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Typhon Hydra Wizard Guide

Last Updated: January 10th 2024

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Introduction

Frost Hydra Solo Push
View all variants

Introduced with Season 20, The Typhon's Veil is the latest Wizard set added to the game. Well-known as an iconic skill from Diablo II, Wizards have the ability to summon Hydras that attacks nearby enemies.

They behave unlike most other pets that move and attack enemies independently and resemble more the Demon Hunter's Sentry in the way they are invincible and always attack the closest target.

Apart from a short time in the spotlight during the very early seasons, Hydra Wizards had not really been very useful until the introduction of the new The Typhon’s Veil set during Season 20. With it, Frost Hydra build has emerged as very solid farming and pushing option for Wizards.

In addition to the set version, it's also possible to play a similar build using Legacy of Dreams and the Mammoth Hydra rune, which revolves around Fire damage instead (see Guide).

With Season 27, the build gained some potential due to being able to build in Guardian's Jeopardy for almost no cost. Once again in Season 28 the set got some love, with its damage being straight up doubled!

This is an Area Damage (AD) build, since Hydras can proc it. This build holds good potential and is a comfortable one to push Solo Greater Rifts with while also being one of the top Bounty farmers in the game, making this build a good choice for any kind of activity.

Super Tanky ✔
Great for Farming ✔
Unique Pet Playstyle ✔
Can Damage while Moving ✔

❌ Frustrating Pet AI
❌ Many Buttons to Press
❌ Requires Good Positioning
ResidentSleeper Gameplay

Core Setup

Core Item Build

Items

  • The Typhon's Veil provides a 4,000% damage increase to Hydra for every Hydra head alive, maxing out at 40,000% with 10 heads.
  • Serpent's Sparker is one of the core damage increasing items, providing a 300% damage increase and a second Hydra that can stay active at the same time for even more The Typhon's Veil (6) Bonus damage.
  • Winter Flurry adds synergy between the set and Blizzard by giving you a another 150% damage increase.
  • Fragment of Destiny adds synergy between the set and Signature spells for another 300% damage increase.
  • The Magistrate gives another 300% damage increase to Hydra and makes them continuously freeze nearby enemies.
  • Tasker and Theo adds a huge bonus to Hydra Attack Speed. Because it's quite difficult to reach the right Attack Speed breakpoints and the affix roll on this legendary plays a huge factor in that, it's best cubed while The Magistrate is worn.
  • Ring of Royal Grandeur allows us to complement our Typhon's Veil Set with Guardian's Jeopardy.
  • Squirt’s Necklace is an almost indispensable item for every Wizard build due to the extraordinary shielding mechanics available to the class, effectively doubling your damage output as long as you don’t take damage yourself. This will generally be combined with Ashnagarr’s Blood Bracer, the Galvanizing Ward and Spectral Blade Barrier Blades to make sure that even during damage spikes you remain shielded.
  • The Shame of Delsere helps by increasing your attack speed and resource generation of your Signature Spells, giving more shields and Bane of the Stricken stacks.
  • Halo of Karini is the core Wizard defensive item and combined with Storm Armor to trigger the effect, giving you 80% damage reduction.

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!
  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 Cold Damage to boost our character's power the furthest, but % Damage and Critical Hit Chance are not far behind. Attack Speed only makes sense if you want to hit a specific breakpoint and can't roll it on your other items.
  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

Offensively stack Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit Damage and Cold Damage on every piece possible. Next you want to add Hydra damage rolls to your Chest, Shoulders and Offhand slots. In addition, the build relies on heavy Area Damage by stacking up monsters tightly through Black Hole Absolute Zero. We want to have it on as many pieces as possible, especially Shoulders, Gloves, Offhands and Rings.

