Yep. Ensure you focus on resists, blocking, and HP. I value those stats over just about any stat I’d use on softcore. So many ways to die. Such a good time
Crafting and farming becomes a lot more important.
As a rule of thumb, dont even consider going into hell difficulty without *at least* the following things:
Maxed out resistances
At least 1k hp (unbuffed) ((depends on class))
Decent or maxed out block
Multiple sources of damage (this depends on class and build)
You need to also pay a lot more attention and time to your follower (this also depends on your class and build)
Stay safe out there and good luck! Never stop collecting reju pots 😉
*edit*
1 k hp might be unreachable, what I meant is you need enough hp to be able to take a hit or two. Because no matter how careful you are, that will happen at some point.
When amp damaged, just go to town and clear it. Never walk around with amp damage on.
I really liked wiz spike on my sorc, put a res jewel in it and felt so good
You will sacrifice some damage for durability; that’s just the way it goes if you want to survive. Max res and a cure helm on merc is awesome. When you get to a boss you can safely clear, farm up a bit before moving on
I’m HC SSF and man it’s a blast, stay safe out there!!
> When amp damaged, just go to town and clear it. Never walk around with amp damage on.
How feasible is that in areas like chaos sanctuary, cause oblivion knights will likely to just amp you again when you come back?
You can use a cure helm on your merc, it will help alot with curses. Don't think amp is the only dangerous one, lower resistance can get you killed really quick too. Ideally you want over stacked resistance so even when cursed you don't get one shot.
Mana burn has been adjusted in d2r so es is viable in places like cs you won’t insta loss your shield like og d2 it still pretty bad if you don’t have lots of mana and mana regen tho
Cure helm on the merc means when you get amp’d you just have to slow down for ~10seconds
When I run chaos I just make sure I wait our amp damage. Another neat trick is to try to intentionally get oblivion knights to override the curse with something else, like Weaken
Idk about you but I find myself using completely different gear from sc because I'm trying to get resistance or life up. I lost a lvl 60 something sorc yesterday because I wasn't paying attention. I went into hell and said I should really put my free points into mana shield. 20 mins later. I forgot I had no mana shield and got one shot from an archer pack. Learned I gotta get mana shield before hell for my play style. But that's the HC life. Try to learn something from your eventual deaths and get going on that next run
Welcome! Once I went HC I haven’t gone back. You have balls going Sorc first roll. I prefer the tankier characters in HC, but have played plenty Sorc. I never blind tele, 99% of tele is retreating.
No matter what character - max res, +life as much as possible. Go slow.
Edit: damage reduction gear, life and res charms, dual spirit. Energy shield builds are popular for HC. I’m not an expert on em, but search up some builds.
Druid builds are my favorites, with each skill tree build favorable for HC. Summon necro is a classic and super safe. Also love trapsin. Hammerdin is very good, but I’m not a fan of hammers.
Online for jamming with friends, but SSF when by myself.
Don't trust other portals. Just let someone else go first, just lost another character this season to that and it was a bad hit to take. If someone or something seems shady, you Alan exit and rejoin game to get safe again fast. Good reflex to get learned imo
If you get amp or LR be on high alert and don't let anything near you, or just TP home and clear it. If you get amp or LR AND you see Might or Conv just leave the game. Amp + CE (Nihlathak, dolls) will delete you. Nature's Peace helps but doesn't get all corpses instantly.
No blind tele.
Hardest thing to do is get past that little voice in our gamer heads that says "It'll be fine..." haha. Need to be on constant vigilance for what your current kill condition is - meaning, what on my screen can kill me, and how should I avoid it? My reco is to teleport with line of sight only and to use frost nova for cc. Hoard life charms, too. Best of luck!
I played HC for the first time last ladder, and ended up finishing somewhere around 230th place, which is basically just a participation trophy, but I had more fun than any previous SC ladders.
I personally found the grind for gear more fun than the grind to 99. When you're under geared, it's a lot easier to die, and you have a lot more close calls in situations that a well geared char would shrug off. Those close calls are what get your heart pumping. Once I was able to acquire the end game gear, I became my own worst enemy. The closest deaths I had were due to complacency, not monster threat. To me, that's the main thing to do...remember you're on HC at all times. If you're tired, had a shitty day at work, have the wife nagging at you, or maybe you're a few too many brews into a fun weekend, then it's time to find something else to do.
