Ananke's Fists Guide

Flawless Fists

v.2.1

Please use the document outline on the left.

Foreword

This guide assumes you have a basic level of knowledge about speedrunning Hades in general, so that we can move onto Fists specifics. For those fresh to the scene, I recommend checking out the Hades Guide Compendium by perfectengrish first, and particularly the basic video guide by SleepSoul, but the community Discord is perhaps the most useful resource of all. Fists speedrunner HeckMayster made a Demeter speedrunning video guide, offering an example run with commentary.

Moreover, this is specifically a speedrunning guide, and assumes you’re playing Any (9) Heat. If high (≈40+ Heat) is your goal, know that this guide is not designed for that style of play. If you want something more general-purpose for the game as a whole, consider also this guide by Lee Reamsnyder.

Why Fists?

If you’re reading this guide, you’ve probably found something you like about the Fists and want to get a little more serious about them, or maybe you just want to optimise your play. That’s great! Many of us in the “Fists gang” are so dedicated because the weapon has fun and smooth movement. Owing to the Merciful End build, they have a welcoming “easy to learn, hard to master” curve, with nuance that feels true to the weapon. I put a lot into this guide so that there’s hopefully something for everyone, whether new or experienced.

For those newcomers, a very important preface is this: just like the Sword, the Fists are not a strong weapon overall. And Gilgamesh stands among the hardest Aspects to speedrun altogether. Knowing that, the Fists are fortunately still highly capable. In modded terms, numerous runners have achieved sub-6 IGT with its Aspects, and the strongest Aspect Demeter has reached sub-13 RTA (Real Time (Attack)). Demeter in particular is clearly a strong and capable weapon, albeit less reliable than the most traditionally effective group of “top tiers” such as Achilles, Beowulf, Hera, Hestia and Eris.

Perhaps the most crucial information of all is simply that this weapon demands heavy grinding. The infamous Duo Boon, Merciful End, is the cause, for which Fists are a very synergetic vehicle (more on that later). Athena rarely plays nice, and Hermes is always a troublemaker. There’s a healthy mantra for speedrunning Hades, the game which literally puts you in hell, a Sisyphean toil to escape the pits of Tartarus: che sara, sara. Whatever will be, will be. Try to settle into the grind comfortably according to your preferences. I’ve always found the Fists very fun to try and optimise: distinctive and uniquely challenging, if a bit homogenous among its own Aspects. Throw aside the fancy armaments and beat the shit out of your foes with your own two hands. Make Grandma proud.

Category / Format Notes

Additionally, it should be said that Fists are absolutely a single run weapon. They tend to fare poorly in multiwep categories, often placed first in All Weapons for resetting, since Merciful End is so inconsistent. Finding Athena in Tartarus is the classic make-or-break factor, and it comes alongside Curse of Agony rarity, then getting the right Athena cores, getting ME (while running God’s Pride) and decent Hermes boons. You want to be able to reset more so than other weapons.

Arguably, Fists are also inherently more of an IGT than RTA weapon. On top of your core build requiring numerous boons (thus menu screens which take time to view) for which rerolling is often necessary, you additionally want lots of Pomegranates of Power for Curse of Agony and Impending Doom. This is only really a “peak optimisation” problem, but the principle is there and it does matter.

Who are you, by the way?

I’m Ananke, an English Hades speedrunner. I’ve held a couple world records in my time, and I started my speedrunning journey with the Demeter Fists and Eris Rail. As of 2025, I hold both unmodded and modded world records for Demeter (5:38, 5:04) and Zagfists (6:23, 5:34), and I hope to reclaim the Talos WR someday! Check out my YouTube or Twitch if you feel like it.

Common Concepts

Starter Summary

(From now on I’ll usually refer to Curse of Agony as “Doom attack” or just “Doom”, Merciful End as just “ME”, and Pomegranate of Power as “pom”.)

In Tartarus you start with Ares’ keepsake, preferably get Epic Curse of Agony (A.K.A. Doom attack) and eventually put about 4-6 poms into it. Your first hammer is ideally Breaching Cross, which helps you shred armour throughout the run. In Tartarus you find Athena and hopefully get her Special first to unlock ME. You’d then like to see another Ares or Athena to get ME for the Furies fight, since Attack into Dash-Upper procs (=activations) are still effective, but this is uncommon on a good pace. You might end up with a Cast to fill the core slot and deal extra damage; make sure it doesn’t activate any other Duo Boons. You also need Athena’s Divine Dash, and the sooner the better.

For Asphodel you usually take Athena’s keepsake to grab ME or whatever boon you’re missing. If it’s already assembled, Zeus and Artemis are your other best friends. The full build enables you to dash through enemies whilst attacking them, which is the goal of most ME builds: to proc Doom much faster with Deflects from Divine Dash. From Hermes you either want Greatest Reflex (bonus dashes) for more procs, or Hyper Sprint into Rush Delivery for a huge damage boost. Impending Doom from Ares is your other biggest damage scaling, which you really want no later than early Elysium to keep up with enemy health, and also because it wants for poms too.

At Elysium you should start thinking about your Call slot. If you already have Greatest Reflex for bonus dashes, then Sigil of the Dead for Hades’ Aid is great. If you already have ‘Hyper Delivery’, then you prefer to get Zeus’ Aid. Taking a Call before you’re done with Hermes worsens your chances by adding more undesirable boons to his pool, so avoid Calls until then.

By Hades you hope to be hitting big Doom damage numbers as you dash through him, supported by Specials, crits and/or Zeus bolts, dodging his attacks to maintain High Confidence for as long as possible… till you win or your health runs out! That’s the basic gameplan summarised for every Aspect of the Fists. Watching a run naturally helps to see all that in action. Some quick and universal Fists tips:

• Take advantage of your whole kit before you get ME. Though Epic Doom with its 100 Damage does a lot compared to your basic kit, it still takes time (1.1 seconds) to activate. Your other attacks can often do the job faster than that, especially to the frailest foes. See also:
• Don’t neglect your Casts! The basic “Zagreus” Cast is a quick-animation projectile that deals 50 Damage, and that is inherently useful early in your run. You can also dash while you’re aiming it. Throw it ahead of your dashes, weave it into your attacks, use it to gain a small damage boost from Boiling Blood, finish off a foe who’s just outside your reach, or lob it to kill that last enemy across the room… countless reasons to love Bloodstones.

• Think about your Obols and don’t spend them carelessly. You need quite a lot of boons just to set up your core build, and you want a good number of poms on top of that. Gold pots are all the more relevant over the run. Missing an Ares, Athena or Hermes can be devastating.

• Never stand still for long. Mobility is everything, which is why I made another section for it later. Dashes are typically your fastest way to move around, but are also essential to your ME damage combo. You should really only stop moving if you’ve identified the best position to attack from.

• Divine Dash with intent. It doesn’t have a huge hitbox, so careless play can result in missed ME procs. You also don’t want to end up dashing away from the next enemy you’ve got to kill. Speed is distance over Time.

Why ME?

ME is inconsistent, but it’s also the best way the Fists can gain the damage scaling needed to go fast all the way to Hades. This all begins with the awareness that the Fists’ kit has low base damage numbers (detailed in the later Aspect sections). There is an explored alternative for Fists called ZAP, which stands for Zeus Artemis Poseidon: the same Lightning Strike, Deadly Flourish, and Tidal Dash build that was popularised on Eris, and became a staple in speedrunning. For Demeter this does make a good amount of sense: rapid chain lightning attacks leading to a strong 6 or 7-hit Special with Artemis crits, and strong supplementary damage from Tidal Dash, which also benefits from wall slams in Tartarus and Styx.

