Hydra
Clan · 6 champions
The Fight▾
You fight 4 of the month's 6 heads at once; a decapitated head regrows from the rotation pool (2 substitutes), and heads + affinities reshuffle monthly. Three keys per week and each champion may be used in only ONE key — a full week costs 18 bodies. Decapitation: 0 HP → Exposed Neck (can't act, takes +200%) → regrows under Serpent's Will (unremovable −75% dmg until its first turn), so DoTs do the chipping on a regrown head. Consumption: at battle start your HIGHEST-C.DMG champ gets Mark of the Hydra (20-count, −1 per head turn, unblockable/unresistable); at 0 the next head devours them and opens a green digestion bar with a 5-turn count that shrinks by 1 per champ eaten — clear it (150k Normal / 250k Hard / 350k Brutal / 400k NM, carried forward UNVERIFIED — HH notes the requirement was reduced on every difficulty except Nightmare) or they're digested (gone, no revive). Taunt no longer stops the devour; that's why you bring 6. HEAD IMMUNITIES (the seat-deciding rule): all heads are immune to Stun, Freeze, Sleep, Provoke, Block Active Skills, Block Passive Skills, Fear, True Fear and Petrification, and also to Turn Meter REDUCTION, cooldown-increase, HP-exchange and HP-balance effects — so hard CC and TM-cut kits are dead weight here. The Head of DECAY is the one Provoke exception: Provoke doesn't force an attack, it locks Decay out of everything but its A1, which is how you pin Speed of Decay (removes ALL debuffs from ALL heads + fills every head's TM 30%, CD 4) and Rotten Ward. Head playbook: Torment = unavoidable True Fear on any attacker not under Perfect Veil, passive cuts Poison damage 90%, and decapitating it Veils 2 random allies for 2 turns; Mischief = buff/TM steal + 75% chance to redirect your attacks onto another head unless the target is Hexed; Wrath = +1 Vengeance per HIT taken, at 15 hits it gains +300% damage, Block Debuffs and Reflect for a turn then AoE-dumps (never multi-hit spam it); Blight = Poison/Leech, takes DOUBLE HP Burn damage, and its unremovable Poison Cloud blanks YOUR Poison damage; Suffering = unavoidable 25% Weaken (can't be resisted or blocked, only cleansed) + Pain Link (target eats 15% of the damage that head receives), +50 RES to all heads and −30% AoE damage taken, and it too cuts Poison damage 90%. Net: three heads blank or 90%-reduce Poison, so HP BURN is the DoT that works and poison engines are structurally weak. A control-and-sustain marathon: Decay pin + Perfect Veil + AoE Dec ATK + Block Buffs + heavy ACC + HP Burn and steady single-target damage. Realistic target: Normal→Hard now, Brutal as gear deepens.
Team
Gwyndolin the SilentF6★. Leader aura +60 ACC in all battles (beats Ostrox's +40; only one aura is live). A2 AoE 30% Dec SPD + Leech (75%→100% booked, CD 4→3) with 50% Dec ACC on 2+-debuff targets; A3 pre-casts 50% Inc ACC on all allies (CD 4→3 booked) and steals Block Debuffs off the heads — this, not Ostrox, is the team's Increase ACC source. Passive: +1% C.DMG per 10 ACC and an extra turn every 3 skills, so the ACC wall double-pays.5★
GeomancerF6★/a1. A3 Quicksand Grasp lands a 3-turn HP Burn + 25% Weaken (75%→100% booked, CD 5→3): Blight takes DOUBLE burn damage and burns tick through Serpent's Will on a regrown head. A2 removes all buffs from a head and steals them if it's burning — the reactive answer to Wrath's Vengeance buff and Decay's Life Barrier. Stoneguard cuts all ally damage 15% and deflects it onto every burning head, with a 30% chance of an extra 3%-MAX-HP hit. Note: A3's turn-meter depletion is DEAD here — heads are immune to TM reduction.5★
