Comprehensive study of hydra

[mattguy]

Hi guys!

I was trying to find out more information on hydra through search but unfortunately there's some discrepency between the number of bolts each hydra will spew. Just want to create this thread to record all the information about hydra such as:
1) Casting delay
2) FCR (if needed... there's one thread saying something about FCR affecting hydra... weird with casting delay)
3) Whether fire mastery + hydra are viable in hell (i'm creating an archmage with roughly +10 to skills items). From calculators, it is better to sink points into Fire Mastery rather than synergies until Fire Mastery = 20. Is that true?
4) Max no. of bolts per hydra
5) Any miscellaneous information :)

Thanks a lot! You guys rock!

[RTB]

1) Casting delay
2 seconds.

2) FCR (if needed... there's one thread saying something about FCR affecting hydra... weird with casting delay)
The normal sorc breakpoints.

4) Max no. of bolts per hydra
And another thing on the topic for Hydra is attack speed. Delay between attacks is 15 frames, and the attack animation itself lasts 12 frames. There's only the question left on when the timer on Hydra is started; if it doesn't include the spawn animation, each hydra head can fire 9 shots, and if it's with the spawn animation, it's 8 shots.
Attack speed is actually 11 frames (slight miscalculation back then), and the spawn animation should also be 11 frames. Either way, each Hydra head shoots 9 times then.

5) Any miscellaneous information :)
Without the fire overlay, Hydras look damn cool. :lol:

[mattguy]

2 seconds.


The normal sorc breakpoints.



Attack speed is actually 11 frames (slight miscalculation back then), and the spawn animation should also be 11 frames. Either way, each Hydra head shoots 9 times then.


Without the fire overlay, Hydras look damn cool. :lol:

Cheers RTB :). I didn't realize that sorc's fcr will affect a spell with casting delay. Is there any explanation for it? Is it to improve the amount of bolts per hydra?

What about the synergies? Because of archmage, skill points are scarce :). The weird thing is that synergy is calculated differently for hydra than let's say fireball. Fire mastery will affect hydra more than synergies... I realized that when I use the elemental skill calculator to optimize my skill allocation. According to that, no points should be given for synergies because putting points into fire mastery will increase hydra's damage more. I guess calculating synergy into hydra works differently than fireball or charge bolt. Any1 has an answer to that?

Cheers!

[RTB]

Cheers RTB :). I didn't realize that sorc's fcr will affect a spell with casting delay. Is there any explanation for it? Is it to improve the amount of bolts per hydra?
It will help you cast Hydras faster, which is all it can do. The maximum amount of bolts fired depends on the attack speed and delay between attacks, and that comes out to 9 shots max per head, with no way to improve it.

[quote]What about the synergies? Because of archmage, skill points are scarce :). The weird thing is that synergy is calculated differently for hydra than let's say fireball. Fire mastery will affect hydra more than synergies... I realized that when I use the elemental skill calculator to optimize my skill allocation. According to that, no points should be given for synergies because putting points into fire mastery will increase hydra's damage more. I guess calculating synergy into hydra works differently than fireball or charge bolt. Any1 has an answer to that?
The synergies for Hydra gives a whopping 3% per skill point, which is less than what FM gives. It adds 120% total dmg when maxed, which really isn't all that much compared to FB synergies for example, but when multiplied by 27, the difference is huge. Hydra/FM at 30/30 is 780 - 894 dmg. One synergy at 20 puts that at 1249 - 1430, an increase of 469 - 536, and both synergies maxed makes each bolt do 1717 - 1967 fire dmg. Almost 50k avg dmg per Hydra at maximum. Even though Hydra is a minion (three actually), the bolts fired by it carries +% fire dmg/-% fire resist on equipment. Add Infinity and Hydras are suddenly very damaging.

[mattguy]

[QUOTE=RTB]It will help you cast Hydras faster, which is all it can do. The maximum amount of bolts fired depends on the attack speed and delay between attacks, and that comes out to 9 shots max per head, with no way to improve it.

Whoa... after calculation, max of 9 bolts per head, three hydras per summon, normally average 4 hydras in combat and let's say lvl 20 Hydra, 20 Fire Mastery, 2 to synergies (1 Fireball 1 Firebolt) with +10 to all skills:

653.7 - 748.5 dmg per head = 701.1 dmg average

With the assumptions above, total average dmg
= 701.1 x 9 x 3 x 4
= 75718.8 dmg :eek:

Love hydras even more! I think it would be viable in hell for an archmage! :clap:

[Superhal]

it's the same effectiveness as frozen orb or charged bolt: a small amount of damage hitting many many times does a lot. however, in practice, it seldom works like that. in all the hydra builds i've made, the biggest problem i've had is time. to get the most possible damage out of hydra, you need to have several of them out at once. 3 will take 7 seconds, 4 will take 9-10. i don't know of too many other spells where, when maxxed out, the monsters aren't dead by then. or, they've killed you.

on paper it looks nice, but in reality, it takes a lot of luck to get all the bits of an fo or cb to hit a single monster.

[mattguy]

it's the same effectiveness as frozen orb or charged bolt: a small amount of damage hitting many many times does a lot. however, in practice, it seldom works like that. in all the hydra builds i've made, the biggest problem i've had is time. to get the most possible damage out of hydra, you need to have several of them out at once. 3 will take 7 seconds, 4 will take 9-10. i don't know of too many other spells where, when maxxed out, the monsters aren't dead by then. or, they've killed you.

on paper it looks nice, but in reality, it takes a lot of luck to get all the bits of an fo or cb to hit a single monster.

Hey Superhal,

This is where teleport comes in. And your mercenary of course. Normally, as a sorceress, I teleport a lot... and I mean A LOT. It is to position myself and my merc in a good position while chilling the monster with frozen orb. That will give me more time for hydras to deal their damage. Oh btw... out of topic, my archmage right now is Charge Bolt/Frozen Orb/Hydra. The 'look good on paper' archmage :). I'll post the result later in the archmage post.