Vow of Suffering is a jerk. Winter Coat doesn't help against it because it only affects the damage that you actually take. I'm soo taking Hephaestus' armor in each location with this...

I think the thing making 32 fear feel so much harder is the lack of the sort of padding consequences that Hades 1 had (things like armored perks or +1 armored enemy) or even extreme measures which gave a crazy amount of heat for very little investment (minus the super hades fight which is brutal imo)

I love how Demeter’s infusion book which caps damage at 15 can make taking increased damage modifiers essentially free

Beat 24 with Pan today, cannot underestimate how important changing my arcana setup was, focused on low hp and all dmg with strength, white antler, and swapped a few things like turning off mob hp% - vow of domiance (which gave chronos too much hp) and turned on arrogance instead. Also, Vow of Forsaking is actually such a buff, turn it on every run and with enough rerolls you can banish bad god boons.

I feel like all of Haelian's recommendations need come with the caveat: skill issue. I would sooner take just about anything else on the list before Tight Deadline, because that underlying panic of the timer makes the entire thing anti-fun for me, because my skill level is way way lower. I'd rather play +60% enemies patiently than have to constantly pause the game to take a breath and think

I'm waiting for the new version of Extreme Measures to come out before doing higher fear runs, it was a pretty major source of heat in Hades 1. Right now it feels like you have to have a lot of very scary ones to even get to 24 fear.

I recently got the 3rd statue and I pretty much fully agree with your takes. I will say that chronos 20/40% faster is REALLY rough when he starts pulling off his 3 move combos.

I like vow of suffering for surface runs bc I can intentionally stand in fire and get hit for 2 instead of 1 and then I don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the encounter

The best advice I got in Hades 1 was to turn up the enemy attack speed as early as you feel comfortable, just so you can get used to it and train your reactions. Going up from 20-40% enemy speed sucks more when you've been playing on 20% for a few hundred hours.

That point you made about the Hephaestus armor was what got me over the hump. Took the extra 300% damage and 5 minute tight deadline. Took all the "antimagick" vows. Once i got that armor boon from... it was game over. Definitely harder than Hades 1.

I found out some interesting things about Vow of Bitterness. Not only does it not affect boons that show up in Charon’s shop, dual boon rooms are also unaffected. So while on paper you are losing four boons, that number can potentially drop down to only one lost boon if you manage to find dual boon rooms in Erebus, Oceanus, and Tartarus (I don’t think they can spawn in Fields of Mourning). Additionally, I think you can work it as a sort of god frequency manipulator early on in a run. In one run I did with it, the first boon would’ve been from Hera but it got onion’d because of the vow. After that, I didn’t see Hera boons for the rest of the run.

Vow of Abandon was nice for getting some Nightmare from Hecate while also clearing the prophecy about beating her with no Arcana cards active, but I don’t think I’ll ever use it again now that I’ve completed that!

32 fear definitely a lot tougher than 32 heat was, i used the momus speedrun strat for both 32 fears everything else felt so bad. especially the lack of shattering shackle my baby from hades hurts high fear too

Vow of forsaking in my opinion is pretty much a positive, especially if you’re using rolls. It can guarantee getting rid of the chaff in a certain gods pool like Poseidon to get to the legendary or the duos you’re chasing

God your timing is good, I just reached the point of the game where I'm trying to bash my head against 32 fear, and after dying a zillion times in a row last night, I literally searched your channel to see if you had some sort of fear guide lol

Literally just did a 32 heat with Momus thanks to this guide. I love your content, been following for a while, thank you for all your dedication to this title!

Played with Vow of Commotion maxed out on 20 heat and it is BRUTAL. It's fine up until Tartarus, and then in Tartarus you spawn into rooms that have what feels like 40 enemies on screen at the same time. If you have a huge damage AOE build you'll have a fun time, but if not you'll be barely scraping by to reach Chronos. Also, a warning about the Vow of Bitterness - if you get Yarn of Ariadne between regions to boost your next boon, it actually seems to get used up *on the onion*, so you're just wasting money, basically.