Ignoring the problem Tidal Dash has in Asphodel (you’re pushing foes away and there are barely any walls), the main reason Eris can run that build effectively is because of its self-buff, equivalent to a Rare Rush Delivery. Eris loves sources of flat damage with its inherent scaling… but even then, it still struggles to scale without something like Cluster Rockets. So it’s unsurprising that ZAP Fists is heavily reliant on RD to function. To be fair on the build, it can achieve decent results with the RD prerequisite: Static Discharge (Jolted) and Zeus’ Aid are always strong. However, it struggles to reach the same peaks that ME brings to many weaker weapons.

Mirror Malphon

Zagreus

Demeter

Talos

• Fiery Presence is one of the most important options here, a favourite for speedrunning on the majority of Aspects because it enables immediate ‘burst’ damage and one-shotting. For Fists, this gives your Dash-Strike and Dash-Upper a much-needed boost. You can’t give this up and don’t want to anyway; Shadow Presence is useless when your Pummel hits so lightly.
• Chthonic Vitality is standard in speedrunning as natural regeneration. Death Defiance likewise gives more lives, which is more health, which is a resource you trade for speed. Greatest Reflex means more general mobility and more dashes to proc ME with. Boiling Blood is the default in speedrunning to deal more damage, here mostly affecting your Special.
• Now room for variance. Infernal Soul is always the best choice on Zagfists and Talos: Zagfists lacks inherent strength in Tartarus without extra Casts, and Talos synergises with them directly. Demeter is strong enough that it can choose bonus Casts to better handle early chambers, or Stygian Soul to improve chances of a good Hermes boon (subtracting one from his pool). Casts are still crucial to your Tartarus gameplay as your only ranged option. I use Infernal.
• Deep Pockets gives you the early Obols to get your build going. The alternative scaling is too slow and, ironically, costly.
• High Confidence is the next most important damage bonus, encouraging you to avoid unnecessary damage as much as possible. This is very difficult on Fists, but +25% global damage is huge for optimisation, as it applies to your Doom as well. Alongside Fiery Presence, maintaining this is critical for hitting damage breakpoints for Tartarus enemies.
• Family Favourites is an interesting alternative to Privileged Status, which provides a fair bit more global damage against enemies with two status effects, since Doom is one such status curse. FF usually achieves +25% global damage on a four god pool plus Hermes, whilst PS is +40% static, either of which increases your Doom damage. The foremost problem is simply getting that second status curse. Athena’s Blinding Flash for the Exposed curse is the obvious second choice, but it’s a very unreliable strategy. Although it has priority as a status curse boon, the backstab effect is otherwise useless for you, you already need 2-3 specific Athena boons just to get your build online, and unlike FF you get zero bonuses until you have it.
• Dark Foresight is the preferred choice for speedrunning because gold laurel rewards (Obols, poms, boons, hammers) are far more desirable. Compared to a Rare boost from Olympian Favour, you prefer to get Epic boons anyhow.
• God’s Pride and God’s Legacy are often thought of as placebo Mirror Talents, but if we choose to believe they do anything, the former is always correct for Fists. You may be thinking that Legacy ought to be better if Merciful End is pivotal to the fundamental combo of the build. However, it’s the only Duo you truly need, and if your Doom attack and Hermes boons are Common instead of Epic, you won’t be dealing much damage anyway!

• The humorous maxim is “Just get ME”, but it’s also quite true. Unlike some other weapons with essential Duos (e.g. Beowulf and Mirage Shot), you don’t have the luxury of taking Legacy because you care significantly about Curse of Agony rarity. It’s nice when Pride also makes your supporting boons Epic, but as we reviewed, your very first and most important one needs it the most.

  ---

• Lastly, Fated Persuasion is the speedrunning go-to. Though you might dream about using Fated Authority to change gold laurel offerings into Athena boons, tragically the timer isn’t paused while you reroll doors, making it useless for speedrunning. And you still prefer rerolling offer menus: for the specific cores, for more chances at ME, for Hermes, for Impending, even for poms should you end up with some spare.

  Gilgamesh

• Gilgamesh is unique among Aspects for preferring Ruthless Reflex over Greatest Reflex. Within the speedrunning community, the only other Aspect we’ve associated RR with is Zeus Shield. Of course, Gilgamesh is also the only Aspect to have bonus dashes simply built into its kit! It’s a little awkward to activate, but +50% global damage is sizeable for your Doom if it triggers whilst you’re in the middle of an ME dash-combo-sequence, and you don’t really need another dash when you already start with three.
• Everything else is the same. Gilgamesh also enjoys Infernal Soul as a fast and effective damage option.

Best Boons

Core - Here’s your primary, essential boons of the ME build. Impending is placed afterwards to indicate that it’s not a priority until you have the rest, but its Doom damage scaling is always nice to have. It’s especially powerful once ME enables instant activation.

Hermes - Bonus dashes from Greatest Reflex means more Doom Procs between your Dash and Dash-Strike. The combo of Hyper Sprint and Rush Delivery can give you up to +100% global damage on every dash.

CASTS - These are the primary options. Filling the slot is valuable because ‘core boons’ (your Attack, Special, Cast, Dash and Call) are offered with priority. Fewer cases of this priority improves your chances of getting the boons you need, like  ME.

• Electric Shot bounces between enemies, great for wave-clear especially in Tartarus. It only enables Vengeful Mood if you have any revenge boon, which is rare, and you always appreciate Zeus in your god pool.
• True Shot from Artemis enables Deadly Reversal. This can make it harder to get ME, but it’s also very desirable for the plentiful critical hit chance. This scaling advantage for your build is usually worth the risk. The Cast itself has lots of range and does a bit of damage, but plenty more on a crit.
• Trippy Shot doesn’t enable any other Duos and gives you hefty extra damage, which you can fire before or between enemy waves/boss phases. Dionysus also has 3 unpommable boons in his pool, making this a reliable option.
• Phalanx Shot from Athena only enables Lightning Phalanx if you also have Zeus Call, which you should delay due to Hermes. It does decent damage and procs ME, but it’s generally less valuable than the other options.

CALLS - There are two key options: Hades’ Aid from Sigil of the Dead, or Zeus’ Aid.

• Hades’ Aid gives you +100% global damage for 1.5 seconds on use with half gauge, or for 5 seconds at max gauge. This is as powerful as it sounds, but comes with a caveat: if you have the Hyper Delivery combo, you won’t get both boosts at the same time (see my post in the speedrunning discord).
• Zeus’ Aid is therefore the best choice for Hyper Delivery builds, and all the more so because it offers another powerful source of damage.

Two boons that benefit from Calls stand out:

• Proud Bearing from Athena gives you immediate God Gauge for fast activation. Starting rooms with a charge of Hades’ Aid offers powerful burst damage, especially useful for the fast-paced Styx chambers.
• Billowing Strength from Zeus gives a reliable, large global damage buff that Doom loves, and is easily maintained in boss fights by using your Calls whenever available.

