I hear about hybrid TB's....

Well when you hit the favor button as TB you can select the tab below it on the upper left (with a dagger or similar) to see other items.

TB is the current controversy with everyone posting positives and negatives based on individual play style.  I've decided to start the long process of figuring out what the best hybrid is for my play style.  As a rule, I enjoy the fire circle over the rain of ice.  Check.  I like the frost nova over the fire nova. check.  etc etc.

What this turns into is a flip fest.  Drop the circle of fire, cast a fireball, flip, cast frost nova if needed, flip, cast fireball, recast circle, flip etc.  What bothers me is the pause between the flips and it gets me killed.  In my noob opinion, the hybrid is the ultimate offensive support companion.  You'll get 20 assists and no kills.  If that is your bag, and you like to win as a team, I think the hybrid TB is a great addition.

Finding people who play assassins and still like to be '4th' in kills is a different story.

-AceQ

You're looking too much into this, imo. People rave about dual tree build because they offer the maximum amount of flexibility while having both roles of the TB fulfilled: support (ice) and damage (fire).

If you go all ice, you'll have a great deal of supporting capabilities, and your team will love you. However, since you sacrifice nearly all stopping power of your own, you have effectively forced yourself to always travel with a companion or risk feeding the enemy team with your deaths should you try to fly solo for a prolonged amount of time.

If you go all fire, you present top bursting capabilities up until the very late game, and you can become a hunter of nearly all DG's, regardless of your level of support from your team. However, your lack of support options will make you less effective at producing any kind of synergy with teammates in a situation where you're outclassed(i.e. being able to win a 2v3, or buying enough time for you and your teammates to escape). Furthermore, ability-based builds (which is typically all a pure fire TB can use) pale in the face of late game uber auto attack damage and stupidly high HP pools. If the game drags on, you're in trouble.

So how about a hybrid build? Well, the cons are giving up a degree of the pro's listed above in the respective "pure" builds. The pro is having (to a degree) the best of both worlds. Common builds are frost TB's that include maxed fireball (including the lvl 15 synergy ability) which allows TB's to have a super effective opener (or finisher) while still maintaining crowd control and support abilities. While it's less common to see fire-oriented hybrids (I'm excluding people that max shatter for 1350 fireballs), one such build might include frost nova to offer snare capabilities, as well as a potential getaway skill for yourself and teammates.

As far as equipment is concerned, that depends on how you want your TB to behave and what your team and the opponent's team consists of. Personally, I pick my equipment builds entirely independently of whatever tree route I'm taking. However, if anybody has equipment builds that stand out for a particular tree, feel free to correct me here.

Oh, and to get to the assassin only favor menu, click on the other tab lined up on the left side of your favor item list (same for generals).

I think they made a huge mistake "character wise" with TB.  They could have given him just flame powers (IMO), OR, just cold powers.  This would have given a huge area to create a new DG in the future (Ice Queen or Lava blob for just a couple examples).  And they could have reallly tweaked out his fire powers (fire imp minions manybe, ect).  But TB now has both fire and ice powers, and flipping is impractical and dangerous, so he's not really that great at either

Hybrid is one of those things that sounds good on paper and in theorycraft, but fails in game. Once you take 1v1 out of the picture, the time it takes to switch back and forth mid-battle isn't worth it because by the time you have enough skill points to utilize both forms, your demigod himself can do a significant amount of damage auto-attacking.

I've seen a number of TBs kill other DGs very effectively with ice storm/flip/fireball. That's a great finishing set, if they are running. The only longer ranged one, is Regulus' snipe.

The maxed ice storm does 800 I think, but it also slows them considerably, -40% for a few seconds, long enough to switch and then get the fireball off, for up to 1050 (or 1350, if you've got the combined ability), or 1850 damage, and if you have the ice storm extra, that slows mana and health regeneration, along with their slowed speed. Especially good as a finishing move, in conjunction with another demigod that's chasing them, as it lets your ally catch up to the target.

TB is squishy. Remember this.

In regards to AceQ's comment about assasins and liking to be low on kills: Find any general who likes to be, as well.

good responses guys thanks.  Any high ranked hybrid players want to comment?  Looks like we are getting more solo build lovers here....its getting to look like though that they all work, and none are superior. 

