Hades gives you two dials to turn between runs. The Mirror of Night in Zagreus' room turns Darkness into permanent talents. The Pact of Punishment, which appears after your first escape, makes runs harder by adding Heat, and pays for it with the rarer currencies: Titan Blood, Diamonds and Ambrosia.
This guide is about the first Hades; Hades II has different systems. Every name and number below was checked against the Hades Wiki. For your first runs, read the beginner guide first; this page goes into the full Mirror and everything after the first escape.
Mirror of Night: every talent and our pick
The Mirror has 12 slots. Each slot has a red talent and a green alternative; only one of the two is active, and you can switch at the Mirror whenever you like. The two sides are paid for separately, so ranks bought in Shadow Presence do nothing for Fiery Presence.
Effects are shown at max rank, with the Darkness for all ranks. "First escape" is what we would run before beating Hades; "high Heat" is what we would consider once you are stacking Pact conditions.
| Slot (unlock) | Red talent at max rank | Green talent at max rank | First escape | High Heat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (free) | Shadow Presence: +50% Attack and Special damage from behind (5 ranks, 100) | Fiery Presence: +75% Attack and Special damage to undamaged foes (5 ranks, 100) | Shadow Presence | Fiery Presence for weapons that open with a big hit; Shadow Presence if you fight from behind |
| 2 (free) | Chthonic Vitality: restore 3 health when you leave each chamber (3 ranks, 70) | Dark Regeneration: Darkness you pick up also heals 60% of its amount (2 ranks, 90) | Chthonic Vitality | Chthonic Vitality, unless you run Lasting Consequences high |
| 3 (free) | Death Defiance: 3 revives at 50% health (3 ranks, 30 / 500 / 1,000) | Stubborn Defiance: revive at 30% health once per chamber (1 rank, 600) | Death Defiance | Death Defiance; Stubborn Defiance only if your deaths are single mistakes spread across the run |
| 4 (free) | Greater Reflex: +1 dash in a row (1 rank, 50) | Ruthless Reflex: dash just before a hit for +50% damage and dodge chance for 2 seconds (1 rank, 75) | Greater Reflex | Greater Reflex |
| 5 (5 Keys) | Boiling Blood: +50% Attack and Special damage to foes with your Cast ammo in them (5 ranks, 250) | Abyssal Blood: foes with your Cast ammo in them have 30% less speed and damage (5 ranks, 300) | Boiling Blood | Abyssal Blood is worth a look with Hard Labor and Forced Overtime stacked |
| 6 (5 Keys) | Infernal Soul: +2 Cast ammo (2 ranks, 100) | Stygian Soul: Cast ammo regenerates every 3 seconds instead of dropping (2 ranks, 180) | Infernal Soul | Stygian Soul for Cast-heavy builds |
| 7 (10 Keys) | Deep Pockets: start each escape with 100 Obols (10 ranks, 525) | Golden Touch: gain 15% of your Obols each time you clear a region (3 ranks, 270) | Low priority | Deep Pockets offsets Convenience Fee |
| 8 (10 Keys) | Thick Skin: +50 max health (10 ranks, 625) | High Confidence: +25% damage while at 80% health or more (5 ranks, 750) | Thick Skin | Thick Skin with Hard Labor; High Confidence only if you rarely get hit |
| 9 (20 Keys) | Privileged Status: +40% damage to foes with two or more status curses (2 ranks, 550) | Family Favorite: +5% damage for each different Olympian whose boons you have (2 ranks, 200) | Privileged Status | Privileged Status; Family Favorite for builds spread over four or more gods |
| 10 (20 Keys) | Olympian Favor: +40% chance for a boon to be Rare (40 ranks, 2,000) | Dark Foresight: +20% chance for gold-laurel rewards (10 ranks, 1,500) | Skip for now | Either; both are switched off by the first rank of Routine Inspection |
| 11 (30 Keys) | Gods' Pride: +20% chance for a boon to be Epic (20 ranks, 2,000) | Gods' Legacy: +10% chance for a Legendary or Duo boon, if possible (10 ranks, 2,500) | Skip for now | Gods' Legacy if you chase Duo boons |
| 12 (30 Keys) | Fated Authority: 8 rerolls of the next chamber's reward (8 ranks, 11,000) | Fated Persuasion: 4 rerolls of boon and Well of Charon choices (4 ranks, 10,000) | Skip for now | Fated Persuasion helps against Approval Process |
The Key costs unlock two rows at a time: 5 Keys for rows 5–6, 10 for rows 7–8, 20 for rows 9–10 and 30 for rows 11–12, 65 Chthonic Keys in total. The green talents appear after a conversation with Nyx that becomes available once you have collected at least 300 Darkness.
How to spend Darkness
The Mirror as a whole costs 35,365 Darkness for every rank on both sides, but almost all of that sits in the bottom four slots. What changes your runs is much cheaper. All three Death Defiance ranks, Greater Reflex, Chthonic Vitality, Shadow Presence, Boiling Blood, Infernal Soul, Thick Skin and Privileged Status come to 3,275 Darkness. That is the target before you put anything into the rarity talents.
