Hydra/cold = Best MF sorc. superior to meteorb or bliz/firewall

[harrypotterbaals]

Hydra/Cold = Best MF sorc. superior to meteorb or bliz/firewall

Sections:
1.Introduction
2.The Build
3.Skills
4.Progression
5.Stats
6.Gear
7.Max Block
8.Magic Find Section
9.Corner Trick, Wall Trick and General MF/playing pointers
10.Final Thoughts
11.Thanks

1.Introduction:
I played Diablo a lot before there were synergies. I stopped for years, then picked it back up again. Before making my characters, I knew I would need an mf character. Who better than a sorc? After reading the guides, it seemed like the recommended model was meteorb. I made that sorc, and she was not that great. Using orb was fine for any non-cold immune, but for those I was basically screwed. I could tommy-gun fireballs and pound pots, but that is not practical. And meteor was only practical against meph.

Thus the wheels in my brain started working. Before synergies, I had a hydra sorc that I loved. She could moat trick meph just like a meteor based sorc, but also handle other creeps way better than the meteorb. I remade her in this new version, and instead of going one skill tree, I went cold also. Now, she is my most versatile char.

If you still need more convincing, scroll down to the mf section where I lay it out nice and clear.

This is also my first guide.

2.The Build
This sorc has skills that are not bogged down by spatial inertia. Hydra is like a trap. You are like a trapsin who can tele without enigma and who has a good cold skill. With hydra, you can have four going at the same time. You can box people in. You can cast them all on top of meph, every fire ball hits!

For the supplemental cold skill, bliz is damage against groups and orb is for people who like to run around a lot. I used bliz with my current sorc which does the job, but I go back to orb in a heart beat (from playing the meteorb sorc). It is just a funner skill.

You can play this sorc untwinked(with stuff you find). If you do this, you will probably do around 1k per hydra’s fire bolt and 1k bliz or 250 orb(which sounds low but is enough).

3.Skills
20- Hydra
20- Fire mastery
20- Fireball
1- Warmth

20-Blizzard
Or
20-Orb
1-Cold mastery

1- Teleport

Prereqs

Fire Bolt
Enchant

Ice Bolt
Ice Blast
Glacial Spike
Frost Nova

Telekinesis

That is 90 skill points or 91 if you choose orb. That means you have some choices, because there are still 20 more possible points. I recommend getting shiver armor. The defense bonus is the best of the 3 armors and it freezes the target that hits you, which is fairly nice when you are teleing around durance level 2 and one of those little dudes hits you.

Your best bet for the rest of the points is fire bolt or cold mastery depending. This depends on how often you use your cold skill. If you use it a lot, choose cold mastery. If you mainly do meph/andy runs, then go with fire bolt. If you choose fire bolt, you should consider investing some points into that in your early levels 1-11, until you get fire ball so your char does a little better.

4.Progression: Raise your fire tree until that is complete. Then start the cold tree. Keeping that in mind, get teleport as soon as you can.

5.Stat- Strength for whatever need to get gear. Then get vit. No dex, Maybe energy, but realize you will need to mana pots anyway when you mf. Think of it like this...either spend a little time each run buying mana pots and have higher total life, or lower total life with more total mana. You want more life.

6.Gear-Other than magic find or +1 skills, I look for faster hit recovery (FHR) charms. This is important when you tele around durance 2: when you get hit, you recover faster, thus tele away sooner.

7.Max Block? - no, just get FHR. Then you do not need to waste points into dex. You are not a mellee char, so dont get close to creeps.

8.Magic Find Section (The reason you choose this sorc over meteorb)
Hell Meph:
You tele around durance 2, find the entrance to level 3, and make a tp outside. Don’t be embarrassed to pound mana pots teleling around. My sorc has the one column health pots and the other 3 mana pots. You tele to meph, draw him over to the moat, and tele over. You run away from the moat until he is in the edge of your screen. Now you start casting hydras on him.

The reason this sorc is better than meteorb: All is well mfing until the council is casting hydras on you. Here is meteorb’s and bliz/firewall’s weakness and this sorc’s strength:

Meteorb:. You can meteor the council, but they are running around. You start orbing them, but then you get the dark lords involved, who are cold immune. They move around a lot so it is a pain in the *** trying to kill them. Meteor is not practical because they are moving, and you get yourself killed playing fireball duel. All the while, the council is casting hydras which are hard to escape. You are dead in a matter of seconds.

