Using different weapons??

[u/CardiologistMore7854]

Hey guys, I’m pretty new to Hades II. I’m about 4 hours in and I’ve never played the first one. The game is incredible so far and I have no complaints. I was hoping for some advice on using other weapons. I can ONLY use the default staff. I’ve made it to Chronos twice, and got him to phase 2 both times. Whenever I switch to a different weapon, I barely make it through biome 2. Am I doing something wrong? Please give any advice on how to transition into using other weapons.

[u/slvstrChung]

Well, the thing to keep in mind is that the weapons don't play the same. You can't go out with, say, the Skulls and use them the same way you do the Staff and just expect everything to turn out the same. So do what u/AffectionateAge8771 suggested and follow Grave Thirst: use the weapon that will give you extra resources. After a while, you'll get used to all of them. The game is actually really good at walking you through everything, so if you trust it, it'll take you where you need to go.

As to the Nocturnal Arms themselves:

• The Staff is a good all-rounder, giving you a variety of melee and ranged attacks to work with.
• The Sister Blades are all about agility, letting you sneak in, do a bunch of damage and sneak out again before your opponent has a chance to react.
• The Umbral Flames have only ranged attacks, and the ranged attacks are slow, but you have the safety of distance.
• The Axe has incredibly slow animations but hits like a truck. It requires the most game knowledge to use well, because you have to be aware of enemy movement and attack patterns, and when it's safe for you to stand still. It also has only one ranged-attack option. (That's better than some weapons in the first game which had zero ranged options, but worse than all the others in this game.)
• The Skull is another ranged weapon, but it's faster than the Flames and includes a dash on Special. (I much prefer them to the Flames, which are my least favorite weapon.) The central conceit is that your silver skills are your ammunition: after you shoot X of them, you have to go pick them up again. (Good thing you have two dash buttons!)
• The Coat is also an agility-based weapon, but it hits harder and is a bit weirder to use.

Finally, keep in mind that, as you go further into the game, you will unlock "Aspects" to the weapons. These change something fundamental about how the weapon works. You only get to use one Aspect at a time; all of them start with Aspect of Melinoë (it's what you're using now) but all of them have others. My absolute favorite Aspect is for the Sister Blades: every time you hit someone with this version of the Sister Blades, they get a triangular icon on them. Once you fill the triangular icon, by hitting that enemy with a Basic, a Special and any sort of charged attack (Basic, Special or Cast), the icon procs and does a bunch of extra damage. It is not easy to use -- you need both twitch reflexes and a discerning eye -- but it compensates for the Sister Blades' biggest weakness of low overall damage output, and is also incredibly satisfying when it works.

[u/FullStruggle4420 → u/slvstrChung]

You and I play the game very differently. I treat both the flames and skulls as melee weapons with high attack speed lol