Hydra/CL build

[LeaTelamon]

Hydra/CL build

I rolled another meteorb. Frozen Orb is a very good spell, as long there are no cold immunes around that is. Meteor is also good, but completely useless if you don't have a merc that can tank the monsters for you (and chances are he will die soon enough anyway if the pack is large >.<). I have managed to kill cold immunes by dragging them around in circles casting Meteor ahead of me, then making sure they run over the hit point as it comes crashing down. Effective? No, not really although doable given the area you are running around in is big enough. I have also noticed that the fire/cold immune uniques are far more common than lightning/cold or lightning/fire. This is the reason why I wanted to try something different, particularily for the sake of MFing, as I haven't played in a long time and I thus have very poor items (although I was lucky and got a Lidless and Frostburn with my other sorc).

Most monsters that are unique to lightning are also ranged (such as those horrible wisps in Chaos Sanctuary), casting Hydra on them can only be beneficial in terms of survival such as using the corner trick. I have never ever gone Hydra before either, my general impression was that it's a relatively weak spell (or was in 1.09 after several nerfs) but with some proper synergies I suppose it can become rather powerful.

I was thinking something like this:
Charged Bolt 1
Static Field 1
Telekinesis 1
Lightning 1
Teleport 1
Chain Lightning 20
Lightning Mastery 10

Fire Bolt 1
Warmth 1
Enchant 1
Fire Ball 20
Hydra 20
Fire Mastery 10

Frozen Armor 1
Shiver Armor 1
Total: 90 points (Maxing out the remaining masteries with any level up beyond the required 90 points.)

Primary offensive spell will be Hydra, CL against fire immunes and at big non-fire immune packs.

Stat investment will be 250-300 vitality, strength enough to wear decent armor. Dexterity will be generally untouched. Depends on my weapon though, Hexfire isn't that bad with it's huge boost to fire skills and is relatively easy to find. Energy untouched.

Gear focused on +skills, magic find, faster cast rate, life/mana, resistances.

Good, bad, or just plain out wrong?

 

[hubb]

Re: Hydra/CL build

IMO hydra is not really effective... You'll probably end up using fireball most of the time and I don't think unsynergised CL is the way to go.

Rather go for more fireball damage with the orb-it-aller. You'll have a stronger orb, use fireball and not meteor. You still need your merc to tank the cold immunes a bit, but not as long. You just wait for them to clump around your merc, fireball them and then tele away if your merc gets low. Your merc will engage again --> fireball --> tele --> fireball --> etc. This is most effective if you hit 105 fcr though.

The orb/nova sorc seems great too, although I haven't tried it myself.

If you're really poor I'd advise you to get a blizz sorc first and run the bosses for better items, then do a hybrid build so you can mf in more areas.

 

[LeaTelamon]

Re: Hydra/CL build

I just kind of want to try something else than ice, because all my sorcs have been fire/ice. My first one was firewall/FO, but since I saw that meteorb build is rather common I thought I would try it out but didn't find it to my liking. CL seems rather fun and hydra is something very different which I haven't tried.

One hydra should be able to push 1k dps according to the skill builder I used (synergized hydra will do 500+ fireball damage per head), and with 4 hydras up and running, that's still 4k dps which isn't too shoddy. Frozen Orb still requires you to aim properly so it explodes within a huge pack of monsters or inside an act boss, which might not be too easy to time if you move to dodge incoming attacks or they move to get close to you. I've also tried fire ball spec, but I find it too weak even as a spammable spell. I am aware that CL might become a bit weak without lightning as a synergy bonus, but it's that or fire ball. I can't really afford to invest more into another synergy, unless there would be some calculations with synergies vs mastery bonuses (the latter still benefits from +skill though, synergy spells don't), but since I will primarily magic find with this char... I can't rely too much on getting masteries high either.

I regret I didn't go FO/CL, but it turned out I had already spent 1 point in fire bolt when I picked up the other sorc again so I had to just continue down that road.

 

[DH Amazon]

Re: Hydra/CL build

I have done several fire-lightning builds, they work just fine even untwinked.
Hydra's are very good too, if you choose target areas. Pure hydra works too in those areas listed below. Lightning is needed only for killing random bosses that are fire immunes. Or killing those little ones, if you do hell andy too.

That lightning side is kind of weak, but its good enough backup skill, if you run areas where fire immunes are quite rare. Go 20 lightning, 20cl, 10...in mastery.

Hydra kills just fine in hell. Around 500-700 damage is enough if you solo in hell. For full games aim for 1.1k or more. In full games, good merc is more important than high damage. If you have time to put all hydras up, its deadly anyway.