Bliz/firewall: The council starts casting hydras on you. You respond with bliz, but while avoiding the hydras you get the dark lords get involved. The dark lords are cold immune. Here is the fun part, merc or not. Without a merc, they constantly move out of the firewalls. Annoying. They are attacking you and the council is casting hydras, you are dead. With a merc, lets say you kill the dark lords and the council. Then you go for meph, which is the reason you are there in the first place. You are casting bliz on him across the moat, but your merc wants action also. What does he do, he gets as close as he can to meph. Meph starts pounding him and you try to save him with health pots to no avail. Your merc is dead, you spent a lot of time dealing with this, if you run into the dark lords on another run, you have to rehire him, which he will die by the end of the run anyway because of meph.

For this sorc: The answer is hydra. There are no fire immunes in durance 3.
You get meph to the moat, and unfortunately you rolled the council right at the top of the point. They start casting hydras. You cast hydras back, and move around to avoid the fire bolts. Unlucky scenario, you unfortunately attract the dark lords. You cast hydras near them. That takes care of them in seconds. You finish off the council, then you take care of meph. Worst case scenario, you roll a fire immune unique council member in the point of the map where he will attack when you get meph to the moat. In that scenario, you just use bliz instead of hydra.

Point of story: easier mfing, better items faster, better characters, funner diablo. Now you can make decent char of another class. :-)

9.Corner Trick, Wall Trick, and General MF/playing pointers: When you can mf hell meph. You are going to have to pound pots teleing around durance level 2 until you find level 3. Make tp before you go in. Tele to meph, have him follow you to the moat, tele to the other side, and start dropping hydras on his ***. If you see that the council is at the point of the map where they will attack when you tele over the moat, just use the corner trick. This is a little harder to arrange, but basically where meph spawns there are a ton of corners in the middle of the map. Just have meph chase you up the stairs to a corner, then tele to a point diagonal from the corner. So he wants to go directly to you, but he is in a corner so he cannot. Then cast hydras on him. You will also need to drink a couple mana pots while you cast hydras on him. If you want to MF Hell Baal, this char is good for clean up, ie if you just have to kill baal. Keep a wall of the map between you and baal, and cast hydras beyond the wall. This way you do not die with that blue pointer attack. This is the "wall trick."

On fighting cold and fire immunes, a good strategy is to spam them with telekinesis to keep them in hit recovery lock while your merc finishes them.

10.Final thoughts: For all of you naysayers about this build, just try it. It is mainly an alternative to the classic sorc build for mfing or rushing a char. She may not get double digit k fire or cold damage, but she gets the job done.

11.Thanks: Nightfish. http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=349093 Some of the best guides available.
SnickerSnack for noticing I meant shiver armor instead of chilling armor.

[Scudstorm]

All three of your suggested attacks are timered skills, which will make your killing slower especially against mixed immune packs. I have no doubt the build works well, but hydra is pvm is more of a fun skill than anything else.

I'd advise against unsynergized Blizzard. Even with 1 maxed synergy, it's still on the weak side (Blizzballer build). If people choose Blizz, however, I suggest ignoring Fireball and maxing Glacial Spike instead. Most hydra-related builds don't bother with synergies since the % is pretty low.

No specific gear suggestions? I'd recommend tal set. Works wonders for dual element sorcs. Since your build is all timered, 63% fcr is probably enough. Tal's alone will cover 50%, so with Spirit/Lidless, you're free to use your glove/ring slots for whatever you're lacking. Chancies/Nagels to boost MF through the roof, Frosites/Sojs for crazy mana...

Try Insight on your merc to take care of your mana.

You should try Meteorb with at least 105 FCR. My Meteorb sorc never had any trouble at all except in Baal's throne room (pesky fire immunes Minions of Destruction!), although I'll admit it's the sorc build I like the least. With good/optimal gear, a Meteorb will be more "efficient" than hydra/orb in 90%+ of D2's areas. After all, it's a classic cookie-cutter for a reason :)

[sirpoopsalot]

I agree with Scudstorm that Meteorb generally are more effective (although the hydra build would kick butt for hardcore). And in regards to running Mephisto (which you focused on in the guide) I'd still take a blizzsorc to any dual-tree build.

Not trying to brag, but I've tried virtually all the dual-tree MF sorc builds (literally ~25), so I can give a fairly experienced opinion on "best". I still prefer my FO/Nova sorceress as a more versatile, safe, and overall effective dual-tree MF sorc. I'd put her against any of the more popular dual-tree cookie-cutters, in any area of the game. Although, the differences in speed and effectiveness among the cookie cutters is really pretty insignificant, so personal playstyle preferences are as important as anything.