A practical order: Death Defiance rank 1 (30), Greater Reflex (50), Chthonic Vitality (70), Shadow Presence (100), Infernal Soul and Boiling Blood (350 together), Death Defiance rank 2 (500), then Thick Skin, Privileged Status and Death Defiance rank 3 (1,000). Deep Pockets and the boon-rarity talents can wait.
After several escape attempts, the Mirror lets you refund all Darkness spent on it for one Chthonic Key. That makes the order less important than it looks: if a choice turns out wrong, one Key undoes it.
Pact of Punishment: every condition and its Heat
The Pact appears in the courtyard, in front of the open window, after you beat the final boss once. Each condition you turn on adds Heat; the total is your Heat for the run. In a normal save there are 15 conditions worth 63 Heat in total.
| Condition | Effect per rank | Max ranks | Heat per rank (total) | Our verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hard Labor | Foes deal +20% damage | 5 | 1 (5) | Cheap for 1–2 ranks; dangerous at 5 (+100%) |
| Lasting Consequences | All healing restores 25% less | 4 | 1 (4) | Cheap for 1–2 ranks if you play clean; rank 4 means no healing at all |
| Convenience Fee | Obol prices +40% | 2 | 1 (2) | Cheap Heat. The usual first pick |
| Jury Summons | +20% more foes in standard encounters | 3 | 1 (3) | Moderate; area-damage builds barely notice it |
| Extreme Measures | One region's boss gains new techniques: Furies, then Bone Hydra, then Theseus and Asterius, then Hades | 4 | 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 (10) | Rank 1 is fair once you know the Furies; ranks 3–4 are expensive and hard |
| Calisthenics Program | Foes have +15% health | 2 | 1 (2) | Cheap Heat. Fights just last a little longer |
| Benefits Package | Most armored foes gain a perk (teleporting, homing shots, pulling field and more) | 2 | 2 / 3 (5) | Dangerous. Perks change how fights play |
| Middle Management | Each mini-boss encounter adds an armored foe or another problem | 1 | 2 | Moderate; only affects mini-bosses |
| Underworld Customs | Purge one boon at the Pool of Purging to leave each region | 1 | 2 | Cheap if you keep a spare boon; you still get the Obols |
| Forced Overtime | Foes move and attack 20% faster | 2 | 3 (6) | Dangerous. The most expensive rank and everything gets faster |
| Heightened Security | Traps and magma deal +400% damage | 1 | 1 | Cheap if you watch the floor |
| Routine Inspection | Switches off 3 Mirror talents, from the bottom row up | 4 | 2 (8) | Rank 1 is cheap (rarity rows and Fated dice); ranks 3–4 remove core talents, including Death Defiance |
| Damage Control | Foes have 1 shield hit that ignores your first hit | 2 | 1 (2) | Cheap for fast multi-hit weapons; costly for slow heavy hits |
| Approval Process | One fewer choice when offered boons, items or upgrades | 2 | 2 / 3 (5) | Dangerous at rank 2: most offers shrink to a single option |
| Tight Deadline | 9 minutes per region, 2 minutes less per rank | 3 | 1 / 2 / 3 (6) | Rank 1 is cheap for most players; rank 3 (5 minutes) is dangerous |
| Personal Liability (Hell Mode only) | Your Auto Defense, the brief invulnerability after a burst of damage, is disabled | 1 | 1 | Always on in Hell Mode |
A few rules hide behind the table. Extreme Measures stays hidden until you have met all three Furies, and its fourth rank must be bought from the House Contractor after the main game is completed. Routine Inspection only appears once the whole Mirror is unlocked. With Tight Deadline, time left over carries into the next region; once it runs out you take 5 damage per second, which nothing can reduce. Convenience Fee raises prices at Charon's shops and Wells of Charon, except for the Diamond and Titan Blood sold in the Temple of Styx.
"Cheap" depends on your weapon and boons. Damage Control barely matters for the Twin Fists but slows a heavy charged attack, and Jury Summons is harmless for an area-damage build but hard on single-target ones. Treat our verdicts as a starting point.
How Heat and bounties work
Each weapon has its own target Heat. When your Heat is at or above that target, each region's boss pays a bounty the first time you beat it at that level. Beating the final boss at the target raises that weapon's target by one. The rewards are the same three items at every level:
| Boss | Bounty | Per weapon per Heat level | All six weapons, Heat 0 to 20 |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Furies (Tartarus) | Titan Blood | 1 | 126 |
| Bone Hydra (Asphodel) | Diamond | 1 | 126 |
| Theseus and Asterius (Elysium) | Ambrosia | 1 | 126 |
| Hades (final boss) | Titan Blood | 1 | 126 |
So each Heat level is worth 2 Titan Blood, 1 Diamond and 1 Ambrosia per weapon. The first clear with each weapon counts as level 0, and the bounties stop at 20 Heat. Across all six weapons that is 252 Titan Blood, 126 Diamonds and 126 Ambrosia. With 43 more Titan Blood from the Fated List, that is 295, just short of the 306 needed to max every aspect. The weapon aspect guide covers where Titan Blood should go.
