I don’t always play hardcore, but when I do, I don’t play all that careful. My goal is to go as high as I can in GR’s slotting a cheat death of course, and just go up and up and up.
If my cheat death procs, I don’t just quit the GR, I keep playing and sometimes it might proc 2 or 3 times during a run. When I complete the GR, it’s such a rush. Then I knock up GR another level and do it again.
Sometimes I make it as high a mid 120’s with no augments and gems leveled to about equal to GR I’m running at before the risk catches up.
I know this isn’t the way you’re supposed to play. The whole point of hardcore is keep your character alive, but I’m not normally a hardcore so when I do, the character isn’t so much the point, as doing all I can do before it dies.
God, it’s fun!
(I’m not trying to tell people how to play. That’s not the point of this post, just saying this is the way I play hardcore. It isn’t better than your play or anything like that.)