Typhon Frost Hydra Wizard Skills and Runes
On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Typhon Frost Hydra Wizard in Diablo 3. Updated for Patch 2.7.3 and Season 26.
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Rotation
You will start runs with an activation of Storm Armor, which is to be
kept up throughout the rift for the massive damage reduction bonuses it
provides from its interaction with
Halo of Karini. Note that the damage
reduction proc requires a 15-yard distance from the enemy struck by
Storm Armor, so in fights with fewer targets (especially Rift Guardians),
you need to make sure to create some space on a regular basis to get the proc;
otherwise, you will drop the buff and expose yourself to lethal amounts of
damage. At all times, you should be able to quickly re-position and stabilize
safety with
Teleport
Safe Passage.
Every time you start a run or make a zone transfer between maps, you need to
make sure to pre-summon two Hydras to max out your Typhon 4-piece set
bonus prior to any engagements. Also make sure to cap out the currently spawned
Hydras as they die off or expire, since your survivability and damage
dealt hinges on their currently active number.
Cast Spectral Blade continuously in a longer fight, or interweave its
use as you move forward forward through the rift; this is required to strengthen
your
Barrier Blades shield, as well as to keep building stacks of
Arcane Dynamo and
Fragment of Destiny (note that the latter
requires hitting enemies, while the other effects can be cast into thin air and
still trigger). Once you have a good fight going and enemies come swarming in,
cast
Blizzard over them to get the
Winter Flurry buff for your
Hydras.
Use Hydra with fully built up
Arcane Dynamo stacks; the damage
buff from the passive will snapshot and last for the duration of the summon.
Try to be strategic with your
Hydra placements, making use of their
focus on the nearest target; placing them in confined spaces and corners will
ensure their cone-shaped attacks will all fire off in the same direction and
will be narrowed down to an enemy of your choice.
Last but not least, stick close to your Hydras to lure enemies within
their modest range of effect, as well as to proc the proximity-reliant
Audacity. Ideally, in any given fight you will be able to take down
smaller enemy first, which nets you a proc of
Oculus Ring to move into
for another damage multiplier.
Skills and Runes
Your primary damage dealing skill and namesake of the build is, of course,
Hydra. You have some freedom in your rune selection, but the highlighted
version in this guide is the Cold damage variation based on the rune
Frost Hydra due to the convenient cone-shape of its damage output.
You will be taking Blizzard by necessity due to the revised powers of
Winter Flurry — now transformed into a
Hydra-specific source
that amplifies the summons' damage against enemies within the
Blizzard
radius. You have two viable rune options; either
Apocalypse for the
enlarged Area of Effect, or the longer lasting
Unrelenting Storm.
With the revised powers of Fragment of Destiny — now improving
the damage of
Hydras with a stacking 'Spectral' mechanic depending on
the use of Signature Spells, you will have to include a primary attack by
necessity. Our base recommendation is
Spectral Blade with the rune
Barrier Blades, which supplements the shield-based protection of the
build and synergizes nicely with
Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer.
There are two viable options in your "utility" slot. Our default
recommendation is to take Magic Weapon
Deflection for a considerable
protective layer that stacks up easily with
Spectral Blade attacks.
Another great option is to take
Black Hole as means of crowd controlling
the enemy and building up large pulls. You should take either the rune
Absolute Zero for the longer lasting elemental damage buff it provides to
Cold spells, synergizing with your main damage dealer, or the rune
Spellsteal for the balance between an offense and defense buff (at a
reduced duration).
Sometimes immediate repositioning will be required — evading a bad
affix, engaging a larger pack of enemies to maximize the Frost Hydra AoE,
or simply to gain a temporary Toughness buff in a rough fight.
Teleport will cover you for all these purposes, along with the
damage reduction of the
Safe Passage rune.
Rounding skills out, you will be adding Storm Armor to the build. With
a fire-and-forget duration of 10 minutes and a negligible damage proc, it can
be easily overlooked if not for the massive damage reduction properties of
Halo of Karini (see this build's gear page for more information). You will be
taking the rune
Shocking Aspect for the superior uptime of the procs for
the Karini buff. Alternatively, you can consider
Scramble for the
additional movement speed.
This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.
Arcane Dynamo offers a whopping 60% multiplicative increase of your
next spender with fully stacked Flashes of Insight, enforcing a rotation of
Spectral Blade stacking (both this passive as well as the
Fragment of Destiny effect) prior to putting a
Hydra down.
Added with similar reasoning to Magic Weapon
Deflection (mainly
Squirt's Necklace buff maintenance),
Galvanizing Ward introduces a
solid damage buffer that benefits from the doubled effectiveness via
Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer.
Audacity brings a sizable 30% multiplicative damage increase against
enemies within 15 yards — a near-melee range prerequisite that you fulfill
naturally through the playstyle of the build, as enemies close in on you while
you slash away with
Spectral Blade.
Elemental Exposure rounds out your passive selection with another
damage increase. Notice that the passive bumps damage in 5% increments per
element used; you fulfill the fire with
Apocalypse, cold with
Frost Hydra and arcane with
Barrier Blades. The final bump will
come from the damage type of your weapon,
Serpent's Sparker — a lucky
roll (or reroll) of the base damage from another type (i.e. physical or arcane)
into lightning will bring the last piece of the damage buff.
In Hardcore play, you might want an additional layer of safety in the form of
the Unstable Anomaly cheat death passive. Replace either
Audacity
or
Elemental Exposure for it, depending on how confident you feel about
the upkeep of the
Audacity buff (if you think you are consistent with
your range play, keep it over
Elemental Exposure).
Long Range / Ranslor's Folly Variation
There is a notable variation to the Typhon Hydra summoner playstyle for high end Greater Rift pushing, which alters the build from close to long range combat. This build relies on favorable monster composition (high trash density, relatively low aggression enemies) in the Rift and makes the following alterations to skills:
- The short range
Spectral Blade is exchanged for the long range, AP generation powerhouse
Electrocute
Surge of Power.
- The solitary repositioning tool
Teleport is dropped for
Energy Twister
Wicked Wind; combined with
Ranslor's Folly, it creates a potent, on-demand pixel pulling tool for the build that functions perfectly for trash-dense Rifts. (Check out the Gear page for the remaining gear alterations.)
- The proximity-dependent
Audacity passive is replaced by its long range counterpart
Power Hungry.
Changelog
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 06 Dec. 2021: Reviewed for Season 25.
- 22 Oct. 2021: Enriched the guide with additional information.
- 22 Jul. 2021: No changes required for Season 24.
- 02 Apr. 2021: Revised skill selection.
- 20 Nov. 2020: Revision of item, skill and passive recommendations, alongside advice for Season 22 changes.
- 01 Jul. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
- 10 Mar. 2020: Guide added.
More Wizard Guides
Builds from Other Classes
Farming Guides
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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