Hades guide: Skills and boons from the Gods of Olympus

Hermes’ boons

Hermes is the messenger of the gods and, in Hades, his boons work out differently compared to the other Olympians. Here are some things to take note of:

• Hermes’ boons are symbolized by a wing.
• Hermes does not have any boon that alters your attack, special, cast, or dash abilities.
• Instead, he provides more of a support role. His boons will simply boost Zagreus’ movement speed, attack speed, casting speed, and so on. Others, meanwhile, offer additional utility such as boosting your dodge chance or giving you a bit more gold.
• You may only encounter his boons a maximum of three times during one run (this includes his symbol appearing in Charon’s shop in the Temple of Styx region).
• Hermes does not have any Duo boons and he doesn’t appear in the Trial of the Gods. However, his boons can reach Heroic rarity and he has a couple of Legendary boons.

Here are some examples:

• Swift Strike, Swift Flourish, Flurry Cast, Greater Haste (tier 1) – Increases your attack, special, casting, or movement speed respectively.
• Greater Evasion (tier 1) – Increases your dodge chance; maximum +30% dodge (Heroic rarity).
• Greatest Reflex (tier 1) – Increases the number of successive dashes that you could do; +4 dashes (Heroic rarity).
• Side Hustle (tier 1) – Gain gold each time you enter a chamber.
• Greater Recall (tier 3/Legendary) – Your casting ammo/blood crystals automatically return to you.
• Bad News (tier 3/Legendary) – Your casting skills do more damage on enemies not afflicted by your casting ammo — aka. first shot.

As you can see, Hermes provides a lot of utility for your Hades runs. Many of his skills will invariably quicken your pace and increases your survivability. My favorite tends to be focusing on Ares’ Blade Dash and eventually getting Hermes’ Greatest Reflex (to spawn more Blade Rifts). Alternatively, it’s getting more casting ammo via Artemis’ Fully Loaded and having Hermes’ Greater Recall to toss out more projectiles.

Lastly, let’s talk about the dark, mysterious entity in the game. No, it’s not necessarily Hades himself — it’s actually Primordial Chaos.

Hades is available via Steam’s early access program. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.