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[2.6.8] (TXVI) TV Frost Hydra

by last updated Mar 16, 2020 ( Season 20 )
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Skills

  • Teleport Wormhole
  • Hydra Frost Hydra
  • Diamond Skin Sleek Shell
  • Magic Weapon Deflection
  • Energy Armor Force Armor
  • Black Hole Supermassive
  • Illusionist
  • Evocation
  • Galvanizing Ward
  • Unstable Anomaly

Items

More Details

  • Legendary Gems

    • Bane of the Trapped
    • Enforcer
    • Boon of the Hoarder

Kanai's Cube

  • Echoing Fury
  • The Magistrate

https://ptr.d3planner.com/287634336

  • Head: INT / VIT / CHC / Socket (Diamond)
  • Shoulder: INT / VIT / CDR / Hydra%
  • Amulet: CDR / CHC / CHD / Socket
  • Chest: INT / VIT / Hydra% / Sockets (Amethyst)
  • Gloves: INT* or AS** / CDR / CHC / CHD
  • Bracer: Cold% / INT / VIT / CHC
  • Belt: INT / VIT / Life% / +Armor
  • Legs: INT / VIT / +Armor / Sockets (Amethyst or Topaz)
  • Feet: INT / VIT / +AR / +Armor
  • Ring1 (RoRG): INT / AS / CDR / Socket
  • Ring2 (Avarice): AS / CHC / CDR / Socket
  • Weapon: %DMG or INT / AS / CDR / Socket (Emerald)
  • Offhand: INT / CHC / CDR / 3-4s TP reduction (4 preferred)

  • Note: cube item is Tasker and Theo.
  • Note: 1.9 AS on gear minimum is required to hit the 18 FPA breakpoint with Frost Hydra.
  • *Low Paragon / Solo Config: INT weapon, INT Glove, Enchantress with near perfect AS affixes on gear otherwise. Note: Gloves are easier to find, but other AS affix pieces harder to acquire.
  • **High Paragon / Hybrid Config: %Dmg weapon, AS on glove, Templar if soloing. This config with Quad glove is nice because it allows for more leeway in AS affixes.
  • VIT gems are optional in pants, but are definitely helpful at sustaining Squirt's bonus via shielding. Highly recommended as you gain more paragon.
  • Favorable secondary affixes: Gold%, +Pickup, %ranged reduction, CC% reduction.

Paragon Priorities

Core

Movement Speed
Primary Stat
Vitality
Maximum Resource

Offense

Cooldown Reduction
Attack Speed
Critical Hit Chance
Critical Hit Damage

Defense

Resist All
Armor
Life
Life Regeneration

Utility

Resource Cost Reduction
Gold Find
Area Damage
Life on Hit

Build Guide

Typhon's Veil Frost Hydra Nephalem rifting build for 2m to 3.5m clears. Solo or Group. EDIT (3/16/2020): First animation being slow was fixed, and frost Hydra now attacks at speed co = 1, but still a different AS BP as compared to other runes (attacks quicker than before but smaller hits). This should keep this build viable in T16, however, due to multiplier decreases, I'm keeping estimated clear speed 2-3.5m.

Amazing synergy with this build. We've gone old school and placed CDR on gear (No Aether Walker or In-Geom). This frees up a cube slot for other items, and mostly frees us of resource requirements, however, it does mean your teleport will have a cooldown. However, because of all the CDR on gear + The Oculus, it's a very manageable 1.93s cooldown. With Wormhole as our teleport rune, this makes it acceptable speedwise for nephalem rifting. Large Synergy with the Captain Crimson's - CDR here is also supplying a large multiplier, and also 28% DR.

Frost Hydra is mainly chosen because it does not incur an animation delay like the other runes when summoned. I suspect this is because Frost Hydra has a speed coefficient of .5 (but deals close to double damage per hit as compared to the other runes).

This choice of going CDR frees up a weapon slot, allowing us to cube both the Echoing Fury and Tasker and Theo for very fast attack speed, hitting as low as the 18 FPA breakpoint with Frost Hydra. This is over 3 APS!

Lot's of multipliers to ensure the Hydra hit hard. Trapped is procced by the Frost Hydra Chill, even at range, it's always applied. Multipliers include:

  • Trapped
  • Enforcer
  • Squirt's
  • Captain Crimson's
  • Serpent Sparker
  • The Magistrate
  • Typhon's Veil 6 piece

Remember to try and cast at least Hydras after transitioning levels as this is where you lose most of your Damage reduction. Typhon's Veil is giving a full 80% (stacks on 4 piece are additive). This is how we can run without additional toughness items (we don't need Goldwrap!). Force armor is also a very useful skill placement here in balancing toughness, as this will lower the amount of damage your shields take, helping to keep up your Squirt's necklace more often. Speaking of shields, we slot Galvanizing ward with Deflection (deflection procs from teleport, hydra and black hole casts), as well as Diamond Skin (which with the high CDR has high uptime, and high refresh rate). This large, refreshing shield stack really helps keep up the Squirt's.

Mobility is provided mostly via the wormhole rune on teleport, combined with the aforementioned low <2s cooldown. Aside from this we place as much run speed as possible:

  • Sleek Shell: 30%
  • Illusionist: 30%
  • Echoing Fury: up to 25%
  • Hoarder: 30% (also placed for gold find + gold% on gear)

Black Hole is placed mostly for being able to open doors as this build has a hard time getting through those with how bad the Hydra targetting can be at times. However, the Supermassive rune is amazing here for pre-pylon CC as well, and with the low cooldown is readily available for CC against any engagement as well.


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Overall, it is an amazing build and I'm really excited to showcase it. Check out some of the other test builds and 2.6.8 builds here:

Also check out the mechanics and feedback post, PTR feedback forums: