Diablo: IncGamers Forums - Diablo 3 Hardcore Forum

Hardcore Ultimate Ironborn.

Razorchain — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 20:54:59 GMT

After blowing through hardcore Inferno on my witch doctor, I've decided to try something fun/challenging.

Back in my D2 days, I loved starting a new hardcore character on /players 8 and seeing how far I could progress without outside help from trades/mules. I called it ultimate hardcore back then, and a few friends also played along.

Now, at risk of probably re-hashing a mode that I'm sure others are already doing, here's how I play Hardcore Ultimate Ironborn:

- Starting at level 1, at no point are you allowed to play on less than MP10. Think back to pen and paper D&D.. at level 1, a small group of zombies or kobolds was deadly. MP10 means you have to know when to run, when to fight, and when to log off for a map reset in the event of particularly nasty affix combos on a rare/champion group.

- No AH or use of items found on other characters. The exceptions are gold, gems, and mats, since it's too cumbersome to track separate character contribution to the stacks. Having a high-level ruby or two (weapon and helm) will also highly benefit your character.

- All items used by the Ultimate Ironborn Hardcore character must be found by that character. Vendor & crafted items are allowed. Stashed items from other characters are not. Obviously, this makes having the plans to some item sets very valuable to this game mode.

- Single player only. Yes, group play is more entertaining, but this is about the true challenge, and group play makes survival too easy.

- You can replay areas as you see fit. With MP10 and no use of the AH, it will be virtually impossible to even make it to inferno difficulty without replaying content for gear upgrades.

- You can reset maps as you see fit. This isn't the D2 ironman mode where you can only run an area once and must progress. You're allowed to balance survival and replayability for loot over progression. You're allowed to bail on difficult affix combos, as the RNG shouldn't determine if you live or die on MP10.

Although I've been playing this mode off and on with a 2nd account for a couple months, I'll restart a fresh character now and track progress in this thread. Does anyone else play by this specific set of rules - or even more limiting, like no outside gems/gold/mats from other characters? I'd love to hear how other people are able to progress with these rules, so please share!

One life to live: Death takes a holiday

Hound — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:30:10 GMT

I posted the comment during one of our last podcasts, and it still has me thinking, what happened to death in hardcore? I've died a lot in the year since release, however I've found myself quite comfortable as of late. While that may be reassuring in someways it is frustrating, we need death in Hardcore, and right now it's too easy to avoid.

Right now It feels like death in Hardcore has become avoidable. Does that mean no one is dying? Of course not, people are dying but not as frequently as it used to be. Why is that?

1. Items

With the reduction in Inferno difficulty we've seen a proliferation in items introduced into our economy. That increase has allowed more people to push their dps ranges into a comfortable farming range. it's now 100 times easier to find a moderatly priced weapon to boost your dps into the 50-70k range and get to farming. Which then generates more people finding more items and creating a viscious cycle. This extends to non weapons as well, crafting has given us the ability to piece together a healthy gear set to provide safety and effectivness at minimal cost. You can now roll into inferno with next to nothing and with some lucky crafts and minimal Auction house hunting be farming in no time.

2. Monster power

With the introduction of the Monster Power system we were given the choice in how difficult we want things to be, and we brought the introductory level of MP0 down to a much more comfortable range. The comfortability ties into the path of least resistance. If I can farm MP0 and get the drops I want, a decent amount of xp, and have it take less time, I am going to do that. However in Mp0 I fear next to nothing. Most packs now are whiddled down quickly, sometimes before I even notice the affixes. Which then makes things safer. Now I know on the higher monster powers this isn't the case, and challenge is apparent but not many players are choosing that option over safety and ease.

