On April 14, 2026, Supergiant Games shipped Post-Launch Patch 2 and quietly rewrote a third of Ares’ kit. Sword Ring, Grievous Blow, Grisly Gain, Profuse Bleeding, and Sanguinary Savor all changed — and two of them, Profuse Bleeding and Sanguinary Savor, didn’t just get bigger numbers, they got entirely new effects. Every tier list published before that date, including several still ranking on page one of search results, is describing boons that no longer exist.
This list ranks the 9 core Olympians — Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Demeter, Hephaestus, Hera, Hestia, Poseidon, and Zeus — the gods who share the game’s full standard Boon kit (Attack, Special, Cast, Sprint, and Magick boons) and all 37 Duo Boons between them [1]. Hermes, Chaos, and Selene run separate systems with no Duo Boon slots at all, and Artemis only shows up in specific encounters — they get their own coverage in our boon combo breakdown rather than a seat in this ranking. One more scope note before the list: several competing rankings currently list “Hecate” as a B-tier boon god. She isn’t one — Hecate is Melinoe’s mentor and a story boss, not a pantheon member, and she’s never offered a Boon in any build. That mix-up traces back to how easily her name gets swapped with Selene’s in scraped wiki summaries, and it’s worth flagging because it shows up in more than one “complete” tier list currently ranking for this exact search.
Verified against Hades II Post-Launch Patch 2 (April 14, 2026) and Hotfix 2 (April 16, 2026). Values may change with future balance passes — if a boon plays differently than described here, check the in-game Codex first, since hotfixes land faster than any wiki can update.
What the April Patch Actually Changed
Ares needed this. Before the patch, the most common complaint on the game’s own Steam forums was that his core Attack and Special boons dealt flat, unscaling damage that fell behind every other god’s by the mid-game, and that his kit only came online after stacking four or five specific boons together [2]. The patch notes single out Ares for the heaviest rework of any god this update [3]:
- Sword Ring — straight damage increase, no mechanical change.
- Grievous Blow — its bonus now scales harder off Rarity and Poms of Power, so investing Poms into it pays off more than before.
- Grisly Gain — higher chance for weapon strikes to spill Plasma, and Rarity/Poms now also affect how much Magick each collected Plasma restores — it went from a minor sustain boon to a real Magick-economy piece.
- Profuse Bleeding — fully reworked. The old version had a flat percentage chance per strike to produce Blood Drops off Wounded targets. The new version drops that RNG entirely: it now spawns a falling blade over a nearby foe every time you collect Plasma or inflict Wounds, turning a passive proc into a guaranteed area-damage trigger.
- Sanguinary Savor — also fully reworked. It now adds Wounds damage on top of its old Blood-Drop-gravitating effect, and Supergiant adjusted its offering requirements alongside the rework, so don’t assume the old unlock path still applies.
The mechanism matters more than the numbers here. Ares’ entire kit used to lean on chance-based procs stacking on top of each other — miss enough rolls in a row and the build simply didn’t come online. Profuse Bleeding’s rework removes one of those roll gates completely, which is why Ares moves up this list even though nobody has republished exact new percentages yet.
The rest of Ares’ kit is unchanged, so it’s worth knowing what you’re building around alongside the five reworked boons. Vicious Strike and Vicious Flourish still apply Wounds directly on hit and remain the entry point every Ares build needs before anything else works. Meat Grinder is still a Cast that drops a damage-over-time zone, useful for area denial rather than burst. Rallying Cry is still gated behind holding a minimum number of Earth tokens, which makes it a late-pickup boon rather than an early one; grab it once your Fated List has already stacked Earth-aligned Arcana, not before. None of those three were touched in April, so any guide describing them the same way it did in March is still accurate; it is specifically Profuse Bleeding and Sanguinary Savor where the old descriptions are now wrong.
Ares wasn’t the only god touched. Poseidon’s Tidal Ring now hits multiple foes more reliably, the Poseidon–Hephaestus Duo Boon Seismic Servo extends its bonus to more boons than before, Demeter’s Snow Queen barrier no longer breaks on zero-damage hits, and Hestia’s Fire Away now works with any god’s Cast instead of only her own. Hotfix 2 followed up two days later cleaning up interaction bugs the rework introduced — including Ares’ Rallying Cry triggering early through Hera’s All Together, and Profuse Bleeding conflicting with Hermes’ Success Rate [4]. If your run is showing different behavior than what’s described below, that hotfix is the most likely reason.