Although it's not nearly as popular, Frozen Orb is among the very best primary skills. FO can match power & speed reasonably well with Fireball, Blizzard, Lightning/CL, and the other "primary" cookie-cutter mainstays. And you can build FO up to quite strong and still have lots left over for creating a strong backup in Nova or Fireball.

[SeCKSEgai]

Meteororb maintains its popularity for many reasons.

I've played primarily sorcs and sins and while not as many variations as Poop, this is what I can tell you from experience.

The primary strength a sorc have over a trapsin is that you direct where your damage goes. Where traps are more versatile, one cannot guarantee where they will fire. A sorc on the other hand can focus its attacks on a priority target (ie nil). Also, a sorc can make use of -res gear as they are directly using the skill.

So by relying on hydras as a main attack, you lose out on one of the best aspects of a sorc. Don't get me wrong, I think the prospect sounds interesting, but I don't see superiority. Of course, I run a well-geared pure lite sorc with infinity merc, so she can effectively solo baal anyway.

As far as your tactical breakdown, I normally just teleported past the council entirely and went straight for Meph. I never used the moat trick, I didn't like the idea of him possibly casting ranged attacks and really, never needed it. Not using a merc never made much sense to me outside of uberland. For some builds or poorly geared mercs, he'll have a hard time surviving. But really just get him up close so he focuses his attention on merc, and kill him relatively quickly. See if he dropped anything worthwhile, and there you go.

In Durance 3 I have seen fire immune council members if my memory serves me correctly, although it may only be the supers spawning with mod, I can't say for sure.

As far as mfing is concerned, without ideal gear, I'd rather do NM than Hell. There are some nice items that still drop in NM (like hoz, soj, wars) that can get you what you need for Hell running. After a running a pure lite sorc though, I can't ever go back to a dual tree. And I say this with Frozen Orb being one of my favorite skills. It's too bad that their are cold immunes in hell in just about every place I like to hunt.

[harrypotterbaals]

Thanks for your comments, they are much appreciated. Thanks for the more definitive gear selection.

I am definitely writing this from a poorer players perspective, where obtaining runes above gul is a marked achievement. (I recently figured out how to 'get rich': hellforge quest in hell, and trade those runes with other items up for higher runes. I would say my wealth is a ztorch, storch, a jah and ber.) I would love to make an infinity (Ber + Mal + Ber + Ist), it would just take me raising around 8 chars to hell, hell hellforging, and, if lucky, getting some decent higher runes and trading up for the 2 bers and ist.

I do use insight (Ral + Tir + Tal + Sol), a cheap useful runeword. I use this mostly when rushing people. When I mf, I generally mf meph hell, and my merc usually dies fast.

Also, I completely agree about orb, and how it is a good primary skill. It is one of my favorite skills. I also think it only needs 20 skills points and 1 point in cold mastery to do the trick.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[Doppel]

I'm gonna try a hydra/FO sorc with full Tals once.
Currently i have a Blizzard/firewall with full Tals one and she's kicking serious butt everywhere.

Tried Meteorbers before to but she doesn't really suit me.

[SeCKSEgai]

I haven't quite forgotten the trek to building wealth and it still surprises me to think of what I came from to what I use now.

One plan of action one might consider is key running. Since a keyset equals a pul, and 3 keysets go for an hr, it can help one get the gear he or she needs. An added bonus is that while going for those tkeys, the countess may drop hrs herself.

[Scudstorm]

A trick for the countess: never wish what you really wish her to drop.

When I run her for keys and mid runes she only gives me tal's, and when I run her for specific runes (ral tal thul ort amn mostly) she only gives me hel's and keys :crazyeyes:

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

I've never played a hydra-bliz sorc but Hydra-Orb works great. I started hardcore a couple of days ago with a summoner druid and am am about to make a hydra-orb sorc.

You didn't mention fireball, but you'll have a fireball to spam too. With untwinked gear Hydra is a little slower than other builds generally. But with great gear she'll move pretty much just as fast and she is a whole lot safer in many areas.

Have fun with your sorc and thanks for taking the time to make a guide. :)

[harrypotterbaals]

Thank you for the support and comments. I am glad this guide was useful.

[jel]

A trick for the countess: never wish what you really wish her to drop.

