Hydra Guide: The Head of Decay

Since introduced, Hydra Clan Boss has been one of the toughest forms of content added to Raid Shadow Legends. However, with a little understanding and practice, you may find it’s easier than you think. Each head brings a unique challenge to the battle and finding the balance to counteract each of them is the real challenge. Let’s break it down one head at a time. Next up: the Head of Decay.

For the A1, you can resist the Heal Reduction debuff or avoid it with Block Debuffs. You can also remove it later with a cleanser.

After you decapitate the head, it restores 50% of the MAX HP that was decreased and heals all of your champions by 30%. The Max HP reduction is related to the Passive, we’ll get to that later.

The A2 Cleanse is the most important thing to focus on for this head. You want to prevent the head from cleansing (removing all debuffs)  in the first place ideally. This can be done by Provoking this head. None of the other heads can be Provoked. Please note that Provoke in hydra doesn’t work the same way as other areas of the game; it only prevents the other skills (besides the A1) from being used but does not force an attack on the champion that placed the buff. Keeping Provoke up the whole fight is key to success against this head. You can also time your debuffs carefully and let this skill happen then refresh everything afterward. However, keep in mind the A3 afterward you don’t want to happen either, nor the fill of Turn Meter so it’s best to stick to the Provoke strategy. Please keep in mind you have to make sure you are manually targeting this head for all provoking; A.I. will not do this automatically.

To dive deeper into this Provoke strategy, it should be noted that it’s hard for most champions to keep it up the whole time on their own. They can be fast to take multiple turns – Skull Lord is a great example. You can pair them with champs that place Increase SPD buffs and Decrease SPD debuffs to help this. You also can put them in sets like Reflex, Relentless, and Taunting, give them Refresh Accessories, or choose masteries that help with the chance of cooldown refreshes. Also, pairing 2 champs that Provoke can be smart as long as they bring other utility to the fight. Kantra + Husk as insurance is a great example.

The A3 cleanses whichever head has the lowest HP and places Life Barrier on them. This can ruin your plans if you were about to decapitate ahead. It can also make it impossible to get a champion back that has been devoured by the head that gets Life Barrier. If you do not knock down the shield that this creates by the end of the counter, the head will fully heal. This skill can also be prevented from being used by keeping the head provoked.

As for the passive, every time you heal someone on your team, it decreases your Max HP. Too much healing can actually hurt you; so only heal as needed. Luckily, when you decapitate the head, you get half of it back.

This head takes less damage from Poisons, but you can still poison it. You also can use someone like Lydia with Poison Sensitivity to increase the damage poisons will do.

While this head is up, it decreases the damage all hydra heads take from AoE hits. This does not mean avoiding using them entirely. The same goes for Enemy Max HP champions. Even though the damage is limited due to the passive, they still do great damage overall (so use those Royal Guards & Husks anyway)! Lastly, as the skill states, it is immune to many debuffs, turn meter manipulation, etc. so please keep those abilities in mind before you head into your hydra battle.

Skull Lord Var-Gall – His A2 places Provoke for 1 turn on only a 2 turn cooldown so it’s easy to get him to go twice per round and keep it up the whole fight. He’s also a great target for the Head of Mischief and places Decrease ATK as an AoE. His base stats are very high so it makes it easier to get him to higher requirements.

Soulless – He has Provoke on 2 skills which makes it easier to keep it up the whole time so Reflex artifacts and Refresh accessories can also be helpful. He also does great damage, extends debuffs (you can’t extend Provoke though!), and can remove buffs.

Khoronar – He has Provoke as a skill plus an AoE A1. Putting him in a Taunting set is great to help along with his frequent counterattacks to keep the debuff up the whole fight. Also pairing him with an Ally Attack champion is a great combination.

Master Butcher – He’s great to call out for a “budget version” for this job. This rare champion has Provoke on 2 skills so can easily keep it up the whole fight if put in Reflex.

*Other champions to note for keeping this head provoked are: Bivald the Thorn, Warchief, Maulie Tankard, Umbral Enchantress, Kantra and Husk.