ValkanenV6★. A2 Hex of Blades puts Hex on ALL four heads (80%→100% booked, CD 4→3) — that is the counter to Mischief's 75% attack redirect — and hits each head with single-target damage that grows 10% per debuff on it; his A1 then spreads 2 debuffs from the target onto every Hexed head. Also the roster's top single-target damage for the +200% Exposed-Neck window and the 150–250k digestion-bar rescue, and his ~250% sheet C.DMG deliberately takes the opening Consumption mark — planned rescue, not avoidance. DISABLE A3 ON AUTO: Death's Bargain kills one of your own allies, and its True Fear rider is dead on heads.5★
VogothS6★/a1. A2 Wave of Revulsion AoE Provoke 1 turn (60%→75% booked, CD 4→3): worthless on five heads, decisive on Decay, where it locks out Speed of Decay's mass head-cleanse + 30% TM. Read the skill carefully — his 50% Dec ATK only lands on targets HIS Provoke hit, so on Hydra it reaches Decay alone and is NOT team-wide mitigation. Festering Dynamo heals allies 25% of the damage he takes from boss attacks (not 50% — the 50% figure is the non-boss case). Leech on every attacker, huge HP, near-zero C.DMG so he never steals the mark. Eerie Presence's cooldown-increase rider is dead (heads are immune to cooldown increase).4★
Rector DrathF6★/a1. CORRECTED 2026-09-01 — no longer the ONLY Perfect Veil on the roster: Starsage Galathir's A3 Part The Veil places it on all allies except himself, unconditionally, where Rector's A2 Veils only allies already at FULL HP. Rector keeps the seat (Galathir's A3 is CD 6 and excludes himself, so he cannot attack Torment safely), but the two together Veil the team far more reliably than either alone. Veil remains the only counter to Torment's True Fear (unavoidable, bypasses RES and Block Debuffs). A2 heals all allies 20% of his MAX HP then Veils ONLY the allies at full HP — sub-full allies get a 1-turn 15% Continuous Heal instead, so Veil coverage is a direct function of how topped-off the team is (CD 5→4 booked). Passive heals veiled allies 10% MAX HP on their turn and gives them +50 RES. A3 revives with Perfect Veil (CD 6→4 booked) — but revive cannot return a DIGESTED champion.5★
Aox the RemembererF6★/a1. Takes Ostrox's seat today. Weight of Aeons puts 50% Dec ATK on all four heads for 2 turns (CD 4→3 booked) — no other owned body does this, and against four simultaneous attackers it is the largest damage-reduction lever the roster has. Steward of Time extends 2 random debuffs on any attacker every time he is hit, and the heads attack constantly, so he multiplies Gwyndolin's Dec SPD/Leech and Geomancer's burns. Lore of Restoration heals the team 10% MAX HP + 2.5% per debuff on the target (CD 4→3). The TM-cut half of Weight of Aeons is dead — heads are immune to TM reduction. Promoted out of the Second Key, so key 2 re-anchors on Doompriest.4★Affinity
Heads AND their affinities reshuffle monthly; you can't pick which 4 you face. Affinity only governs hit strength/weak-hit rolls — debuff landing is pure ACC vs head RES (Normal: highest base RES ~140 → ~215 ACC while Suffering's +50 is up; scales per difficulty). This core spans Force/Void/Spirit with no stacked weak-affinity risk. Check the rotation each month: Torment up → Rector's Veil is mandatory and keep the team topped off so the Veil actually lands; Decay up → Vogoth's pin is the priority target for his A2; Blight up → Geomancer feasts (double HP Burn) but every Poison line is blanked; Mischief up → Valkanen's A2 Hex on all four heads is the answer, stay buff-light; Wrath up → hold multi-hit skills (15 hits triggers +300% Vengeance); Suffering up → +50 RES on every head, so re-check the ACC bar and bring a cleanse for the unavoidable Weaken (Doompriest swap).
Levers
- ›ACC first: ~215 for Normal (≈165 base + the 50 RES Suffering adds to every head), rising per difficulty. Gwyndolin's A3 Plumedart is the Increase ACC source (50%, CD 4→3 booked) — do NOT budget around Ostrox's Death Perception, which is 2 turns on a CD-6 (CD-4 fully booked) skill, i.e. 50% uptime at best. Gear the debuffers to the full ~215 and treat Gwyndolin's buff as headroom, not as a discount. Her C.DMG scales off ACC, so she double-dips.
