Hydrosorb Damage / Mathematics / Advice

phantomotap wrote: 1 year ago

A question about sunder charms: what is the most effective solution for lowered resistance? As of this time, I would have a whopping ten points of fire resistance which just isn't enough for me. I'm guessing small charms--and fire focused at that--since only grand charms can be skill enhancing!?

If you use a Flickering Flame, it provides the

Resist Fire aura (level 4-8), which should cover the -res from the Sunder charm It's a match made in heaven for a fire based build

- Swap mainly serves to get sopmething different than your main weapon / shield. HotO and Oculus are both great but doing the same job.

- 36+ was just to give a range idea, no need to get exactly to that. And indeed CoH will also help a lot to get extra STR - more STR on gear and charms, more VIT.

Good luck !

Hey folks, I'm back with more questions related to my

Hydra Sorceress builds.

Is

Andariel a good place to farm for the

Lo rune? I can't farm much of Hell as my ssf

Hydra Sorceress is still way too squishy, and I know from experience farming for just one thing is kind of idiotic, and

Andariel just happens to drop a few other things I want.

Is Fortitude as valuable to me--rather to Mizan my Desert Mercenary--as has been suggested? It looks really nice, but I still don't really know what I'm doing.

What Fortitude base for a level 65 or so Desert Mercenary? The enhanced defense makes it look really appealing on higher defense stuff which carries higher requirements usually, but I don't want either to have to farm a ton of levels.

Can anyone post an explanation of how to handle a support role as a Sorceress so my Desert Mercenary can handle Hell Ancients as has been suggested in this thread? I'm basically terrified of Hell Ancients; I know I'm going to get at least one Ancient that's immune to fire for hours, and I'm not sure my Sorceress can handle more than a few hits.

Hey!

Fortitude for sorc is pointless, it's mainly for physical damage. Try to get CoH instead.

Fortitude for a2 merc on the contrary is best is slot in an

Eth elite armor (basically any would work if wearable - check STR!) , the higher the defense the better but a

Sacred Armor or an

Archon Plate will be much more expensive while a good hauberk or

Scarab Husk roll can almost beat them (but do remember that the x3 def of Forti does not apply on Sup mod). See with your budget.

What weapon does he have ? If you're still at hell ancients I'd bet on Insight. Be sure to have it on an

Eth elite polearm - to fight fire immunes he is your best friend.

And get tons of full rejuvs for you and him (incl on the floor of

Arreat Summit for quick refill)... and do not strike TP by mistake and be quick to use whatever on psn is used to give pot to merc. Run and cast to kill non immunes quick. Good luck !

Necrarch wrote: 1 year ago

Try to get CoH instead.

>_<

I am... self-found is really hard.

Necrarch wrote: 1 year ago

a good hauberk or

Scarab Husk roll can almost beat them

Okay. I got you.

Necrarch wrote: 1 year ago

What weapon does he have ?

Obedience.

Necrarch wrote: 1 year ago

incl on the floor of

Arreat Summit for quick refill

Ooohhh. That's some really good advice. I get to kind of prepare the room to my advantage a little; I like that a lot.

Ah forgot the SSF factor. Do you have a Vipermagi ? Before CoH that's a good option. Else, Stoke can work too.

Obedience is solid indeed, what is the base ?

Eth elite helps a lot.

Check videos on hell ancients and if you fail too hard level up more- and don't be ashamed to tp and come back to redraw immunities or to level up more

phantomotap wrote: 1 year ago

Can anyone post an explanation of how to handle a support role as a Sorceress so my Desert Mercenary can handle Hell Ancients as has been suggested in this thread? I'm basically terrified of Hell Ancients; I know I'm going to get at least one Ancient that's immune to fire for hours, and I'm not sure my Sorceress can handle more than a few hits.

Heya! So, I've never leveled a hydrosorb, but I do feel like I have some general tips, being a longtime SSF and impatient player who hates farming before killing Hell

Baal. So, I'll give some advice from the perspective of SSF facing Hell Ancients relatively early in the playthrough with little to no farming prior:

Of the Hell Ancients,

Talic is ALWAYS going to be Fire Immune in Hell, just like

Korlic will always be Cold Immune and

Madawc is lightning. Prepare for that, because no number of rerolls will take that away from

Talic. However, if

Talic ever rolls something like physical immune (Stone skin), just reset. Your merc will not be able to kill him.



1.

