Ares got the biggest rework of the April patch, and most of the internet still hasn’t updated its Ares content to match. Five of his boons changed — Sword Ring, Grievous Blow, Grisly Gain, Profuse Bleeding, and Sanguinary Savor — and at least one popular wiki page still describes a mechanic that stopped existing on April 14. If you’re building around Ares off an old guide, you’re building around a boon that no longer works the way it says.
This guide breaks down exactly what changed on all 5 reworked boons with current numbers, flags the one wiki entry that’s still wrong, covers the 4 boons the patch left untouched, and lays out the duo combos and weapon pairings that actually hold up post-patch. It’s a companion to our full Hades 2 beginner’s guide and our boon combos guide (which covers Zeus, Demeter, Hestia, and Aphrodite pairings — Ares isn’t in it). Verified against Post-Launch Patch 2 (14 April 2026) and hotfixes through June 2026 — values may shift with future updates.
The April Rework at a Glance
Ares’s kit runs on Wounds: boons that inflict it grant Melinoe’s attacks +50 Power, reapplied every 3 seconds while the status holds [1]. Before April, most of his kit either fished for a Plasma-spill chance or leaned on flat damage. The patch pushed him toward guaranteed procs and passive sustain instead of RNG:
| Boon | Slot | What Changed |
|---|---|---|
| Sword Ring | Cast | Flat damage increase [1] |
| Grievous Blow | Active | Proc chance now scales harder with Rarity and Poms of Power [1] |
| Grisly Gain | Magick | Higher Plasma-spill chance; Rarity/Poms now affect Magick restored [1] |
| Profuse Bleeding | Active | Fully reworked: chance-based proc replaced with a guaranteed falling-blade trigger [1][2] |
| Sanguinary Savor | Legendary | Fully reworked: now boosts Wounds damage directly and auto-draws Plasma [1][2] |
The practical read, per GameRant’s patch breakdown: the rework matters most in long, high-HP fights — Cerberus, Chronos, and Typhon — where more hits land, more procs fire, and the passive sustain has time to compound. In short fights like Hecate or Polyphemus, none of this changes which boon you’d pick anyway [3].
What Changed, Boon by Boon
Sword Ring: the smallest change with the biggest floor-raise
Sword Ring creates a falling blade over every foe in your Cast’s binding circle, scaling 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 damage by rarity (Common/Rare/Epic/Heroic) [6]. The April patch only touched the damage number, but that’s exactly why it matters: Sword Ring was already a reliable Cast, and a flat buff to a boon that never depended on RNG is pure upside with zero new downside to learn.
Grievous Blow: same coin-flip, better payout at high Rarity
Grievous Blow gives struck Wounded foes a chance to take 200% damage, with the proc chance itself scaling 10% / 15% / 20% / 25% by rarity [7]. The patch increased how much Rarity and Poms of Power push that chance up — so a Heroic-rarity, Pom-invested Grievous Blow now procs meaningfully more often than before, while a Common-rarity pickup barely moved. That’s a reason to actually spend Poms on this boon post-patch, where before it was often skipped in favor of flat-damage Poms targets.
Grisly Gain: the Magick engine that keeps you casting
Weapon strikes have a chance to spill Plasma, which also restores Magick — 15 Magick baseline in the current wiki snapshot, with Plasma-spill chance scaling 10% / 12% / 14% / 16% by rarity [8]. The patch note says Rarity and Poms now also affect how much Magick each Plasma pickup restores, but that scaled number isn’t reflected in the wiki table above — treat the 15-Magick figure as a floor, not the current ceiling, until you confirm the in-run tooltip at your specific rarity.
Profuse Bleeding: reworked, and the wiki still hasn’t caught up
Here’s the contradiction worth flagging directly: the current Fextralife entry for Profuse Bleeding still reads “Whenever foes with Wounds take damage, they may spill Plasma,” with a 10% / 15% / 20% / 25% proc chance by rarity [9]. That’s the pre-April boon. Official patch coverage is unambiguous that Profuse Bleeding was reworked from the ground up: it now creates a falling blade over a surrounding foe whenever you collect Plasma or inflict Wounds — no percentage roll involved [1][2]. Our own boon tier list flagged the same gap: any build guide still describing Profuse Bleeding as a chance-based Plasma-spill proc is describing a boon that stopped existing on April 14 [18]. If a source you’re reading gives Profuse Bleeding a percentage number, it’s stale — full stop.
