Hydra's in diablo 4

General Discussion
1

Hello there.

One of my favorite builds in Diablo 2 was a meteor build that had hydra as a support skill. It was not some all-powerful build and I had problems beating a lot of areas due to fire resists etc, but what it had to me at least was fun, fun for me is why i play diablo.

When i first heard about diablo 3 i was initially excited about the concept of hydras in it, but then I realized that it had become restricted by only allowing one to be cast ~( even with the invention of the weapon allowing an extra casting, it was extremely limited in its gameplay and game style.

For a spell-like Hydra, i want to be able to cast it over and over again, making me wait for a massive 20-second cooldown or only allowing me to cast it once seems really restrictive in its purpose.

I can not stress this enough, if i have the mana to cast 3 or 4 of them in a row, then please let me do so, I really hope that Diablo 4 is going to allow for a better user experience in regards to casting hydras. In a way i want it to be like a frozen orb, if i have the energy let me cast it.

I hope the team is considering uniques items that allow you to cast two hydras at once, what about an ultra-rare with perfect rolls that allows you to cast three at once. Clearing speeds, especially vs trash, can be a pain with the hydra, this would help immensely there.

The writhing ring i recently saw i believe it was called had an 8% chance to create a hydra when cast, to me that sounds really really low, if i wish to create just a hydra skill sorc, can we not please consider options that would allow me to do that. Again hydra is not one of the strongest spells in the game, at least vs pvm.

In the end, I really like what i see in diablo 4 atm, it’s looking good to me, but I just don’t want my favorite skill to be left in the dust again.

TLDR Please allow as many hydras to be cast of mana reserves please, no cooldown rubbish and no can only cast 1, etc.

1 Like
2

Why not 6 or 8, just cover the entire area with hydra’s. Better yet just call in a napalm strike and burn the entire zone back to hell. :fire: :fire: :fire: :fire: The ring that has the hydra looked interesting.

  • The Writhing Band: Your attacks have up to a 8% chance to spawn a hydra that will aid you in combat.
  • These hydra’s seem to pop up all the time.
2 Likes
3

There’s no CD for hydra in D3. You can cast 2 with the Serpent Sparker. It doesn’t need to be perfect - just put it in the Cube.

4

No cooldown but only one can be summoned unless you have the weapon.

It really defeats the purpose of the skill

5

Nah. Same purpose - just improves upon it. Plus, the Typhoon set gives your hydras more heads.

Try the game before complaining? You may like it!

6

so much for trying to have a conversation, bunch of trolls.

7

I’m all for a conversation. Just get your facts right before coming to the table.

Enjoy!

8

I don’t know if Diablo 4 hydras will have a low summon limit as Diablo 3 hydras do.

If they do, then hopefully there will be skill upgrades that increases the number of Hydras you could summon.

In fact they could give Hydras two different upgrade routes; one would allow players to increase the number of hydras they summon (up to probably 7 max), while the second allows the sorceress to summon a single but powerful mobile hydra beast that’ll follow her for a short time.

2 Likes
9

Also we do not know what the hydra skill will look like if it is in the enchantment slot.

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10

I’m honestly expecting Hydra in the enchantment effect to automatically summon when a sorceress deals fire damage. It seems that the enchantment slots mostly give skills a passive/automatic effect.

11

Rich coming from you lol. You only hear what you want to hear and ignore everything else that doesn’t fit your outdated views.

Get off the internet until you’re 40 or capable of having an adult discussion without throwing a tantrum like a toddler that got his toy taken away.

1 Like
12

Hydras and Traps in Diablo 2 is one of the most lazy battle mechanics in the game (summoning takes the 1st place). I’d like to have some control over it if it makes into D4. For example, if you cast hydra in one and the same place, it adds heads. If you cast several in a form of a circle they will be connected with fire chains (D3 elite affix). If you cast them in row - they will form a firewall. Something like that.

13

I think the base skill should allow to have up to 3 Hydra’s active all the time (also in Diablo 3) and not just one, like this:

Then, you could upgrade it in various ways and one of these ways should be to increase the maximum amount of Hydra’s that can be active at the same time, a bit like this:

I never thought of Hydra as a Primary Damage Dealing Skill, but rather of a Support Damage Dealing Skill.

