God of War-verse Strategy Guide

How to be OP in God of War-verse.

Local Scale Threat:

God of War takes place within two realms that are their own universes at least, the Greek universe and the Norse universe. These universes abound in dangerous mythological creatures, but even the humans of the even verse to properly combat them are bigger and stronger then in our universe. The Woman Alethia, whose only power was psychic vision withstood briefly a massive fall and being buried under a large amount of rubble and the mad man weakling Icarus could withstand being smashed through massive stone walls. 

Stronger Mortals have shown even greater feats like a few soldiers taking down a statue that weighed thousands of tons or the Last Spartan surviving the destruction of a building and have been shown to contend with even the minor monsters of the series, such as one soldier managing to fight 3 undead soldiers at the same time, and two Athenians protecting the oracle from 2 harpies. For reference Harpies are fast enough to travel up planetary sized Mount Olympus in seconds and travel from the depths of Hades in seconds, fast enough to deliver the blades of chaos to Ares. Undead Soldiers are tough enough to tank an immense fall of hundreds of meters and both Harpies and Undead Soldiers can tank the powerful winds caused by Typhon's breath. 

There are monsters even stronger then this on this scale such as the Minotaurs who can with a single strike can pulverize a human soldier, turning them into merely a puddle of blood. Minotaurs can also tank the winds of the desert of lost souls which can strip a normal human to the bone, and a Titan Minotaur varient was a very large beast that can send large boulders flying. There are also Banshees that can split men in half with a single tail swipe and satyrs who wield weapons so heavy that they their sheer weight indents the ground and embeds the weapon in it. 

While most monsters probably aren't quite as fast as the sub-relativistic Harpies, they should be comparable which is consistent with the lightning-speed Geryon monster which is not especially quick.

 The verse even at this tier has haxes, and a recurring trend with this verse is going to be overwhelming offense with brute strength far above baseline for their level complimented with myriad forms of offensive hax.

Even at the very lowest tiers is the mad king Midas who transmutes anything he touches into gold. The Arms of Hades similarly also have transmutation abilities, able to turn humans into the undead soldiers and The Dead are capable via touch of draining the lifeforce and magic of even beings far stronger then them such as God of War 3 Kratos when he fell into the River Styx.

The Gorgons, a common enemies are capable of releasing from their eyes a beam capable of turning biological material to stone, including flash petrifying an entire room of people. Various versions of the Sirens have mental affecting attacks that stun or cause temporary paralysis. The Norse enemy known as Revenants are capable of weakening the very fabric of reality, showing that they are capable of ignoring conventional durability by weakening the fabric of reality that the opponent exists in.

The same Revenants are capable of slips between the sheets of reality to teleport and to gain the benefits of intangibility. Of course actual intangibility is also possessed by the wraiths and arms of Hades.

Beyond this, as might be expected, general abilities are also possessed in abundance including flight, elemental manipulation (fire and lightning seem most common for the verse), and summoning.

Overall what makes God of War so strong as this tier, is it's sheer overwhelming physical power, the raw numbers of powerful entities, easily in the billions of times (worlds much larger then Earth with many species of species with their own massive armies) as well as general preponderance of offensive hax. When fighting beings with overwhelming offense, it becomes very useful tactically to avoid direct conflict.

That said the verse does have a few weaknesses. As a bit of a recurring theme, a lot of the fighters lack range equal to their tier (while they have range beyond melee, it is not equal to their attack power). Outside the actual archers, most fighters are limited to only within a few meters. This is helpful because range is actually a good way around to get around the overwhelming offense of the verse. 

This brings up what I think is an even bigger weakness at this tier, that being stealth. While stronger beings in the verse have enhanced awareness and senses, at this tier I can not find anything suggesting the verse has superhuman sensory abilities, suggesting that high tier stealth might be a very strong strategy. These two combined suggests that a sniper strategy would be very effective.

As a bonus this would avoid the need for inter-dimensional capacity to hit the Revenant. However anti-intangibility would still be needed in order to fight the Wraiths and Arms of Hades.

However that tactic can also be employed to great effect against the verse. Pretty much every hax outside of probably the Revenant's reality-weakening affects the physical body of the target. Even the Siren's paralyzing music while it affects the mind only causes an effect on the body. As such a form of intangibility, even a logia intangibility would probably be very helpful at dealing with the raw aggressive power of the verse.

Finally and this is a general point for the verse; the verse is very testosterone filled and prone to violent combat with many of the creatures prone to challenging other beings they come across, with fighting being very common across both universes. As such being able to manipulate the anger, even just via standard psychological manipulation, would likely be effective in getting the verse's fighters to fight each other. 

