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LoD Hydra Wizard Guide

Last Updated: January 10th 2024

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Introduction

LoD Mammoth Hydras Solo Push
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Well known as an iconic skill from Diablo II, Hydra had been long forgotten since Season 3 where Mammoth Hydras shined in combination with Pain Enhancer in order to get an obscene amount of Flame Blades stacks, uncapped back then.

With Season 20 introducing us to The Typhon's Veil Set, Serpent's Sparker and The Magistrate have been updated to grant Hydra new damage multipliers. However, the sketchy gameplay of this new set and the fact that Mammoth Hydras do not work with it despite being usually the best Hydra rune made Legacy of Dreams the setup of choice to play around these newly buffed Hydra items.

In Season 22 in order to change the channeling playstyle of the build and compensate for the reworked Etched Sigil now supporting Energy Twister, Fragment of Destiny and Winter Flurry were updated with new damage multipliers to Hydras. Therefore Spectral Blade and Blizzard are now incorporated into the build for a completely different, slightly more active playstyle.

In Season 25, Oculus Ring has been fixed to proc properly from Pet kills while Soul Shards and the powerful Dregs of Lies tremendously buffed the build! Season 28 with the Altar of Rites and then Season 29 with the Paragon Distribution Twist enabled a Reverse Archon setup.

This is an Area Damage (AD) build, since Fire pools from Mammoth Hydras (see Mechanics), can and will proc it. This build holds good potential and is a comfortable one to push Solo Greater Rifts with. The build, however, is not that great for Nephalem Rifts, Bounties or Solo Greater Rift Speeds where the Typhon variant wins by a large margin. Hence it is mainly teched out as a "pushing the leaderboards" build.

Very Tanky ✔
Beginner Friendly ✔

Straightforward Mechanics ✔
Good Single Target Damage ✔

❌ Frustrating Pet AI
❌ Very Sensitive to Fishing

❌ ResidentSleeper Gameplay
❌ Sensitive to Crowd Control

Core Setup

Core Item Build

Items

  • Fragment of Destiny grants us an amazing 300% separate damage multiplier for our Hydras on top of a 50% separate Attack Speed multiplier for Spectral Blade.
  • Serpents Sparker to get 2 Hydras and buff them with a 300% separate damage multiplier.
  • Winter Flurry and The Magistrate for their separate damage multipliers to Hydras.
  • Tasker and Theo is a 40 to 50% separate Pet Attack Speed multiplier, required to hit the 30 FPA Breakpoint on your Mammoth Hydras.
  • Stone Gauntlets provide an outrageous amount of mitigation and their negative effect can be fully negated by Ice Climbers.
  • Convention of Elements buffs our Mammoth Hydras by a beefy 200% separate damage multiplier in Fire cycle.
  • Squirts Necklace is a default inclusion for Wizards in any build due to their shield strength. Protecting our HP pool for a 100% global separate damage multiplier with continuously refreshing shields is a Wizard speciality.
  • Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer to double our Shields, to ensure we keep the Squirt's Necklace 100% damage multiplier.
  • Aquila Cuirass and Unity grant us two sources of 50% damage reduction.
  • The Shame of Delsere for another 50% separate Attack Speed multiplier to Spectral Blade helping us to generate shields while allowing a faster Bane of the Stricken stacking. Another option is The Witching Hour instead, which allows you to play a non-trifecta rolled Weapon due to its Attack Speed roll.

Season 30 Soul Shards

Soul Shards are powerful socketable items that initially dropped during Season 25 but they are returning for Season 30! There are 4 available for Weapons based on the Lesser Evils, with another 3 for Helmets based on the Prime Evils. They drop at Rank 0 and be upgraded three times with the brand new Hellforge Embers to unlock additional powers, or be used in the Kanai's Cube as Augments. Here's how they progress:

  • Rank 0: Soul Shards begin with a unique static Legendary Power. Creates a Rank 50 Augment.
  • Rank 1: Gives all powers from the normal gems. Creates a Rank 75 Augment.
  • Rank 2: Grants one additional powerful stat. Creates a Rank 100 Augment.
  • Rank 3: Unlocks 1 of 3 bonus Legendary Powers unique to that Soul Shard. Creates a Rank 125 Augment.

