How to complete blood test in Hades 2

Melinoë has her hands full Hades 2: along with her missions to the House of Hades and Olympus, the god Chaos also decided to take an interest in her and the conflict. The Pitch-Black Stone sits ominously on Melinoë's training ground.

The blood test is one of Chaos' most difficult tests, ranking five out of five… eyes? He challenges Melinoë to cross the Thessaly Rift and defeat the Goddess of Strife Eris with the Sister Blades, the White Antler, and the cat. The initial loadout on Trial of Blood can get a little tricky, and you still have some work to do.

What is load?

For a blood test, the most important features you start with are the weapon, its aspect, and the relic. It's you Blades sister in Artemis aspect and white antler. You will not be able to attempt the blood test until you unlock all three of these items.

Sister Blades are fast and mobile. Aspect of Artemis gives you Parry and Reposte: when you channel your Omega Attack, you have a chance to Parry, preventing damage from most types of direct attacksthen Riposte, making you impervious to pme Sec a you give your next nine strikes +50 percent critical chance.

Artemis' memento gift, the White Antler, also increases your critical chance, starting at +20 percent and increasing as you upgrade the memento. It also sets your maximum lifespan to 30. When it's possible to start a run with 100 Life, 30 is quite a downgrade.

While the Trials of Chaos determine which Weapon, Aspect, Relic, Boons, Arcana, and friends you start with any upgrades you make to Melinoë and her tools and companions will carry over to the Smolny Blackstone. Likewise, encounters in the Pitch-Black Stone apply to upgrading your souvenirs.

Some Trials will also give you specific Familiars, Arcana, and Boons to start with. Here you go cat, Toula! While he has a nice attack, he brings one Death Defiance to the table for this test. When you only have 30 life, it's valuable.

Your Chaos Crafted Arcana spread consists of just two cards: Lovers and the Force. The Lovers will give you one example of damage resistance in Guardian Encounters. In the Rift of Thessaly, it'll probably just be Eris, though there's a chance you'll run into Charybdis as well.

Power is the heavy lifter here. This card gives you a reducing damage and giving +25 percent damage if you have no Death Defiance effects. In theory, you could fire your Death Defiance early and intentionally to get that damage boost, but since Toula's Defiance only restores 10 health, you're more likely to find yourself at a disadvantage. Better save your power for when Death Defiance happens naturally.

What are the benefits of the process?

You start with a handful of Boons from Artemis, Aphrodite, and Poseidon, which means you'll probably only see Aphrodite and Poseidon in the Thessaly Rift of Thessaly.

Flutter Strikeby Aphrodite, gives your attacks an extra +120 percent damage against nearby enemies. Glamor Gain inflicts her special status, Weak, on nearby enemies and allows you to gradually recover magic when any nearby enemy is weak. Finally, A broken solution boosts your weak effects.

Weak enemies deal less damage.

Poseidon's heroic goodness, Flood controlit reduces any damage you take by five, but generates 30 Magick. The Sister Blades are not a super magical weaponso it probably won't cause much of a problem, especially with Aphrodite's Glamor Gain.

Finally, your goodness from Artemis is First blood. All enemies with at least 80 percent health or armor can take critical damage, increasing your chance by 30 percent.

To the Rift

A blood test is easy when you think about it. Just don't get hit. Simple.

Indeed, but: damage reduction can only do so much. Especially once you reach Eris, whose attacks get stronger the more she's hurt, one attack could mean the end of the run. The blood test forces you to pay attention to every detail on the screen and stay ahead of everything.

Artemis is here to help you wipe out anyone who gets in your way: everything it offers for this test increases your critical chance, with some damage prevention. It is very easy to kill most enemies in one or three hits. It just becomes a matter make sure you hit first.

A Blessing In The Rift

You will probably only see Poseidon and Aphrodite in Thessaly Rift, but there is also a chance that Hermes will appear. A lot of what you choose will be about finding what works best for you.

For example, you can prioritize Poseidon's knockback Boons and keep distance between you and enemies that might hit you; or you can lean on Aphrodite's proximity properties and give up those knockback abilities to keep your enemies close and benefit from Flutter Strike and Glamor Gain. You can retake the exams as often as you likeso there is no harm in trying to find what is best for you. Meanwhile, some will almost always be easy.

