When it comes to finding all the pieces of the puzzle for creating a great hydra team, not everyone has the best Legendary champions in the game to make hydra easy. Luckily, there are some very strong Epic champions that even excel beyond some Legendaries. Let’s talk about some Epics you should be using in your hydra teams.
Uugo is a hydra queen. She has a leech on the A1, AoE Decrease DEF and Block Buffs debuffs on the A2, a cleanse and heal on the A3 and a passive that can save the day if she’s the only one left alive. Block Buffs is arguably the most necessary debuff to have in a hydra battle. She brings that and so much more. Put her in Relentless or Reflex gear and she comes back to her skills so much faster, being able to be Legendary level support. She’s one of the very few champions that you won’t regret maxing 3 copies of, 1 for every key.
Geomancer has continued to rise in value as new content is released. The biggest key to his success as a damage dealer is his passive. It decreases the damage all allies receive by 15% and deflects that damage onto each enemy under a HP Burn debuff placed by this champion. Whenever he is attacked, 30% of damage is deflected instead. When deflecting damage, has a 30% chance of dealing additional damage equal to 3% of the target’s MAX HP. This skill is particularly strong when the Head of Wrath is around. The big slams from Wrath help to add a lot of damage. He Places HP Burn and Weaken debuffs with his A3, the skill that enables the Passive. Plus the “place” versus an “attack” makes it easy to handle Poison Clouds from the Head of Blight.
Inquisitor Shamael has a unique kit that allows you to completely lock-out the Head of Torment. With him on your team, you don’t need to worry about having your champions under Perfect Veil while attacking the head and you can’t get debuffed by its A1. You can build him in full damage or give him more utility. Toxic set is an option for this given this head can be poisoned but be careful it doesn’t fill the debuff bar too full for more important debuffs. Provoke set is also a great option to give him extra utility to help Provoke the Head of Decay as well as rack up hits and damage against the Head of Torment. He also attacks with his A1 every time an enemy places a debuff on an ally, so helps with the other heads around too (though not as much damage output). Because his Passive actually boosts the turn meter of just whoever is the leader, picking the right pairing is important.
Royal Guard & Husk can be mentioned on the same note for their AoE Enemy Max HP damage. This is very helpful for doing big damage against hydra and getting out a champion that’s been devoured. The higher the difficulty of battle, the better the damage will be. Royal Guard has extra utility with Decrease DEF on his A1 and Decrease SPD on his A2 while Husk also brings Provoke on his A1. If you haven’t gotten blessed with the Void Legendary Acrizia, one of these champions is a great substitute.
Godseeker Aniri is a top tier epic for hydra. Not everyone is lucky enough to have top legendaries like Siphi and duch*ess so this epic should be strongly considered to fulfill the reviver role. She heals with her A1 & A2 skills. Her A2 also decreases the duration of enemy buffs and increases the duration of ally buffs. Besides her single target revive, she also has a Revive on Death Passive that can come in clutch with big smashes like from the head of Decay.
Oboro has a really unique kit that includes of lot of great utility for hydra. She has Decrease DEF, transfers & steals buffs and puts up a ton of buffs on herself. Her A3 and her Passive both add buffs to only her, making her a perfect candidate for Mischief targeting. She can be a bit hard to build because she needs high Resistance if built for this role plus she needs Accuracy to land Decrease DEF and she can actually hit quite hard so it’s smart to build her with some damage. Because of this, she’s the perfect candidate for the Heavencast Blessing. As long as more important Blessings are already covered by someone else in the team (like Cruelty), putting Heavencast on her can be a huge help to allow you to build her with much lower accuracy as it lowers the Resistance of the enemy.
Mordecai places HP burns as an AoE. He’s one of very few to do this so it’s great to take advantage of for sake of damage and dealing with the Poison Clouds from the Head of Blight. When you “place” vs “attack/hit”, you don’t have to worry about affinity, weak hits, or Poison Cloud. His A2 also boosts your team’s turn meter so can be helpful to get everyone to cycle back around to their skills more often.
White Dryad Nia stood out the most for the sake of hydra when the new Sylvan Watcher faction came out. Everything about her kit makes for a strong hydra champion (unfortunately minus having an aura). She has an AoE A1 with Decrease SPD, making her great to put with Warmaster Mastery for extra damage and Blessings like Cruelty. Her A2 also removes all debuffs from an ally, heals them then also decreases the cooldown of all the target’s skills by 2 turns. If using her on manual, you can help bring back the most important skills like a clutch revive or extra burst of damage from your heavy hitter at the perfect times. Her A3 also helps protect the team from big hits like from the Head of Wrath and her Passive adds another heal.
There are plenty of other solid champions for hydra too; the list could go on! Just get creative, and test out your teams to find out what synergies work best for you. It doesn’t take top tier legendaries to be successful in hydra, but it does take understanding, practice, and strong builds.
