I’ve died a few times already in HC and I’ve learnt from what I did wrong but after a 30 hour run, near the end of the campaign to just die completely inexplicably is somewhat gut wrenching.
Wasn’t in a fight, although one hadn’t long ago finished. No power outages. At full health. Then Death seemed to just point his finger and my character just immediately dropped down dead on the spot for no apparent reason.
My character now resides in the Hall of Fallen Heroes unheroically labelled as being slain by “Unknown Killer” and I’m left feeling immensely irritated and far less inclined to continue with Hardcore if characters can get picked out of a lottery to die at any moment and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Anyway, just needed to vent. Thanks for listening.
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RIP 
may they be remembered for the courage of stepping forth into the first week of a BLIZZARD launch!
I commend your efforts!
don’t give up!
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Yes, It happened to my friend and I.
Killed a mob of monsters, standing about 5 meters apart 1-1.5 seconds after mobs die we both are insta killed
This also happened to me when I entered a boss fight. Before the boss animation, before anything. Just enter the room and insta death.
So he was explosive, right?
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Nope. I wasn’t even standing where the last fight took place - it was a few seconds later.
Even if it were an explosion of some sort, I was at a point where they weren’t doing much more than taking of a 3rd of my life anyway - assuming that one of my barriers weren’t on.
The whole situation just reminded me of someone being unplugged from the Matrix…
Malthael. If in doubt, blame malthael.
Interesting though, curious to see how common that “unknown killer” is.
Ran into this issue day one.
Something similar just happened to me. But i had the flame shield enchantment, so when i take letal damage it pops up and saves me for a few seconds. I also had a necklace that made me immune to everything for 7.5 seconds. Both passives were up. Something hit me and i died to “unknown killer” even with both passives still up. I shouldn’t have died.
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Same thing happened to my 1st char, I killed a 21 lvl champion elite or whatever they’re called (the one that is marked on a minimap with white pulse) in Fractured Peaks. They did explode, but I don’t think any explosion got me. Anyways my 17 lvl rogue on day 1, slain by: Unknown killer…
Went straight to bed 
Yesterday I noticed that in the encampment to the south of his spawning place there is a “warning to travelers” pinned to one of the huts, check it out, it’s pretty neat
So yesterday I had a quest to kill goatman nearby, and when I was approaching the wizard’s spot, it flashed with white marker, but I could swear it named that goatman guy, that’s this is quest for him something to test out perhaps, maybe a lure for unwary travelers. Escaped alive. So he does fast moving kinda 3 pronged fire attack in front of him that hits for a lot. For melee range that will get you for sure. He also releases some red charges like undeads do, what is that, maybe shadow damage? Fast moving too. And yeah corpse explosion, is it physical actually or fire?
But why does it say: unknown killer? I mean, game knows what killed me, right?
Mine was killed by an executioner. I find that pretty funny
I just died at 7k hp 8k armor 45% reduced damage in world tier 3 to unknown killer… World tier 3… I am lvl 77 how does Unknown killer hit me for all my life?
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Apparently quite easily. Should have been more tanky.
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Same thing happened to me on my lvl 49 HC Druid in the Dead Man’s Dredge Dungeon on World Tier 2.
Was in Werebear form with full life + fortify and boom, just dead.
“Killed by unknown Killer”
I lost my 42 necro full life and fortify. the chat caption said I killed myself in a mausoleum by unknown. Blizzard fix this
Has there been no explaination for this. i just killed a mob and as i go to take a step i drop dead saying i was slain myself.
I just had this same issue… at level 91. My character was tanky enough to the point that nothing ever even broke through my barrier before this. The chat dialogue says that I was slain by myself, and the hall of fallen heroes says that I was slain by Unknown Killer. Hardcore feels pretty unplayable to me until this is fixed.
I just lost a 98 level sorc to an “unknown killer”