need help with my Blizzard/Hydra sorc

[Xanneke`]

need help with my Blizzard/Hydra sorc

hi there,

I was thinking about building an blizzard/hydra sorc but am doubting it it will kill fast enough for MFing.

I was thinking about

- 20 blizzard
- 9 (+8 skills) cold mastery
- 20 glacial spike / ice blast (synergie and primary fast cast spell)
- 10 ice blast / glacial spike (synergie and primary fast cast spell)
- 20 hydra
- 20 fire mastery

this would give my a fast attack glacial or ice blast with 2 timered spells, the thing is.. will it work. Will it be able 2 kill the farious uniques like baal mephi and andariel without loosing to much killing speed 2 an all out meteor sorc for example...

as u can clearly c i havent decided on wich fast cast spell i wanne use and perhaps if i were 2 choose ice blast i should go with 10 points in ice spike instead of glacial for the extra synergie dmg 2 ice blast.

beside the cold problems, im allso havin doubts if the hydra will be usefull enough for a bit fast mfing..

as u can c im really havin doubts if this build will work at all for the purpose that im building it.. if anyone has some xperience or anything else usefull 2 say plz let me know

 

[Thee.Immortal.King[DNT]]

I have a pure cold sorc, and yes ice blast does indeed get the job done. If your filthy rich and can get yourself a 3 cs ammy, 10 chilling gcs (i dont think the hydra would be worth it, but im not sure), cold facets. then yes, you'll kill just fine, im sure! If your like me who just use...
Shako
skullders
war travs
goldwrap
nagel
unqie fcr
tal ammy
occy n lidless/gull n mila
etc etc

this gear will get you to kill, i know that for a fact. Andy doesnt exactly drop like a rock though, it takes about 5 or 6 blizz hits to get her to drop the goods. I have a GREAT story btw...
Ok, so im mfing andy and i tele there, tp, FO all, blizz andy, see tals orb on the ground. Im like "Hmph, tals...not too shabby" i slapped it on and checked out the skill lvls and everything and decided i would trade it. Of course i had been inflicted with poison and was standing there all cocky cause i finally found something decent besides a perfect plague bearer for once. So im standing there saying how much i roxor, and this lil b-tch dude comes up from NOWHERE and smacks me once and i die right there, lose like 100k, a bunch of exp, etc...just goes to show you children...after you grab the items, had for tp....fast....before little dudes come n smack you! >_<!

:xfrosty:

 

[Xanneke`]

lol thnx for the story , we have all been there

for the skills im not sure if want to go all out on cold.. I wanne play the game to if u know what i mean. but mayb ur right and i should leave the hydra route.. I saw an fireball/blizz guide on the forums 2, sounded promising mayb im gone give that a try

 

[Dennis_KoreanGuy]

Blizz sucks if not synergized and maxed enough.

- Dennis

 

[melianor]

Xanneke`, dont let yourself be drawn away form that build. Just keep in mind that you wil do nicely on 1-4p games, will need to group ni 4-8p games and can forget about using this build for PvP. But thats about it.

But i would recommend some different skill distribution since masters and synergies get calculated speratly and masteries benefit form +skills, but synergies not. So it would look alot better like this:

20 Fireball
20 Hydra
1 FM
20 Blizzard
20 Glacial Spike
1 CM

With prerequisites and 1 Warmth, 1 Static Field, 1 Telekinesis and 1 Teleport this will take 90 skillpoints still leaving you 12 extra if you are aiming at lvl90

Meaning you can put all the rest of the points into Firebolt to further synergize Fireball and Hydra, which will give you 4 spells to use:
Spammable: Glacial Spike, Fireball
Timered: Hydra, Blizzard

Combine all those and use Static Field aswell and you will do just fine.

p.s.: for those pvpers responding, keep in mind that this build is PvM only and dmage needed their to be effective is really alot lower. You will not kill as fast, but like Xanneke said he/she wants to PLAY the game too Some people like to take their tiem and enjoy.