- ›SPD 211+ on everyone — the fastest head is 210 SPD; Hydra is a per-champ speed check, not a TM race (and TM reduction does nothing to heads, so there is no TM race to win). High Khatun swaps in if bodies can't reach it.
- ›Consumption plan: Valkanen eats the opening mark (20-count, −1 per head turn) because he carries the highest sheet C.DMG; the team must burst the digestion bar inside the 5-turn digestion count — and that count shrinks by 1 for every champion eaten, so never field a body you can't rescue. Keep Gwyndolin's SHEET C.DMG a few points under Valkanen's 250%+ — her gear card lands ~265% effective once the ACC passive is counted, which would steal the opening mark from the planned eater.
- ›Playbook discipline: Vogoth's Provoke goes on Decay and only Decay (every other head is Provoke-immune); never hit Torment un-Veiled; burn Blight, never poison it; don't feed Wrath multi-hit spam — 15 hits flips it to +300% Vengeance; cleanse Suffering's Weaken (it cannot be resisted or blocked, only removed — Doompriest or Ostrox). | PERFECT VEIL CORRECTION 2026-09-01: Rector Drath is no longer the only Perfect Veil owned — Galathir's A3 Veils ALL allies except himself, unconditionally, against Rector's full-HP-only condition. Running both is the most reliable anti-Torment coverage available.
- ›Decapitation timing: dump Valkanen's and Gwyndolin's extra turns into the Exposed Neck (+200%, head can't act); the regrown head sits at −75% under Serpent's Will until its turn, so HP Burn and Leech do the chipping there.
- ›Poison is a trap in this content: Blight's Poison Cloud blanks Poison damage outright and Torment's and Suffering's passives each cut it 90%. Build the DoT plan on HP Burn only — that's why Searsha and Crypt-King Graal outrank the poison bodies here regardless of their ratings elsewhere.
- ›Next Hydra investments in queue order (re-derived 2026-08-31): Royal Guard is 6★ BUILT → Crypt-King Graal #12 → Searsha #18 → Umbral #34 → Ostrox #35 (Bad-el-Kazar is already 6★ and comes first of all). Searsha is the one that changes the team: she collapses the burn seat, the Block Buffs seat and a Hex into one body, and her boss HP Burns are PROTECTED, so they survive Speed of Decay's mass cleanse.
- ›Ostrox is now a swap, not a seat. His Block Buffs (75%→100% booked, 3 turns vs 4+ enemies, CD 4→3) is genuinely good and blocks Wrath's Vengeance buff and Decay's Life Barrier — bring him when that matters — but his Increase ACC is duplicated at better uptime by Gwyndolin and his +40 ACC aura loses to hers. His gear card's 40k HP target is a 6★ goal he cannot reach at 4★.
- ›Second Key discipline: three keys a week, each champion usable in exactly ONE of them (18 bodies for a full week). Nobody in the Team Now / Team Ideal union may appear in the Second Key.
- ›KEY DEPTH IS THE REAL WIN FROM THE 2026-08-31 INTAKE. A full week is three keys and each champion may be used in exactly ONE of them — 18 distinct bodies. The intake supplies six more usable ones: Starsage Galathir (HH 9), Artak (10), The Cowardly Lion (9, but see his swap entry — he is a trap against Wrath), Khamir Scald-Eye (8), Dorothy Gale (8), Frolni the Mechanist (7). For a content whose binding constraint is roster WIDTH rather than any single seat, that is worth more than any individual upgrade: the third key stops being scraped together.
Swaps
- Armanz the MagnificentM
CORRECTLY LOW, worth the note (audit 2026-09-01). HH 5/10. All heads are immune to Turn Meter reduction AND cooldown-increase AND Stun — which is his entire kit.