When I run her for keys and mid runes she only gives me tal's, and when I run her for specific runes (ral tal thul ort amn mostly) she only gives me hel's and keys :crazyeyes:

Haha that was like when I was younger and would always sit by my bed saying to myself "I wish not to dream of this, I wish not to dream of this" where "this" was a cute girl that I hadn't enough guts to actually talk to in real life, and hey I didn't get my wish, as I dreamt about her, but that was what I really wanted. :D

[LordC]

I recently built one such Hydra/Orb sorc. I got her up to level 72, gave her a full Tal's Set to try out, then effectively gave up on her.

Hydra, on paper, appeared to be an incredibly effective skill. Each Hydra casts 3 bolts/second, and with 5 Hydras out, you effectively get 15 times the listed damage each second, in addition to whatever damage you can squeeze out of your Fireballs and Frozen Orbs during the cool-down time. Additionally, it's very safe to use, and between it and Orb, you basically have two skills that can kill huge numbers of enemies without even seeing them.

In practice, I found Hydra to be incredibly annoying. The Hydra timer conflicts with your Orb timer, so you basically have to choose between using Orb/Fireball spam and Hydra/Fireball spam in any given fight.

While the damage of 5x Hydras looks impressive, it takes 10-freaking-seconds to get all of them all running. I found, in general, that I could cut down any group using Orb+half-synergized Fireball in substantially less time than it would take Hydras to do the same job.

Hydra's auto-targeting was cute in Nightmare; it makes the skill borderline-useless in Hell. Hydras don't care if they're shooting Fire Immunes or not, so for Pit runs and other such areas, I had to just Orb/Fireball everything to make sure my damage got to where it needed to go.

Also, a Meteorb sorceress has either a better-synergized Orb or a better-synergized Fireball than a Hydra sorc. Even with maxed Hydra, I found the lower damage/better game mechanics of those skills to be more useful than the Hydra itself, so I think I'll go with that when I rebuild the character.

Based on my experiences, I can think of 2 uses for Hydra:

1. You want ultimate safety. Hydra can kill non-FI monsters from well off-screen. However, I really think a Trapsin serves this role much better; their traps can be fully operational in under 2 seconds, and they already deal 3 kinds of damage to mixed groups, so immunes are less of a problem for them.

2. You want to focus on boss-killing. In a protracted battle against solely non-FI targets, Hydra works pretty well.

[melianor]

I am not sure if Hydra/Cold is superior to Meteorb, but it certainly is a fun build to play that can dish out some good damage.

If you really want to reach maximum damage. You can balance some points into Firebolt and Fire Mastery, so that your Fireball will be more effective as well! Otherwise this setup looks fine.

Hydra can be played aggressivly with Teleport as well. Jump in, drop your beasts, jump out, cast Orb and fireball inbetween. Basically with Hydra the sorceress plays the fourth hydra with a stronger fireball than her beasts ;)

Stickied since we do not have too many hydra builds present and this guide is quite useful.

[ares]

I have a clvl 83 Hydra/Orb sorc.. I am waiting for clvl 85 before taking on Baal.
My skills are 20 FO, ~6 CM, 19 Fireball (by clvl 85), 20 Hydra, 20 FM and 1 point wonders in the Lightning tree. I do about 1.2k damage from Hydra and 1.5k from fireball.

Hydra really is annoying.. It takes a lot of time to get going, and once you have 4 of them up, you still have to keep on casting them to keep up. I find myself using Orb most of the time, only using Hydra when I notice the monsters early.
But Hydra is really fun.

[Kyrandia]

This is an interesting guide but I think the title needs to be changed to something more 'neutral', since none of the commenters seem to agree on the 'superiority' of this build (except perhaps for HC).

[xNamastex]

I agree with Scudstorm that Meteorb generally are more effective (although the hydra build would kick butt for hardcore). And in regards to running Mephisto (which you focused on in the guide) I'd still take a blizzsorc to any dual-tree build.

Not trying to brag, but I've tried virtually all the dual-tree MF sorc builds (literally ~25), so I can give a fairly experienced opinion on "best". I still prefer my FO/Nova sorceress as a more versatile, safe, and overall effective dual-tree MF sorc. I'd put her against any of the more popular dual-tree cookie-cutters, in any area of the game. Although, the differences in speed and effectiveness among the cookie cutters is really pretty insignificant, so personal playstyle preferences are as important as anything.

Although it's not nearly as popular, Frozen Orb is among the very best primary skills. FO can match power & speed reasonably well with Fireball, Blizzard, Lightning/CL, and the other "primary" cookie-cutter mainstays. And you can build FO up to quite strong and still have lots left over for creating a strong backup in Nova or Fireball.