 

[cynicalcat1]

i said it once and i'll say it again.hydras are great.i play orb/hydra sorc and casting a hydra around a corner to get those nasty gloams is great.

 

[wangboBW]

Humm this seems like an interesting build, but this really personal opinion. I really feel that two tree sorcs have to rely really bad on frozen orb because of the fact that it allows you to max another tree as well.

 

[Liliel]

Melianor, why'd you choose Glacial Spike over Ice Blast? Not criticising, just curious as I'm trying to decide between the two myself.

 

[melianor]

Melianor, why'd you choose Glacial Spike over Ice Blast? Not criticising, just curious as I'm trying to decide between the two myself.

Main reason is that this way the freeze length of Iceblast will be good enough for Hell, meaning 5 seconds after penalties in Hell. 5 seconds is alot and you use Blizzard in this case for damage anyway.
For short crowd control you can use GS inbetween, when long freeze times are not needed.
Damaging spells are Hydra and Blizzard.

 

[Asmodeous]

I dont like disagreeing with a forum moderator, but, imho, a level 20 hydra with 1 point fm and 20 point fireball, wont cut it in hell. I used to play a tri elementalist with 20 hydra/fm and +12 to all skills and her hydra was weak at best. I am making a new hydress who already has 20/20 hydra/fm + 7 point fireball and level +14 fire skills/+ 17 hydra, no facets yet, for a 1400 approx max hydra (at level 67) which is able to deal with act 1 hell difficulty, but will need to be improved more to cope with end game. Im aiming for a 2.5 kay max hydra for end game.

I really think that hydra needs 50 skill points at the very least(20/20/10 hydra/fm/fb) to be usable at end game.

What kind of other boosts are you expecting to use with your suggested set up? 4 socket armor or shield full of facets? eschuta's/ormus's?

 

[melianor]

I dont like disagreeing with a forum moderator, but, imho, a level 20 hydra with 1 point fm and 20 point fireball, wont cut it in hell. I used to play a tri elementalist with 20 hydra/fm and +12 to all skills and her hydra was weak at best. I am making a new hydress who already has 20/20 hydra/fm + 7 point fireball and level +14 fire skills/+ 17 hydra, no facets yet, for a 1400 approx max hydra (at level 67) which is able to deal with act 1 hell difficulty, but will need to be improved more to cope with end game. Im aiming for a 2.5 kay max hydra for end game.

I really think that hydra needs 50 skill points at the very least(20/20/10 hydra/fm/fb) to be usable at end game.

What kind of other boosts are you expecting to use with your suggested set up? 4 socket armor or shield full of facets? eschuta's/ormus's?

I totally agree that this skill distibution will be rather weak on the fire side.
Thats why i suggested to drop remaining points into Firebolt.
The more balanced Hydra build would divert points away from GS and put them into Firebolt, or even replace Blizzard by Frozen Orb.

Hydra/Orb works very nicely.
20 Firebolt
20 Fireball
20 Hydra
1 FM
20 Frozen Orb
1 CM

Either the Blizzard/Hydra or Hydra/Orb go nicely with Tal's Set, for the added bonuses on the orb (thats like 3xFire Facets and 3x Cold facets) but some of the +skills will be needed to take careoff by 2xSoj and some Skillers.

I dont like disagreeing with a forum moderator, but, ...

P.S.: When i am not posting in the duty of a moderator you can argue with me all you want. It's not like i am failsafe and know everything about sorceresses. Just expressing my personal opinion here and that will certainly not be enforced by my mod-options.

 

[Asmodeous]

P.S.: When i am not posting in the duty of a moderator you can argue with me all you want. It's not like i am failsafe and know everything about sorceresses. Just expressing my personal opinion here and that will certainly not be enforced by my mod-options.

