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Jan 23 2017 03:16pm
Hello everyone!

The CTC Hydra bearsorc aka The Dragon/Dream Bearsorc

I introduce to you.. the Chance to Cast Hydra Bearsorceress. Now you are thinking.. whats this build all about? Does it work? and last but not least.. Hydra, isn't that a bad skill?
Well guys.. yes. it DOES work (actually tested it myself in multiple areas at multiple difficulties (p1-p8), no real problems I faced). Also Hydra isnt a bad skill, even though the damage you see in your inventory screen looks like it is 'kinda low' compared to Fireball or Firebolt.

What is this build about?
I call this character the Dragon Bearess for a reason. This character is based on the items Dragon (Armor and shield runeword), Dream (some light damage for immunes) and Beast (to get in Bearform)

20% Chance to Cast Level 18 Venom When Struck
12% Chance To Cast Level 15 Hydra On Striking
Level 14 Holy Fire Aura When Equipped
+360 Defense
+230 Defense vs. Missile
+3-5 To All Attributes (varies)
+0.375-37.125 To Strength (Based on Character Level)
Increase Maximum Mana 5% (Armor Only)
+50 To Mana (Shields Only)
+5% To Maximum Lightning Resist
Damage Reduced by 7

12% doesnt seem THAT high, but with 5 frame attack is will proc faster than you think. Also Holy Fire gets boosted a lot by Fire Mastery, wich makes your melee damage pretty high already.

Does this character work in hell?
a: Yes, it does. Mainly thanks to the Dream runeword and the merc it deals good damage, both fire and light. Probarly a pure dual dream bearsorc is better, but thats mainstream, I wanted to do something different.

Let's get started:
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents:
1. Abbreviations meanings

2. IAS and FHR Breakpoints

3. Skill points

4. Stat points

5. Equipment and Inventory

6. Merc type+equipment

7. Some calculations with Hydra Damages versus Diablo

8. Conclusion
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1. Abbreviations meanings
PvM : Player versus Monster
PB : Phase Blade
FPA : Frames per attack
RW : Runeword
SC(s) : Small Charm(s)
GC(s) : Grand Charm(s)
IAS : Increased Attack Speed
FHR : Faster Hit Recovery
FCR : Faster Cast Rate
FRW : Faster Run/Walk
MB : Max Block
FR : Fire Resistances
CR : Cold Resistances
LR : Light Resistances
PR : Poison Resistances
LAEK : Life after each kill
SC/HC : Softcore/Hardcore
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. IAS and FHR Breakpoints
Since we're playing in Bearform, we won't need FCR breakpoints.

FHR:
Since we are in Bearform, we have other Breakpoints (same as Beardruid):
FHR Frames
0% 13
5% 12
10% 11
16% 10
24% 9 <-- This one I reached myself
37% 8 <-- This one is good too if you feel you need it.
54% 7
86% 6
152% 5
360% 4

IAS:
Being in Bearform, theres another table, Off weapon IAS does NOT work while in Bearform (Just for the lower frames)

IAS Breakpoints using Phase Blade:
Your primary weapon’s WIAS is plotted vertically, your equipment’s IAS is plotted horizontally.
Code
--- 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70
0 13 13 13 12 12 12 11 11 11 11 10 10 10 10 10
5 12 12 11 11 11 10 10 10 10 10 10 9 9 9 9
10 12 11 11 11 10 10 10 10 10 10 9 9 9 9 9
15 10 10 10 10 10 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 8 8 8
20 10 10 10 10 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 8 8 8 8
25 9 9 9 9 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8
30 9 9 9 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8
35 9 9 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8
40 8 8 8 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7
45 8 8 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7
50 8 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7
55 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
60 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
65 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
70 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
75 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
80 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
85 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
90 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
95 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
100 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
105 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
110 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
115 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
120 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5


In order to get the highest possible IAS frames, we need atleast 95% IAS from the weapon.

Summery:
FHR: 24% or 37% FHR breakpoint
IAS: 95% IAS Breakpoint, only counting IAS from weapon


note: You can go for a higher FHR Breakpoint if you really want it, that's up to you. You need to sacrifice some life scs to FHR scs then.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. Skill Points

Cold Skills:
1 point in Frozen armor

This is not needed, but it adds a little safety in defense boost and freezing enemies who hit you.

