Artemis is a character created by Supergiant Games for the roguelike dungeon crawler Hades. I use created in the loosest way possible here, as Artemis in Hades is based on the Greek goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, and many other things. Although Artemis isn’t my absolute favorite Olympian, I do like her a lot.Â
She is the only Olympian willing, or ready, to share details of her personal life with Zagreus (and, by extension, the player).
While connections with other Olympians tend to be very surface level (such as with Dionysus or even Zeus), Artemis seems more willing to divulge information about her life and relationship with the Nymphs and Callisto, specifically. Moreso than any other Olympian, you get to see her warm up to Zagreus and let him more into her life.
However, the Goddess featured in this Artemis Hades guide is probably one of the most written-off Olympians, and I frequently see people wondering if one can actually make a decent build with her. You can, but you may need to augment your usual playstyle to make it work.
Games Like Hades
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To the (Arrow) Point
Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, though she is relatively recluse and doesn’t interact much with the Olympians. Her boons may not seem that appealing initially, but they are oriented towards a specific build: one favoring Crits and Casting. You can summon her to your aid through her Keepsake, the Adamant Arrow.
This Keepsake is gained after you give her Nectar for the first time. Artemis can create an insanely strong cast-based build; to do so, you must have the patience (and luck) to build it slowly during your escape attempt.
A Recluse Goddess
Artemis is the Goddess of the hunt and the wilderness in Hades. She frequently offers Zagreus boons that focus on bettering his cast ability and giving him a chance for Critical hits. She is not close with many family members, preferring to spend time with her hunting friend, Callisto, and the Nymphs.
When she first offers her aid to Zagreus, it seems to surprise the other gods and goddesses because she prefers to stay out of family affairs.
My favorite theory is that she offered her aid under the assumption she could get to know Achilles, who she is a massive fan of, through Zagreus. However, over time, she grew closer to Zagreus and eventually considered her distant cousin a friend.
Her Garb
Artemis tends to keep everything relatively simple, with most of her clothes in green or brown hues (with a few splashes of white), likely to help her blend in on her hunts. The only thing that stands out as impractical for a hunt is the seemingly massive cloak she has adorned, which is attached to a more practical fur mantle.
For the longest time, I thought she was wearing a green hat or helm, but it turns out that, no, her hair is just that voluminous and a lovely shade of green to boot. Her crown sports the different phases of a crescent moon, a reference to her symbol being a crescent moon. She carries a long bow and a holster of arrows.
The birds sitting on her bow are likely the Stymphalian Birds, often depicted as birds of prey that attack and eat men. In some pieces of Greek mythology, they are depicted as the pets of Artemis. In the story of Heracles, one of his impossible tasks is to kill her vicious pets in Lake Stymphalian in Arcadia.
Tracking Her Down
Artemis is one of the six Olympians that you can find during your first run. Although your first Olympian encounter will always be Athena, you have a 1/6 chance of running into Artemis after that (pretty good odds, actually).
If you don’t find her in your first run, you will likely encounter her in your second or third. In my last playthrough, I was lucky to encounter her directly after Athena.
Specific Infernal Arms
As a fun note, Artemis does not particularly care for the Adamant Rail, Exagryph, and will comment on how she feels it is too noisy for hunting. However, she can commend your good sense if you are equipped with the Heart-seeking Bow, Coronacht.
If you have the Eternal Spear, Varatha, equipped with the Aspect of Achilles, she can recognize it as Achilles’ spear and become a little excited about it.
Keepsake
After gifting Artemis her first Nectar, she will return the favor by giving Zagreus her Keepsake: the Adamant Arrowhead. As with the other Olympian boons, the Adamant Arrowhead Keepsake will summon Artemis as the next Olympian boon you will find.
Further, it will increase the chance for her blessings to be rare or better. At the first rank, the chance will go up by 10%; at the second rank, the chance will go up by 15%; and at the third rank, the chance will go up by 20%.
To max out her affinity gauge, you will need to give her six Nectar and one Ambrosia once her favor has been completed.
A Listening Ear
There is nothing you can do to get through Artemis’ favor, like buying out a pact as you would for Orpheus or Sisyphus or even completing a goal, as you do for Dionysus and Ares. To complete Artemis’ favor relies purely on randomly triggered dialogue to happen. In this dialogue, Artemis will talk about Callisto.
Eventually, after picking up her boon, Artemis confides in Zagreus that she feels like she can be herself with him. After this, her affinity gauge will unlock again. You won’t get a Companion, but you can max out her Affinity gauge.