Three details decide how you should climb:
- Running above your target gains nothing. A clear only pays the lowest Heat level you have not completed with that weapon. If your Rail's target is 2 and you win at 5 Heat, you get the level-2 bounties and the target becomes 3.
- Bosses do not pay twice. If you beat the Furies at your target and die later in the run, the Furies pay nothing with that weapon until you beat the final boss. You still keep what you collected.
- No bounty means Darkness. A boss with no bounty left for you drops Darkness instead: 50 for the Furies, 100 for the Bone Hydra, 150 for Theseus and Asterius, 250 for Hades.
The wiki also notes that the 0-Heat bounties are tracked separately and cannot be claimed by a clear at higher Heat, so take each new weapon through one run with the Pact empty.
A Heat climb route
Since a clear pays one level per weapon whatever your Heat, the efficient route is to keep each weapon at exactly its target and raise all six together. Five weapons at 4 Heat is far easier than one weapon at 20, and both pay the same.
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1
Heat 1–4: one cheap rank at a time
Convenience Fee, Calisthenics Program, then one rank of Hard Labor or Lasting Consequences. Rotate through all six weapons at each level before going up.
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2
Heat 5–8: start covering every condition
Add Middle Management, Underworld Customs, Heightened Security or one rank of Tight Deadline. Escaping once with each of the 15 conditions active, even at one rank, completes the Harsh Conditions prophecy for 15 Titan Blood. At 5 Heat the Tartarus Infernal Gates open, if you bought Gateways, Erebus (5 Diamonds).
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3
Heat 8: the first statue
Beating Hades at 8 Heat or more unlocks the first of Skelly's three statues and completes The Useless Trinket prophecy for 5 Diamonds.
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4
Heat 9–15: second ranks
Second ranks of Hard Labor and Lasting Consequences, Damage Control, Jury Summons, Extreme Measures rank 1. At 10 and 15 Heat the Infernal Gates in Asphodel and Elysium open.
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5
Heat 16–20: the last bounties
This is where Forced Overtime, Benefits Package or Approval Process usually have to come in. The second statue unlocks at 16. Finishing 20 Heat on all six weapons ends the bounties.
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6
Beyond 20: challenge only
The third statue at 32 Heat is cosmetic. Play past 20 for the fight, not the resources.
Infernal Gates lead to Erebus, where you must clear a fight without taking damage. The rewards are better than usual: much higher boon rarity, Poms that add 2 levels, 50-health Centaur Hearts and 200 Obols. Take a hit and the reward becomes a Red Onion that heals 1 health.
Hell Mode in brief
Hell Mode is chosen when you create a new save and cannot be changed later. It disables God Mode and starts with the Pact already active: one mandatory rank each of Hard Labor, Lasting Consequences, Jury Summons, Calisthenics Program and the Hell Mode-only Personal Liability, 5 Heat you cannot remove. You can add ranks on top. To match, bounties start at 5 Heat and run to 25, and the Pact's maximum is 64 Heat.
It suits players who have already finished the game and want to replay it with pressure from the first room. For a first playthrough, the normal mode with the Pact added later is the better way to learn the game.
Common mistakes
- Running far above target Heat. It pays the same as running at the target. Stay at the target and rotate weapons.
- Climbing one weapon to 20 first. The last levels are much harder than the first levels on other weapons, and all levels pay the same.
- Thinking switching talents costs something. Red and green switch freely at the Mirror; the Key is only for refunding Darkness.
- Buying rarity talents before survival. Olympian Favor and Gods' Pride cost 2,000 Darkness each; the whole survival-and-damage core costs 3,275.
- Stacking Lasting Consequences with Chthonic Vitality and expecting the healing. Lasting Consequences cuts every source of healing.
- Taking Routine Inspection rank 3 or 4 casually. It switches off Greater Reflex, Boiling Blood and Infernal Soul at rank 3, and Death Defiance at rank 4.
- Dying with bounties half-collected and not noticing. The bosses you already beat at that level will drop Darkness until you finish a clear.
Related guides
For your first escape and what to spend each currency on, read the beginner guide. Higher Heat needs stronger builds: see best boons and builds and the weapon aspect guide for where the Titan Blood goes. For whether the game is worth your time, read the Hades review.
★Honest Take: a good dial with a rough reward curve
The Pact is one of the best difficulty systems in the genre. You choose exactly how the game gets harder, so a Rail player can avoid Damage Control and a Shield player can take it. The Mirror is just as good in a quieter way: every slot has a real alternative, and refunding for one Key encourages experiments.
The weak points are in the rewards. Because a clear pays only the lowest level you have not completed, high Heat on one weapon is rarely worth it while other weapons sit at 0, and the game explains this poorly. The bounties also stop at 20 Heat, so the hardest runs pay only in statues. And the bottom of the Mirror asks for 21,000 Darkness for two rows of dice. If you enjoy the fighting, none of that matters; if you play for progression, plan on six weapons climbing together, not one.
