The fight is a test of everything you've learned. Why do you think you should be able to beat the highest difficulty test? Do you expect to beat Nightmare difficulty on every game you buy? I don't. Some games I'm good at, some I'm not.

The tongue is not impossible to dodge. It's an i-frames test. It's one sweep in the early fight and two in the last, and the more times you meet Typhon the easier the timing becomes with the double sweep. Almost everything Typhon does is a dodge test, like the triple-bomb thing. They're designed to make you panic and miss your timing.

Being able to do the regular Typhon fight isn't saying much. They've made that fight easier because they need all players to be able to beat that to see the story. The whole point of Fear is for every player to be able to find their point of happy tension, and add longevity to the game past its ending. If every player who could beat Typhon 1 could also beat Typhon 4, what would be the point of levels at all?

@Specific Beef
While I agree with the sentiment, there is something to say about the rivals typhon fight that is extremely cluttered and messy in its execution.
In H1, the final fight against full EM4 Hades was hard, nervous, but somewhat fair. There was a lot happening, but each one of Hades' attacks had a cadence, the whole fight felt very rythmic, with hardly 2 or 3 attacks layering on top of another.

In Typhon's fight, regardless of how great your build is, and how carefully you crafted it up, you can get hit by a combo of up to 4 or even 5 strikes PILING UP ON TOP OF EACH OTHER AT THE SAME TIME (Chronos scythe swap or disk + Typhon's tongue or chin slam + Tentacles swipes + Spermatozoids + rebound of his tri-bomb) ! When each one of these attack can hit for up to 40+HP (in Strength, I don't even want to know how much they cost in Death), we're talking about 150-200HP lost IN ONE SINGLE INESCAPABLE COMBO !
You get hit by the first strike, you're gonna eat the full course.
I lost count of the amount of fights I had with it coming in hot with more than 400HP, in Strength... and see my beautiful build get shredded to pieces in 2 combos !

That's not fair nor fun, that's just screaming "Play our game some more so it would look good for us on Steam's board with the amount of hours per player, would you ?"
With each run going on for about 30 to 50 minutes, that's called disrespecting the gamer's time and effort.

And quite frankly, I don't think I'm the only one to be done with that sheet.

Originally posted by Jackie Chen 80:

(...) we're talking about 150-200HP lost IN ONE SINGLE INESCAPABLE COMBO !
You get hit by the first strike, you're gonna eat the full course.

I still have no idea how you manage to get yourself right in the middle of such combos where your health melts like butter.


Anyway

Typhon's attacks aren't any different to dodge than his normal version. If you can dodge there, you can dodge the VoR version.
Of course, there's Chronos, but his attacks are much weaker and you can tank a little. Besides, his attacks leave huge gap between them so you can place yourself in the middle.

The worst part to avoid is the last bit with those tails coming from the ground.


Also: don't underestimate Selene, guys. Don't forget about her!

Oh, my sweet summer child.
I'm really happy for you to have never experienced these dreaded combos.

Either you're an absolute god at dodging, or your version of the game's AI is far more lenient on you than on me.
For me, it happens basically every single fight, at his "last" phase (the one with the swirling tentacles) where he goes full bananas, and despites all my efforts at dodging (I've now finally become a bit better at minimizing the amount of times I take them, but again, all it takes is only of 2 of them and it's bye bye).

I beat rivals Typhon on second try, but took over 800 damage from him and another 100 from Chronos. So, clearly I wasn't very good at dodging, but at the same time: it's possible to make your build such that you can survive it. So I'd say the difficulty is fine right now: challenging but no less beatable than the other hard challenges in the game. (For me at least Great Chaos Above – random selection with 20 fear – was harder to beat.)

edit: FWIW third try against VoR Typhon felt even easier, although I still missed a couple of dodges and took about 200 damage in total, but didn't even spend a death defiance. Not claiming that I'm a particularly great player, but I definitely don't think the boss is OP.

https://eo.steamhost.cc/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3561650257

Originally posted by Jackie Chen 80:

Oh, my sweet summer child.
I'm really happy for you to have never experienced these dreaded combos.