Hades 2 Boon Tier List 2026: Quick Verdict
Start here if you just want the pick order. Full reasoning for each god is below.
| Tier | God | Best For | Avoid If |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | Apollo | Any weapon, any run — Daze buys free hits with zero setup | Never a bad pick |
| S | Zeus | Clearing packed rooms fast, Chain builds | You’re already stacked on AoE and need single-target instead |
| S | Hephaestus | Slow, hard-hitting weapons that want delayed burst | Fast-attack weapons that outpace Blast’s cooldown |
| A | Hera | Crowded rooms and pack fights via Hitch damage-sharing | Solo bosses — Hitch has nothing to link to |
| A | Aphrodite | Survivability through Weak’s damage reduction, any build | You need pure damage output over defense |
| A | Demeter | Locking down Armored enemies and bosses with Freeze | Enemies immune to crowd control |
| B | Poseidon | Ranged weapons using Knockback for space and safety | Melee weapons in tight corridors — you’ll knock foes out of range |
| B | Ares | Attack-speed weapons post-rework, chasing Wounds stacking | You need a build that works without heavy investment |
| B | Hestia | Fast weapons stacking Scorch over long fights | Short, burst-focused encounters |
S-Tier: Apollo, Zeus, and Hephaestus
These three didn’t need the patch. They were S-tier before April 14 and nothing in this update touched them — which is exactly why they anchor the top of the list rather than headline it.
Apollo applies Daze, which stops an enemy from attacking for a window after it’s hit. That’s not a damage boon dressed up as crowd control — it’s crowd control that also lets you land more hits, because a Dazed enemy can’t interrupt your combo. Nova Strike and Nova Flourish extend Daze’s radius, and because the effect requires no setup boons to function, Apollo is the safest first pick of any run, new-player or otherwise.
Zeus inflicts Blitz, which chains lightning between nearby enemies. In a game where most deaths come from getting surrounded rather than out-damaged by a single target, that room-clearing speed is why Zeus stays S-tier run after run. The trade-off is that Blitz’s value drops hard against lone, high-HP targets — there’s nothing to chain to.
Hephaestus is the newest of the three and the least intuitive: Volcanic Strike gives your attacks a chance to trigger a delayed blast dealing separate damage on top of the hit itself. That delay is the entire point — it means Hephaestus damage doesn’t compete with your weapon’s own DPS window, it stacks on top of it. Slow, heavy-hitting weapons benefit most because they have time to land a second hit before the blast resolves; very fast weapons can actually outrun their own Blast triggers and waste the effect.
A-Tier: Hera, Aphrodite, and Demeter
Hera is the strongest god on this list that a first-time player is most likely to underrate. Her Hitch curse links every afflicted enemy together so that damage dealt to one is shared across the whole group [5]. Against a pack, that turns any hit into effectively an AoE hit. Against a single boss, Hitch has no second target to share damage with, so it does nothing extra — which is the one honest weakness keeping her out of S-tier. Pair her with a high-per-hit-damage god like Zeus and Hitch amplifies every Blitz proc across the whole linked group.
Aphrodite applies Weak, which cuts the damage an afflicted enemy deals to you. That’s a defensive boon in a genre where most runs end from cumulative chip damage rather than one big hit, which makes Weak quietly build-agnostic — it helps every run, not just ones built around it. Wispy Wiles adds an auto-dodge layer on top, stacking survivability further.
Demeter Freezes enemies solid, including ones with Armor that would otherwise no-sell most crowd control. Against bosses that summon adds mid-fight, a well-timed Freeze buys a clean window to focus the boss itself instead of getting split between targets. Cold Storage extends how long the Freeze holds, and the April patch’s Snow Queen fix (the barrier no longer breaks on a zero-damage hit) closes off one of the few ways enemies could cheese around her kit.
B-Tier: Poseidon, Ares, and Hestia
Poseidon knocks enemies back on hit, which reads as a downgrade on paper — less time in melee range means fewer follow-up hits — but on ranged weapons it’s pure win: distance is safety, and Poseidon’s Knockback stacks with itself to keep entire rooms at arm’s length. On melee weapons in a narrow corridor, the same Knockback can shove targets clean out of your attack range, which is exactly the situational cost that keeps him out of A-tier. Hydraulic Might and Tidal Ring’s newly reliable multi-hit tracking (per the April patch) push him marginally higher than he sat before — the Poseidon rework was small, but it lands directly on the boon most ranged builds already take first.
Ares is the god this whole update is about, and the honest answer is: better, not solved. Pre-patch, his kit needed four or five specific boons stacked before it did anything a simpler build couldn’t do faster. Profuse Bleeding’s rework removes the worst of that RNG gate — a guaranteed falling-blade proc on Plasma collection or Wounds infliction is a real damage source from the moment you pick it up, not a coin flip. Sanguinary Savor now adds Wounds damage on top of automatic Plasma collection, which means the two reworked boons actually support each other instead of competing for the same slot. That’s enough to move Ares from a god most guides told you to skip into one worth taking on attack-speed weapons that can proc Wounds and collect Plasma quickly. He isn’t A-tier yet, because nobody has published verified post-patch damage numbers as of this writing, and his kit still needs more setup than Hera’s or Aphrodite’s single-boon payoff. Revisit this section once the community math catches up — that’s a real gap, not one this article is going to paper over with an invented percentage.
Hestia applies Scorch, a damage-over-time burn that stacks with repeat hits. It’s dependable rather than exciting — steady damage that adds up over a long fight but rarely produces the single big burst that defines an S-tier pick. The April patch’s Fire Away fix (it now works with any god’s Cast, not just Hestia’s own) makes her a slightly better complement in a mixed build, which is the main reason she edges out a lower placement this update.
