Hades 2 Best Familiars – How to Unlock, Equip & Upgrade All Pets

Looking for the best Hades 2 familiars? Supergiant Games’ sequel to their original Greek myth rogue-like offers plenty of challenges to overcome, but you don’t need to face them alone. Getting yourself a familiar can be a great way to enhance your combat readiness, as well as giving your character a cute companion to battle with. Here, we’re going to cover our picks for Hades 2 best familiars, as well as how to unlock them, where to find them, how you can upgrade them, and a lot more.

What Are the Best Familiars in Hades 2?

At the moment, there only appear to be two animals you can turn into familiars in Hades 2. We’re confident this may change in the full build release of the game of course. Out of the two choices though, we’d personally say Frinos the frog is our favorite familiar in Hades 2.

That’s certainly not to suggest that the other option, Toula, isn’t a great companion to have as well. In fact, since these are presently the only two familiars we’re aware of, here’s an overview of each and what they offer the player.

Frinos the Frog

The Hades 2 frog, Frinos, is a great support familiar, offering several great passive bonuses. When equipped, he’ll offer a +10 bonus to your max life, as well as hop around areas and arenas, absorbing ranged attacks that would otherwise pose a threat. He can also use the Tablet of Peace once per night.

Toula the Cat

Toula is a slightly more aggressive familiar, providing less defensive bonuses, but fitting aggressive and risky play styles better. When equipped, she’ll be able to use Death Defiance once per night, resurrecting you on death at 10 health one time. She can also attack a nearby enemy for 99 damage when you use your sprint in close proximity to her, though this ability has a cooldown. Lastly, she grants one charge extra to the Rod of Fishing, a useful utility bonus.

How To Get Familiars in Hades 2

While the battle for who’s the favorite is important, it’s a moot question if you don’t actually know how to get familiars in Hades 2.

To get animal familiars, you’ll need to unlock the proper incantation for it. Be aware that this can take quite a while, and it’ll likely take you 15+ hours of game time to get there. While the game isn’t very open about the specific steps you need to complete to get the right incantation, here are the ones that we found:

• Gather Nectar and Lotus materials at least once.
• Create the Hidden Glade in Erebus with the ‘Wooden Lifespring’ incantation.
• Find and enter the Hidden Glade. If you’ve progressed through the right steps, a cat should be found near the exit.
• Speak to the cat and continue to visit and pet it on your return through the glade. Melinoe should begin to wonder if it’s hungry after the third instance.
• Fight the Headmistress Hecate in Erebus until the topic of ‘Animal familiars’ comes up. After speaking to her on this topic and winning the fight, she’ll give you the necessary incantation: Faith of Familiar Spirits.

With this incantation at hand, you should now be able to pick up animal familiars. To use it, head to the Cauldron of Crossroads and cast it with 2 Nectar and 1 Lotus. This will give you ‘Witch’s Delight’, a special kind of treat that can tame certain animals and turn them into a familiar.

If you’re worried about choosing the wrong familiar to use it on, don’t worry. Once you get a familiar with the first Delight, you’ll get a new incantation called ‘Beast-loved Morsel’, which allows you to make 2 Witch’s Delights for 1 Star Dust and 2 Lotus.

Getting Specific Familiars

Frinos is pretty easy to get. Frinos can be found in Melinoe’s camp, where he acts as a friendly, swampy face. Give him the Witch’s Delight and he’ll become your familiar.

Toula is a little more complicated to add to your team. Chances are once you’ve unlocked the Witch’s Delight, she’ll have moved from the hidden glade. You’ll find her again once you get to the Rift of Thessaly on the surface. Once there, go far left of the pier area after the Guardian fight. She’ll be lying on the ground. Give her a Witch’s Delight, and she’ll become your new familiar.

How to Equip Familiars

Once unlocked, your familiars will head to the Crossroads Training Grounds area. They’ll hang out at the bottom-left of the silver pool. Simply approach the familiar you want to bring along at a given time and press the activation button for your console/keyboard controls of choice when the prompt appears above their heads.

How to Upgrade Familiars in Hades 2

To upgrade a familiar, just feed them more Witch’s Delight. Doing so will open up the ‘Familiar Bonds’ menu. From here, you’ll be able to choose between your familiar’s three abilities and upgrade one. For example, you can add more charges per night onto Frinos’ Tablet of Peace, or increase the number of enemies Toula can attack when you sprint past her.

That covers everything crucial you should need to know about the Hades 2 best familiars. If you’re still on the hunt for more deep breakdowns, why not check out how to wake Hypnos, or all Keepsakes in Hades 2 next? Familiars alone won’t get you through this game though, so whether you’re trying to find Wool in Hades 2 or get Mandrake Seeds for concoctions, or need help figuring out what all symbols mean in Hades 2, we’ve got your back.