woe woe water magic... whoah!

After reading a recent post of copland's suggested that water magic was the ugly cousin who had to sit in the corner of the elements, i thought i defend it, and promote it.

I'm sure we've all had our moments when skills like deep freeze or maelstrom have caused us grief. Both being non elite, i think they make up a great 2 skills to whack in the skill bar of any hydromancer. problem... they both take up 25 energy, so both could be a problem...

Whilst attack is reasonably strong (with elite skills like mind freeze or water trident), I would suggest investing in a balance, with defence being as strong in water as earth (possibly).

Individual armor skills like frigid armor, armor of frost and armor of mist are a real plus. I would include 2 of these in my hydro build (probably) as well as the beautiful ward - ward against harm (and other jag characters?). Ward against harm is arguably the strongest ward in the game, the problem being is that its the only ward hydros have access to. The rest live in geo-town.

So... for a build?
I would go for
armor of frost
armor of mist
ward against harm (elite)
ice spear
maelstrom
deep freeze
water attunement
rez

the only variant i would think about is... adding blurred vision (to add to team defence by blinding foes) and getting rid of one of the armor spells (if you are staying alive really easily) or dropping maelstrom or deep freeze if you have energy probs. I'd probably drop maelstrom and not deep freeze, but... you pays your money you makes your choice...

I'd go for a superior rune of water magic (so... 12 + 3 + 1)
and a minor energy storage (12 + 1)
and if you want to go all out and add 5 radiant insignias (for 8 extra energy)

i currently have something very close to this on my sousuke.