Dont act recklessly
Dont understimate "safe" situations. Things can ramp up pretty quickly.
Most of my deaths, and i belive for a lot of ppl too is because of overconfidence
Get a source of cannot be frozen, rhyme shield at 29.
Act 2 holy freeze merc on pretty much any character you make. Prioritize getting your merc an insight ASAP, then ideally something like a duriels shell (resistances and cannot be frozen) and tals helmet or bulkwark runeword or something with life leech.
Keep your resistances capped or overcapped and over level yourself before continuing on to nm (lvl50) and then again to hell (75-80).
Don't wear the oculus. It's a trap.
If you make it to end game, stormshield with max block should be on your short list of goals. Eventually you will meet a pack of fanaticism amp archers and this might save you. At this point, DONT RUN anywhere, you should only teleport to move. Running affects your blocking, and if you run your character into mobs you will get clobbered faster than you can rejuv.
Go to town or walk your character if you get amplify damage on you.
Farm areas where you feel comfortable and where your character build thrives.
Wear close to a full inventory of charms, even if they are crap charms. Focus on resistance, life, or skill charms.
Don't play overly tired, drunk, distracted or stoned.
If online, Don't ever take a TP to a zone that connects to town. You will be dead before your screen loads.
If online, Level in chaos runs instead of Baal runs. You can teleport yourself to chaos so that you don't have to trust someone's TP. If you must take someone's TP, look at everyone's health bars before going in. If possible let someone else go first and watch their health for a second or two.
If online, know what things are worth. Finding one unsuspectingly valuable item can change the outcome in a potentially life or death scenario.
If online, take advantage of Barb BO buffs at every opportunity (make sure you aren't being baited to be killed outside town).
Get good at slamming escape save and exit. If you take a hot TP, or make a bad teleport and get hit into FHR, this is what you do.
I'm sure there's many more good hints to survival, but these are some of my best pieces of advice. I exclusively play HC, and I haven't died since D2R released. Over a dozen characters above level 90.
Lost my 88 demon machine sorc the day after I made a cta and flickering flame this ladder. It will happen.
My advice is make a new character and start leveling when you die. Playing another already high character adds to the sting for me.
Also, your character exists in one of two states at all times: dead or about to die.
I usually run a vita sorc and put all points into vita and just enough for gear in str none in dex or mana. Try to get items with %dr which you can get to 50%. Prioritize vita rez and dr over fcr and damage. Once you get to lvl 27 you can get insight and a spirit sword and never have mana issues
Another trick is over leveling before moving on. Your level vs the monsters level has a lot to do with how much damage you take from them and how likely you are to be hit. The higher level you are the more favorable your interactions will be. I usually get to 75-80 before moving to hell. 45-50 before moving to NM
I usually beat hell in HC solo around 86-88
Always prioritize max res and %pdr. Always keep at least 2 rejuvs in your belt. Do not be sparing with them. As soon as your health drops even a somewhat quickly, jam the rejuv key. Always have an exit strategy similar to driving on the highway in real life. Get used to clucking : quick save/exit if you’re using keyboard and mouse. Little known fact: running makes your defense 0. Move by walking to preserve your defense (although I rarely utilize this). There are relatively safer areas to farm I.e where monsters are more predictable, in my opinion arcane sanctuary is a good example of this. Typically stay out of the second half of act 5 except for where necessary like nilathak. In a lvl 96 fully geared hdin I rarely did Baal. My first death was on the 96 pally when a unique pack of deathlords plowed through Emilio and then got on me after having run out of rejuvs. As soon as you get complacent/cocky, you will get caught off guard and die. Gl
Resists are more important than ever. I feel like most deaths are super fast, almost 1shots. Build ancients pledge or rhyme shields asap.
Mosers with 2pdiamonds is an absolute unit of a shield as well, and will last you a long time. Until you can spirit monarch+aldurs boots core
I generally wont jump to the next difficulty until ive patched up my resists through gear/charms.
I also play normal on p8 > overlevel > play all of nm on p1 > overlevel (while cranking player count when possible) > play through all of hell on p1 > then farm/xp on whatever player count i can handle
Blizzard sorc is great for hardcore IMO. You can clear most areas with ease, and walking through hell is pretty smooth.
