excels at clearing rooms, and he’s probably one of the best for taking down high health armored enemies.
If you’re using a build focusing on the spear special, the fist special, or to a lesser degree the shield normal attack, Poseidon tends to be a great choice if not the best choice. He also has a great duo boon with Zeus where lightning strikes alongside his attacks, making his boons basically a combination of Zeus and Poseidon, since the bolts are affected all the Zeus lightning bolt power-ups.
The problem with Poseidon is he’s not good for taking down bosses, since bosses are either immune or heavily resistant to knockbacks. He’s not horrible, since his raw damage bonus is so high, but all that fun pinball execution stuff doesn’t apply to bosses at all.
For that reason he’s really best with medium speed or slow speed attacks that really take advantage of the big damage boost. The Guan Yu spear special attack is a good example.
Among the Hades gods, Poseidon is pretty strong and offers a really fun playstyle, especially if you have one of the weapons that benefits from it.
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is a great secondary god, especially if your main god is Artemis. He helps with damage mitigation by inflicting a Weakness status effect that lowers enemy damage, as well as providing passive damage mitigation boons. She’s also a fantastic partner for Ares (although not as good as Athena), since their duo boon makes Doom effects never expire on weak enemies.
What you’ll usually find as you play the game is it’s nice to have the ability to inflict Weakness, usually via her special flourish, but you’ll often be avoiding putting her on your main attack, since you can apply Weakness in a variety of ways and there are stronger attack boons out there.
If her duo boon with Artemis wasn’t so good, she’d probably be a tier lower. More than anything else, her role among the Hades gods is she’s the secondary god you seek out when you’re maining Artemis on a physical damage focused build.
C Tier – Best Hades Gods
Dionysus
Dionysus has a few builds that really cater to his strengths, but if you’re not going for them, you’re not going to be terribly excited to see him as an option during your run. He inflicts a stacking damage over time curse called Hangover. Typically, for Dionysus, you need a fast attack that stacks the curse quickly, but is weak enough to not benefit more from Artemis’s critical hit chance.
Alternatively, he has a great casting spell, but it’s a lob mechanic which makes it slow and sometimes difficult to hit with unless you’re using the Aspect of Hera or the Aspect of Beowulf.
So there are a few options for Dionysus. His DoT works great on the Aspect of Chaos shield because the 5 shields can inflict max stacks of his DoT and they’re otherwise fairly weak as a direct damage option. That’s probably the best use of the Hangover ability.
And, if you’re going to be using Aspect of Hera or Beowulf, his spell is a great option, especially if you get the duo boon with Zeus that causes a lightning storm to go off inside it.
Outside of those two specific scenarios, which are really extremely powerful by the way and you should definitely try them, Dionysus is usually not your first, second, or even your third choice when it comes to boons.
Athena
Athena has almost undeniable the best dash boon in the game, which deflects enemy attacks and deals a small amount of damage. I can’t stress enough that deflect is incredible. The main problem with Athena is she’s usually a tertiary choice. You want that dash boon, and if you’re maining Ares, you want their duo boon, but other than that, all Athena offers is a handful of mediocre damage mitigation abilities.
Even if you’re going for the Ares/Athena duo boon, you only need to meet Athena once or twice to get the dash and either her flourish or attack and then you never need to see her again.
Basically, once you’ve gotten the one or two things from Athena, you’re going to choose any other god over her and only take her boons if it’s the only option available.
There are a few weapons where having Athena’s attack boon or flourish are really good, particularly the Aspect of Arthur sword or the Aspect of Zagreus sword if you’re using the lifesteal boon, but other than that, you’re not going to be actively seeking out Athena.
Not, overall, one of the most sought after Hades gods.
Hermes
Hermes is really more of a bonus god than anything else when it comes to Hades gods. His abilities are convenient, but for the most part they’re not game-changing. If it’s a choice between Hermes and your main or secondary god, definitely pass on Hermes. Hermes is generally a good choice if you’re choosing between no good options.
That said, some of the boons Hermes provides are pretty decent. He’ll power you up no matter what build you’re going for, whether via extra dashes, faster attack speed or decreasing spell cooldowns (if you’re using Stygian Soul).
Not of that is explicitly necessary, but it’s all pretty nice. For that reason, Hermes is almost never a priority among the Hades gods.
If you’re doing the Hunting Blades build, his Bad News legendary is a great addition to your OP-ness, because it drastically increases damage against enemies who don’t have blood shards stuck in them, and Hunting Blades doesn’t inflict blood shards.
D Tier – Best Hades Gods
Demeter
If Artemis and Zeus are generally good among the Hades gods, Demeter is generally not good. If you main Demeter, you’re going to have low damage, full-stop. She just doesn’t give very many damage bonuses. The only real damage increase she offers is Arctic Blast, which deals bonus damage when you get max Chill stacks on an enemy. The Rail is probably the best weapon for that build and it’s drastically weaker than a Zeus or Artemis focused Rail build.
The best thing about Demeter is her casting ability, which is probably the fourth best casting ability in the game, but it’s nice if you’re doing a physical build and just want a cast to drop down and deal some extra damage while you do other things. This is probably the main thing you’ll use Demeter for.
Aside from that, almost all of her skills revolve around inflicting the chill status in various ways and, frankly, chill doesn’t do that much. Let me give you two scenarios: you can chill every enemy on screen and watch them move slightly slower so you can dodge around them better as you slowly kill them, or you can get Ares, Artemis or Zeus and wipe out the entire screen in seconds. The choice is clear.
Like Athena, when you’re forced to take a Demeter boon, you can generally find something fairly useful the first few times, but you’re almost never going to choose her over any of the other Hades gods and you’re certainly not going to be seeking her out.
I mentioned at the start that Artemis is the best of the Hades gods for maybe 40%-50% of the weapons. Demeter is the best for 0% of them.
That about covers it when it comes to the best Hades gods tier list. 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.