- The Cowardly LionM
A TRAP HERE (audit 2026-09-01) despite HH 9/10. Fear and True Fear are both on the head immunity list. Worse: HIS A3 GIVES THE WHOLE TEAM [COUNTERATTACK], and this record's playbook says 'don't feed Wrath multi-hit spam — 15 hits flips it to +300% Vengeance'. A team-wide Counterattack against four simultaneous heads generates hits faster than anything else owned. Third dungeon where his Counterattack is the disqualifying clause, after Ice Golem and Sand Devil. Suggested rating: 3. He remains usable in a key that does not face Wrath.
- Starsage GalathirF
THE SECOND PERFECT VEIL (added 2026-09-01), and a correction to this record: Rector Drath is no longer the only Perfect Veil owned. Galathir's A3 Part The Veil places it on ALL allies except himself, unconditionally, where Rector's A2 Veils only allies already at full HP — materially more reliable against Torment's True Fear, which is unavoidable and bypasses both RES and Block Debuffs. He does not displace Rector (A3 is CD 6, and excluding himself means he cannot attack Torment safely), but running both is the best anti-Torment coverage available. Fresh HH 9/10 Hydra. 6★.
- ArtakM
THE IDEAL BURN SEAT (audit 2026-09-01), replacing Aox. Fresh HH 10/10 Hydra. This content's DoT plan is HP BURN ONLY — Blight blanks Poison and Torment/Suffering each cut it 90% — and Artak is the only detonator owned: A2 Dogs Of War instantly activates every burn on all four heads before attacking, then lands a 75% AoE 50% Decrease ATK, which is exactly the job the comp loses when Aox leaves. Burns tick through Serpent's Will on a regrown head and Blight takes DOUBLE burn damage. 5★, queue #3. ⚠ Check his sheet C.DMG against Valkanen's before seating — his passive escalates C.DMG up to +50% and the Mark of the Hydra targets the highest.
- Searsha the CharredF
THE build target (queue #18). Forest Fire (CD 3, no attack) removes ALL buffs from all enemies, plants HP Burn on every head and adds Block Buffs — and HP Burns she places on BOSSES are protected, so they survive Speed of Decay's mass cleanse. A3 Blazing Panic adds Hex + 30% Dec SPD + 60% Dec DEF. Her passive heals her 35% and allies 20% of damage taken from burning enemies. Takes Aox's seat in the Ideal comp; 5★ today, and HH's skill text for her is pre-rework — kit facts here are Ayumilove.
- Ostrox BoneglaiveV
AoE Block Buffs at 100% booked for 3 turns vs 4+ enemies on a CD-3 cycle (permanent uptime) plus a cleanse and debuff reflect — bring him specifically when Wrath's Vengeance buff or Decay's Life Barrier is the problem. Demoted from a seat: his 50% Inc ACC is the same buff Gwyndolin casts on a faster cycle, and his +40 ACC aura loses to hers. 4★, queue #35.
- Umbral EnchantressV
The Decay-pin upgrade when Decay is in rotation: AoE Provoke 2 turns (80%→100% booked). Read the drawback first — Undying Evil also puts [Block Cooldown Skills] on HERSELF for 5 turns, unresistable and unremovable, on a 5-turn cooldown, so she can never use her Block Buffs A2 in a steady loop. She is a Provoke bot, not a two-tool body. 4★, queue #34.
- AkemtumV
6★ Hex body — the Mischief redirect counter — and the Second Key's control anchor. Do not expect damage from him here: Hex Blood duplicates POISON damage, and Blight's Poison Cloud blanks Poison outright while Torment's and Suffering's passives each cut it 90%. Valkanen's A2 already Hexes all four heads, which is why Akemtum lost the Ideal seat.
- DoompriestF
6★ and completely bookless — Bolster heals all allies 7.5% and strips one debuff from each of them at the start of every one of her turns. That is the standing answer to Suffering's unavoidable 25% Weaken (it cannot be resisted or blocked, only cleansed), Decay's 100% Heal Reduction and Blight's poison stacks, and every cleanse also helps Rector's Perfect Veil land (it only lands on full-HP allies). Needs no ACC. Now the Second Key anchor.