I love the FO/Nova sorc as well. How close would a CB/FO sorc compare?

[SnickerSnack]

And meteor was only practical against meph.

Meteor is often said to be hard to use. That's not true, but it may be hard to learn to use. Meteor is just fine (and does great damage) if you learn how to use it. (1) target a meteor about halfway between you and the approaching enemy, (2) fireball them and put them into hit recovery as they walk over the target point (3) dead enemies. This is even easier if you use a merc.

You can also teleport to alternating sides of the meteor target point to keep a group in the burn area.

I recommend getting chilling armor. The defense bonus is the best of the 3 armors and it freezes the target that hits you, which is fairly nice when you are teleing around durance level 2 and one of those little dudes hits you.

I think you may mean Shiver Armor. It chillls/freezes enemies at the beginning of the attack animation, making it easy to get away. If you're teleporting with a high fcr (63 may be enough), only cold immunes (or maybe Extra Fast enemies) can hit you.

Meteorb:. You can meteor the council, but they are running around. You start orbing them, but then you get the dark lords involved, who are cold immune. They move around a lot so it is a pain in the *** trying to kill them. Meteor is not practical because they are moving, and you get yourself killed playing fireball duel. All the while, the council is casting hydras which are hard to escape. You are dead in a matter of seconds.

I don't have the trouble you describe. When I played on bnet, I usually mfed in private games (that is, one player), so the merc could generally handle dark lords on his own long enough for me to kill meph. When I mfed in larger games, I got used to teleing on my current location after every two or three meteors to keep him on a leash. In single player, I mf without a merc, so the moat trick is much easier.

I can't find it now, but there's a variation on the corner trick that you describe where you trap meph in a corner and then teleport behind a nearby pillar to trap your merc too. Then you just spam whatever spell to kill meph.

20-Blizzard
Or
20-Orb
1-Cold mastery

Unsynergized FO takes unsynergized Blizz to school and back.

[KillaMike]

Unsynergized FO takes unsynergized Blizz to school and back.

:yes::nod::yes::nod::yes:

[TheDarkSide]

For my last character of this ladder season Im considering making this build. Im worried about the delay on Hydras interferring with Orb though. I like to play an offensive sorc so my personal favorite is the Bliz Baller. That being said this build intrigues me and I want to try it. Im considering using the Blizz / Hydra varient to be different. I realise Orb is better unsynergized but I have a plan ..

:crazyeyes:

Ill max the Fire Skills First.
Fireball - main spammer
Hydra - main Fire damage spell
Fire Mastery - because it must be
Firebolt - all the spare points here

Cold tree- Max Blizzard -main cold damage spell
17 in Cold mastery after skills

1 static , 1 teleport

Going to use an Infinity pole on my merc and Ill have at least + 12 , possibly +14 to all skills. That along with the pole should do sufficient damage in Hell mode to be effective wouldnt it. Im not making this sorc for a specific purpose really , just a fun overall character that I can get to Hell baals alive...

:thumbup:

[harrypotterbaals]

I think you may mean Shiver Armor. It chillls/freezes enemies at the beginning of the attack animation, making it easy to get away.

Yes, that is what I meant. Thank you for noticing that. I changed it in the guide and added you in the thanks.


I don't have the trouble you describe. When I played on bnet, I usually mfed in private games (that is, one player), so the merc could generally handle dark lords on his own long enough for me to kill meph.

My mercs are usually too weak to hold their own because they try to engage meph or some unique.

Unsynergized FO takes unsynergized Blizz to school and back.

I like orb better also for this build, but it depends where you plan to play. There is a discussion of orb vs. blizzard here (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=300733). I think tweety says it best: Thats comparing apples and pears. Blizzard is more powerfull against groups and large targets like act bosses, but it can take a while to kill a single skeleton. FO is more powerfull against single targets.

It all comes down to what you are going to use it for.

In this build, hydra takes care of bosses, so you need cold for creeps.


Based on my experiences, I can think of 2 uses for Hydra:
2. You want to focus on boss-killing. In a protracted battle against solely non-FI targets, Hydra works pretty well.

Definitely this build is good for killing bosses and rushing.

On a side note, it is also good against the ancients when you do not have help... cast 4 hydras, then open the ancients up. Cast a hydra in front of you, then run to it with them in tail.

On fighting cold and fire immunes, a good strategy is to spam them with telekinesis to keep them in hit recovery lock while your merc finishes them.

As always, thank you for the support and comments!