Either you're an absolute god at dodging, or your version of the game's AI is far more lenient on you than on me.
For me, it happens basically every single fight, at his "last" phase (the one with the swirling tentacles) where he goes full bananas, and despites all my efforts at dodging (I've now finally become a bit better at minimizing the amount of times I take them, but again, all it takes is only of 2 of them and it's bye bye).

I don't know, man. Since your other topic I've been trying to be nice and understanding.
I've even encouraged you to post some videos of your gameplay so we can spot your mistakes (if any) and give you some help.

But you choose to ignore. It's like you rather ignore someone who's genuinely trying to help and just keep complaining.

I've said many times and will repeat:
I'm just an average player. I'm far, FAR from being a top gamer. I haven't managed to go beyond "level 2" on Dead Cells (by "level 2" I mean that every time you beat the game, it becomes a bit tougher. It goes up to level 5 or even 10, I don't remember. I just beat it twice)
I'm steering away from Silksong because it seems way above my league.


Maybe Hades 2 has clicked more than other rogue lites? Well, possibly. Does that make me someone who can do high fear runs like 40+, 50+, 60+..?
Hell no.

I even had to tune down some of the Fear to adjust for the VoR4. (including enemy speed. I had to go down from 40% to 20%)


Anyway, if you want help, we are here to happily do so. If you want to complain, then it's on you.

The reason I can't show you any vids of my runs is because I run on a computer that's almost a decade old and needed some directX trickery to be able to run the game, so each time I try to record a run, the game just stutters to about 3 fps (if not 3 spf).

So no, you won't see any of my runs anytime soon & it's not because I want to keep complaining.

Trust me, I WANT to love this game, and I did up until the last 2 updates, which massively buffed the bosses with VoR and massively nerfed most of the boons and aspects (some were buffed, but still kinda lag behind the massive bump in force of the bosses, it's like we got some of our salaries raised, hurray, but nowhere near how inflation blew up, so purchase power actually went down).

Now, to keep up with your point, I actually did manage to improve (slightly) on my success rate, so yay, I guess.
I had to completely abandon quite a lot of my previous favorite builds to go wildly off-script and use some of my least favorite aspects (like Nergal or Mel's axe, or heck, even Mel's skulls) to actually manage to win some runs, but the thing is : They're my least favorite aspects ! Why is this game I'm supposed to love forcing me to ditch my favorite aspects to embrace only the ones I don't like ?

There was a time where experimenting with crazy builds was welcome, and I loved it. Now, with the previous 2 updates, if feels like the game actively PUNISHES wild builds to only congregates towards some surefire ones (bye bye daggers, bye bye axe, all the close quarters builds are just null and void, now, because you need to get close to the bosses, and getting close to bosses means you're gonna eat their AOE, that are now doubled (since they're usually 2), therefore you deal half damage yet GET HIT by double damage, so close combat aspects are simply asking for starting over your run at Prometheracleus or Typhon, now, so why the heck are they even still in the game ?)

THAT's my main complain. By buffing the bosses so much with VoR, they essentially broke the game, and instead of fixing it with the previous update, they seemed to be doubling down on it, which is something that, above and beyond the simple fact that it makes the game that much harder, instead of letting players have fun with an otherwise gorgeous, both visually and musically, and well designed game, it almost implicitly seems to say "play some more frustrated hours of our game, so it looks good on our Steam page, would you ?".

And that philosophy just doesn't sit well with me.

I can be wrong, of course.
But I'm an animation film director, which makes me very good at analyzing subtexts and intentions through body language and artistic executions, and sadly, I'm rarely wrong.
And if I'm right, I'd be extremely sad to see all the hard work from Greg at the writing, Jen Zee at the visuals, Darren Korb at the music and sound design and voice casting, all the animators, background designers, game designers, VA, etc... get sabotaged by a corporate decision that reeks of the kind of sh*t something like Ubisoft or Activision could pull.