Additionally, unlike most other skills in the game, Hydra adheres to very specific Attack Speed breakpoints. Since these breakpoints cover large ranges of different Attacks per Second values, reaching one can provide you a huge boost in DPS for only very little investment in some cases, and barely failing to reach one could mean you waste a few primary affix rolls for nothing. Keep this in mind when taking a look at the stat priorities below. Breakpoints are explained in more detail in the mechanics section further down in the guide.

Assembling the Build

Item Stat Priorities

Gems

Skills

Passives

Paragon Points

Altar of Rites

Follower

Gameplay

Hardcore

Variants

Nephalem Rifts
Bounties
GR Solo Speeds
GR Solo Push
GR Group RGK
Echoing Nightmare
Typhon Solo T16

Concept
In T16 we don’t need a lot of damage and also won’t care much about having the perfect setup all the time. Frost Hydra should be strong enough to just obliterate most things in split seconds anyway, so we take a lot more speed and mobility. Your follower will be decked out with Avarice Band, Nemesis Bracers, The Flavor of Time, Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny.

Gameplay
Be fast, use your Teleport to move around quickly and set up Hydra everywhere to kill everything around you while running and collecting loot. For the tougher enemies, make sure to activate Winter Flurry when you need to.

Setups
In groups, you should replace Guardian's Aversion with Nemesis Bracers and Stone of Jordan with Avarice Band. You can swap Guardian's Case with either Goldwrap or Krelm's Buff Belt.

Typhon Bounties

Concept
With the use of Aether Walker it's possible to make a lightning-fast setup that can hold up in most parties by just teleporting and spawning Hydras all around you.

Gameplay
Always move quickly, use your Teleport to move around and set up Hydra everywhere to kill everything around you while running and collecting loot. For the tougher enemies, make sure to activate Winter Flurry when you need to.

Setups
Archon Teleport can be added instead of Familiar if you want consistent Crowd Control immunity for Bounties with clickables or where you need to teleport to town frequently (you can right-click the buff on your buff bar to remove it after teleporting). Instead of Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, Warzechian Armguards can be an option for extra mobility.

It's also possible to play the exact same build with lightning damage by simply swapping the rune to Lightning Hydra. This setup has around twice the single target damage and longer range but drops some of the AoE potential.

For the ultimate endgame version, you can drop Winter Flurry for the crafted Cosmic Strand and change your Teleport rune to Calamity. Through a bug you are able to do triple Teleport combos, but you will easily starve on Arcane Power. To prevent this, roll Resouce Cost Reduction wherever possible and use the Power of the Storm rune.

Typhon Solo Speeds

Concept
In Speed Greater Rifts we try to combine a mix of Damage, Toughness and utility. Ultimately, the build plays similarly as in solo pushing, but is much more fast-paced. Bane of the Stricken should not be necessary at all, so we can take Zei's Stone of Vengeance instead and adopt a ranged playstyle more fitting to speeds' pace.

Gameplay
Similar to pushing, try to make big pulls and destroy them either with your Convention of Elements Cold cycle active (on elites) or without (most trash monsters). Don’t waste too much time on stray enemies, Waller elites, burrowers, wasps or similar and just move on towards the next pull.

Setups
Depending on how high Tiers you want to farm, you can go either for a high DPS version with Fragment of Destiny or a quick and mobile version using Aether Walker instead (keep in mind the loss in damage will be between 7-8 Tiers). For more consistency in your damage output, Stone of Jordan could be a replacement for Convention of Elements.

Select Build Version

Standard Setup
Typhon Solo Push

Concept
We stack up as much damage as possible while getting just enough toughness to keep up our shields at all times. Squirt’s Necklace is a considerable damage boost you don’t want to lose when pushing.

Gameplay
The basic gameplay revolves around making large pulls of monsters, getting your full setup ready and then obliterating everything during your Convention of Elements Cold cycle. Make sure to snapshot Arcane Dynamo by casting Hydra with 5 stacks, and keep up both Fragment of Destiny and Winter Flurry. With your very high Attack Speed, it's possible to stack Bane of the Stricken on yellow Elites using Spectral Blade when there are not many other enemies around. Otherwise just try to go for the big pulls and leave stray enemies aside, especially when they happen to be out of range of your Hydra.

