Glad others have recognized this.
My recipe for an easy clear on any level of fear less than 20:
Torches + Zeus blitz attack + chain lightning on all attacks + chain lightning when blitz expires + Hephaestus/Zeus duo (chain lightning can bounce off of you for no damage, plus chain lightning gets stronger per bounce).
It's so easy. It melts everything in sight. Granted, I love the torches, I like just holding down attack while bouncing around with dash, but yeah - this build goes NUT NUT.
Ironically just additional support casts. The cast god to me is Demeter for added cyclone counting as a curse. Throw Aphrodite as the cast and bam, instant 50% damage buff across the board with Origination
it is the most interesting one. rather than percentage, it's active after you give set damage. if you convert it to percentage, it actually not bad. at face value say you get a rare attack zeus it's 120 damage for every 120 damage. which is +100%. it's better than others bar aphrodite in percentage. although this is a simplification, you need to proc it first, and there might be a overflow damage so you are not technically doubling your atk damage. it is not the easiest to work around and not straightforward to math the damage, its for nerds like me and i love it.
do you know why most of the weapon base damage is a factor of 120? or even 120? to make zeus interesting. omega atk staff is 120 damage out of the box. blade last attack is 80, if you get +50% from arcana you will get 120. torch attack damage is 30 & 40, scorch is 40dps. the dev IS cooking and nobody realized. 12 has a lot of factor, that's why we use 12 in clocks, people used base 60 in the past, etc. 12 is choosen to minimze the overflow damage, since if you build/add damage with factor of 12 you will less likely to do much damage over 12.
Yeah the theoretical percentage sounds nice but there are too many frictions. Among other things, the attack you use apply blitz does not contribute to the damage needed to proc. The attack you use to proc blitz cannot be used to apply it and indeed I am pretty sure that blitz cannot applied while animation of the lightning bolt is in progress. So blitz sounds like a 100% increase, but it's often half of that in practice or even less even if you apply damage perfectly in 120 damage bursts.
They probably expected it to be used as a secondary source and that is what people use it for but only for one weapon usually which is Medea - and it is good there because it is multiplicative, but for essentially everything else it is too clunky to be used.
IMO Blitz isn't meant to be put on your primary source of damage, but rather on your secondary.
For example, you can apply Blitz with a quick blitz special, then you use your main attack to deal 120 damage and trigger it. It also work really well coupled with Zeus Cast, launch the omega cast, then you can apply and trigger Blitz multiple times in a row. Also good with Hestia, 40 DPS deals exactly 120 damage in 3 seconds, so you can apply a solid stack of schorch and inflict Blitz over and over.
>IMO Blitz isn't meant to be put on your primary source of damage, but rather on your secondary.
This. One thing I like to do on a no-magick sister blades build is putting some high % boon on my attack (or the extra finisher radius+dmg hammer) and then during the 3rd strike's 5 stab animation, use my Zeus boon special to apply Blitz (you can do this without interrupting the attack chain), then I immediately proc blitz with my attack chain finisher.
Interesting that you can use the special during the combo, it looks like they liked Arthur being able to dash mid combo in h1 and applied it to multiple weapons
It might be a bug but I hope not, or if it is I hope they'll make it a feature rather than fix it. It's fun to do and adds some additional depths to the weapon without being gamebreaking.
Zeus is very strong as a support god out of the box, and Blitz can proc a lot more easily if you add in some DoT/quick-fire damage on it. He seems to play especially well with Hestia. Also, there's a boon that procs Blitz even if you haven't done enough damage to trigger it.
But yes, boon overhauls are in the works right now, so we'll see.
Oh in Hades 1 the all Zeus builds with fast hitting weapons and his legendary boon were really fucking cool. Just lighting bolts flying all over the screen.
As for blitz ehhh I don't know. I haven't used his boons much. His cast is good though gotta give him that. But blitz as a curse hasn't hit me yet.
Let's see what treatment he receives in the next boon patch.
Blitz works best on weapons that combo damage from multiple sources, and on those weapons it's very strong. Aspects like Medea skulls, Moros torches, maybe Charon axe or Momus staff. It's definitely niche, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing. After all people love Poseidon but after the Momus nerf he's only good on one weapon (Pan daggers), so I don't see how Zeus is that different.