So, one thing I'm going to point out with vow of destitution: For surface runs, I almost never spend all my money anyway. The first region only has 1 normal shop... And, as you pointed out, it's a longer region then the first region when going down. It's not uncommon for me to have 500 to 700 gold going into the shop in the first surface region. The second region does have a mid-shop... But it seems rare to get. And the end shop is still only a regular shop. On the other hand, going down, there's always the big shop at the end. There's always mid-shops. There's a LOT more reasons to spend gold going down then when going to the surface. This is a vow that I think changes significantly depending on whether you're going to the surface or going down. Going to the surface, 1 level (maybe even both levels) seems almost free... But, going down, I'd totally avoid it until much higher levels of fear.

With more keepsakes since the tech test, we need an updated keepsake guide!

Thanks, after lots of struggle i got my first 32 fear run with your fear setup and poseidon momus

I have maxed out the vow of suffering IRL.

Recently finished 24 fear on the Axe, been mostly using Than Aspect (Aphro attack, Hera magic etc.) on the 24 fear run I planned on doing the 0 magic vow, mel aspect just stick to regular attack, ended up getting born gain very early anyways. Im pretty sure I won nearly entirely because I got the Infusion boon that caps the max damage you can receive at 15 (Demeter's?) not needing to avoid Chronos' instant kill moves saved me so much mental overhead on the second stage.

If you just wanna get the statues and not actually play 32 for funzies: I prefer no timer, and put more stuff in the top row, full revenant and wandering, so I can take my time dealing with the extra health/revenants and just running to corners without worrying about time. I do 2 low-healing but keep just 1 because I hate 0-heal fountains. Currently I think 32 is way harder and feels worse than 32 heat. If it changes I might consider using vows for fun.

I beat 32 fear recently and I mostly agree with your assessment. What killed most of my attempts was Vow of Fury 40% and Vow of Suffering 100%. It might not seem that terrible, but if you get hit only once per encounter, you still take double damage over the course of the run. This is much more detrimental than it looks, because there are many many many encounters in a single run. I never take Commotion because it just makes it nearly impossible to finish runs on time, while Haunting isn't a big deal. Wandering I mostly agree with you, except on the Surface runs. Because some of the tougher enemies you get on the boats start spawing in the city and they can be very annoying when mixed with the city's enemies. Still one of the easiest vows, though. Vow of Panic is free if you use a Momus build because you don't need magic anyway, and I would absolutely recommend Momus to beat 32 fear for the first time... Vow of Forsaking I ALWAYS have it on. Sure you take the risk of losing some boons, but it makes it SO MUCH easier to get the boons you want quickly. This vow is actually beneficial. Vow of Bitterness I only use if I'm going for a simple build. The +3 fear bonus is huge, but you can forget about getting specific legendaries and duos with this. Works great with Momus build because it doesn't affect hammers and the only boon you really need is Poseidon's special. Vow of Arrogance is good now because it's bugged. Once it's fixed, it's gonna be much harder to work with. Vow of Desperation I can manage 9 minutes without problem but 7 is a bit tight for me. I'm not a speedrunner like you :) Vow of Abandon completely destroys your build, I never use it. Even for +10 fears I wouldn't take it... For the 32 fear setup, I just couldn't do it with +40% speed. I tried but the Chronos fight was just too hard for me. Instead I took Bitterness. The onion isn't that annoying when you play Momus and all you really need is 1 Poseidon boon and some hammers (which aren't affected). I also took the 9 minutes Desperation because I'm not fast enough to be comfortable with 7, especially in Erebus. 2 Rebukes isn't a problem at all because once you have Poseidon's special it removes both shields in 1 hit. Revenants weren't too much of an issue because you have to keep running all the time in this game anyway... It was a bit annoying sometimes in Oceanus where I was forced to run through the steam and take damage to prevent enemies from respawning, but still manageable.

