Talk:Archydra/@comment-97.126.165.159-20161212141440

Fighting the Archydra solo as a Fighter, I found the most effective tactic was a little patience and a lot of Dragon's Maw - wait for the heads to rear back or start drooling, then initiate Dragon's Maw the moment they start to lunge in for a slam or chomp. It does lots of slashing damage to at least one head and often many at once if multiple lunge at you, and the invulnerability window is long enough to keep you safe through a few successive attacks from other heads.

Another option is to avoid the head-slam via Hindsight Sweep, blocking, or just getting out of the way, then grab onto the vulnerable head and slash away. With a 2-star upgraded Dragon's Dogma (the sword) and ~250 base strength, this strategy will usually net me a lopped head before it can even finish pulling back from the attack. It's faster at cutting heads but the downside is that it leaves you more vulnerable if other heads follow the inital attack. Still, I'd wager even for Striders waiting for the heads to come to you in this fashion might be more efficient and less of a pain than trying to climb the necks from the bottom. (Unless you have all the climbing augments on, including the BBI-exclusive Adhesion)

One other thing I've noticed for both hydra variants is that the further up you cut a head, the quicker that head regenerates - if you cut it off nearer to the base it'll probably stay cut long enough to cauterize it with fire attacks, but if cut off at the head as with the above strategy, the heads will grow back near-instantly. Granted, I'd still say the latter is preferable because you'll cut heads MUCH faster which is the only way to do any real damage, and if you manage to cut all 4 off at once, the only real "reward" you get is letting the monster heal.

Also, if you're playing solo, the Egression augment is a valuable insurance policy just to be safe that you won't slip up and get killed by a bite. Bring poison curatives too and use them immediately if you get hit by spit!