Lvl 94 Sorc RIP Share your hardcore experience

It was a classic disconnect to a f4ck1ng RIP. I had a day off, I was running a series of cow runs, I cleared the entire farm and left 1 unique cow that had light immune + physical immunity, was going to basically save and exit and start another run, just before noon

Hurricane was going around town and we had a power outage, my PC shut down before I went back to the encampment to stash the loot, was not close to that cow, probably my merc "Alzheimer" as I liked to call him was walking around and baited that devilish bovine in, what a good day to die (). Sadly even more horrible accident happened in my city at the same time, a 70 yr old man driving a car was hit by a falling tree Reast In Peace.
I'm curious about other players experience with hardcore characters. So far I made 4 Sorceresess. First one got killed by normal diablo, the good ol'

Lightning Strike smashed my sorc in less than 1 second. Another character got to lvl 80+ I had

Tal Rasha set on, wanted to finish book quest in act 3. Upon entering I walked to the main hall where always an uber super fast pack of

Corrupt Rogue 's run upon adventurers, I noticed that they are not running towards me, then I realized that the laag is in effect so obviously Save and quit, got into the menu, moved my mouse cursor to hit the play button, 40 seconds timer, oh noooo! This is bad, finally I click play button and RIP massage pops out. The third time I wanted to go fast so my character got ripped by

Blood Raven It was actually funny that I got my char killed off so fast. I started playing HC because softcore got boring, needed that risk factor. I think the hardcore play is always more interesting because of that risk matter. I never got killed by PK'ers but was targeted on numerous occasions. So far I realized that you come to a level where the game has no clue how to kill you, but forces of nature can finish you off anyway.
I'm probably not going to start over fast though, the better the character I create the more it takes for me to get back to playing Diablo 2, I think it's positive to toss the gaming addiction to the side for a longer while and focus on much more important matters that I neglected lately. Diablo 2 is a huge time sink and dying in hardcore makes me leave the game burned out and kinda controlling this addiction. Obviously, there is no Death shot because it was a lights-out situation. But I have a bunch of item drops recorded so I think I'm gonna make a loot recap video soon.

Feel free to post your Hardcore experience here.

F

You took this HC Death like a good sport. This great post is evidence of that and thanks for sharing it with us. I lol'd at your merc's name.

Don't feel bad about wanting to step away from the game for a bit now. You've clearly had an amazing time so far and other interests outside of the game like modding (and now videos too, hype?) might be more fun to you atm.

Don't have a salty H-sea story to share myself, but I remember a similar thread from the 'early days' (only 3 mth ago) of this forum RIP Magdalena 85 HC Sorc. Hope reading that helps

YOUR DEEDS OF VALOUR WILL BE REMEMBERED.

Still have my trusty level 59 Fire druid, doing my best to beat act IV without re-spec into Wind, just for a challenge. The feeling is different, as your impending mortality makes it much much more rewarding when you achieve a goal.

Also, makes you play in a much more safety-oriented manner. For instance, I was about to beat NM Diablo with just

Fissure (merc and summon died), but he trapped me in a Bone trap with an impending

Firestorm attack. Had to quit the game and try it all over again. Had it been SC, I would have gambled my way out of the trap with my

Fissure, but it was a risk I am not willing to take in HC.

Also, I try to play with no music or distractions, to minimize my human error. Still not dead yet, but it will come, and I am mentally prepared for it.

Aegis200 wrote: 2 years ago

I was about to beat NM Diablo with just

Fissure (merc and summon died), but he trapped me in a Bone trap with an impending

Firestorm attack. Had to quit the game and try it all over again.

That is very useful idea, I would probably die there. I'll probably gear up to play as a good old Zealer pally. I've been a mele dog for entire D2 and D2LOD but since D2R released it was a ladies time so far as I wanted to try other characters.