Setups
If you feel like you are too squishy and want to go for some extra Toughness, Unity is a good replacement for Convention of Elements, especially on lower Paragon levels. For the ultra tanky version, Orb of Infinite Depth with Explosive Blast Chain Reaction (instead of Blizzard/Winter Flurry) is an option.

Typhon RGK

Concept
This setup is not competitive with top RGK builds and very difficult to actually play successfully. Keep in mind that this setup uses Lightning damage instead of Cold. Luckily, compared to the Frost Hydra version, the Attack Speed breakpoints here are a little bit more relaxed and you can get away with slightly imperfect rolls.

Gameplay
Your main task here is to let your group to their job properly without you messing it up for them until your reach the Rift Guardian. This especially applies to the Frost Nova cast by The Magistrate when you setup up your Hydra, so make sure you put them far away in a corner to keep up your set's damage reduction bonus without needlessly crowd-controlling enemies, as your damage is completely irrelevant until you reach the RG.

When it's finally your time to shine, play it normally just like you would in solo: keep up all your buffs, set up Lightning Hydra when you have 5 stacks of Arcane Dynamo and otherwise try to stack Bane of the Stricken as much as possible using your Spectral Blade's high Attack Speed. This is best done by replacing one Hydra every Convention of Elements Lightning cycle, as they last 30 seconds (due to The Typhon's Veil (2) Bonus) and each cycle is 16 seconds. Just make sure to not place them during the first second of the Arcane cycle.

Setups
To squeeze out even more damage, you can replace Halo of Karini with Stone of Jordan and swap Storm Armor to Energy Armor Force Armor. However, this will make you significantly more squishy, especially against damage over time effects. An advantage is that you don't have to move away from the boss to proc your damage reduction.

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 great for this game mode. Typically we utilize a Greater Rift pushing build with a few tweaks.

Changes

  • Swap Bane of the Stricken for Zei's Stone of Vengeance since we are fighting hordes of enemies.
  • Go for a ranged playstyle using Electrocute, Magic Weapon Deflection and Power Hungry.

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.

Buff yourself with Magic Weapon and Storm Armor. Place your Hydras in different areas of the map together with a Blizzard to vaporize monsters as they spawn. On the later waves, make sure to snapshot Arcane Dynamo and keep up Fragment of Destiny. Ignore elite enemies, just try to go for the big pulls and leave stray enemies aside.

Video Guide

Mechanics

Attack Speed Breakpoints

The Typhon's Veil + Serpent's Sparker

Wizard Shields

The Shame of Delsere & Fragment of Destiny

Halo of Karini

Black Hole Absolute Zero

Elemental Exposure

Arcane Dynamo

Summary

  • Keep up your Storm Armor and Halo of Karini buffs at all times.
  • Use Spectral Blade to build shields and stacks for Fragment of Destiny as well as Arcane Dynamo.
  • Set up Frost Hydra when you reach maximum stacks if possible. Stay near them and kite enemies around so that they will attack the highest number of targets.
  • After the setup is complete, cast Blizzard to gain the damage bonus of Winter Flurry. Refresh this continuously on enemies that live longer than its duration.
  • Use Black Hole to snapshot the Cold damage from Absolute Zero before setting up a Frost Hydra and try to proc Oculus Ring by catching an enemy during its death animation.
  • Play around the Convention of Elements Cold cycle to maximize your damage.
  • Avoid ever losing any hitpoints to keep up your Squirt’s Necklace and all Hydra heads at all times. Try to learn to feel the incoming damage as there is no UI indicator of how much shield you have.

I hope you enjoyed this guide! Hydra can be a fun and engaging build to play.
Good luck!

Credits

Written by wudijo.
Thanks to Rob for help!
Updated by Chewingnom.

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