Crits - As aforementioned, True Shot is your ticket to the powerful Deadly Reversal.  Crits are a multiplicative source of damage: they don’t simply add onto the rest of your global damage increases, but instead multiply the result. This build already focuses on maximising a single number for damage, making crits an ideal choice. But no matter your Cast, Pressure Points and Hunter’s Mark are always effective additions to your build for the crits they provide.

Useful - While you want to minimise your build to the essentials, often you have to take whatever you get. A handful of boons from various gods are noteworthy:

• Heaven’s Vengeance from Zeus has great base damage, though you prefer to put poms in Doom. Beware that it can activate Vengeful Mood if you have Electric Shot or Zeus’ Aid.
• Support Fire from Artemis brings negligible damage beyond Tartarus, but importantly charges Calls quite rapidly.
• Dying Lament from Aphrodite is effective at clearing crowds of weak enemies, like Numbskulls in Tartarus and Flamewheels in Elysium.
• Snow Burst from Demeter is similarly useful, but activating alongside your Cast offers much more control. It serves as mild burst damage in Tartarus.

Talos - Thanks to its particular pull and bonus Cast damage, a specific build path synergises with Talos. Poseidon’s Flood Shot is potent against Tartarus enemies thanks to wall slams, and activates Curse of Drowning, which scales surprisingly well with global damage increases. Just beware that it does pose a risk to getting ME.

Unpommables - This category lists every boon that cannot receive pom upgrades, a surprisingly relevant detail to a build that wants all its poms in just two boons. I’ll highlight some of the best among these:

• Dionysus’ Premium Vintage is an extra pom hopefully for your Doom, with bonus health thrown in. This is among the most reliable boons to grab early on. Strong Drink is highly conditional global damage (and health restoration), but being unpommable makes it worry-free!
• Poseidon’s Boiling Point compensates your God Gauge a good amount whenever you take damage, which you do fairly often in speedrunning.
• Demeter’s Ravenous Will offers global damage (with a notable rarity gap) if you remember to throw away your Casts. Finally, Rare Crop is one of the few ways to acquire a Heroic Curse of Agony. However, it selects boons randomly and, if accurate, weakens your Doom for at least 6 chambers. This means you should only take it in early Tartarus, and never reroll for it.

Hammer Hierarchy        <CURRENTLY BEING UPDATED>

The best of all:

• Breaching Cross is simpl yoptimal in all situations because +900% damage to armour is a very big number. Even once you have the major damage increase from a full ME build, but that armour shredding never stops being useful. It also gives your Dash-Strike a piercing effect on top, an oft-forgotten effect which helps you to apply Doom more efficiently.

• In modded Hades, this should always be your guaranteed first hammer.

Next best choices:

• Rending Claws is exclusive to Gilgamesh, and it makes Maimed enemies take +25% damage (on top of the usual +25%) and move 30% slower. It’s simply even more global damage scaling, and adds to Gilgamesh’s ability to melt even the beefiest of foes.
• Kinetic Launcher, only available on Zagfists and Demeter, makes your Special a ranged and charge-able projectile dealing 50 Damage. Base damage increases are great, but the real benefit is that the Special animation becomes much shorter if you don’t bother charging the shot! If you get ME before Divine Dash, Kinetic Launcher allows for comfortable Attack → Special activation.

• TBA
  

• Explosive Upper makes your Special deal +100% damage in an blast radius. That’s more damage scaling and an AoE effect, which is incredibly synergistic with Demeter’s 6/7-hit Giga Cutter (based on Dash-Upper/Rising Cutter). More damage and more range can never hurt.

Mediocre options:

• Long Knuckle gives your Attack more range and +10% damage. The damage is a totally irrelevant bonus, but the extra range is great for this melee weapon that needs careful movement and positioning. Incompatible with Gilgamesh.
• Colossus Knuckle gives you Sturdy while using your Attack or Special. Sturdy means you take -30% damage and can’t be interrupted, which is helpful for rapid Doom procs and keeping High Confidence active in close quarters. The desirable Hyper Sprint also provides Sturdy, so you generally don’t need both.
• Rolling Knuckle gives +60% damage to Dash-Strikes and makes your Pummel sequence loop with an added Dash-Strike. The latter is irrelevant, because you should never attack without dashing for that long. The damage increase   could help with Tartarus breakpoints. Incompatible with Gilgamesh.
• Flying Cutter allows you to hold your standing Special to increase its range (rectangular hitbox) and damage up to +100%. It’s usable to charge it between enemy waves, especially with Demeter’s 6/7-hit Special, but it also has a long animation and so must be fired slightly early. Incompatible with Talos.

Irrelevant or detrimental:

• Draining Cutter restores 2% of your health whenever you kill an enemy with your Special. This is very specific and inconsequential.
• Rush Kick turns your Special into a moving kick that deals 40 Damage twice, so 80. It wouldn’t be bad if only the animation weren’t so long! This makes it detrimental to ME procs. Gilgamesh CAN take it to some effect, but there are better options like Breaching, Rending or Explosive. Incompatible with Talos.
• Quake Cutter lets you hold your standing Special to do 90 Damage in an area where you land. High damage but way too slow, and doesn’t work with ME builds at all. Very fun for casual though! Incompatible with Demeter sadly.
• Heavy Knuckle makes your Pummels a slower 3-hit sequence, but they deal 40 Damage each. Slower Attacks are not what you want for ME procs, and it’s just not a high enough number to scale for its speed. Incompatible with Gilgamesh and weaker anyway.
• Concentrated Knuckle gives you +5 Damage for each consecutive hit, but it only lasts for a 5-hit sequence before restarting. Knowing that, your Pummels just don’t deal enough damage to make this worthwhile. Maybe in another world it would’ve stayed at +25… 40 Damage per hit for five hits doesn’t sound too bad? Basically Spread Fire, which is decent.

Melee Movement

You’ve probably noticed that the Fists are one of the four melee weapons out of the six in the game, although modded Beowulf players would have you believe there are three, and Achilles makes the Spear so mobile that it doesn’t really count.

Anyway, with such limited range it’s important to think about how you’re manoeuvring around the room whilst clearing waves. Excess movement is lost time, which is why you always need to think about your next move, and moreover make use of your whole kit. Casts are immensely valuable for their range, able to finish off ranged stragglers. Likewise, “tagging” enemies with Doom before changing targets can finish them off for you. Spawn manipulation makes this a careful dance, as you must always be ready to reach the right spot between waves, only to immediately return to the enemies. BigP’s Chamber Guide is helpful as ever in this regard. This is no different when finishing a room - the shorter distance to the exit doors, the better - so be aware of your limited range when clearing stuff out.

Doom Digits

I’ll go into the specific Aspect damage numbers and relevant breakpoints in their respective sections. See the Enemy Data spreadsheet for exact health/armour values of all regular enemies. (This is also useful reference for damage thresholds later.) Here’s a summary of boss health totals across all phases, and the numbers on Curse of Agony and Impending Doom.

Boss health values:

Curse of Agony Rarity & Pom Scaling:

Impending Doom Rarity & Pom Scaling:

• I used minimum 20%, maximum 80% colour formatting on these charts to paint an idea of what is sufficient. This should demonstrate how Impending rarity doesn’t matter too much, but Doom rarity is very impactful. 25 per rarity level is huge! It’s probably the most significant rarity gap in the whole game. This also means that upgrading your Doom attack to Heroic, usually only achievable through Eurydice’s Ambrosia Delight, is an especially desirable damage buff.
  