Warning: Leoric's Crown and Broken Crown do not work with Soul Shards!

Read our Soul Shards Guide written by Chewingnom for full details on how they work. What you should prioritize on them for Solo Pushing is the following:

  1. The Correct Soul Shard & Rank 3 Power
    The best shards for Solo Pushing are:
    • Helmets: We want to use Shard of Hatred for the massive 100% damage buff when surrounded by a lot of monsters. For the Rank 3 power, take the additional damage per stack for a tremendous 150% damage buff in density!
    • Weapons: We want to use Dregs of Lies for the massive bonus damage to Pets. For the Rank 3 power, go for the stacking Pet Damage effect for another major power boost! Note that this effect incentivizes you to perform damage bursts when the stacks reach their maximum.
  2. The Rank 2 Stat
    The stats that come from the second upgrade are not equal. Here's what we're looking for on them:
    • Helmets: We want either Main Stat for damage or Melee/Ranged Damage Reduction to survive. Avoid Armor and All Resistance as their stat ranges are far too low compared to the other options.
    • Weapons: We want Attack Speed to boost our character's power the furthest. This allows us to reach the 24 frames Breakpoint on Hydra with 2 additional Attack Speed rolls on our gear.
  3. The Stat Ranges on the Rank 1 and 2 Powers
    This is just icing on the cake because the ranges will not make or break your build. Still, look for the Soul Shards with the best stat ranges, especially on the offensive stats.

For the other game modes, other Soul Shards can be used. Check the Variants below to see what's used there.

What about extra Soul Shards? Either salvage them for gems, or upgrade and use them in Kanai's Cube for Augments.

Global Stat Priorities

Mammoth Hydras Attack Speed Breakpoints

Your absolute priority is that you must reach the 30 FPA Breakpoint on your Mammoth Hydra, which is a 20% damage increase over the previous 36 FPA Breakpoint. That's why you need a Serpent's Sparker with 7% Attack Speed and 50% Tasker and Theo, which is fairly doable if you cube them and equip Stone Gauntlets. However if you have to equip Tasker and Theo, make sure they have at least 43% on their Legendary Affix and you will also need to get an additional 7% Attack Speed roll on your gear.

You also need Hydra Damage on Shoulders, Chest and Offhand as it is a separate damage multiplier. Then your next priority is to get Area Damage on every piece except the Amulet. Bear in mind you can reroll away the Cold Damage from Winter Flurry. Cooldown Reduction is not needed as long as you don't aim to play a Reverse Archon variant (see Variants).

For toughness, like most Wizard setups, we take advantage of Galvanizing Ward and Spectral Blade Barrier Blades to generate Shields based on our HP pool. This means Vitality and Life % are very important as they double dip into Shields. This is why you want to aim for a decent HP pool in Greater Rift Solo Push.

Crowd Control Reduction is an incredibly valuable secondary Affix to roll on both Rings, Amulet and Helmet as we are very sensitive to Hard Crowd Control effects and mitigating these will ease up our gameplay significantly. Make sure to get the Primary Affixes locked in before attempting to get CCR though.

Assembling the Build

Item Stat Priorities

Gems

Skills

Passives

Paragon Points

Altar of Rites

Follower

Gameplay

Hardcore

Variants

GR Solo Push
GR Group Trash Killer
Echoing Nightmare
LoD Mammoth Hydra Solo Push

Concept
We stack up as much damage as possible while making sure we keep up our shields at all times in order to maintain Squirt's Necklace 100% separate damage multiplier.

