Ares pairs the Wounds curse with Blade Rifts and falling blades, layering raw melee damage over a screen full of spinning steel.
Ares wants you in the thick of it, swinging hard while blades rain down around you.
The God of War trades subtlety for aggression. In Hades 2 his signature curse is Wounds, which adds +50 power to your strikes against an afflicted foe, and his boons fill the floor with falling blades and Blade Rifts that grind enemies down.
He also leans into risk and reward, with boons that pay you for fighting at low health and a curse that turns a wounded enemy into a damage pinata. Played aggressively, he is one of the highest raw-damage gods in the game.
This guide covers how Wounds and Blade Rifts work, every core Ares boon, his Sword Hilt keepsake, and the melee build that ties it together.
Vicious Strike for damage and Wounds, with Grievous Blow for 200% hits on wounded foes.Ares builds around two ideas: the Wounds curse and physical blades, which sets him apart from the elemental Olympian boon-givers.
His signature status curse is Wounds. The wiki notes it makes your strikes deal +50 power against an afflicted foe, and you can reapply it every three seconds. Layered on top of a damage boon, that turns a wounded enemy into a soft target you tear through.
The other half is blades. Several of his boons drop falling blades over foes or create a Blade Rift, a damage zone that hits anything inside it repeatedly. For Melinoe 
, that means a lot of his damage happens automatically once you set the screen up.
As of patch v1.0 he also rewards risk. Boons like Mutual Destruction and Blood Spree scale or heal the lower your health gets, so an aggressive, low-health Ares run can hit absurd damage numbers if you can stay alive.
Keep Wounds applied before you commit your big hits. Because the +50 power only lands on wounded foes, opening with a Wounds boon and then dumping damage gets far more value than hitting a clean target.
His menu splits into Wounds appliers, blade summons, and high-risk damage multipliers.
The wiki effect blocks list the per-rarity values below, with the Common to Heroic range shown for each.
| Boon | What it does | Value (Common to Heroic) |
|---|---|---|
| Vicious Strike | Your Attacks deal more damage and inflict Wounds. | +20% to +50% Attack damage |
| Vicious Flourish | Your Specials deal more damage and inflict Wounds. | +30% to +60% Special damage |
| Grievous Blow | Wounded foes may take 200% damage when struck. | +10% to +25% double-damage chance |
| Sword Ring | Your Cast drops a falling blade over each foe in the circle. | 120 to 240 blade damage |
| Meat Grinder | Your Omega Cast also creates a Blade Rift in the circle. | 30 to 60 rift damage per second |
| Cut Above | Your Omega Moves drop a falling blade over each foe, for +5 Magick. | 90 to 180 blade damage |
| Blood Spree | While below 40 health, Attacks and Specials restore health. | 1 to 4 health per hit |
| Grisly Gain | Striking foes has a 20% chance to spill blood that restores Magick. | 15 to 30 Magick per drop |
Vicious Strike or Vicious Flourish is your core, since it both boosts damage and applies Wounds. Grievous Blow is the multiplier that makes Wounds terrifying, the blade boons add passive area damage, and Blood Spree plus Grisly Gain keep an aggressive run fueled on health and Magick.
Grievous Blow turns Wounds from a small boost into a damage spike. Once both are online, every hit on a wounded foe has a real chance to double, so prioritize pairing your Wounds applier with Grievous Blow.
The Sword Hilt is Ares keepsake, and it is the cleanest way to force a blade-and-Wounds core to come together early.
You earn it the first time you gift Nectar to Ares. Once equipped, it works like the other Olympian keepsakes: a Boon of Ares becomes likely on offer, and you can Rarify his Common, Rare, or Epic blessings once that night, raising one a tier on the spot. It sits in the wider keepsake pool with the other Olympian mirrors and shards.
Because his damage boons scale so hard with rarity, the Rarify charge is valuable here. Bumping Vicious Strike or Grievous Blow up a tier early raises your damage and double-hit odds for the whole run.
Spend the Sword Hilt Rarify on Vicious Strike, Vicious Flourish, or Grievous Blow, not a utility boon. A higher-rarity damage or Wounds boon scales every hit for the rest of the run.
The strongest Ares build pairs a Wounds applier with Grievous Blow, adds blade summons for passive damage, and keeps you alive while you fight aggressively.
Open with Vicious Strike or Vicious Flourish to match your weapon, take Grievous Blow so wounded foes can take 200% hits, then add blade boons like Sword Ring or Cut Above for screen-wide damage. Blood Spree and Grisly Gain sustain the aggressive playstyle.
Vicious Strike (damage and Wounds on Attack) Grievous Blow (200% hits on wounded foes) Cut Above (falling blades on Omega Moves) Blood Spree (heal while low on health) Grisly Gain (blood restores Magick)
Aphrodite Weak (cut incoming damage)Across multiple runs, this core holds up because it stacks two damage layers: the Wounds-fueled strikes and the constant blade damage on the floor. The catch is that it wants you in melee range, so pair it with a defensive god or keepsake to survive the aggression.
Ares pairs best with gods who keep him alive or who add another status to stack on his Wounds.
His lover Aphrodite is the classic fit: her Weak curse cuts the damage you take while you fight up close, and their duo plays into his aggressive style. His brother Hephaestus 
brings Armor to soak the hits an Ares melee build invites.
Against the other war god, Athena 
provides the deflect and defense that Ares lacks, a natural pairing of brute force with protection. Whatever duo boon you chase, the throughline is buying enough survivability to stay in melee where his damage lives.
Ares wants you in danger, so bring a defensive answer. A deflect from Athena, Weak from Aphrodite, or Armor from Hephaestus lets you sit in melee range long enough for Wounds and blades to do their work.
Ares is the Olympian God of War and a boon-giver. His blessings inflict the Wounds curse, boost your melee damage, and summon falling blades and Blade Rifts that deal heavy area damage, plus high-risk boons that reward fighting at low health.
Wounds. It makes your strikes deal +50 power against an afflicted foe, and you can reapply it every three seconds. Paired with Grievous Blow, wounded foes can take 200% damage when struck, which is the core of an Ares damage build.
Vicious Strike or Vicious Flourish to apply Wounds and boost damage, paired with Grievous Blow so wounded foes may take 200% hits. Blade boons like Sword Ring and Cut Above add strong passive area damage on top.
Blade Rifts are damage zones created by Ares boons like Meat Grinder. Enemies inside a rift take repeated damage every second, so setting up rifts and falling blades lets a lot of an Ares build damage happen automatically.
The Sword Hilt, earned by gifting him Nectar. It makes a Boon of Ares likely on offer and lets you Rarify one of his Common, Rare, or Epic blessings once that night, best spent on a damage or Wounds boon like Vicious Strike or Grievous Blow.
Yes, especially for aggressive melee builds. His Wounds curse plus Grievous Blow produces huge single-target damage, his blades add passive area damage, and his low-health boons push the ceiling even higher if you can survive the risk.
Take a Wounds applier like Vicious Strike, add Grievous Blow for 200% hits, stack blade boons such as Cut Above for area damage, and use Blood Spree and Grisly Gain for sustain. Pair a defensive god like Aphrodite, Athena, or Hephaestus to survive melee.
They serve different roles. Ares is raw offense through Wounds and blades, while Athena is defense and deflect. Many strong builds pair them, using Athena protection to let an Ares melee build stay in range and deal its damage safely.
Keep building out your Hades 2 knowledge with these next stops.
Game data and character art adapted from hades.fandom.com, used under CC BY-SA 3.0. Original content remains the property of the wiki contributors and Supergiant Games.