Hardcore players how often do you die

Hi,
So yesterday my lvl 91 necro was one shot by a lvl5

Herald in a players five game, or at least I assume that happened. Because it was 3 am and I didn’t hang long enough on Death screen to see what happened . Usually when you lose a high level character with valuable items your first instinct is shut down laptop and go rethink your life.

In the last 6 or so months I started playing d2 exclusively in hardcore. I never played much in the past, only occasionally LOD and a bit after D2r launched. The soft core grind never appealed to me, but I find the hardcore one extremely addictive. In that 6 months’ time I lost 2 assassins and 4 necros, all above 80 lvl. Everytime I die, I lose more and more valuable items. My last assassin Death was especially heartbreaking, because I was stupid enough to go in

Flayer Jungle with a lightning sunder and

Burst of Speed, forgot that souls can spawn there and got killed. I had at least a few survival mechanisms available, rejuvenate potions until my traps kill the souls,

Fade, mind break, cloak of shadow, but I panicked and instead kept miss clicking save and exit until I died. Lost among the usual a griffons and a good roll CTA among the occasional good skillets and anni.

Yesterday’s necro died (I named him NeverDead, joke’s on me) carrying my last self found anni, a hoto and a very good roll Infinity . Yes, I am the guy that built Infinity on a full Trang Oul summoner to boost my fire damage from firewall and

Corpse Explosion.

The point is, I don’t seem to have a problem farming and getting my items. Even now, I have almost a full equipment ready for a Mosaic sin in development. But, it seems to be inevitable I will do a mistake and die.

So, fellow hardcore players, help me to see if I am just worse than the other players or things are business as usual. How often do you lose high level characters? How do you avoid Death and mistakes? How do you items, what is your routine?

Sorry to hear that you lost your Necro. I just counted my characters and I have 8 high level characters online from previous seasons. My

Zeal Paladin died at level 91 (he wasn't fun to play with anyway) and I lost a Fury druid due to lost internet connection.

Most of my characters are shapeshifting druids or barbarian (fenzy and throw barb). Due to the rather large health pool of these characters it is (or was before the introduction of heralds) kinda hard to die. I only play alone (players 1) . In addition, I also have a

Strafe bowazon. She is a bit more fragile and I would not really hunt heralds with her.

Hunting heralds I have only done with my most trusted character, a Fury druid with a

Eth

Windhammer and a

Stun length of the twisters of 1.6 seconds. Some heralds are easy and some are very dangerous, in particlar if you only have one live. You cannot just run into them and smack everything down as before with all the endgame content. Heralds can be very tough, when some of them hit I lose more than half of my life pool (which is 4.6 k at the moment). And hits come in regulary when you slug it out. In a few cases I had to go back to town to refill my

Belt with rejuvenation potions. In one case up to now I said I am not interested in the fight.

Due to the introduction of heralds I expect the number of hardcore deaths to rise quite significantly. But nevertheless I like the introduction of heralds to the game. When you play hardcore, the spawning of heralds makes your heart beat faster

Imo Diablo 2 hardcore isnt a great idea. It has its desync and lag issues, there are many enemies which just one hit

Ko without any possibility to prevent this.
As long as game has 1 hit

Ko surprises, its not made for hardcore.

Note that I played d3 pretty much all in hardcore and it worked fine because you had to learn what can kill you and you can

Dodge it. In diablo 2, you do not have that possibility. Enemies can attack off-screen and you have no chance to avoid getting hit.

Javelin/

Spear thrower attacks barely can be registered with a naked eye due to the ammunition being tiny and its colours are grey / brown so they disappear in the background.

side note: indeed lately there are a lot of hardcore deaths. i mean in yesterday's game i was only the SECOND to die. and a few days ago another player died in my game

Just curious, any idea how the

Herald got a hit on you?