One cross-tier note worth flagging: the Poseidon–Hephaestus Duo Boon, Seismic Servo, is a genuine sleeper pick after this patch even though neither god sits in S-tier alone. Before April 14 it applied its bonus to a narrow set of boons, which made it easy to skip in favor of a Duo with a bigger single-target payoff. The patch widened which boons it buffs, so a run that’s already leaning into both gods’ kits — Poseidon for Knockback safety, Hephaestus for delayed Blast damage — gets more value out of actually finishing that Duo than most players currently assume. It won’t outperform an S-tier god’s core kit on its own, but as a Duo pickup mid-run it’s stronger than its pre-patch reputation suggests.
Which God Boons Should You Actually Prioritize?
The tier order above assumes you’re picking optimally every time, which no run actually allows. Here’s how priorities shift by playstyle:
| If you are… | Prioritize |
|---|---|
| New to the game | Take Apollo or Zeus on sight — both work with zero supporting boons. Skip Ares entirely until you’re comfortable reading the Wounds/Plasma mechanic; his kit punishes half-measures. |
| Casual / limited run time | Grab whichever S-tier god appears first rather than holding out for a specific one, and take Duo Boons opportunistically when offered instead of building your run around chasing one. |
| Hardcore / pushing high Fear | Ares is now a legitimate high-difficulty pick on fast weapons — chase Grievous Blow into Sanguinary Savor for a Wounds-stacking build that doesn’t rely on RNG procs anymore. |
| Completionist | Use early low-stakes runs to deliberately bank specific god pairings toward all 37 Duo Boons rather than always taking the strongest individual boon on offer [6]. |
FAQ
Is Ares actually good now, or just less bad?
Both, depending on the weapon. On attack-speed-focused weapons that can trigger Plasma collection and Wounds quickly, the reworked Profuse Bleeding and Sanguinary Savor genuinely compete with B-tier picks like Poseidon. On slow weapons that rarely proc either condition, Ares is still the weakest pick on this list — the rework fixed the mechanic, not the god’s weapon dependency.
Does the patch change which Duo Boons are worth chasing?
Yes, specifically the Poseidon–Hephaestus Duo. Seismic Servo now applies its bonus to more boons than before the patch, which makes that pairing worth prioritizing over Duos that weren’t touched this update. Check our weapon aspect guide for which weapons make Duo-chasing realistic without derailing your build.
Why isn’t Hermes, Chaos, or Selene ranked here?
Because they don’t compete on the same axis. Hermes and Chaos have zero Duo Boons with any of the 9 gods above, and Selene runs an entirely separate Hex system gated behind her own Magick-spend meter rather than the standard Boon slots. Ranking them on the same S-to-B scale as Apollo or Ares would compare boons that don’t do the same job.
Should I change my Arcana loadout because of this patch?
Not automatically. The rework touched boon effects, not Arcana Card interactions directly — though if you’re running cards that key off Wounds or Plasma specifically, it’s worth a look at our Arcana cards guide now that Ares generates both more consistently.
Do I need to start a new save to see the reworked boons?
No. Boon effects are read live from the game’s current version every run, including ones already in progress when the patch landed mid-run — there’s no legacy-data carryover to worry about, unlike some roguelikes that lock in stats at run-start.
Is it worth resetting a high-Fear streak to test the new Ares kit early?
Only if you were already close to your ceiling. The rework improves Ares’ floor, meaning how bad the build is when your rolls go wrong, more than it raises his overall damage ceiling. If you’re already clearing your target Fear level comfortably with an S-tier god, there’s no rush; if you’ve stalled specifically because Ares felt unusable at your current difficulty, this is the patch worth testing against.
Key Takeaways
Apollo, Zeus, and Hephaestus remain the safest S-tier picks and the patch didn’t touch any of them — that stability is worth something on its own. The real story is Ares: still not a top-tier god, but no longer the god most guides told you to skip outright, and specifically worth a second look if you’re running an attack-speed weapon and haven’t touched him since before April 14. If a build guide, Discord thread, or another tier list describes Profuse Bleeding as a percentage-chance proc, it’s describing a boon that stopped existing on April 14, 2026 — not a difference of opinion.
Sources
- RogueRanker, “Hades 2 Duo Boons: All 37 and the Best Combos”
- Steam Community, “Ares boon are underwhelming?” discussion thread
- Supergiant Games / Steam News, “Hades II – Post-Launch Patch 2 Notes” (April 14, 2026)
- Nintendo Life, “Hades II Is Getting Another Update Soon” (Hotfix 2 notes)
- RogueRanker, “Hades 2 Hera: Hitch Boons and Best Build”
- Switchblade Gaming, “Hades 2 Boon Combos”
- XP Gained, “Hades II Post-Launch Patch 2 Notes – 14th April 2026” (patch text mirror)
- GameRant, “Hades 2 Reveals Patch Notes for Next Big Update”
- Game8, “List of All Boons”
- Hades 2 Wiki (Fextralife), “Headmistress Hecate (NPC)”
- Destructoid, “Best Ares boons in Hades 2 ranked”
- Choost Games, “Hades 2 Boons Tier List: Best Boons Ranked (2026)”
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.