Hades – 32 Heat Guide (Shattered Shackle)

This requires the aspect of Arthur holy excalibur. Disclaimer: This is not for new players or beginner players. This guide requires the players to have played the game well enough to unlock the hidden aspect of the Stygian Blade: Holy Excalibur. If you have unlocked Holy Excalibur or completed the Epilogue, that’s a sign that you are not new or a beginner.

Guide to 32 Heat: Shattered Shackle

All credit goes to chillwaffles!

Proof of 32 Heat

I’m not a good player, but I really wanted to unlock Skelly’s last statue. I managed to get 32 heat on like the second attempt with this build, and since then, the build has even been buffed.

Disc: I’m not saying you will get it necessarily in 2 tries, and I had considerable luck aiding me. Luck will always play a part in 32 Heat so that’s something we cannot control.

Proof:

As you can see, I was very lucky to get it. Since then, I have 32 heated a few times with less luck… But i believe this is still the most reliable method to 32 heat.

TLDR; Core Build + Boons + Mirror + Heat

Weapon + Keepsake

• Holy Excalibur
• Owl Pendant(First Area), then Shattered Shackle (Second Area onwards)

Hammer + Boon

• Hammer: Cursed Slash
• Boons: Divine Dash + Athena Call.

• Do not pick an attack and special boon.
• Do not pick a Cast Boon unless you have no choice.

Mirror + Heat (Ignore the numbers for Mirror, just focus on the names)

Carrying on reading for more information and details.

How to Beat 32 Heat and What Weapon to Use?

How to beat 32 heat

The key elements in clearing 32 Heat in my opinion are to a) Clear enemies fast and b) Make sure you don’t lose too much health for the next battle as healing is sparse.. The aim of the guide is to showcase a build that helps deal with the difficulties of 32 Heat, with as little fuss and thought needed in choosing your build. Basically as brain-deads possible.

Core Weapon

Holy Excalibur helps mitigate these elements with its properties:

1. Holy Excalibur gives you additional 50 on your Life Total
2. Holy Excalibur’s special gives a defense boost, slows enemy projectiles and disable floor and wall traps.
3. Holy Excalibur deals a lot of damage and its swings are wide, so you can clear enemies fast.

If possible try to upgrade this weapon to the maximum.

How to unlock

Here’s a random video I found that can help you with that:

What Keepsakes to Use

This is the Owl Pendant keepsake you get from Athena. It allows your first boon to be an Athena boon. Start of with this keepsake!

Why owl pendant?

Two words: Divine Dash.

The absolute must have for every run. The best boon to get for any run. Equipping the keepsake guarantees a Athena boon on your first boon. Try to roll or restart for at least an epic rarity.

This is the Shattered Shackle keepsake you get from Sisyphus. Your attack, special and cast each deal a bonus of 100% damage when not powered by a boon. The effect runs out if you switch Keepsakes. Use it from the second dungeon onwards and dont switch it out!

Why shattered shackle?

• Relying on boons can be quite unreliable. There’s a lot of luck/RNG involved and trying to mix and match boons for the best combination can be confusing and distracting.
• With Shackle + Excalibur, all you have to do is just mindlessly spam your basic attack and you’re good to go, so you will spend way less time deciding on what boons to pick.
• Since you are selecting less boons, your upgrades (like Poms of Power) will focus on only your important boons.

So make sure you don’t pick up any Attack or Special boons from any Gods, or else your bonus damage will be gone! Since we are mainly using basic attacks, you can use a boon for Cast, it doesn’t matter as much as Attack or Special.

What Are the Hammers and Boons to Pick

Core Hammers

Cursed Slash reduces your Health by 60% but each attack restores 2 Health. This is the core hammer to get for our brain dead strategy. The earlier you get this the better. In fact if you don’t get this early, its not too far fetch to restart your run. This hammer upgrade really pairs well with Excalibur as the bonus health and defense helps mitigate the total health reduction. Regaining health also allows you to make more mistakes, as healing is sparse at 32 heat.