• Generally, 60+ is a strong damage number: the Rail’s Rocket Bomb and the Shield’s Charged Shot deal 80, which is enough to instakill a Witch in Tartarus even before applying High Confidence or Fiery Presence. If we say that an ideal minimum Doom number is 150, then you need Lv3 Epic to get there, compared to Lv5 Rare, but Common just doesn’t suffice with a reasonable number of poms.
  

• You should aim for at least 4 poms in your Curse of Agony, and 2 poms in your Impending Doom. First poms are always the biggest value, but it’s crucial to increase your base damage number.

• I’ve run the numbers on a couple situations, and usually found that the optimal pom sequence is as follows:

• Level 2 Agony → Level 3 Agony → Level 2 Impending →
  Level 4 Agony → Level 3 Impending → Level 5 Agony

• Fresh File players, however, will benefit from knowing that a Lv4 Common Doom is superior to Lv2 Common Impending (and afterwards you should alternate between them).
  

• A very important note about Merciful End’s combo damage. The flat +40 Damage bonus is only applied at the end after all calculations - it does not simply get added to your base Doom number, and thus it is not affected by Impending Doom or any global damage buffs or crits. It’s daft and unfortunate for the build that it works this way, but what can you do.
  
• Using the basic Lv3 Epic Doom again, an unpommed Common Impending for +60%, a full +25% from Family Favourites, and +25% from High Confidence, let’s think about complete combo damage. We have a base 151 Damage, multiplied by 2.1 (+110%) to reach 317, plus 40 from ME for 357 Damage (from Doom) on each Attack-Dash proc. Pretty good.

Zagreus & Demeter

Intro: Unfairly Uniform

The Zagreus and Demeter Aspects have an identical basic kit in all but one respect: Demeter’s Special bonus, the 6 or 7-hit Giga Cutter that takes 12 Pummels to charge, a strong asset that makes Demeter the fastest Aspect of the Fists. Comparatively, the +15% dodge chance on Zagfists is a largely unreliable and insignificant bonus for speedrunning, only occasionally helping you maintain health for High Confidence. As such, this is the most obviously homogenous pairing among the Fists. Zagspects don’t tend to have particularly unique qualities; only Zagbow and Zagrail tend to show different playstyles among the lot, and Zagfists is unfortunately run-of-the-mill. Hence, “unfairly uniform” - in speedrunning, little more than a handicapped Demeter. (Still fun for casual Plume dodge builds though!

Nonetheless, ME is something of an equaliser, being the strongest way to play once the core build is online and thereby making the gap subtle. Moreover, these two Aspects still have the same gameplan in the early biomes whilst assembling the build. Giga Cutter is always advantageous against beefier enemies and (mid)bosses, but becomes less impactful once your combo is online. For the most part you only notice Zagfists’ disadvantage in Tartarus, and alongside Talos, the three standard Aspects look similar by the later biomes.

Breakpoints

A.K.A. damage thresholds for enemies. The first three assume you don’t yet have Divine Flourish (your Special boon) and all assume the enemies are ‘naked’, i.e. don’t have armour, though note that Fiery Presence still works on armoured enemies.

• Dash-Strike with just Fiery Presence deals 44 Damage, which kills Numbskulls and Pests.
  
• Dash-Upper with Fiery Presence and High Confidence deals 80 Damage, exactly enough to kill  a Witch. Without High Confidence it deals 70 Damage, which is enough to kill a Brimstone. Brimstones can also be killed by your base Cast with High Confidence, which deals 63 Damage.
  
• Demeter’s Giga Cutter does a minimum of 210 Damage with your Rising Cutter, or 240 Damage with your Dash-Upper, which kills both Thugs and Louts. With Fiery Presence and High Confidence on your Dash-Upper, it deals 330 Damage, which kills a Bloodless.
  
  
• If we now consider the minimum potential damage on an Epic Divine Flourish at +108%, your Dash-Upper now does a base 83 Damage. With Fiery Presence and High Confidence added on (+208%), it does 123 Damage. This kills Skullomats and Dracons.

• Giga Cutter on your Dash-Upper with the same boost does a base 500 Damage. This kills a number more enemies in Asphodel, including Bone-Rakers, Wave-Makers, Skull-Crushers, Slam-Dancers, Burn-Flingers, Inferno-Bombers and even Elysium’s Strongbows. With Fiery Presence (on the first hit) and High Confidence added on, it does 740 Damage. This now also kills Greatshields and Brightswords.
  

The most awkward range is around 150, out of reach for basic attacks but somewhat excessive for Demeter’s Giga Cutter. Enemies with about that health include Tartarus’ Wringers (and Thugs), Asphodel’s Spreaders and Gorgons, and Elysium’s Exalted Souls. Doom itself is generally better suited for these jobs.

Techniques

• Likely the most valuable thing I have ever tried to teach regarding Fists is to use your Special more, especially in Tartarus but also throughout the run. I mostly recommend it in regard to the Dash-Upper, which is your fastest option for the highest damage output in Tartarus, boasting little animation delay so you can keep up attacks.
  
• Even the standing Special i.e. Rising Cutter has its uses. Having Fists’ highest total damage at 60 makes it decent for finishing off bulkier enemies, the animation can be prepared (started) before enemy spawns to offset the delay, and though it has the same range as your Dash-Upper, you can cleave multiple enemies by moving during the animation.

• Whether or not you have a charged Giga Cutter, finishing off an enemy with a Dash-Upper to proc ME is sometimes more efficient than spending another dash. And when you only have +1 Dash or Hyper Delivery from Hermes, you’ll frequently have that space for a Dash-Upper during the dash cooldown time. As for when you are playing Demeter, hopefully the Giga Cutter thresholds indicated how it can scale up nicely.
  
• Hades (the game) lets you buffer your inputs, which you can take full advantage of for your Dash-Strike and Dash-Upper. Besides delivering more damage, their low animation delays promote your smooth movement whilst attacking. Similar notions apply to your Cast.
  
• Likewise, though you can’t cancel the animation of Demeter’s Giga Cutter, you can and should buffer a dash before it ends.

Bosses

<wip>

Talos

Intro: Double-Edged Differences

What if, in spite of your limited melee range, you could simply pull the enemies towards you? Doesn’t that sound nice? It does… but the monkey’s paw curls, and for that nifty gimmick Talos pays the price of unforeseen consequences. Namely: a longer Special animation accounting for Magnetic Pull, which does a base 20 Damage. Yet even more (damage) isn’t always merrier when that interrupts Fiery Presence and cannot benefit itself from the buff: suddenly, your Dash-Uppers can no longer one-hit-kill Witches. These combined weaknesses may sound minor on paper, but any Zagfists or Demeter runner who tries out Talos will surely immediately notice the Aspect’s tragic awkwardness. As a result, Talos changes its Tartarus gameplan considerably. Your Casts become more significant than ever, and you must look to new tricks in lieu of the classics.

Breakpoints

The biggest problem with Talos is how Magnetic Cutter’s pull breaks Fiery Presence, making it harder to reach any damage thresholds with your Dash-Upper. Instead, you typically focus on what you can get with its +50% buff to Attack and Cast damage, and you must focus on keeping High Confidence active more often.

• Dash-Strike with just Fiery Presence deals 44 Damage, which kills Numbskulls and Pests.
  
• Magnetic Pull with Dash-Upper deals a base 60 Damage, enough to kill a Brimstone.

