All the way from down under

Quick item explanation for ya.

Starting off with the shoes/Sands and tiny trinket, shoes make you fast and give you some extra power while sands make you able to stay in lane for absurd amounts of time, its a preference thing, tiny trinket helps you build quicker into bancrofts.

Pen boots: first that way you can get your clear on pretty easily.

Bancrofts: It's important because it makes you extremely hard to kill while ulting due to the 40% life steal, and it also help you sustain in wave easier. 100 power is pretty nice too.

Celestial legion: You need to be tanky to some degree when your ult requires you to casually jump into the enemy team and stand still. It's also good because of your AOE heal giving you and your """teammates""" a 20 power buff.

Rod: Damage. Its pretty obvious.

Spear: So this will probably be the most debatable, I chose spear over ob shard because your ult is a tick, and it applies a protections debuff on the enemy. Since Spear applies to all people in your ult, it makes you AND your """Teammates""" do more damage to the enemies, while obshard only helps you. Ob shard is also % based which means due to your ult debuffing them already, it's not that good.

Mantle: This item can be replaced, but I prefer it, and here's why. You're literally standing still in an entire enemy team, so the 1 second stun plus the extra protections can be a life saver. The CDR also helps a ton, good for getting your escape or 3 up.

Aegis: Use this if you lane against gods that aren't CC focused, but burst focused like a Zeus.

Purification Beads: Use this if you lane against gods who have a lot of CC, like another Hades, or their team comp as a large amount of CC.

Thorns: I really like thorns on Hades, its a personal preference. You're sitting still inside the enemy team, so any deterrence to attack you and any punishment you can give for them attacking you is good in my opinion. You can always skip this and get both aegis and beads, but I usually get one or the other.

Death From Below: This skill is your main engage/escape. It does a pretty good amount of damage with 60% scaling. That's pretty much it for this ability lmao.


Shroud of Darkness: Shroud is a good set up for clearing wave early on, just walk to the side of wave, get all the creeps in the cone, use the ability, 3, and bam dead wave and lots of heals for everyone. It is also really good for buying you time to escape, or finish someone off. Hit them with a basic attack, shroud them, and watch them run backwards out of fear for the non-damaging 2. (This goes up to 2 seconds lmao.) It's really good for boxing other mages because you can dash onto them, 3, 2, wait for them to do their combo, and interrupt it, and then 3 them again. Usually that means a dead squishy.

Devour Souls: The Bread and butter of Hades. This is your main damage and your heal. This gives you a huge amount of early game pressure, because you can clear camps really fast, and you can clear wave pretty quickly. The downside is you have to walk INTO wave to clear it, which can be pretty awkward. I should note, the heal is AOE, anyone inside your circle gets heal for the same amount you do, so please people, let Hades clear the wave and heal everyone.

Pillar of Agony: The most ironically named ult in the entire game, it's either agony because you're so under leveled that you instantly die for using it, the enemy just goes "nice ult pal" and beads or uses an escape, or they sit there trying so hard to run out as Hades spams VEL and then they die. The ult does a lot of damage, and it sucks people in. Its a Poseidon whirlpool but ultimate form, and it gives you protections, thank God. BTW: His ult debuffs their protections, which makes OB shard even more useless.

PROS:
Hades does an *** ton of damage, and heals like an absolute madman. His ult is a great setup tool, and his dash is a great escape or engage. He has pretty high protections for a mage, meaning he can get a little more stuck in than usual, and can build life steal items/tanky items very well.

CONS:
Literally the worst god behind. If you are behind, you have to suicide to ult, because you're not likely getting out. If the enemies build anti heal, which they probably will, Hades suffers a lot. Hades also suffers from being singled out, especially when he's standing still and ulting. ADCs and burst mages can easily kill a stationary Hades, which is why I recommended thorns.