Well, I meant what I said was tongue in cheek! I've been around these boards to know I can give the mods a bit of curry now and then, just ask alterego about me! :howdy:

Back to topic, Im wondering why your recommending a 20/20/20/1 firebolt/fireball/hydra/ fire mastery. the synergies for hydra only grant a 3% damage increase per skill point where as the fire mastery is about 6-7% per skill point. (too lazy to check)
Is there something I don't know, or cant remember about fire mastery and the synergies?
according to a skill planner, 20/20/20/1 fire bolt/ball/hydra/mastery with +10 to skills gives 1031-1181 hydra damage versus 1/20/20/20 fire bolt/ball/hydra/mastery of 1272-1457 damage.

I cant see any reason for using fire bolt versus fireball for pvm.

:scratch:

 

[melianor]

Well, I meant what I said was tongue in cheek! I've been around these boards to know I can give the mods a bit of curry now and then, just ask alterego about me! :howdy:

Back to topic, Im wondering why your recommending a 20/20/20/1 firebolt/fireball/hydra/ fire mastery. the synergies for hydra only grant a 3% damage increase per skill point where as the fire mastery is about 6-7% per skill point. (too lazy to check)
Is there something I don't know, or cant remember about fire mastery and the synergies?
according to a skill planner, 20/20/20/1 fire bolt/ball/hydra/mastery with +10 to skills gives 1031-1181 hydra damage versus 1/20/20/20 fire bolt/ball/hydra/mastery of 1272-1457 damage.

I cant see any reason for using fire bolt versus fireball for pvm.

:scratch:

Synergies are calculated seperatly from masteries. Masteries benefit from +skills, synergies dont. Also with 20 Firebolt your Fireball will be synergized nicely and get upto 4k damage, which is already pretty effective to use, alone and along with Hydra.

Hydra will have a bit lower damage this way, but not by far, since now it gets all its synergies and masteries from +skills.

This is important since masteries are calculated after synergies.

Also 20/20/20/1 compared to 1/20/20/20, Hydra will only loose 200 damage, but with the 20 FM setup your Fireball is simply useless, meaning doing about 2k damage.

So i thought i'd rather have a 4k Fireball and 1.6k Hydra than a 2k Fireball and 1.8k Hydra :thumbsup:
I always try to get the most out the skills i use and also see what i can get with it in the package. With my Hydra/Orb i now have a spammer spell which does nice damage and 2 timered spells. This heightens my total damage output considerably.

 

[Asmodeous]

Oh right, its for a stronger fireball. Good point. I have noticed that my sosers fireball is weak.
Personally, I wasn't too worried about it as I much prefer to use hydra and not use fireball, but what you said is very good advice! :thumbsup:

 

[Liliel]

Main reason is that this way the freeze length of Iceblast will be good enough for Hell, meaning 5 seconds after penalties in Hell. 5 seconds is alot and you use Blizzard in this case for damage anyway.
For short crowd control you can use GS inbetween, when long freeze times are not needed.
Damaging spells are Hydra and Blizzard.

5 seconds? Don't you need to max both Ice Blast and Glacial Spike to get a freeze time like that?

Well, personally I'd think Ice Blast would be better suited for this... The Blizzard isn't a hugely powerful one, so Ice Blast helps compensate with more damage for when FIs are about. *shrugs* Not that I have the experience to really know which is better.

I'm liking the idea of a Hydra/Orb though... I had much the same idea this morning...

 

[melianor]

5 seconds? Don't you need to max both Ice Blast and Glacial Spike to get a freeze time like that?

Well, personally I'd think Ice Blast would be better suited for this... The Blizzard isn't a hugely powerful one, so Ice Blast helps compensate with more damage for when FIs are about. *shrugs* Not that I have the experience to really know which is better.

I'm liking the idea of a Hydra/Orb though... I had much the same idea this morning...

1 Iceblast
20 Glacial Spike
20 Blizzard
1 CM

+12 skills
Iceblast: 16.2 seconds -> Hell: 4 seconds.
Okay i was wrong by 1 second. Still 4 seconds is alot