It has already been mentioned in threads and on posts by people here on the PTR forum, but I wanted to make a thread specifically about that issue:
There should be a legendary off-hand Source that buffs Hydra in some why.
One of the reasons for why there should be one is to have something other than Etched Sigil in the off-hand slot for this build.
Now, this can be a very simple Source like “Increase the damage of Hydra by xxx%” and maybe to give it a bit more flavor the source can maybe also increase the maximum amount of Hydras you can have active at the same time by +1 or even +2, which would give Hydra a bit more flavor.
Or maybe it can even increase ALL DAMAGE - not just Hydra damage - based on how many Hydras you have active.
^^That definitely would give the new Hydra-set playstyle a lot more flavor and also could lead to some interesting LoD builds.
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tl:dr:
For various reasons, there should be an new off-hand source that revolves around Hydra, maybe something like this one:
NEW LEGENDARY SOURCE Increases the maximum amount of Hydra’s you can have active at the same time by +1-2 and increase all your damage by xx% for every Hydra you currently have active.
I agree that we definitely needed another off hand option. It’s 2020 and Wizards still only have 2 viable off-hands for damage that doesn’t require one specific skill and one only does 40% damage so of course we’re going to go to the other that does 150%, forcing channeling for this new hydra set.
Recasting hydras and channeling, while having that new one second damage delay makes this build pretty clunky and slow, sure it’s certainly not as gimmicky and macro desiring as Bazooka, but it’s still clunky.
Agreed. Honestly some of the old sources that no one uses should just get a rework. We don’t necessarily need a brand new source (though that’d be cool).
I am trying out Hydra builds that don’t use channeling items and there’s absolutely no offhands that do anything for Hydras unless it’s channeling.
I don’t think an offhand that lets us summon even more hydras is the answer, though, as that’d cause the damage scaling on the set to blow out in bad ways. It’s pretty clearly tuned for having 10 heads active.
Something set-agnostic and hydra-specific would be nice though.
Few suggestions for Legendary abilities:
Hydras periodically cast your other resource spenders [which would benefit from per-head damage bonus].
Hydras periodically reposition to stay near the wizard and slow nearby enemies [nice bane of the trapped synergy].
Mammoth Hydra does 50% less damage but summons three hydra heads. Enemies ignited by Mammoth Hydra deal 10% less damage.
Hydras that strike an enemy reduce a random cooldown by 1 second. Can only trigger once per head.
Damage bonuses gained by Hydra are also applied to Storm Armor and Mirror Image as long as at least one Hydra is active. [or maybe some other skills that wouldn’t be horribly broken or useless]
Whenever a Hydra head despawns it releases a blast of the appropriate element doing X% weapon damage in a Z yard radius.
Teleport also summons all Hydra heads to the Wizard’s location
I have been thinking for a long time that hydra needs more options, and if it ends up to be another channelling build I will not be interested to play it next season. Everything stated above will not be worthwhile for next season because it will be used together with channelling using the forbidden archives. Since the Typhon’s Veil is about dodging attacks it doesn’t synergise well with channelling anyways. So my idea is a rework of the Oculus offhand:
The Oculus
Now Rolls with an extra primary legendary affix
Reduces cooldown of Teleport by [3 - 6] seconds.
While moving Hydra gains [80-100]% increased attack speed, and deals [325-400]% increased damage
IMHO the reduced cooldown of teleport works well with a dodging build like the current Typhon’s Veil needs. And the moving means that this bonus cannot be combined with channelling. Moreover, it could still be used in an archon build, but if you lose hydra heads you cannot recast hydra until archon is over.
Another addition could be a belt that focuses on mobility and an extra summon.
New Belt
You may have one extra Hydra active at a time and each Hydra head alive increases your movement speed by 5%
This would make it a very dynamic build where you run around while dodging attacks and placing the 3 hydras available on strategic places while buffing each hydra with the Arcane Dynamo passive.
EDIT: With these changes the final bonuses from the Serpent Sparker and The Magistrate might have to be reconsidered. But The Typhon’s Veil giving a damage bonus of 15000% to hydra seems kind of reasonable to me.
No we need a separate source, or 2H staff like meteor build. Magistrate is like Nilfur. We need something to make up for the 10x damage loss by not using DW+ES.
Or DW and Etched could/should get nerfed for non-channeling skills.
The new Serpent’s Sparker also already gives 600% increased damage to Hydra and also +1 max Hydra head. So with a source with 100% increased damage to Hydra would give a total of 14x the damage to Hydra in combination with Serpent’s Sparker.
Imo the Serpent’s Sparker should give something like 500% damage to Hydra and xxx% increased damage to all other skills based on how many Hydras are currently active (in addition to the +1 max Hydra’s).
