Some of us actual enjoy these builds. The community already killed the old m6 build. We could get at least one viable turret build for one class for fans of this playstyle.
They could add signature skill support on the 6pc… Would get players something to attack with without breaking the fantasy of having powerful turrets.
What would be worse is if the damage buff lasted for 8sec after you cast hydra forcing hydra spamming like with Rathma. That’ll give players something to do for sure. Not very fun though.
2-Piece Bonus: Spells cast by your Mirror Images will deal 50% of the damage of your own spells. (Mirror Images also cast Hydras.)
4-Piece Bonus: Double the duration of Hydras and increase the number of heads on multi-headed Hydras by two . Damage taken is reduced by 8% for each Hydra head alive as long as there is one available. Each time you take damage, a Hydra heads dies.
6-Piece Bonus: Hydras deal 1000% increased damage for each Hydra head alive. Enemies affected by Blizzard take 50% more damage (multiplicative) from Hydras.
Numbers need tweaking of course and supporting items some buffs.
It is fine, but I still don’t like the effect that Hydra Heads disappear when you take damage. I just think that this will eventually lead to a very annoying playstyle.
Exactly this. Since the set in the current form only increases Hydra damage, it will go in to channeling. There’s only one supporting weapon multiplier, thus you still have 2 open. The only logical choice is to use the multipliers that Deathwish and Etched provides to further increase damage.
Thus this set Will be a hit and run-to-channel set currently.
The best fix is to add a new weapon and offhand more that boosts the set.
And don’t forget they both have a 1 sec delay before their damage kicks in which makes a hell of a lot of differcence as you have to reposition frequently (more if you’re solo and you don’t have 0 dps monk covering for you).
I also like that the new set buff Hydra but I think they could insert relative easily more skills. The sets from Monk/Crusi will also buff 2 skills
So I would change the new set into the following:
Suggestion 1:
2 set:
Increase the number of multi-headed Hydras by 2 or while using a single head Hydra you can add an additional Hydra at the same time.
4 set:
Teleport gain the effect of the rune “Calamity”. Enemies effected from Black Hole get 200 % increase damage from Hydra for 5 seonds.
6 set:
While using Black Hole reduce your damage taken by 60 % and increase the damage from Hydra, Teleport and Black Hole by 10.000 % for 10 seonds.
The Oculus (Source):
Teleport leaves now a Black Hole. Black Hole and Teleport deals 650 - 800 % increase damage.
Jangs Envelopment (Belt):
Enemies damaging by Black Hole are slowed by 60-80 % for 3 seconds. Black Hole deals 250-300 % increase damage.
Aether Walker (Wand):
Teleport no longer has a cooldown but costs 25 arcane by 800 - 1.000 % increase damage.
Suggestion 2:
2 set:
Increase the number of multi-headed Hydras by 2 or while using a single head Hydra you can add an additional Hydra at the same time. Hydra has a cooldown of 3 seconds.
4 set:
While channeling you periodically cast Frost Nova. Each active Hydra increase the damage from Magic Missle, Ray of Frost and Arcane Torrent by 200 %.
6 set:
Hitting an enemy with Frost Nova reduce your damage taken by 60 % and increase the damage for Hydra and your channel spells by 10.000 % for 10 seconds.
I do think the 6pc will be buffed before ptr is done. I think in the range of like 1250 per head. Because your only dealing with 2 multipliers. Which I’m not a fan of the helm because its random freeze will be annoying when trying to group mobs with black hole ect
Edit: It’s limited in groups because of this reason. I guess one could put magefist frostburns or taskers in it. But I don’t see those making or breaking the build. I guess since you don’t need a specific belt captains might be the go-to and just stack rcr. I don’t see any need for a ton of cdr so not sure if damage will be worth.
That being said I’m going to through everything I can at it on ptr NS testing Thursday. It I’ll be very surprised if anything I come up with is biz for the set
I think the Hydra set could also buff the damage of Disintegrate, Ray of Frost and Arcane Torrent, so that a build with Etched Sigil and Deathwish is possible, but also the damage of some other skills like Energy Twister, Arcane Orb, Wave of Force, Blizzard and maybe the Molten Impact rune from Meteor (but not Meteor as a whole).
