Diablo 2R: Hydra Sorc Build Guide

Welcome to the Hydra Sorc build guide on Snoozey.io. I've played the Sorc on and off again for almost 15 years now. It's always been my favorite class, and I'm excited to show you this new build. This build can carry a player 8 Chaos Sanctuary run although a bit slower than a Java zon or a few other builds. It however destroys it solo.

You can find the video guide on youtube on my channel, or embedded above.

This build can be a ladder start build, but it will struggle once you get to Hell due to immunities. This stops being an issue with gear and the new sunder charms. This build is great if you want to play fire, but still want to do Meph runs. It allows you to drop Hydras from across the river and blast Meph with fireballs while being safe. Once geared you absolutely destroy monsters with your 20k fireballs, and 5k hydras.

Let's start off with the skill tree first. Your trees should look like this at level 99. However, if you want to go full-blown hydra you will not take inferno down to Meteor while leveling. I prefer to level with the Hydras as they can shoot around corners. While you are not geared Hell can be very dangerous. Once fully geared and leveled to 99 your tree should look like the above.

You'll want 1 point into the teleport, static, and frozen armor. From there we will max Fireball, Hydra, Fire mastery, Firebolt, then Meteor. If you don't want Hydras you can move those points to inferno for a stronger Meteor build.

Stats are similar to other builds. 156 STR to wear Pheonix/Spirit, and then you max Vitality. With 2x Sojs and Arachs we don't need more mana.

The gear is pretty basic Sorc gear. You're looking for +Skills, Cast Rate, and -% to Enemy Fire Resistance. You can swap out the Sojs/Maras for rare jewelry to get more cast rate and res if you want to use an Ormus Robe instead of a Viper Magi. Make sure you are hitting your 105% FCR Breakpoint though.  The reason for the flickering and Pheonix is to get that - res on your enemies. Since so many monsters are fire-immune they will have 95 res because of the sunder charms. Reducing their res is a huge increase in damage for you.

Your inventory is a little more complicated. You'll want to make up Res/Faster hit recovery in your inventory. Fire Lifers are great, but mixing in some Faster Hit Recovery to hit higher breakpoints is great as well. The small charms to fill your inventory should be Resistance and Faster hit recovery as well. Fill open spots wth Skillers and then the rest with small charms.

For this build, you will want to use an Act 2 Merc with Holy Freeze. This will chill monsters around your merc. When you telestomp them it is much safer with this aura on. For your Merc, you will use Infinity, Fortitude, and Andariels. If you can't afford Infinity then use insight. If you can't afford Fortitude then use Treachery. The last upgrade for your merc would be to replace Treachery with a Fortitude, but it's really not needed. He generally lives just fine. Infinity will take a penalty of only reducing the monster's res by 1/5 the amount. This is due to the interaction with the sunder charms.

Skill Usage is put up your Hydras and spam those big balls of fire. You can also drop Meteors from the heavens for even more damage! Between the Hydras, and the Fireballs you probably don't need to Meteor much!

Let me know in the comments or the youtube comments any questions you guys have on the build. It's really fun, but a tiny bit expensive to play currently.