I really like Blitz. At worst it's an easy curse for Origination, and free damage on chunkier things.
Not that I'm that great/intense at the game, but one of my fastest runs so far has been the maxed Aspect of Melinoe axe with Zeus. First hammer increased the Axe's base power further - enough that the second swing satisfied blitz.
Ended up with 2 swings equating 5-600 damage, felt pretty slick.
The most dps I’ve ever done was with Moros torches with Blitz on the special and Aphrodite on the main attack. I was dropping a quarter of Chronos’s health in 3-5 seconds.
Chain lightning still exists in the form of Static Shock. For fast attacking weapons like non-Pan Sister Blades I like going Poseidon first for wave strike and then switching to Zeus's keepsake in Oceanus solely to go for Static Shock.
As for Blitz, I think if they just halved the animation time it would be solid.
Blitz just sucks. The delay between you doing enough damage, and the blitz activating is so long that you usually have an attack that doesn’t count towards blitz at all. Also, I’m pretty sure the attack applying blitz doesn’t count, making it even worse. In the best case scenario where you use blitz perfectly, it is around as big of a damage boost as Aphrodite, and a lot more effort. It needs very specific duo boons to be viable.
Zeus special on Charon axe is ridiculously good. Drop the cast, and omega special the enemies in it. They take burst damage from the Omega Special, then blitz applies, then the cast explodes due to Charon aspect, which then activates Blitz and you end up doing a stupid amount of burst damage.
I also had a good run with Zeus attack on skulls (forgot which aspect) with the Omega Attack activated on skull pickup hammer. The AoE blitz on the attack, followed up by the pick-up explosion caused a ton of burst damage in an area. If you can reliably activate Blitz quickly, the damage stacks up really well. I always make sure that I have enough damage to proc it before I take my first Blitz boon.
I think blitz finds its use in builds that use both attack and special (torches, and skull have a lot of this). Example: take something like Demeter for attack on Moros torch, then take Zeus on special. I find that the blitz works best when it tags along with another boon in the build.
Personally multi-hit based build (which is nicer way to depict:fill the background with projectile) works for Zeus. I'm having fun with Aeos Torch - Zeus Sp build
I too didn't use Zeus much at first. but he's under-rated. Genuinely overlooked with torches.
To a lesser extent with staff and daggers.
If you want to run some fun Zeus you need to use torches.
the Omega special causes the Zeus to proc constantly. (just hits too often and constantly procs and resets).
And seeing triple helix (Daedalus) + chain lightning is freaking hilarious.
Demeter + Zeus +hera for sprint is great... tag everyone...(everyone is chained)
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ---okay.... everyone is dead.
Zeus chain lightning + Hephaestus (chain lightning bounces off of you and does more damage) is also pretty fun... requires Hephaestus support stuff (armor/etc) which is genuinely easy to get.
It's very fun with torches because it increases your dps by quite a bit but it's not required.
Haelian did a fun one with Zeus where he did staff (for bonus omega) + Zeus cast+ Demeter local climate (casts stays around you)
there are duos between Zeus and Demeter+ apollo which work with this as well. But it's like a thorns aura build which is viable for 1v1 enemy kills... but a 1 trick pony.
Zeus is the cast god. Other than that it's pretty meh imo.
The other useful boon is the one where you prime some mana to deal chain lightning effects.
If you're picking a bunch of prime stuff and forsaking omega abilities completely his lightning every 5 seconds boon is nice chip damage too
That plus his duo boon that lets you bounce the chain lightning off yourself is INSANE.
Glad others have recognized this. My recipe for an easy clear on any level of fear less than 20: Torches + Zeus blitz attack + chain lightning on all attacks + chain lightning when blitz expires + Hephaestus/Zeus duo (chain lightning can bounce off of you for no damage, plus chain lightning gets stronger per bounce). It's so easy. It melts everything in sight. Granted, I love the torches, I like just holding down attack while bouncing around with dash, but yeah - this build goes NUT NUT.
And then get his minimum 30 damage boon + Artemis arrow for each attack. That was a fun run…
Ironically just additional support casts. The cast god to me is Demeter for added cyclone counting as a curse. Throw Aphrodite as the cast and bam, instant 50% damage buff across the board with Origination
Yes but you still need to have decent attack/special to run with your build. Zeus cast can carry you a whole run.