Just did 32 Fear for both the Underworld (1st try) and the Surface (3rd try), both time relying on Momus Staff + Poseidon Special, having jumped straight from 20 Fear to 32 Fear. The game was nice enough to throw me Double Moonshot for the Underworld, whereas I didn't see it for any of my Surface attempts. I found it interesting that I went with a very different Fear setup than what the video recommends: For the underworld, I went with zero timer so I could play as safely as possible. That allowed me to max out +enemy HP, +blue hearts, one rank in both +enemy damage and +first hit damage, +20% enemies per encounter and no healing allowed. My surface setup was the similar, but taking full ranks in +enemy speed so I could ease up on enemy damage. I really should have taken at least 1 point in the time limit: even with the extra point elsewhere, and even with absolutely not rushing through chambers at all (not trying to kill enemies faster; not trying to sprint to the next room asap; not necessarily taking mid-region shops or avoiding extra fights; not using pauses when considering room choices), I still finished in under 32 minutes, so I probably would've been fine. I just know having the clock on the screen would pressure me into making mistakes, so I skipped it, and it worked out. (My surface run was over 19 minutes.... but I have to assume a fair bit of that was staring at my options in Ephyra and doing siderooms that could easily have been avoided.) The thing that made a huge difference for the Surface, which I got from this video, was giving up on the "higher chance of Epic boons" tarot card, freeing up grasp to allow me to take Swift Runner and "reroll locations" instead. Having the instant dash, and being able to reroll Ephyra rooms to load up on Poseidon boons definitely made all the difference. Great video, really appreciate the advice in it, even if I went my own way on some of the choices.

I really appreciate this guide

Greats tips, i got the 8 and 16 easily, but i was a afraid to try 32, i made your setup and got it first try even with out the 2 specials's or any hammer

I can do 20 heat casually back in Hades 1. But this, i struggle so much even on low fear.. Some vows are just really terrifying..

Just wanted to say thanks Haelian for this guide. It was the reason i managed to push above 16 fear which was my max. The biggest mistake for me was always thinking enemy quantity and health wasn't that much of a big deal. Newbie mistake I know. Still working towards being able to use Vow of Desperation at 07:00. I'm still too slow. Oh and the arcana guide which also helped me so much. So yeah i suck at this game but its amazing just as all the Supergiant games and You made me able to get enjoyment of the story but also of the gameplay itself and not dying all the time.😅

YET ANOTHER BANGER MY LIEGE

Have to say that the onion vow is one to consider. I actually got my two 32's using it. If you're going for the Momus special spam you don't need that many boons anyway. It makes the start of the run tougher, but it allowed me to enable some healing still. No healing at all was too rough for me. It's even better for the surface since you get one empty boon early before going into the city, and then you're free to seek out Poseidon and the hammer from the room choices.

After 16 Tries i finally made it at 32 fear with the skulls! Apollo attack, 5 skulls and a lot of health through 3 Chaos boons with health! Never thought it possible for me

One of my favourite runs was Thanatos with Apollo cast and Demeter attack with the hammer that makes your omega attack go off on its own. Throw one attack, cast then spin. So fun.

Vow of Bitterness should turn the first boon you get into an onion _as long as you've already gained a boon that region,_ in order to fix completely kneecapping you right out of the gate and negating the usefullness of your Olympian keepsakes. (Because what's the point of determining what your first boon of the reigon is going to be if that's the boon you have to give up?) I.E the _second_ boon of each region is yeeted instead. Another way to solve this would be to make you gave up the boon at the _end_ of each region, but I think that's too much like th e Pact of Punishment and is perhaps too lenient the other way because you then have a large range of options.

Had a lot of fun on a torch build with Zeus special, Apollo cast, and their duo boon. Nothing else is a must get for it, but channel speed is a big plus. As many poms as possible on Blitz from special. Not sure if it’s actually strong, ran it on 16 heat and felt pretty good

I've beaten 32 on both routes with skulls (Persephone works best, but the other aspects are okay too) and Hera omega special spam. The invulnerability during it is nice and Hera on it let's you add fear like the blue hearts and extra health very easily. Hera in your pool also means you can get her magic regen, giving you pretty much infinite mana as soon as you get it. Hestia or Demeter cast pair very well with it, both for origination and getting the blue hearts off without spending mana. Demeter is safer due to freeze, but Hestia has a good duo, so honestly it's just whichever one you get first.

