I just came back to D4 when my son said they significantly improved the game. Skeptical, but willing to try, I created a new druid - lightning storm, human form, hc obviously.
Honestly, I had a blast. I hit clvl 97.9 and took on a rift hellbourne that rolled poison, waller, and freeze. I probably should have run away or not been playing 2 AM but needless to say, I died… very fast to poison of all things.
When I die, I reflect on what I could do better. I had max poison resistance, fortify = life = 34k. I picked a number of paragon boards, glyphs, and skills that mitigate damage. I guess what I’m trying to figure out is how to protect myself from nearly instantaneous poison death. What mechanic or damage mitigation source do I need to revisit?
Thank you
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I guess you’ve died because of the poison explosion, not poison itself, that ticks down your health. Well, first thing: Avoid explosions, until your gear can handle those. When you’re walled, frozen and an explosion is under your feet, I would suggest using the Metamorphisis aspect on your boots. That makes you unstoppable and counters the freeze. And the best thing is: you can dash through walls with that.
All in all: Helltides are pretty dangerous when you are 95+. The enemies can be much stronger, than your gear can handle. Especially the Hellbournes. Best thing is, when you cant kill those Hellbournes fast: Just avoid them. Levelling at that level is also much easier in NMDs, where you won’t be surprised suddenly by dozens of instant spawning enemies.
Mechanic mitigation: At that Level you should be resistance capped and nearly armor capped. Armor cap is at 9320, resistances can be seen in the character screen and they all should be at 70%.
Your Life is more than enough for that level. Maybe you are too defensive, to kill your enemies, that could also be an issue. The longer your enemies are alive, the more time they have to kill you.
You did everything right, Hellborne simply do too much damage. That’s the inconvenient answer. Don’t ask me why they’re more dangerous than the Blood Maiden or mid level bosses in the pit, but there it is.
Regardless of what your stats are, unless and until you can tank the damage and/or kill them quickly, it’s best to simply avoid them. As far as I can determine, there’s no real benefit to killing them, nothing compelling enough to make the risk worth it, anyway.
can try tyreal, helps on max resi
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Hello Mathematics,
I don’t think you did much wrong.
Hardcore is currently pretty rough. I lost already a level 100 and 51.
Human druid is probably the most difficult to get defenses up.
The minimum I would recommend is picking up all the glyphs with damage reduction: human, territorial and undaunted.
For gear: pretty much +maximum life on most gear.
Damage is less a problem this season. They could have named it Season of the glass cannon.
Defensive aspects: might, crowded sage and juggernaut. The affix +life per second isnt needed much when you take crowded sage.
Temper gear with preferably Dodge, else +maximum life.
Skills: almost all of my builds include cyclone armour, innate + enhanced.
A skill I myself not use is Vigilance because I mostly play with just one defensive skill. But its the only damage reduction available for human in tree.
Last: companions hit hard this season. You might want to get them included in your build.
You need more actual “damage reduction” on your character from skills/gear/aspects/paragon. Not just resistances and armor and hp. For instance, both my sorceress and necromancer currently have like 60-80% damage reduction ON TOP of all the other mentioned things. Everything in the overworld barely tickles me (on the rare occasion it’s not also frozen). I still suggest not deliberately standing in “scary damage” though like obvious meteors, explosions etc.
Hellbourne and helltides (and everything else in the overworld) are actually stupidly easy once you set up your character properly and defensively enough. You can wipe out entire screens of mobs in like a second, and nothing can really hurt you or pose a threat. Even through frequent lag spikes. I can easily handle several stacks of mindcage elixir if only they were stackable.
The only things that are a serious threat are the Pit bosses which supposedly are guaranteed 1shots so I don’t even try to do 61+ and have only done a few high 59-60s because I don’t even know if I can take a hit and survive (some people said it’s impossible). Also some NM90-100ish affixes and stuff can be scary if you’re negligent but overall not bad. edit: oh and ultimate/tormented bosses besides maybe duriel lol.
Also like Fribbles said, it’s easy to run away from the hellborne spawns if you can’t yet take them on. I was able to start farming wt3 and wt4 helltides at like levels40 and 55respectively long before I could take on hellborne (just wait for them to start spawning then run away from the area and they won’t follow you). Funny enough I lost one of my remake characters at 45 in wt3 because I decided to take on a hellborne as soon as I reached WT3 lol
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Speaking of Druid, my wife is rolling with a wind sheer druid which I think is quite good for HC. Shako, Selig, plus the Might aspect, and 80k+ health, quite invincible in mid-tier pits. I saw her eating Lilith waves when we farmed T75 pits, barely a scratch.