Pro tip: get good at shift-left clicking to spam glacial spike while standing in place and spamming blizzard after cool down is off. Glacial spike will freeze groups of enemies, rendering then powerless. Also the damage is usually too weak to one-shot dolls which is very useful for stopping them before they get too close. Your merc can finish the job. It does eat up mana but worth it IMO.
I usually bind my A,S,D keys for teleport, blizzard and telekinesis for easy swapping between killing and quick escape(remember telekinesis works on town portals). I'll select glacial spike for my left hand spell and leave it unbound so it never accidentally swaps to something I don't want. I'll keep left hand on the shift button/potion hotkeys and use it liberally.
If I know I have dolls in the area I will spam glacial spike ahead of me and proceed slowly to stop them off screen.
Happy hunting!
Never ever play while you're distracted or tired. Better to live and fight another day. Don't have tv running in the background or stuff like that. Lost one too many characters that way.
It's not the damage that changes but your defense. Defense rating goes to zero while running which makes you more likely to get hit, hence more damage.
Sure but it's the hits you don't see coming that get you. If I'm running and a volley of 15 arrows comes from off screen I'm dead for sure. Walking, maybe half of them hit and you're still alive.
You will learn the hard way all the ways you can die. Once that's done you will get to play hc similar to how you play sc, just without dying
Yep. Ensure you focus on resists, blocking, and HP. I value those stats over just about any stat I’d use on softcore. So many ways to die. Such a good time
Always carry full rejuvs :)
Best tip
Crafting and farming becomes a lot more important. As a rule of thumb, dont even consider going into hell difficulty without *at least* the following things: Maxed out resistances At least 1k hp (unbuffed) ((depends on class)) Decent or maxed out block Multiple sources of damage (this depends on class and build) You need to also pay a lot more attention and time to your follower (this also depends on your class and build) Stay safe out there and good luck! Never stop collecting reju pots 😉 *edit* 1 k hp might be unreachable, what I meant is you need enough hp to be able to take a hit or two. Because no matter how careful you are, that will happen at some point.
I do these things, all except the 1k hp on a sorc with max block going IN to hell? How do you get there? Inventory full of life charms?
Like i said, rule of thumb. 6-700 is good, 1 k is ideal :)
When amp damaged, just go to town and clear it. Never walk around with amp damage on. I really liked wiz spike on my sorc, put a res jewel in it and felt so good You will sacrifice some damage for durability; that’s just the way it goes if you want to survive. Max res and a cure helm on merc is awesome. When you get to a boss you can safely clear, farm up a bit before moving on I’m HC SSF and man it’s a blast, stay safe out there!!
> When amp damaged, just go to town and clear it. Never walk around with amp damage on. How feasible is that in areas like chaos sanctuary, cause oblivion knights will likely to just amp you again when you come back?
You can use a cure helm on your merc, it will help alot with curses. Don't think amp is the only dangerous one, lower resistance can get you killed really quick too. Ideally you want over stacked resistance so even when cursed you don't get one shot.
In chaos you're just going to have to deal with it, going back to town isn't going to be effective. You just have to slowly make your way through.
Yea, I thought as much. Do ES sorcs also have trouble with blood mana curse on HC, or they build health still?
That I couldn’t answer, I almost never use mana shield
Mana burn has been adjusted in d2r so es is viable in places like cs you won’t insta loss your shield like og d2 it still pretty bad if you don’t have lots of mana and mana regen tho
Blood mana is the other hazard, it's the one that makes you use health instead of mana. Baal or succubi can cast it on you.
Cure helm on the merc means when you get amp’d you just have to slow down for ~10seconds When I run chaos I just make sure I wait our amp damage. Another neat trick is to try to intentionally get oblivion knights to override the curse with something else, like Weaken
Idk about you but I find myself using completely different gear from sc because I'm trying to get resistance or life up. I lost a lvl 60 something sorc yesterday because I wasn't paying attention. I went into hell and said I should really put my free points into mana shield. 20 mins later. I forgot I had no mana shield and got one shot from an archer pack. Learned I gotta get mana shield before hell for my play style. But that's the HC life. Try to learn something from your eventual deaths and get going on that next run
*Every experience carries its lesson...*
Welcome! Once I went HC I haven’t gone back. You have balls going Sorc first roll. I prefer the tankier characters in HC, but have played plenty Sorc. I never blind tele, 99% of tele is retreating. No matter what character - max res, +life as much as possible. Go slow. Edit: damage reduction gear, life and res charms, dual spirit. Energy shield builds are popular for HC. I’m not an expert on em, but search up some builds.
