Hades the DPS Machine

Hades is a versatile God capable of being a tank or a cannon. This build will focus on the cannon part, as I much prefer a DPS play style to a cautious tank one. The greatest quality Hades has is that he is a glass cannon without the glass. Even without tank items, he can still take a beating and get out alive. His ultimate also makes him fantastic in team fights, pulling all enemies closer and bunching them up for follow up attacks by your allies. Hades also doesn't suffer from mana shortages like the other magic based DPS characters. I rarely keep a mana potion and if I do it's only one or two.

Death from Below:

This is going to be your main attack, and will generally be used to initiate a fight unless you're lucky enough to be able to get close to the enemy without it. I level this one up first and frequently because it serves as your entrance to the fights and it applies a blight on all targets hit. This blight will enhance the effects of all your other attacks. Death from Below is also your main crowd control attack, followed by Devour Souls.

Shroud of Darkness:

This attack is of limited use at lower levels and without a blight applied, but once leveled up, and when used properly, it can have amazing offensive or defensive potential.
Defensive
Under normal laning circumstances, it can be used to prevent hit and run attacks by weaker enemies, saving your health for larger offensives. An enemy will skirt the fighting creeps, jump towards you and try to launch a follow up attack, but you can silence them before they get it off. They will be forced to retreat because you and your lane partner will have removed their speed/surprise advantage.
Offensive
As an offensive ability, this is paired to great effect with Death from Below, which applies a blight on hit. This blight then causes a silence AND fear when you use Shroud of Darkness. At higher levels, this gives you 2 seconds to launch an attack or vacate the area, using it as a hit and run or a pre-cursor to your ultimate. This also works well when you know someone has an escape; you can generally get them to pop it prematurely by using these two moves together.

Devour Souls

This attack is a good one for crowd control but also has uses as a finishing move if your ultimate doesn't quite kill a god. For a little extra damage, make sure that a blight is applied. Also keep in mind that when a blight is applied, targets hit with this heal you. While it isn't enough to make much of a difference late game, this can be used early game to save you a few health potions: Death from Below into creeps and use this to heal up (plus deal additional damage to them).

Pillar of Agony

This is one of the best ultimates in the game. First, while beads will allow people to escape its embrace, the damage is dealt over time, not at the the end (like Ymir's), so .5 seconds is all it takes to damage someone at least a little bit. Also, I have found that most people don't think to buy beads when facing Hades. I don't know why, but rarely do I find someone that uses beads to escape. Having said that, an escape is very effective at avoiding Hades' ultimate. My strategy is to usually wait until an enemy has used their escape to start an attack and then go through the kill combo.

Attack order:

Death from Below
Shroud of Darkness
Devour Souls
Basic
Pillar of Agony

Kill Order:

Death from Below (unless you are close enough in which case use your basic attack and save this)
Pillar of Agony
Devour Souls
Shroud of Darkness

DPS

In the first Purchase Order, I start with boots and 3 potions. This will spend all of your money. I like to have pots in case of unexpected events, and the boots are for obvious speed benefits. Hades seems slower than most other Gods, but I am not sure this is actually the case or be just being impatient. After that, the items are as follows:


Void Stone
This is a basic item to give you a bit more protection early game and also gets you the nice passive of a magic protection debuff, which is helpful when applying the ridiculous amounts of magic power you'll get after.

warlock's sash
Warlocks Sash
What I like most about this item is that you don't lose your stack when you die. Doom orb is nice, but nothing like getting a 60 stack only to see it go to waste at one death. I also like to get this game early to let it reach its full potential. I see this item a lot on the end of people's build and I don't understand why; it takes a bit of time before reaching its full potential, so buying it ate game reduces its use. Once done, this item is good for 100 magical power, 300 health and 600 mana.


Rod of Tahuti
This is an absolute must have for a DPS mage. 125 magic power plus a 25% boost your power indefinitely. This item speaks for itself. Get it earlier rather than later because it will increase the effect of all magic power you get.


Obsidian Shard
Great for the penetration and the decent magic power. This is a must have because it not only ups your mp, it makes your mp go farther via penetration. I always like to have at least one penetration item.


Bancroft's Talon
I fantastic new item that basically gives you everything you want in a DPS character and nothing you don't want. You get power and lifesteal and no health or protection. The reason this one is highlighted is because depending on how the game is going, you can put a lot of different items in here. I am a big fan of the Polynomicon because with a high DPS build like this, your basic attack can do upwards of 500 damage after an attack. Mystical Mark mystical Mark can be good too when paired with Pillar of Agony .

Pure DPS

The Pure DPS is just a different order and lacks boots. Careful, you will be slow, so you will need to be more careful when going in to attack. I believe with that build you can get over 700 magical power, which is, to say the least, really impressive.

1v1

One on one, Hades is usually not that good because most people know to avoid him. They stay their distance and have beads. Also, Hades has mediocre CC early game, meaning it is hard to hold a lane on your own, especially before you get your ultimate. He doesn't have enough to take down a heavy tank, and squishies generally don't stick around in his ultimate long enough to be killed.

Laning

In a lane, depending on who you are paired with, Hades can be very effective. Anyone with a stun is a good pair, or a cannon of any kind that can hold off, deal with one enemy while you're taking out the other. Hit and run is my general strategy on this one; jump in with Death from Below , pop Shroud of Darkness on any nearby enemies and finish up with Devour Souls before retreating quickly and having your ally cover your retreat. This will deal with any creeps, and if you are facing a melee character, make it very hard to hit you while you are constantly jumping in and silencing them.

Team Fights

This is where Hades really shines. I try to hang out around the front or middle of a fight (you are a tank after all, so you should be taking some of the brunt of a team fight) and wait until the end of the fight (or middle if things look to be going south) to jump in with Pillar of Agony . The reason for this is because Hades ultimate works best on multiple people, and it groups people together by pulling them in. By waiting until the end of the fight, most enemies have used their escapes, so they cannot get out of the DPS storm you're throwing at them. Also, because it lasts 4 seconds, it allows wounded teammates to disengage the fight and healthy ones to get closer to the enemies (that aren't killed) when they inevitably flee after your ultimate. Of course you'll also get a fair number of kills with this strategy, which is nice too. =)

Pros:

High damage output
Durable
Almost never runs out of mana
Has escape (even more effective when paired with his Devour Souls )
Good against squishies not expecting his health bar to be so large


Cons:

Not terribly good 1v1
Slow without boots (one of the builds I suggested)
CC is average
No ranged CC
Expect more assists than kills (but expect expect high kills every so often when the match-up is right)
Doesn't normally have enough damage output to take down a heavy tank like Odin or Sobek