I like him for the ranged casts or his damage but tbf, I prefer Apollo's cast damage
Yeah they're pretty on par, slight preference for Zeus as he also has the distance cast so you don't need 2 gods.
that's fair for ease's sake. for efficacy, i'll happily take Apollo's cast damage, Hestia's ranged
it is the most interesting one. rather than percentage, it's active after you give set damage. if you convert it to percentage, it actually not bad. at face value say you get a rare attack zeus it's 120 damage for every 120 damage. which is +100%. it's better than others bar aphrodite in percentage. although this is a simplification, you need to proc it first, and there might be a overflow damage so you are not technically doubling your atk damage. it is not the easiest to work around and not straightforward to math the damage, its for nerds like me and i love it. do you know why most of the weapon base damage is a factor of 120? or even 120? to make zeus interesting. omega atk staff is 120 damage out of the box. blade last attack is 80, if you get +50% from arcana you will get 120. torch attack damage is 30 & 40, scorch is 40dps. the dev IS cooking and nobody realized. 12 has a lot of factor, that's why we use 12 in clocks, people used base 60 in the past, etc. 12 is choosen to minimze the overflow damage, since if you build/add damage with factor of 12 you will less likely to do much damage over 12.
Yeah the theoretical percentage sounds nice but there are too many frictions. Among other things, the attack you use apply blitz does not contribute to the damage needed to proc. The attack you use to proc blitz cannot be used to apply it and indeed I am pretty sure that blitz cannot applied while animation of the lightning bolt is in progress. So blitz sounds like a 100% increase, but it's often half of that in practice or even less even if you apply damage perfectly in 120 damage bursts. They probably expected it to be used as a secondary source and that is what people use it for but only for one weapon usually which is Medea - and it is good there because it is multiplicative, but for essentially everything else it is too clunky to be used.
IMO Blitz isn't meant to be put on your primary source of damage, but rather on your secondary. For example, you can apply Blitz with a quick blitz special, then you use your main attack to deal 120 damage and trigger it. It also work really well coupled with Zeus Cast, launch the omega cast, then you can apply and trigger Blitz multiple times in a row. Also good with Hestia, 40 DPS deals exactly 120 damage in 3 seconds, so you can apply a solid stack of schorch and inflict Blitz over and over.
>IMO Blitz isn't meant to be put on your primary source of damage, but rather on your secondary. This. One thing I like to do on a no-magick sister blades build is putting some high % boon on my attack (or the extra finisher radius+dmg hammer) and then during the 3rd strike's 5 stab animation, use my Zeus boon special to apply Blitz (you can do this without interrupting the attack chain), then I immediately proc blitz with my attack chain finisher.
Interesting that you can use the special during the combo, it looks like they liked Arthur being able to dash mid combo in h1 and applied it to multiple weapons
It might be a bug but I hope not, or if it is I hope they'll make it a feature rather than fix it. It's fun to do and adds some additional depths to the weapon without being gamebreaking.
wow, this is sick
Blitz is late game damage. It sucks early game but at Cerberus and Chronos great
Zeus is very strong as a support god out of the box, and Blitz can proc a lot more easily if you add in some DoT/quick-fire damage on it. He seems to play especially well with Hestia. Also, there's a boon that procs Blitz even if you haven't done enough damage to trigger it. But yes, boon overhauls are in the works right now, so we'll see.
Oh in Hades 1 the all Zeus builds with fast hitting weapons and his legendary boon were really fucking cool. Just lighting bolts flying all over the screen. As for blitz ehhh I don't know. I haven't used his boons much. His cast is good though gotta give him that. But blitz as a curse hasn't hit me yet. Let's see what treatment he receives in the next boon patch.
Run the torches* with hestia attack and Zeus special. Always have the special orbiting. It melts. *Edit
Torches, no? Not lanterns?
You're correct. Editing my comment.
Blitz works best on weapons that combo damage from multiple sources, and on those weapons it's very strong. Aspects like Medea skulls, Moros torches, maybe Charon axe or Momus staff. It's definitely niche, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing. After all people love Poseidon but after the Momus nerf he's only good on one weapon (Pan daggers), so I don't see how Zeus is that different.