So what is helpful for fighting the verse? Range, Stealth, Manipulation, Some form of intangibility or logia intangibility, and some form of anti-intangibility. There are a few characters that can do that at this tier which brings me to my first counter

Count Dracula from the Universal Series of Movies.

The Count was able to fight evenly with the Wolfman, who himself scales to Frankenstein who tanked a large building level explosion and suggests he scales to over mach 300 from lightning timing. This suggests he would at least be comparable to most of the fighters of this tier. 

Dracula would be like a dangerous disease for the verse. He has both logia and normal intangibility able to turn into smoke and turn invisible and intangible. This would allow him to avoid almost any physical attack from the verse by using intangibility. Dracula can use this for stealth as well, and combined with his hypnosis this would give him the ability to affect every fighter in the verse and and cause them to fight.

However what would be even more dangerous is how hard he is to put down. Without a stake in his skeleton, it almost instantly regenerated his body, showing his incredible regen factor that without using a hax or knowledge of his weaknesses (which the verse wouldn't have). Moreover so long as he infects one person, he could possess them meaning it would be incredibly difficult to permanently kill them. Added onto his ability to turn other biological entities into vampires, he would spread among the tier's biological entities like a plague.

For another counter that I think would be effective I would suggest

Shoggoths from the Lovecraft Mythos. 

Shoggoths are massive entities, capable of growing vaster then a subway train, suggesting they would have building level stats. They were also fast enough in reactions to fight the Starspawn which flew from a distant star to the Earth in implied to be a brief time, suggesting their reactions would allow them to not get blitzed.

Shoggoths are the primarily aquatic species created by the Elder Things as a servant race. The Shoggoths protoplasmic forms are famously malleable and adaptable, evolving minds via mutation to rebel against the Elder Things.

The Shoggoths bodies can adapt and alter at will to the point of mimicking the bodies and organs of other entities. 

The verse's tiers trying to fight a shoggoth would be a nightmare. Attempting to strike them would just cause their blows to sink into their protoplasmic form like mud leaving them vulnerable to counter attack. Turning part of their bodies to stone or gold wouldn't be very helpful as they can adapt their bodies back to proper position. As their former masters the Elder Things possessed control over the atom, it's possible this ability extends even to the atomic. The Shoggoths, while not totally invulnerable, would be very hard to harm and would be able to overwhelm the verse. 

While Shoggoths are considered idiots compared to most species in the Mythos, their intelligence rivals humans as they have mimicked habits and cultures from them. Given their shapeshifting abilities, they could hypothetically mimic normal animals in order to trap enemies.

It is also implied that the Shoggoths can fight intangible enemies from their fights with the Star Spawn (The Elder Things used them to war with the Star Spawn) said to not be made entirely of matter. Star Spawn are even implied to reside partially in other dimensions, suggesting that a Shoggoth might be able to hit a Revenant while in another dimension. 

However much is unknown of the Shoggoths. There's another character whose capacities are very well observed and who I think would be the ideal counter. This would be

Batman from DC Comics. 

Batman is much stronger then fodder Atlanteans who can tank the depths of the oceans requiring wall to low building level durability. Batman himself has tanked building sized explosions on numerous occasions, lifted and held under the weight of a collapsed building to give people time to get out, harmed bulletproof metahumans with his bare hands, survived hellfire which has been said to be as hot as lava, and overpowered Killer Croc who has numerous showings at this level. This shows he would very likely be comparable to the strongest people of this tier.

Batman also has many bullet-timing feats, including automatic machine fire, casual bullet-timing, point blank bullet-timing feats. DC Street Tiers also scale to several lightning timing feats, and Batman has also reacted to the light attacks of both Doctor Light and Malik suggesting that he has relativistic reactions. It's possible that his reactions are even higher as he once managed to tag Kid Flash, though this is arguably an outlier.

So Batman can contend physically pretty much equally with the tier's fighters. But his abilities are far more versatile.

Batman is undeniably one of the DC Earth's best martial artists, having mastered every single one. He knows Lady Shiva's famous Leopard Blow, a pressure point blow that one-shot kills, though he modified it to be non-lethal. His martial arts are so accomplished it reaches the point of giving actual haxes, including destroying the ability to breath, erasing memories, disabling limbs and on. 

Batman is an absolute god of stealth. Superman, who can see on astronomical distances, has x-ray vision, can see souls etc. was unable to detect Batman's position and Batman was able to hide from the entire Justice League at once, including the magical powers of Zatanna and John Constantine. He could easily remain undetected against anyone on this tier and one-shot defeat them.

It should be noted that Batman also has anti-intangibility devices, including standard bat-a-rangs, meaning he could very easily hit the intangible entities. Batman would also be able to hit them from far outside their sensory range as he is stated to be one of the top 10 best shots in the entire DC Universe.