• Just hitting Magnetic Pull and a buffed Cast alone does a base 20 + 75 = 95 Damage without HC, enough to kill a Witch.

• With High Confidence, Magnetic Pull does 25, then a buffed Dash-Strike does 44, into 5 buffed Pummels for 130, which makes 199 Damage total, enough to kill a Thug. However, this is a bit slow/awkward.
  
• An easy alternative is to throw your Cast, then use Dash-Upper on an enemy alongside the Magnetic Pull. With High Confidence, this does a buffed 87 + 45 + 25 = 157 Damage. Without it, it does 75 + 40 + 25 = 140 Damage, which is still enough to kill a Wringer.

Techniques

• Talos, by pressing Special during a dash, not only buffers the following Dash-Upper but crucially activates Magnetic Pull early, effectively cancelling most of the animation. You should virtually always do this to offset the disadvantage of a longer Dash-Upper animation.
  
• But furthermore, this extended animation actually makes it much easier for Talos to do a certain trick compared to Zagfists and Demeter: cancelling, or rather overriding your dash-buffered input entirely. Those two Aspects have an extremely tight window within which to do so, but they have no real reason to do it in the first place. Talos, on the other hand, becomes able to dash-cancel a Magnetic Pull into a different input, be it Dash-Strike (easier), Cast (harder), or another dash, which will still preserve the initial Dash-Upper unless you cancel it with one of those alternatives.
  
  Welcome to Talos’ ultimate hidden jutsu and bread-and-butter. If you care about optimising your timesave pre-ME in Tartarus, you now have to “high APM” weave Magnetic Pulls alongside your dashes into your combat gameplay routine. Alongside your Casts, which can innately be animation-cancelled and receive a buff from the pull, Talos definitively becomes the Fists Aspect of Animation-Cancelling. And because any standard Special is typically a little slower than normal, exchanging it for alternatives is often the best play.

Bosses

<wip>

Gilgamesh

Intro: Clunky & Chunky

One must ask themselves, “Just what would make an Aspect the worst in the game at speedrunning?” And the answer is pleasantly simple: catastrophically slow animations without any inherent solution.

Five out of the six Hidden Aspects in Hades are described as having a “Heavy Attack” in their alternate moveset, Lucifer being the exception - each clearly designed to do more damage at a slower rate. But when the lighter-footed Aspects still find ways to deal sufficient damage at faster speeds, it forebodes that heavy-hitters will lag behind. Among those, Rama and (to a much lesser extent) Arthur overcome the issue with sheer numbers, hunting for whatever circumstances make that efficient. Guan Yu retains an effective Special which synergises well with the Charged Skewer hammer. Beowulf… is a broken Cast weapon, basically.

Gilgamesh likewise gets “big” numbers: 60 Damage on each Attack, and the Maim effect does a whole 400 Damage! …but Maim takes 4 whole seconds, way too long for most enemies, and the Swipes just aren’t big enough; Fists are a made to be multi-hit weapon, and that design limitation hurts when each hit is still slow. Moreover, in actual practice, Fists are a Dash-Strike and Dash-Upper weapon, and Gilgamesh finds both of these options diminished: Dash-Strike only does 20 Damage, and Dash-Upper has a longer animation than usual. Even having +2 dashes built-in comes with a defect: seemingly because only Gilgamesh gets the privilege of holding down the Dash button, your dash cooldown is also a tiny bit longer than any other Aspect in the game. Overall, nothing can truly compensate for Gilgamesh’s intrinsic clunkiness.

…all that said, the chunkiness should not go unmentioned. Maim’s global damage modifier and +2 dashes are both excellent assets for ME, the latter making Gilgamesh synergise with Rush Delivery: you already have extra dashes, so you favour scaling! In exchange for faring worse in combat rooms, Gilgamesh can really melt bosses once it has the full build online. As ever, the biggest obstacle of all is just getting there.

Breakpoints

• Dash-Strike with just Fiery Presence deals 35 Damage, which kills Numbskulls. With High Confidence as well it does 40, enough to kill Pests.
  
• Dash-Upper with Fiery Presence and High Confidence deals 80 Damage, exactly enough to kill  a Witch. Without High Confidence it deals 70 Damage, which is enough to kill a Brimstone. Notably, they can also be killed by your base Cast with High Confidence, which deals 63 Damage.
  
• Swipe does a base 60 Damage, enough to kill a Brimstone. With Fiery Presence and High Confidence it does 120 Damage, enough to kill Skullomats and Dracons.

• With High Confidence, if you Cast first and then Swipe with the Boiling Blood boost, you deal 62 + 105 = 167 Damage, enough to kill Wringers and Thugs.

Techniques

Rather kindly our resident Gilga-master Cherry has put together a video playlist showing Gilgamesh tech in practice, linked here.

• With your Dash-Strikes dealing so much less damage than your Swipes, it can be worthwhile to avoid using Dash-Upper so you get Fiery Presence on a Swipe instead. Moreover, each of your Swipes has a wide arc to it - the same as your Dash-Strike. Attentive angling can cleave more enemies in one hit.
  
• A problem with Swipe is how easy it is to accidentally attack more than necessary, since the input buffer is too generous, and get locked into its long animation. To counteract this, both keyboard and controller users ought to consider just clicking/pressing each individual Swipe, or controllers can release the button earlier.
  
• Your Casts are more important than ever for their low animation times. They’re effective to throw at enemies ahead of yourself (taking advantage of Boiling Blood) or after a Swipe, to cancel the animation and finish off enemies.

• Don’t forget about Ruthless Reflex! Since you want to avoid accidental Dash-Strikes, look for occasional procs while moving from one enemy to another. Note that traps can be easy activation sources!

• Caustic Chaos curses (Inferno-Bombs) can potentially help you trigger Ruthless Reflex more, albeit dangerously - thus you might prefer take this curse into account when choosing your Chaos.
  

• Maim is a unique condition that makes enemies take more damage (like Sweet Surrender), as compared to a damage buff for you. This means it significantly increases the damage of your Meg summon from 2500 to 3125 Damage.
  
• Maim also does 400 Damage after 4 seconds, but this can be lost to bosses’ invincibility during phase changes. To avoid this, you can apply Maim just before a phase change so that the damage triggers after it. This is known as Maim looping: see this example against Meg.

• Earlier access to the global damage buff for ME is better late into the run. In practice you should only try to Maim loop against Meg and Alecto, specifically in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th phase.

Bosses

<wip>

Extended Concepts

God Pools, Keepsakes and Build Paths  <CURRENTLY BEING UPDATED>

As mentioned prior and implied by the boon list, the ideal god pool for Merciful End Fists is Ares, Athena, Artemis and Zeus. Artemis brings highly beneficial crit damage scaling for your Doom, whilst Zeus offers symbiotic self-scaling significantly supplementary strikes. That is, lightning on top of lightning. Also, the only Call you really want besides Hades’ Aid.

However, it’s generally unlikely that you get both in one run, and even if you do, you probably won’t see enough of both to get their utmost value. In the vast majority of cases, you’ll simply take what you can get or whatever you end up with. My recommended list of priority for your side gods is:

Artemis > Zeus > Poseidon > Demeter/Dionysus > Aphrodite

However, there’s additional nuance between our best two contenders. Zeus’ Cast Electric Shot is likely the single best boon you can pick up early on that isn’t a part of ME; it fills in a core slot so you’re more likely to get the right Athena boons, thereby removing a core boon priority offer so there are more chances at ME, and gives the Fists a strong ranged option to clear enemies which kills Witches with High Confidence at Rare and above.