Aiding Theseus
When you go up against Theseus and Asterius in the final area of Elysium, there is a chance that Theseus will call upon Artemis’ Aid if you’re not already using her boons. Fortunately, she has a pretty distinguishable pattern that can make her aid to Theseus somewhat easier to avoid.
First, her effect will follow you, so dash around the arena and don’t step backward. Second (and last), several lines will appear through the center of the arena and go off one after another – keep toward the edges, and you’ll be fine. You can also dash through them and avoid damage.
Why Artemis
You probably won’t be that compelled to take Artemis’ boons when you first play through the game. I understand why – compared to the other Olympians, her attack boons don’t do that much damage upfront.
However, you should understand just how strong the Critical is: it triples the standard damage output from your weapon when it happens. The Critical is decided randomly, having only a chance to happen based on the percentage your Crit chance is at.
Concerning her cast boons, you can make an absurdly powerful cast-based build by using Artemis. Plus, anything that casts an arrow – such as her call, her Cast, or her Support Fire, ignores shields, which is absolutely killer when you’re trying to fight Theseus. Even better is that her Legendary is specifically centered around casting and using Bloodstones.
Status Curse
Where Dionysus has his Hangover Status Curse and Demeter has her Chill, both of which deal regular damage, Artemis has Marked. This Status Curse does not deal regular damage and significantly increases the chance of dealing a Critical Hit to the enemy carrying Marked.
Once they are killed, their Status Curse will move over to the nearby target. This signature Status Curse also increases the chance for Criticals depending on how many Critical-based boons you have from Artemis.
Pointed Boons
Most of Artemis’ Boons rely on having and maintaining access to her Critical chance. Four base boons will give Zagreus a chance to deal Critical damage (as a reminder, Critical damage essentially deals 3x of your base damage).
- Deadly Strike: Your Attack is stronger and has a 15% chance of dealing Critical Damage
- Deadly Flourish: Your Special is stronger and has a 20% chance of dealing Critical Damage
- True Shot: Your Cast is stronger and seeks out foes, having a 10% chance to deal Critical damage
- Unique to the Chaos Shield, Aegis, Aspect of Beowulf is Hunter’s Flare, which replaces your Cast. With Hunter’s Flare, your Cast damages enemies around you and has a 10% Critical chance.
- Artemis’ Aid: Your Call will fire up to 10 seeking arrows with a 35% Critical chance.
- Hunter Dash: This is the only boon that doesn’t increase the chance for Criticals or deal with the concept of Criticals and Casting. This boon will cause your Dash-Strike to deal more damage and fills the slot for your Dash boon.
- Support Fire: After you Cast, hit with an Attack or Special, you will fire a seeking arrow (similar to the arrows fired by Artemis’ Cast). Support fire is different from Cast-based boons and Critical Chance boons, like Hunter Dash, because it is not reliant on other boons (nor does it specifically boost a skill).
Critical Chance Boons
For the most part, almost all of these boons require that you can deal Critical Damage.
- Pressure Points: This boon is not based on having a primary boon that can deal Critical Damage. Instead, with Pressure Points, any damage you deal has a chance to be Critical.
- Hide Breaker: Your Critical effects deal even more damage to Armor.
- Clean Kill: Your Critical deals even more damage.
- Hunter Instinct: Your God Gauge charges up faster when you deal Critical Damage.
- Hunter’s Mark: After you deal Critical damage to a foe, a foe nearby will be Marked.
Cast Based Boons
All these boons will have a prerequisite of having True Shot or Hunter’s Flare.
- Exit Wounds: Whenever a Bloodstone is dislodged from your enemies, they take some extra damage. As an extra note, if you have a main cast boon that does not lodge itself into your enemies, this boon will not be available for you to take. As such, you cannot take this boon if the Aspect of Beowulf is equipped.
- Fully Loaded: Gain Extra Bloodshards for your Cast (up to two more). This is Artemis’ Legendary Boon, requiring you to have two of the following: Exit Wounds, Pressure Points, or Support Fire.
Duo Boons
- Heart Rend (Aphrodite): Your Critical deals extra damage to Weak foes (+150%).
- Hunting Blades (Ares): Your Cast creates a fast Blade Rift that seeks out the nearest foe (3.3 Seconds).
- Deadly Reversal (Athena): After Deflecting, you gain a 20% chance to deal Critical damage for 2 seconds. This Duo boon is excellent if you have Divine Flourish (a required aspect).