Batman is also one of the smartest minds in DC Comics, able to contend with Lex Luthor, Metron, Brainiac and Darkseid. Darkseid is capable of perceiving the entire multiverse, create advanced hypertechnology that can usurp part of the Anti-Life Equation, dark half of the Source, possessing billions+ years of experience, and playing chess with a Monitor, using the physical multiverse as the pieces. And he is the LEAST intelligence of the people mentioned there. He has many many times manipulated opponents by manipulating their flaws into doing what he wants, to the point that the "Batman Gambit" in pop culture refers to that exact thing. Batman's mind is also famously and insanely strong-willed to the point that the only human with a greater will in the DCU is Hal Jordan, as well as the fact that Batman's will has resisted the will of 90,000,000 other people as well as the Spectre himself meaning that mental attack would likely not paralyze or hurt him at all.

And this is all with standard equipment, not including things like the reality-warping mother box and mobius chair that he possesses.

Batman could potentially even beat the people in the higher tier, however because of the power gap him being blitzed becomes more likely. That said for this tier he would be absolutely unstoppable.

It should be noted that some people might think Batman would be at a disadvantage because he "does not believe in magic" however this was only true of Batman during the New 52 Era, which was set 10 years prior and was Batman's first interactions with metahumans. In Post-Crisis not only does he know of magic, but he can sense magic and has creating anti-magic devices as well as learned anti-magic techniques. 

City Scale Threat:

To be able to threaten a city or a large region generally requires the power comparable to a Demigod or a Large Monster in the verse. The prior tier was the tier of Kratos as a Spartan General, and this is the tier of Kratos after making his pact with Ares and during his 10 year long servitude to the gods.

The fighters of this tier are in the country range due to a variety of feats. Cyclops were able to construct the planetoid sized Mount Olympus using just their brute strength, not having control of even simple machines. The Furies were able to create a tremor that hit multiple islands, as well as being able to casually pull and island sized structure underwater, and created a dimension with it's own sea. Kratos before becoming God of War survived the Volcanic Eruption which destroyed a massive island and disconnected islands as well as launching Kratos across the Aegean. The very first magic in God of War had the power of a Typhoon concentrated inside his blades.

In terms of speed, this tier is in the FTL range. The Champion of Zeus have a lightspeed dash move that Word of God has confirmed that Castor and Pollux are faster then, yet Kratos was able to keep up with them despite them time slowing him in their confrontation.

In terms of abilities many of the prior abilities are still present, especially because numerous beings on this tier including Theseus, Alrik and the Furies possessing summoning abilities and can summon beings from the prior tier.

One thing that's noticable about this tier is that it added a pretty natural compliment to the large number of offensive haxes, specifically abilities meant to immobilize or otherwise trap mobility based builds that could otherwise dodge the attacks and haxes. The Ancients and the Trolls both possess freezing abilities, the Furies can produce black goo that can immobilize country level entities like Ascension Kratos, Perseus can raise his shield into the light to create a blinding flash of light to disorient enemies, even the time manipulation of Castor/Pollux and the petrification of Eurayle are arguably a form of immobilization, though they can be used to also ignore enemy durability.

The tier also possess a number of offensive haxes beyond even what was stated in the prior tier. The Furies Mind Manipulation grows more direct then the mind manipulation present in the lower tier and adds whole illusory environments as well as the ability to reality-warp. The Ancients, elemental guardians of the Norse World existing since the beginning of the universe, have corrupted forms created from Dwarfish Tinkering that can absorb souls, fittingly called "Soul Eaters." Castor and Pollux with their amulet have both spacetime hax, capable of theoretically aging an enemy to dust, but can absorb their lifeforce. The Furies can also create bugs that can infect and transmute biological entities.

In terms of other notable abilities, again many forms of elemental manipulation and flight exist at this tier. Perseus has a magic helm of invisibility and the Hydra has a form of regeneration, able to use his main head to regenerate the lesser heads.

In terms of weaknesses, many of the same concepts still apply. Invisibility and intangibility/anti-invisibility are still potent powers. I also think Duplication, Summoning or anything that allows you you to attack at multiple places at once would be really strong, as it was how in essence Kratos avodied the Black Goo Attack of the Furies, it's something a lot of the bosses due as a tactic etc. Teleportation would also do really well at this purpose, being an ability I can not recall anyone at this tier having, and being able to break out of any immobilization ability and attack from an unexpected angle.

Range is again, something a lot of the tier though not the whole tier lacks. The Furies can obviously affect country scale areas, that said most of the tier is limited to a local area in their fights. Manipulators would probably also do fairly well as much of the tier either is arrogant or bestial in intellect.

