The HC difference

[SiTro]

The HC difference

Well, took down Baal (Normal) last night, found him easier than Diablo to my mind, but then been running at fairly low-ish levels for a while I think (lvl27 for Diablo, lvl35 for Baal). So now have the ability to make Hardcore characters again, and thinking about having a go at this option now.

Started up a HC Sorceress, yet to really do much in Act 1, but just wondering, is there anything I should know about tackling this challenge? Or any advice for trouble spots I might find? As usual going untwinked and vanilla.

 

[AeroGear]

Well, took down Baal (Normal) last night, found him easier than Diablo to my mind, but then been running at fairly low-ish levels for a while I think (lvl27 for Diablo, lvl35 for Baal). So now have the ability to make Hardcore characters again, and thinking about having a go at this option now.

Started up a HC Sorceress, yet to really do much in Act 1, but just wondering, is there anything I should know about tackling this challenge? Or any advice for trouble spots I might find? As usual going untwinked and vanilla.

Its trickier with a sorc since points invested in vitality doesnt give much life. One build which is challenging is the 0 vitality sorc(gives you more points for str and dex for the max block build), you can get life from charms/jewelry/sockets etc. You need a bigger hp pool in HC(allows mistakes), also have to keep an eye on resists and damage reduction. There's no real difference except you only get to live once. I'd say the biggest challenge for an early untwinked sorc is Duriel, static field is your best friend in that fight but its still annoying. There's many ways to play a sorc, mine was a max block d/r sorc, survived until act 4 NM, wanted to MF so omitted resists, gloams got me pretty quick.

Andariel just like Duriel is an annoying fight since you're very limited on spells at that point, but again static field her to death, she does'nt hit very hard.

 

[Arreat_mercenary]

If this is your first HC char, well, you took on a char which gets some danger to die at late NM and Hell dificulties. Don't get me wrong, sorceress are very good if you know how to handle them, but a wrong teleport or bad tactics at gloams and that's it.

Builds that have much higher chance of beating HC Hell difficulty are builds like fishymancer (necromancer using skellies), concentrate barbarian (with some good crowd control skills), cheesadin (paladin using blessed hammer and concentration) and other. The fishymancer and the cheesadin especially are good, since they don't rely very much in items, so untwinked is not a problem.

Now, notes on HC: survival is everything. While in Softcore one of the most important things is to get as powerfull as you can, in Hardcore the most important thing is to survive. When you see a pack, you don't inmediatly run to them to slaughter them, you first see the stats of the boss and if it's dangerous you have to learn to "divide and conquer", life charms are especially good here, resists are a must, DR is a wonderfull thing to have. Power comes second to Survival in HC.

As a HC Sorceress, you have to carefully plan what you want to use (which by being untwinked makes it kinda hard), but don't go very high on Str, and since as untwinked you don't have an idea of what shield you can come across, you can't plan your required dex for max block. I would leave dex alone and go all over vitality, as for energy, well, since you don't mention the build you will use, I wouldn't put much points into energy, that's why there are mana pots.

Use every possible tool in the toolbox (especially true for HC untwinked chars), for example: crafts. Caster or Safe items are very good (very very good) for an untwinked sorc, grab blue armor and sell them so you can gamble for circlets, rings and amulets, if you lack resists, hold your gems (including skulls) and cube them up to perfect (6 gems of every kind + amulet= resist all amulet). Low level runewords such as ancient's pledge (ral+ort+tal, for resists), Leaf (Tir + Ral, for a nice boost to the fire tree), Lore (Ort + Sol, for a boost to skills, lightning skills and even mana), Rhyme (Shael + Eth, excellent shield!, increases chance to block, nice boost to all resists, faster block rate, good regenerate mana and even cannot be frozen, impressive for so cheap runes) are very good and the runes can be easily gotten from game of some countess runs. Merc can also get hold of things like strength (Amn + Tir, fair ED, 7% life leech and 25% chance of CB, excellent for boss running and it also adds nice +str) and Honor (Amn + El + Ith + Tir + Sol, nice ED, adds to min/max damage, 7% life leech, 25% chance to deadly strike and even adds to skills, excellent for some cheap runes).