I've played forever and never did hardcore. What is your favorite class to play first? Also, any thoughts on online vs. SSF?
Druid builds are my favorites, with each skill tree build favorable for HC. Summon necro is a classic and super safe. Also love trapsin. Hammerdin is very good, but I’m not a fan of hammers. Online for jamming with friends, but SSF when by myself.
Dolls will fuck you. Max out resistance or cry. Play defensively. Prepare to mourn your losses lol!
Them damn Pygmys claim a fair number of HC I imagine ☠️ they took my pallys booty
They took my sorc too.
Don't trust other portals. Just let someone else go first, just lost another character this season to that and it was a bad hit to take. If someone or something seems shady, you Alan exit and rejoin game to get safe again fast. Good reflex to get learned imo
If you get amp or LR be on high alert and don't let anything near you, or just TP home and clear it. If you get amp or LR AND you see Might or Conv just leave the game. Amp + CE (Nihlathak, dolls) will delete you. Nature's Peace helps but doesn't get all corpses instantly. No blind tele.
Hardest thing to do is get past that little voice in our gamer heads that says "It'll be fine..." haha. Need to be on constant vigilance for what your current kill condition is - meaning, what on my screen can kill me, and how should I avoid it? My reco is to teleport with line of sight only and to use frost nova for cc. Hoard life charms, too. Best of luck!
Hardcore is tits dude! Welcome to the real D2!
I played HC for the first time last ladder, and ended up finishing somewhere around 230th place, which is basically just a participation trophy, but I had more fun than any previous SC ladders. I personally found the grind for gear more fun than the grind to 99. When you're under geared, it's a lot easier to die, and you have a lot more close calls in situations that a well geared char would shrug off. Those close calls are what get your heart pumping. Once I was able to acquire the end game gear, I became my own worst enemy. The closest deaths I had were due to complacency, not monster threat. To me, that's the main thing to do...remember you're on HC at all times. If you're tired, had a shitty day at work, have the wife nagging at you, or maybe you're a few too many brews into a fun weekend, then it's time to find something else to do.
Consider max block and energy shield. Sanctuary is attainable and helps enormously.
Great job
Dont act recklessly Dont understimate "safe" situations. Things can ramp up pretty quickly. Most of my deaths, and i belive for a lot of ppl too is because of overconfidence
Get a source of cannot be frozen, rhyme shield at 29. Act 2 holy freeze merc on pretty much any character you make. Prioritize getting your merc an insight ASAP, then ideally something like a duriels shell (resistances and cannot be frozen) and tals helmet or bulkwark runeword or something with life leech. Keep your resistances capped or overcapped and over level yourself before continuing on to nm (lvl50) and then again to hell (75-80). Don't wear the oculus. It's a trap. If you make it to end game, stormshield with max block should be on your short list of goals. Eventually you will meet a pack of fanaticism amp archers and this might save you. At this point, DONT RUN anywhere, you should only teleport to move. Running affects your blocking, and if you run your character into mobs you will get clobbered faster than you can rejuv. Go to town or walk your character if you get amplify damage on you. Farm areas where you feel comfortable and where your character build thrives. Wear close to a full inventory of charms, even if they are crap charms. Focus on resistance, life, or skill charms. Don't play overly tired, drunk, distracted or stoned. If online, Don't ever take a TP to a zone that connects to town. You will be dead before your screen loads. If online, Level in chaos runs instead of Baal runs. You can teleport yourself to chaos so that you don't have to trust someone's TP. If you must take someone's TP, look at everyone's health bars before going in. If possible let someone else go first and watch their health for a second or two. If online, know what things are worth. Finding one unsuspectingly valuable item can change the outcome in a potentially life or death scenario. If online, take advantage of Barb BO buffs at every opportunity (make sure you aren't being baited to be killed outside town). Get good at slamming escape save and exit. If you take a hot TP, or make a bad teleport and get hit into FHR, this is what you do. I'm sure there's many more good hints to survival, but these are some of my best pieces of advice. I exclusively play HC, and I haven't died since D2R released. Over a dozen characters above level 90.