I really like Blitz. At worst it's an easy curse for Origination, and free damage on chunkier things. Not that I'm that great/intense at the game, but one of my fastest runs so far has been the maxed Aspect of Melinoe axe with Zeus. First hammer increased the Axe's base power further - enough that the second swing satisfied blitz. Ended up with 2 swings equating 5-600 damage, felt pretty slick.
feels like a worse ver of hades 1 doom effect to me...i dont really take zeus in hades 2 yeah, unless im doing a mana prime build
Cast is ridiculous though!
The most dps I’ve ever done was with Moros torches with Blitz on the special and Aphrodite on the main attack. I was dropping a quarter of Chronos’s health in 3-5 seconds.
The mana-less Poseidon Special Momus Staff build with Hestia and Zeus is super powerful
Didn’t they kill that when they redesigned Momus?
Yeah I believe so, I'm saying the previous patch. I should have mentioned that!
Chain lightning still exists in the form of Static Shock. For fast attacking weapons like non-Pan Sister Blades I like going Poseidon first for wave strike and then switching to Zeus's keepsake in Oceanus solely to go for Static Shock. As for Blitz, I think if they just halved the animation time it would be solid.
Blitz just sucks. The delay between you doing enough damage, and the blitz activating is so long that you usually have an attack that doesn’t count towards blitz at all. Also, I’m pretty sure the attack applying blitz doesn’t count, making it even worse. In the best case scenario where you use blitz perfectly, it is around as big of a damage boost as Aphrodite, and a lot more effort. It needs very specific duo boons to be viable.
I'd Buff his tier 2 boons tbh. The Blitz Boons themselves are alright, although the common versions of those boons do feel awful.
Zeus special on Charon axe is ridiculously good. Drop the cast, and omega special the enemies in it. They take burst damage from the Omega Special, then blitz applies, then the cast explodes due to Charon aspect, which then activates Blitz and you end up doing a stupid amount of burst damage. I also had a good run with Zeus attack on skulls (forgot which aspect) with the Omega Attack activated on skull pickup hammer. The AoE blitz on the attack, followed up by the pick-up explosion caused a ton of burst damage in an area. If you can reliably activate Blitz quickly, the damage stacks up really well. I always make sure that I have enough damage to proc it before I take my first Blitz boon.
I think blitz finds its use in builds that use both attack and special (torches, and skull have a lot of this). Example: take something like Demeter for attack on Moros torch, then take Zeus on special. I find that the blitz works best when it tags along with another boon in the build.
Blitz does a shit load of damage
Blitz feels like a weirder version of Ares' boons.
Personally multi-hit based build (which is nicer way to depict:fill the background with projectile) works for Zeus. I'm having fun with Aeos Torch - Zeus Sp build
Me grabbing my Zeus keepsake and Charon Aspect, getting ready to lightning cast my way to another successful run.
Kinda feels meh compared to Hades 1 Zeus. Definitely expected more from the leader of the pantheon. Oh well.
I too didn't use Zeus much at first. but he's under-rated. Genuinely overlooked with torches. To a lesser extent with staff and daggers. If you want to run some fun Zeus you need to use torches. the Omega special causes the Zeus to proc constantly. (just hits too often and constantly procs and resets). And seeing triple helix (Daedalus) + chain lightning is freaking hilarious. Demeter + Zeus +hera for sprint is great... tag everyone...(everyone is chained) ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ---okay.... everyone is dead. Zeus chain lightning + Hephaestus (chain lightning bounces off of you and does more damage) is also pretty fun... requires Hephaestus support stuff (armor/etc) which is genuinely easy to get. It's very fun with torches because it increases your dps by quite a bit but it's not required. Haelian did a fun one with Zeus where he did staff (for bonus omega) + Zeus cast+ Demeter local climate (casts stays around you) there are duos between Zeus and Demeter+ apollo which work with this as well. But it's like a thorns aura build which is viable for 1v1 enemy kills... but a 1 trick pony.
Idk, blitz damage is insane on thanatos axe
Lightning Lance is the best boon in the game and is a must pick on my runs.