Hades

I don't dislike any of them and have made it out with all at least a few times now but haven't found a bow build that feels really good, whereas I've been able to build some crazy builds around the others. Up to heat 12 on the rail though so that's probably my favourite. Or maybe just the easiest to use.

No favourite weapons (although my one win was the sword) - as others have said I pick the bonus one each round. Actually love how each creates such a different run. For boons I had largely ignored Hermes but will start giving them a go following comments above!

Just started a new run with the shield and see now what this 'heat' level is all about. I can see this game taking up a lot of time..!

Earlier I made a first attempt at Charon which didn't end well.

I'd take him over Aphrodite. And possibly Athena if I already have shield dash.

Duo boon is a (sometimes) strong boon that you get when you have the right combination of gods and boons. Like I generally pick Athena's call and Zeus's cast which more often than not gives you lightning rod eventually which is strong enough to carry you through the entire game.

If playing on Xbox : quick resume broke achievments, if you quit all the way out (home page/ manage game/ quit), next time you play should get some pop up.

Finally got through to the final boss on my 33rd play through and died with about 25% left on their life bar. I wasn’t even that confident of the run as I never got Athena’s Divine Dash but had loads of buffs on the Special, inc Deflect. I think I just played slower which isn’t a bad technique. Also didn’t have any of those pink Butterfly balls in Elysian that I hate.
Absolutely love this game - will get there soon

Finally took out spear cunt and his faithful sidekick, managed to do it with the sword.

It's my least used weapon and a absolutely smashed them with it. Fired pretty promptly in lvl 4.

Doom is pretty fun early game but it scales really badly late game as it adds flat damage amounts rather than scaling from your own base attack Tear through the early phases and then bosses take forver. The blade rift builds can be fun though.

I did it! Fists with emphasis on attack and deflect boons, and I got lucky with a legendary Divine Protection boon from Artemis that negates an incoming hit and recharges after 20 seconds. Really thought I'd screwed the run by accidentally using the Lucky Tooth in Tartarus, but I kept it for the whole thing, and didn't use up any Death Defiance until the 4th level anyway.

Didn't use Cast once, but the run really took off when I picked a Heroic level Cast and very soon afterwards purged it for a load of coins. Also, thanks to MolarAm🔵 and Bongo Heracles for saying take your time with Hades and try to get rid of the skulls, that advice was golden.

Main tip for Hades himself - pay attention to the kind of white wind circle thing that appears around him. It's the tell that he's going to do his big spin attack. When you see it, wait a moment then dodge TOWARD him, not away. Since he moves toward you with the spin, by dashing toward him you'll put far more distance between the two of you.

One of the best builds I've seen on Reddit was a Demeter crystal cast build, with about 8 of them melting Hades.

This Artemis/Demeter cast build looks fun too (spoilers, obvs): www.reddit.com/r/HadesTheGame/comments/et9dru/most_op_cast_build_yet_ft_artemis_and_new_demeter/

Holy shit, ok maybe I need to reconsider my cast aversion

Artemis cast build:

youtu.be/veJHm6Ugd9s

Yeah, I know that there's a benefit to it. I guess the normal casts just feel a bit... tacked on? I don't really know how to describe it, but there's just something about them that (imo) doesn't really fit with the flow of the gameplay.