Keep in mind all these details, and especially, don't go to Rambo attitude: don't run into crowds, as a sorc use teleport to your advantage, use static field, learn to position your merc by using teleport, divide and conquer, always have mana pots so you don't have to invest very much in energy (so you can invest a lot more in vitality) and identify your enemies, be carefull of packs like aura enchanted, extra strong, extra fast monsters. Remember you only live once

 

[SiTro]

Hah, good to see I still have the ability to shoot myself in the foot with some choices. I was thinking of building the sorc around Chain Lightning and Frozen Orb, don't normally bother with putting points into energy with other classes, but am putting it up to 50 here. Should I put everything after that into vitality? Only that'd be leaving me with 10 strength and lowish dexterity, is that workable?

 

[Sidhe1]

Hah, good to see I still have the ability to shoot myself in the foot with some choices. I was thinking of building the sorc around Chain Lightning and Frozen Orb, don't normally bother with putting points into energy with other classes, but am putting it up to 50 here. Should I put everything after that into vitality? Only that'd be leaving me with 10 strength and lowish dexterity, is that workable?

That would only be workable if you decide to build a naked HC sorceress. 10 strength is what she has at the very start, and it doesn't allow you to wear much, if anything. No armor, anyway. If you plan on wearing gear, go with at least about 50 in strength. :wink:

CL is pretty mana intensive if you spam it, so i'd put about 75 in energy. Only if you play 1.11 RWM and can make the runeword Insight you can avoid putting many points in energy, really.

 

[Quickdeath]

Stop putting points in Energy immediately!!!!

Early in Normal, your Sorc has a small Mana pot - but its better to play melee style early in the game than to waste attribute points. You will have plenty of mana later from leveling, charms, equipment mods.

You will need strength at levels of about 70 or more to wear armor. Do you want a shield that blocks? It would be a good idea for HC. So, plan on pumping dex. And at 2 HP per point of vitality, vitality is a marginal investment - but you desperately need life, so invest in Vit.

You need everything BUT energy.

 

[Pucho]

Agreed. For HC, even with spells that drain mana like CL and even without "insight" you can always drink a blue.

 

[Cattleya]

I'm with Sidhe, untwinked you want some points in energy. I have an untwinked HC CL/Orb sorc in Act 3 NM, and I've brought her energy up to 60, and she's still guzzling the blues down. 50 sounds like a good place to start (that's only 15 stat points) and the I would wait until at least NM to decide if it still feels like you need some more, depending on what gear you end up finding.

I went the Vitality/base dex route with her, and I think it's convinced me that I prefer the block route for a casting sorceress. 225 points in vitality for ~600 life is a little depressing.

 

[Spellreaver]

I'm starting an untwinked sorceress in hardcore as well... and I'm kind of sweating duriel. I'm in Act 1, quest 6, and I'm handling my own on /players 2, but I really like this character and want to make it to 99. Here's some tricks I've used so far.

Right now, she's a 14th level tri-elementalist (CL/FW/BL). Don't know what shield I'll end up with, but would like max block, so here are where my stat points are going:

Levels 2-5:

3 points vital, 2 points energy... this gives me some life early on and plenty of mana to fight out of melee range while building my item base.

Levels 6 to current: 2 points Str, 2 points Dex, 1 vitality. This will go until my Strength is at 75, at which point I will go 3 or 4 dex to 1 to 2 vit per level.


Mercenary: The rogue merc is not the best, but with the proper equipment, is a great help in Act 1. Between her bow and my spells, monsters don't get very close. I gave her hard leather armor, a bow with 3 sockets (3 chipped gems... sapphire, topaz, emerald for good damage/elemental attacks) and a magic helm (can't remember off hand... found it in the mausoleum).