Teleport saves lives. Anytime more than 2 ancients get on your merc,

Teleport away. His life is essential. This will make the fight drag out, but at the end of the day, you need your merc alive to deal with the 3rd guy you can't kill (

Talic in this case) and your merc WILL die if all 3 ancients jump on his head. Try to position yourself so that

Madawc is on the other side of a pillar just to stop him throwing at your merc quite so much. Since

Madawc's only guaranteed immunity is Lightning, you can bait him into standing in

Hydra's pretty easy. Using positioning and pillars can also stop your sorc from getting hit as much. A sample strategy would be to fight along the edges of the map,

Teleport to the very Edge to drop your merc there, drop hydras, and then run behind something to stay out of the fire yourself.



2. Drop Potions everywhere. Having enough potions is essential to beating ancients in low gear situations, both for keeping yourself alive and your merc. Your

Belt won't be enough, and putting potions in your inventory can limit you on bringing charms or may be hard to access without getting stabbed. It's also harder to give them to your merc from your inventory without going through the

Belt, in which time merc may die. So, drop piles of potions in different areas along the Edge of the arena. Then, if you start running low,

Teleport to the side opposite you on the map and scoop a bunch up while the ancients are pathing over to you. This tactic can also fit with #1 and has a chance of spreading the ancients out, making for short intervals of a 2v1 fight instead of 2v3. If your merc is using Insight to help your mana, focus mostly on dropping healing potions and rejuvenation potions, as if he dies and you lose Insight before

Talic is dead, the fight's a wipe anyway.



3. Use

Static Field.

Static Field, if you don't already know, massively reduces the life of enemies by a percentage each time you cast it. It does have diminishing returns in all cases, especially on hell, and you can't really kill anyone with it, but you can easily get any ancients susceptible to lightning damage (so, not

Madawc) to 50% health in the first couple seconds of the fight. This makes it much easier in general to land a kill, but especially helps vs. fire immune

Talic, giving less life your merc has to chew through on his own. For a non-lightning sorc, it is the definition of a 1 point wonder.



4. Use garbage summons to soak damage and draw attention. If you are still having issues at this point, consider making or equipping some item on your swap that has the ability to summon something. Harmony is a good example, though a

Ko rune can be a bit inaccessible early game SSF for a throwaway low use item. Harmony allows you to summon a

Valkyrie and gives a huge buff to movement speed while active and also gives some mana regen. While this would lower your damage, you can use these garbage summons to distract the ancients for a few hits, allowing your merc to heal, deal a decisive blow on an ancient, trick the ancients into standing in

Hydra for longer, and etc. Perhaps consider summoning Hydras with your main kit, swapping to Harmony, summoning Valk right on top of whichever ancient you dropped hydras on, then monitoring the situation from there until Hydras need refreshed or you need to move.



5. Focus fire. This is less helpful with you playing with Hydras, but I'll still throw the idea out. Part of what makes ancients so difficult is that there's 3 of them and between all 3 there are a LOT of modifiers. Killing 1 of them asap helps a ton! So, as much as possible, try to focus one down at a time instead of spreading the love. In your case, that might mean baiting

Talic and

Korlic into chasing you away from

Madawc, then telestomping him, dropping hydras, letting the merc land a few hits, then repositioning.

Talic and

Korlic are hard to separate, but even reducing the fight to the 2 of them helps a lot.



6. Merc gear. There are plenty of low level, relatively cheap items you can keep an eye out for that offer good bonuses to the merc. Treachery, Insight,

Hone Sundan with an

Amn rune in it for life leach,

Skin of the Flayed One for life leach,

Rattlecage for Crushing Blow, etc. Target farming any of these may be difficult, especially since I've predicated this advice on a low amount of farming, but point is there's lots of garbage gear out there that allows you to stack Life Leach and/or some other damaging stat that can make a world of difference in a high-stakes long fight like this. Any amount of healing your merc gets himself, you don't have to have a potion for.



I'll stop this wall of text here, but if I have another idea, I'll throw it on.

Winterkill wrote: 1 year ago

Of the Hell Ancients,

Talic is ALWAYS going to be Fire Immune in Hell, just like

Korlic will always be Cold Immune and

Madawc is lightning. Prepare for that, because no number of rerolls will take that away from

Talic. However, if

Talic ever rolls something like physical immune (Stone skin), just reset. Your merc will not be able to kill him.

I didn't realize that was an always thing for the primary or whatever Hell immunity.

