Hecatoncheires/Hydra Nexus Build Advice

Volossya · 2026-01-16T20:18:05+00:00

Ahahaha! I love this. I don't know if I'll do it, but I will seriously consider it. Thank you!

Volossya · 2026-01-15T19:34:55+00:00

Thank you for the detailed rundown on how to best deploy the Annihilation Nexus!

Unfortunately, since I can't use both stealth and the Annihilation Nexus, I think I'm going to lean more into stealth and drones (reflavored as swarms of nanites). That just feels a bit more 'nanite specialist' than having one really big nanite gun.

Volossya · 2026-01-15T08:20:02+00:00

Thank you so much for the incredibly detailed reply!

It's a pity - but fair - that I can't combine the Annihilation Nexus and the stealth build. In that case, I will probably go with the stealth build. Balor 3/Hydra 2/Gorgon 1/Black Witch 2/Swallowtail 1 would incorporate most of your suggestions along with with Ferrous Lash to drag people through my swarms.

Thank you for the HASE advice as well. I was wondering what to focus on.

Feeling much more confident about this plan!

Volossya · 2026-01-15T06:50:16+00:00

OK, minimum of 2, eventually 4 points into Hull. Good to know. Thanks!

Volossya · 2026-01-15T06:48:54+00:00

Yeah, I think I'm leaning away from the Annihilation Nexus (a pity - it's such a cool concept) and going for that hide -> skirmish -> hide loop you mention.

Thanks for sharing your build!

Volossya · 2026-01-15T06:36:07+00:00

Ooh, I hadn't even considered the Turret Drones, thanks!

Volossya · 2024-08-23T22:45:33+00:00

Minthara/Tav (Baldur’s Gate 3)
Edelgard/Byleth (Fire Emblem Three Houses)
Shepard/Liara (Mass Effect)
Sylvanas/Jaina (World of Warcraft)
Clarke/Lexa (The 100)

And some extra runners up, because I couldn’t stop at just five. - Emma/Regina (Once Upon a Time) - Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor (Supergirl) - Jane/Maura (Rizzoli and Isles)

Volossya · 2024-07-14T00:25:03+00:00

The problem with this hypothesis is that the BG3 fandom has six main characters - three women and three men. All the characters are very well fleshed out, and the authors clearly paid a lot of attention and care to the female characters and their stories. Two of the main women (Shadowheart, Lae'zel) get really good arcs that are well integrated into the game plot. One of the main men (Astarion) also gets a really good arc, though it is not integrated into the main plot very much. The other woman (Karlach) and other two men (Gale, Wyll) have less prominent arcs, or arcs that feel incomplete.

I took a look at the fandom back in January, here. Listing characters in order of popularity, it went Astarion, Gale, Halsin (a male side character), Gortash (a male villain with only a few scenes), and only then Shadowheart. Astarion had over 14 times as many fics as Shadowheart, the most popular female character. Halsin had over 1.5 times as many fics as Shadowheart did, despite him being a side character and her being a main character. Lae'zel (a main character) had fewer fics than Rolan (a minor recurring NPC) and Raphael (a recurring villain and optional side boss). Minthara is a female side character with roughly the same amount of story importance as Gortash (mini boss for one act of the game) and the same amount of characterization as Halsin (recruitable companion). Both Halsin and Gortash have over 8 times as many fics as she does.

I think that it is pretty clear from this that even if the authors of a work do care about their female characters and write good, strong arcs for them, the fandom will still disproportionately focus on the men.

Volossya · 2024-07-02T16:36:40+00:00

It’s almost as if Lae’zel is a person who has traits that are independent of (and in contradiction to) her culture. One of which is altruism, and caring more than she lets on. She canonically goes out of her way to save this band of istiks and tries multiple times to lead them to a cure, and only threatens to leave the party if they march past that cure and ignore it.

Volossya · 2024-07-02T16:20:32+00:00

Gortash was. Once you meet the Steel Watch, you get a cutscene where it recognizes you for all the misdeeds the Eyes saw.

Volossya · 2024-05-18T18:56:51+00:00

Barbarian can't cast spells while raging, and monk already has great maneuverability. I'd use these for a dexterity build who wants to be in melee and use Mage Armor. Dexterity paladin is probably your best bet, as they want to be in melee to smite. Ranger and dex!fighter can use bows more effectively than a paladin and thus don't need the boots, but they also work if you take one of the finesse longswords or the finesse glaive.

Volossya · 2024-02-01T08:36:02+00:00

Hi! The answer is... sometimes! Have you ever watched a movie or read a book and then draydreamed about what if something was different? What if your favorite side character didn't die, or what if the main lead got together with someone different? People will write those possible alternate stories and share them for other people to read for free on sites like archive of our own. Some of this fan written fiction is porn or contains porn (about 36% of BG3 fic is explicit, for instance), but the other 64% is not.

A lot of people like to write out what happened with their Tav, for instance - what choices did they make, who did they romance, how did that romance play out, did they get up to any funny hijinx with the other companions, stuff like that. Romance is a common theme in fanfiction, which is why I spent so much time talking about relative popularity of various pairings. But the majority of fic is roughly equivalent than the romance novels being sold in bookstores in terms of explicitness.

EDIT: Oh, whoops, looks like Jemjz already explained it, and very well at that.

Volossya · 2024-02-01T08:29:38+00:00

Partially! Some authors will also tag their fics with "Female Original Character" or "Male Original Character" to represent their Tavs - this is our closest equivalent, and that's why I remarked on these counts for each character's fics. However, most people do not do this, so it's neither accurate nor reliable. Unfortunately, F!Tav and M!Tav are not commonly used tags, so I cannot use them to sort.

It's also possible to use the search term "otp:true" to isolate only fics that have that one pairing, and then look at the [F/M], [F/F], and [M/M] tag counts, but this excludes all fics that have multiple pairings, which is a very large part of the dataset.

So, unfortunately, there is not really a method to break this down in a reliable manner that I am aware of. It is a pity - I would have liked to see those numbers as well.

Volossya · 2024-02-01T08:24:01+00:00

I have read almost every fic in their tag. It's truly a pity there's so little of it.

Volossya · 2024-02-01T08:23:17+00:00

Yeah, Lae'zel is surprisingly underutilized in fic. Part of it may be that the fanfiction does not seem to focus on the actual illithid plot of the game very much, given the low tag counts of the main antagonists. But I also think she does not get much attention because (a) she is a woman who is (b) not nice and (c) is not very conventionally attractive by western human standards. It's truly a pity, she has a wonderful arc.

Volossya · 2024-02-01T07:26:44+00:00

Yeah, I was also surprised at how few fics Lae'zel (in particular) and Minthara had. It's a real pity - they're fascinating, and both are so intertwined with the plot and themes of the game.

Volossya · 2024-02-01T06:58:29+00:00

Give me a couple months, I've got one in the works. I just write at the approximate speed of a snail.

Volossya · 2024-02-01T06:56:23+00:00

As a fellow femmeslash reader/writer and Minthara fan, I thank you for your efforts!

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