Hydra

"Project Hydra" was the codename for the Diablo III project and team before the announcement at WWI 2008.

Hydra is a Wizard Tier 4 skill unlocked at level 10, summoning a hydra that attacks enemies with bolts of fire.

Contents

Background

Diablo III Skill [e]
Hydra Active, 5 ranks
Used by:	Wizard
Skill Description:
Creates a hydra that attacks your enemies with bolts of fire. Hydra deals X-Y damage per attack.
Skill Details:
Type:	Direct Damage
Quantity:	6-10 damage
Effect:	Turret shooting bolts
School:	Fire
Arcane Power cost:	12
Cast time:	Instant
Duration:	None
Cooldown:	1.5 sec
Synergies:	None
Requires:	N/A
Prereq of:	N/A

Among the many secrets of the Ancient Repositories, the Wizard found the Hydra spell to call forth a ward to dispatch of enemies from multiple directions.

Skill Design

This was too high level to use at BlizzCon 2009, though players sorely wanted to try it out and see the improvements from Diablo I. Graphical, if nothing else.

It's interesting to contemplate what the Hydra (multi-strike) rune would do to Hydra. More than 3 heads per cast? Plus, Greek Mythology fans could geek out. Especially if they named their character Learnean.

Skill Rank Table

• Rank 1: Hydra deals 6-10 damage per attack.

Synergies

Hydra benefits directly from the following Wizard traits:

• Glass Cannon: Increases damage done by spells and increases armor.
• Intimidation: Increases damage done and reduces vendor costs.
• Quickening: Increases spell casting speed.
• Beast Hunter: Damage bonus against beasts.
• Demonsbane: Damage bonus against Demons.
• Just...Stay...Dead!: Damage bonus against undead.
• Power Surge: Increase critical strike damage.
• Penetrating Spells: Reduces the resistances of your target to your spells by 20%.

Depending on rune socketing, Hydra also benefits from the following traits:

• Black Ice: Frozen targets take 25% more damage from all sources.
• Temporal Flux: Enemies that have been hit by your Arcane spells are slowed down by 25% for 3 seconds.

Note: The current trait list is very out-of-date and will no doubt be overhauled before game release.

Skill Rune Effects

Hydra with Runestones.

Jay Wilson provided a whole new insight into the changes made to Runestones with a short quote from Gamescom, in August 2010. [1]

Jay Wilson: One of my favorites is on the Wizard. She has a skill called Hydra, which is largely the same as it was in Diablo 2. Fiery (dragon) heads that shoot fireballs. Depending on which rune the Wizard sockets in that skill, the dragon heads change elements, and it’s a major change. Their entire appearance is altered. They can become poison heads, which shoot bolts of poison that leave pools of acid on the ground. There are lightning heads that shoot Chain Lightning. Cold heads that shoot Frost Bolts that slow enemies. Another rune makes for a bigger fire attack, where the head just breaths a cone of flame.

Jay did not list what all five runes did in Hydra, and his explanation left fans confused. Where were the three elemental damage types coming from? Nothing like that seemed to fit with the previous rune functions.

This mystery was cleared up a few days later with new info Bashiok provided to Flux, webmaster of fansite Diii.net. [2]

He explained that the Hydra runes provide:

• Extra damage in the form of firewalls.
• Multistrike (rapid fire)
• And the 3 elemental properties.

Extra damage and multishot are consistent with previously known rune functions. One of the elementals comes from the wildcard rune, and the other comes from what used to be the Energy rune. That rune now functions as a second wildcard in most skills, since changes to the resources made the mana-saving property obsolete. (Plus it just wasn't cool enough, in most instances.)

So Hydra isn't a total outlier; it's just got one rune, (formerly known as Lethality) that usually affects critical bonuses, that's doing something very different (providing an elemental damage change, in Hydra).

Development

Hydra in action. Un-runed. October 2010.

Hydra was first shown at BlizzCon 2009, where it was on the Conjuring Skill Tree at Tier IV. Unfortunately, it was too high level to select in the gameplay demo.

At BlizzCon 2010 it was shown in the gameplay panel and also in the PvP Arena. Flux discussed its viability:[3]

You could only have one Hydra active at a time, and it had a slow firing rate. Like Meteor, it was useful to stick these out there to let them ping away, hoping the damage would add up over time. They were very commonly used near the end of rounds, when one or two characters were chasing one on the other team. Most Wizards would cast Hydras in the path of the fleeing enemy, knowing they’d get in a shot or two and help finish them off.

Previous Versions

See the Wizard skill archive for more details on previous versions of Hydra and other Wizard skills.
Or see Hydra (BlizzCon 2008) for the original version of this skill.

Hydra in Other Games

The hydra spell was originally seen in Diablo I, then called Guardian. The principle was that three heads were summoned from the ground, shooting firebolts at enemies for a limited time. They are more fun to cast than efficient to kill anything with.

In Diablo II, they were turned into flaming heads, and got the name Hydra. While not dealing damage to anyone near the flames, the firebolts are of more use, especially if concentrating the fire on single targets at a time, and alternating skills while waiting for the cooldown.

Trivia

Hydra was the codename for the Diablo III project and team before the announcement at WWI 2008.

Media

You can find pictures in the Diablo III screenshot and picture gallery:

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Hydra specific gallery contents

• 

  Hydra made Arcane by rune.

• 

  Hydra made Arcane by rune.

Related Articles

• Diablo I Guardian spell
• Diablo II Hydra spell

References

• BlizzCon 2009 Full Wizard Skill Trees
• Jay Wilson interview by G4, August 2010
• BlizzCon 2010 PvP Hands-on Report