- Crypt-King GraalM
Queue #12. Elemental Unity re-applies a 3-turn HP Burn to every already-burning head and THAT BURN CANNOT BE RESISTED — ACC-free burn uptime on all four heads — while Death Fires seeds the burns (75%→100% booked, CD 4→3) and his A1 lands 100% Dec ATK into anything burning. The Freeze half is dead (heads are Freeze-immune). Blight takes double burn damage; burns tick through Serpent's Will. 5★.
- Royal GuardM
6★ BUILT. Takedown (CD 4) hits all four heads for 2 ATK + 10% of EACH head's MAX HP — the cleanest multi-head chip on the roster and not Poison, so Blight can't blank it. Caveats: A3 is 4 hits, so hold it vs Wrath (15 hits flips Vengeance), its −25% TM rider is dead on heads, and his 35% ATK aura is Dungeons-only and does not apply in Hydra. 4★. Sources split on him: HH 8/10, Ayumilove 5★.
- Bad-el-KazarF
6★ built. A2 cleanses ALL debuffs from all allies and stacks double Continuous Heal — one button for Suffering's Weaken and Blight's poisons. Discount the poison half of his kit and the Prey Upon damage bonus: three heads blank or 90%-reduce Poison. His A2 buffs are steal-bait in Mischief rotations. HH rates him only 6/10 here against champions.json's 4.
- Lady of IrethS
Cleanse + crit-heal sustain: A2 removes all debuffs and heals 50% of HER max HP (CD 4→3 booked); passive auto-Shields the lowest-HP ally every turn, which also helps Rector's full-HP Veil condition. The alternative sustain line when Torment is out of rotation. 5★.
- TrumborrS
50% Ally Protection on the whole team for 2 turns (CD 6→4 booked) plus a per-cast cleanse of one debuff from every ally — a second sustain line behind Rector for the 65-turn marathon. 4★.
- HotatsuM
The other owned AoE 50% Decrease ATK (CD 4→3 booked) behind Aox, plus 60% Inc DEF + Continuous Heal on all allies and a 25% DEF aura in ALL battles. Queue #22, 4★ — the survivability swap for longer keys.
- Stag KnightS
6★. AoE 60% Dec DEF + 50% Dec ATK in one body on a 3-turn booked cycle — damage amp and mitigation together. Second Key core.
- Suzerain KatonnS
6★ AoE damage with Dec DEF + Weaken, and he strips Shield / Block Damage / Unkillable. Discount his 100% Heal Reduction here — heads barely heal. Second Key core.
- High KhatunS
Speed lead (5★) if bodies can't reach the 211 SPD floor on their own boots. Her ally TM fill still works — only TM REDUCTION is blocked, and only on the heads.
- DjamarsaF
Heal + ally TM fill + full-team revive + cooldown reduction (Hydra 5, HH 9/10). Revive insurance — but note revive answers a DEATH, never a digestion; a digested champion is gone. 4★.
- Woad-PaintedS
AoE debuff-strip + 100% self-heal with the overheal spilling to the team + Reflect — the sustain swap against Blight/Suffering debuff spam. 4★.
- EndaliaM
Budget Decay-pin alternative that doesn't spend a 6★: reactive Provoke plus HP-scaled AoE Dec ATK (CD 5→3 and 75%→100% booked). Remember the Provoke only ever matters against the Head of Decay. 4★.
- He-ManM
Queue #37, 5★/a1. A2 single-target (ignores Stone Skin) is a clean Exposed-Neck / digestion-bar burst tool. Caveats: hold A3 vs Wrath (multi-hit feeds Vengeance) and his self-buffs are Mischief steal-bait.
- SachiF
AoE Dec ACC + 50% team ATK + TM-on-crit + a revive passive — key-3 offensive support. Keep her buffs away from Mischief rotations. 4★.
- Corpulent CadaverS
5★ Rare, self-shield nuker with a natural high-RES build — key-3 filler, not core. His Provoke, like everyone's, only bites on Decay.
- MorrigaineM
6★, but a poor fit for THIS content and rated on her other seats: her AoE TM swing is blocked (heads are TM-reduction immune), her True Fear is blocked (Fear immunity), and heads barely heal, so only her buff-steal lands. Bench her here unless the Second Key needs a body.
