Artemis, the God of the Hunt, is an offensive-focused god in Hades. Her unique mechanic and status, critical and marked, are both focused on increasing your damage output. She also has several boons which enhance your cast. If you want high damage, you may want to pick up some of Artemis’ boons throughout the game. If you need a quick guide on Artemis’ boons, mechanics, and her keepsake, then here is a guide to Artemis in Hades, detailing her boons and best builds.
Unique Mechanics
Critical is the main keyword mostly unique to Artemis and her boons. Once applied to your strike, cast, special or other abilities, critical has a chance of triggering with each attack. If it does trigger then that attack deals triple its original damage. This damage can be enhanced by other effects, increasing your critical damage output. Critical chance can also stack and increase.
Marked is her unique status curse, and when inflicted on enemies it makes it so that they have a higher chance of taking critical damage from any one attack. So that means that multiple attacks won’t benefit from the ability, but that any attack has an additional chance to crit.
Boons
- Deadly Strike: Strengthens your attack, adding a chance to do critical damage.
- Deadly Flourish: Strengthens your special, adding a chance to do critical damage.
- Hunter’s Dash: Increases damage dealt by your dash-strikes.
- Pressure Points: Any damage you deal has a chance of being critical.
- Hide Breaker: Increases critical damage that you do to armor.
- Clean Kill: Increases critical damage in general.
- Hunter’s Mark: When you deal critical damage, a nearby foe is marked.
- True Shot: Artemis’ unique cast, taking the form of a green arrow that seeks enemies and has a chance to do critical damage.
- Hunter’s Flare: A unique version of her cast available if you unlocked the aspect of Beowulf on the Shield of Chaos. This cast deals damage to enemies around the player.
- Artemis’ Aid: A call that shoots out a seeking arrow that has a chance to deal critical damage. The greater call shoots more arrows.
- Hunter’s Instinct: Charges your God Gauge faster with critical damage.
- Exit Wounds: When your bloodstones are dislodged from enemies, they take damage.
- Support Fire: Whenever you cast, hit with an attack or use your special, you fire a seeking arrow.
- Fully Loaded: Gives you extra bloodstones for your cast. This is a Legendary Boon.
Duo Boons
- Artemis + Aphrodite
- Heart Rend: Critical effects deal more damage to enemies with the Weak status.
- Artemis + Ares
- Hunting Blades: A modification of Ares’ unique cast. This shoots out a vortex of blades that seeks enemies.
- Artemis + Athena
- Deadly Reversal: When you deflect, you gain a chance to deal critical damage for a brief time.
- Artemis + Demeter
- Mirage Shot: Strengthens Demeter’s Crystal Beam cast and allows it to track enemies better.
- Artemis + Dionysus
- Splitting Headache: Enemies with the Hangover status are more likely to trigger critical damage.
- Artemis + Poseidon
- Mirage Shot: Your cast shoots a second projectile, though it’s weaker than the main shot.
- Artemis + Zeus
- Lightning Rod: Collectible bloodstones on the battlefield strike nearby enemies with lightning.
Keepsake
Artemis’ keepsake is the same as the other Olympians, giving you a chance that her boons will be rare or better and making sure your first or next boon will be from her. You can get this keepsake by giving Artemis Nectar. Engaging in the social side of the game is an important part of getting the most out of each run, and that extends to the Olympians too.
Builds and General Strategy
Artemis is a powerful support god, best used in combination with other gods. She has some very good Duo Boons, while Pressure Points and Support Fire are great boons that you don’t need to commit to Artemis to make work. Broadly you can either build her to take advantage of critical for massive damage or you can build her to support your casts, especially when you have Hera’s bow.
Taking her weapon-enhancing boons like Deadly Strike and Deadly Flourish is an option, but it can be a trap for newer players. Both of these don’t enhance your damage nearly as much as other weapon-buffing boons, and while crit chance is nice, it is still only a chance. You have to take these boons with very specific weapons, either those that attack often enough to trigger critical or those with very high damage combos. To make matters worse, these boons don’t increase crit chance when upgraded. These weapon boons are probably necessary for a full crit build, but should not be taken if you don’t have any intention of taking more boons from Artemis or a very specific plan in mind. Deadly Strike can be effective with Malaphon Gauntlets or Adamant Rail, while Deadly Flourish would be good with high-damage specials like Aspect of Hades Varatha Spear or some Malaphon aspect specials.
While her weapon boons may be more situational, her cast is actually a fairly solid option that may often be overlooked. Her call, Artemis’ Aid, is even better with a high damage potential. If you don’t have a specific strategy in mind, then Artemis on call and cast is probably the best way to utilize her strengths. You may also want to pick up Pressure Points and Support Fire if your weapon’s attack speed is at all fast. Both of these work exceptionally well with any sort of fast-attacking weapon.
As for builds, there are several notable paths that take advantage of her powerful duos. Hunting Blades is an incredible Duo Boon that can be enhanced by many of Artemis’ and Ares’ other boons. You can get this Duo Boon by getting Ares’ cast and then one of Deadly Strike, Deadly Flourish, Hunter Dash, or Artemis’ Aid. You can enhance the blades you get with the call with several of Ares’ boons, like Vicious Cycle, and then you can enhance its damage and your casting with Artemis boons like Pressure Points and Fully Loaded. Artemis also has a similar relationship with Demeter, enhancing her cast with their Duo.
If, however, you want to take advantage of crits on your weapon, then Artemis can pair very well with Aphrodite, which is ironic given how they interact in the myth. Taking advantage of the duo boon Heart Rend, you’ll want Aphrodite’s Heartbreak Flourish on your special and then Deadly Strike for your attack. This takes advantage of Aphrodite’s higher damage increase to your special and Artemis’ critical damage on your attacks. You want Artemis on your attacks so crits can trigger consistently, though if you have a weapon with a fast special and a slow attack then you may want to switch it up. You can also augment this build by getting Artemis’ cast or call, and Pressure Points is perfect for this build. Aphrodite’s Sweet Surrender is another great pick up, further enhancing your already solid damage. Aspect of Nemesis Stygius Sword is a great weapon for this build, but Adamant Rail is also a solid way to go.
That’s it for this guide to Artemis’ boons and builds. For more guides on Hades, stick around on Twinfinite. We have a guide ranking the best weapons in the game that you can check out, which will help you decide which tools you may want to base your Artemis build around.
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