[ares]

I have a FO/Hydra sorc.. 20 points in Hydra/FB/FM. I reach ~1.5k damage.
Hydra is fun (very cool, too) and all, but I end up using FO and fireball when I'm mf'ing, since they're faster.
Hydra is a pain in the a**. You spend 10 seconds setting them up, and even when you have 4 of them, you have to babysit and keep on casting them.

OT: I wish Blizzard will 'fix' Hydra.. like remove the cast timer, and instead just limit it to 4/5 Hydras. That way, you get maximum firepower in an instant without being OP.

[RabidRat]

I haven't quite forgotten the trek to building wealth and it still surprises me to think of what I came from to what I use now.

One plan of action one might consider is key running. Since a keyset equals a pul, and 3 keysets go for an hr, it can help one get the gear he or she needs. An added bonus is that while going for those tkeys, the countess may drop hrs herself.

what's a keyset?

[harrypotterbaals]

what's a keyset?

A keyset is these 3 keys:
Key of Terror from in Hell, The Countess (Act 1, Tower Cellar 5)
Key of Hate from in Hell, The Summoner (Act 2, Arcane Sanctuary)
Key of Destruction in Hell, from Nihlathalk (Act 5, Halls of Vaught)

This guide (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=372426) should help explain it all.

[Ddzang]

I think I will make this sorc as my first character. I'm about to start playing again and I want a MF character first so I can get gear for my other characters later on. Think this would be a good choice?

[Kyrandia]

I'd say there are more efficient MF sorc builds available. Pure Blizzard and Meteorb/Orb-it-aller come to mind.

[Ddzang]

I just want to run Andy and Meph, would a pure Blizz be the best? Or Meteorb?

[Kyrandia]

Both will do fine. Pure Blizzard is probably faster against Meph, althoug Meteorb may be faster against Andy.
However another thing to consider is that there are many cold immune monsters in Hell difficulty. You will have to teleport past them or wait until your merc kills them (which can become quite tedious, especially if your merc has mediocre gear). That's why I prefer dual-element myself.

[Felix]

I'm having fun with a Hydra/Chainlightning build atm, allthough it became quite alot stronger when I made infinity, it's not a bad build.

I went for Max Light mastery, Chainlightning and lightning maxed. Maxed Hydra and am now putting rest into firemastery.

My Hydras still do around 1500 damage as I have stacked +skills everywhere I could, firefacets in Escutchas and Shako, Chains of Honour for armor. I retain +117 fast cast. Whats good about this build is that I can spam chainlightning while Hydra is on cooldown. And use Lightning against bosses alongside Hydra of course.

I find Hydras very good as a second attack especially against nasty ranged mobs.

[DudSpud]

I like orb better also for this build, but it depends where you plan to play. There is a discussion of orb vs. blizzard here (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=300733). I think tweety says it best:
Thats comparing apples and pears. Blizzard is more powerfull against groups and large targets like act bosses, but it can take a while to kill a single skeleton. FO is more powerfull against single targets.
In my experience, Blizzard is easier to use on bosses, but if you learn to stay the right distance away, so that the orb "explodes" on the boss, orb rocks. This is especially true if you are comparing 20 Orb vs. 20 Blizz with no synergies, and in this case Orb is also much better in crowds.

You are likely right when you say that for your build, Orb is probably the better choice, but I would have to test the timer interference between Hydra and Orb (and Blizz for that matter).

In short, if you are only dumping 20 + prereqs in cold, Orb pwns Blizz.
On fighting cold and fire immunes, a good strategy is to spam them with telekinesis to keep them in hit recovery lock while your merc finishes them. Right on. I play SP HC, so it's just me and Waheed, and there is little margin for error. I routinely use TK to help pin dual immunes, and it works like a champ.

As always, thank you for the support and comments!Hey, thanks for posting your intriguing build and being cool with criticism. Oh, and thanks for NOT posting a build that is built around uberleet gear. While we may disagree on some points, you raise some very interesting ideas, and I thank you for that. Believe it or not, my next build is going to be a HydraOrber....

Good luck, TehSpud

[Kaleban]

I started a Hydra/FO sorc a while back, and have to say that many people are downplaying its strengths when comparing to builds like Meteorb, Blizz, Lit and so on. ESPECIALLY in HC, which is all I play.

The tactical advantage of Hydra by itself makes it a great skill, even if they're hitting FI monsters, you know where to start sending FO/GSpikes.

The aformentioned builds may be better in a pure numbers sense, but for the life of me I can't stand Blizzard. Its only good in a very few situations, has a cast timer, and frequently doesn't even hit a thing, which makes its listed damage irrelevant.

