you are all absolutely crazy there is no way i would step foot in hardcore without reaching wt4 endgame in normal so i have an idea what i am doing and how.
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You should! It’s a great reminder that life is fleeting 
That first playthrough on HC is super tense
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Not gonna lie the server issues got me scared and gonna chill on HC a while. It’s one thing if there’s scheduled maintenance but this BS is happening at peak hours randomly.
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I swore I would play SC first…then you create your char and you just can’t help it. Tick hardcore. Had so many near misses, got locked in with a boss fight I didn’t see coming (I thought the dungeon still had some mileage). You definitely learn the mechanics, I’m not standing in any fire, dodge blows left right center, upgrading gear matters rather than soaking it up with getting killed and going at it again,…
The game is just so much more fun playing hardcore. Makes everything that more beautiful and you play aware rather than asleep.
But yeah part of me does think…this is going to end badly haha.
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With the renown system and how our storage carries over, they’ve kinda made it a rogue-light. That said, disconnecting is still the most difficult boss in the game, and leaves you in a chronic state of fear throughout your time playing…as you never know when the devs are about to start tinkering with the damn servers and leave you stranded in the middle of a fight to die a REALLY lame death.
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what do you do when you’re in a dungeon and you click a chest and 15 mobs spawn directly on top of you right as butcher appears? because what i did was frost nova, then died instantly to being 1 shot by butcher.
but that was in softcore, so i just ran back and killed the mobs with no butcher. im just curious what do hardcore players do in situations like those.
what do you do when you’re in the middle of a boss fight, and you press space to duck and attack, but then another attack comes your way, so you press space again because you have an extra charge of duck from your boots, but nothing happens and you realize you just swapped out your boots for better ones that dont have the extra charge and now you’re dead.
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When I click a chest and 15mobs spawn, it makes me deliriously happy, as I insta smash the shizzle out of everything as wherebear. (I normally main rogue’s or sorcs, but as a first playthrough I went the safe route with chunky druid)
The Butcher hasn’t popped in to say hi just yet. He’s shy. My plan is to kite him around a pillar try to use the environment to mess him up with lod. I do have the insta portal scroll bound to emote wheel and in dungeons will always run with death elixer as much as possible.
As far as space presses go, I’m very conservative with them, I do force move as much as possible bound to w to position before anything happens. Though if you play hardcore you tend to be hyper aware of your skills, cooldowns, gear swaps you’ve done, as well…you life depends on it. So it’s rare to be caught out like that. 
Check every basement you come across. You’ll find him.
He’s shown up twice in basements for me, once in a dungeon.
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2 death’s from the butcher… it hurts sooooo much!
Yep basement (Thanks for the heads up as I didn’t know that but since you said it I was always keeping my guard up in basements)
Just now Butcher popped up in a basement on my way out. Proper bear hugged him! I said butcher bear with me, but he couldn’t bear me. When he was dead he dropped some epics I said thank you furry much.
(I’ll leave myself out)
Ps: My heart was racing though.
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I’ve been playing hardcore since Diablo 3, and preferred the blood Necro builds as it made it even more fun to sacrifice life to use my skills.
But hardcore is always the same playstyle for me, stacking as many barriers as I can, as many “second” chances as I can (flame shield passive gives me a free revive, I’ve always got cheat death elixir, and scrolls).
Gameplay is a lot more cautious but much more exhilarating instead of boring over and over again zerging when you die on softcore.
Boots always have the double dodge. Double period.
Haven’t seen the butcher yet, but I’ve still got the immunity bubble aspect from early game just in case I get rocked unexpectedly. Would love to see him now that im in world tier 3 at level 54.
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i get 2 dc in fight and everything is fine!
I think people cry about dc just get very very bad luck or just lie !
You either die or walk away from it feeling like an absolute boss
I met Butcher for the first time since Beta under very dire circumstances yesterday.
My wife was trying to get our daughter to sleep, so I was playing with very low volume, meaning that I didn’t hear the “FRESH MEAT!” announcement when Butcher arrived, so I was happily bashing away on mobs when he tackled me.
Managed to kill him though and it felt awesome
And in general I’d say that I probably play more cautiously because of being hardcore.
So the example of me making some item swapsprobably test out new builds and bigger adjustments on easier targets first just for safe measures
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He can appear on your way OUT of a basement?!?!
My poor little Rogue heart… I’m lv 61 and have never had him appear on my way OUT of a basement…
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The real question is what are you doing that you are being one shot by the butcher? In HC you aren’t playing sub optimal where things like this are even possible.
It sounds like you were teddy for whatever he threw your way. You manage to grizzly your way under his skin. I’m sure you were furmidable. But as fur as your pun game you bearly made a scratch. I feel pawful saying so, but with puns, i stick by one claw, if you use the same word to make the same pun three times, then gosh fang it, what’s the point?
To say the least, that was a mouthful, and i hope you’ll chews some of these puns in the future. At least hibernate on that one
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Historically speaking, when I see the butcher I die, wipe the tear from my eye, then re-roll my sorceress 
I will say, though, when you do prevail during these battles it’s a whole 'nother experience. Some real stuff like adrenaline pumping, fingers trembling, whooping/hollering…HC is a visceral experience that I’ve enjoyed for nearly two decades. The only thing I’m not a fan of is the PvP mechanics and I’m not sure they’re going to address them any further than they already have.
TBH, I wasted about 5 elixirs of death evasion on my first character because I was paranoid about things like capstone dungeon.
…never procced them. 100% wasted materials. Then I die to some random BS like CC lock from a regular *ss shaman mob.
Current character I solo’d The Wandering Death, hit like 1 hp several times. I can say that it would not have felt the same if I was playing Eternal. Excessive dopamine hit only comes from Hardcore for sure.
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Ditto on wasting every death evasion I used so far out of an abundance of caution. Haven’t procced a single time yet (died once to disconnect). That’s what I like about the potions design - they’re pretty hard to create so you can’t have one on all the time or even most of the time. Always have to second guess if you really need it in that particular circumstance or you can risk it without it. (this makes the wizard passive extra strong since it’s permanently on but you’re also giving up a lot of dps for it I heard. I hope they don’t add similar passives to every class, one is enough).
Either way you should definitely bind them to a hotkey to have quick access to them if you run into something dicey you want to attempt (especially important on first playthrough if you don’t know what to expect). There are also circumstances where I would recommend ALWAYS having a potion active - stuff like world bosses, pvp zones, and anytime you’re pushing close to your limits.
Question to whoever knows: can you drink (death evasion) potions while already crowd controlled if it looks like you’ll be CC’d to death?
I will absolutely step into Hardcore at least once… but no idea how they do it. Even DCs aside, I’d never make it.
I built an eternal Barbarian that’s pretty damn tanky and even he gets blown up from time to time by the Fallen fanatic bombers. At least once in 100 levels, I would fall asleep at the wheel or get just a little too comfortable.