Disintegrate, Ray of Frost and Arcane Torrent could get buffed equally, while Energy Twister, Arcane Orb, Wave of Force, Blizzard and Molten Impact all get other, individual multipliers from the set (based on how many Hydras or Hydra heads are active).
I don’t like the idea of channeling and ectched sigil proccing hydras all the time. I feel the damage will be a loss do to it having a cast animation for summons. Death wish is fine for that. Though.
Blizzard would buff the “Orb Mirrorball” to enhance Hydra Damage and the new set to support “Magic Missile” in order to offer an alternative playstyle for channeling.
The heads disappearing isn’t a problem at all as you will always have 3 heads per hydra active at any given time. I don’t think they’ve reprogrammed the entire hydra skill so all heads disappear. If that’s the case, you’ll always have 48% damage reduction with a serpent sparker.
My recommendation;
-Increase the attack range of the hydras to be similar to the sentries in the marauder set.
-since mammoth hydra doesn’t get extra heads via the set, we should be able to cast 1 or 2 extra mammoth hydras.
When you use Hydra with Etched Sigil, it will not constantly spawn new Hydras. It will spawn Hydras all 10 or 15 seconds, you know, like when the natural duration of the Hydra is over, then and only then the Etched Sigil will spawn a new one. But it will not spawn a new Hydra every second.
At least it was that way the last time I tried the Etched Sigil + Hydra combo, which was many weeks/month ago.
The way the 4piece set bonus is worded indicates otherwise.
But of course it can be different.
My thoughts on this set. (Posted on reddit, but here is probablybetter)i posted on reddit.
The “head” mechanic is problematic IMO. Too many unavoidable fast consective hits will kill you as each hit will deal more and more damage. Having each head providing more Reduction, but capping it 6 or 7 heads would give us a small buffer of 3 or 4 hits before start losing defense. Much less frantic in chaotic situations, and if we manage to stay 100% of time at max defense, no big deal, the same happens with Tal Rasha and DMO (fast cast of 4 elements and protection even outside a bubble). My suggestions are:
4-Piece Bonus: Damage taken is reduced by 15% for each Hydra head alive, to a maximum of XX%. Each time you take damage, a Hydra heads dies.
About the damage and skills involved in the set, If Blizz wants to bring back old builds, bring them fully. An incentive to use Blizzard + Hydras like we used to.
6-Piece Bonus: Blizzard deals X% increased Damage and Hydras deal 500% increased damage for each Hydra head alive. Casting Blizzard will double the damage of your Hydras for Y seconds.
The X damage on Blizzard is to maybe help on speed clears as you can hit larger areas, and the Y time is more to have you casting them periodically to buff your hydras. As long you don’t have to do it every 2 seconds it shouldn’t impact much the gameplay. 7-8 seconds inbetween casts won’t hurt.
This comment got me thinking, there are rift guardians that will kill you very easily. Ghom and the rat spawner are the two that come to mind first. They both can get you in a position where you will be taking damage non-stop.
The set mechanic will kill you against these two and remove your offense.
That would make no sense. It would just be a new Channeling set, and that is not the intend. However in the current iteration it is already a Channeling set. ES and DW is just too strong to pass, even if you have to wait a second for the effect.
There’s no other items that offer similar boosts to you performance with ET, AO, WoF or Blizzard. I know you want a channeling set but this really isn’t it.
Here’s an idea, add an item that makes Hydra projektiles causes a small explosion or passes through enemies and damage them. That should also remove the Mammoth rune as bring the only option.
A second idea would be to add an item that would increase damage taken from Hydra after being hit by another skill (Blizzard would be a great option). If so you can also change the 4p to grant Damage Reduction for x amounts of seconds after casting this skill, much more fluent than the head mechanics. It would give the wizard something to do instead of just running around and placing Hydra’s - which really isn’t a very engaging playstyle.
