HC made me love Diablo again

General Discussion
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I’ve always shied away from HC, not liking the idea that it only takes a server hiccup, a computer freeze, or my GF tripping over the router wire (yes, that has happened), and my toon is gone for good.

Then, last weekend, I got bored with the season and, on a whim, made my first HC toon. I’m being super-careful and still only playing low torments, having already collected my free set on the SC side, my toon is wearing a mish-mash of items that I happened to find. Things are going really slowly - and I’m having the most fun I’ve had with Diablo in years.

This is the Diablo experience I fell in love with the first place. Every item I find has a value and can make me change my build completely. I started with Johana’s flail, then found two pieces of the Invoker set so switched to thorns, and last night I found Jekanborg and Gyrfalcon’s, so it’s Blessed Shield now. Each mob is suddenly way more of a threat - the exploding fatties in combination with a teleporter, waller or jailer elite now fill me with dread. Even the boss battles during bounties suddenly feel like fighting an actual boss rather than just swatting a fly.

Doing the same rat race, season after season, zooming through rifts at speeds that a military jet could be proud of, farming for the same item with marginally better rolls over and over again, I almost forgot how much fun this slow progression and careful gameplay could be.

I realize that, unless I screw up, my toon will eventually “grow up”, and it will be back to the usual grind, even if somewhat slower and more careful. I realize that, eventually, my toon will die and I will be annoyed, especially if it’s because of something outside my control, but the fun I’ve had over the last few days will have been worth it.

Not sure why I’m posting this, honestly. Guess it feels good to have something positive to say for a change…

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Agreed, that is a real strength of HC.
SC in D4 should try to bring this back, through meaningful death penalties/survival bonuses, although obviously less than losing your character completely.

Likewise not surprised that it is more fun not to get a set handed to you. Best part of Diablo (3 or otherwise) is when you are starting to gear up imo. When you are geared up, it kinda starts to not be interesting anymore. Making it even worse that D3 devs decided we should be pretty much fully geared in a few hours.

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Awesome.

I always level a couple SC characters, and take the freebies, but also do an HC character each season. I am in the exact same boat you are with my HC Barb; total thrift store gear. Did my first T2 last night, (while my SC Sader is burning T16, and doing GR75 runs runs in 2 minutes), felt great.

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I progress so much slower in hardcore mode. It’s a lot of fun thiugh, if I’m in the mood for it.

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Completely agree. I have “beaten” each Diablo enough times that the only fun left in the game for me is HC. I start a new character in the new season immediately on Torment I. Rough start. This season, I only lost three Wizards before my fourth made it all the way, now she is on Level 80 Rifts, which is high for me.

Glad to hear others are having renewed fun with HC!

IIRC, Blizzard was not going to include HC in D3. Then at launch, I think they gated it behind beating the campaign or something like that. Apparently, they were afraid of “feel bads” in new players?

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Last season I had 900 Paragon in HC and 500 in SC. Yeah, you start a little slower to avoid dying too soon, but it will creep up on you when you least expect it. Besides my goofs as I was being powerleveled (deaths 2 - 4), the only time I died is when there was red bar lag. Of course I dodged many a red bar lag bullets, only popped my passive. But we all know, it only takes once. One unlucky time and splat. D3 HC is all about how far you can go before the internet kills you. Maybe it’s yours, Blizzards, or both… it doesn’t matter. Lag will always be the real HC boss.

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After enough time its almost the same imo, when you get used to it.

I switched to exclusively play HC in S19 cause my connection is a lot more stable since.
Actually I had 0 chars die to any type of DC so far. ‘knocks on wood’
Ofc I had some deaths here and there before but that was all on me, taking unnecessary risks or just not paying attention + drinking. :grinning:
O ye and season 21 theme that almost killed my char cause it reflected back on my char, so I skipped that season cause thats not cool.

For me the most dangerous part is the leveling process and the early lvl 70 when I don’t have a proper build going.
Thats when I’m more careful but after that I play it comfortably just like I did in SC.

I try to have a backup set and a gem of ease leveled just in case.

Currently I’m at GR 124 with a Bone Spear Necro, it was rather chill w/o o shet moments but I will try to go higher once my augments are finished. ‘playing solo only’

Also I don’t play HC like some ‘crazy’ ppl do, I mean I don’t push until my char dies for sure.
Just don’t see the point nor fun in that, when my char hits its realistic limit I call it and end the season and go play other games.

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I don’t want to detract from your current enjoyment of hardcore as I experienced that same enjoyment at first. I think it’s the novelty of starting a different mode, not the mode itself, unfortunately. Even in hardcore, you eventually get to the point where you can guess the percentage of life you’ll take from each type of attack based on the difficulty level and your toughness.

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So after you posted this thread yesterday I went ahead and tried HC… I got error 1016 again and realized I just can’t put myself in a place where I know I’ll lose my character.

I appreciate the positivity though!

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I start the season in HC so I can get the free set, as SC is just so much easier. But this season I find myself playing SC a lot more than HC, probably because there are so few HC players out there and I am really enjoying grouping this season.

I totally understand where you are coming from. I enjoy the beginnings a lot more than the grinding for paragon and pushing GRs past 110.

The best advice I ever got for HC was, upgrade the Gem of Ease as soon as you can and save a backup set, so if you die, you can pop back up to 70 pretty quickly and be ready to jam.

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In D3 hardcore is not a real hardcore, it is half-softcore, as you lvl up new lvl 70 char in seconds and always have x10 sets of gear replacement.

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“seconds” “x10 sets” Hyperbole much?

how core do I have to be to be hardcore? How about Kore?

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you should read this post if you want to know what to expect on HC

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Yeah, I totally agree. As I said in my OP, I know my toon will eventually “grow up” and it will be back to the grind. That said, I’m happy that my attitude toward playing D3 has shifted from “It’s evening and, man, am I bored. Maybe I’ll run a few GRs since I’ve got nothing better to do.” back to “I should be doing [fill in the blank], but I really want to go and play D3 for a bit instead.” Maybe it will last for a week, maybe for a month - I know it’s not forever - but it’s something at least.

Thanks for the tip - will do!

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It’s a lot of fun. When last season got long-in-the-tooth I made a HC necro and bard. I had played years before but had long since deleted the characters to make room for others. The inventory was still there though! I have a lot of really wacky pre-updated items in the vault. Plus like 6k yellows (yay). I was up to like #12 on the necro boards then I did a rebirth. I did the 65 gems for the conquests. I’ll start playing more once the season starts winding down.

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Once you die, Blizzard deletes your account, is that what you are after in HC to make it “real”?

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No. But in D3ROS hardcore is a joke.

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Until you encounter the real boss of HC, then it’s no joke. You will see a ghost form of your character on your screen.

Y O U A R E D E A D !

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I redone all my INT characters on Hardcore to free up stash space, and I don’t regret it.
Other upside: HC leaderboards are such a ghost town (at least in NS), so you can get into them even if you’re relatively casual player.

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It’s a joke in a sense that you don’t really die.