Originally posted by Jackie Chen 80:

Trust me, I WANT to love this game, and I did up until the last 2 updates, which massively buffed the bosses with VoR and massively nerfed most of the boons and aspects (some were buffed, but still kinda lag behind the massive bump in force of the bosses, it's like we got some of our salaries raised, hurray, but nowhere near how inflation blew up, so purchase power actually went down).

Ok, that's a very fair point and a feel you.
HOWEVER... This is very common to ANY game in Early Access that has some kind of progression, builds and things like that (mostly RPGs and rogue likes/lites).
It's very common for the game to be released, some people find a way to exploit the game, make some OP builds, then devs nerf it down/remove/rework, people complain, then they find a new META and so on.
As annoying as it is... It's just... How it is.

Now, to keep up with your point, I actually did manage to improve (slightly) on my success rate, so yay, I guess.
I had to completely abandon quite a lot of my previous favorite builds to go wildly off-script and use some of my least favorite aspects (like Nergal or Mel's axe, or heck, even Mel's skulls) to actually manage to win some runs, but the thing is : They're my least favorite aspects ! Why is this game I'm supposed to love forcing me to ditch my favorite aspects to embrace only the ones I don't like ?

Again, very fair point.

But try to look on the other side:
You may have "lost" a build that you enjoyed, but maybe that weapon/aspect that you hated maybe now it's fun to use?

This is why I've said many times over that year and a half: revisit the weapons, aspects and boons.
Something that you hated, may very we become your new favorite thing.

Again, it's part of the EA experience.
Anyone who plays an EA game must do so well aware that things may change for better or worse.
(I have actually abandoned games that I enjoyed because they took a 180° turn which I didn't enjoy.)

There was a time where experimenting with crazy builds was welcome, and I loved it. Now, with the previous 2 updates, if feels like the game actively PUNISHES wild builds to only congregates towards some surefire ones (bye bye daggers, bye bye axe, all the close quarters builds are just null and void, now, because you need to get close to the bosses, and getting close to bosses means you're gonna eat their AOE, that are now doubled (since they're usually 2), therefore you deal half damage yet GET HIT by double damage, so close combat aspects are simply asking for starting over your run at Prometheracleus or Typhon, now, so why the heck are they even still in the game ?)

Honest question, though:
How many closed range builds did you use to do?
I remember that most people here immediately fell in love with the Black Coat when it was first introduced and I never liked it.
Now with the Shiva aspect I can finally and confidently use a close range weapon.
I was never a very good axe user, so for me it is still hit and miss. Some runs go well, some not.

THAT's my main complain. By buffing the bosses so much with VoR, they essentially broke the game, and instead of fixing it with the previous update, they seemed to be doubling down on it, which is something that, above and beyond the simple fact that it makes the game that much harder, instead of letting players have fun with an otherwise gorgeous, both visually and musically, and well designed game, it almost implicitly seems to say "play some more frustrated hours of our game, so it looks good on our Steam page, would you ?".

And that philosophy just doesn't sit well with me.

Like I said on another topic, to another poster, maybe you could just turn off all the fear, leave only the VoR on and climb your way up back again.
Even use God Mode if needed.
When VoR first arrived I got my behind kicked so bad and I was so mad LOL
Then I had to "start from scratch" (although some Fear I used to turn on, I leave them off and others I leave a notch lower)

get sabotaged by a corporate decision that reeks of the kind of sh*t something like Ubisoft or Activision could pull.

Well, while they stay independent, I don't think that corporate greed will ever happen. *fingers crossed*


In short: I really understand your frustration. I wish you don't take my posts as "patronizing" or anything like that.
If I really didn't relate to your frustration I wouldn't be here trying to help.

VoR is endgame stuff and completely optional… So it seems a bit excessive to claim that VoR changes "broke the game", when most players might never even attempt them in the first place.

