Call me crazy, but...Hydra sorc?

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diablo loves donutz

New member
Call me crazy, but...Hydra sorc?

Hi guys.

Well, I'm starting to get a little bored on bnet and rather than make another cookie cutter build to occupy my time, I'm thinking of doing something outrageous. Yes...I want to make a Hydra sorc :azn:

I was thinking the setup could go something like this.

Stats:
Strength-enough to wear gear (Spirit mainly)
Dex-None
Vit-rest in to here
Energy-with the gear, I don't think any will be necessary.

Skills:
20 Hydra
20 Fire Mastery
20 Fire Bolt
20 Fire Ball
1 Tele
1 Frozen armor
0 or 1 Energy shield(I was never a big fan of this, but I was wondering what you guys think of it in this build)
Pre-reqs

Gear:
Helm-Facet'd Shako
Armor-Coh
Weapon-Facet'd Eschutas
Shield-Spirit
Belt-Arachs
Ammy-Maras
Gloves-Magies
Rings-Sojs
Boots-Eth Treks
Charms-Anni, torch, and Fire skillers

Well I was just wondering what you guys though of my setup and to be honest, I would really like to take her into some duel rooms and just have fun.

Thanks for lsitening.

-Donutz
 
Hmmm... I've always wanted to see such a build tricked out to see what it could do. A fully synergized Hydra with +29 to fire skills from equip/charms would yield:

Hydra
Mana cost: 44
Cast Delay: 2 Seconds
Fire damage: 4838 - 5382 (ø5110.5)
Duration: 10 Seconds

Now I think this damage is per fire ball that each Hydra head shoots and each Hydra has 3 heads. You can get no more than 5 Hydras going at any one time due to cast delay/duration. So, each barrage delivered by a full army of Hydras would be (5 Hydras x 3 Heads x 5,110.5 Avg Fire Bolt Dmg = 76,657.

That should be fun... let us know how that goes.
 
How come when I crunch the numbers for hydra I get 4766-5301?

Because there is 3 from eschutas, 2 from coh, 2 from shako, 2 from maras, 2 from spirit, 1 from arach, 2 from sojs, 1 from magies, 1 from anni, 3 from torch, and 9 from skillers plus 1 from cta which would result in +29 to fire skills, correct?
 
A Hydra sorc is certainly Hell viable. Patience is the key with this build. Fully synergised, and with +skills from your gear and skillers, your Hydra will be doing significant damage. Each Hydra will last for 10 seconds, and with a casting delay of 2 seconds, you'll have a total of 5 Hydras present at any time. Considering that each Hydra has 3 heads, and each head will fire a firebolt per 24 frames, that amounts to approximately 30 firebolts per Hydra.

The gear selection looks good, in that you'll have at least 105% FCR, which will help with spamming your secondary attack, the spammable Fireball. Do use it as a back-up when not casting Hydra, as it will be adequately synergised by Firebolt and FM.

I personally would not use ES for your build, as one hard point in TK is too much of a mana drain for my liking. However, one could argue that since you are max vita, and relying on ranged spells to do the damage to enemies, you could get away with ES and the occasional loss of mana from a 1 point ES/TK. That's all fine and good... just be sure to avoid getting hit by multiple lightning bolts from Gloams or burning arrows from Burning Dead Archers.

Don't forget 1 point in Static Field.

Your only problem with PvM is fire immunes. 20 in FO and 1 in CM (+skills will take it close to slvl 17) is an option, but that will be at the expense of perhaps 10 synergy points to Hydra. Alternatively, just tele past all the FIs, or allow the merc to deal with them.

By the way, how did the hammerdin go?

Edit: This thread will give you more information on the mechanics of Hydra (i.e. read SSoG's posts from page 2 onwards).
 
diablo loves donutz said:
How come when I crunch the numbers for hydra I get 4766-5301?

Because there is 3 from eschutas, 2 from coh, 2 from shako, 2 from maras, 2 from spirit, 1 from arach, 2 from sojs, 1 from magies, 1 from anni, 3 from torch, and 9 from skillers plus 1 from cta which would result in +29 to fire skills, correct?
Click to expand...


Picky, picky.. hehe.

I didn't actually count up your skill points.. just used 20 to see what would happen. I updated it though to use 29 now.

:smiley:



 
diablo loves donutz said:
How come when I crunch the numbers for hydra I get 4766-5301?

Because there is 3 from eschutas, 2 from coh, 2 from shako, 2 from maras, 2 from spirit, 1 from arach, 2 from sojs, 1 from magies, 1 from anni, 3 from torch, and 9 from skillers plus 1 from cta which would result in +29 to fire skills, correct?
Click to expand...
I came up with this:
Current Skill Level: 49
Duration: 10 seconds
Hydra Fire Damage: 4838-5382
Mana Cost: 44

Don't forget that your fire facets and Eschuta's +% fire skill damage will further increase Hydra's damage output.



