Hardcore Death Thread
#1
Hearing how people lose hardcore characters is quite useful. It demonstrates class/build weaknesses, zone dangers, bad play to make sure you don't do, etc. So here is a thread for hardcore players to give such information. Plus it is just useful to have some idea of who is still alive and who isn't.

I'll summarize some of my past ones then as more happen will make new replies. Obviously I encourage others to post their deaths too.

Witch Doctor 1: Pet build. Made it just past the Skeleton King in Inferno. Got over confident and started playing while distracted with talking on the phone. Was in the middle of a difficult champ pack (I mainly recall mortar now). It was a cave type zone with a clear circle path with an obstacle in the center. So a decent place to fight really cause I could kite and break line of site. Took too much damage and was running away, but since I was on the phone I wasn't concentrating as much and went right (which was back around the circle) instead of left (which lead out of the circle and down a bunch of pre-cleared path and toward the dungeon entrance. So a death to something I really shouldn't have died to, but did due to playing when I shouldn't be. First time ever in Infernal and it was too easy and so I pushed my luck.

Barb: Died to a champ pack of tongue lashing guys in Act 3. Nightmare I think, but not sure. I really shouldn't have died. Felt I was safe and so let them surround me. I had abilities to get out of that, but felt safe and so didn't use them. Then they all hit me too quickly together and I went splat. Yet another bad play death.

Monks: Some disconnect deaths. Honest deaths were due to being swarmed. One by a pack of scorpids in ACT 3 when I was experimenting not using Sweeping Wind. Too many mobs and not enough AOE = dead. Another was a vortex champ pack in ACT 2 (Hell for this one I know) plus some number of other mobs. I just remember too many mobs combined with Tempest Rushing out, getting Vortexed back in, then not having the spirit to get out again or survive.

Those are the old ones. Just now before this thread I had the following one.

Witch Doctor 2: Dire Bats Vision Quest build. Died in Hell Act 2. Everything was going super well. No problems at all. Feeling confident. (this seems to be the main cause of my deaths) Nothing even coming close to killing me. Had the timed dungeon spawn. Went inside and killed a champ pack. Decided that if I was going to make it to the end before the time ran out (yes I know it doesn't kill you if the time ends) that I needed to run past things. Pulled a ton of mobs looking for the exit. Hit a dead end and trying to get back through them was too much. Ended up trapped and dead. Worst part is that at the dead end I had enough space behind my Wall of Zombies and Fetish Army that I could have stopped and fired off a bunch of Dire Bats. Likely clearing out a good chunk of mobs and letting me live. Just would have meant giving up on the timer. Alas I tried to make the timer still and died because of that decision.


The lessons learned from these deaths is that I get too over confident and it gets me killed. I need to constantly remind myself that the game is more difficult than it is actually seeming at any specific moment and to play more warily. The deaths also has stirred some conversations that Monks have escape problems. Been noticing a theme with both my monk deaths and other people's monk deaths that they tend to involve getting swarmed and not being able to get away due to escapes not working like they should (Dashing strike just being bad or Tempest Rush rubberbanding) or a lack of spirit which all Monk escapes require.
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#2
Hey Swirly,

Good post. This past month has been the first time I've played Hardcore mode in any action RPG, and I found reading the hardcore graveyard threads in other forums a great way to learn and anticipate some of the HC death traps.

Since I've startred playing HC I've lost two characters, a lvl 53 Barb and a lvl 40 DH. For my Barb I was using ignore pain off and on. It's an amazing ability to save your arse, but I felt with correct play I could get away with just Leap and WotB. I just had to make sure I didn't leap into a risky fight since I don't have another escape ability, especially if WotB is on cooldown. Well I saw a goat shaman in the southern highlands and out of instinct I used leap and noticed I drew the attention of a champion shaman pack that had Arcane Enchanted as a trait. Other goatmen also popped up and surrounded me, so I couldn't leap out, WotB was on cooldown, and the shaman spawned a few arcane beams right on me. Of course revenge didn't proc and I was relying on it for AoE damage, so my barb quickly perished. This could have been entirely avoided if I didn't leap into battle near an unexplored area.

My lvl 40 Demon Hunter death is extremely embarrassing. I was clearing Nightmare Act 2 with ease, switching between multishot and elemental arrow for my main AoE skils, along with rain of vengeance for a 30 second no hatred AoE spell. I decided to stick with multishot because I was killing everything in one or two hits, but I replaced rain of vengeance with the hatred regen pet to help with the more expensive resource cost of multishot. So I'm about to begin the Audience with the King quest and thought to switch out for a better suited skill set (gernades, mines, rain of vengeance, etc), but I got overconfident and just went forward figuring I'd be ok with my good damage. Well, I was wrong. Got surrounded, fired off multishots which didn't kill anything, ran out of hatred, ran out of discipline trying to escape, and that was it.
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#3
(07-05-2012, 09:44 PM)MonTy Wrote: get away with just Leap and WotB.

Frag and I have been talking/trying builds with both Leap and Charge. The idea being that you can leap in and still be able to charge out if needed. Works the other way around too and just generally has all kinds of versatility. WotB is likely still needed since you can't avoid everything, though I am stubborn and still trying to make do without it.
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