It sounds like you might be running high Fear for the current difficulty of the game. Maybe you have previously established a certain "level" for yourself and feel bad about turning it down when it has seemed easy before, but this is still early access and the level of difficulty is subject to change. There's no shame in turning down the Fear if it makes you not enjoy the game anymore! I've had to rediscover my "level" and builds again after each patch – again, it's early access so that's to be expected, and at least my preferences have changed a lot over the course of the early access.

(This is not intended as any kind of "git gud", but simply observing that the plot of the game can be fully enjoyed without high fear runs, and VoR is definitely not too hard _alone_ if you wish to just see those bosses. VoR in combination with other vows would scare me personally, and I would probably personally omit at least VoR Typhon if I was doing a fear 24 or 32 run for testaments / Skelly challenges.)

Originally posted by Neo NiGHTS ®:

Originally posted by Jackie Chen 80:

Trust me, I WANT to love this game, and I did up until the last 2 updates, which massively buffed the bosses with VoR and massively nerfed most of the boons and aspects (some were buffed, but still kinda lag behind the massive bump in force of the bosses, it's like we got some of our salaries raised, hurray, but nowhere near how inflation blew up, so purchase power actually went down).

Ok, that's a very fair point and a feel you.
HOWEVER... This is very common to ANY game in Early Access that has some kind of progression, builds and things like that (mostly RPGs and rogue likes/lites).
It's very common for the game to be released, some people find a way to exploit the game, make some OP builds, then devs nerf it down/remove/rework, people complain, then they find a new META and so on.
As annoying as it is... It's just... How it is.

Now, to keep up with your point, I actually did manage to improve (slightly) on my success rate, so yay, I guess.
I had to completely abandon quite a lot of my previous favorite builds to go wildly off-script and use some of my least favorite aspects (like Nergal or Mel's axe, or heck, even Mel's skulls) to actually manage to win some runs, but the thing is : They're my least favorite aspects ! Why is this game I'm supposed to love forcing me to ditch my favorite aspects to embrace only the ones I don't like ?

Again, very fair point.

But try to look on the other side:
You may have "lost" a build that you enjoyed, but maybe that weapon/aspect that you hated maybe now it's fun to use?

This is why I've said many times over that year and a half: revisit the weapons, aspects and boons.
Something that you hated, may very we become your new favorite thing.

Again, it's part of the EA experience.
Anyone who plays an EA game must do so well aware that things may change for better or worse.
(I have actually abandoned games that I enjoyed because they took a 180° turn which I didn't enjoy.)

There was a time where experimenting with crazy builds was welcome, and I loved it. Now, with the previous 2 updates, if feels like the game actively PUNISHES wild builds to only congregates towards some surefire ones (bye bye daggers, bye bye axe, all the close quarters builds are just null and void, now, because you need to get close to the bosses, and getting close to bosses means you're gonna eat their AOE, that are now doubled (since they're usually 2), therefore you deal half damage yet GET HIT by double damage, so close combat aspects are simply asking for starting over your run at Prometheracleus or Typhon, now, so why the heck are they even still in the game ?)

Honest question, though:
How many closed range builds did you use to do?
I remember that most people here immediately fell in love with the Black Coat when it was first introduced and I never liked it.
Now with the Shiva aspect I can finally and confidently use a close range weapon.
I was never a very good axe user, so for me it is still hit and miss. Some runs go well, some not.

THAT's my main complain. By buffing the bosses so much with VoR, they essentially broke the game, and instead of fixing it with the previous update, they seemed to be doubling down on it, which is something that, above and beyond the simple fact that it makes the game that much harder, instead of letting players have fun with an otherwise gorgeous, both visually and musically, and well designed game, it almost implicitly seems to say "play some more frustrated hours of our game, so it looks good on our Steam page, would you ?".

And that philosophy just doesn't sit well with me.

