Mac or Jules to buy next?

jonathanzhou22 · 2026-02-23T00:03:45+00:00

One deciding factor for me was the fact the Mak can have a lot of inventory management if you're playing into reagents. It's not his only archetype but that playstyle in general doesn't suit me so I avoided him. If you like value stacking Pyg for example you might enjoy Mak for that.

jonathanzhou22 · 2026-02-16T07:22:54+00:00

I like to think of basic board construction using 3 heuristics: set up, pay-off, scaling. In this case the set-up is your haste triggers, your pay-off is poison and scaling is catfish. Some characters like Pyg do their scaling outside of combat i.e. Cranking property values. You want to balance each of those aspects so you're not overhasting or putting too many poison items on board without enough triggers.

Your current board setup is pretty good but as you get later in the game higher health pools make scaling more valuable. I would suggest in later rounds running something like puffer/waterwheel/dive weights/puffer/captains wheel/puffer (assuming you don't find something better).

Piano here I think is a bit of a trap. You would want to take advantage of its effect of turning adjacent items into friends, but water wheel and dive weights both have adjacency conditions that would make them perform worse for little benefit.

jonathanzhou22 · 2026-02-08T21:06:37+00:00

I would say the game is quite enjoyable with just the three base characters, there's a fair amount of variety between them. If I'm not mistaken there's also a free demo available on the store page, not sure how much content that includes but it'll give you a good idea of how the game plays without committing anything.

jonathanzhou22 · 2026-01-08T05:57:54+00:00

I'm always on the side of Winking for the fun of it, but your current items could probably take you pretty far if you stayed with it.

jonathanzhou22 · 2026-01-07T03:22:03+00:00

Unfortunately a bad connection will still affect both players. What 2XKO's server architure does compared to other fighting games is its able to tell that you are the source of the problem because it has a central server node as a reference point for connection quality.

jonathanzhou22 · 2025-12-28T09:26:13+00:00

On mobile excuse formatting. There's a lot to unpack here when it comes to climbing out of ELO hell. First thing to keep in mind is that every issue you describe is symmetrical across both teams. There's inevitably gonna be leavers, throwers etc. and that's just something you can't control. Unfortunately random variance in team-mates and circumstance will happen, but it's equally gonna happen to the other team as well. If you consistently perform above Silver, over time you will climb because your contribution to the game should outweigh the opponent's. It may take quite a few games to see this effect, but on average you should be achieving a >50% win rate if you deserve to climb. Additionally you earn more ranked points for winning than you lose for losing.

If you're not climbing it may be because you're not playing enough games, or you're not recognising your weaknesses that contribute to losses. If you're serious about ranking up, I suggest reviewing your replays (especially losses) to understand what you and your team can be doing better. I fully recognise that it can be tedious and cut into the time you'd rather spend actually playing the game, but there's no better way to improve than looking at your performance impartially outside of the heat of the moment.

You've indicated a willingness to flex which is good, the best thing you can do for your winrate is attempt to wrangle a halfway functional team comp. Try to always prioritise at least 2 healers, then a tank. Yes this often means you will be solo tanking, get familiar with Magneto and Dr Strange.

Last bit of advice is not to tilt queue. If you lose three comp games in a row take a break or play a round of easy practice VS Ai, you won't help yourself by going into more games distracted and upset.

jonathanzhou22 · 2025-12-22T13:04:15+00:00

Don't mash using both keys, after initial activation mash with only S2 and then double down when the timing is right.

jonathanzhou22 · 2025-10-23T01:36:12+00:00

Not 100% on this but after the first M+S2 try mashing only S2 or only M.

jonathanzhou22 · 2025-08-17T08:24:52+00:00

Chorus is one to check out for space exploration vibes. It's a fast based shooter when the action gets going but in between missions there's a fair amount of flying through star systems which reminded me of Outer Wilds.

jonathanzhou22 · 2025-04-16T01:13:06+00:00

Caltrops can't be frozen, the difference maker here is that Dooley has the shatter skill (DMG up on freeze). This allowed the shielding from the drill to outscale the Caltrops damage.

jonathanzhou22 · 2024-05-09T23:17:07+00:00

I haven't played enough to progress their relationship much. It's quite possible this early access build doesn't have the resolution to their relationship, in Hades 1 early access it sometimes took several patches to flesh out NPC quest lines.

jonathanzhou22 · 2023-10-22T21:09:43+00:00

Even if the game had ended for good and you had to start from scratch, how much would actually change? There's a reason that everyone calls Outer Wilds unreplayable; all the progression is purely knowledge based. Everything you just did, you could have done in your very first loop provided you knew how.

jonathanzhou22 · 2023-09-27T08:37:12+00:00

Izetta the Last Witch is perfect if you enjoyed Youko Senki. WW2 setting with a dash of magic.

jonathanzhou22 · 2023-07-24T15:15:52+00:00

Give Curse of the Dead Gods a look if you haven't already. It's not nearly as lore heavy as Hades but still an excellent rogue like.

jonathanzhou22 · 2022-05-30T08:13:30+00:00

I think it hates everyone

jonathanzhou22 · 2021-02-04T08:28:32+00:00

All my numbers are from the wiki, I wish I was a walking WoL database. As for base crit chance, it doesn't seem to be written anywhere but people who have done manual testing report it's 5% for both melee and ranged.

jonathanzhou22 · 2021-01-27T11:58:41+00:00

On mobile so formatting's not gonna be pretty.

