Arch hydra + tail whip = death?

[Sir Lunchalot]

I guess I just have to get lucky with my positioning. There is no gimmick to it, right?

[Q_taro]

I think it would be easier to shoot High Bolide with 4 Demon's Periapt or Salomet's Secret from a distance.

[AvG]

Since Arch Hydra is so chonky and slow normally he is a good target for Maelstrom, but based on your description I am guessing you are not a sorcerer. The cheap way would be to hire a sorcerer pawn that has Maelstrom but if not that then if you are an archer using something with fire effect to help stop the regeneration.

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

Safer to be on the front and cut the head one by one ofr most vocations.
For the effect of fire that stop the regrowth of the heads.... the more heads it has, the more soft targets you have to remove his HPs....
The only gimmick OHKO move the hydras have is the gobble up move when it swallows someone, and you got an "escape the grasp" event before it happens (tho the second you fail that event you're dead).

[Sir Lunchalot]

I'm a MK with Ranger as main pawn and two mages / sorcerers.
I think I just have to stay in front of it, as you guys suggested

I also need to change some of my elemental skills and just be more patient. I was just frustrated last night because I had a good run and then the hydra decided to do a 360° move. Also the "I move forward to crush you" move is a bit tedious.. but yeah. Time to adapt

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

yeah as a MK best is to stay in front and counter his attacks with your shield. You just need to make the difference between the animation for the headbutts and the one for the gobble up move.... because the gobble up cant be blocked or iframed but there's a clear difference between the 2.
Then spam perillous sigils and great cannons (inside the perillous sigils) while staying close enough to keep in check his heads animations.
Also if you stay close enough and with the agro on you, the hydra no longer use tail sweep and the venom spray (those are his repositionning and long range patterns).

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

hmm... but when playing mystik knight I prefer when the ennemy can attack as fast as possible so I have materials to use my shield counters.....

[Sir Lunchalot]

Bro, its so tedious. I get like 1 good attempt for every 8 attempts where I die to unforeseen attacks or whatever Mister Hydra is thinking of doing.

[Sir Lunchalot]

Okay Mister Archydra is dead! I didnt know that if you two pawns with the same magic spell, they will cast it together and reduce the cooldown of it. Meteorshower times 2 was pretty strong. very nice!

also.. the hydra starts rushing forward if it starts regenerating all of her heads. That cost me like 3 runs lol

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

Depend on your positionning for the hydra pattern.... but yeah clmib and trim is the way to go for most melee vocations..... that doesnt invalidate MK most efficient way of fighting: shield counters untill the target gets neutralized.

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

It also depends on what counter you use and how you use it. I always use holy counter with the related skill ring and use it to trigger GCs...
So it's fine if the hydra leave by windows for me to add more great canons and perilous sigil on the field (but holy counter is still the skill that trigger the most GCs bolts)

But now MK is a tank and hydras are kinda rare, so when I fight one as a MK, I take my time tanking it and let my pawns figure out what they need to do.

When I'm set on farming hydras instead of trying to beat them as a MK for the sake of it, I go there as a strider....

[Sir Lunchalot]

The uber dragon was a really cool fight and not even remotely as annoying as the hydra. Literally Monster Hunter inspired

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

Well hydras fights (outside of the one in the tutorial) are picked fights.... you don trandomly meet an hydra in the wild, you need to go out of your way to find one. This mean you can prepare specifically for that encounter and then just rush to the location where the hydra spawn.

[AvG]

Originally posted by Sir Lunchalot:

Okay Mister Archydra is dead! I didnt know that if you two pawns with the same magic spell, they will cast it together and reduce the cooldown of it. Meteorshower times 2 was pretty strong. very nice! :coromon_blush:

also.. the hydra starts rushing forward if it starts regenerating all of her heads. That cost me like 3 runs lol

Yes the teamwork of spells is a great feature. Keep that in mind if you ever decide to do a sorcerer run, you can stack all the Sorcerer castings together with yourself.
Don't feel too bad though, since hydras are so rare in this game it takes pawns an immense amount of fights to gain enough knowledge to speed up their AI for it, which doesn't happen much, even with seasoned players. It's mostly skipped these days as people go straight for BI.

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

You can easily get your pawn knowledge maxed for hydras in BBi.... the first arena. You enter the area, if it isnt an arch hydra you go back outside and enter again.... that way you can fight only when there's an hydra and max out your pawn knowledge fairly fast.

[Sir Lunchalot]

Thank you guys!
Yeah, I am sure there are work arounds to get your pawns knowledge a little boost, but this was my first playthrough and I managed to get it done on hard mode.
I am happy enough with that :)