I dont know how yall play hardcore. Yall must have some solid internet... Dont get me wrong, my ATT fiber is great, but I occasionally get dropped. Then my character gets dropped.

dilbert383 wrote: 2 years ago

I dont know how yall play hardcore. Yall must have some solid internet... Dont get me wrong, my ATT fiber is great, but I occasionally get dropped. Then my character gets dropped.

Yep same here with good ole Comcast. It drops randomly during the day and around midnight.

Wonder if anyone has tried Multiboxing Hardcore... like to have a safety net for another character to come loot your body.

Back in my day, when the Earth was still young and dinosaurs roamed free and you could get a woolly mammoth burger for a nickle, they had on one of the D2 sites "the Hardcore Graveyard" where people could post eulogies for their recently

Fallen but not forgotten toons. They had a little template, to include Final Words.

Most of the deaths were due to "Lagmoster" or "Black Wall of Death". There were also not too few lives lost to the Electric beetles and the dolls.

Funniest one I remember was for "Meat". The poster made a barbarian specifically to see how far he could get without stopping. The answer was Act 1 Catacombs

Tainted. Final Thoughts were, "Oh well, it was just Meat".

Those lags/disconnects/similar crap are the reasons I'm not playin HC. When you screwed smth up and got punished is one thing - but when you did all well and some discon ruined all your effort is completely another. No way
Besides, I'm not raising my char spendin months of play just to lose it all irrepairably on some random occasion. Sacrificin some of my real lifetime to the game deserves bein paid by guaranteed virtual immortality of a sort, I believe - not just another chance in the game based on chasing the tiny odds.

Asha wrote: 2 years ago

Those lags/disconnects/similar crap are the reasons I'm not playin HC. When you screwed smth up and got punished is one thing - but when you did all well and some discon ruined all your effort is completely another.

I got similar opinion until my softcore chars started sitting on their eternal fortunes looking like their about to die of boredom... Lvl 99 maybe? and they were like meeehhhh

My second 99HC bowazon in 1.09. I'd spent so long getting her good gear and cowing her to 99. I was PLing a buddy in hell cows and a 99baba joined in what looked like shitty gear and insta aggroed the group and was waiting outside A1 town. In my juvenile arrogance I decided to try and get him with a few shots from my

Ballista with

Magic Arrow, figuring I could tank a few WW's.

Lo and behold, the fucker teleported right next to my and 1shot me with Zerk.
I was so shocked that I accidently insta escaped outta the game so no gear retrieval either. One of the few times I cried irl over a game but then again I was like 14. I learned my lesson though and shortly after made a

Meteor PK sorc to get in on the action.

Bigpappapunk wrote: 2 years ago

I was so shocked that I accidently insta escaped outta the game so no gear retrieval either. One of the few times I cried irl over a game but then again I was like 14. I learned my lesson though and shortly after made a

Meteor PK sorc to get in on the action.

Have you ever PK'ed someone who had laag afk?

I haven't played any HC since D2R release, but I will return to full-time HC after the next reset.

My biggest HC Death moments of the past..... just too many to count!

Im on my 7th or 8th javazon. Chuckles in level 93. So far so good.

Darbon wrote: 2 years ago

Bigpappapunk wrote: 2 years ago

I was so shocked that I accidently insta escaped outta the game so no gear retrieval either. One of the few times I cried irl over a game but then again I was like 14. I learned my lesson though and shortly after made a

Meteor PK sorc to get in on the action.

Have you ever PK'ed someone who had laag afk?

The was how I got almost all my kills, the semi lag teleporting into cow level back then before everyone had high speed. Keep in mind on USWest at the time a bunch of South Koreans were playing in net cafes with high ping and they were highly susceptible to

Meteor PK. I even named my characters Korean sounding names and joined the Korean cow channels to get more kills. I'd stand by the red portal after starting the game on my sorc or another character. Then I'd spam

Meteor until (TBH I think I went off the sound of someone entering the cow level but can't remember for sure, it might have been sight) sometime came through. I'd go back to town and aggro the group. Many times I'd kill three or four in a single go. All one needed was like level 64 or something to max out

Meteor,

Fire Mastery and a few survival skills so if you had the items you could make one in a day or two. Most of my

Meteor PK sorc deaths were bad cow portal spawns where I'd lag a little and die (until I finally leveled one up to mid 90's and had better gear but less +to fire skills).