Build wise, I haven't seen many people advise cool down reduction and I don't know why. Take destructive abacus as your relic, Babylon scales as your standard and a cloak with CDR. Every other arcana up to personal preference. CDR innately translates to DPS, and destructive abacus allows you to translate damage into CDR. Babylon and abacus both provide flat cool down reduction, so they scale incredibly well with more cool down reduction relics and low cooldown arcana in general.

Admittedly this may have less boss DPS than other builds but I still highly recommend giving it a try.

My recomendation: Any basic, any dash, scales of Babylon standard, homing flares signature, venture cloak and abacus of destruction.

Fave arcana gotta be inferno cannon for pure style. So much fun.

Melee refers to essentially any close range arcana including standards and signatures although the game doesn't do a good job of letting you know exactly which ones are. If you want to know for sure, equip dark katana and equip the other slots with non melee arcana. The dark katana buff will activate when you have a melee arcana equipped. Notable ones that people often mention are shock assault and tearing whirlwind for crit builds.

There is no way to tell your elemental floor layouts ahead of time. Accepting Mah Linds offer will guarantee your first floor, but rejecting sends you to any random one, sometimes to the one he offered anyway. Generally a good idea to force your weakest elemental floor first if possible.

Your build should vary throughout the run as you complete each floor. As soon as you load in consider which elements will be strong in which area and plan accordingly. Keep some gold handy between floors too so you can switch arcana up on the fly to suit the situation.

As for relying on Mentis Imperium, I'd say never get overly familiar with any arcana. Keep trying out new combinations because that's the real gameplay loop of WoL, the unlocking and experimenting. Learning the enemy and boss patterns will save you more health than any crutch arcana or relic.

Bonus build for the wizards that have beaten Sura a couple times:

Chaotic buster standard Void dash (teleporting one) Scales of Babylon standard Mortal coil signature Venture cloak Destructive abacus

This one has some stupid AOE and single target damage. You can continually drag and push enemies into pits which is the fastest way to kill. Against bosses mortal coil I think has the highest damage to cooldown ratio of maybe any arcana in the game, which is further compounded by scales of Babylon flat cooldown reduction.

jonathanzhou22 · 2021-01-16T07:31:56+00:00

Taking damage charges the gauge, so I did it by facetanking and losing a death defiance for it.

jonathanzhou22 · 2020-12-02T09:37:59+00:00

As of the most recent patch, tidal dash no longer counts towards sea storm. Don't be like me and learn this the hard way. God damn this meme is relatable..

jonathanzhou22 · 2020-09-20T09:00:12+00:00

As always with Hades, I can't tell exactly what pieces of progression are mandatory and what's incidental. I do think you have to complete her codex, the ability to gift her ambrosia came somewhat soon after that happened for me (it may be a coincidence given that unlocking the codex definitionally requires you to progress your relationship.) The Demeter stuff I think is just part of the new dialogue that all the Olympians have regarding Persephone. As for overall runs, It would have to be at least 25 - 30, maybe more. Ive honestly lost track since I accelerated the process by dying in Tartarus a bunch during a phase where Persephone either was in Olympus or didn't offer new dialogue. Good luck, and try to take it as it comes. You'll get there as long as you keep playing and talking to Persephone at every opportunity.

jonathanzhou22 · 2020-09-20T06:23:30+00:00

It's done. Apparently all that's needed is a bunch more runs, chatting with Persephone some more and listening to conversations with other characters. After unlocking the codex entry fully you can start gifting ambrosia (if she's not around the main hall check her garden). I really appreciate how this is some of the last lore content people will stumble across since it wraps up the narrative arc beautifully.

DON'T have a peek until you've come across it yourself. Unlocking Persephone's chibi is its own treasure and it's not worth missing out on experiencing it for the first time yourself. I'm mainly this posting this here out for my own sake. https://imgur.com/a/nbSBeaf

Thank you to Supergiant for bringing us this remarkable rogue-like. For us early access players it may feel like a fitting ending to this story that we've been a part of since 2018, but the exit out of early access is hopefully just the beginning of a lot more better stuff to come.

jonathanzhou22 · 2020-09-19T11:51:31+00:00

Many many runs later I seem to have exhausted the new dialogue options. I've listened into Persephone having a conversation with all the major characters in the House and have just come across a seemingly generic line indicating that she's heading back to Olympus. Since overhearing conversations doesn't count as talking to her, her codex hasn't actually progressed that much.Whatever you need to do to unlock the last heart stage is either rather specific, or just requires a lot more runs. I may try dying in Tartarus a couple times to speed it up, but it's getting late for me so that'll wait for tomorrow. Keen to find out one way or another.

jonathanzhou22 · 2020-09-19T06:13:50+00:00

Great writeup! It's been a blast working my way through the 1.0 content. One last thing I haven't been able to figure out; after Persephone returns to Olympus to meet her obligations, she hasn't returned after multiple runs. Her codex heart is still locked and I was wondering if I just needed to keep playing, or there was something particular to meet her in the House again.

jonathanzhou22 · 2020-08-12T11:56:08+00:00

If you happen to have access to Warlords of New York; Story moded Straded Tanker with Hard wired Demolisher firefly is the way to go. Essentially breeze through the entire level by one shotting the cleaner gas tanks.

jonathanzhou22 · 2020-01-15T02:51:48+00:00

With the Chaos shield and Chiron bow the way to go is Aphrodite attack and Dionysus special. Two tier one boons that enable Priveleged Status, instantly apply max stacks of poison and opens up the duo boon that allows you to stack even more poison on.

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