We’re excited to present you with an exciting Hail Hydra build of Last Epoch today. Now, there’s talk of this build being nerfed, but it still holds its own, capable of handling corruption levels up to 400. All the essential details about skills, passives, gear, idols, and blessings for the Runemaster play style are covered, so you can fully master this build. Let’s dive in!

Skills & Specializations

Let’s start off with the skills. The big difference in this Hydra build is that we are no longer using the interaction where we are triggering Flame Ward from Flame Rush, going through the Frost Wall. It's not ideal that the Frost Wall cooldown is set for 12 seconds. So I don’t suggest using it.

I’ll cover every skill you’ll need to use in this build. To better utilize the power of this build, you can invest some Last Epoch Gold to craft your build more easily.

Fireball: You’ll still want Adept to increase your cast speed. Mana Sphere remains a valuable choice. Consider opting for Winged Fire for damage multiplied. Utilizing the Orb of Destruction will grant you base crit. Seeker’s Ash can provide with the Homing. Flammability is crucial for shredding fire resistance, while Flame Burst enhances Fireball bursts significantly, dealing substantial damage.

Flame Ward: You can pull the points of Though Flames out of Fire base and move them up into the automated way of Flame Ward. For the most part, the Astonish is auto-triggered through the stun.

Every single time that happens, your Flame Ward will auto-trigger. So it’ll give you a boost of Ward and damage reduction, and you will get a boost of Barrier in damage. We are taking 2 charges and you’re always going to take a couple of hits for that damage reduction. I’m sure it will work well.

Flame Rush: For this build, in order to trigger Hydras, you need to have a Lightning skill. We have made Flame Rush as our Lightning skill, and we had to reorganize the skill bar so that Flame Rush is the first skill. Every single time you use Flame Rush and you have 3 runes. You’re automatically going to drop a Hydra. We just added 1 point into the Energy Equivalence for Lightning damage.

Runic Invocation: Last but not least is the Runic Invocation. This has been tweaked just a little bit. We can take Adept Runescribing for a shorter cooldown. From Word of Lagon, we’re taking base crit. This is almost a guaranteed crit build. You could focus on crit strike multiplier.

Frost Wall: We are now taking it in its fire variant. Your Firewall is going to shoot Fireball, so it’s going to synergize really well with using Fireball instead of using the Runebolt. We can take Chilled Touch, so that we can get multiplicative damage to chilled enemies. Make sure you have Chill on your build. Besides, you can take Chilled Touch on your weapon for a suffix.

With the Booted Kickoff, we are getting frenzy and haste. Then we have Purifying Gate so we’re still getting cleanse. Then with the Crystals of Protection, we will get Ward Gain. From Aspirant’s Arrival, we are getting stronger Hydras based upon your Frost Wall.

Hydra is not a minion, so you just want as much base fire, as much crit multipliers as you could find.

Also Read: Last Epoch: This Rive Void Knight Build Is Perfect For Low Budget Gamers

Passive Skills

Moving over to the passive tree. The base tree is still the same: life, intelligence, attack speed with cooldown, and crit multiplier to get our 20 points. There is nothing in Spellblade. For Sorcerer, we are taking Arcane Momentum and we are taking a boost to spell Critical Strike Chance per our intelligence, Calculated Destruction.

Then for Runemaster, we are boosting our Mana burst or Ward bursts through the Unsealed Mana. We also need to take damage reduction and more spell damage. Then, we’re taking Never Late, probably the best of any single passive point, and we are taking the Traversal boost to cast speed. We’re taking crit multiplier.

This is a Wand build. We’re taking more damage with Decree of the Burning Wind. With the Ancient Inscriptions, we’re boosting our intelligence. We’re getting mana gained as threshold through Cerulean Runestones, and then we are taking the Rune Word: Inferno. Last, we put 4 point into Jagged Veil, which is again further going to boost your Ward Gained on crit.

Idols & Blessings

Starting with the blessings, we’re taking spell damage leeched for some sustain Mana. I recommend using Grand Hunger of the Void, Grand Light of the Moon, Grand Survival of Might, Grand Embers of Immortality and Grand Resolve of Humanity in this build. If you want to push higher corruption, you can take more survivability with endurance.

Going through the idols, you get a boost based upon having 300 Mana, increased fire damage. This effect is doubled with 300 Mana, and you will have 3. This is Ward Retention. We are using a Throne of Ambition to boost your survivability and damage.

Gear Setup

Moving over to the gear, there’s nothing unique required for this build except for a Box of Hydrae, and this is a unique that is designed for this build. The build is actually designed around it, and this is a Level 36 common drop. If you’re in Merchant’s Guild, you can get them for practically free. If you’re in the Circle of Fortune, it is very easy to target and farm. There are the items you need for this build:

• Helmet: Arcane Visage
• Amulet: Oracle Amulet
• Catalyst: Crystal Skull
• Body Armor: Tyrant Regalia
• Belt: Spidersilk Sash
• Rings: 2 Ivory Rings
• Boots: Solarum Greaves
• Gloves: Crusader Gauntlets
• Relic: Box of Hydrae
• Weapons: Dragonhorn Wand or Crystal Wand