Levelling: I'm taking my time here... I'm at the inner cloister waypoint at 14th level. I've hit every extra dungeon area, killed every monster and opened every chest. Hopefully, this will make her stronger for Act 2.

Combat: You can get away with melee through most of act I with some decent armor and a rare weapon (pretty easy to obtain). Until my spells are pumped up, I'm using frost nova against crowds to slow/weaken, then melee whatever my archer doesn't finish off. If I'm swarmed, frost nova followed with 1 or 2 lightning bolts helps clean house. For unique/bosses I freeze with ice blast, static once or twice, then use charged bolt/lightning bolt and melee if needed.

Since it's my first hardcore experience, I'm playing VERY carefully to avoid dying. I'd rather live to fight another day than die in a fireball (or frost nova) of glory.

I don't consider myself an elite diablo player by any means, but I hope these ideas help.

 

[DeathMaster]

Stop putting points in Energy immediately!!!!

Early in Normal, your Sorc has a small Mana pot - but its better to play melee style early in the game than to waste attribute points. You will have plenty of mana later from leveling, charms, equipment mods.

You will need strength at levels of about 70 or more to wear armor. Do you want a shield that blocks? It would be a good idea for HC. So, plan on pumping dex. And at 2 HP per point of vitality, vitality is a marginal investment - but you desperately need life, so invest in Vit.

You need everything BUT energy.

I agree most, but I would put ZERO points in Dex. You are not likely die with melee hit but more likely something like elemental damage. So block offer very poor protection. I'd say you need Str (to 70ish), and all else to Vit.

 

[DeathMaster]

Levels 6 to current: 2 points Str, 2 points Dex, 1 vitality. This will go until my Strength is at 75, at which point I will go 3 or 4 dex to 1 to 2 vit per level.

Well, if this is your first HC experience, I would high recommend stop putting anything in Dex now. once you reach 75 str, every single points to Vit.

 

[AeroGear]

These are my level 67 HC sorc base stats:
130 str
110 dex
10 vit
170 nrg

While I have to agree you're not likely to be hit by melee it can happen. Its useful to block ranged attacks. High block will save you mana from energy shield. Never had an hc sorc beyond nightmare so I cant tell what happens next.

 

[crazy_bear]

These are my level 67 HC sorc base stats:
130 str
110 dex
10 vit
170 nrg

While I have to agree you're not likely to be hit by melee it can happen. Its useful to block ranged attacks. High block will save you mana from energy shield. Never had an hc sorc beyond nightmare so I cant tell what happens next.

I don't know if you are going to be able to survive a mana burn boss with this... you are very brave to go with base vit.

the block/ no block debate continues... My preference is for no block, since 25% of the time you will still get hit, and need the hp to survive anyway, and block won't help you with elemental damage. But many successful HC players have argued the other side as as well.

For Str, I like 100, because I hate finding gear I can't wear, but most people would say that's excessive. And for energy 50-60 should pull you through till you have enough +mana gear to take care of the rest.

For Norm Duriel, I always run tombs/arcane/whatever to make sure my sorc is 24 or 25 first. That gives access to Meteor/Blizzard, then I tele back and forth so Duriel has to keep going through the storm.

Good Luck!
CB

 

[LordMay]

I would never go base life in HC. A shield isn't going to stop elemental damage and when you do get hit with an attack it will probably kill you.

 

[AeroGear]

I would never go base life in HC. A shield isn't going to stop elemental damage and when you do get hit with an attack it will probably kill you.

Like I said in an earlier post, she did die to nightmare dark souls or gloams (?) in act 4 :grin:
Its a fun build nonetheless, lets you see how far you can go and try to beat it. Even if you have base vit, I had over 500 health, you use charms/prubies to reach an overall higher health. Points in vitality provide a very small hp return compared to energy.