Meteor as well has a cast timer, and an "approach" delay, and while not difficult to learn, is still quite useless against mobs that are extra fast in hell.

Lightning is really good everywhere IF you can get your hands on an Infinity, which legit players may have a tough time doing. But a build that requires high end gear IMHO is not really a build, its a substandard character that only works due to overpowered gear.

The beauty of this build, is varied. You have FO, which even unsynergized and with moderate plus skills is still powerful even in Hell. You have Fireball, and with both points in Fire Mastery and later Firebolt, is a decently powerful spamming spell. And you have Hydra, which is useful under so many conditions its rediculous.

Yes, you have two timered spells, but in general, in the late game phase, you'll only be using one or the other based on the situation, just like any other dual element build. Hydra/FB for CI, and FO for FI. Your choice when there are LI.

The build works untwinked or dressed to the nines, which makes it superior to other builds that require high end gear or +20 skills, and things like Torch and Annhilus.

And most importantly, its fun to play a build that is both effective and not your standard cookiecutter. I should mention that I also play hybrid Sins and Zons, and like versatility in all my characters, so I may be biased!

[curby]

This got me interested at first, but now I'm not so sure. To begin with, I've never had the problems with the council that you describe. I can usually sidestep them well enough that they're not an issue (they don't even see me, so their hydras aren't a problem either). I agree that if you only have 30 points to put into cold, put them in Frozen Orb vs Blizzard.

I appreciate the safe nature of this, but as someone said, Sin traps are probably better at playing tower defense, with the added benefit of a Shadow Master and Mind Blast to help control crowds and tank with your merc. The big disadvantage there is the lack of teleport, but if the entire point is safe gameplay (e.g. HC) then you shouldn't blindly teleport anyway.

Ultimately, it turns out that Infinity can break most Lightning Immunes, so I'm not really seeing the benefit of dual tree designs for high end/twinked situations. I can see the benefits for untwinked and safe-playing situations though (but again, a Trapsin might be good/better for that ... you can buy cheap +3 claws from Larzuk). Thanks for the writeup. What gear do you use? You only talk about the charms. =)

[CrimsonBishop]

I am a little curious as to why this thread is stickied. How many other people agree that this is the "best MF sorc"?

I would respectfully disagree with the OP, in my experience this is not a very effective build to MF with. I have been trying this build out in single player, and honestly it is the slowest killing dual element build I have tried. Hydra is one of the skills that I always wanted to like, but it just does not compare with other skills considering how many skill points you need to invest.

It seems that this build was built specifically for Meph, yet there are many other builds that would be superior for that one purpose. A single element build will always be faster for just killing bosses. I have always used the "corner or wall trick" that was described and it makes it easy to avoid the council. Even if you did need to kill the council, there are other builds that could do it faster and easier.

It is an interesting alternative to other dual element builds and uses some different tactics, but don't expect it kill very fast.

[Kyrandia]

I am a little curious as to why this thread is stickied.
Me too. ;)

How many other people agree that this is the "best MF sorc"?
Based on the replies in this thread: very few.

It is an interesting alternative to other dual element builds and uses some different tactics, but don't expect it kill very fast.

My thoughts exactly. And since MFing is about killing stuff as fast as possible (while wearing a decent amount of MF gear), it cannot really be called a MF build.

[DudSpud]

I am a little curious as to why this thread is stickied.It was stickied because the OP brought up an interesting build idea. The ensuing discussion honed the original build idea.

The conclusion of most who posted seems to be that the build is not superior to others, but the whole discussion certainly answered a lot of questions I, and I suspect others, have about the concept.

They stickied a discussion of using Impale in the Amazon subforum, precisely because Impale sucks so bad, everyone should know.

TehSpud

[UberB]

We only need to read the introduction of the OP to get an idea of whether or not his idea is valid.

I played Diablo a lot before there were synergies. I stopped for years, then picked it back up again. Before making my characters, I knew I would need an mf character. Who better than a sorc? After reading the guides, it seemed like the recommended model was meteorb. I made that sorc, and she was not that great. Using orb was fine for any non-cold immune, but for those I was basically screwed. I could tommy-gun fireballs and pound pots, but that is not practical. And meteor was only practical against meph.

It's obvious that he doesn't seem to know that:

1. Orb is a backup, fire is main tree. You can't possibly be screwed for cold immunes unless you messed up on your skill placement. If anything fire immunes should be more of a threat, but orb is still capable of taking them down.
2. Meteor fits in nicely when baal running/killing bosses, just throw one in every 3-4 fireballs
3. Insight exists. Not surprised that you don't know since you didn't play prior to 1.10 did ya?