The new source should do something very similar, just with different numbers and maybe also give reduced damage take based on active Hydras or Hydra heads.
You do realize we can’t take Serpent’s Sparker into the equation right? The current setup has both SS and DW+ES. Taking away DW+ES is a straight 10x damage loss, even with SS.
The new source or whatever item must buff at least 600% hydra damage, then the other 1.5x multiplier can be made up by furnace or orb of infinite depth. 7x1.5 = 10.5, almost the same as 10.625 multiplier for DW+ES combo. But that’s already 25% damage and 25% damage reduction loss from MoC, which is a problem.
Nerf DW and Etched in a way that they primarily or only buff channeling skills.
Either let them only buff channeling skills or significantly reduce the amount they buff non-channeling skills by.
E.g. DW can buff channeling skills by 325% , but non-channeling skills by only 50% or 100%, or whatever amount is required to make is less appealing for being used in so many builds.
Which is pretty much the consensus across this forum. But to be honest, if you provide an alternative that makes up the 10x damage multiplier, most people will turn away from DW+ES. With the new nerf to DW, ES, MoC, channeling has become clunky.
Actually can we have a small buff to Hexing pant, increasing damage while moving from 25% to 40-50% to make up for the loss of MoC?
But then we again run into the danger of further power creep.
Not sure if anyone wants that.
Maybe the 1 second delay thing on DW, Etched and Mantle can get reversed if the damage bonus to non-channeling skills on these items (or at least on DW and Etched) is significantly reduced.
Would it kill Bazooka if DW would onyl give 50% or 100% increased damage to non-channeled abilities and Etched only ~30-50% to non channeled? Maybe, dunno.
I don’t think so. The new item will only buff hydra, not any other skill. The requirement such as while moving will kill off any potential exploitation.
I would rather Blizz kills star pact alone, not hurting other channeling build. I suggest one of the following solutions:
Nilfur’s Boast increases the damage of meteor by 5% per arcane power the wizard currently has (similar to UE set).
Remove or heavily reduce the delay of meteor star pact (we have that in thunder crash rune, same can be applied to star pact, 0.125s is short enough). To make it micro-proof, it’s OK to increase the delay of DW, ES, MoC by 0.125s (not sure if it’s even necessary).
Add a condition to grand vizier, 400% damage when arcane power is near maximum (80% or 90%).
What do you guys think?
Of course it’s not very OK for other builds to continue abusing DW+ES combo.
Most I see on the Leaderboards are effing LOD taking advantage of the broken DW, ES. And using Hydras just for the free Frozen Nova procs!
This is a failed PTR for wiz! Blizz needs to patch it up asap; if not, Blizz will make (wrong) decisions based on flawed performance and nerf Hydra set come official 2.6.8!
Sure, but it is not just Star Part that is problematic, it is the Meteor channeling combo as a whole (at least for LoD builds) due to the massive increase of Meteor damage on the boots and Etched + DW also giving such a massive damage boost on top of that (and also from the Meteor Staff in the cube).
Every other LoD build is outshined by Meteor-channeling with DW and Etched, not just with the Star Pact rune.
imo the damage bonus to Meteor on the boots should be reduced and the Meteor damage should bet increased somewhere else on another legendary (like the Meteor Staff) or a set…
But the only/the primary way to balance all of this efficiently is by reducing the damage bonus for non-channeling skills from Etched and DW either drastically or even completely remove it. They can still buff the damage to channeling skills by a factor of 10, but not anymore for non-channeling skills.
Not really, the new hydra set is surprisingly easy and fast to spot almost all problems and bugs. LoD hydra is also new too, so they go to test everything they can.
To make Tyhpon Veil more disticnt from LoD version. I agree with the folks who want to add Blizzard damage to the 6 pc set. And I had cool idea for Winter Flurry or another orb to add to it. Winter Flurry:
“For every active Hydra head your Blizzard damage is increased by 100%. And for every active second of Blizzard the attack speed of Hydra is increased by 1% and it’s damage by 10%. Maximum bonus is 25 seconds of active Blizzard time.”
That’s designed for normal mode. Because now you have to decide what do you want in your Items slots. My guess would be for the Lon version you would roll with channeling set up. But for Typhons Veil you would use this new item. You won’t be able to fiddle in Deathwish, ES, *Winter Flurry and Serpent Sparker.
And ofc it would be cool if Blizzard would be incorporated in do the new set.
My suggestion would be changing Myken’s Ball of Hate to “Damaging enemies with Electrocute causes them to take 150-200% more damage from Hydra for 5 sec” and also giving 10,000% bonus damage to Electrocute for the 6pc bonus.