Top Hades Builds: Spear, Bow, and Fist Meta

How Weapon Builds Work

Each of Hades' six weapons (Infernal Arms) has four unlockable Aspects — alternate forms purchased with Titan Blood. Aspects fundamentally change the weapon's behavior and open different build strategies. The builds below assume you've unlocked the relevant Aspect using Titan Blood earned from boss kills. Standard (Aspect of Zagreus) versions of each weapon are viable but significantly weaker than the optimized Aspect builds.

Eternal Spear — Aspect of Achilles (Privileged Status)

Achilles' Aspect grants the spear the Privileged Status passive: attacks deal bonus damage to enemies suffering from two or more status conditions simultaneously. The build is built entirely around triggering this condition as reliably as possible.

• Attack boon: Demeter's Frost Strike — applies Chill on hit (status #1)
• Special boon: Ares' Vicious Skewer — applies Doom (status #2)
• Support boon: Zeus' Static Discharge — chain lightning between chilled targets
• Keepsake: Demeter's Old Spiton — guarantees a Demeter boon appears in the first chamber

Once both statuses are active on an enemy, every throw of the spear deals enormous bonus damage. Elite enemies and bosses with high health pools are particularly vulnerable — Doom ticks continuously while Chill slows them down, and every Privileged Status hit lands for 2–3× normal damage. The spear's ranged Special makes it easy to maintain distance while Doom ticks.

Heart-Seeking Bow — Aspect of Chiron (Homing Barrage)

Chiron's Aspect converts the Bow's Special into a homing barrage of arrows that fires automatically after landing enough Attack hits. The build stacks attack speed and critical hit chance to maximize the barrage's trigger rate and damage.

• Attack boon: Artemis' Deadly Strike — adds critical hit chance to each attack
• Special boon: Artemis' Deadly Flourish — adds critical hit chance to the Special barrage
• Key Duo Boon: Artemis + Aphrodite's Heart Rend — 200% damage to Weak enemies; pair with Aphrodite's Heartbreak Strike to apply Weak on attacks
• Support boon: Hermes' Flurry Shot — increases Attack speed, triggers the Chiron Special faster

At full stack with Heart Rend active, the Chiron bow's barrage can delete most standard enemies before they take their second action. The playstyle is keep-away: maintain distance, tag enemies with attacks to trigger the barrage, reposition during the automated volley.

Twin Fists — Aspect of Talos (Magnetic Claw)

Talos' Aspect magnetizes enemies hit by the Special, pulling them toward the magnetic point for several seconds. The build uses Demeter's Chill to stack a crowd-control effect on every magnetized target simultaneously.

• Attack boon: Demeter's Frost Strike — applies Chill on every rapid attack
• Special boon: Demeter's Frost Flourish — applies Chill on the magnetizing Special
• Key Duo Boon: Demeter + Zeus' Ice Wine — shatters Chill stacks for area-of-effect burst damage
• Keepsake: Demeter's Old Spiton — ensures Demeter boons appear early

The playstyle is aggressive close-range: use Special to magnetize a group, attack rapidly to stack Chill on all of them simultaneously, then trigger Ice Wine to shatter all Chill stacks at once for massive AoE damage. Against bosses, the pull effect of Talos' magnetize keeps the target within fist range while Chill reduces their movement speed.

General Build Principles

• Commit to one god early. A run with 4 Zeus boons beats a run with 1 Zeus + 1 Ares + 1 Artemis + 1 Aphrodite every time. Duo Boons are only achievable by going deep into two specific gods.
• Keepsakes guarantee starting boons. Equip a god's Keepsake and their boon will appear in the first 1–3 chambers. Use this to secure your build's foundation before the RNG can scatter it.
• Upgrade the Mirror's Dark Foresight. This upgrade makes the third boon choice in each chamber always Rare or better quality — massively improves build consistency across every run.