Diablo 3: The Hardcore Lounge

[sluggo]

Technically, this isn't a Hardcore post, but I went back to my normal 60 Barbarian, cruised through Inferno Act I, and now Act II is kicking my ass all over the place. I haven't even killed Maghda yet and I've probably died a dozen times. So I'm definitely steering clear of Hardcore Inferno for the time being. :)

[soondifferent]

Technically, this isn't a Hardcore post, but I went back to my normal 60 Barbarian, cruised through Inferno Act I, and now Act II is kicking my ass all over the place. I haven't even killed Maghda yet and I've probably died a dozen times. So I'm definitely steering clear of Hardcore Inferno for the time being. :)

Act I inferno isn't too bad. Act II is insane though. I got my resists just over 600's, armor just over 5000, and when I poke my nose into Act II I keep seeing my hp go down to half (which triggers a panic response.) I'm running away all the time, my dogs are dropping like flies and elites take at least 5x the time to kill (my dps is still hovering around 16k.) One of the champion club wielding ogre-thing took off 60% of my life with one swing.

Act I inferno is pretty fun and challenging coming straight from Act IV hell. Now, I'm stuck in a place where farming Act I is kind of rote and boring (without any real progress), Act II is danger danger all the time, so I'll probably shelve D3 for a while.

[sluggo]

Yeah, that pretty accurately describes my experience with Act I and II. Act I was totally managable, but I've spent most of Act II running for my life. I'm at 60k health, 10k armor and 500 resist, but I feel like I'm wearing a paper hospital gown instead of actual armor.

So I feel like I'm satisfied with reaching 60 and Inferno with my HC character and don't want to risk losing her. :)

[Kahlil]

As of last night, I now have two living HC characters at level 60 for the first time. I'm trying to do something unusual: a DH that uses a shield and melee weapons with Grenades, Impale, and Fan of Knives.

I just equipped him with a Legendary "Sever" sword with Life Steal that I got from the AH. The weapon itself just does mid 700's DPS, but when monsters die and the "Rest in Pieces" effect gets cast, I'm doing the infamous 900K damage critical hits. I figure that the Life Steal should keep me alive, as long as I'm killing something on screen.

[soondifferent]

Congrats Kahil! I'm been levelling a HC Demonhunter here and there, 10 minutes at a time. In between vaulting around and machine gunning demons, it's pretty fun.

So yeah, I thought I was done with Diablo3, but somehow I keep coming back (at least to new characters and AH shopping.) Somehow I ended up with ~850 resists on my WD and ~5200 armor -- now I really need to increase vit to make it worthwhile (it's down to 46k). Damage is still a paltry ~17.5k, but I imagine I should be able to progress through act 2 once the patch hits.

Belial his enrage timer scares me though. With my stats, am I in any danger of getting one shotted?

[Kahlil]

Somehow I ended up with ~850 resists on my WD and ~5200 armor -- now I really need to increase vit to make it worthwhile (it's down to 46k). Damage is still a paltry ~17.5k, but I imagine I should be able to progress through act 2 once the patch hits.

Belial his enrage timer scares me though. With my stats, am I in any danger of getting one shotted?

My WD beat Belial last night with 4006 armor, 550 resists, 56K life, and 1817 life regen. (There was a monk in the game, so my life regen at the time was probably over 2k.) Since Soul Harvest wouldn't last long enough, I temporarily selected Pierce the Veil, which brings me to about 25K damage.

I'm pretty sure you won't get one shotted with those stats, but I was hurt pretty bad, and in hindsight I should have had higher stats. But I've still never seen Spirit Vessel actually fire off.


I've equipped my Melee DH with a legendary Butcher's Sickle Axe. Shouting "Get Over Here" when I throw an Impale knife and chain monsters in hasn't gotten old yet. If I can afford it, I want to buy the DH a Burning Axe of Sankis because its proc effect supposedly gives you 65% damage reduction. Combining that with Shadow Power/Gloom and a good shield should hopefully make my DH pretty hard to kill.

[Kahlil]

Two days ago my WD beat HC Inferno Azmodan, then I made the newbie mistake of leaving the game and joining a new game before getting credit for completing Act 3. This of course knocked me back to the last checkpoint BEFORE Azmodan.

Luckily I was able to find a public Heart of Sin game again today, so I'm FINALLY in HC A4. Maybe it had something to do with the other people in the game with me, but fighting Azmodan twice was nothing compared to fighting Belial.

If I'm smart, I'll wait until I can upgrade my equipment before I try to move forward. In all the time I've been playing WD's, I never say Spirit Vessel fire off until I hit A3 Inferno. Then I saw it fire off three times within a few days. Plus I'm still doing under 30k DPS with Soul Harvest on.

[Kahlil]

I realize that at this point I'm pretty much talking to myself, but I've met my goal of beating Hardcore Inferno mode before patch 1.05.
http://imgur.com/mf2iO
Not sure if this will come through, but here's my character:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/K.../hero/23523281

Normally I use Soul Harvest and Locust Swarm, but I swapped these for Voodoo and Haunt for the last fight.

I made it to A4 with a group last Monday, but I stopped just before Izual. Then I spent the rest of the week looking for open A4 games, but even now six day's later I've NEVER seen an open public HC game in A4 Inferno. Finally today I created my own A4 Prime Evil game. After running around solo for a while in the Gardens of Hope, a barb joined and we finished the game.

[soondifferent]

I realize that at this point I'm pretty much talking to myself, but I've met my goal of beating Hardcore Inferno mode before patch 1.05.
http://imgur.com/mf2iO
Not sure if this will come through, but here's my character:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/K.../hero/23523281

Normally I use Soul Harvest and Locust Swarm, but I swapped these for Voodoo and Haunt for the last fight.