My first counter has almost this exact combination of abilities

that being Aku, The Shogun of Sorrow from Samurai Jack.

Aku is durable enough to tank colliding with the Earth with enough force to wipe out the dinosaurs, a teraton level event. This is consistent with him sinking an entire civilization underwater. He is also fast enough to outpace Jack who was able to move at nearly the speed of a ray of light. This suggests statwise he'd be a little bit slower and comparable power with the verse.

Aku has a form of logia where he is made of a dark inky material that can absorb physical weapons. This is relevant as many of the demigods of the GOW-verse rely on their weapons. Aku also can telekinetically remove them as his telekinesis was used to move a section of the ground in the graveyard battle against Jack. 

Aku has the ability to one-shot pretty much enemy in this tier from beyond their normal range via spacetime BFR using either his teleporting eye beams or his scream which tears a portal thousands of years into the future.

In terms of the giant monsters, it's possible Aku would be able to control them directly, as he seems to have control of monsters as shown when he summoned a crocodile while he was in disguise to carry Jack and he through a swamp.

Aku is also a teleporter, and it is stated that he can teleport his entire castle if he wishes. This would allow him to get the jump on any opponent, especially when combined with his ability to shapeshift and disguise himself at will, as well as his long-range scrying, giving him clairvoyance abilities. 

While haxes would likely work on Aku, his regen and logia nature as well as his ability to absorb physical weapons suggest that a direct physical attack on Aku would likely fail. However it also presents another risk getting close to Aku, as it gives him the possibility of corrupting his opponents with small pieces of him and turning them into another of him, which if he lays low initially would allow him to effectively duplicate and swarm the verse.

However Aku's greatest ability for the verse is his ability to manifest evil copies of any fighter experiencing rage and negative emotions of hatred. However given the warlike nature of the God of War verse, such things would likely exist in abundance, and Aku would be able to create for himself a virtual army for himself. This is not taking into account the possibility he could directly brainwash them which he has done before via usage of evil music. Aku is also a skilled manipulator which would bolster his ability to trick the verse.

That said Aku is visible and at speed disadvantage, and it's possible he could get haxed, such as having his soul (if he has one, as fragment of primordial evil) absorbed. For a character that is famously hard to kill in any manner I would suggest

Sun Wukong, the Monkey King (Original) from Journey to the West.

Sun statwise was strong enough to lift the weight of multiple mountains at once, and could grow many miles high at will or shrink similarly for stealth. With a single somersault the monkey king could cross 108,000 li or over 21,000 kilometers in a single bound, and his reaction speed should be even faster as he could guide the movement of his flying cloud which quickly traveled from Earth to Heaven. This suggests he should be comparable to the verse in stats, perhaps slightly below, though able to avoid being blitzed.

Sun Wukong is has 5-fold immortality, meaning he gained 5 separate sources of immortality (7 years training with Subhuti, scribbling out his name in the book of death, eaten the peaches of Heaven, drunk the wine of Heaven, and eaten the pills of longevity) rendering him wholly immortal many times over. As such Sun Wukong could basically act as Baldur but for a lower tier, being impossible on this tier to put down. 

Sun Wukong has much more then this however. Not only can make himself invisible and teleport, allowing him to be a great surprise and stealth character, but he can make every single one of his 84,000 hairs into another copy of himself, meaning that to fight against himself is to fight 84,001 Sun Wukong. If Sun was serious, he could simply hide and send his 84,000 to defeat the verse and overwhelm the verse's fighters with sheer numbers. While his strength is a bit subpar and he doesn't have any kind of one-shot attack, he can paralyze foes simply by pointing his finger which would allow him to wear down any opponent while they are paralyzed. 

Furthermore Sun Wukong has 72 Earthly transformations, allowing him to take 72 different forms, each one with their own life meaning if somehow was killed, he could resurrect into another one of his forms. 

All of this is topped off with Sun's infamous cunning nature, able to outwit the Gods and Lords of Death. Sun is a master of every martial art and trained for 20 years under the great Taoist Sage Subhuti. He would be well able to manipulate and trick and play with the tier's fighters at this tier. 

However Sun is rather arrogant and prone to impulse and it is possible he could be tricked and captured, though even then I'm not sure how they would kill him. For the best counter to this tier I would suggest 

Vlad Plasmius from Danny Phantom.

Vlad is easily comparable to powerhouse ghosts like Vortex and Fright Knight who were able to create planetary scale storms, requiring country levels of power. This is consistent with Skulker's lair being a whole island (and ghosts are stated to have created their lairs with their own energy) and with Spectra being able to survive an attack supposed to tear ghosts apart on an atomic scale, both of whom being weaker then Vlad. 