3. Monsters themselves

Think back to D2, what struck fear in your hardcore heart? Chances are you will recall Duriel and MSLE. Both would have me nervous before I encountered them. Both would provide a substantial roadblock to progress. However nothing like that seems to be found now in D3. Sure there are dangerous affix combinations(waller/frozen/desecrator/arcane) but nothing that evokes that true peril that we once saw. Monsters also used to have resistances which made you vary up how you would even go about approaching them, now the approach is all the same, tank and spank. However D3 did have some of those options before. It may not have been popular but Invulnerable monsters provided a challenge and a strategy in tackling. The original version of arcane had hydras spawning that would push you back and force you to take a new approach depending on how they spawned. Personally i'd love to see more affixes liek this come back as opposed to don't stand here, move over there variety. They shake up our play style and weed out players every now and then.

4. Nerfs

We've also seen difficulty take a hit since launch. there was a time when inferno meant almost certain doom for your character, and while that may have not been the most appealing we not have the capability to neuter the difficulty at will while only sacrificing some xp and mf. This is in tandem with multiplayer games which take the difficulty down a notch by monster health only scaling 50% as opposed to the previous 100% making it easier now to kill in groups as opposed to solo.

The biggest killer of hardcore players that remains is lag, both server and client side and while that hasn't changed much since D2 it shouldn't be the only thing we fear. Players have now started trying to make disconnect proof characters to spurn the one thing they can't control, while neglecting all the other things that should be out to get them.

It's weird to make a call for more death in the game, but it is one of the things that is vital to hardcore being just that. I lost my paragon 72 monk a while ago but since then have been roaring back on my WD relatively unhindered, how? Not by luck, but a stash full of good items, playing on mp2, and a stable internet connection have kept me alive. I don't worry much as I load in to take down the denizens of hell and that in of itself has me worried.

How has death treated you in D3?

One Life to Live covers the Hardcore play and life style in the Diablo community. It is written by Xanth and published weekly. Post your comments below, Follow me on Twitter @HCXanth or contact the author directly. For all the archived news about Diablo 3 hardcore check our Archives!

Hardcore OT lounge - Frankenstein's Deli

~FaMe~ — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:37:22 GMT

Noticed that this forum doesn't have a proper OT topic and I definitely believe that with this amount of forum activity here we deserve one. So let the OT flow :thumbup:

On a sidenote, still 4,5 hours of work and some tennis with friends until I can continue my first lvl60 HC character, can't wait!

Diablo 3 Hardcore Warning: Tristram Is Deadly Again

Hound — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:20:15 GMT

An urgent Diablo 3 Hardcore Warning. You can die in Tristram the instant you join the game.

Prior to Patch 1.03 fixing the problem by putting a portal barrier over the bridge to the Weeping Hollow, players were able to lead monsters across the bridge into Tristram. This was very funny when it was an accident, as players newly into Inferno practiced the "run around screaming" tactic so common in those early "gear check" days. Sometimes players ran for the safety of town, except it wasn't safety, and jokes about, "the chased me all the way back to Diablo 2" were funny... except that in D2 town was a safe zone.

It was also pretty funny when players "built a zoo" in Tristram, leading numerous monsters right into the center of town, where they destroyed anyone who joined the game before their loading screen ended.

It was a lot less funny when people did this in Hardcore; at least to the victims. The problem was fixed in v1.03 though, at least on that end of town. There are two sides to Tristram though, and though the monsters out the southern gate aren't as fierce, if some patient ******* spends the time to herd a bunch of them into the center of town, on a high MP level, it's still pretty much instant death for a new player joining the game. Which is easy to do if you accept an invite to join the game from someone who sees you in chat.

Grimiku: We all know that playing public games in Hardcore can be risky (any time you involve other people, that becomes the case), and I hope everyone is being extra careful when they do.

