are hydra sorcs obsolete?

[Angry]

i'm a big fan of hydra, but it seems to me all the sorcs are staying away from fire now...so i was wondering, is there a good enough backup skill out there to make hydra an effective killing tool?

back in the day i just built it w/ orb as 2ndary skill, but i was thinking maybe something silly like static and thunderstorm? i dunno what do you guys think

[txmielnik]

Hydra is a fun skill but it's limited to norm games perhaps some nm, it's really too bad that blizzard didn't make this skill a bit more powerful.

[nickedoff]

What's wrong with hydra?

Is the damage just low?

[ReCo]

thunderstorm is quite pathetic now, needs 40 points invested and it still does not deal enough damage; frozen orb is much better (with a little help of static field) as it only need ~30 points to start going

[Angry]

i think the biggest problem w/ hydra is the high number of fire immunes and the lack of synergies for it. oh well, it was just a thought

[blot]

Damage is way to low same for TS

[setju]

i onlu put one point in hydra n it rocks, in pvp i can kill just by hydras only, cuz the damage listed is each fire bolt shot out by the heads, n they usually shoot 3 ata time, for pvm i only use it to peak corners, still gets the job done though.

[blot]

There in no way that you are able to kill any descent pvp character with one point into hydra.

Espically after 1/6 damage reduction

Unless you are talking about characters under lvl 15.

[Chewtoy]

lets assume you max hydra and its synergies, and fm (no +skills)
each firebolt does 749-888
i think each head can get off 6 shots before it goes away
if each bolt hits (freeze them with glacial spike or something, then cast hydra) it does 13482-15984
and you can have several of them out at the same time
add +5 to all skills (not too difficult) and they do 20988-24426
not bad in my opinion
what if you are very rich and get +20 to your fire skills?
each bolt does 3187-3577, and if all hit it ends up as 57366-64386
quite a bit of damage, no?
compare this damage to meteors
with no +skills, a meteor does 6856-7314 fire damage and 659-720 per second (no inferno synergy)
+5 skills gets you 11353-11961 initial and 956-1026 per second
+20 skills gets you 30333-31518 initial and 2143-2238 per second

in conclusion, hydra does quite a bit of damage if all bolts hit, and all bolts can hit if you slow the target down or if it runs right at the hydra, and also if a merc or your party tanks them

edit: angry you make a nice point with fire immunes, but its the same problem for all other fire sorcs, with the same solution - use a merc or a different spell

another edit: keep in mind that you can get some +% to fire damage equipment as well, adding even more damage

[setju]

There in no way that you are able to kill any descent pvp character with one point into hydra.

Espically after 1/6 damage reduction

Unless you are talking about characters under lvl 15.


25% eschutaslvl 10 fire mast + maxed fire bolt + maxed fire ball + 29 fire skills + 1 point hydra = lvl 30 hydra 2kdamage per shot more than enough to pk most sorcs

[Meosha]

I'm in the process of trying this now, and it seems to hold up until at least the end of NM (haven't tried Hell yet). It's actually very cheap and easy to get 1000+ fire damage per bolt. However, Immunes are a big issue; in Act 4 NM Hell Knights will be an absolute pain. Getting enough damage into Hydra to do serious killing pretty much takes all synergies and quite a few +skills, so you'd have to be dedicated to the Fire tree. A bit of expansion Frozen Orbward might do some good, but that would have to be extremely late-game if you're planning to actually use your hydras for killing.

To make up for immunes a good merc is absolutely necessary, and the only way to go there is Act 2. Might is best in terms of sheer damage, although (since Hydra is a skill that has a bit of casting->attack delay) I've found a Holy Freeze merc to be highly practical.

I just can't see this being effective in PvP. It shares a lot of traits with the ever-popular Lightning Trapsin, but what a lot of people don't know is that hydra hit range is shorter than hydra attack range. It's actually fairly amusing watching hydras spit bolts of fire that burn out before they hit the things they're targeted at.

Of course, in PvM, this isn't an issue; hydra hit range is compounded with cast range to create the longest attack range this side of Bone Spear, and you can cast hydras ahead of you and watch them kill monsters that haven't a hope of reaching you. This is especially good for cleaning out those thrice-damned Black Souls. But in PvP, most sorceresses and necromancers would have a major attack range advantage that would really kill this build as a PvP fighter.

[RoXoR]

i question weather or not %fire dmg works on hydra. Kinda like Sins and %lightning for traps. It lists a bigger dmg, but really doesnt do it for the minion. On another sad note, no mf is applied to hydra ><

[Epsilon Eyez]

Hydra has high potential damage, but is kind of awkward to use. I like it, personally, but it's not up to snuff.

Hydra pretty much died, but all great things die eventually.

[setju]

hydra is a compliment skill

[phool]

lets assume you max hydra and its synergies, and fm (no +skills)
each firebolt does 749-888
i think each head can get off 6 shots before it goes away
if each bolt hits (freeze them with glacial spike or something, then cast hydra) it does 13482-15984
and you can have several of them out at the same time
add +5 to all skills (not too difficult) and they do 20988-24426
not bad in my opinion
what if you are very rich and get +20 to your fire skills?
each bolt does 3187-3577, and if all hit it ends up as 57366-64386
quite a bit of damage, no?
compare this damage to meteors
with no +skills, a meteor does 6856-7314 fire damage and 659-720 per second (no inferno synergy)
+5 skills gets you 11353-11961 initial and 956-1026 per second
+20 skills gets you 30333-31518 initial and 2143-2238 per second

in conclusion, hydra does quite a bit of damage if all bolts hit, and all bolts can hit if you slow the target down or if it runs right at the hydra, and also if a merc or your party tanks them

edit: angry you make a nice point with fire immunes, but its the same problem for all other fire sorcs, with the same solution - use a merc or a different spell

another edit: keep in mind that you can get some +% to fire damage equipment as well, adding even more damage

IMO Absolute nonsense I have to say:rolleyes:

you're comparing 18 hydra bolts to a single meteor? getting 3 hydras up takes a lot longer than getting 1 meteor impact, the cast delay is so bad it's not possible to have more than 5 hydras at once. Waiting while each hydra shoots 6 times..................................:yawn: ................................ and that's before we even mention the damage per second on meteor or the fact that it has a massive blast radius while hydra gets 1 enemy per bolt. In reality you can expect meteor to kill a minimum of 10x or more faster than hydra in most situations. Your math is completely misleading, and my personal lac of enjoyment playing hydra sorcs has in no way influenced my opinion.


On a side note, hydra would be garbage in pvp even if it did as much damage as fireball.

[Meosha]

In any case, it's an off-build, and it takes so many points to synergies that it isn't viable in Hell (I just hit the wall with my attempt). A fun experiment but if you're looking for a prime MF/PvM character, stick to the Meteorb or Chain Lightning.

[setju]

no hydra does do decent mount of damage if you can use it in pvp correctly. it stuns / eats eshield sorcs mana, give you time to aim a fb