Hades II‘s six weapons each hide multiple Aspects — alternate forms tied to different gods — and they are nowhere close to equal. This ranks every Aspect from the ones that carry runs to the ones you can skip, current as of the game’s 1.0 release balance and the patches through July 2026’s Hotfix 5.
How Hades II’s Aspect System Works
Every one of the six Nocturnal Arms — Skull, Staff, Flames, Axe, Coat and Sister Blades — starts with Melinoë’s default Aspect and hides at least one more powerful alternate form, unlocked by building a relationship with the god it’s tied to and then meeting a specific condition in a run.
That means the weapon you pick up on Day One and the weapon that weapon becomes 20 hours later can play nothing alike, which is the whole reason a tier list has to rank Aspects and not just weapon types.
That system has kept people coming back: Steam analytics tracker Raijin estimated Hades II had sold roughly 5.2 million copies on Steam alone as of August 2026, nearly a year after its September 2025 launch out of early access.
S-Tier: Build Around These If You Can
Four Aspects sit above everything else right now, according to Propel RC’s September 2026 tier list: Aspect of Medea on the Skull, which reportedly holds current speedrun records through raw mobility and damage scaling; Aspect of Circe on the Staff, whose familiars multiply damage while keeping Melinoë out of danger; Aspect of Moros on the Flames, built around lingering explosions that chain into each other; and the hidden Aspect of Anubis, also on the Staff, which raises a Lone Shade ally on every kill and solves crowd control almost by itself.
A-Tier: Genuinely Strong, Just Behind the Leaders
One of this tier’s members got there through a direct buff rather than always being strong. Hades II’s 1.0 launch update increased the critical-hit chance of Aspect of Thanatos’s Mortality effect on the Axe and rescaled its attack-speed bonus across upgrade ranks, per the Hades II wiki’s patch history — enough to move it from what Switchblade Gaming had called a “meme” pick into a legitimate A-tier contender.
Aspect of Nergal, also on the Axe, rounds out the buffed half of this tier as a strong self-sustain pick built around triggering Berserk through repeated strikes. The rest of the tier — Nyx and Shiva on the Coat, and Persephone on the Skull — round it out with strong single-target or crowd damage that falls just short of the S-tier four.
What to Skip
The pattern across B, C and D tier is consistent: every weapon’s default, un-awakened Melinoë Aspect ranks below its hidden alternate forms, sometimes by a wide margin. The Sister Blades’ base Aspect and the Coat’s base Aspect land in the bottom tier specifically, alongside Aspect of Eos on the Flames, whose uncontrollable movement path makes it more frustrating than strong even before you compare it to Moros.
| Weapon | Best Aspect | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| Argent Skull | Aspect of Medea | S |
| Witch’s Staff | Aspect of Circe / Aspect of Anubis | S |
| Umbral Flames | Aspect of Moros | S |
| Moonstone Axe | Aspect of Nergal | A |
| Moonstone Axe | Aspect of Thanatos | A |
| Black Coat | Aspect of Nyx / Aspect of Shiva | A |
| Argent Skull | Aspect of Persephone | A |
| Sister Blades | Aspect of Morrigan | B |
| Sister Blades | Base (Melinoë) | C |
Which Weapon Should You Actually Unlock First?
If you’re choosing where to spend your first few runs’ worth of Nectar and favor, the Witch’s Staff is the single best investment: it’s the only weapon holding two different S-tier Aspects, and Circe in particular is forgiving enough to learn on. The Skull is the next priority mainly for Aspect of Medea, which Mobalytics and community speedrunners both point to as the highest-ceiling weapon in the game once you’ve learned its explosion-chaining pattern.
The god-relationship system Hades II builds its Aspects around traces straight back to actual Greek myth — Medea, Circe, Moros and Anubis are all figures with real mythological roots, the same source material superhero comics have borrowed from for decades. If you’re building runs rather than reading about them, our Baldur’s Gate 3 multiclass build rankings cover the same kind of system-mastery question for a very different genre.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the best weapon Aspect in Hades II right now?
Aspect of Medea on the Skull, which reportedly holds current speedrun records through its damage scaling and mobility, current as of the game’s September 2026 balance.
Was Aspect of Thanatos always this strong?
No. Hades II’s 1.0 launch update increased its Mortality crit chance and rescaled its attack-speed bonus across upgrade ranks, moving it from a weak pick to A-tier.
How do you unlock hidden Aspects in Hades II?
Each hidden Aspect requires building a relationship with its associated god and meeting a specific in-run condition — Aspect of Anubis, for example, needs two other Staff Aspects upgraded first and a secret phrase learned from Circe.
Which weapon has the most S-tier Aspects?
The Witch’s Staff, which holds both Aspect of Circe and the hidden Aspect of Anubis in the current S-tier.
Is the default Melinoë Aspect on any weapon actually good?
Generally no — every weapon’s base Aspect ranks below its hidden alternate forms, several of them landing in the bottom tier once those alternates are unlocked.
