Hydra Sorceress Guide

While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal, so you can easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

Hover over any Item to see a pop-out with the full Item description.

Gear/Base Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refers here.
1) Tal Rasha's Lidless Eye is recommended exclusively in combination with other Tal Rasha pieces.

The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to immunities or bad layouts.

Anything that has a ✔ in the "Starter" column can be farmed with the Starter Variant.

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.

Act 2 Desert Mercenary

Infinity, Might

Use a Desert Mercenary with Might Aura to deal with enemies that are immune to your main damage source. Equip him with Infinity to reduce enemy Resistances and Defense with Conviction Aura, drastically boosting damage.

Mercenary Gear Options

Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability. Mercenary Types and Gear Options at each Gear Level perform equally well in different situations; choose based on Farming Spots and/or personal preference.

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

General

• Cast Frozen Armor and Energy Shield prior to entering combat situations to maintain their durations.
• Use Telekinesis any time you can on Waypoints, Town Portals, your stash and to pick up utility items such as Potions and Scrolls from a distance. These uses give lots of small-time saves that add up. In addition, you can also use it to Knockback mobs and keep them stunned. This is useful to keep Fire Immunes stunned while your Mercenary takes them down.
• Use Teleport to move from place to place, to reposition yourself, and your Mercenary. Your Mercenary stands a better chance of staying alive and taking on Fire immunes when using Teleport. He can act as a first line of defense after you Teleport, catching incoming damage you would have taken otherwise.
• Use Static Field to bring down the Life of your enemies quickly. This is great for all types of bosses that are not Lightning Immune.
• With Hydra you want to continually cast either on top of or leading your targets. Stack Hydra for more damage against stationary targets.
• Try to get your enemy stuck on things or hung up on specific terrain to deal maximum damage through stacking Hydra.
• Fire Ball is great for fast Area of Effect damage.
• Before your targets die, swap to your setup with more Chance of Getting Magic Items, especially bosses!
• Try not to be too close to your enemies, this build is generally squishy and can either get stuck in Faster Hit Recovery or just die.
• Try to avoid killing mobs over non-walkable terrain if possible, as they won't drop items.

Immunities

• Use your Mercenary in combination with Telekinesis to keep Fire immune monsters stunned.
• If you do not have Infinity equipped on your Mercenary, purchase a Lower Resist Charge Wand from Nightmare Drognan, this is great for breaking some Immune and highly Resistant monsters. Repair this Wand as needed using Gold or the Chipped Gem + Ort Rune Horadric Cube recipe.
• Flame Rift breaks ALL Fire Immune monsters and brings them to 95% resistance. Pair this with as much -% Enemy Fire Resistance as possible and a source of Lower Resist and Conviction.

Late-Game

• At the beginning of each run, buff yourself by swapping to Call to Arms and cast Battle Command 2 times, Battle Orders, swap back to your main setup and cast Frozen Armor. Make sure these buffs stay active all the time as they are essential to your survivability. 
• Use Infinity for an overall DPS increase for you and your Mercenary.

Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.

Faster Cast Rate (FCR)

Faster Cast Rate speeds up your casting animation for spells. Aim for the 63 or 105% FCR Breakpoint. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for at least the 60% FHR Breakpoint.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary focus is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.
This build can become Hardcore viable with key changes to the Skills, Stat Point allocation, and items. Review the changes below before building this character, as they may differ significantly from the normal build. See the "Hardcore" Variant for an example.

Stat Point Changes

• We put enough into Strength to wear gear, as well as enough Stat Points into Dexterity to maintain 50% Chance to Block with Stormshield. Everything else just goes into Vitality.

Skill Point Changes

• Add points into Energy Shield for additional survivability or use a Staff with Energy Shield Staff Mods like Memory Battle Staff or Obsession Archon Staff.

Item Changes

• Be sure to keep your Resistances over capped against Conviction and Lower Resist.
• Crown of Ages
• Stormshield
• Sandstorm Trek
• Verdungo's Hearty Cord
• The Oculus is generally dangerous because of it's x% Chance to cast Level 1 Teleport when struck. Some options here are either Eschuta's Temper or Heart of the Oak

• Teleport instantly moves you to a selected square on the visible screen in which you can stand. The game tries to place you within a small radius around your cursor even if it would be impeded normally.
• Teleport is not obstructed by walls or other impediments but can fail if your cursor is not completely passed those impediments when cast. Your Mercenary and Minions teleport with you, Traps do not.
• Certain Minions in large quantities can become “stuck” in position after teleporting. Move away from that position to give them the chance to spread out.
• You can “extend” the visible screen by opening UI-windows like the Inventory or the Character screen. Continuously cast Teleport and drag your mouse to the edge of your screen.
• The Mana cost of Teleport decreases with additional Skill Levels down to 1 Mana per cast.
• You can use “ESC” to open the menu in single player to pause the game after a Teleport to determine if you are safe.