[caption id="attachment_348331" align="alignright" width="300"] Not the first thing you want to see in a new HC game.[/caption]@CodSack As a fellow Hardcore player who’s lost a few high-level characters, I’m really sorry this happened to you. We all know that it’s likely that we’ll eventually die in Hardcore (sometimes due to circumstances we can’t even control), and that it’s permanent when it happens, but it doesn’t change the fact that losing a hero can be pretty hard. I can only imagine how frustrating this was for you, but I hope it doesn’t dampen your spirits too much or turn you away from the Hardcore community. Generally, it’s full of awesome people who genuinely love the play style, and only want to help out their fellow Nephalem. I hope this has primarily been your experience too.

I know you’re concerned with ensuring this kind of situation doesn’t happen again (to you or to other players), so I want to let you know that we’re passing along the feedback from this thread to the appropriate people who can evaluate it and decide what to do. Along those lines, it’s also helpful to report this kind of behavior whenever you see it using the right click > Report option, so that our Customer Support staff can investigate the situation itself and anyone involved. Unless we receive a report, we can’t really look into the issue and/or see if there’s any way that we can assist.[source]http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/9244645435?page=9#173[/source]

Allegedly the main guy doing this over the weekend on the EU server was permabanned, but you can be sure others will duplicate the trick, so you may want to avoid accepting invites to join games from people you don't trust, and be cautious joining any game in Act One, until Bliz patches in a fix to this exploit.

HC Monk - gearing

Skyra — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 13:29:51 GMT

Hi,

I have pretty much every other class at the MP1 farming stage.

But I just can't seem to work out how to get the right balance of DPS vs defense vs OWE resists for Monks - it seems to limit the available gear pool so much that I just can't afford to "fix" my old monk for the changes since monster power was introduced.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/S.../hero/17775107

Which is a shame because I quite enjoy playing them (I just leveled a spare to 60).

So:
What's my DPS target for MP1 farming on a Monk? (i'd go for 50k+ on most other and 70k+ on wizards and DH)

Shield or Dual wield.

What life / armour / res values am I looking for and should I look for a bit of everything on each slot or stack defense on the less DPS critical spots and just offence on gloves/neck/rings?

Life steal / Life on hit / Regen - or less of all 3 - assuming a builder/finisher/cyclone type of build rather than TR or other exotic stuff.

Thanks

D3 - Hardcore Monk is back and rocking

FireStormNZ — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:18:33 GMT

Hi all,

I just wanted to post a message saying I am back playing Diablo 3. Stopped a while back around 1.05 but I am really enjoying playing again. I especially am enjoying the potential to craft my own upgrades - I can't believe how many Tome of Secrets I am going through at the moment.

For any of you interested I am currently running A1 MP1 with my monk link: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/F.../hero/13066743 the new A1 Monster Density is unreal but I can still clear the zone at a really good clip.

I also recently found what may be my first borderline sellable item in around 300 hours of play.

Chest Armour - 504 Armour, 143 Strength, 148 Vitality, 50 Int, 3 Sockets! Anyone have any thoughts on what it could go for on the HC AH? Obviously no resists so not top qualiy but in terms of stats / sockets it is looking pretty good.

Anyhow I am going to start clearing A1 again but wanted to message the HC community as I have kept reading this site even while away.

Also if anyone has any feedback for me on my monk I'm open to ideas.

Where to go with my wizard?

Abdar — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:14:37 GMT

Hi all, been a while since I've been around here ;)

I'm curious where I should go stat wise with my wizard.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/A.../hero/33853932

Currently farming act 1/3 MP0 but would like to make the jump to MP1 were while I can do it now, I feel under powered.

As well, I enjoy the MM/Blizzard combo, but if you think I'm really missing something by not taking X talent, let me know.

Thanks!

Ab.

AH / Shared Stash Issues ??

TheDarkSide — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 11:30:47 GMT

So I logged on last night to find that not only are all my tabs in the stash blanked out except the first two rows on the first page but all my gold is gone as well showing I have 458 gold. I had a little over 40 Mil in the bank on Wednesday. All my gems were on the 2nd page in the stash and all my crafting mats on the 3rd page but nothing is there anymore..
Anyone else have this issue ?