Vlad is also fast enough to compare to Technus' ghost rays which traveled from Space to Earth in seconds requiring relativistic speeds. As such Vlad is at a stat disadvantage against the tier, but is close enough to compete, and more then makes up for it with his abilities.

Vlad, like all ghosts possesses invisibility, as well as intangibility. This suggests he could stealth across the verse, and be very difficult to detect or hit and could defeat any entity in a few hits. However it goes beyond this.

Vlad possess the ability to "overshadow" or possess others, suggesting he could also take over any physical entity in the verse and use them to fight each other like puppets. Vlad combines this with his duplication abilities. It's a common error that Vlad can only duplicate into 4 of himselves, however he only does this to show off to Danny Phantom, and showcase how he is far more accomplished in his ghost abilities. When Vlad ran for Mayor of Amity Park, he duplicated into dozens of himself at least and overshadowed a number of people to elect himself. He could safetly sit down somewhere in relatively safety as a disguised human, while using his many duplicates to overshadow and destroy the verse with it's own fighters and given his personality it is likely this is what he would do. 

Ghosts are also shown to have minor bits of telekinesis which suggests he could telekinetically remove enemy weapons at will. He can also teleport away from any danger as he teleported away from the Ghost King Pariah Dark's grasp. 

Vlad is also a proficient manipulator and also a genius level intellect, able to create his own portal to another dimension (the ghost zone) by himself, as well as being able to create cloning machines. Vlad would be able to create dozens of copies and overwhelm the verse's fighters by causing them to fight each other by possessing each other, manipulating them and being strong enough to fight them himself if one of his is ever discovered, with his true self remaining the entire time perfectly safe. 

Planet to Galaxy Scale Threat:

Beyond the affairs of mortals are the Divinities, the beings who control nature and shape the structure of the cosmos. 

The Primordials were first amount these in age. A single one of these Uranus was able to create the universe, and the fighting between the Primordials completely incidentally created the galaxies within the universe. The Titans and Olympians, successive generations of gods of the Greek Universe are confirmed to be their equal.

The Norse Gods full extent of power is so far unconfirmed but Baldur, Half-Breed of the Aesir and Vanir was able to battle Kratos, the Greek God of War bearing the power of Ares, evenly even after Baldur's immortality was removed. Ares is so strong that he is stated to be the strongest of the Greek Gods after the Brother-Kings (Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus) who are supposed to be so strong that no other Olympian has any chance against them. Thor's hammer Mjolnir is the equal to Kratos' Leviathan Axe (and his battle with Jormungandr is so intense as to shake the 9 realms), and Odin is confirmed to have and scale to a number of universal feats, including one of the biggest water manipulation feats I've ever seen, covering an entire realm in mist. 

So overall universal is consistent for this tier. The strongest beings in raw power for this tier are at the moment Poseidon and Hades who can fodderize universal level beings though the norse gods like Odin and Thor may well be stronger when their feats are more well known. 

In terms of speed, most divinities scale to Kratos managing to battle evenly the Sisters of Fate who with precision measure out the thread controlling the fate of every single being and thing in nature in the world, a feat I calculated to be likely in the septillions of times the speed of light. However this is not even the maximum.

The divine light of Helios was stated to be able to illuminate the infinite underworld, requiring infinite speeds. Atropos was able to project herself to Olympus at infinite speeds. And fastest of all is Hermes, who scales to these speeds (though possibly for only a limited distance making it infinite burst speed). Numerous beings, though slower, can at least react to these beings.

As you might be able to tell, being able to fight these beings is very difficult even without the abilities. Speaking off their abilities, gods possess a number of abilities. Gods possess a planetary+-scale reality-warping ability related to their domain, control over nature and divine awareness/senses allowing for the gods to see for many miles and for Ares to sense Kratos getting Pandora's Box (as well as God of War Kratos seeing all combats occurring across space and time). The Gods also possess general reality-warping as they were able to create diseases as well as the ability to disguise themselves or change their size from cosmic to human-sized at will. 

Many of the Gods also demonstrate unique abilities. In the Greek Pantheon, Primordial Thanatos, god of Death, was shown to be able to possess bodies, as well as to induce death. Olympian Ares was able to create his dimension large enough to contain seemingly it's own galaxy, and was able to warp the reality within, as well as create dark copies of Kratos within (this is confirmed to be real, and not an illusion in God of War 2 where Kratos travels to the past and sees his younger self being taken into Ares inter-dimensional portal). Ares also possesses low-key the most underrated ability in God of War in my opinion, the ability to strip his opponents of their powers and absorb them. Olympian Athena possessed the ability to resurrect which she did to the Hydra so that Poseidon would give Kratos his magic. Athena also has the ability to manipulate concepts, which she did to manipulate the power of hope to seal it within Pandora's Box. Athena when she died, also rose to become a higher planar being, showing that raw physical force is not enough to defeat the tier, regardless of it's extent.