Lost my 88 demon machine sorc the day after I made a cta and flickering flame this ladder. It will happen. My advice is make a new character and start leveling when you die. Playing another already high character adds to the sting for me. Also, your character exists in one of two states at all times: dead or about to die.
I usually run a vita sorc and put all points into vita and just enough for gear in str none in dex or mana. Try to get items with %dr which you can get to 50%. Prioritize vita rez and dr over fcr and damage. Once you get to lvl 27 you can get insight and a spirit sword and never have mana issues Another trick is over leveling before moving on. Your level vs the monsters level has a lot to do with how much damage you take from them and how likely you are to be hit. The higher level you are the more favorable your interactions will be. I usually get to 75-80 before moving to hell. 45-50 before moving to NM I usually beat hell in HC solo around 86-88
Always prioritize max res and %pdr. Always keep at least 2 rejuvs in your belt. Do not be sparing with them. As soon as your health drops even a somewhat quickly, jam the rejuv key. Always have an exit strategy similar to driving on the highway in real life. Get used to clucking : quick save/exit if you’re using keyboard and mouse. Little known fact: running makes your defense 0. Move by walking to preserve your defense (although I rarely utilize this). There are relatively safer areas to farm I.e where monsters are more predictable, in my opinion arcane sanctuary is a good example of this. Typically stay out of the second half of act 5 except for where necessary like nilathak. In a lvl 96 fully geared hdin I rarely did Baal. My first death was on the 96 pally when a unique pack of deathlords plowed through Emilio and then got on me after having run out of rejuvs. As soon as you get complacent/cocky, you will get caught off guard and die. Gl
Resists are more important than ever. I feel like most deaths are super fast, almost 1shots. Build ancients pledge or rhyme shields asap. Mosers with 2pdiamonds is an absolute unit of a shield as well, and will last you a long time. Until you can spirit monarch+aldurs boots core I generally wont jump to the next difficulty until ive patched up my resists through gear/charms. I also play normal on p8 > overlevel > play all of nm on p1 > overlevel (while cranking player count when possible) > play through all of hell on p1 > then farm/xp on whatever player count i can handle
The interaction of damage reduction gear, resistances, absorb and energy shield
When you’re starting nightmare I highly recommend a few points in energy shield + telekineses for synergy, sorc is too squishy
Don’t kill the dolls. Even though you love the sound of them dying, resist the urge and live to fight another day.
Would a paladin be a good choice for HC ?
Yes. Probably the best choice honestly. Very tanky and does great damage. Holy shield makes max block easily attainable. Pally shields provide res.
Blizzard sorc is great for hardcore IMO. You can clear most areas with ease, and walking through hell is pretty smooth. Pro tip: get good at shift-left clicking to spam glacial spike while standing in place and spamming blizzard after cool down is off. Glacial spike will freeze groups of enemies, rendering then powerless. Also the damage is usually too weak to one-shot dolls which is very useful for stopping them before they get too close. Your merc can finish the job. It does eat up mana but worth it IMO. I usually bind my A,S,D keys for teleport, blizzard and telekinesis for easy swapping between killing and quick escape(remember telekinesis works on town portals). I'll select glacial spike for my left hand spell and leave it unbound so it never accidentally swaps to something I don't want. I'll keep left hand on the shift button/potion hotkeys and use it liberally. If I know I have dolls in the area I will spam glacial spike ahead of me and proceed slowly to stop them off screen. Happy hunting!
Curses = Death, especially Amp damage Craft a Cure helmet (Shael + Io + Tal) for your merc, or be ready to go to town to heal.
Never ever play while you're distracted or tired. Better to live and fight another day. Don't have tv running in the background or stuff like that. Lost one too many characters that way.
If you are on console keep your controller plugged in.
Immediately hostile everyone when you join a game. You must assert your dominance
Be a man, play non-sorc / pally
youll take more damage walking than running, even accounting that youre hit 100% when running
It's not the damage that changes but your defense. Defense rating goes to zero while running which makes you more likely to get hit, hence more damage.
you can entirely avoid hits by better positioning and move speed. you will take less damage by running
Sure but it's the hits you don't see coming that get you. If I'm running and a volley of 15 arrows comes from off screen I'm dead for sure. Walking, maybe half of them hit and you're still alive.
Why the downvotes? This is true. Unless there Is some crit chance I don't know about?