Almost anything from Hermes is great. Most tend to speed up you or your attacks or slow down enemies.

• A nimble mind: speeds up your Omega's movement and minimizes the time you are most vulnerable (Channeling). Especially when Aspect of Artemis is centered around your Omega attack, the acceleration gives enemies less time to hit you while you're slowed.
• A hard target: slows down most ranged enemies' shots, making it easier to see them coming and avoid them. It's underrated, but a lot of enemies in Rift of Thessaly have projectiles. It probably doesn't work on Eris, but those pesky Sticklers and Blaskets are a hit to avoid.
• Nitro Boost: speeds up your sprint by 15 percent and gives you a barrier that ignores damage, the number of hits blocked depends on the rarity of the Boon. This increased speed works wonders for dodging Eris' fire and this the damage barrier works in every encounter, not just the Guardian ones like the Lovers card.

Aphrodite's Boons are largely focused on dealing more damage and less damage. They tend to be a little less noticeable, but are almost always a good choice. Just watch out for the Life Affirmation – it does some Max life rewards stronger, which won't help you here.

• Shameless attitude: gives you a flat bonus to damage, but doubles the bonus if you have at least 80 percent health. Anything that helps you kill enemies before they kill you will go a long way, and if you can keep your health up, all the better.
• Healthy reflection: heals you to 100 percent health whenever you leave the location, provided you haven't lost too much life – you need at least 80 percent to trigger this. This requires you to have Shameless Attitude first.
• Sweet surrender: Weakly affected enemies take more damage. This one requires either Rapture Ring, Passion Rush, or Glamor Gain, but luckily you start with Glamor Gain. Rapture Ring or Passion Rush will help spread Weak around, so they're still good.

Poseidon has plenty of knockback abilities to help give you some breathing room when you're surrounded by enemies.

• Wave Flourish or A tidal ring: Wave Flourish's knockback ranged special pushes ranged targets even further, and Tidal Ring adds extra damage to your cast. The Tidal Ring could later be combined with the Geyser Throat to add recoil.
• Island getaway: Poseidon's Duo Boon with Aphrodite gives you 15 percent resistance to damage from nearby enemiesand makes it so that Boons of Aphrodite heals all enemies as nearby – which goes incredibly well with Flutter Strike and Glamor Gain. You already have Flutter Strike from Aphrodite for Island Getaway's prerequisites, and you need one of Wave Strike, Wave Flourish, Tidal Ring, Breaker Sprint, or Fluid Gain from Poseidon. It can be a bit more difficult to hunt down, but it's definitely worth it if possible.

Hammer of Daedalus

Since your starting Boons are melee-focused, if you run into Daedalus Hammer, it's best to stick with ones that buff your attacks, although there are exceptions.

• Explosive ambush: Your Omega attack deals 400 percent damage in a wider area, but uses +20 magic. This goes well with Aspect of Artemis, but be careful of your magic cap.
• Skulking Onslaughtt: Causes your attacks to deal 150 percent damage when hitting enemies from behind. This will encourage good habits: getting behind enemies will increase your damage and decrease your chance of getting hit, since enemies usually have to face you.
• melting sickle: Your special destroys 50 percent of all armor based on the total. This is an exception! If you can reduce an enemy's armor from a distance, it's much easier to finish them off.

How to defeat Eris

The strategy is simple: hit others before they hit you. Execution, a little more complicated.

Eris is in trouble. He's got a gun, he's having a blast, and you only have 30 lives.

• Stay behind her: A lot of her attacks show their path before she fires, and if you're fast enough you can get behind her or take cover. Blessings can help, but it is also possible without divine intervention. Melee works well against Eris as it is much easier to sneak behind her. It can only shoot in one direction. Don't be in that direction.
• Kill the minions: She will summon little boys to help her during the fight. They're annoying and in the way, and if you focus on Eris and ignore them, you're much more likely to get hit. With Artemis's crit, they should die easily – get them out of the way.
• Hit her!: Get up close and personal with the Goddess of Strife! Use the Omega aspect of Artemis' attack to collect critical hits.

It's okay if it takes practice. After all, you're just killing some time.