Even greater are the Brother-Kings Poseidon and Hades. Hades has the power with his famous chains to take the souls of anyone they attach too. Poseidon is also implied to have soul manipulation as his power was the power of the Eye of Atlantis which can destroy both body and soul.

In the Norse Pantheon, it is not totally known at the moment, but it is known that Odin the Allfather covered an entire realm in a mist to obscure it as well as having cosmic scale sealing (able to seal off whole realms from each other) and curses, taking away Freya's ability to fight even in self-defense, and that Baldur was totally unkillable without the usage of mistletoe. 

Beyond that, the Sisters of Fate are known to have time manipulation and fate manipulation, only Kratos resisting it via the hope buried within him. Titan King Cronos is implied as well to have time manipulation as it was he who created time. Primordial Morpheus was able to send the entire world into sleep. 

In terms of weaknesses....there isn't much. The verse is powerful, fast, broken and versatile. Some of the characters seemingly lack range yet. They are said to be able to change size even to Cosmic Sizes, capable of creating the galaxies by accident. Stealth wouldn't work due to their divine awareness and senses.

However there is a few things to notice. Some of the fighters rely on equipment and weapon which telekinesis could hypothetically take away. A number of fighters have weak points like Poseidon's chest cavity. Looking at what has actually worked in verse...

A Combination of small size with a massive range (universal) would possibly help as the fighters if they grew large to get high range would be really big and have difficulty hitting the small target, as happened with Kratos and Kronos. 

Also this is just a general observation, but while the verse possesses a lot of hax abilities AND Cosmic Power, it doesn't possess a lot of cosmic hax, in other words there are few haxes that are on the planetary scale, meaning that very high end versions of most haxes could hypothetically overpower the level that exists in the verse. Particularly Planetary+ Levels of Mind Hax or Soul Hax would probably do very well. 

Also, it should be noted that the Gods have turned evil because they were infected by the evils that were sealed in Pandora's Box. The Gods seemed to have limited defense against conceptual entities or spiritual warfare (Corruption/Purification). At this tier only Athena seems to have conceptual manipulation. Beings with abilities like that or can take advantage of the evil corrupting them, would likely be very good at playing them against their own weaknesses.

A conceptual entity....why that sounds like a good time for 

Death from Discworld.

Death is a being that exists outside linear spacetime, so he can't really be speedblitzed by the verse. Death is also a universal+ level entity able to threaten to destroy the universe purely by accident. 

Death however has more powers then this. He's a conceptual entity, being the concept of death which means only Athena would likely be able to affect him. His scythe is sharp enough to slice abstract concepts and even the absolute plane, able to slice the story itself as his scythe is beyond the concept of sharpness.

Death can also duplicate himself to an insane degree, able to duplicate himself into any number of Death Aspects. Death of the Rats is the aspect of Death that kills Rats, and can act independently. It's been estimated there are 8.7 million species in the world, which means as a massive lowball Death can duplicate 8.7 million times, likely much higher in the God of War verse. 

Death also has a range far beyond even the verse, as he can reap souls from all across the multiverse. As shown with Hades, the Gods have Souls, meaning that this would likely work on almost any divinities, save possibly Ascended Athena. 

Ascended Athena is basically the only potential counter to Death, but his scythe is definitely capable of killing her, and he's far more versatile then him. 

For a physical character within time that can probably also fight against the verse, you could do

Doctor Doom from Marvel Comics

Doctor Doom is powerful enough to compare to Doctor Strange who was able to cause the universe to tremble and battle powerful Demon Lords in their own realm requiring universal+ power. His speed....well to be honest his speed is probably his biggest weak point here being "only" in the quintillions of times the speed of light scaling from the Silver Surfer. That said so long as he doesn't get blitzed in the first moment he comes into being in the GOW-verse he should be able to stop the tier.

While Doctor Doom is slower, he has automatic magic shields, his armor automatically reacts and adapts to any threat incoming, and his consciousness exists in another dimension from his actual armor. As any one of the defenses would be difficult for the GOW-verse to get past even if they immediately attacked him, this gives me confidence he would have time to use his abilities.

Doctor Doom can shrink himself to the subatomic scale, where even divine awareness would have trouble combating while he can still hax them fine. Doctor Doom also possess spacetime manipulation inter-dimension scale that would prove troublesome for the verse as it's even superior to the time manipulation of the Sisters of Fate. Doctor Doom can casually time travel, can freeze time, can turn time into space, and can use his time cube to reverse time backwards, as well as using his spheres to BFR opponents across dimensions. Only Ares on this tier has shown inter-dimensional capacities. But Doctor Doom has even better power manipulation then Ares, having shown the ability to turn off the Scarlet Witch's magic, and having absorbed the energy and power of even stronger entities.