Once you already have a Zeus boon, further Zeus boons generally become better options. (Think Static Discharge, Double Strike, Billowing Strength, Splitting Bolt.) Yet conversely, the longer your run goes without a Zeus boon, the weaker it becomes to force Zeus, because it’s less likely and takes longer to end up with more Zeus for your Zeus. Zeus.

Furthermore, filling your god pool is valuable and takes its own precedence. With four Olympian gods (excluding Hermes), the game locks in your pool and only offers them to you for the rest of the run - more advantageous odds for Impending, and in the best case scenario, more Zeus or Artemis support boons.

So which keepsake do you take into Asphodel when you already have the core ME build? The answer likewise depends on the circumstances of your run.

• If you have Ares, Athena and any other god, force Artemis to fill your pool.
• If you have Ares, Athena and Artemis, take Coinpurse if you lack Obols (<150),
  or else force Zeus if you don’t.
• If you only have Ares and Athena, take Coinpurse if you lack Obols (<150),
  or else force Artemis if you don’t.
• If you have four gods already, take Coinpurse if you lack Obols (<150), or else consider between Plume gambling for RD and taking additional Artemis/Zeus.

The general logic here is that Artemis is the best god to add to your pool for scaling Doom damage, but if you can’t fill your pool and need money, Coinpurse could help you buy an Ares for Impending Doom. If you have Zeus already, guaranteeing more Zeus is also valuable.

Once you’re at Elysium, two build paths become clear: those that have Zeus’ Aid already or that clearly want it, and those that take Sigil for Hades’ Aid. The latter stick with the Sigil to the end of the run, while the former take Acorn to hold onto High Confidence for a little longer against Heroes and Hades.

Chaos Considerations

While Chaos gates are almost always beneficial to skip a room (at least in IGT), I find that Fists are generally more likely to consider passing on them (also relevant for RTA). Note that this mostly applies to the first five or so chambers in Tartarus; afterwards skipping a room will almost always be faster.

The most relevant Chaos boon you can get is Favour, which gives you a percentage bonus for Rare boons whilst also adding a flat +10% to Epic and Duo/Legendary boons. That latter is the most relevant for getting an Epic Hermes boon and for getting ME itself, while the former bonus is just the cherry on top.

Otherwise, Affluence (Obols) builds more money for poms on top of boons, and then Flourish (Special) and Lunge (Dash-Upper) are minor damage boosts, especially for Demeter. If you didn’t yet know, that “Dash-Strike” bonus applies to the Fists’ Dash-Upper as well. Aside from Gilgamesh, Strike (Attack) curses aren’t worth it what with the measly numbers on your basic kit.

Despite the benefits, Chaos gates pose a significant problem in their health costs - mostly the initial price to enter one, occasionally from the curse you choose. Maintaining High Confidence is crucial in early Tartarus so that you reach enemy health breakpoints, especially the ability to kill Witches (80 HP) with your Dash-Upper. You can quickly lose more time than you gained from skipping a room.

Besides that, always check what the reward is on the exit door. Too many Athenas have been lost to rash Chaos-takers, where the advantage of forming your build can easily offset skipping a single room. A particularly lucky combat room can feel just like a skip, and sometimes it’s a free room either way.

Impending Illusions

There exists an old idea in Fists speedrunning that picking up Impending Doom before ME is timeloss. It’s hardly irrational to think this way, since you can notice a slow-down to the usual gameplan. The usual activation time for Doom is 1.1 seconds and Impending Doom adds 0.5 (+45%) for a total of 1.6 seconds. If you’re letting Doom do all the work for you, this extended duration proves a problem.

This is another reason why you have to get your own hands dirty. Generally speaking, Tartarus waves with multiple tankier enemies will take a bit longer because you can rarely outpace your own Doom damage in the early game. In other circumstances, however, you should focus on tagging enemies as usual and then beating down the last enemy before that 1.6 second proc. The most inexorable timeloss from pre-ME Impending is usually in the Furies fight, where their invincibility during multiple phase changes causes time and damage waste.

So why take it as soon as you can? Firstly, because you might never see it again. Tyche is an apathetic goddess of fortune: I have played so many runs where I get three, four, maybe even five Ares boons after ME and Impending is only offered on the last, or sometimes never at all. Secondly, because it will save you a lot of time having it immediately active: the damage boost with the full build online is essential. Always take Impending when it is offered to you (unless the alternative is ME!).

Rocks & High-rolling

Fated Persuasion starts you off with four reroll “rocks” (dice), and each Chthonic Key room reward you get during the run gives you one extra, making them a great choice among blue laurel exits. Note that Nectar room rewards are specifically very valuable in Tartarus, where they can be a free pom for your Doom attack.

Each additional reroll on the same reward costs one extra die. With so much to look for, it goes without saying that you cannot afford to waste these. Rarely will a run not need any, and most are desperate for more. Even just spending one to get your Epic Doom attack starts you with a deficit; spending three total is a disadvantage that spells your own doom. (You shouldn’t really play out such runs.)

On the whole, the only thing you can typically afford to spend three dice on is Merciful End itself - unless you have ME and Divine Dash already, in which case Hermes is next in your priority list. Otherwise, try to only roll once on any screen. Sometimes Athena will condemn you, withholding her Special or Dash, and there’s nothing you can do about it but nod. On your first Athena screen, I recommend to reroll for Special first if it isn’t offered. This is a gamble, but you can’t get ME if you only have Divine Dash. You want Special first, and then you’re glad to see a second Ares. The damage increase from Special is non-negligible in Tartarus as well.

Once you’ve managed to assemble all the pieces of Exodia, spare rolls can be used on pom screens to try and redirect them to your Doom attack or Impending as necessary. You can also gamble on Elysium Wells for a Light of Ixion, as a late chamber skip can make or break a run.

Handling Hermes

Hermes boons, while infamously inconsistent in Hades speedrunning, are essential to the Fists. The primary question, of course, is “which is best?” But the answer is not entirely clear. I tried to do some maths to find an answer, which you can find in this messy sub-section of the guide. The essential conclusion was as follows:

Epic RD > +3 Dashes > +2 Dashes ≈ Rare RD > Common RD >> +1 Dash 

But the reality of it is more nuanced, with pros and cons to both:

Epic Rush Delivery:

• Better at extended single target damage, such as bossing
• Global damage buff also impacts your Specials and Zeus boons
• Bigger burst damage per dash can be more efficient if little is wasted

Epic Greatest Reflex:

• Better at shorter, mobile damage, i.e. large combat wave-clearing
• More dashes to distribute damage can be more efficient
• You can get it first instead for immediate value

• This is very impactful if you already have the full build online!

Some decisions should be made by wisdom, not rankings:

• When you have only one reroll left and/or it’s your second Hermes (perhaps you took Hyper Sprint first), a small bonus like +1 Dash becomes objectively sensible compared to the risk of nothing good at all.
• Similarly, whenever you can take +2 or +3 Dashes on your first Hermes, that’s generally your best choice for immediate, guaranteed value. But if you’re offered Hyper Sprint first (or against +1 Dash), take Hyper Sprint knowing that your second Hermes now has the powerful Rush Delivery in the pool.

