Hydra

The Hydra above Soltis, supported by its fleet.

The Hydra (ヒュドラ), also known as The Flying Fortress, is Galcian's flagship. Its production was, at one point, halted at the request of Empress Teodora because of its sheer size. Enrique states that Galcian must have had his own men complete the construction at some later time. Gilder then jokingly suggests that the Empress cancelled the project because it was not big enough.

It is likely that, chronologically speaking, the Hydra project was discontinued after the Moonstone Cannon project was halted because the cannon turned out to be extremely complex and difficult to manufacture. As the Hydra is equipped with a version of a moonstone cannon (dubbed the "Hydra Cannon"), which is no less than the centerpiece of the ship's offensive and defensive capabilities, cancellation of the Moonstone Cannon project would have effectively killed the Hydra project. This is made especially so given the fact that the only non-prototype moonstone cannon in existence was equipped to the Delphinus, which was promptly stolen by Vyse. It is highly likely that De Loco, after aligning himself with Galcian, had a direct hand in construction of the Hydra Cannon which was eventually added to the ship.

As a Ship Battle

Stats and Abilities

HP	Defense	Will	Magic Defense	Quick	Agile	Dodge Percent
200000	300	280	370	200	15	5

Victory against the Hydra yields 27770 EXP, 11900 Gold, and a guaranteed Captain’s Stripe, plus a 5% chance each of a dropped Moon Cannon, and/or Moon Torpedo.

Strategy

The Hydra is a somewhat typical end-game type boss fight in that it has far too much HP for it's own good, attacks that don't do enough damage to seriously threaten you -- but hit hard enough to keep you on your toes, and that there is no way around the thing but to simply pound away until it stops flying. To reiterate, there is really only one strategy against the Hydra: shoot it -- a lot -- while making sure you don't get blasted out of the sky first. There is no secret choice, no fancy helmsmanship that saves the day in this battle: it is a straight clash of mechanical titans, and the winner is the one who makes the other break first. Even using spell combos such as Driln/Drilnos and Increm/Incremus barely makes a noticable diffrence, so for better or worse this is a battle of muscle on muscle.

The battle begins simply enough: The Hydra shoots you, you shoot it, repeat.

Hydra Cannon

The Hydra is literally a fortress, so you can expect to ask yourself if you even dented it after your first round of cannons go off. After an extensive amount of punishment, just as it's HP is beginning to get moving downward in a significant way, Galcian gets "serious" and unveils that there is actually a singular twist to the battle. At this point the Hydra sheds a layer of armor plating from the lower hull, producing a massive turret. This new cannon essentially turns out to be a Moonstone Cannon on a swivel, dubbed the "Hydra Cannon".

From this point on you will periodically be prompted to select the option to attack the upper hull or the lower hull, and this becomes the routine that dictates the remainder of the battle. If attacking the upper hull is selected, the next few rounds will be played defensively by both the Hydra and the Delphinus. Galcian will not attempt to use the Hydra Cannon and instead blast you with turret fire while guarding against your attacks. In this circumstance you take less damage, but also give out less as well -- Galcian makes it a point to defend against the Moonstone Cannon whenever you are being defensive. If the Delphinus is in danger, take this option and use the opportunity to repair the ship and set the ship up for your next round of attacks. Choosing to attack the lower hull is the aggressive tactic to complement the defensive option. While attacking the lower hull the Delphinus will be regularly blasted by the Hydra Cannon, but Galcian will not guard against the Moonstone Cannon, so both vessels can expect to take a large amount of damage when the aggressive tactic is in effect.

As always, you will want to go into this class of battle with a large supply of healing items and backups for your backups. Your best bet is to stock up on full repair kits, apo wax, and make sure you've got the best cannons in the business beforehand. Defend whenever possible while hitting the Hydra as hard as possible. If need be take a defensive turn to reassemble the ship into one piece, but otherwise always chose to attack the lower hull and fold healing maneuvers into the aggressive tactics. The Hydra does not go down easily, but the majority of its attacks are relatively low damaging so, as long as you are not blind sided by the Hydra Cannon, the fight becomes little more then a drawn out arm-wrestling match.

As a Dungeon

After severely damaging the Hydra in an intense airship battle, Vyse and crew board the ship with the intention of fighting Galcian face-to-face. Outside where the party lands, Enrique will be there to provide healing for the party if necessary.

The ship itself is rather linear with only a few dead ends to throw players off, though these dead ends often lead to valuable items. Most areas of the Hydra are damaged as a result of the previous ship battle. Despite this, the areas are heavily guarded by the strongest soldiers in the Armada under Galcian's command. Eventually the party will reach the engine room, where a nearby ladder will take them to the top deck where Galcian is.

Treasure Chests

There are four treasure chests inside the Hydra, all of which are missable.

• X Cannon
• Sacrulen Crystal ×3
• Moonberry
• Magic Dew ×2

Bestiary

• Assassin
• Defender
• Hydra Elite
• Marauder
• Sorcerer
• Galcian (Boss)

Name Origins

As with all other Valuan ships, the Hydra is named after the constellation of the same name (which also happens to be the largest of the 88 modern constellations).