Winterkill wrote: 1 year ago

Teleport saves lives.

Indeed. I had to dance Nightmare Ancients around with

Teleport.

Winterkill wrote: 1 year ago

Use

Static Field.

I tried to do that in Nightmare Ancients where it is even more effective, but I kept getting killed by one guy leaping on my brain box every time I tried to

Static Field one of the others.

Winterkill wrote: 1 year ago

Use garbage summons to soak damage and draw attention.

Nice. That's some more very good advice.

Winterkill wrote: 1 year ago

Merc gear.

I think I like the idea of Life Leach over extra damage; I'll have to do at least a little farming it seems, but the potion thing has me more hopeful I'll be able to do this before the bloody season ends.

I got bored farming Andarial so I decided to go to Act V and get to Ancients, and I was going to wait until next gaming session, but I decided I'd at least try the potion thing once just to see how bad it was going to be on me, and I got two almost killed the very first trip so I just had to try once again, and I failed that time as well, but I managed to kill one on my third trip, and I found it actually kind of easy--if extremely tedious--after getting that one killed.

Congrats !

phantomotap wrote: 1 year ago

I got bored farming Andarial so I decided to go to Act V and get to Ancients, and I was going to wait until next gaming session, but I decided I'd at least try the potion thing once just to see how bad it was going to be on me, and I got two almost killed the very first trip so I just had to try once again, and I failed that time as well, but I managed to kill one on my third trip, and I found it actually kind of easy--if extremely tedious--after getting that one killed.

Nicely done! Congrats!

Winterkill wrote: 1 year ago

I'll stop this wall of text here, but if I have another idea, I'll throw it on.

I'm coming back to this because I have other characters to get through Hell, and my Necromancer is even squishier than this particular Sorceress.

If you think of other stuff, please, pile it on the heap.

I do. Answer is easy: revives. Come with ~10 Urdars + amp damage or decrep and any damaging spell like

Bone Spear and they'll melt easy.

Did the "full rej pots on floor" stuff as I feared them. Did not drink a single one myself and gave only 1 or 2 to Azrael.

Almost disappointing how easy it was (but at that point my necro had a few dclone kills so the technique was known) - I usually start at

River of Flame and if I don't see urdars quickly, switch to Palace cellar waypoint. Durance of Hate only at worst case due to the maze aspect of the level and you need your TP left opened to

Arreat Summit.

Necrarch wrote: 1 year ago

Answer is easy: revives. Come with ~10 Urdars + amp damage or decrep and any damaging spell like

Bone Spear and they'll melt easy.

Yeah. You told me about that strategy in another thread, but I keep forgetting about harvesting specific monsters for different areas or bosses. I just

Revive whatever is handy at the moment so I'm not thinking ahead really well.

Well, mostly what I do myself, but Urdars / Blunderbores / Gorebellies / Maulers come with Crushing Blow which is a life changer against bosses incl Ubers.

phantomotap wrote: 1 year ago

I'm coming back to this because I have other characters to get through Hell, and my Necromancer is even squishier than this particular Sorceress.

If you think of other stuff, please, pile it on the heap.

What build is your necromancer? I know we've discussed this in threads before, but I don't remember what your verdict was.

Necrarch wrote: 1 year ago

Well, mostly what I do myself, but Urdars / Blunderbores / Gorebellies / Maulers come with Crushing Blow which is a life changer against bosses incl Ubers.

Well, that is a good strategy; I'm just not using it... at least not very well.

I looked around the other day after you posted the strategy, and I've seen tubes of summon Necromancers liquefy the Ubers... too much sustained damage even for them. (The aura on hireling added something that prevent constant ticking of health regeneration, but I can't remember it.) The one video I saw that took a while--and by that I mean over three minutes for the primes--the Necromancer was still not really doing anything themselves.

I think with

Bone Spear and

Decrepify also it would be a really fun mess, but I haven't really got used to using

Revive.

Winterkill wrote: 1 year ago

What build is your necromancer? I know we've discussed this in threads before, but I don't remember what your verdict was.

The build is focused on

Bone Spear as a damage dealer, but I have

Decrepify and

Revive--and relevant prerequisites obviously--for variety.

I didn't have

Revive until late yesterday; I was just playing with skeletons and

Clay Golem for variety. Necrarch convinced me to try

Revive for the actual boost.

Merc: i have Insight on a might merc.
I think Insight has a bit of Poison damage, and i also try to have a couple of mages with Poison.