- TramariaV
5★ cleanse + team TM fill (CD 5→3 booked). Discount her Stun and Fear entirely — heads are immune to both.
- Rhaia the MournedV
NEW 6★ Legendary — HH 8/10 Hydra. The buff-steal A3 is a clean Mischief answer (it takes rather than blocks) and the A2 pierces Block Damage. Caveats: A3 is 3 hits and A1 is 2, so hold both against Wrath (Vengeance stacks per hit), and her self-buffs are Mischief steal-bait.
- Keberon the UnderflameF
NEW Legendary — HH 8/10 Hydra: HP Burn deals DOUBLE to the Blight head and ticks through Serpent's Will on a regrown head, and his A2 ignoring Unkillable/Shield answers heads hiding behind them. His A3's team 50% Inc ACC pays the Suffering +50 RES surcharge that Ostrox currently covers.
Alternative Comps
Ideal (fully built)
dream teamIf every owned champ were 6★, booked and geared. UPDATED 2026-09-01: Artak takes the seat previously assigned to Searsha the Charred — the two are co-equal and NOT mutually exclusive across three keys.
ARTAK, fresh HH 10/10 Hydra. This content's DoT plan is HP BURN ONLY — Blight's Poison Cloud blanks Poison outright and Torment's and Suffering's passives each cut it 90% — and Artak is a burn engine with the roster's only detonator. A3 Purifyre burns all four heads at 75%; A2 Dogs Of War INSTANTLY ACTIVATES every one of those burns before attacking, four detonations in one press, and lands a 75% AoE 50% DECREASE ATK ON ALL FOUR HEADS — precisely the job the comp loses when Aox comes out, and which this record calls 'the largest damage-reduction lever the roster has'. A1 has a 35% chance to extend every burn by a turn. His passive converts destroyed MAX HP into +50% DMG/C.DMG/DEF and +100 SPD, and Hydra is a per-champion SPD 211+ check the passive helps clear. Burns also tick through Serpent's Will on a regrown head, and Blight takes DOUBLE burn damage. SEARSHA'S CASE IS REAL AND NOT SUPERSEDED: her burns are PROTECTED on bosses so they survive Speed of Decay's mass debuff cleanse, where Artak's are not — though Artak's detonation is itself the counter to that skill (convert queued burn damage into immediate damage BEFORE Decay cleanses) — and she brings an AoE full buff-strip every 3 turns against Mischief that Artak does not. With three keys a week there is room for both. ⚠ CONSUMPTION HAZARD: the Mark of the Hydra goes to the highest SHEET C.DMG champion and the plan designates Valkanen. Artak's passive grants +1% C.DMG per 1% of destroyed MAX HP up to +50%, escalating during the fight — if that pushes him past Valkanen the Mark lands on the wrong body and the digestion-bar plan breaks. Check the sheet before seating him. Same class of hazard as the Chimera Ram bait.
Second Key
second rosterEach champ can fight in only ONE of the 3 weekly keys — this is the key-2 lineup from the remaining bench.
Two forced substitutions against the previous key-2, each replaced by a 6★: Aox is promoted to the main key, so Doompriest (6★, bookless, no ACC needed) becomes the anchor — her Bolster passive heals all allies and strips a debuff from each of them every one of her turns, which is the answer to Suffering's uncleansable-by-RES Weaken and Blight's poisons. Umbral leaves because she was double-seated in the incumbent record (Ideal core AND key 2), which the one-champion-per-key rule forbids; Akemtum takes her control slot and gives key 2 the Hex it otherwise lacks against Mischief. Stag Knight brings Dec DEF + Dec ATK, Katonn the damage and strip, Khatun the SPD/TM tempo, Djamarsa the heals and revive. No Perfect Veil and no Decay pin here — expect Normal, and expect it to go badly into a Torment rotation. Bench flex: Ostrox, Crypt-King Graal, Royal Guard, Bad-el-Kazar, Lady of Ireth, Trumborr, Hotatsu, Woad-Painted, Endalia, Sachi, Tramaria.