You can play this sorc untwinked(with stuff you find). If you do this, you will probably do around 1k per hydra’s fire bolt and 1k bliz or 250 orb(which sounds low but is enough).

Ok I hesitate to dismiss your build as "terrible", but those numbers don't come close to any meteorb/blizzballer/CL-orb/any other dual tree build. Without even wearing any gear a Meteorb can easily have 2.5k+ fireball and the same orb damage.

I haven't tried this build. It might be viable in PvM with some good gear (honestly, what isn't?) but the skill selection is very inefficient and certainly isn't the "best MF build".

[curby]

Without even wearing any gear a Meteorb can easily have 2.5k+ fireball and the same orb damage.

Frozen Orb damage is always described as damage per bolt, and I can assure you there's no way you're getting 2.5k per bolt naked.

That said, an unsynergized SL25 Forb (+5 to skills is reasonable for untwinked play) does an average of ~350 per bolt, so the OP's numbers were low.

[sirpoopsalot]

Frozen Orb damage is always described as damage per bolt, and I can assure you there's no way you're getting 2.5k per bolt naked.


I agree that the description of 2500 FO damage is somewhat misleading, but the reality is that result is pretty easy to reach per cast:

350 bolt damage *1.5 for low-investment cold mastery (on rough average) = 525 damage per bolt. If 5 bolts hit at 525 damage, that's 2625 damage.

And those numbers are pretty low in reality - you could easily get more benefit from Cold Mastery or getting more bolts to hit (or obviously more +skills/synergies for FO) and push the effective damage up quite a bit higher.

[UberB]

Frozen Orb damage is always described as damage per bolt, and I can assure you there's no way you're getting 2.5k per bolt naked.

That said, an unsynergized SL25 Forb (+5 to skills is reasonable for untwinked play) does an average of ~350 per bolt, so the OP's numbers were low.

Sorry, I meant to say that a Meteorb could have (without gear) 2.5k Fireball damage (compared to the OP's 1k hydra untwinked) and the same FO damage as the OP (250). So basically Meteorb has a lot more damage on the fire side and still the same damage on the cold side.

[Ghoulz]

The thing I liked about hydra over meteor is that you can just spam a few hydras ahead before moving foward and luring monsters into a fully powered hydra. You have to encounter monsters first before casting meteor and that doesn't always turn out well.

[bullsquid]

my sorc is a cb/orb variant...maybe not the best but surley more fun then fireball

[Kurumi]

I have gear on and I'm still only geting 2.5k fireball. But then, I haven't maxed out Fireball synergies yet. Don't need to though when I'm just running meph.

[WowBargle]

As an old school hardcore player, and without reading every single post, I have to comment that a Frozen Orb/Hydra sorc gives you something that I didn't see explicitly mentioned very often: control.

Being able to send a FO to chill half the screen and being able to do damage with hydra without getting into the fight adds a lot of value to a HC character. IMO using both of these skills add an invaluable amount of control that you don't typically see people talking about (ie Blizz vs FO comparison).

As an aside I will also mention that my personal feelings about Meteor, and to a lesser extent Blizzard, are that they just aren't that fun to play with; I have much more fun aiming Frozen Orb and Hydra is always a blast.

My $0.02

[hubb]

Like some have pointed out this build is decent in hardcore. IMO this is just about the weakest build for anything else. I dislike meteor(b) too, but fireball/orb is a much better alternative than this. Synergised orb can take care of most creeps, and if you can get the immunes to clump around your merc for a couple of seconds fireball will make short work of them. FB/orb might not be very effective if you're dirt-poor, but then you can always start off with a pure blizz sorc.

I can understand why it is stickied but the OPs post should come with a warning to ward off unexperienced players who don't know better. If you've done the mainstream builds go ahead, but this isn't a MF sorc...

[NoisemakerArrow]

I'm gonna try a hydra/FO sorc with full Tals once.

I have that on SP. Her orb is socketed with a +3/-5 fire facet, the Tal parts with topazes. She does really well. If I could find a SOJ and two Bers, she'd do even better.

Keep a Lower Resist wand on switch.

[Chaosmage]

Someone should figure out how to balance the synergies the best way. This would result in a decent fireball. If i remember correctly for Meteorb its 16 fireball 20mastery/meteor.
Hydra is much more complicated and would take a long time to figure out manually.