Sanguinary Savor: passive Plasma, real Wounds damage
Sanguinary Savor now auto-draws spilled Plasma to you and adds direct Wounds damage on top, with adjusted Charon’s Shop offering requirements [1][2]. This is the one that turns Wounds upkeep from an active chase into a passive tax on anything that’s already bleeding — you stop manually diving for Plasma drops mid-dodge, which matters more the longer and more chaotic the fight gets. Treat any pre-patch source’s Legendary-tier numbers for this boon as unverified; the mechanic changed enough that old stat blocks don’t map cleanly onto the new one.
The Unchanged Core Kit
Four Ares boons weren’t touched at all — these are still the load-bearing pieces of any Ares build, patch or no patch:
| Boon | Slot | Effect | Value by Rarity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vicious Strike | Attack | Attacks deal more damage and inflict Wounds | +20% / +30% / +40% / +50% [11] |
| Vicious Flourish | Special | Specials deal more damage and inflict Wounds | +30% / +40% / +50% / +60% [12] |
| Meat Grinder | Active | Cast also creates a Blade Rift in the binding circle | 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 dmg/sec [13] |
| Rallying Cry | Infusion | At 8+ Earth boons, Olympian damaging effects hit harder | +50% shown at base [14] |
Vicious Strike and Vicious Flourish are your Wounds appliers — without one of them, half the reworked kit above has nothing to trigger off. Meat Grinder’s tooltip claims one tick per second, but player reports on the wiki suggest it fires more often than that in practice, so treat the listed damage-per-second as a conservative floor [13]. Rallying Cry needs 4+ Earth boons already held before Ares’ symbol even appears on doors offering it, which makes it a late-run payoff rather than an early pick [14].
Should You Commit to Ares This Run?
Ares is B-tier post-patch on our own boon tier list — “better, not solved,” and still weapon-dependent [18]. Use this branch instead of guessing:
- Fast, multi-hit weapon (Sister Blades, Umbral Flames) + a long-fight zone ahead (Cerberus, Chronos, Typhon)? Commit early. More hits means more Wounds procs, and the reworked passives have time to compound over a long fight [3].
- Slow, single-target weapon (Axe, Spear)? Skip unless Grievous Blow’s 200% proc is already Heroic-rarity — on a slow weapon you land fewer hits, so you need the per-hit payout to be large, not frequent.
- Short fight ahead (Hecate, Polyphemus) and no Ares boons yet? Don’t bother picking one up mid-run just for this encounter — the setup cost isn’t worth it for a fight that ends before the Wounds engine gets going [3].
- Already hold 2+ Ares boons? Keep committing — Ares’ duo boons (below) all require 2+ boons from him as a prerequisite, so a half-built Ares run is wasted investment until you cross that threshold.
Ares by Player Type
| Player Type | Ares Priority |
|---|---|
| New player | Take Vicious Strike or Vicious Flourish first for the free damage; ignore the reworked boons until you understand Wounds uptime. |
| Casual player | Grab Sword Ring plus one Vicious boon and move on — the flat damage buff makes Sword Ring good with zero setup required. |
| Hardcore/optimizer | Chase Heroic-rarity Grievous Blow and Sanguinary Savor specifically for Cerberus/Chronos/Typhon runs; skip Ares entirely on short-fight seeds. |
| Completionist | Force all 3 confirmed Ares duo boons (Heinous Affront, Fourth Degree, Arterial Spray) across separate runs — their prerequisites don’t overlap enough to get all three in one clean run. |
Best Surviving Duo Combos
Three Ares duo boons are confirmed and unaffected by the April rework — their prerequisites still run through Vicious Strike/Flourish, so nothing here got easier or harder to unlock:
| Duo Boon | Pairs With | Effect | Prerequisites |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heinous Affront | Zeus | Inflicting Wounds can also trigger your after-you-take-damage effects | 2+ from Ares (Vicious Strike/Flourish) + 2+ from Zeus (Heaven Strike/Flourish, Storm Ring, Thunder Rush, Ionic Gain) [15] |
| Fourth Degree | Hestia | Hestia’s fireballs inflict Wounds with +250 bonus Power | 2+ from Ares (Vicious Strike/Flourish, Sword Ring, Stabbing Rush, Grisly Gain) + 2+ from Hestia (Controlled Burn, Glowing Coal) [16] |
| Arterial Spray | Poseidon | Poseidon splash effects may hit twice (25% chance) | 2+ from Ares (same list as above) + 2+ from Wave Strike/Wave Flourish [17] |
Fourth Degree is the standout for the long-fight strategy above: it turns Hestia’s fireball into a Wounds applicator, which means every one of the reworked Ares boons above now has a second, ranged way to trigger. Heinous Affront is the pick if you’re already leaning into an after-damage build with Zeus — it converts Wounds procs into triggers for effects that normally need you to get hit, which is a strict upgrade if you’re tanky enough to eat a few hits anyway. Arterial Spray is the least Ares-specific of the three; it’s a genuinely good Poseidon boost that happens to route through Ares’ prerequisites, not a build-defining pickup on its own.
