Hades 2: Chardybis Boss Guide

Out of all the monsters and mystical beings Odysseus goes up against in the Odyssey, Charybdis is probably the scariest and one of the most iconic. And, to be fair, Odysseus doesn’t even ever fight Charybdis, rather he only narrowly escapes being dragged into its open maw. So, having Hades 2’s Melinoë actually go toe-to-tentacle with this gigantic sea creature is a big step up.

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And before she even gets to this thing, she’s got to get through all these new monsters in Ephyra, fight another one of Odysseus’ old enemies (AKA Polyphemus), and fight her way through multiple ships full to the brim with baddies. All that said, to fight this monstrosity in Hades 2, you’ll need to know what exactly it’ll attack you with. So, let’s go over Charybdis in-depth, what its boss battle is like, what attacks it can use, and how you should approach this fight if you want to make it through and (hopefully) make it to the Eris boss battle shortly after.

Charybdis The Devouring

It’s Too Busy Devouring, So You’ll Have To Fight Its Tentacles Instead

Your first Charybdis fight, after you unlock everything needed to make it here, can seem very overwhelming, and that’s how it appears to be designed. However, after you ascend (not descend) and fight this gigantic sea creature a couple of times, you’ll quickly realize just how simple and predictable this fight truly is. While most other bosses in Hades 2 use a variety of moves at any point in time, Charybdis and its tentacles pretty much use 2-3 max at one time. When you first enter the ship graveyard that is this boss arena, the tentacles will only use one attack total. Then, in between each phase of destroying the tentacles, Charybdis will have one specific ranged attack it uses. Finally, in the third section where you’re back to taking out these tentacles one by one, they’ll start mixing in one or two more attacks (sometimes).

So, even at its most complex, Charbydis is still less mechanically complex than Hecate or even Infernal Cerberus (and it’s not even worth comparing it to Chronos). This means that the general game plan for this fight is to learn the starting animations for all its attacks, then steadily (and safely, if possible) hit as many of its tentacles as you can to individually take them out. Once Charbydis is out of tentacles, it dies, and you’re free to move on to a couple of other ship encounters before reaching Eris at the entrance to Mount Olympus.

Everything Charybdis Can Possibly Do

As it Turns Out, Charybdis Can’t Do All That Much

When it comes to Charybdis’ attacks, a lot of you are probably going to be surprised with how simple it is. Considering the amount of progress you’ll need to have made and the bosses you’ll likely have beaten before ever reaching Charybdis, its moveset does come across as being a lot more ‘basic’ compared to all the rest. The reason for this is that you’re not actually fighting the main ‘body’ of Charybdis. No, the entire fight you’re actually fighting its appendages that are coming up out of the shipwrecks around you. Because these ‘tentacles’ are trying to overwhelm you with numbers, Supergiant Games must have decided that they needed to keep their attacks relatively simplistic.

Disclaimer: With no ‘official’ attack names to go off of, we just came up with our own, basic though they may be.

Still, the tentacles have very different windups for their attacks, and knowing what those look like ahead of time will make this already easy fight even easier, so let’s go into all the attacks Charybdis can use:

Move Name	Description	Strategy
Tentacle Slam	The attack Charybdis’ appendages will use the most right when you start the fight. The ‘tentacle’ waves a bit back and forth before slamming itself into the ground, sending out pink shockwaves in a rectangular pattern around it.	This can be a bit awkward to avoid when two tentacles are overlapping this attack on top of each other, but just Dash through or avoid the shockwaves and you’re good.
Homing Projectiles	This is the attack Charybdis will use in between its tentacles popping up around Melinoë so if all the tentacles are gone and the camera zooms out so you can see all of Charybdis, this attack is incoming. Charybdis essentially lobs a bunch of red projectiles that home in on Melinoë and split into even smaller projectiles after a short duration. For reference, the projectiles only split one time, going from large red projectiles to double the amount of slightly smaller ones.	You essentially want to kite these projectiles in a way that you can swing around and either Sprint away, Dash away, or Dash and run in the other direction when they all start breaking into smaller projectiles.
Stinger Projectile	The second attack the Charybdis appendages use, you’ll know it’s coming when they sort of reel back and get very flat against the ground, pointing their stinger toward you. Shortly after, the tentacle will shake for a split second before launching a bright pink stinger-shaped projectile your way.	These are pretty easy to avoid as they don’t really home in on Melinoë, you just need to look out for when the tentacles are winding up to fire these out.
Spinning Attack	The third and final attack that Charybdis’ tentacles will use is a full 360-degree spinning attack. They’ll mix this in with their Stinger Projectile, but the windup for the attack is very different, thankfully. You’ll know the Spinning Attack is incoming if the tentacle winds itself back in the opposite direction of you, pointing its stinger directly away from Melinoë before instantly swinging forward and unleashing a full spin with a bright pink motion trail following behind it.	Honestly, just don’t be anywhere near the tentacle when they use this attack. You can technically Dash anytime before you see the pink of the motion trail, but it’s easier to just create some distance instead.

And that’s literally it, those are all the attacks that Charybdis has at its disposal. For how atmospheric and grandiose this fight appears to be at first, it’s probably the most mechanically simple and tedious boss fight in the game.

Granted, when the tentacles are all using these attacks on top of each other with slightly different timing, it can get confusing and when you do take damage it stacks up incredibly quickly. But, for the most part, this fight almost feels like clearing out any other Encounter in Hades 2, as you’re essentially just hitting enemies until they go away whenever they pop up until the room is entirely cleared.