Just don't do act4 or act5 with that char, lots of fire immunes there, and actually no point to go there as best mf areas are in act1 to act3 for this kind of char.


You need merc that can tank well.
1. Poor choice, but good enough
Act3 cold merc is nice if you are totally out of items. He is good helper in target areas (later). He can do just fine even naked, but eventually make Spirit sword, Lore-helmet, Stealth-armor and put lidless-shield. Replace Stealth with Vipermagi if that drops.

2. Little better, she can kill all double immunes you found.
Rogue (cold) with Riphook(nef)-bow. If this bow drops then change rogue merc. Blackhorn's face is good helmet for her. Total 50% slow if you have both of those, then hell Andy, Meph and target areas are very easy.

3. Best choice for hydra sors is
Holy Freeze act2 merc with Reapers Toll. Blackhorn's is nice helmet for him too. Threachery as armor is good choice.

All those items are quite easy to get, but no hurry to upgrade merc, as all those works. 1st one is mainly for solo games, 2nd for 2-4 players games and 3rd can tank in full games just fine.


Target areas in hell: (For hydra sorc)

With merc1 (cold act3 merc) and with very bad items. Mausoleum (tc85 area, so all items can drop here, good place to lvl too, skip last part of nmare and start doing this around lvl 55...). Do Crypt too (tc83?) as its next to mausoleum anyway. No fire immunes, hydra kills nicely there, slow monsters, even slower while using those mercs 1-3.

Far-Oasis, but mainly Maggot Lair, lots of chests (vex and jah and plenty of other goodies dropped from there). You have plenty of time to open those while putting new hydras up. No fire immunes, try to get lighting resist up, both for you and your merc. Other resist can be negative. Maggot lvl3 is tc85 area, lvl1 and lvl2 are lower, put clear path while you try to locate lvl3, always turn right, usually its best route.
That cold merc still works nicely here, he stops first monsters, so you have plenty of time to put all hydras up.

With merc2 (rogue with slow items) you can easily do andy and meph too. And those mausoleum, maggot3 even faster. Do full games with this merc.
Moat trick works with rogue merc and Andy is so slow after she hit her, so those are possible in full games too.

With merc3 (act2, with reapers) you can pretty much do all areas, even hell baal, just avoid iron maiden areas.


With hydra build, merc helps a lot (gives your time to put all hydras up and you can shoot fireballs) but don't use that insight-merc in those areas, zombies/beatles hit hard. Alive merc is better than dead one :crazyeyes:


With those areas you can use lots of mf items, and still kill fast. But try to give your merc as good items as you can. He/she is cornerstone for hydra build. Aim for wizzpike+Spirit+Magefist in weapon switch, so you can tele and locate target areas fast. You don't need much life for hydra sorc, so getting 156str is no problem.

 

[KillaMike]

Re: Hydra/CL build

nice build, but if you want to go light / fire IMO this would be better:

20 lighting ( for single target )
20 CL ( for multiple targets... )
10 LM
1 pt wounders

fire tree:

20 hydra
20 FM
rest in fire ball

lets say you finish your build ~ lvl 90.

your damage without +skills:

lighting: 1.9k
CL: 1.333k 9 hits
hydra: 476 dmg
lvl 5 FB: 131 dmg

in this case your main attack would be Lighting with fire as heavy back up.

starting casting hydras and finishing everything off with CL.

with this, key running should be better then with your suggesting.

 

[LeaTelamon]

Re: Hydra/CL build

Wow! Thanks for the nice input, that's exactly what I wanted to hear! Hm, but you say I should skip hydra synergies then? Wouldn't it become too weak, since I am intending to use CL as a left-click spammer and backup for hydra? Or should I save a bit on fire mastery and try to build it up with +skills instead?

I am not intending to play on ladder, some of those items you listed are ladder only, what would you suggest as replacements?

EDIT
I see KillaMike posted just after me, hm, I could try to max out hydra synergies last. Yes, then lit would be my primary attack spells, I would probably try to max out lightning tree first before fire anyway since it would be so damn painful to do anything before level 30 otherwise.

I'll post again and tell you how it goes

 

[KillaMike]

Re: Hydra/CL build

nothing wrong with synergising hydras.

however, per hard point into FB you only getting 3% extra damage on hydras, when you putting point in FM you getting 7% extra damage, so why lose extra 4% per point spend? :whistling:

 

[LeaTelamon]

Re: Hydra/CL build

nothing wrong with synergising hydras.

however, per hard point into FB you only getting 3% extra damage on hydras, when you putting point in FM you getting 7% extra damage, so why lose extra 4% per point spend? :whistling:

Well, the reasoning I used is that FM isn't effected by synergies and you can basically get those 20 points in FM with +skills and spend other points in synergies instead, although I suppose 30 FM gives more than 20 FB. I didn't do any hard calculating, didn't know hydra gained that much from FM.