I made it to A4 with a group last Monday, but I stopped just before Izual. Then I spent the rest of the week looking for open A4 games, but even now six day's later I've NEVER seen an open public HC game in A4 Inferno. Finally today I created my own A4 Prime Evil game. After running around solo for a while in the Gardens of Hope, a barb joined and we finished the game.

Wow, congrats! Now I feel like a wimp. We are pretty similarly geared, but I haven't even had the courage to take on Belial yet. I wanted to hit 25k damage before tackling him, but then 1.05 was announced and I figured I might as well wait. Here is my character:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/s.../hero/14245323

How was the final fight for you? Might hop back in a bit soon to see if I can actually make some progress in inferno.

[Kahlil]

The last fight wasn't so bad, especially with Warcry on me. Diablo caged/grabbed me four times or so, but other than that I didn't take much damage. He never killed all three dogs at once, and my gargantuan survived the entire fight.

Belial gave me a lot more trouble, that fight had my screen flashing read at least once. And the exploders in Act 3 are the worst of all. I never saw Spirit Vessel pop until I made it to Act 3 Inferno, but the explorers will 1 hit kill your pets and set off SV if they get to you.

[sluggo]

Wow, Hardcore Inferno, nice! I don't think I would have made it through Act II. :)

[charmtrap]

So the new Monster Power feature certainly spices things up on Hardcore. I've got a new Barbarian running through Normal on MP10. You gotta watch your shit, especially once you get past the Fields of Misery. Elite packs of the charging bull things are pretty tough.

On the plus side, you get a lot more magic drops and gold.

[Tom Chick]

So the new Monster Power feature certainly spices things up on Hardcore. I've got a new Barbarian running through Normal on MP10. You gotta watch your shit, especially once you get past the Fields of Misery.

I'm curious to hear more about how this is going for you, charmtrap. I've got a hardcore wizard at level 25 and I'm scared to boost the monster power too much. I've been running at MP3, which still feels mostly forgiving, but I'm reluctant to push it up too far.

-Tom

[Kahlil]

So the new Monster Power feature certainly spices things up on Hardcore. I've got a new Barbarian running through Normal on MP10. You gotta watch your shit, especially once you get past the Fields of Misery. Elite packs of the charging bull things are pretty tough.

On the plus side, you get a lot more magic drops and gold.

Just to see what would happen, I tried running the first part of the first quest of Act 1 Inferno on MP 10. After the zombies started spawning outside the town gates, they pushed me back halfway down the road before I could kill them all. Looks like I have no business running at anything higher than mp 3.

[charmtrap]

I'm curious to hear more about how this is going for you, charmtrap. I've got a hardcore wizard at level 25 and I'm scared to boost the monster power too much. I've been running at MP3, which still feels mostly forgiving, but I'm reluctant to push it up too far.

Well...it's rough. I'm only about 3/4 of the way through Act II on normal, but it's slow going. In fact, it's slow enough that it's probably not a good way to maximize XP/hr or anything. It's 200% of the XP, but the mobs all have 400% hit points and they do 200% damage and they take a longer time to kill. I usually play Hardcore in "live off the land" mode, but I've found it's basically impossible in MP10. You have to buy off the AH or it'll simply take too long (assuming you live at all). So I've stacked up with Rares and it's going a lot better, but you still run into tough elite packs.

I'm not sure I recommend MP10 (and I'll probably bump it down in NM unless I get a bunch of godlike legendary drops), but I have to admit it's makes things a lot more interesting.

Just to see what would happen, I tried running the first part of the first quest of Act 1 Inferno on MP 10. After the zombies started spawning outside the town gates, they pushed me back halfway down the road before I could kill them all. Looks like I have no business running at anything higher than mp 3.

I'm not sure any toon, other than one draped in full top-level legendaries and with 100 paragon levels, is ready for Inferno MP10. Inferno jumps from 400% monster HP to 3400% monster HP. MP1-3 might be the way to go for now :-)

[charmtrap]

Oh also...if you bump up the MP at all, BEWARE the Keywarden (I forget his name) in Act III. He is unbelievably OP for the area, even on Normal. That's how I lost my last character...blithely running through Act III without doing my homework on the patch notes and KABLAM! Insta-kill.

[Timorous]

Oh also...if you bump up the MP at all, BEWARE the Keywarden (I forget his name) in Act III. He is unbelievably OP for the area, even on Normal. That's how I lost my last character...blithely running through Act III without doing my homework on the patch notes and KABLAM! Insta-kill.

Exactly the same happened to me. I was running it at MP10 and just got steamrolled by it. My GF's barbarian survived after I went down though but we rolled new chars and have started again at MP10 which is a fun challenge with a new character. Will have to be more careful when we get to that part of Act III.

[charmtrap]

And another one bites the dust...right as I was about to finish Act IV. Fucking goddamn keywardens. I had him kitted out and well ahead in levels too. Graaaah!

[aeneas]

Wow charmtrap. You rock. This is the best i've done in HC.

[charmtrap]

Ha, I dunno about that. There are people with Paragon level 100 HC characters.

My best so far is a level 37 Warrior, but I've currently got a Monk at level 34 that I'm very carefully taking through Act IV/MP10 in Normal. Act IV has a lot of ways to get overwhelmed, so it bears caution....and watch out for Keywardens!

[charmtrap]

Good night, sweet monk. May a choir of angels sing thee, etc.



Farthest yet. Those Moon Clan goat things in Act I NM get pretty nasty in a big group.