 
Thanks for the help guys, I really do appreciate it.

For PvM I will be using an infinity merc so that should hopefully clear up a lot of issues.

I will definently try to keep you guys updated on her progress.

Oh yea, about the hammerdin Frost, he's going very well and I think I might make a , "How's my hammerdin looking?" thread or something of that nature so you can see his stats, gear, etc.

Btw, with the hydra sorc, this is all for fun. I just want to go into a baal room or a duel room and people to be in awe of her and not that it's any consilation...but gloat to people you beat in duels that they just lost to a hydra sorc lol.
 
this build would be a lot better with a infinity wielding merc for -75 fire resists dont forget, i thoghut bout doing a orb hydra or something, hydra would only be 1300-1500 or so with +13 skills, but with infinity might be ok?
 
Yea my merc setup will be eth infinity cv, eth fort, and eth andys...

Argh I hate this part, have to find a char on acct to delete to make char and need to think of a name...
 
I tried a hydra sorc, but like all single element sorcs she needed babysitting most of the way through hell. And Act 4 was impossible. For PvM, single element is a bad idea.

I know meteorbs are cookie cutter, but their fire damage is going to be greater than a hydra sorc, and they can solo hell.

For PvP, this could be fun. I think most people focus on lite resistance/absorption, so you could do well.
 
Well not to come off as cheap, but I'll probably be getting a grushed and do runs all the way through hell and while altough I might do some pvm with her, I really want to take her into pvp lol.
 
I'm curious as to the max damage of this build.

Replace Shako with some 1337 FCR Sorc skill Circlet with 2 sockets (allowing 2 facets), resists, etc.
Replace the CoH with a Hydra/15% fire Ormus's robes, socketed with another Facet.
Replace Spirit with Monarch w/ 4 Facets.
You're sacrificing a lot, but you also gain quite a bit of damage while retaining the FCR breakpoint.

You'll get:
Current Skill Level: 48
Duration: 10 seconds
Hydra Fire Damage: 4640-5165
Mana Cost: 43
As base.

You'll also get:
75% To Fire Skills
-40% To Enemy Fire Resistance; -125% total with Conviction from Infinity.

Thus:
8942-9805; average 9374 without resists factored in.
Assuming opponent has 75% FR: -125 = -50

You'll average about 14061 per hit; that's without any penalties.

A very respectable number, in my honest opinion.

But the listed equipment would be...well, 'expensive', to say the very least.

And your own resists would be..not so good.

But the damage would be like...'wow.'

You've compelled me to want to make my own Hydra Sorc...I think I'll name here Flying-Oranges or something.
 
MinionOfBoredom said:
Replace the CoH with a Hydra/15% fire Ormus's robes, socketed with another Facet.
Click to expand...
Hydra Ormus does not exist. All skills can appear on Ormus except for the level 30 ones.
 
Wait...I knew that...

I'm not sure what would make more of a difference, +20/-5 Fire Res Mods or the +2 to all skills when it comes to damage...

I guess you can just take a FB one and blast away, lol; you lose FCR if you lose Ormus's...
 
I'm not completely sure about pvm, for a hydra sorc is completely pvp viable. I have dueled a few hydra sorcs before. What they did, is they used hydras as a type of trap, and during the hydra cool down period they spammed either spammed fireballs, or teleported around. It seems like this would work pretty well with either 105 or 200 fcr. If you made her for pvp, I would use the rest of your skills in meteor (to help with fireball damage).

As for pvm, I'm not so sure it would be that good. It has all the problems of a single element type. An idea would be you also maxed lightning in addition to hydra, and took some of the points off of the hydra synergies. Your merc's infinity would help a lot here, because it also has the additional -45 - 55 lightning resist.
 
The -45 to -55 of enemy lightning resist on Infinity will only work for the wielder of the weapon, i.e. if your merc has Infinity equipped, then only the merc benefits from the -enemy lightning resist, which means that your sorc's Lightning will not benefit from Infinity's lowering of enemy lightning resist (since the merc has it equipped, and not the sorc herself).

Donutz did say that he's building this sorc for PvP, and that he will be grushing, in which case maxing Meteor as the last synergy to Fireball is a very good idea. The Hydras and Fireballs spammed at 8 fpc (105% FCR) will mean a lot of players will be busy running and dodging.
 
Really, well that information will help me quite a bit when I rush with my nova sorceress :grin: . I've recently been giving my merc the infinity while I use an insight so that I can make use of its 25 fcr (enabling me to use frostburns instead of mages). But now that I know of the -55 res I'm missing out on...
 
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