Hardcore stories

Janet the Java wrote: 1 year ago

Necrarch wrote: 1 year ago

I'm not too stressed about it, per se, but... I would sincerely like to avoid dying for a while yet.

Current setup is working but clearly my gear is still pretty poor. In general I have leaned towards being conservative and making sure to have good res, cbf, and as much life as possible, especially since kill speed is still ok. I think in this case I will respec for Spirit though, just a question of whether to stick with Smoke until I get Treachery and not worry about cbf for now.

Oh yeah, its easy to get more levels and to areas that your not ready for and still have ok kill speed. That seems to be a decent percentage of deaths imo. What are your resistances with Smoke and Rhyme?

I don't play HC but my sc 60 sin has never died yet - but she wears stuff bought by my main so it's easier.

Anyway,

Shadow Master is a great tank and offers utility too - and a single point is enough for most stuff.

If you have issues with immunes you can pump

Fire Blast, e.g. to 12 - gives extra shots for

Death Sentry every 3 points and is not in your traps limit.

Side note: Nat set is great for HC with it's permanent damage reduction

Up to Ancients Way. Those Blood Lords in the

Crystalline Passage were mother flipping terrifying, had an extra fast boss pack chasing me around half the map before I could get to a safe enough spot to cast a TP, came so close to Death on at least two occasions. I think I need to grind some more levels before I continue... So close to completing on Hell for the first time and yet it feels so far still.

On the plus side, once I'd had my fill of pure stress and

Terror, I went back to softcore farming and it felt so peaceful, relaxing. I'd run out of steam with softcore farming but it's a nice way to chill after a HC session.

RIP my first ever hammerdin:
Had a fire res problem (5%, I think) that I was too lazy to fix. Hell

River of Flame was too much, when a pack of extra fast and champion pit lords came at him all at once.

I played a lot more HC on D3, where it was the only way to make the game remotely interesting. HC on D2 is just a straight gut punch. I might give it another shot? Would like to beat the game once on HC, just to say I did it.

Oof, it's always tough to take. Sometimes hard to motivate yourself to start again immediately but you should try again soon. I'm hooked on HC now.

Speaking of which, I finally beat the game myself, level 83 Trapsin. Felt great! But this was the day before ladder reset so I haven't even touched the char since. And ladder progress has been slow so far because I have no time, just through to NM with a lvl 31 sorc.

Worst Non Disconnect Death was my 97 Sorceress Solo game went into the

Throne of Destruction, and got jumped by a pack of

Fanaticism, extra fast Death lords spawned about 2 inches from the entrance, and the character was completely decked out.

Literal game generated Tp-pk.

It took me a few weeks to come back to the game after that it was a massive loss for sure but Im still HC all the way

Most surprising Death was my 62 Fury druid I over leveled to do NM ancients. One of them being fire enchanted and the explosion was strong enough to unshift and kill me with stacked resistances and hot spurs on.

I did laugh at that one a little bit

Finally the funniest one (though I did feel bad when it happened)

Was doing some Chaos runs for a guild member of mine on a summon necro, went to pop the grand vizier seal and the sprite overload caused him to spawn back out into the arm by the wall where he was hiding right on top of him. Live and learn eh lol

Would personally love to see a compilation of reactions of HC streamers the first time they discovered the change in

Lord De Seis's Spawn Pattern in Chaos that would be a fun watch.

My first attempt at a HC ladder season has been an unmitigated disaster. 3 weeks in, I've not made it past A1 Hell yet and had two deaths. My sorc got instantly annihilated by an archer boss pack in the Tower (Hell), and my second attempt ended in normal, got caught by big D's red lightning and that was it.

i'm not very good at this mode...

Well I have tried HC only once.

HC version aint for me, I mean I know how to play (not saying I am best player ever - no I am far from it). Problem is that if I do for example 30 nila runs then I get bored and I start making odd choices which leads to Death, just because I lose

Concentration - I forget to prebuff myself, missclicking fingers on my keyboard and instead of drinking full rejuvs I TP in the middle of pack those sorts of mistakes - always pushing the limit is my motto, but in HC you can never push too hard because you will die.

I have huge respec to everyone who plays HC and get out of normal difficulty!

But back to my HC story.
Once I was talking in pub with someone about games and he played D2 too. So I told him that I play D2r and its same game, but with really great graphic. And we drunk beers and talk and tequilas. And somehow we made bet. Who gets further in HC. And at around 3am I got home. And I really died before I could get to

Den of Evil on lvl 1 in my defense I could barely saw screen and in the final moment when I saw glimpse of light on the screen to see whats really going on and I could save myself I decided to enjoy beer rather than to stay in virtual world

That was my first and probably last HC try.

Infector of Souls with below buffs spawned directly on my ES sorc... End of story.

Oof, rough. RIP!

What level were you?

Ouch.

Conviction + Spectral Hit + Extra Fast + Light enchanted is... real tough. Apart from Mana Burn all was here to ruin your life.

Janet the Java wrote: 1 year ago

Oof, rough. RIP!

What level were you?

Necrarch wrote: 1 year ago

Ouch.

Conviction + Spectral Hit + Extra Fast + Light enchanted is... real tough. Apart from Mana Burn all was here to ruin your life.

Char Lvl 97 in TZ96, I am used to that all my sorcs are glass cannons lightnings 3rd Death when I was in control though (not disconnect / server crash). If my current gets to 97 I'll consider using max block +

Stormshield

Janet the Java wrote: 1 year ago

Oof, it's always tough to take. Sometimes hard to motivate yourself to start again immediately but you should try again soon. I'm hooked on HC now.

Speaking of which, I finally beat the game myself, level 83 Trapsin. Felt great! But this was the day before ladder reset so I haven't even touched the char since. And ladder progress has been slow so far because I have no time, just through to NM with a lvl 31 sorc.

I took the advice.
Put more effort into grinding this time around, and made sure to solve my res problem. Pretty pleased about this, first time ever beating D2 on HC.

That's awesome, congrats.

It's a very different experience. You have to grind at various points and you have to focus gear on survivability over pure damage, it simply isn't possible otherwise. Extremely satisfying when you finally kill

Baal on Hell.

I'm just about to get on the wagon again, took a week or so off after my latest Ladder Death. I was rushing, I'll try to chill and take my time with this next attempt.

Congrats Cristobal !

Thanks y'all. I have to say, having played the entire game deathless, the most terrifying thing *by far* is the undead stygian doll. Even in nightmare, they run as fast as a max

Vigor and can put

Holy Shield 1k hp into hit recovery with a normal attack. Absolute monsters.