Light Skills:
1 point Thunder Storm
20 points in Light Mastery
1 point in Teleport

The point in Thunder Storm is up to you, I always liked it, and since it get boosted by Light mastery, it is in my opinion worth 1 point.
Light mastery is obvious, it will boost our damage a lot, since we are gonna use Dream runeword, wich gives us a level 15 Holy Shock aura when equipped. The damage gets doubled when we are doing melee with it.
Teleport is kinda a must, even though you are in bearform, it can run out once, and with teleport you can possibly escape a dangerous situation then.

Fire skills:
20 points Fire Mastery
20 points Fire Bolt
20 points Fire Ball
20 points Warmth

Last points in either Fire bolt or Fire ball.
Fire mastery is obvious. it boosts our fire damages a lot, for melee it is x2.
Warmth is for mana regeneration and synergy to Enchant (explained later at Equipment)
Fire Ball and Fire Bolt are synergies to Hydra. We won't use Hydra ourselves, but it also boosts Hydra if its a Off-skill or Chance to cast skill
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Stat points
Strenght : Enough to wear the gear, you can add some points more for some phys damage, but I didn't do that.
Dex : Enough for gear (phase blade), you can go max block, but Dragon shield is not made for max block, you'll need lots of points then, instead we have decent defense and really fast attacks, together with high life.
Vita : Rest of our skill points, more vita means more life.
Energy: None. we don't cast any spells and PVM sorceress never should add into Energy. (unless you are going ES, wich you shouldn't in the first place)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Equipment and Inventory:
Ofcourse we need to gear this character to make it work.

Helmet :
Dream RW, made in a low strenght req helm, I putted mine in a Circlet
It's simple.. it adds tons of light damage to our attacks, thanks to the Holy shock aura, together with Light Mastery

Amulet :
Mara's Kaleidoscope
Skills, stats and resistances, all we needed.

Other amulets worth mentioning:
Highlord's Wrath
Skill, deadly strike and lightning resistances, use it if you wanna have some Deadly Strike and ofcourse if you have some physical damage too.

Rings :
Raven Frost
Dex, AR, Cold sorb and CBF, all nice mods to have for a melee character.

SOJ, melee ring or Sorb ring (Dwarf Star or Wisp)
Soj for the skill, wich adds a roughly 1k+ damage
Melee ring for some life leech
Sorb ring if you feel you need some fire or light sorb

Armor :
Dragon RW, made in low strenght req armor, I suggest Mage Plate
It is the main piece of gear, the character is partly named after this. It adds tons of fire damage and ofcourse the Chance to cast Hydra.

Shield :
Same as Armor, but ofcourse then as Shield. I suggest a low block one, like Kite Shield.

Weapon :
6 socketed Phase Blade with 5x 15 ias/15 all res and 1x Sheal
Phase blade is the fastest base to get, it also doesn't need to get repaired. As said above, only IAS from weapon counts. so we need the ias jewels.

Weapon on switch:
Beast RW in Double Axe
Well.. it is for making yourself a Bear

Shield on switch:
Lidless Wall with 5/x fire facet
You can use Spirit Monarch too, but be aware that you'll miss the strenght from Dragon Shield when going to switch. Mine is with Lidless wall.

Gloves :
Dracul's Grasp Vampirefang gloves
It has Chance to cast Life tap and Life after each kill. Yes, the Life tap can get overrid by Dream's Confuse, but sometimes Confuse just doesn't proc and the LAEK is really nice to have.

Other gloves worth mentioning: Bloodfists (if you need fhr and life), loh (extra phys damage and fire resist) or magefists (extra fire damage)

Belt :
Arachnid Mesh Spiderweb Sash
It adds +1 all skills, wich boosts ur damages, it has Slow, wich can be nice too.

Other belts worth mentioning:
String of Ears > Some leech, dr% and mdr
Thundergods > Light sorb and max light resist
IK belt > Cheap option, strenght and some resists are always nice.

Boots :
Aldur's Advance Battle Boots
40 FRW and up to 50% FR is always nice ofcourse. I suggest these over hotspurs because hotspurs doesnt have any FRW, so ur moving slow then.

Other boots worth mentioning:
Gores > Physical damages thanks to Deadly strike and crushing blow
Tri-res Boots (30 FRW 10 fhr trires atleast) > if you are going for a little higher FHR breakpoint and you feel you need extra Cold and light resist
Some Prepatch Boots > I am not that experienced with prepatch boots, but some are kinda cool for such a character, especially the 20 fhr ones.