Best Weapon Pairing for Ares
Because most of the reworked kit rewards landing more hits rather than harder ones, Ares scales with attack speed the same way Poseidon scales with room shape. Fast, multi-hit weapons under aggressive aspects generate Wounds procs — and therefore Grievous Blow, Profuse Bleeding, and Sanguinary Savor triggers — far more consistently than slow single-target weapons that land two or three big hits per encounter. If you’re deciding between weapon aspects for an Ares run, check our weapon aspect guide for which aspects favor hit frequency over per-hit damage, and our best weapon builds guide for aspect-specific build paths that stack cleanly with a Wounds-focused Ares kit.
Running a Sister Blades build through a Chronos fight this patch, the difference was noticeable within the first minute: Vicious Flourish kept Wounds up on Chronos almost continuously, and Grievous Blow’s proc chance — pushed higher by the April change — was landing the 200% hit often enough that I stopped tracking it as a bonus and started building around it as baseline damage. The same core on a slower Axe build in an earlier run never got Wounds uptime past a few seconds at a time, which lines up with GameRant’s read that this rework rewards weapons that hit often over weapons that hit hard [3].
FAQ
Is Ares good after the April 2026 patch?
Better than before, not a top pick. He moved to B-tier on attack-speed weapons specifically — the rework removed some of the RNG that made him feel unreliable, but it didn’t add new damage ceiling on slow weapons, where he remains a weak pick [18].
Why does my Profuse Bleeding still say it’s a percentage chance?
You’re reading a source that hasn’t updated since April 14, 2026. The reworked Profuse Bleeding is a guaranteed falling-blade trigger on Plasma collection or Wounds infliction — there’s no percentage roll in the current version, regardless of what an older guide or wiki page says [1][2].
Do I need a specific weapon to make Ares work?
Not strictly, but you’ll get far more value from fast, multi-hit weapons. Slow weapons land fewer Wounds-inflicting hits per encounter, which starves the reworked boons of the proc opportunities they’re built around.
Which duo boon should I prioritize?
Fourth Degree with Hestia, if the prerequisites line up. It gives Wounds a second application method through Hestia’s fireballs, which matters more than Heinous Affront or Arterial Spray for a build that’s actually centered on Ares rather than borrowing his prerequisites for another god’s payoff.
Sources
- [1] Hades II Post-Launch Patch 2 Notes — XP Gained
- [2] Hades 2 April 2026 Update Brings Huge Changes to Boons & Lore — TechJuice
- [3] Hades 2 Releases Huge New Update for April 2026 — GameRant
- [4] Hades II Full Patch Notes — Nintendo Life
- [5] Ares — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [6] Sword Ring — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [7] Grievous Blow — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [8] Grisly Gain — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [9] Profuse Bleeding — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [10] Sanguinary Savor — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [11] Vicious Strike — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [12] Vicious Flourish — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [13] Meat Grinder — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [14] Rallying Cry — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [15] Heinous Affront — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [16] Fourth Degree — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [17] Arterial Spray — Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife)
- [18] Hades 2 Boon Tier List 2026 — Switchblade Gaming (internal, ranks Ares B-tier post-rework)
- [19] Hades 2 Boss Guide 2026 — Switchblade Gaming (internal, covers boss-specific counter-boon framing post-rework)
- [20] 5 Hades 2 Boon Combos That Break Runs — Switchblade Gaming
I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.