Lastly, one might consider reviewing the data available, so here’s a list of all my sub-6 Demeter times (fastest to slowest) and what Hermes boons they had:

1. 5:04.81        Modded                Epic Rush Delivery
2. 5:29.73        Modded                Common Rush Delivery
3. 5:31.39        Modded                Common Greatest Reflex
4. 5:33.50        Modded                Epic Greatest Reflex
5. 5:38.47        Unmodded                Common Greatest Reflex
6. 5:44.20        Modded                Common Greatest Reflex
7. 5:46.06        Modded                Epic Greatest Reflex
8. 5:51.32        Modded                Common Rush Delivery
9. 5:55.41        Modded                Rare Rush Delivery
10. 5:55.98        Modded                Epic Greatest Reflex
11. 5:59.44        Modded                Epic Greatest Reflex

Waves: Why Wait?

As aforementioned, Doom takes 1.1 seconds to activate, 1.6 seconds with Impending. When you “tag” enemies by pummelling them whilst moving across a room, you don’t lose time because the Doom proc is killing the enemies faster than you could with the rest of the Fists kit, making that delay negligible - UNTIL you engage the final enemy in a wave/room. At that point, if you can kill the enemy faster than the 1.1 second Doom delay, you’re saving time! Tenths of a second per wave, per room, can absolutely add up to multiple seconds over a whole run.

On the other hand, sometimes Doom will finish the job before you can, particularly Thugs and Louts. In these cases, using the last second to reposition - either towards the exit doors or for spawn manipulation - can be a better use of time than overcompensated damage. Refining your sense for this will help you plenty.

Reset Thresholds

• Rare Curse of Agony is the minimum reasonable for a good run. Epic is very much ideal for higher standards - the difference is quite visible - but especially in unmodded or multiwep, you want to get more runs in with that lower bar.
• Athena in Tartarus is the most basic, classic and universal rule for ME. The more of your build you can assemble, the better, but a fast pace can make up for less. Good runs often fill out the build during Asphodel, with Impending Doom by early Elysium at the latest. “Rooms over boons” is the archetypal Hades maxim, and in this case you prioritise speed with one Athena minimum.
• Getting ME is your main priority. Hermes and Impending primarily affect the quality (speed) of the run. Even if you get the worst secondary gods/boons, just having a powerful core build can carry you very far.

• For sub-8 IGT:
  2:30 Tartarus, 4:00 Asphodel, 6:15 Elysium, 7:00 Styx
• For sub-7 IGT:
  2:00 Tartarus, 3:30 Asphodel, 5:15 Elysium, 6:00 Styx
• For sub-6 IGT:
  1:45 Tartarus, 3:00 Asphodel, 4:30 Elysium, 5:15 Styx

Shredding Styx

<wip>

Well Wishes

Let me send you off on a relaxing note: Fists don’t worry too much about Charon’s Wells compared to other weapons (especially Castspects). As in the Starter Summary, saving sufficient Obols for all your requisite boons and their poms is essential. But if you have some spare, certain goodies can often make them worthwhile.

Since you do damage through ME first and foremost, the only thing that can directly amplify that is Ignited Ichor (10) alongside Rush Delivery - a cheap and brilliant bonus if both elements appear, since movespeed bonuses are multiplicative.

A Light of Ixion (55) in the right place can make all the difference in the world through a crucial Chaos room skip. They don’t always work out, but when they do, any weapon can make miracles happen.

Also situationally excellent is the Yarn of Ariadne (70), a pricy upgrade to your next boon’s rarity. Especially in Asphodel this might help you get ME, or a lovely Epic Hermes boon.

A Night Spindle (40) can be a crucial purchase. You’re expected to use 6 Meg summons a run: All four midbosses, Heroes, and Hades. If you don’t get a Spindle, you’re forced to skip one of those. The full combination of ME and Breaching can replace a Meg somewhere in the run, usually in Asphodel. Otherwise, you need to buy a Spindle before Styx.

If you’re missing health for High Confidence and have a surplus of Obols, HydraLite (45) and Life Essence ( = 65-80% of your       ) can fix that.

The most difficult one to speak on is the Stygian Shard (35) owing to the specific conditions of trap damage. +500% is massive and can easily make traps one-shot enemies or deal huge chunks to bosses, but creating these situations is tricky. I’d recommend to only buy these if you have plenty Obols to spare.

Mainly for Demeter, a Chimaera Jerky (35) is a small +40% Special damage boost if you have lots of money, but most of the time you’d rather save Obols for the essential boons and poms.

Lastly, Aether Nets are wonderfully cheap (15) in return for a +15% headstart on your Call. Hard to argue against them.

Credits

To think I finally made this thing! And made it way too long to boot!

However many of the ≈9500+ words (v1.0) prior to this page you read, thank you for taking a look at my guide at all. Now, I simply have to give some credit where it’s due:

• Thank you to all my proofreaders for taking time out of your day to toil through all those words, highlight mistakes and offer meaningful insight and suggestions: CherryDad, Drk, HeckMayster, Tounis, SleepSoul.
• A shoutout to Tounis, who despite never thinking of himself as a Fists player did inspire me to start with this weapon in the first place… which led to everything after! The OG🐐 btw.
• A fistbump to Heck for being a great friendly rival on Demeter way back when.
• My friend Bright too, who perhaps spawned the biggest Fists argument ever about which keepsake to take in Asphodel.
• Huge credit to Cherry for being Gilgamesh. That is to say, someone who has played a lot more of it than I have - surely the most of the speedrunning community altogether - who offered substantial advice and content not only for that portion of the guide, but the entire thing.
• Likewise, a handshake to Sleep for being a great friend, a competitor on Talos, and a brilliant source of fruitful discussion and theorycrafting - not just for that Aspect, but for the weapon and this guide as a whole.
• Extra fist gang shoutouts to my pals Drk and Ghosty, both delightful people and highly capable in their own respects.

Thank you to everyone in the Hades community, from the formed friendships to the most brief of positive interactions, and much love to the Fists gang.

Changelog / TBA

v0.1 - First edition shown to proofreaders

v0.2 - For all the changes post-proofreading stage

v1.0 - It’s done, chat

v1.1 - Minor updates to early sections, Cherry’s Gilga tech playlist

v2.0 - Rerolling for special first, addendum to The Great Debate, dismissing the old “Impending is timeloss” idea, minor adjustments to prose and structuring throughout, and minor additions to multiple sections

v2.1 -  Mostly prose edits, formatting, and polish updates ahead of v3.0

v3.0 Really Big Update CURRENTLY WIP

More general prose polishing

New sections:

• Bosses sections

• Demeter’s Charged Cutter + Dad Call combo

• Especially with Kinetic

• Major section on Keepsakes for each biome

• Artemis preference: occasional five god forcing for Doom crits + extra 5% FF

• New extended concepts section “Styx Shredding”: Proud Bearing is really good for Styx (especially on +dashes), it’s just highly variable whether your Hermes is sorted yet

Adjustments:

• Adjusting Hammer Hierarchy: Kinetic is a lot/even better than it looks

• Kinetic Launcher autoaim - “highest autoaim angular radius - radian mistakes; lock on within 4000 degrees of whatever you’re aiming at

• ✅ Unpommables (adjust Best Boons section, add new row)
• Gilgamesh gameplay/techniques thoughts and updates since grinding for record / Cherry’s record strats
• Talos Dupper Storage Tech

