Hades 2 has finally arrived in Early Access, once again letting players immerse themselves in the soap opera drama of the underworld’s first family. Of course, rich storytelling isn’t the only reason to play Hades 2, as the roguelike combat has been given a fresh facelift too. Playing as Hades’ daughter, Melinoe, is a drastically different experience from Zagreus, both in terms of her weapons and upgrade systems. By far the most important system in Hades 2 is Grasp, which lets you power up Melinoe with a wide array of different tarot cards. It can be a bit difficult to wrap your head around, so here’s exactly how to upgrade Grasp in Hades 2.
How to Upgrade Grasp in Hades 2
Arcana cards can drastically alter how your builds work, but you’ll need Grasp to activate as many as possible.
Grasp is the main upgrade system of Hades 2, and each time you leave the Crossroads you’ll have a chance to activate different arcana. These have a wide array of effects, including granting an extra life, slowing down time briefly while you’re casting, or letting you re-roll discoveries and Boons you find.
The actual act of upgrading your Grasp is easy to do, even though Hades 2 doesn’t tell you how to do it. Don’t make the same mistake we did, and be stuck with the same Grasp for 20 hours.
Head to the arcana pedestal just before you enter the underworld. The same screen where you pick your Arcana cards.
Now simply move your cursor over to the portrait of Melinoe on the right, and you’ll see the option to upgrade Grasp. Of course, in order to do that you’ll need a resource called Psyche, which looks like a green glob of goo. At the time of writing, we’ve been able to upgrade our Grasp to 24, and haven’t found a limit.
Best Ways to Get Psyche in Hades 2
The Merchant is the easiest way to get resources quickly.
You’ll need a lot of Psyche to level up your Grasp, and considering the power of later Arcana cards, you’ll want to upgrade it as soon as possible. Luckily, there are a variety of ways to gather Psyche.
The easiest and most obvious way is to simply pick it up during runs in the Underworld. Quite a few chambers will reward 10 Psyche for completion, just keep an eye out for chambers marked with the green goop. Poseidon also has a Boon that has a chance of doubling chamber rewards, meaning you’d get 20 instead of 10. In our experience, Poseidon’s Boons are most likely to appear when you use the Sister Blades weapon.
The other two best ways of getting Psyche are by purchasing it from the merchant at the Crossroads, and using Charon’s membership cards to order it.
Invest in the “Summoning of Mercantile Fortune” incantation at the cauldron and you’ll add the merchant to the crossroads. At the store, you can use Bones to purchase resources. Bones are found during your Underworld runs as a chamber reward, but there’s a way to boost the amount you get. The “Gathering of Ancient Bones” incantation will highlight one specific weapon each night, and choosing that weapon will award you with a few Bones for every chamber you complete. It’s a great way to wrack up a ton of Bones.
Finally, after you’ve spent gold at Charon’s shop a few times, he’ll appear at the Crossroads. At this point, a delivery box will be added on the pier just to the left of the Merchant. Here you can use membership cards given to you by Charon to request deliveries. You can earn cards by spending gold at Charon’s shop, so make sure to earn and spend as much as possible. Two cards will allow you to order 80 Psyche, but you’ll need to wait for the specified amount of chamber completions before picking it up, so you’ll have to spend a few nights elsewhere first. Still, it’s a way to quickly boost the Psyche you have.
Using all three of these methods should let you earn a ton of Psyche, and let you become the unstoppable roguelike machine you were always meant to be and finally put an end to Time.
Hades 2 is available on PC in Early Access.
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