Gameplay
Use your Teleport to bodypull and gather as many enemies as you can. Before your Fire Convention of Elements cycle, setup your Mammoth Hydras in front of the monsters using Barrier Blades to get Arcane Dynamo, cast Blizzard and finally use Black Hole Spellsteal to trap and group monsters while getting a huge additive damage buff.

Setups
The setup above has very specific gear requirements, which unfortunately leaves little to no space for imagination. However, it is extremely tanky and pretty straightforward to play, meaning you shouldn't need specific adjustement to feel comfortable! You can swap Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer with Ranslor's Folly, replacing Black Hole Spellsteal with Energy Twister Wicked Wind. This setup allows you to pixelpull all monsters to maximize your Area Damage.

LoD Mammoth Hydra Reverse Archon Group Push

Concept
Legacy of Dreams Mammoth Hydra, built as a Reverse Archon iteration to gain stacks via Fazula's Improbable Chain and utilize these stacks out of Archon with The Swami can be a decent Trashkiller for 4-Player setups but is outclassed by many builds and is generally causing lags on top of being completely helpless against Pet AI and requiring a zMonk to maintain Squirt's Necklace.

Pain Enhancer (PE) is being used to reach low FPA Breakpoints on Mammoth Hydra. In group play the supporting classes, a zBarb and a zMonk, will apply a bleed (for PE) as well as create pixelpulls for us to damage.

Gameplay
You are clicking Archon every 32 seconds upon entering your Fire rotation to benefit from Archon stacks overlap, similarly to the old LoD "Bazooka" Wizard, generating a huge damage burst.

Pain Enhancer (PE) helps to reset the significant cooldown of Archon via Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac while additionally allowing you to reach low FPA Breakpoints on Hydra. Arcane Torrent Flame Ward is purely used to reset Archon and get a slight damage bonus with Mantle of Channeling. After your Fire cycle when in Archon there is nothing for you to do but wait, meaning it's a good moment for the group to move to a new position.

Setups
You can swap Flame Blades to Barrier Blades to keep Squirt's Necklace if you play with a zDH instead of a zMonk but in all probabilities, you will have to switch Squirt's Necklace for The Flavor of Time anyway.

Echoing Nightmare Setup

Concept
For more information, check out our full Echoing Nightmare Guide and take a look at our Echoing Nightmare Build Tier List and our META post for the best builds and strategies! This build is decent for this game mode. Typically we utilize a Greater Rift pushing build with a few tweaks.

Changes

  • Swap Bane of the Stricken with Bane of the Trapped since we are fighting hordes of enemies.
  • Replace Teleport with Slow Time and cube Crown of the Primus instead of Stone Gauntlets.
  • Reroll Area Damage to Attack Speed as we do not need to make huge pulls, which lets you reach the 24 FPA Mammoth Hydra Breakpoint.

Gameplay

  1. Click Speed Pylon instantly to boost your mobility and dodge Green Meteors.
  2. Around Wave 90, click Channeling Pylon and Power Pylon.
  3. After Wave 100, use Conduit Pylon.
  4. At Wave 122, stop attacking and run to the corner to let the timer run out.

At the start, you must cast Spectral Blade five times to receive the Arcane Dynamo buff to place Hydras every 16 seconds. You place two Hydras this way. You should cast Black Hole Spellsteal three seconds before your Convention of Elements goes into its Fire cycle. You maintain Slow Time and cast Blizzard every 8 seconds. Each time right at the beginning of your Convention of Elements Cold and Lightning cycle. Unfortunately, Mammoth Hydra is not the best fit for this activity but the damage is however pretty wild.

Mechanics

Hydra Mammoth Hydra

Wizard Shields

The Shame of Delsere & Fragment of Destiny

Elemental Exposure

Arcane Dynamo

Summary

  • Put together the core items and level up the Legacy of Dreams gem.
  • Focus on Attack Speed in order to reach the proper Attack Speed Breakpoint.
  • Positioning of Mammoth Hydras is critical.
  • Try not to cry because of Hydra Pet AI :-|

Credits

Written by Chewingnom & sVr.

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