 

[LordMay]

I must have missed that post. When I play untwinked I never know what type of shield will be available so stat placement becomes guess work. I prefer pumping life because I always know I'm going to take damage. That seems to be one of the only things I know for sure when it comes to untwinked hc.

 

[Serdash]

An HC sorceress is a touchy subject.

Personally, I went with max blocking and high vitality. Instead of focusing on quick play and high MF as I usually did, this allowed me to go with low str for the more common and still easy to use items(Whitstan's Guard, Skin of the Vipermagi, ect) and focus on survival. Points in energy might be a good idea since you're going untwinked and won't have that boost of mana, but I don't think going over 100 would be needed.

From what I read you want to build a CL/Orb sorc? I believe those are doable. Look around and find skill distribution, but as far as stats go, I would say...

75 Str(let charms/gear do the rest)
x Dex(Enough for max block, Whitstan's Guard is a nice and somewhat Easy to find shield for this)
x Vitality(Spare points will go here for that small boost in life)
100 Energy(Meh. CL eats mana. Good idea to have a boost.)

I say once you hit nightmare mephisto, stop and try to attain some decen items. Whitstan's Guard, Skin of the Vipermagi, maybe a Peasant Crown. There are so many options to go for.

Just remember to play it safe, and don't feel bad about only having your cube to store stuff in because you're so full on charms. While picking up stuff is nice, having charms and whatnot to keep you alive is even better.

 

[AeroGear]

My thoughts exactly, my inventory consists of pretty much nothing but charms. I have a 2x4 space left to loot interesting drops/gems/runes.

 

[Sir Dante]

I am not an expert on mages and caster characters, but I have played the Bone Necro a few times.

You should not put any points into Energy, even if you are untwinked.

My Bone Necro had 100 base strength and all other points into vitality.

Any character from scratch can set players to 8 and get to level 10 using regular attack with no skills whatsoever to boost his/her damage.

Go to the Forgotten Tower and keep running it. Just keep your belt and character stash full of Blues since you will only have 45 Mana.

Stock up on the magical rune called Tir.

Buy a three Socket Axe, three Socket Large Shield, a two Socket Helm, and a two Socket Armor.

Make the Runeword Stealth.

Put ten Tir Runes in your other sockets.

This is what I did with my Bone Necro. I breezed through all of Normal with players set to 8 the entire time. I never had to drink a blue after I got my Tir Runes except when fighting act end bosses.

I just stood there holding shift and spammed out Teeth. Mana goes down, they die and it goes back up. Pretty simple. Works with the Sorceror.

By the time you run Baal a few times and have found some Mana Charms and better gear, you will be able to dump the Tir Runes.

This will prevent you when you reach level 70 from having regrets about the 50 points you put into Energy and wanting to start over.


I find the no Energy Sorceror chessy and terrible game design on behave of the developers. In D 1 they set caps on your stats so you had to build your character based on the normal RPG standards of that character. So a Sorceror would have low strength and vitality, with high Dex and Energy. It is preety much the opposite however if you want to build an efficient character in D II.

 

[Serdash]

I don't see the logic in;

This will prevent you when you reach level 70 from having regrets about the 50 points you put into Energy and wanting to start over.

When most of the time I hit that level I'm prepared to go into hell, and I'm not much worried about where stat points go since I'm ready to survive the hardest part of the game.

Not to mention 50 points in vitality isn't exactly the most amazing thing for a sorceress. It's 100 life. Easily made up in a few charms. Sure, grand charms can get up there in mana, but if you simply place nothing but blue potions in your belt, it's going to be harder to live through tough situations that may require a full rejuv or two, or even simple healing potions.

Then again, I've always been a big fan of blocking. You can live with it, you can live without it. But honestly when you've seen characters traverse to guardian with <800 life, low vitality, somewhat pumped energy and dexterity for max block, you realize how useless those few points in life are going to be.

But not trying to flame you. Your opinion is yours after all.