Blydra build

[Feonn]

I know, you wonder: What the hack is he talking about?
And I don't mind, because I just came up with the word.
I've always liked the Hydra, and it look so strong and such, but I looked the skill up and the total damage you could do would be about 700 with Fire bolt and Ball maxed, Mastery maxed, Hyrda maxed and a kick-*** gear, which sucks pretty hard. And that brings us to the next point: How often do the fire balls Hydra's spit out hit the enemy?
So I was like, I cast some frost nova's so the enemy slows down and I do some damage aswell, than I saw frost nova maxed only does 100 damage or so. Thus I chose to use Blizzard, but with that, you prolly will only use Blizzard and not the Hydra.
My question is: Is there a viable build with Hydra, coz' I'd really love to make one :D

[melianor]

I know, you wonder: What the hack is he talking about?
And I don't mind, because I just came up with the word.
I've always liked the Hydra, and it look so strong and such, but I looked the skill up and the total damage you could do would be about 700 with Fire bolt and Ball maxed, Mastery maxed, Hyrda maxed and a kick-*** gear, which sucks pretty hard. And that brings us to the next point: How often do the fire balls Hydra's spit out hit the enemy?
So I was like, I cast some frost nova's so the enemy slows down and I do some damage aswell, than I saw frost nova maxed only does 100 damage or so. Thus I chose to use Blizzard, but with that, you prolly will only use Blizzard and not the Hydra.
My question is: Is there a viable build with Hydra, coz' I'd really love to make one :D

More powerful would by Hydra/Orb
20 Firebolt
20 Fireball
20 Hydra
1-x Fire Mastery
20 Frozen Orb
1-x Cold Mastery

In addition to Frozen Orb and Hydra you will get a viable Fireball that you can place inbetween the 2 timered spells. Played one last ladder. Was alot of fun. Might work with Blizzard too, though i don't think it will be powerful enough without synergies compared to unsynergized Frozen Orb.

[samithedood]

perhaps u could use an unsynergized frozen orb with it it will still be damaging the synergy is negligible. then maybe put enough points into cold mastery and get it to lvl.17 with +skills (-100 resistances) or perhaps use a the doom rw with it, it will give -40 to -60 to enemy resists saving u between 8-12 hard points into point distribution also gives +2 skills as well as the holy freeze aura which benefits from point's in CM as well so if u had some +skills gear perfect (i know it is end of ladder but i'm gonna do it anyway)

doom/torch/anni/shako/+2 skills ammy/soj*2/arach/enigma/spirit/ gives u +17 skills ofc this is overkill if u use the doom rw as well this would give u well over
-100 cold resists and would only lose u ~25 point's from ur hydra distribution, and all the +skill gear would apply to ur hydra's as well. it would give u a bvackup skill which is also viable in it's own right. this is ofc more than neone can afford beginning of ladder but there should be some useful info in there for u hopefully.

[jonw]

More powerful would by Hydra/Orb
20 Firebolt
20 Fireball
20 Hydra
1-x Fire Mastery
20 Frozen Orb
1-x Cold Mastery

In addition to Frozen Orb and Hydra you will get a viable Fireball that you can place inbetween the 2 timered spells. Played one last ladder. Was alot of fun. Might work with Blizzard too, though i don't think it will be powerful enough without synergies compared to unsynergized Frozen Orb.

What kind of hydra and fireball damage would you do? The meteor synergy really helps fireball, IIRC.

[ioupainmax]

Don't know about the damages but both firebolt and meteor give the same bonus to fireball +14%, people usually suggest making meteor so you would have a good timered skill but for this build the extra points required is not worth it so firebolt is better. Not to mention that hydra only benefits from fireball and firebolt both +3% per level, and not meteor.

edit: added that firebolt synergises with hydra but meteor doesn't

[stephan]

A 1 point Glacial Spike can also be used to pin non-ci/non-fi targets for Hydra.