Doctor Doom can also enter dream space, a mental space, at will, suggesting he would be imperceptible to anyone in the verse, and being able to affect Athena physically. His presence was also warping the local laws of reality which would give him likely a form of passive defense to protect himself. He also has mind manipulation on a higher level then the GOW-verse as he was able to mentally affect every villain including Super Skrull in another galaxy, and Kang the Conqueror in the future. As the Gods were infected by the evils, it would likely work on them. The only real strategy that could be used against him is Odin's cosmic scale sealing ability. 

That said there is a character that I think would do even better, and is more thematically appropriate. That being

Phoenix Ikki from Saint Seiya.

Ikki's power was strong enough to knock the helmet off the God of Death Thanatos who could destroy 5 gold clothes at once. Thanatos was vastly stronger then the Judges of the Underworld, who were themselves superior to the Mid Tier Gold Saints like Aries Mu who could destroy the universe of a Titan with his attack. He was also able to survive the power of the Galaxian Explosion, most powerful attack technique of the Gold Saints, the user Gemini Saga was capable of one-shotting another Mid-Tier Gold Saint without his cloth (highly weakened).

In terms of speed, Phoenix Ikki was able to briefly match the speed of Gemini Saga back in the Sanctuary Arc, Gemini Saga capable of blitzing a Mid Tier Gold Saint without even using his cloth. Mid Tier Gold Saint Capricorn Shura was fast enough to outpace the initial expansion of the Big Bang, requiring speeds massively massively faster then light, likely septillions of times the speed of light. 

Also if Ikki's determination rises, he can even use the power of a God Saint, which would put him even higher then the verse statwise, outside of the infinite speed of parts of the GOW-verse. 

Ikki possesses the abilities of the Legendary Saints of Athena including manipulation of matter and energy on the atomic scale, up to his own dc/durability level, as well as the ability to evolve in response to his opponents powers, raising his own cosmo, and gaining resistance to any technique used against him.

Ikki's senses and attack range have grown to likely the inter-dimensional range as shown by when gold saints battled from different dimensions, higher then any of his opponents.

Ikki also possess soul and mind manipulation, capable of shattering an enemies mind and soul since literally his first appearance. Ikki's soul and manipulation comes to surpass that of the Sealed Titans with their ability to create whole dimensions filled with their own peoples with their own souls and minds. It was said that among the gold saints only Aries Mu and Libra Dohko would be able to even deliver a single mental jolt to the mind of Gemini Saga. Yet Phoenix Ikki even in the Sanctuary Arc was able to engage with Gemini Saga in a mental battle for 1,000 days. This is despite Virgo Shaka being able to maintain a mental dimension with many galaxies, and after ascending from enlightenment, Virgo Shaka and Virgo Shijima's mental battle involved the creation of whole mental universes. Phoenix Ikki has also been able to since the very first arc of his own, was able to reflect attacks, and notably the verse uses almost entirely projectile or beam abilities that can be reflected. 

Phoenix Ikki also possesses resistances to most abilities of the verse, any cosmo-user being able to resist universal scale time stop. 7th Sense users can resist the cosmo of the Titans which can manipulate minds and souls. Even the fate manipulation of the Sisters of Fate, legendary destroyer of gods, Phoenix Ikki can resist. As a Saint with the Holy Blood of a God on his cloth, Phoenix Ikki can resist the cosmos trying to destroy him via paradox, resisting the power of destiny. 

Phoenix Ikki as the legendary Phoenix Saint also possess the ability to come back from the dead stronger then ever. You know the joke about how Kratos always climbs his way out of the underworld? Ikki does that, but gets stronger each time from doing it. Ikki can resist every hax and can counter with hax on an even stronger level, and gets stronger just from them trying to fight him, even if they do kill him. 

Universal+ Scale Threat:

Transcending the entire Greek Pantheon is King of the Gods Zeus and his son the Ghost of Sparta Kratos. The two fought evenly with Kratos eventually winning. Zeus however became Fear Zeus who was strong enough to one-shot Kratos, but Kratos became Power of Hope (PoH) Kratos who was powerful enough to tank Fear Zeus's attacks.

The two of them were confirmed to be able to beat Polygon Man, the villain of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale who fused dozens of universes together. They are also faster then the prior tiers.