My 2c, thats one of the things Im finding i like about demigod....almost every build *works*, its hard to gimp yourself. 

Rain of ice only slows attack speed, not movement speed. Ice nova has a movement speed debuff attached to it.

Ah, I'm confusing things then, it appears, looking on GameFAQs, that you are correct. Ooops

True fact about generals too I guess. 

Clan based (or similar) Pantheon could change that mindset.  Then again it's always hard to find a support class in any multiplayer game.  Rarely did anyone need another mage in WoW.  Flip to a healing class and the party invites rolled endlessly.

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/346716

The real gem about Hyrbrid TB, is that he always has MORE damage he can deal.  Fireball at max range, then shift to ice for instance, and you have Ice Rain ready if the guy is close, plus ice nova if you need a second to flee.

It isn't about trying to necessarily get it all in one burst, but rather that you have such a long burst duration that the enemy can't easily shrug you off.

As for how to play hybrid TB, make sure you know when to be in which form.  This is the most important thing to learn, since getting caught off guard can be very dangerous.

I've been playing around with the Torch for a few days, and I'm leaning towards a hybrid build.  I usually start off with frost, and clear out the lane with Rain of Ice.  (Hitting a demigod with it is a bonus, but not really the point.)  Then I switch to fire and use Fireball and Nova against demigods and anything else that's still standing.  I tend to spend more time in fire form, so I put some spare points into Fire Aura.  It's pretty effective overall; I clear out creeps instantly, do good damage to other players, and have great mana regen thanks to the frequent form swaps.

My biggest problem may be that I spend too much time switching and casting; I could be doing more damage through auto attacks.

It would be better if you DID use rain of ice to open on DG's actually... keep in mind the attack speed debuff it has, since you are going to have to get at least within TB's auto attack range for fire nova, and it'd be a good idea if whoever decided to start smacking you smacks you slower.

Hybird TB is almost always outdamages one-sided TB.

See, if you sacrifice auras and circle of fire (which is nearly useless againt DG anyway) you can max out anything else to do serious damage.

Im early stage of the game focus on fireball and rain of ice while keep putting points on Deep freeze.

Get fire nova in mid.

When you reach level 10 or higher start working on frost nova as well.

AT level 12 the this burst damage output is just insane.

800 + 1050 + 600 + 350 = 2800

You may say fire one can do more damage, but Fire TB only does more damage only if an opponent is stupid enough to stay inside of circle of fire for full 10 sec.

And notice, the cooldown of abilities of TB is very, very short. This means after you finish the deep freeze and the enemy decides to stay and fight, you go back to fire form and do all of this 2800ish damage again to him without any pause.

See, this is another advantage of hybird over pure-element TBs. With hybird you can get the benefit of short cooldown duration of each abilities, allowing you spam them.

I keep saying that fire TB is not a smart choice because not only it is slightly lack at firepower compared to hybird, it does not have any nice support abilities which ice TB has.

And finally, please stop putting points on circle of fire. Maybe it is good for creeps, but I really do not see any benefits compared to other abilities TB has.

its not so much to total damage output on that Fire Nova->Fireball->Rain of Ice->Deep Freeze combo that makes it any good. it probably takes about 7 seconds to go through the motions of casting all that stuff (two of the spells have cast times, and there's a form switch in the middle). the damage output comes out to about 400 DPS, which is easily achievable by almost any DG. 

what makes it good is that you're not just tossing out that damage but also blasting the hell out of the whole area and applying some debuffs to your primary target. TB's burst damage play clears out anything near him, which is pretty unique. AoE is what Torch excels at.

The risk for changing mode in mid battle are greater than the reward imo. Not worth it.

Too many things could happen while you slowly transform for a full one~two second of vulnerability.

The only reason for dual element I see is to increase fireball damage on that lv15 skill, and nothing else.

Only if you are charging around solo or some such. If you stick with other players, it's pretty easy to trail in behind them and lead in with fireball then switch.

Switching during combat is only a bad idea if you're being attacked and / or are low on health.