Sub: Handling Hermes

The Great(est Reflex) Debate

Solely focusing on Doom, Epic Greatest Reflex (+3) has an initial damage advantage, but slightly loses out to Epic Rush Delivery in terms of single-target damage over time. Let’s start with that and (try to) do some

[link to conclusion]

At a cursory glance, Greatest Reflex wins sizeably: if we imagine the base Doom damage to be 150, a rough +80% Impending, +20% Family Favourites and Epic RD increases it x3.0 to 450 and 2 dashes makes 900, and lastly 980 after ME. With Epic GR, only Impending and FF is x2.0 to 300, and 5 dashes makes 1500, and lastly 1700 after ME. The supposed difference there is a gigantic 720. However, a sequence of 5 dashes takes longer to do that 1700 because no matter how many you have, the duration of dashes is static, and likewise for dash cooldown time (i.e. after you have used up all your dashes, how long until you can dash again). This means that with fewer dashes, you can start your next dash sequence sooner - and Epic RD is doing more damage for each one, allowing it to deal more over time.

Note - this excludes Gilgamesh, which unfortunately has a longer dash cooldown by design 😭

Based on my observations,  Epic GR allows you to do five dashes about every 1.5 seconds, whereas without it you can do two dashes about every 0.8 seconds. (This is most likely approx. 0.2 seconds per dash, and a 0.4 second cooldown between dash sequences. Forgive that my rough maths has therefore given GR a 0.1 second handicap; it was my best attempt at human observation, and makes the following calculations cleaner. Think of it as human error during play with so many dashes.) These sync up at 12 seconds; Epic GR has done (12 / 1.5 =) 8 * 5 = 40 dashes in that time, whereas the base level is (12 / 0.8 =) 15 * 2 = 30 dashes.

So in a 12 second window:
Epic GR: (300 * 40 dashes) = 12,000 + (40 ME * 40 dashes) = 13,600 Damage. (-1100)
Epic RD: (450 * 30 dashes) = 13,500 + (40 ME * 30 dashes) = 14,700 Damage. (+1100)

In a 24 second window instead:

Epic GR: (300 * 80 dashes) = 24,000 + (40 ME * 80 dashes) = 27,200 Damage. (-2200)
Epic RD: (450 * 60 dashes) = 27,000 + (40 ME * 60 dashes) = 29,400 Damage. (+2200)

The gap has exactly doubled from 1100 to 2200, so Epic RD should theoretically always remain ahead over Epic GR on a fixed gradient. If we do the same comparison using Rare boons instead…

Rare GR:

Four dashes every 1.2 seconds, 40 dashes in a 12 second window:

(300 * 40 dashes) = 12,000 + (40 ME * 40 dashes) = 13,600 Damage. (+25)

80 dashes in a 24 second window:

(300 * 80 dashes) = 24,000 + (40 ME * 80 dashes) = 27,200 Damage. (+50)

Rare RD:

Two dashes every 0.8 seconds, 30 dashes in a 12 second window:

(412.5 * 30 dashes) = 12,375 + (40 ME * 30 dashes) = 13,575 Damage. (-25)

60 dashes in a 24 second window:

(412.5 * 60 dashes) = 24,750 + (40 ME * 60 dashes) = 27,150 Damage. (-50)

Rare RD is slightly behind Rare GR at a fixed gradient. Lastly, for Common boons:

Common GR:

Three dashes every 1 second, 36 dashes in a 12 second window:

(300 * 36 dashes) = 10,800 + (40 ME * 36 dashes) = 12,240 Damage. (-210)

72 dashes in a 24 second window:

(300 * 72 dashes) = 21,600 + (40 ME * 72 dashes) = 24,480 Damage. (-420)

Common RD:

Two dashes every 0.8 seconds, 30 dashes in a 12 second window:

(375 * 30 dashes) = 11,250 + (40 ME * 30 dashes) = 12,450 Damage. (+210)

60 dashes in a 24 second window:

(375 * 60 dashes) = 22,500 + (40 ME * 60 dashes) = 24,900 Damage. (+420)

Common RD claims victory for RD again at a fixed rate! This gives us a rough idea for a “single-target Doom damage hierarchy” for those second Hermes screens:

Epic RD > +3 Dashes > +2 Dashes > Rare RD > Common RD > +1 Dash 

But naturally, these Doom damage approximations are not the only factor in mind when weighing up Rush Delivery and Greatest Reflex. There are particular pros to both, and honestly, both are situationally correct:

Epic Rush Delivery:

• Better at extended single target damage, such as bossing
• Global damage buff also impacts your Specials and Zeus boons
• Bigger burst damage per dash can be more efficient if little is wasted

Epic Greatest Reflex:

• Better at shorter, mobile damage, i.e. large combat wave-clearing
• More dashes to distribute damage can be more efficient with lower thresholds
• You can get it first instead for immediate value

• This is very impactful if you already have the full build online!

Remember that this theorycrafting can’t apply to Gilgamesh due to the different dash cooldown time, but thankfully the built-in +2 dashes suggests to us that RD is preferred in most situations anyhow.

Addendum

You might not be satisfied with the 0.1s handicap that I attributed to “possible human error” in the first rendition of this guide. And you know what, on retrospect neither am I, so let’s forgo pretty calculations. Maths ought not care for appearances.

The assertion was that the time between dashes (note - including the dash itself) is approximately 0.2 seconds while the cooldown is 0.4 seconds. Let’s now compare a 1.4s Epic Greatest Reflex to the standard 0.8s Epic Rush Delivery. We’re going to stick to the aforementioned Doom damage numbers and multipliers. These have a Least Common Multiple of 5.6 (seconds), so we’ll use 11.2 seconds as our secondary value. Let’s find the number of dashes per second:

• Epic GR:
  5.6 / 1.4 = 4, 4 * 5 = 20 dashes in 5.6 seconds, 40 dashes in 11.2 seconds
• Epic RD:
  5.6 / 0.8 = 7, 7 * 2 = 14 dashes in 5.6 seconds, 28 dashes in 11.2 seconds

The damage calculations for 5.6 seconds:

Epic GR: (300 * 20 dashes) = 6000 + (40 ME * 20 dashes) = 6800 Damage (-60)

Epic RD: (450 * 14 dashes) = 6300 + (40 ME * 14 dashes) = 6860 Damage (+60)

And for 11.2 seconds:

Epic GR: (300 * 40 dashes) = 12,000 + (40 ME * 40 dashes) = 13,600 Damage (-120)
Epic RD: (450 * 28 dashes) = 12,600 + (40 ME * 28 dashes) = 13,720 Damage (+120)

This has proven to be an important difference: rather than a set gradient which always does twice as much damage, Epic RD’s damage is increasing at a much smaller fixed rate compared to Epic GR. We can confirm this by checking 22.4 seconds:

Epic GR: (300 * 80 dashes) = 24,000 + (40 ME * 80 dashes) = 27,200 Damage (-240)

Epic RD: (450 * 56 dashes) = 25,200 + (40 ME * 56 dashes) = 27,440 Damage (+240)

So, what does this mean for you? Well, it seems that if played yoptimally, the damage gap between +3 Dashes and Epic RD is smaller than originally thought. However, when factoring in the additional damage RD brings as a source  of global additive, the conclusion is pretty much the same as before.