But with enough CB even ubers do not regen fast enough so dont bother too much. With only 1 point in revives you should have your 10 bodies.
The only issue is AI so teleporting charges to telestomp help - but are an improvement, not a requirement

phantomotap wrote: 1 year ago

Well, that is a good strategy; I'm just not using it... at least not very well.

The build is focused on

Bone Spear as a damage dealer, but I have

Decrepify and

Revive--and relevant prerequisites obviously--for variety.

I didn't have

Revive until late yesterday; I was just playing with skeletons and

Clay Golem for variety. Necrarch convinced me to try

Revive for the actual boost.

From a SSF perspective, there is something to say about

Revive as a strategy. It is absolutely the fastest way to take out bosses, but it has a weakness. Online guides, videos, comments, and other places where

Revive is recommended all assume you already have Enigma. The relevance of this is that

Revive d monsters tend to wander around, get lost, despawn before expiring, not get on target, and so on. Using

Teleport, you can always wrangle your herd and it's fine. Without

Teleport, when you're running through a zone, scooping up whatever monsters happen to be around for some extra help, it's fine. However, once you start trying to target gather a specific type of

Revive to use in a boss fight, that can be very frustrating. Even collecting the

Blunderbore to begin with and getting them on site can be a time sink, unless you're lucky enough to have a big pack of them sitting right next to a relevant waypoint, since you'll need your TP set up right outside ancients.

Revive absolutely trivializes boss fights, but when you're SSF, poor, and just playing through the game, it's not always easy to get a meaningful number of targeted Revives on site.

A possible solution to this was going to be one of my tips anyway:

Before you get Enigma, you can get a limited version of

Teleport by shopping a staff with

Teleport charges on it. The

Charge count will usually be so low, and the gold or rune cost to recharge it so high, that using it to farm and such would not be viable. However, in a situation like this, 25 or so teleports should be more than enough to deal with Hell Ancients. I'd get one and put it on my weapon swap. This is a tip that can work for all characters, though just be aware that characters without FCR can't always use it in emergencies.

As a

Bone Spear Necro, you are in an interesting place with ancients. Since

Bone Spear does magic damage, it is impossible for the ancients to roll immune to your attacks, which is awesome! You personally can kill all 3 of them. However, Bone Necros don't usually have much for meat shields, meaning tougher enemies can shred through them and make for a bad day, especially when leveling through the game without good gear. With a ranged ancient, a

Leap Attack ancient, and a

Whirlwind ancient, they will be great at closing on you.

So, using

Decrepify is essential! Using

Teleport charges to reposition can be very helpful. Reviving even some trash from The Ancient's Way just to serve as more meatshield is awesome.

Clay Golem's slow works well with

Decrepify, and since you can resummon him without a corpse, his tankiness isn't as relevant. If you've maxed it for the

Bone Spear synergy,

Bone Spirit is also amazing, since the target tracking and long range can help you keep your distance while still reliably landing hits on the fast-moving ancients, dealing less damage per hit than

Bone Spear but landing more hits. If you're having trouble maintaining

Decrepify and

Clay Golem and still dealing damage, you might even consider giving your merc something with Slows Target on it, like

Razortine,

Kelpie Snare,

Woestave, or

Blackhorn's Face to lock ancients down without interrupting your damage spam. If ancients are still getting up on you with slows, curses, and pets in the way, finding and equipping a simple pair of faster run walk

Boots, even if otherwise garbage, can help you regain your distance.

Thanks again to both of you.

Necrarch wrote: 1 year ago

I think Insight has a bit of Poison damage, and i also try to have a couple of mages with Poison.

I run Insight on Necromancer hireling as well so that works.

Necrarch wrote: 1 year ago

The only issue is AI so teleporting charges to telestomp help - but are an improvement, not a requirement

I saw the revives acting like idiots on tubes, but can you elaborate on this?

Winterkill wrote: 1 year ago

Even collecting the

Blunderbore to begin with and getting them on site can be a time sink, unless you're lucky enough to have a big pack of them sitting right next to a relevant waypoint, since you'll need your TP set up right outside ancients.

Oh. I think maybe now--after reading this a bit--I get what Necrarch was saying as well.

You don't really have time to screw around running to Ancients so you setup a portal right outside the door, and you run back the relevant waypoint so you can go gather the relevant revives, and you can

Teleport to wrangle revives because it stacks them.

I'll reread the rest and double check to make sure I'm understanding the strategy here a bit more later.