Like I said on another topic, to another poster, maybe you could just turn off all the fear, leave only the VoR on and climb your way up back again.
Even use God Mode if needed.
When VoR first arrived I got my behind kicked so bad and I was so mad LOL
Then I had to "start from scratch" (although some Fear I used to turn on, I leave them off and others I leave a notch lower)

get sabotaged by a corporate decision that reeks of the kind of sh*t something like Ubisoft or Activision could pull.

Well, while they stay independent, I don't think that corporate greed will ever happen. *fingers crossed*


In short: I really understand your frustration. I wish you don't take my posts as "patronizing" or anything like that.
If I really didn't relate to your frustration I wouldn't be here trying to help.

1. Yeah, I guess I'm not too familiar with this (Hades 2 is the very first game I've got on EA, I'm not much of an impatient dude, in general, and prefer to experience my games already finished, but like everyone here, I was so in love with the first game that I just couldn't wait). I remember having seen a video of Jawless Paul where he told about a time in Hades 1 EA, Chaos shield special was absolutely busted, with giant shields flying all over the place, and each and everyone dealing the same amount of damage than the original one. In the end, it was nerfed down quite substantially for 1.0. So I guess it is commonplace to see that kind of nerfs going on during EA, it's just that in this game, there is so many weapons aspects and boons that seeing so many aspects, boons and builds completely falling HARD behind ALL AT ONCE simply because of the addition of VoR is pretty jarring.



2. It's not so much a matter of not wanting to revisit different weapons aspects than it is for personal preference about their playstyles.
Regardless of the games, I've always been much more favorable to nervous speedster playstyles and characters. In a fighting game, I'll always take either the shoto protagonist or the Chun-Li type of "all speed and maneuverability, no power" type of character. You'll never see me take a Zangief, or other power giant that moves like a fridge on feet.

So the gauntlet in the first game or the dagger here are really up my alley (while ranged attacks or clunky unga bunga are my least favorite). The last 2 updates, with the addition of VoR have OBLITERATED the daggers, regardless of the aspect. Mel's aspect had always been useless against Typhon since you can't backstab him, Artemis is kinda ok for big juicy crits, but he has so many HP that even crits daggers strikes are just... well, dagger strikes. And since he has now so many more attacks due to Chronos's presence, staying too long in place for combos is just exposing yourself to get hit by a 200HP combo. Pan has been nerfed so much, it has fallen way behind since 3 or 4 previous updates, and Morrigan is fun for the first 2, 3 runs... until you realize that its 777 gimmick take so much time and actions to setup that you might as well just take a juicy build on any other weapon to get the same result 4 times faster an in much simpler ways (hello Supay with Breaker rush and Raki).

And don't even get me started with the piss poor reliability of the Omega strike (that simply fails to fire 50% of the time, it just make you dash closer to the enemy... just so you could be eaten that much more easily, I think that has been a grievance since the very first release that was never adressed, but I could be wrong), or the fact that dash strike makes you SLIP AWAY from your target if you try to flank it, making your whole stinger combo, the most interesting part of the weapon's attacks, completely whiff more than 50% of the time.
Seriously, at the point they are, the daggers might as well be completely removed from the game, they won't be missed. And it saddens me, because they are my favorite playstyle.

You could argue that the coat is there to compensate.
Well, I'm with you on that one, the coat never quite worked for me. It looks cool (I mean, who doesn't like a jetpack), but its melee is clunky (the punches are way too slow, compared to the dagger or the first game's gauntlets), the "shield" is only temporary and you can't keep it as soon as you dash (and there are SO MANY things in the game that are unblockable, which really makes you question, ok, then what is even the point of having a shield), and the range weapon, the missiles, are super slow and erratic as heck, missing their target 40% of the time.
It's a weapon aspect that is supposed to have it all, but does a good job in none of them. So what is even the point ?
Ironically, the only one I kinda like is the Mel one coz it's the only one that gives you something actually usable : a bump in speed in both movement and strikes. All the other ones feel like gimmicks slappety slapped to make them sort of interesting (Nyx's rush boom + double attack sounds good on paper, but despites many experiments, I never got to make it truly pop). Selene's is just straight up bad, and Shiva looks cool for potentially the biggest dps of the game, but it's also the slowest aspect of the game (and it eats magick, like there's no tomorrow). It's the absolute Zangief !