Zeus possess the power to wield his godly lightning strong enough to destroy almost anyone in the verse. Zeus has the power to duplicate himself many times over, as well to absorb lifeforce as he did to Gaia. Zeus also has conceptual manipulated as he sealed the evils away in Pandora's Box originally. When Zeus was infected by Fear, he merged with the concept to become Conceptual Fear Zeus who can induce fear in others and was strong enough to one-shot the Kratos he was evenly matched with before.

Kratos has basically a grab-bag of all the haxes that have come before. As current God of War, he has most likely the abilities that Ares possessed. He has a vast number of powerful weapons and items that he can summon at will, including the golden fleece which can reflect attacks, the claws of Hades which can soul rip as well as prior objects like the time manipulating Amulet of Uroborus. He is resistant to many haxes, most of the ones in the verse. He is famous for his rage, which is strong to warp reality and allows him to hit abstract concepts and even the absolute plane as he killed the creator of the game. Kratos also gained the Power of Hope and PoH Kratos was not only able to stomp Fear Zeus, but will himself back to life, to the point that Kratos can no longer die even if he wants.

In terms of weaknesses, it's essentially a stronger form of the prior term. Kratos is infamous for his rage, and Zeus was ruled by fear so manipulation might work. Telekinetically taking away Kratos weapons is a possibility. And cosmic scale haxes the character generally have not shown resistance too.

My first counter is pretty much ALL about the Cosmic Scale/Passive Haxes, that being

Sailor Chaos, the final villain of Sailor Moon.

Sailor Chaos easily scales to Nehelenia, who was only an aspect of her lesser form Chaos, and Nehelenia could maintain an entire mirror universe. Chaos could also react by scaling to the light of the Silver Crystal which can travel at just over 1 quintillion times the speed of light. While Sailor Chaos is weaker statwise, the sheer haxes would make her hellish to fight.

Sailor Chaos has passive universal spacetime warping as her weaker form Chaos was warping the far reaches of spacetime. Given that mere aspects of her exist outside of spacetime as well, she is highly unlikely to be blitzed.

Sailor Chaos also absorbs matter-energy, including lightning or weapons used against her, and is intangible. She can absorb star systems at will and has telekinesis capable of moving whole galaxies, which means she could rid Kratos of his weapons. She can regenerate from an "infinitesmal" part of herself, and could not be sealed by the Silver Crystal which sealed a being much larger then a planet away.

Sailor Chaos passively warps minds on a planetary scale suggesting that either Kratos or Zeus getting even close to her would cause them to be mindhaxed. While Kratos might be able to hit her by attacking the absolute plane, I think Sailor Chaos's sheer cosmic haxes would probably overwhelm Kratos and Zeus.

For another hax counter one could use 

Saturn from Saint Seiya Omega.

Saturn has a lot of the same abilities as Phoenix Ikki however he's even stronger. Saturn was able to match Ultimate Omega Cloth Pegasus Kouga who had the Cosmo of all the Omega Saints, Athena and Pallas, numerous of those being universal. He also is of a similar speed to the verse. While Saturn is a bit weaker then the verse, he's just as fast and has resistances to all of their abilities.

As a Saint Seiya God, Saturn can passively disable the 5 senses and the mind of any nearby entities. Zeus and Kratos do not have any real defense to this outside of Kratos arguably having some mental resistance. Even if this distracts them for a second, Saturn has universal time stop at will. Kratos has shown the ability to move during a Time Stop, but never one that encompasses the entire universe. Beyond that Saturn has inter-universal senses and the ability to warp reality and cosmo on a cosmic scale via dunamis, which allows for the creation or manipulation of reality. 

However for a more elegant solution to this I would suggest using

Adara from DC Comics.

Adara is one of the Emotional Entities, representing Hope on a universal scale. Adara gives power to the entire Blue Lantern Corps. Adara is comparable in power to Ion, the Green Lantern entities which gives powers to 7,200 Green Lanterns at once, each of them hypothetically able to rise up to universal levels of power. Adara should also be stronger then Zero Hour Parallax who could destroy many timelies. As such, Adara is likely stronger then either Zeus or Kratos in raw power.

Lanterns tend to have abilities like spacetime manipulation or mind manipulation on a cosmic scale, and as such the Emotional Entities should scale to that. All the Emotional Entities can deform and warp the universe on a cosmic scale, implied to be universal, which would be much higher then Zeus or Kratos could handle.

However it's what Adara represents that would make it so OP in God of War. Kratos is powered by Hope, and Hope was the weakness of Fear Zeus. Adara is Hope itself and possesses those of great Hope. Adara would most likely possess Kratos, and destroy Fear Zeus on account of it being his weakness exactly. Adara is basically the personification of the force that in-universe for God of War is by far the strongest power, as well as being a more articulated and versatile conceptual form of it. 

And that's how to be OP in God of War.