Other skills from Diablo 3 like Sentry, Avalanche, Locust Swarm, Rend, Meteor (Molten Impact), Rain of Vengeance, Seven Sided Strike, etc, I also would consider Support Damage Dealing Skills, rather than being primary sources of damage, like Fireball, Seismic Slam, Whirlwind, Multishot, Firebats, or Lashing Tail Kick for example.

14

I can see why some folks would see it as a primary damage dealing skill, especially if we’re talking about the Diablo 2 variant where you can summon multiple hydras that would constantly bombard enemies with fire bolts (of course they’re useless against fire immune monsters haha).

I’m hopeful Diablo 4 can bring that potential back. Typhon was pretty cool giving hydra’s extra heads, but being able to call forth numerous hydras had it’s charms too.

2 Likes
15

There is no cooldown casting Hydra in D3. Where do you even get that from or you just making stuff up?

And Hydra build is more fun in D3 because you can have 10 headed hydra that shooting at high speed and at the same time, freezing the enemy in the their range. It even has elemental hydra in D3 where in D2, it is always a fire type hydra.

D3 Hydra build > D2 Hydra build where fire immunity monster is almost everywhere.

16

They’re probably basing it off of Diablo 4 version of Hydra. Apparently it has a 20 second cooldown.

17

Didn’t Hydra in Diablo 2 have a 1.5 or 2 second long cooldown?

I would be fine with 3 Hydra’s max at the base level, and then by investing points into an Upgrade, maybe up to 5 Hydra’s at once.

But I definitely agree that 1 Hydra

max is waaaay too little, and even 2 Hydra’s is too little (and certainly that you have to include the Hydra Wand first to get 2 at once).
I think the reason for why the Typhons set was designed that way was because they did not want players to use Mammoth Hydra in High Level GR’s where lots of enemies get pulled together, due to the lag it would create.

And since they could not simply remove Mammoth Hydra, it had to be bypassed.

What should have happened instead, is that Mammoth Hydra and Lingering Ground Effects (Blizzard, the molten fire from Meteor, Scorch, the Tornados from Whirlwind Dust Devils) and Damage over Time Effects (Locust Swam, Rend, Blazing Hydra, etc) should no longer trigger Area Damage (maybe by setting their Proc Coefficient to 0).

Then the Typhon set could have been designed differently.

If Blizzard would give me access to the Diablo 3 Files, I could make changes to Lingering Ground Effects and DoT Skills so that they no longer trigger Area Damage in less than an hour, since making these basic changes to Diablo 3 is even easier than making these basic changes to D2 by modding it.

I also have a list of what skills should be effected by no longer procing Area Damage in this document here.

Back on topic I would have liked the Typhon set to work similar to the Demon Hunter’s Marauder set, so that each Hydra you place does increase the damage of Hydra, but also of some other, more spammable skills like Arcane Orb, etc, and you could have like 4 or 5 Hydra’s active at once…

2 Likes
18

Perhaps, I can’t say with certainty without looking it up as I rarely played as a fire or ice sorc in Diablo 2 (I was practically a lightning sorceress for life). Although if Diablo 4 Hydra does have cooldown, 20 seconds is way too long.

Yeah 2-3 hydras at base level then at max level and certain upgrade nodes 5-6 hydras seem like a fair trade to me.

And yeah, one hydra is definitely underwhelming, unless once again you can build it (via skill upgrade nodes) so that you could summon a massive fire serpent that follows you as an active pet.

I don’t doubt it; although I’ll probably hold off on talking about Diablo 3 balancing for now (did enough of that during and after the 2.6.10 ptr).

1 Like
19

I haven’t played D2 in a while as well, but I clearly remember that when I modded D2 I removed the Casting Delay (aka Cooldown) from it to make it spamable.

Yes, that is way too long indeed. Also, just being able to have 1 Hydra active is too little as well.

The CM’s do not just gather feedback during the PTR, but all the time, so I would not hold off on feedback.

Maybe practice to condense the feedback to the most important things and rephrase the things so they are on point with as little words as possible.

20

i am talking about the hydra’s for diablo 4 dude, not 3.

i want something better more in touch with and expanding on diablo 2 hydra and not just a cast once and freeze boring playstyle they did in 3.

I want the return to casting multi hydras, 4, 5 or 6+, unless its something the engine can not handle, i am sorry, save the big one casts with a short delay for meteor and spells like that, that can devastate an entire pack of mobs in a second, but give me back hydras, yes plural so i can fight mobs from many angles.