Spamming comments to let dad see, the axe's daedalus hammer that lets you "attack during your omega attack" lets you charge your omega attack AGAIN during the first one, and they DO stack. so you can have 3 or four going at once. With aphro attack and thanatos aspect, You instantly phase every boss, and every miniboss dies to one spin. Edit: Just did a run with haephaestus as second god, rolled for first 12 sec immunity. This is the speed strat 100%. Died to chronos because i tried to attack during his big aoe and stepped out, but it was LAUGHABLY fast.

With pan daggers I’ve found the Poseidon mana boon gives me way more mana than I could ever use and because you’re usually hugging enemies to shotgun them you pick up the spirit bubbles straight away. When you get bad luck and need to get more bubbles, the attacks proc it super easily. I think it’s better than the Hera boon for this specific omega special dagger build.

mmmm about the dagger and mana regen I had a problem but maybe I missed something, with BORN GAIN for mana regen, does it only work if you go to zero? It often happens to me that I'm left with 1 mana and since it's not at zero the mana regen doesn't start, is there a way to activate it ? Or I'm missing something ?

Once I unlocked fear I maxed out the speed and the foes from the next zone to get used to the speed up sitting at 9 fear from that and getting threw the faster mechanic wind ups made getting my fear levels increasing at a more steady pace

I personally used Vow of Bitterness for my 32 fear runs, instead of the final level of Fury (Chronos is brutal with it). Also, 1 level of Dominance and Commotion in order to drop the final level of deadline (I failed twice to the timer in the Chronos fight while using it, I was done lol). As for rebuke, I only used 1 level of it; 2 layers was too annoying to deal with, I'd rather have any other 1 fear Vow. And for Keepsakes, since Bitterness makes it difficult to go for specific gods, I rely more on the raw damage of Momus and other Keepsakes to make up for the lack of Boons, namely Heracles keepsake for zone 1 works really well, then switching to Chaos or Narcissus if you have a decent boon to make Heroic. Odysseus' keepsake also works well for Chronos. Personally not a fan of Moros'.

i like the idea of vow of abandon a lot but i really think they either should make it scale like approval process, by limiting the max cards you activate (higher restrictions adding more fear ofc), or make it add a LOT more fear in order to justify using it a bit more. i like using it for the added challenge but i definitely wouldn't consider unironically using it unless it added 10 fear at minimum EDIT: the former option could also allow for easier judgement runs which i think would be PERFECT for high fear levels

vow of panic is free if ur not using an omega-heavy build one time i intentionally took no magick regen w/ it so i could get permanent huntress card + spirit surge boon (all enemies get smited every once in a while if you have less than 10 magick) it was very funni

Was just doing a casual run with like 6 fear. Got aphro attack on the axe.... With the hammers that make you charge omega attack faster, and let you attack during your omega attack. YOU CAN CHARGE YOUR OMEGA DURING YOUR OMEGA AND THEY STACK. Every single cronos phase when down before my first omega spin was done, and because that lets you dash during your omega, you can clear rooms SO Fast. The "use attacks during your omega attack" hammer has GOT to be the best speed hammer. It takes my crazy poseidon special spam runs and makes them look like jokes. (i got the charge speed hammer first, so the run wasn't really crazy till right before cerberus, but I didn't even get through my resists vs cerbie. Just killed him with two stacks left, since he phased instantly every time.)

I've had bad luck testing it, but I'm curious if you could cheese vow of suffering by getting the Hephaesteus/Aphrodite dual boon and convert it to healing?

I ended up doing my first 32 heat run with Dominance 1, Rebuke 2, Fury 2, Suffering 1, Commotion 2, Wandering 2, Scars 1, Destitution 1, Panic, Forsaking, Arrogance 2, and Desperation 3. I HATE HATE HATE Vow of Haunting so much, I had such an issue with the skulls flying in absurd directions and costing me too much time so I ended up removing it from my attempts and got my 32 win only a couple runs later.