- Crystal Clarity (Demeter): Your Cast becomes stronger and tracks your foes (+10% damage). This boon cannot be combined with Cold Embrace or Aspect of Beowulf.
- Splitting Headache (Dionysus): Enemies with the Hangover status effect is more likely to take Critical damage (+1.5% damage per stack of Hangover).
- Mirage Shot (Poseidon): Your Cast will fire a second projectile at reduced damage (30%).
- Lightning Rod (Zeus): Your collectible Bloodstones will strike lightning every 1 second (70 damage per strike). This boon requires that you have the Infernal Soul Mirror talent, and it lowers the range in which you can pick up Bloodstones.
Become a Master Archer
Let’s be honest, getting a specific build is incredibly difficult in Hades, especially when the game refuses to give you more than one boon from your summoned Olympian (I’m not at all bitter about trying five times to get a hyper-specific Artemis build, and not getting it while writing this…).
Nonetheless, if you want to slaughter with Artemis, you must have a cast-based build. To do this, the best Infernal Arm you can take is the Chthonic Bow with the Aspect of Hera.
This aspect allows you to load your Cast into your attack. Once you’ve hit your target, your Cast will drop after five seconds when the Aspect of Hera is fully ranked up with Titan Blood. This gives a pretty clear target for the boons you need to take to destroy your enemies.
Artemis
From Artemis, you should aim for the following:
- Deadly Strike
- True Shot
- Fully Loaded (Legendary)
- To get Fully Loaded, you should aim for Exit Wounds and Support Fire. Pressure Point is okay, but it’s not amazing.
Hermes
There is one definite boon that you should get from Hermes – Greater Recall. This boon automatically returns your Bloodstone to Zagreus after they’ve been dislodged. To get Greater Recall, you need to have Flurry cast and Quick Reload or have the Lambert Plume equipped.
Demeter
From Demeter, you should aim for her cast-support boons precisely:
- Snow Burst: This causes a burst of Chill whenever you cast (or load your Cast into Coronacht).
- Ravenous Will: This boon gives you extra damage while you have no Bloodstones on you.
Other Olympians
It’s really up to you if you take boons from other Olympians – use your discretion and try not to screw up your run by taking their main Cast boons (usually, Cast support will be okay).
You won’t get the chance to take the Duo boon for Demeter and Artemis, considering it relies on your having Demeter’s main Cast boon. However, with the build laid out before you, Zeus’s Duo boon will be made fundamentally useless thanks to Greater Recall.
Keepsakes and Companions
It doesn’t matter much what Keepsakes or Companions you have equipped for this build. However, I recommend starting with the Adamant Arrowhead to ensure that you’ll meet Artemis on your run. After Tartarus, it is up to your discretion on what you’d like.
FAQs
Question: Can You Marry Artemis in Hades?
Answer: No, you cannot. The only romance options available in Hades are Thanatos and Megaera. In all fairness, however, even if you could romance some of the Olympians, Artemis seems to be pretty devoted to her hunting partner, Callisto.
Question: Does Artemis Like Zagreus in Hades?
Answer: She likes him well enough. Initially, her intent may have been to grow closer to Achilles through Zagreus, but by the end of her favor, she has become much more comfortable around Zagreus through their brief blips of conversation and see him as someone that she can confide in.
Question: What is Artemis the Goddess of?
Answer: Artemis is the goddess of the hunt and is labeled as such in the game. In ancient Greek mythology, her title extends much further as the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness and all that resides and grows in it, chastity, and the moon. She also oversaw childbirth and the care of children in many Greek myths.
A Point Well Made
For a long time, I was disappointed with Artemis’ boons and considered them near useless – and then I realized her strength doesn’t stem from hitting hard; it comes from catching enemies off guard and dealing a lot of casting damage. Artemis lends herself, better than any other Olympian, to cast-based builds.
She can cause your Cast to do insane damage if you play it right (especially if you get the Chaos Boon that gives you more Bloodstones to cast with). You don’t have to take True Shot to benefit from her cast abilities, but it certainly helps.
As a bonus, if you find that fighting shielded enemies (like Theseus) is exceedingly annoying, True Shot will take her Cast around his shield, completely ignoring the fact that it exists.
Through the Power of Artemis, you can subvert aspects of the game that were designed to be exceedingly annoying, but you need to give yourself the time, and afford yourself the patience, to learn how to play the way her build demands.
Games Like Hades
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