Inventory :
Annihilus and Sorc Torch (a must for any kind of char)
Lightning skiller GCs wth fhr or life
SCs with life, fhr together with res or ar (You will need some res from charms and ar isn't bad even tho you have conviction)
Tome of Townportal
Cube (Inside Cube : Demonlimb (hey! Missed something in the skills? ;) ) and possibly CTA RW too)

I used 5 skillers with 40 life, 4x 36 ar/20 life scs and 4x 20 life/5 all res scs, together with Cube and TP book makes me having 2x4 spots free for taking items, aswell some space in cube.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6. Merc type and Equipment
Ofcourse for making this character work (a lot) better, we need a Merc.

Merc type should be:
Act 2 Nightmare Defensive (Holy Freeze), its the safest for a melee sorceress because it slows down any monster.

Weapon :
Infinity RW in ethereal Elite base (Base doesnt matter THAT much, but the best base is Tresher or Giant Tresher)
It has level 12 Conviction aura, wich makes enemies non immune light, cold and fire resist monsters decrease a lot, also breaking some immunes (mainly light)

Armor :
Fortitude or Treachery RW in possibly Ethbugged elite base.
Fortitude has 300 enhanced damage, 25-30 all resist and 5% max light res, while Treachery has Fade and 45% IAS. Choice is yours. I suggest Fortitude however, because a Treachery merc before Fade proc'd is kinda fragile.

Helm :
(ethereal) Andariel's Visage or (ethereal upped) Vampire Gaze
Your merc needs life leech to survive. Both are viable options and the best options if you need that life leech.
Vamp has MDR, dr% and an open sock while Andariel's Visage has 2 skills, 20 ias and strenght bonus.
15 ias/30 fire res or Ral rune into Andariel's Visage to counter that -30% fire resist it has.
15 ias/15 all res or 15 ias/40 edmg jewel in Vampire Gaze
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7. Some calculations with Hydra damages versus Diablo
As I said earlier in this guide, hydra isn't a bad skill.

Level 15 Hydra, having 20 points into both synergies, and a level 28 fire mastery does:
624-757 damage (Used a skill calculator to check it)

This doesn't seem that high, but the damage shown is per fire bolt the hydra shoots.
I have read 1 hydra shoots 30 fire bolts, lasting for 10 seconds.

Let's say 60% of the fire bolts result in a hit.
that means 30*0.6 = 18 fire bolts will hit Diablo.

Diablo has 50% fire resistances without the merc.
Because my merc wears Infinity RW, it's fire resist will decrease with 85%.
So Diablo has:
50%-85% = -35% fire resist (I dont have any fire facets in my main gear, so only -fire res from conviction I count)

Lets take average damages:
624 min
757 max

(624+757)/2 = 690.5 damage

18 fire bolts will hit, so 1 full hydra deals:
690.5*18 = 12429 total damage (again.. average)

This is for monsters with 0% resistances.
Diablo has -35%

So: 12429*1.35 = 16779.15 damage in the end, rounded down to 16779 total damage (average)

Because you attack so fast, hydra will proc more then once when fighting Diablo, so even more total damage! :drool:

Ofcourse this is less then 1 Fire Ball, but.. Fire Ball is too strong anyway...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8. Conclusion
Here a screen how it can look like:


As I said at the start of this guide, this character is worse Damage wise then a pure, cookie cutter Bearsorc (for reference: check Feanur's profile, he made that Bearsorc guide but it is something different, it all started with some theory crafting from Liskod2 , he came with the rough idea, I changed a few things I thought it had to change (his was pure fire and he used es with base mana, no mana from gear etc), so I tested some possibilities and I found out this overall the best for such a character.

This was my Dragon/Dream Bearsorc guide, I hope you will like it.

Special thanks to:
Liskod2 for the theory-crafting and opinions about our PM conversation about this build :)
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Jan 23 2017 03:21pm
old

every ctc has been done by noobs who start exploring the game, most people did it about a decade or more ago, it's 2017

It's just a weak bear sorc missing a Dream like all the other variations

This post was edited by Marieusz on Jan 23 2017 03:24pm
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Jan 23 2017 03:27pm
Quote (Marieusz @ 23 Jan 2017 23:21)
old

every ctc has been done by noobs who start exploring the game, most people did it about a decade or more ago, it's 2017

It's just a weak bear sorc missing a Dream like all the other variations


thanks for the imput. I haven't seen such a guide in here, and yes.. you will miss the Dream Shield, but I tested it and missing it doesnt make this character hopeless anyway.

Almost anything is done by some1, this game is 17 years old (or almost, idk), so every guide written the past few years is old in your eyes?