Not me over here at 24heat using Hestia/Demeter cast spam with dodging to slowly whittle down enemies 💅

Now that we have the real early access and all of the keepsakes can you do another video doing a review of all the keepsakes. I’m curious if any of your opinion on the keepsakes changed since you did the previous keepsake video. On the topic of this video do you get extra gold for doing vow of commotion since your killing more enemies. It might help out the gold issue from the other vows

after watching this I went and did a staff run with poseidon special and *holy smokes* that is so broken

I got 32 fear but had to turn off the timer because I chose to play it safer with max enemies, max hp, and max damage with revenants, 40% speed. Priming rarity isn't so bad if you can stack magick early on and get born gain but first boon being rotten onion was so bad to start with that I chose to get rid of it and went with 0 magick start and got the Arcana that grants 50% bonus damage when under 100%. Overall, it was doable but harder than Hades 1 by miles, needed more incremental fear in some like the No Arcana and No Magick vow going 0-100

I’m cheated my 32 heat 😂. I chose max vow of suffering and started with hephy as my starting god on the daggers. I fished for the Hephy armor boon that gives you armor every time you enter a location which counters the vow entirely

Do we know how Vow of Arrogance works with boons that already prime magic? By that, I mean, will those boons still work if you don't have enough magic to prime? If they do, then it seems a natural thought to go for Zeus's prime boon along with the one thet does damage to everything if you have under 10 magic.

vow of suffering goes well with hephaestus armor every room boon

Literally as this video dropped I beat 32 fear

The Huntress makes Vow of Panic not just free fear, but a buff tbh.

The 50% revanant chance is basically free. It has never caused me a problem (although I haven't tried the 7 minute timer before).

I'm not the best Hades 2 player. I still struggle with the axe 20 fear run (daggers was way easier), but I personally find the 5 minute timer to be fairly doable, if you really try to be fast. It's probably easier for some weapons than others, but it's like the one vow that doesn't make the game harder, but just requires you to play a bit differently.

I lost a most 32 heat ridiculous run.... Died to Chronos simply because I got FOUR BOONS in 4 floors. Needless to say i wasn't able to activate bonus damage from curse/status effects coz I had none. I am not even that good at the game, but that could have been THE run, if I was able to get that +50%.

If you take Vow of Arrogance, get a common boon, and then use the Narcissus Keepsake to make it heroic, do you still have to prime? It says whenever you "choose" a boon, so I would imagine its safe to increase the rarity afterwards?

Rebuke is usually the first one i do honestly xD but i dont do deadlines, didnt do that in hades 1 too, im not that pro Starting with 0 mana would ve interesting in a full primed mana bar run 🤔

Vow of arrogance isn't as bad on the surface I'd say if you get Medea's blessing that gives you 10 magic each encounter. Also get any magic vials anywhere possible

I won the first 32 fear run lmao. After having four damn boons in 4 floors I decided to cancel the Vow of Bitterness.

regarding barrier, for w/e reason barrier does not prevent stagger in Hades II. I believe you experienced and commented on this before already, too. video: They Made Hades 2 Even Harder. (comment at 2:50)

The new fear feels so much more difficult then the Hades pact, it's pretty insane. I dont have everything unlocked, but I lost twice on 20 fear while 32 heat was pretty easy imo

Oaths feel rough at the moment. I think some of them should have steps, going straight to -100% magick for instance seems steep. Plus some of them seem like they don’t provide enough fear either. Needs a rebalance if you ask me.

Weapons that use a lot of mana (looking at you, torches) definitely cannot take Vow of Panic in higher fear. You won't make the timer because you're either taking mana regen and lack damage boons or take damage boons and lack mana in Erebus.

High heat runs feel more miserable than in Hades I imho. Especially the first two acts can feel really like a chore, once the build gets going it gets a bit more exciting ( though not easier). The "fun" type of challenging stops at around 15-18 fear for me, while in Hades I it was around 25-28. Completed the 32 fear run once, not really tempted to do it again for now. So many of the pacts just make the game really severely less fun to play - more health, more enemies, revenants, boons are onions, less gold, arcana cards don't work, enemy shields, priming magick ... and then some of the other ones seem to have overtuned values - 5 mins deadline, 300% first time you take damage, 40% attack speed - there is no way these will stay unchanged if they are going to add extreme measures. Hades I managed to have a PERFECTLY balanced heat system where it was barely humanly possible to get to 64 heat and only a couple of people ever have done it. Time will tell if this system will be similar, but i really doubt it.

