Hydra/Orb or Hydra/Blizz or what?

[Flayed One]

Hydra/Orb or Hydra/Blizz or what?

Although untill now I was pretty sure i want to go Frozen Orb route, I'm not so sure anymore... :tongue:

I want this build to be able to mf effectively and be quite versatile(like meteorb), but since I have no dedicated meph runner It might be worth it to go blizzard route... which way would you go?
BTW, the builds I was thinking about:


Orb Route:
20 Frozen Orb
1 Cold Mastery
20 Firebolt
20 Fireball
20 Fire Mastery
20 Hydra
1 Teleport
----------
110 points. I have already put 20 points in hydra and 20 points in its synergies. I also have put 6 or 7 points into fire mastery, but in this moment Im not sure... how to go further.. maybe it would be a good idea to put some more points into cold mastery... like 5 or so...

Blizzard route:
20 Blizzard
20 Blizzard's synergy
10 Cold Mastery
20 Hydra
20 Hydra's synergy
10 Fire Mastery
1 Teleport

would that yield me strong enough blizzard to farm meph? or should I just stick to the original idea, and make a blizzard sorceress in the close future?
what would you do?

 

[NacRuno]

Frozen orb is my favarite sorc skill, but i am currently working on a pure blizz sorc and i am beginning to like that skill as well, both are powerful IMO and one doesn't overpower the other (especially since you won't be able to fully snergize blizz) Just choose the one you prefer.

I personally think that hydra doesn't need to be fully snergized, it's base damage per bolt is not much anyways, and a snergy adding only %3 bonus is not much addition.

You can use that 20 points somewhere else,

But my suggestion is only based on calculations, i have not tried hydra based sorc before...

 

[Deaddave]

if you go the blizzard root with 0 +skill you will have a 1.1k blizzard and 600 damage hydra with a 500 damage fire ball(if uded as synergy) to spam.

the orb root gives
a 250 average damage orb and a 749-888 hydra. with fire ball spam damage at 2k.
(i cant give the link of the skill calc im afraid, its not alowed on the forum because it also sells items
just looking at those numbers it seems like the hydra blizz root would be more effective, but then again if you can hit a decent break point with fire ball it might be the way to go. also if you wish to meph run the blizzard root would be the way to go.

i mite also surgest playing with your set ups to give more fire mastry (the damage incrase on it is very useful)

also both builds are missing static feild

 

[Psywire]

I love frozen orb- it's so much fun to use. Unfortunately, it just doesnt do near enough damage to make it worthwhile... on the other hand, my blizzard sorceress owns mephisto & pindleskin in a matter of seconds. Again, there are issues there with cold immune monsters. Hydra sounds like great fun- I think Hydra/blizzard would be great. As long as you have Blizzard as your main 'boss' skill, you should be fine.

Good luck with it- let us know how it turns out.

 

[Flayed One]

thanks guys...
so far undecided which cold skill would fit her better, she made it to act 3 nightmare... works like charm so far... although almost every skill works well till late nightmare...
I'll probably put a point into static field... at the expense of one more point in firebolt:wink3:

 

[Masas]

I'd go with Blizzard/Hydra if I were you. Orb/Hydra just doesn't provide enough damage in a short time in my opinion. It's up to you to decide, as it largely depends on playstyle though.

 

[JoeBruce1]

I started writing a guide for this type of sorc once, but never finished it. Hydra is probably my favorite sorc skill. Neither Hydra nor Orb needs a synergy, so simply max both. Max fire mastery and maybe 10-15 in cold mastery. The catch that makes this build viable is static field. Put in 8-10 base points, and with plus skills you will be able to reduce everything on screen (not lightning immune) to half health in moments. In effect this doubles the killing speed of both your skills. Granted you could use this with any other skill, but Hydra and Orb are quite fun. Basically, high level static field rules.