 

[Millard]

Re: Hydra/CL build

look, i'm going to tell it to you absolutely strait.

that's a horrible build. absolutely awful. you cannot make hydra + chain lightning work. Abandon the idea.

Even with tweaks to the build that others have suggested, your damage will simply not be high enough with either hydra or chain lightning.

 

[KillaMike]

Re: Hydra/CL build

look, i'm going to tell it to you absolutely strait.

that's a horrible build. absolutely awful. you cannot make hydra + chain lightning work. Abandon the idea.

Even with tweaks to the build that others have suggested, your damage will simply not be high enough with either hydra or chain lightning.

are sort of wrong there.

take gear selection with vipers that i recommended in this thread you ll end up with +13 skills and maxed res, and your damage should be as follows:

hydras: 1.3k
light: 7.3k
CL: 3.6k
and fb got silly damage anyway.

with this damage, you sort of can kill anything in hell, through it ll take tons of time. ( wouldn't recommend heavily fire immune areas through )

 

[Millard]

Re: Hydra/CL build

in any case, forget hydra/CL

For a starting MFer, i'd strongly recommend this build which my fire sorc uses:

STR: Enough for spirit shield
Dext: base
Rest of stat points divided between vita and energy at a 3:2 ratio about.

FIRE SKILLS:

20 firebolt
20 fireball
20 meteor
1 fire mastery
1 warmth
1 in all pre-requisites

LIGHTNING

20 telekinesis *
1 energy shield
1 static field
1 lightning mastery**
1 chain lightning
1 in thunder storm
1 in all pre-requisites to energy shield

COLD SKILLS:
1 point in frozen armor.

LEFTOVER POINTS: Fire mastery

*this improves the efficiency of your energy shield so you only lose .75 mana per damage absorbed taken rather than 2.0
** don't need this point if you use tal's orb, which i'd recommend using for a starting fire sorc MFer. Get the 3 piece set, belt + armor + orb, for the 3 piece MF bonus and the 3 piece -15% fire resist bonus.

This build should give you a solid attack with fireball. You'll have trouble with fire immunes early on but once you get a torch and a good merc you should be able to take them out (slowly) with rank 1 chain lightning. In any case, don't worry about immunes too much just teleport around them. i mean its not like you absolutely need to kill everything, just focus on mobs that are weak against your primary attack ( like andariel and nihlathat, for example). Note that 1-400 damage chain lightning and thunderstorm is plenty strong enough to kill countess for key runs.

Energy shield with max telekinesis will increase your survivability by a massive amount. Its really hard to do nihl runs without energy shield. if you try running nihl without ES, you will die a lot.

 

[LeaTelamon]

Re: Hydra/CL build

look, i'm going to tell it to you absolutely strait.

that's a horrible build. absolutely awful. you cannot make hydra + chain lightning work. Abandon the idea.

Even with tweaks to the build that others have suggested, your damage will simply not be high enough with either hydra or chain lightning.

I have those meteorb sorcs for that high damage builds, remember? This build is supposed to be alternative and fun because I've never been chain lightning nor hydra spec.

This is supposed to be a good survival build where I can safely nuke monsters from afar or around that particular corner without them ever telling that I am there. I never planned to solo hell with this build (well. at least not A4 and A5), but to have fun with it and do some mf'ing while I am at it, because I realized I cannot live without the wonderful spell that is teleport when mf'ing.

I mean, what receives the coolest score level when you join a Baal run, spamming hydras all around you or spamming yet another FO just like any other generic sorc? With 4 hydras up and CL damage, I wouldn't scuff at this. I could easily put out over 5k dps even with crappy gear which is more than enough for the parts I am interested in doing. And I might get some good gear while at it too.

I really can't say I like your build. I find energy shield completely useless and I really don't like it, waste of investment if you ask me, where you could just as well build up some good basic life around the 800 mark (which really just requires about 200 points btw, if you got some good +life modifiers like Duriel's Shell, extremely overlooked armor) and get +mana boosters instead. Saves you a lot of skill points which aren't sacreficed for killing speed. And I already stated I am not playing on ladder, hence, cannot get the Spirit shield, and honestly, I think I might stick with Rhyme. It has mana regen, some basic resistance and mf.

I've been thinking a bit about gear, and I think I'll go with something like this:
Heart of the Oak
Chains of Honor
Rhyme
Chance Gloves or maybe Frostburn depending how my mana is like
Tarnhelm
Mara's Kaleidoscope
Rest I am not sure about, depends if I find something good and how my sorcs looks like.


