Difficult boss fights are part and parcel of the roguelike experience, and Hades 2 does not deviate from that trend. Its 'Guardians' - the bosses found at the end of each region, are very tough individuals who can be major roadblocks to ✱progress and provide frustrating experiences for beginners and veterans alike.

Erebus, the first region of the path to the underworld, is guarded by Hecate, your mentor, headmistres🌼s, and companion. While not outwardly aggressive, she isn't going to let you progress until you can prove yourself against her, and she has some pretty nasty tricks up her sleeves.

Hades 2 is in Early Access, so the details below may change over time.

How To Beat Hecate

The fight against Hecate is broken into three phases, with many attacks shared between them.

Hecate will always begin this fight by using a purple pulsing attack, which creates a ring of damaging energy around her that expands outwards. When it reaches the apex of the expansion, it will shrink back down into Hecate again. It's very easy to dodge into the ring, perform a few attacks against Hecate, and then dodge out when the ring is retur🦋ning.

She'll use ꦯthis attack throughout the🅰 entire fight.

Hecate will also fire waves of green energy at you. These come in two varieties:

• One wave, followed by another shortly afterwards.
• Two waves fired at the same time, creating a very wide attack.

When you notice Hecate starting this attack up by charging up her staves, try to position yourself behind her. If she uses the double-wave version of 🎶the attack, you can start your counterattack immediately. If she only fires one wave, wait for the second to dodge it before attacking.

At certain points throughout the fight, Hecate will split herself into three clones, placed at different points in the arena. They will then perform a long attack based on the phase of the fight:

• In the first phase, the clones will spit out a short-range fire attack. It's easy to get to their sides, which are safe zones, and try to damage the real Hecate.
• In the second phase, the clones will fire balls of magick at you. These are harder to dodge since they're so long-range, but they are also slow.
• In the final phase, the clones will each use Hecate's pulsing ring of purple magick attack.

There is no obvious way to know which of the clones is the real Hecate - you'll usually have to strike them and watch to see if her health bar decreases. Once the attacks are over, the fake Hecates🀅 will disappear.

If you are using Boons that inflict status effects with visual indicators, such as Hestia's Scorch or Zeus's Blitz, these will stay on the real Hecate if they are present when she splits herself into three, making it obvious who the real🍎 one is.

Once you've reduced Hecate to two thirds of her life remaining, she'll teleport to 💫the middle of the arena and shield herself. She will then sum🐎mon Witches who will fire ranged projectiles at you around the arena, who you must kill to end the phase transition.

While she's shielded in the middle of the arena, Hecate will cast spells 💯at you:

• To begin with, Hecate will cast exploding glyphs that you must dodge out of.
• After defeating her enough times, Hecate can cast a long burst of green waves that fire out and then travel back to her. Sprint around the edge of the arena to avoid this one.
• After defeating Hecate many times, she can start using a split beam attack that rotates around the arena. This is actually quite easy to avoid, just dodge through the beam when it gets near.

After defeating the Witches, the transition will end and the second phase beg🌠ins, the only difference here being the attacks her triplet forms use.

When you get her down to a third of her life, Hecate will begin another phase transition. This time, however, she will summon vastly more Witches and also cast a Hex at you. If this orb hits you, you'll be transformed into a sheep for a 🤡short while,🏅 which reduces your movement and sprint speed, making it harder to avoid her attacks.

It's difficult but possible to avoid the Hex, you just need it to get caught on obstacles or bounce far away from you by hitting walls. If you have an Animal Familiar, it can also soak the𝓰 Hex for you꧋ - Hecate will even comment on this if it happens!

Th♈e final phase enables Hecate to use the burst of green waves, so be wary of this attack when it comes out. As ever, getting behind her when she fires the attack off it a good way to get some great damage in.

Your reward for beating Hecate is a Cinder, a useful crafting resource.

Strategy Tips

• Stay at a medium range to Hecate while waiting for her to attack. This will give you ample room to dodge to a safe spot to attack her.
• Don't panic if you get turned into a sheep and focus on using your dodge's invincibility window to avoid attacks.
• Setting up an Omega Cast to go off shortly after her shield goes down at the end of a phase transition is a great way to use that window of time.
• Scorch is a great status to use on Hecate as the damage will keep ticking down even when she's shielded.