By this point in my game, I had close to twenty sucessfull escapes under my belt. But I had yet to escape even once with the Bow. The main charge-up attack is slow and akward, and the special deals scratch-damage unless you are at point-blank range, which defeats the purpose of using ranged weapons in the first place, in my mind. One part I kind of liked was the Aspect of Hera for cast builds, and even then, I preferred Poseidon or Beowulf.

My least favorite god was, at this point, Dionysus. Even in other games, I always gravitate away from Damage over Time mechanics like Poison or, in this game, Hangover. Trippy shot is kind of fun, but the delay between firing and arrival is big enough that the enemy usually moves.

This time, for the sake of completeness, I decided to give Aspect of Hera another try. First boon was Dionysus, and I groaned, but one option caught my eye. Trippy Shot (epic), 140 damage. After some mental math, I said, 'Sure' and picked it.

And do I have a tale to tell.

The next room was a Pom of Power. Obviously I put it to the one boon I had. But afer taking it, I heard the trademark ring of a Chaos gate.

Feeling a little risky, I took the gate and saw a few good options, but one offered a 1 Bloodstone. I had three already, but already a scheme was taking shape in my mind, so I sprung for it.

A few other boons and Poms of Power, I was going up against Alecto, Dodging through a hail of bullets with no Divine Dash (My favorite crutch) to keep me safe, waiting for the cloud to condense back into Bloodstones so I could pick them back up. But loading all four back in and seing the trademark purple explosion tear a chunk off of her health was just the best.

Onward to Asphodel. By this point, I had picked up the Dyonysis boon for my main Attack, and a few more levels for my cast. Then I picked Ambrosia delight from Eurydice, and Trippy Shot went from epic to heroic rank. At this point it was also at level 5, So I sat down to do some math. If I loaded all 4 casts into my bow, I would be doing around 1,200 damage a shot... and then be helpless for a few seconds untill the stones reform. For taking out strong enemies. But if I instead spaced them out, one cast per shot, I could clear a normal room in seconds, and keep firing continuously. When I got to my old pall Learnie, I had a temporary 5th stone from a Well of Charon. I loaded in all 5, lined up a shot and fired.

A third of his health vanished in a puff of purple haze. His invincibility shield came up, and the heads popped up out of the magma. Two stones each was made short work of the lesser heads and the Bloodless they spawned. Another fivefold blast, another invincibility phase, and so on. Less than a minute, and the Hydra was slain.

I tore through Elysium in what must have been record time, the whole time laughing about wine-marinaded beef stew. I beat Thanatos 3-to-one in one of his challenges. I got a double-arrow Hammer upgrade, so every shot applied Hangover twice (still only one Festive Blast, though) Even those accursed Shield-bearers fell like nothing. The only thing that gave me trouble was those flame-wheels. I was a bit of a glass cannon by this point, and I lost a DD to them.

The final fight against Asterius and Theseus was interesting. The Bull could tank even my hits, and that shield on Theseus was a little annoying. But when he got down to half health and did his god-call, I summoned Skelly at exactly the same time. You may not have noticed this, but when his god-call is running it's opening salvo, Theseus stands still and lowers his shield for the duration, which can be quite a while depending on which god it is. With Skely distracting, I was able to get behind him and strip away his health in a few shots.

In the Temple of Styx, all of the enemies just melted under fire. I got my Festive Fog up to level 8 or 9, if memory serves. The final fight was touch and go, because My health had gotten kind of low, but I prevailed.

I love this game. So, so much.

Any similar experiences? Builds you thought were going to be bad, but just came together can turned out to be way more powerful and/or fin than you thought?