Perfect timing! I was just looking for a video on this to help me take down Cerberus on 12 fear I had the best build (best staff with Poseidon special and double shot) and I still lost Edit: ok. I think my fear setup just REALLY sucked. I just beat Cerberus and Chronos with 12 fear without the double shot and without losing a single death defiance. Thx so much for the guide!

How do the vows of blood and suffering interact with coarse grit?

Vow of Suffering is indeed suffering

how did you do all the Testament, one is locked with no icon of the weapon? isn't it for the unreleased weapon?

Btw can anybody tell me why fear requirements for the testaments escalate so quicky? I've beaten the game with Fear on maybe 6 times and the minimum requirement already spiked up to 20 minimum-all Chronoses. How can you even farm the material like this?

There is a way around Vow of Bitterness which I discovered by accident but it's very unreliable, almost to the point of unusability. It simply has no effect if the first boon you pick in a region is from a trial encounter. I'm assuming it's because the game doesn't know how to deal with putting two boons in front of you with any which you pick first possibly becoming an onion, so it just doesn't work. And then for the rest of the region it counts as if the boon has already been transformed into an onion, so the other boons there are normal. Pretty weird.

The poseidon special on staff with the double damage hammer is broken and will most probably get nerfed soon. That said, that's the only way I can beat 32 heat right now. Hades 2 is just way harder than hades 1 right now I think.

I tried vow of panic while forgetting that I didn’t have the unseen on… and I was using the Charon axe. Um. It didn’t go very well lmfao

Love the game so much rn. But imo it is a bit sad that i have to farm Bones after 16 Fear for Nightmares because I can't fkn beat Chronos at 20 xD.

Damn no equivalent of extreme measures yet. I liked extreme measures because it was an easy way to get 6 heat and the revamped bosses where more fun.

I think of vow of commotion as more money on hand. Is that wrong

I actually think forsaking makes the game easier. Best way to farm duos and legendaries when those are the only thing that can be offered.

Vow of abandon is free when you try to complete defeat Hecate with no Arkana

RIP Momus 😢

A lot of these really suck to deal with. Like Vow of Panic. I get zero magick at the start of each encounter for only 1 fear...? That's stupid. I get that you can get a regen boon, but it just takes away a key mechanic in the game. So far, I think the heat system in Hades was much better, but it is still early access.

Wish there was a better way to grind out n-mare. I can beat chronos or eris with 8 fear, but it kinda takes the fun out of the game for me

Me playing Hades 2: God, I suck at this game. Can't even do sub 20 runs. Haelian: I actually don't run 5 minutes now. Me: Oh. Ok.

Yeah fear is harder than heat previously, but not by a huge amount IMO. I was barely able to pull 16 heat in hades 1, but I have gotten 16 fear already in 2 Capsicum

tbh fear is the only part of the game im a not digging at the moment. loved heat in the first game but alot of the options for fear dont feel like fun challenges, theyre just like... grueling. im rlly hoping for a few more additions to the vows on release for sure

On Top Of That.... I can Confirm that the *Crystal Figurine* is Capable of Proccing *Judgement* .... And it only took a Week to Test. 😥 So Yeah... That's how you Do the *Arcana Of The Ages* on the *Fated List Of Minor Profecies*

*Vow Of Satisfaction* "Viewers have 50% Chance of Clicking That *Like* Button" 👀

1:46 I'm pretty sure that enemies get staggered with this vow if they're normal enemies, but they'm don't get staggered if they're armoured. Correct me if I'm wrong. Can also check my other thoughts below if you're there anyway.

I like playing zero-mana runs with arrogance. Different way to play.

I really can't get the skullgun to work, wich frustrates me as a 35 year old who can only do a run a day 😭

Lately I’ve noticed my surface runs skip Charybdis, anyone know why?

first ily

You are nuts for 0% healing. What.

64 fear when?

Algorithms

bro u need to sleep