Also, about Nihlatak... You can just kite away the monsters he spawns. And make sure that you don't stand near a corpse. He's easy if you use some tactics. It's only really his corpse explosion that really hurts. And you know, with my hydra spec, I don't even have to see him to nuke him, just stand near a corner and put up my hydras inside the room. Neat, huh? Your build basically looks like a very poor and ineffective pure build to me; where you sacreficed many points for survival that you might not really need that bad as you think. And you tell me that my CL will be too weak to boot; when you spent 1 measly point as a backup for your pure build.

 

[Millard]

Re: Hydra/CL build

Also, about Nihlatak... You can just kite away the monsters he spawns. And make sure that you don't stand near a corpse. He's easy if you use some tactics. It's only really his corpse explosion that really hurts.

you should be more worried about the claw viper's "poison" attack that does massive physical damage. energy shield helps a lot for surviving that. and also the damned skeleton archers which hit for a ton. in any case, nihl's corpse explosion can be avoided by using nature's peace ring, (which i don't bother using on my fire sorc anymore, she's geared enough that i typically just eat a few corpse explosions)

In any case, i'm not saying you can't kill nihl if you spend enough time on him but I find that MFing is generally more effective when you do it quickly. if it takes you 5 minutes of tinkering his mobs to kill nihl, i could have killed another 3 or 4 bosses in that time. On single player i can one shot nihl easily with a well placed meteor (assuming he isn't fire enchanted) then i clean up the rest of the mobs with fireball.

on my fire sorc I typically tele too and kill nihl in about 45 seconds before every baal run game i join. Takes me about as long to do nihl as it takes the runner to teleport to throne.

 

[LeaTelamon]

Re: Hydra/CL build

Except it's also ineffecient to do him when you can just as well clear out The Pit or any other lower level area within that time with higher chance of better drops. As far as I am concerned, the keys aren't effected by improved MF. None of the sources I've read mention that they are, including Arreat Summit which I think can be considered THE source when it comes to the keys, so one can as well just do a normal run with a properly geared character. Why make things necessarily harder than required to.

And again, using hydra I won't even stand so the skeleton archers or the vipers can hit me with their attacks, and instead of spending 20 points into something that just makes me survive a little more and drains my mana to boot, I can invest those 20 points into more killing power. Of course time is considered when you MF, but then again, you must still spend at least 5-10 min within each game or the server will lock you out anyway. It happened once when I was farming The Countess in nightmare for the runes and I was locked for over one hour. Taken that into account, taking about 10-15 min time for a clear is more than enough to avoid an account ban, which can range anywhere from a couple of minutes to over 24 hours. I really don't see the point doing Baal AND MF in the same game too; that's also highly inefficient. Either you MF or you focus on leveling, because doing both means you will spend more time in each game than needed where you could've just created a new game.

But derailing. This wasn't really about playstyles, it was about my build. My sorc is currently level 16 and I am slowly building up the lightning tree. It's very fun when she manages to one-shot things but oh so mana-draining. Can't wait until I get chain lightning.

 

[LeaTelamon]

Re: Hydra/CL build

I was lucky and got BOTH Ormus' and Vipermagi's from a mule. Whichever would be better? Ormus seems to have more damage but lacks in terms of defense (no resistances) and you loose out +skills from Vipermagi. I did some more lvling of my sorc and she's 25 now, so not that far off being able to use Vipermagi. I might stick a ptopaz in it (I got so many Larzuk rewards now I can probably socket a whole gear set if I wanted), but I could also try to trade off Ormus' at least for something I could really use.

Questions, questions

I doublechecked my Ormus, it gives +skills to Inferno, not rather useful to me (do inferno sorcs even exist out there...?, would be kind of fun using it frying up melee in PvP though), does it have any trade value? Still, the +damage bonuses aren't too shoddy either.

 

[DH Amazon]

Re: Hydra/CL build

I was lucky and got BOTH Ormus' and Vipermagi's from a mule. Whichever would be better? Ormus seems to have more damage but lacks in terms of defense (no resistances) and you loose out +skills from Vipermagi. I did some more lvling of my sorc and she's 25 now, so not that far off being able to use Vipermagi. I might stick a ptopaz in it (I got so many Larzuk rewards now I can probably socket a whole gear set if I wanted), but I could also try to trade off Ormus' at least for something I could really use.

Questions, questions

I doublechecked my Ormus, it gives +skills to Inferno, not rather useful to me (do inferno sorcs even exist out there...?, would be kind of fun using it frying up melee in PvP though), does it have any trade value? Still, the +damage bonuses aren't too shoddy either.