Good Hammers

Double Edge makes your Dash-Strike hit twice and deal +20% damage. Dash-Strikes help make your attacks go faster since you are wielding a slow weapon. Anything that boosts your dash strikes are good, since your dash boon is saved for Divine Dash.

Greater Consecration makes your aura +45% larger, and makes foes +10% slower. This is an Arthur exclusive hammer. It is pretty good, but I believe Double Edge is better. Still not too bad.

The rest of the boons are all decent to meh. The only one to really avoid is Dash Nova, as it lunges the player forward and you don’t have much control of the character. As long as you have Cursed Slash, nothing else matters as much.

Core Boons

• Attack: Dont pick any boon for this. If you pick any, you won’t receive the boost from the keepsake.
• Special: Dont pick any boon for this. If you pick any, you won’t receive the boost from the keepsake.
• Cast: Dont pick any boon for this unless you have no choice (i.e. The only options for boons are attack, special and cast.) Priorities attack and special. If you have to pick a Cast, I will list a few cast that I think is good to pick below.

Dash:

Divine Dash. The only Olympian boon that matters. No matter what build you are using, Divine Dash is the best boon. Seriously, if there’s one thing to learn from this guide, it is the importance of this dash. Try to roll for a EPIC rarity in the beginning and upgrade it as fast as you can early game.

Call:

Athena’s Call. Basically another Divine Dash. You don’t have to wait for the God’s Gauge to be filled. You can just spam it like a Divine Dash if you want. This adds another layer of protection for you where you can spam your attack and gain health with Cursed Slash.

Good Boons

Hermes

• Swift Strike: You have slow attack speeds, so increasing attack speed is good!
• Quick Recovery: Increasing health is always good especially when you are dashing. This means you are gaining HP when you dodge AND attack. Lastly,
• Greatest Reflex: Having more dashes is good, but if you have more than 1 dash already that is not priority.

Artemis

• Anything that increases Crit chance or damage is good. The third swing of the Excalibur does Crit Damage, so having any bonuses from that Crit will be good!
• Support Fire: Support Fire does not affect your actual attack so Shackle will give you bonus. Having extra attack is also good to break the blue hearts.

Dionysis

• Strong Drink: Restores all your Health and gives bonus damage. Since restoration will be weakened, this will be super useful. Also gives bonus damage which is great! The earlier you get this, the better! Isn’t as good to get when it’s late.

Other Boons

Cast:

• If you have to pick a Cast, pick a cast that can lodge into the enemy. These 3 are the only that lodges into the enemy. The best one is Artemis as it homes to the enemy and does crit damage.

Call:

• If you have to pick another Call other than Athena, having ones that deal massive damage can help clear bosses and mini bosses fast. Using an Epic Artemis Aid, Hydra becomes a 1 shot once you reach the third phase and lodge it with 3 Casts.

What Mirror Upgrade and Heat Pact to Choose?

My mirror and heat pact:

Mirror Upgrade: (using an old image. Just look at the names, ignore the numbers and adjust accordingly)

• Thick Skin gives more Health for no reason but since we are using Cursed Slash hammer Upgrade, we need more Health.
• Family Favourite > Privilleged Status. We are not using any attack or special boons so there won’t be much statuses to proc them.
• Fated Persuasion is more consistent for getting a specific god rather than getting a specific boon. Since this build only uses like 3 Olympian Gods, its better the mull the Gods then the Boons IMO.

Heat Ladder

• Learn to experiment with whatever Heat that you are comfortable with.
• If you practice hard enough you could increase Tight Deadline to 5:00. But because the Holy Excalibur is slow, it is not advisable if you are not used to it.
• Most people would pick Underworld Customs as their heat and with good reason. It is an easy heat to gain. However, because we are not using a lot of Boons, it’s better to not pick it.