So many times ppl asked if I was a PKer before going through the portal, but I lied then greed got the best of them lol. I was a kid at the time and probably wouldn't do it these days but man those are some of my all time favorite gaming memories.

Some of my favorite "PK" memories...

1). Back in patch 1.09, everyone in LoD Expansion would level up in Act 5

Bloody Foothills. That was where some of the most intense PK combat would take place.

I built a very strong lvl 45

Whirlwind Barb, with a Cruel

Bec-De-Corbin of Quickness, etc. He had the best possible gear for his level.

I would hostile an entire 8-player group of level 70's & 80's characters, and chase them down on foot. They weren't scared of a lvl 45, but I would usually kill 2 or 3 per game then everyone else would bug out.

I never did die with him, but there were more than a few close calls against

Ballista Amazons, and well geared lvl 80 Barbs.

Racked up countless slain ears, and I didn't feel quite as guilty about it, because the players that died made a choice to stay and fight.

I didn't participate in this type of behavior very often, but the situation above made for too much entertainment to pass up.

One thing that I always loved about HC in the past was that the community was small and close knit.

I remember starting fresh in D2 Classic HC (pre-expansion), after a long time of playing LoD HC. I found out that this mode was even more fun at the time (1.09 - around 2001-2002).

But there was a huge gear unbalance between the newer players and "old school" players that carried on from patch 1.06 and before. There were these godly "duped" rare armors & weapons from back then that the new players just simply had no access to.

So one night during CS runs, the #2 character on the ladder at the time, a lvl 91

Lance wielding Barb challenges some random player that was being a prick to a duel in the

Blood Moor. EvilzFukinBarb, #2 on the ladder, kills this level 80 something barb like it was no big deal. In hindsight, he had just as much of a chance to die as the other guy.... and the nerve that it took to do this, blew me away.

The player that died had randomly allowed me to loot his corpse, and I ended up scoring an old school "duped"

Lance, and

Ornate Plate.

In D2 Classic, getting to level 91 is almost the same as getting to level 98 or so in Expansion. It takes soo much longer to level past 90.

Fast forward about 6 or so months, and I ended up climbing the D2 Classic HC ladder myself. I believe I was #3 overall at the time, a level 93 Barb.

I knew that there would be people challenging me to duel after I climbed the ladder high enough, so I built my Barb in a way that it would be impossible to kill me at a high level.

Eventually a level 86 Barb, a skilled PVP'er whom I was familiar with & had fought many times before under different circumstances (coincidentally the same player Evilz killed in my post above), challenged me to fight. He was using a risky 2-handed

Martel de Fer build, while I was using a full vitality build with -30% requirement

Executioner Sword & shield.

Theoretically he shouldn't have stood a chance against me, and for the most part, I was correct. He kept having extreme near Death moments over and over, but luckily managed to keep on surviving. I was completely confident that I would end up picking up his

Ear. And then after a several minutes of fighting, he landed one good

Whirlwind with 5 or 6 successful hits in a row, and that ended up killing me at level 93.

After said duel, I lost about 4 months of leveling, by my best estimate. Level 93 in pre-expansion mode takes an insane amount of dedication. And I kept that ghost until my old accounts eventually expired... just couldn't get myself to delete it.

I was bored waiting for 2.4 and thought to try hardcore... I made it to lvl 17 and died to a beetle in the wormhole.

rest in Peace marco, you will be remembered forever - I had high hope in you

xigua wrote: 2 years ago

rest in Peace marco, you will be remembered forever - I had high hope in you

Reincarnate him with same name, my chars are immortal just like in softcore, they just get robbed of equipment and go back to infant lvl 1

He was reincarnated as summon necro... I need to try kids-mode first