One thing I do when I die in HC is to treat it like an airplane crash. I analyze every factor that went into it to try and avoid future occurrences. I resist the temptation to rage quit and leave the Death screen up and analyze the whole scene. Think about what I did, look at what modifiers were on any uniques there. Most people that I see die quit instantly but I think there's a lot to be gained by hanging around and soaking in all the details.

mikelessar wrote: 4 hours ago

Semirotta wrote: 9 hours ago

Note that I played d3 pretty much all in hardcore and it worked fine because you had to learn what can kill you and you can

Dodge it.

Well, for those who don't know: Hardcore in D3 is a joke since every char has a built-in resurrection skill on cooldown that procs when you "die". Then you just have to wait the cooldown period (about 30 seconds?), then you can "die" again and get resurrected. You only really die if you die a second time within that cooldown period.

Hardcore you die, you dont respawn.
This is why it was more fun, but it only works if you can trust the game not lagging out. D2 and D4 can have desync and random disconnects here and there, never know when it can happen. Plus the instant

Ko systems which are pretty much impossible to

Dodge unless you play very safely..

I'm all about rhe HC grind too, that's all I play for the last couple years so I'm right there with ya bud.

I've lost 3 paladins, all FoH smiter (my go to build lately) - level 91 got almost 1 shotted by extra strong Might aura pack of beetles in

Tal Rasha's tombs. The other 2, both lost to

Uber Baal because of the same oversight of CTC

Holy Bolt on striking vs his Chilling Armour reflect. First time was because I had Principle armour on and didnt even realize, second time was LoH (apparently even 10% CTC is even to kill you with 2 or 3 procs back to back).

Also lost 82 blizzard sorc teleporting into a might aura pack in

Arcane Sanctuary. Sloppy teleporting and got careless.

My current 93 FoH smiter I've learned alot of tricks for survivability by now.
TP scroll on the

Belt and Enigma with minimum 75 FCR for teleporting are 2 big things that have helped me I find.

Life Tap

Wand for tanky animal monsters, like aura enchanted Yeti Beasts or Blood Lords. Use a CTC amp damage

Dagger on swap strictly for animal PIs also. Also I have a quick trigger finger on the Save+Exit if things just get too straight up gnarly, which I have done several times.

Swapping gear depending on the enemies too - i.e. slap on the Tgods for WSK with Black souls, or bust out

String of Ears/verdungos for heavy hitters like Blood Lords. I could probably keep going but I'm already typing alot lol.

I've said it a million times, but to me playing nonHC is kind of like playing poker with no money involved - where's the fun in that? Lol

pyropy wrote: 4 hours ago

Just curious, any idea how the

Herald got a hit on you?

One thing I do when I die in HC is to treat it like an airplane crash. I analyze every factor that went into it to try and avoid future occurrences. I resist the temptation to rage quit and leave the Death screen up and analyze the whole scene. Think about what I did, look at what modifiers were on any uniques there. Most people that I see die quit instantly but I think theyre's a lot to be gained by hanging around and soaking in all the details.

I always screen record the Death and 30 seconds leading up to it also. It legit does help avoid future mistakes.

pyropy wrote: 4 hours ago

Just curious, any idea how the

Herald got a hit on you?

One thing I do when I die in HC is to treat it like an airplane crash. I analyze every factor that went into it to try and avoid future occurrences. I resist the temptation to rage quit and leave the Death screen up and analyze the whole scene. Think about what I did, look at what modifiers were on any uniques there. Most people that I see die quit instantly but I think there's a lot to be gained by hanging around and soaking in all the details.

I am really not sure. I was alone in

Flayer Dungeon Level 1 and i died in a corridor. I had about 30 skellies and revives, merc and

Iron Golem, and I thought there is noone near me. I couldn't see the

Herald at all, just his aura. The mobs were fetishes and bats.

I enjoy SSF offline HC lately. You won't die due to disconnects and you can /players. Instead of collecting and trading you just have to take you got and push forward. I barely farm and try compensating with "skill"/play style. It's much more challenging and you don't have to trade at all.

Right now, I'm preparing for the Ironman challenge. That's another cup of tea, I tell ya.