3. I've seen your post on the other thread, and it's a good suggestion.
It's just not for me ^^.
While I like to whine about the difficulty bump, I'm also someone who enjoys challenge (to my level, you'll never catch me do a 32+ run for fun), so making the game easier is not my cup of tea.
I'd rather stick to the level that I'm supposed to be able to complete to improve my skills rather than lower the bar to build back up my confidence (done that in other games prior, and it got boring very quick. I still enjoy a healthy challenge).
I'm just complaining about the fact that the VoR bosses have some broken mechanics that feel much more unfair than in the first game EM4 (where they were hard, sure, but somewhat balanced, with a sense of rythm), here they just feel very bloated, messy, slapped together without toomuch of a thought on how the player might have to navigate between them, with powerful strikes that just pile on top of each other all at once (especially with the Prometheracleus bros and Typhon, but also with the Sirens, of all people), instead of one after the other, and ultimately unfair. It's like playing a platform game with horrendous completely counter intuitive level design, if you catch my drill.
And if that's already the case in raw VoR (without Grit and the other nerfing vows), I don't even want to imagine what it would look like if I ever put these on.

And don't worry, I don't take your replies as patronizing.
I'm grateful that you're trying to help by bringing your 2 cents. Your comments are always very detailed and I'm thankful that you're taking so much time to adress my complaints.

I just happen to be at a stage of playing the game where I loved almost everything they threw at us for the first year, and now that we're getting closer to official launch and this is supposed to be the last update before 1.0, I'm seeing them taking a route I don't like, and I'm genuinely getting concerned to see that game I used to love for one year (hence why I was silent all that time) is turning into something I might not enjoy that much at launch (hence why I only start to comment now). Which, after a couple of years of waiting and appreciating the EA, would be massively disappointing, to say the least.

Slightly off topic, but the gauntlets in Hades 1 were also my favorites, and I was very disappointed at first (in the beginning of Early Access) that there was no direct equivalent. The twin blades sound similar on paper, but in reality they really aren't. However, I feel like the lack of an obvious "best weapon" in Hades 2 has made me try more varied approaches, instead of always going for my trusted gauntlets like I did in Hades 1 whenever I wanted to clear a high heat run (e.g., the third statue). Some of my best runs have been with weapons that I initially disliked.

Oh the Gauntlets were absolutely the GOATlets !
There was not a single aspect that was bad, they all served their purpose. I used to love Talos and Demeter, but later on, I tended to prefer simple Zag's aspect, slapping Hermes on it from the beginning, for all the bonus evade (at some point, combined with a lot of other evade boons and single dash that gives you temporary 50+ evade in the mirror, it was possible to basically get to more than 100% dodge chance by the end of the game.
With either a beefed up Dio or Zeus's strike on it, it was meltdowntown.

Heh, I actually just played one game of Hades 1 for old times' sake two days ago (after more than a year since I last touched it), used whatever was selected in my save and it was the Zagreus gauntlets and the Hermes keepsake was equipped. Left it on for the entire run to accumulate the dodge chance. Zeus attack obviously – in Hades 2 I still often go for the chain lightning just because.

Originally posted by Arkku:

Heh, I actually just played one game of Hades 1 for old times' sake two days ago (after more than a year since I last touched it), used whatever was selected in my save and it was the Zagreus gauntlets and the Hermes keepsake was equipped. Left it on for the entire run to accumulate the dodge chance. Zeus attack obviously – in Hades 2 I still often go for the chain lightning just because.

A man of great taste !
That build was one of my comfort builds of the first game.
And exactly the same reason why I also love to play static shock in H2.
Just too bad that its (very) limited damage can never quite carry a run here (even max buffed with Air Quality, Electric overload and Master Conductor).
It's good for support, but never as a main build.