Is Hydra better than FB now?

Second question, is Flickering Flame + Sunder now able to keep up with or almost in par with nova clear speed in P8/TZ and if is close is with it FB or Hydra or a hybrid of both?

Thinking of dropping my cold sorc and spec it for Fire ( already have a Nova soso and looking to level another but haven’t touched fire in D2R )

Ty for any info for those that have tried Fire in the new patches with Sunder/Flickering

This post was edited by Expanse on Sep 26 2025 10:30pm

I levelled a sorc to 99 with fire. Clear speed is not quite as fast as nova, but I prefer the playstyle and you can stack MF.

You will use FB, Hydra and Meteor. So max Fire Bolt, Fire Ball, Meteor, Hydra and Fire Mastery.

Don’t forget to use Phoenix.

FB is your main skill

Meteor is nice vs Baal waves.
If you plan on doing tons of baal runs, it’s worth maxing inferno instead of hydra.

Hydras can be used as support dmg vs bosses and you can learn to cast them at edge of screen to kill a pack of mobs further away while you kill another pack on screen.
Playing with hydras requires practice to do well, and it’s situational.

A pure hydra build would only be viable to target farm andy/meph only. So it’s more a ladder starter build.

105fcr
-fire res is most important

Phoenix -28
30/-30 weapon
Viper 5/-5
3fire/20fcr 10/-10 (or FF -15 but you’ll need more fcr on jewelry to reach 105)

You get fcr from:
Viper 30
Mages 20
Arach 20
Amy 15
20% missing -> 2x fcr rings if using FF instead of 3/20 circ, but you lose 2 soj

Infinity Defiance merc
FF to fix your fire res, or cure if you use FF yourself.
CoH

Everytime I see 30/30 sword recommended I can only think that you never played the build.

You will reach 18-19k FB damage with HotO, with space for gheed and sunder of course, immune monster will end with 30% FR, that put you in the worst case scenario with ~40k DPS, everything melts, in p1, in p8, in UT, does not matter.

The only thing you are achieving with a 30/30 is melt everything pretty much at the same speed by making your build way more expensive if you want to still reach 105fc and cap res.

Just go HotO/Mara/SoJs and make your life simpler.

Ending up going with a 105 fcr build with magic orb thats 3fire/3fireball/1mastery/2os with 2x 5-5 facets / flickering / phoenix and a maxed out FB with hydras secondary and it rips way faster than my cold spec'd sorc that was maxed out, not quite as fast a my nova P8 but its so close and much more fun, thank yall!

Melts bosses way faster than nova I will add and its mass clear speed with hydras does make it feel almost on par with nova p8

This post was edited by Expanse on Sep 27 2025 07:58pm

Nice orb!

3fire 3fb 3mastery 20fcr 2os is my wet dream haha

Just for fun, here's a link that includes a comparison between the dps of 4 setups
target set to p8 Infector of souls

3 tal piece
dps: 42,102
https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/qlh680c7#1

Hoto
dps: 39,422
https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/qlh680c7#2

30/-30
dps: 50,737
https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/qlh680c7#3

your orb
dps: 49,021
https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/qlh680c7#4

Your orb is obviously great, as even if it's 2nd place vs immunes, it's still the highest dmg option vs lower res targets (but it matters less against most of them except bosses).

But if someone is gonna dare accuse others that they don't know how to build a fire sorc and then suggest to use hoto instead of a cheaper and better 3 tal piece (which also comes with more life, mana and mf), then you can doubt that particular person

Fire sorc is going to slam essentially no matter what so just go with what you like ☺️

Cheaper than a random hoto and a random mara with a 3/20/2 and 7 @5/mf charms that you need to have decent res.

Want to go 3 tal piece, sure go for it, for once it's a good option, don't lie saying is easier or cheaper to get than hoto/mara.

Particularly I doubt more someone that need to lie to try get their point

Bow sorc is probably the best, otherwise fb+hydra

That orb doesn’t beat a 30/30 sword