Started today my hydra-cl too, she is now lvl24. I plan to use vipermagi. 120fcr is only option for me and that 30fcr helps a lot. About 7 ormus dropped so far in this ladder, never like that armor, lack of resist is huge problem.

Inferno is bad, in pvp, inferno sorc is only good against other inferno sorc :crazyeyes:

 

[LeaTelamon]

Re: Hydra/CL build

Aha, so my weird experimentations actually inspire others! I also think I'll stick with Vipermagi, it seems like a waste of Ormus when it has +Inferno, +damage mods or not, until I can get my hands on Chains of Honor at least. Finally some use for those silly dol runes that I find like no tomorrow, and don't get me started on thul...

My CL/hydra sorc is weird. Not only does she find uniques and rares more often than my other characters without a single modifier to +mf (since I already got a few high levels chars to do that anyway) but runes just drop about everywhere. I am not sure if this matters because I've been doing A3 since it has TONS of those silly critters. I have to say that breezing through A3 has never been as fun as when having CL. Meteor, blizzard or thunderstorm don't even get close hands down. It's just so effortless. It's like the amazon's strafe but much more powerful.

Anyway, I thought it was awesomely cool to find Manald Heal as level 22ish when doing A3.

 

[DH Amazon]

Re: Hydra/CL build

Aha, so my weird experimentations actually inspire others!

Yes, but this is not weird build fo me. I have done hydra-CL sorc earlier too, but not this ladder. Those are quite strong in hell, soloing 4-players throne/baal was no problem back then. Now I have much better items, so soloing full game throne/baal shouldn't be problem.

Sorc now lvl31 (600 life, 600mana), 1.2k lightning and hydra does just 90 damage. Those are enough to start nmare. Using act3 cold merc at the moment.

 

[LeaTelamon]

Re: Hydra/CL build

Yes, but this is not weird build fo me. I have done hydra-CL sorc earlier too, but not this ladder. Those are quite strong in hell, soloing 4-players throne/baal was no problem back then. Now I have much better items, so soloing full game throne/baal shouldn't be problem.

Sorc now lvl31 (600 life, 600mana), 1.2k lightning and hydra does just 90 damage. Those are enough to start nmare. Using act3 cold merc at the moment.

Aha. Looks like I've got some catching up to do. My sorc is pretty untwinked, I got Staff of Lazarus because a friendly zon gave it to me and Lore helm plus that Manald Heal ring I found and that's pretty much it. Got my sorc to 27, merc finally high level for A4. Dead tired though, need a nap. I'll post about my progress a bit later. I am using normal A2 def merc, doesn't the hell one have a 40 health penalty? I tried to get the nightmare one before, but he refused to gain more health even as he leveled which was a pain in the butt too, as he kept dying. I gave up and got a normal def one. Getting A2 def when I get to level 30 though and can bother to try make someone rush my ancients.

Also fun to hear that the build is more viable than I thought. Yes, I understand I weren't going to see any great numbers here as opposed to say a pure elemental build, but performing better than expected is always a plus

 

[DH Amazon]

Re: Hydra/CL build

Aha. Looks like I've got some catching up to do. My sorc is pretty untwinked, I got Staff of Lazarus because a friendly zon gave it to me and Lore helm plus that Manald Heal ring I found and that's pretty much it. Got my sorc to 27, merc finally high level for A4. Dead tired though, need a nap. I'll post about my progress a bit later. I am using normal A2 def merc, doesn't the hell one have a 40 health penalty? I tried to get the nightmare one before, but he refused to gain more health even as he leveled which was a pain in the butt too, as he kept dying. I gave up and got a normal def one. Getting A2 def when I get to level 30 though and can bother to try make someone rush my ancients.

Also fun to hear that the build is more viable than I thought. Yes, I understand I weren't going to see any great numbers here as opposed to say a pure elemental build, but performing better than expected is always a plus

Those act2 nmare merc have very low life if you try to hire them very early.

Build goes strong ahead, I am still using act3 cold merc. Same merc from 27 to 65, he rarely dies, maybe 2-3 times so far. I skip rogue merc this time and change to holy freeze Reaper's Toll merc around lvl 76.
Mine is lvl65 now, hydra maxed (lvl35 after items), CL maxed (30 after items), L maxed (30 after items) and 1-point in Fmastery and 1-point in Lmastery.

Try to make stealth (tal-eth) when you start nmare, fast running speed and hydras works nicely. Make hydra for each 2 seconds while running ahead, then run back a little when you found monsters. That way you have 3 hydras up right a way against monsters.