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Build Guide

This is a variation of the Vyrs Archon build that focuses on fire damage rather than the more commonly seen lightning. It provides high burst damage with enhanced survivablity through the use of Unity. It drops Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac in favor of Unity and instead stacks cooldown reduction in every available slot along with Gogok of Swiftness. It is thus a bit harder to gear for than the lightning build but as a result has a higher GR ceiling (IMHO) due to its higher damage output and toughness.

When out of Archon you use Spectral Blade: FlameBlades to stack your fire damage as well as to build up Arcane Dynamo stacks to buff your Hydras. You can easily get 100 flameblade stacks during the roughly 10 seconds of archon down time and can easily double that in high density (the highest I've noticed was 322 stacks but I'm sure you could get higher). You will also be building up your Chantodos stacks while you do this.

Archon stacks and the attack speed they provide allow you to reach hydra breakpoints that were previously impossible to reach when playing solo and some (5.00 aps) were just impossible, period. Buffed by Arcane Dynamo and bonus fire damage from flameblades they'll do the bulk of your damage. With the recent buffs to area damage and the fact that hydras (pets in general) can now proc area damage, stacking area damage on your gear should yield even higher damage output.

Generally you want to make sure you have 2 Arcane Dynamo (henceforth referred to as AD) buffed Hydras out before you activate your next Archon. With 2 AD-buffed Hydras out and your Flameblade stacks as well as your Swami stacks from your previous archon (which incidentally will also last 10 seconds) you will be insanely powerful for the first half of your Archon which is when the extra power is most useful - I've seen 30+ billion Chantodo crits while in this state (with a little help from Stricken and Convention of Elements). Your hydras, of course, will be doing even more damage than Chantodos and you'll want to kite enemies back to your hydras if you have to move away for whatever reason. Even when not in range of the hydras you'll still be doing enhanced damage due to your flameblade stacks. During the second half of your archon when your Swami and FlameBlade stacks fall off you often would have gained so many stacks (both from hits and from killing trash) by then that you would be able to maintain your high damage.

It is important to get the required CDR for this build to function however. At max CDR on gear plus Gogok you have 70.78% CDR, reducing your Archon downtime to 9.42 seconds - just enough time to stack Chantodos, build your flame blade stacks and put out your AD buffed hydras. Less CDR means less Swami overlap and thus less damage and toughness. Until you get better gear, you'd probably better off playing the lightning build with the Obsidian ring.

For Hellfire amulets, recommended passives are Blur, Illusionist or Conflagration in addition to those listed above.

Of the skills above, only Frost Nova is really optional. If you find yourself having survivability problems you could drop it for Slow Time: Exhaustion in which case you could also change your Teleport rune to Fracture for more slow time bubbles when out of archon.

I was able to clear GR 64 with this build in under 12 mins with 3:36 min remaining and then cleared GR65 with 2:39 remaining. I've since cleared 66 with 3:22 remaining and I am pushing for 67.

Here is a d3planner model depicting several variations of the build with optimally rolled gear. It includes preconfigured simulations so you can compare the relative damage output of the different build variations in various situations.

The build is quite fun and makes full use of the stat boosts that Archon stacks provide (especially the attack speed). You are powerful both in and out of archon (sometimes more powerful out of Archon when hydras are out) with this build which is an advantage over the lighning build where you do little to no damage out of archon. It has really good AOE damage due to the hydras and the AOE nature of archon in general, however it has really good single target damage too. The hydra are both able to focus on a single target and while you may gain less flame blade stacks on average, having the double hydra more than makes up for it. For example, in my 65 clear, I killed Cold Snap in under a minute (though I was lucky in that I came to the fight with a lot of archon stacks and I had some really well-timed COE fire proccs).

Like all archon builds though, the prime directive is "Don't Die!". Dying is extremely had to come back from.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.