There are still 'new' people who start playing lod (yeah, theres such thing as Classic aswell ofcourse....), so for them (and ofc for the 'experienced' players in here) this is some good information. especially if they dont wanna use c/c builds like hammerdins and light sorceress.

This post was edited by Klaasje123 on Jan 23 2017 03:30pm
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Jan 23 2017 03:59pm
3256 attack rating

Isn't this a problem or am i missing something here?
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Jan 23 2017 04:09pm
Quote (phaedrus420 @ Jan 23 2017 05:59pm)
3256 attack rating

Isn't this a problem or am i missing something here?


He doesn't need ar since he does basically no damage when he hits something anyway
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Jan 23 2017 06:36pm
Quote (Worrywart @ Jan 24 2017 04:54am)
He doesn't need ar since he does basically no damage when he hits something anyway

Pretty much

Quote (phaedrus420 @ Jan 24 2017 04:44am)
3256 attack rating

Isn't this a problem or am i missing something here?

Level 12 Conviction removes so much defense that most monsters will have ~300 defense so it's not much of an issue

Quote (Klaasje123 @ Jan 24 2017 04:12am)
thanks for the imput. I haven't seen such a guide in here, and yes.. you will miss the Dream Shield, but I tested it and missing it doesnt make this character hopeless anyway.

Almost anything is done by some1, this game is 17 years old (or almost, idk), so every guide written the past few years is old in your eyes?

There are still 'new' people who start playing lod (yeah, theres such thing as Classic aswell ofcourse....), so for them (and ofc for the 'experienced' players in here) this is some good information. especially if they dont wanna use c/c builds like hammerdins and light sorceress.

You can talk as if this is a new idea or a new guide but it just isn't, you've taken a good build that isn't actually c/c to begin with and weakened it with a ctc item just so you can say it's a new variation on a build. You may as well just put Wisp Projectors on a dream sorc and call it a chance to cast lightning build. You aren't using Hydra, it's just there for effect.

It doesn't have enough damage or a reliable enough % chance to cast to even consider it, some others that do work are 50% chance to cast synergised Bone Spirit and a Necromancer with BotD to proc Poison Nova chain reaction on death https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSgnicFUCgQ, although neither of those are particularly great either.

This post was edited by Marieusz on Jan 23 2017 06:42pm
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Jan 24 2017 02:02am
Quote (Worrywart @ 24 Jan 2017 00:09)
He doesn't need ar since he does basically no damage when he hits something anyway


I have no problems with hitting and doing damage anyway tho.

Quote (Marieusz @ 24 Jan 2017 02:36)
Pretty much


Level 12 Conviction removes so much defense that most monsters will have ~300 defense so it's not much of an issue


You can talk as if this is a new idea or a new guide but it just isn't, you've taken a good build that isn't actually c/c to begin with and weakened it with a ctc item just so you can say it's a new variation on a build. You may as well just put Wisp Projectors on a dream sorc and call it a chance to cast lightning build. You aren't using Hydra, it's just there for effect.

It doesn't have enough damage or a reliable enough % chance to cast to even consider it, some others that do work are 50% chance to cast synergised Bone Spirit and a Necromancer with BotD to proc Poison Nova chain reaction on death https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSgnicFUCgQ, although neither of those are particularly great either.


I never said its new tho.
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Jan 24 2017 06:45am
Quote (Klaasje123 @ 24 Jan 2017 10:02)


I never said its new tho.


This. Is it forbidden to republish odd builds which have been made years ago and are not easy to find since stickies ran out of glue?
Theres people posting their new smiter builds which have no difference when compared to sticky ones.

I sadly lost worrywarts quote about how one should play a char which he enjoys.

Well written indepth builds should be more around but i guess people dont care to post em since most users enjoy their pvm hammerdins.

Gj finishing this klaasje :thumbsup:
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Jan 24 2017 06:54am
wow the first bear char I haven't made yet. thanks for this lol
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Jan 24 2017 07:16am
Quote (liskod2 @ 24 Jan 2017 14:45)
This. Is it forbidden to republish odd builds which have been made years ago and are not easy to find since stickies ran out of glue?
Theres people posting their new smiter builds which have no difference when compared to sticky ones.

I sadly lost worrywarts quote about how one should play a char which he enjoys.

Well written indepth builds should be more around but i guess people dont care to post em since most users enjoy their pvm hammerdins.

Gj finishing this klaasje :thumbsup:


Exactly! Couldnt say any better ^_^

Quote (THAN0S @ 24 Jan 2017 14:54)
wow the first bear char I haven't made yet. thanks for this lol


Thx and np lol ;)
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