Personally, I never even consider normal and nightmare when it comes to skills in game.
Considering you receive the spell originally in Normal, I can see many people getting the spell, trying it out, and deeming it useless and never to be used again. Quite the contrary, it has some great uses at high levels that most people won't realize.
What you have to decide for yourself is if you've already taken a primary single target spell and an AOE spell for your main damage, and you've thus allotted one final offensive utility skill slot, is Hydra worth taking over something that is more reliable i.e. Wave of Force? Personally I want to take Frost Nova and Wave of Force in every build, Hydra not so much.
Because you think you will be facing swarms and swarms all the time and AoE is all that matters in D3. Wave of Force is useless against bosses and other high hp monsters.
It won't knock bosses back, but it will knock back anything else. So its a good CC, that does a lot of dmg in a HUGE area, and is cheap to boot. The wizard imo will best be used as a CC caster that tries to keep the mobs at distance and stunned as much as possible.
Also if the boss has adds, such as the SK, then it works great for that too.
Hydra does do some sick damage on single target, but it feels hard to merit it a spot just for boss fights.
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
What is the best way to apply conflagration for your party?
Hydra (unruned or Mammoth) will continually apply conflagration for 15 seconds at a cost of just 15 mana.
Other options:
Spam fire-bolts (which ties up your actions)
Drop meteors (60 AP for a maximum of 8 seconds of application)
Hydra is the optimal tool for the application of the conflagration debuff.
You just listed meteor and then took it away for without reason. Its obviously the best for debuffing a large group with conflag.
I have to agree with Theungry; this is a use I had thought of some time back for Hydra. Meteor is a strong, but inferior choice overall (for the *specific* purpose of Conflagging stuff) because if you take Meteor, that basically ties up your AP expenditure; you can't really have Meteor in a build "just for utility," whereas, given the nature of Hydra, I think you can get away with that. It is harder to aim (a debatable point, I suppose), and places the debuff for less overall duration and at higher cost than Hydra (or at least than Mammoth Hydra.) Meteor only really wins at getting the debuff on more things in less time, buy Hydra offers the debuff while still allowing substantial build versatility.
You can easily get the cost down, and/or supplement your max AP such that a couple meteors isn't a huge burden.
Since the tooltip explicitly refers to the Mammoth Hydra's single head, I suspect its rate of fire will be roughly 1/3 that of the other Hydras, which probably means something like APS/3. Still spectacular.
As far as I am aware the 3 heads fire at the same speed you do.
If not, then I would assume they fire once per second.
So I would assume the hydra would fire at least once per second, or at your cast speed.
1+ APS
Useless in Normal, not terrible in Nightmare, good after that. /thread
Normal monsters are too easy to kill for this spell. Everything's dead and you're out of the room before it has a chance to attack anything. In Hell and Inferno fights will take longer, making the AOE versions of this spell far better. The problem is it just seems too restrictive to be useful in a build that will need multiple defensive spells in the harder difficulties. Your offensive skills will need to fill a niche but still be versatile. You will probably only be able to take 3 offensive spells. You'll probably want a precision high damage attack, something good for AOEing, and something with some utility.
Cast Mammoth Hydra behind you, Slow Time in front of you. Hydra puts out 10% extra damage (Conflagration), then let loose with the Disintegrate that slows by 30% more.
Hydra's problem is it's so restrictive in placement. Once it's down, you have to always fight near it or it's wasted. Completely useless during tactical retreats... it's just not very versatile of a spell.
Personally, I never even consider normal and nightmare when it comes to skills in game.
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
What is the best way to apply conflagration for your party?
Hydra (unruned or Mammoth) will continually apply conflagration for 15 seconds at a cost of just 15 mana.
Other options:
Spam fire-bolts (which ties up your actions)
Drop meteors (60 AP for a maximum of 8 seconds of application)
Hydra is the optimal tool for the application of the conflagration debuff.
You just listed meteor and then took it away without reason. Its obviously the best for debuffing a large group with conflag.
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
This is exactly why you can't judge a skill without using it. Whether you like it or not, Blizzard has balanced the game as they see fit. Apparently being able to have more than one Hydra was too powerful.
The numbers may seem low, but clearly there's a reason behind that.
Condemning a spell based solely on its tooltip and without any form of experimentation whatsoever is stupid.
Sure you can. I judged it, and found it too be quite good in certain situations, and potentially continually amazing given certain circumstances are met.
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Hydra is far from useless, just sort of situational.
The lightning hydra has 3 heads, that each fire 34% wpn dmg for 15 seconds.
Assuming that the heads use your attack speed, and I don't see why they wouldn't given the wording of the skill.
Even if you ignore weapon speed, or use a slow staff, then you still have
3 heads *34 %wd * 15 sec = 2448% wpn dmg = 1530% wpn dmg
That makes this skill by far the most efficient dmg skill in regards too resources and globals.
Even in an AoE situation, assuming the mobs stayed alive near full duration, you would have to hit a considerable number of mobs for other spells to compete dmg wise. So don't think this is only for single target. For example, you would need arcane orb to damn near hit 10 mobs to put up similar #s.
Another thing to consider is that the massive number of attacks could potentially trigger procs, like critical mass and +AP on critical hit. Assuming this occurred, the Hydra would be like a little generator you throw out.
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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Epicurus
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Also if the boss has adds, such as the SK, then it works great for that too.
Hydra does do some sick damage on single target, but it feels hard to merit it a spot just for boss fights.
Epicurus
Is there a video of the mammoth hydra in action?
As far as I am aware the 3 heads fire at the same speed you do.
If not, then I would assume they fire once per second.
So I would assume the hydra would fire at least once per second, or at your cast speed.
1+ APS
Personally, I never even consider normal and nightmare when it comes to skills in game.
Epicurus
Epicurus
Epicurus
The lightning hydra has 3 heads, that each fire 34% wpn dmg for 15 seconds.
Assuming that the heads use your attack speed, and I don't see why they wouldn't given the wording of the skill.
@1.6 APS
Lightning Hydra
1.6 APS * 3 heads *34 %wd * 15 sec = 2448% wpn dmg
Even if you ignore weapon speed, or use a slow staff, then you still have
3 heads *34 %wd * 15 sec = 2448% wpn dmg = 1530% wpn dmg
That makes this skill by far the most efficient dmg skill in regards too resources and globals.
Even in an AoE situation, assuming the mobs stayed alive near full duration, you would have to hit a considerable number of mobs for other spells to compete dmg wise. So don't think this is only for single target. For example, you would need arcane orb to damn near hit 10 mobs to put up similar #s.
Another thing to consider is that the massive number of attacks could potentially trigger procs, like critical mass and +AP on critical hit. Assuming this occurred, the Hydra would be like a little generator you throw out.
Epicurus