Im about to start a new char for hc.In sc i have a warlord using this build https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2mdxGmN ,pretty strong on all content. Im thinking to start a new Warlord for hc or a Witchblade.Any suggestions for strong hc builds?
I finished my first HC play thru just a few weeks ago using a Vindicator. Was a lot of fun. I did die once at level 90 (ACK!!!) and had to start from scratch but I’d been saving a lot of gear along the way so the second time was much quicker and made it to 100 only about a week later. I died because I was stupid. 
I also got REALLY lucky and dropped three pieces (2 shoulders - transmogged to gloves, and one chest piece) of the Light’s Defender set which helped me farm other stuff I needed for the build. But the journey along the way was fun with the Vindicator. I leveled up using Stormbox and Word of Renewal with Windevils and both totems as support.
Congrats for level 100! I will check the Vindicator tnx. Also my first Witchblade HC level 100 i died like stupid because i wanted to test the Mad Queen with zero equipment .
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Congrats to you as well!
That’s okay, at least you went out on something great. I was walking down the road in Act 2 just after killing Shanks, thinking to myself, my pierce resist is really low, I should probably stop now and regroup before I proceed. Just then, a bunch of bulls jumped me. Died in like 5 seconds. THAT was dumb.
I feel that warlord is an all around safe bet. My first 100 was a pet cabalist. It was a breeze beating the game. Only did I learn the importance of my own defenses when I got hit with a DA debuff and nuked when I was farming a dark ones set. Also did a storm totem vindicator which was effective but slow.
The most enjoyable for me is my pierce blademaster that I’m just going into FG on ultimate with now. The damage is there and I’m pleasantly surprised by the defense.
I would highly recommend my Immortal Commando.
This build is beginner friendly. Just follow the devotion path, max out Vindictive Flame, Veterancy, Menhir’s Bulwark and grab mortar/canister/BWC to have a decent damage output. Can also level through fire strike if you like. One thing is guaranteed, you won’t lose your char. Make sure to farm the green shield on your way to Homestead and you will be set to survive the nastiest situations. Just don’t neglect resistances, especially in Elite and Ultimate.
There’s another build I was gonna post here (5x damage, similar toughness, nearly immortal and very very easy to level without any risk of dying or need of rare items), but after discussing it on a different forum, the decision was made not to disclose it. I feel bad about it. This constant fear of nerfs is not healthy for the community and the game in general. But it’s there because devs put too much focus on ‘balancing’ things instead of addressing bugs, some of which have been ignored since GD launch. People are afraid to post really creative builds, because, more often than not, those are deemed as unintended synergies/mechanics and quickly reduced to ashes. It happens so fast, that beginners don’t even have time to try these builds. Why not let players enjoy something special? So what if it’s a new king and it stomps someone’s favorite build?
Anyway, back on topic, warlord is also very good, but be careful about reflect damage. I lost a couple retaliation toons already. While the risk is low in SR or Crucible, it’s very very high in campaign, where even white trash mages can oneshot you with their reflect auras if your reflect resistance is too low while the damage is high.
Another good HC class is Spellbinder (AAR). It’s quite tanky and easy to level/gear.
Good old Death Knight is another great starting class. You can begin farming the Krieg set on Elite at lvl 75 and have a fully ready DK tank by 94. This can be a good starting point to farm endgame gear.
I would avoid any glassy builds on your first couple playthroughs. Get some gear, relics, crafting mats and blueprints, then go nuts experimenting.
Good luck!
Lol, that’s mine! 
Skillbar is exactly how I used it. But someone changed a few things. Anyway this is my current setup if interested: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/8NK7A9JN
Highly recommand Spellbinder builds.
Chain cycle mirror + mark of torment has always been insanely survivable for pretty much anything in the game.
That’s true but hardcore with a binder is not an easy thing. Sometimes you press something wrong, or Mirror jams, or your MoT target dies too early, and you’re dead before you know it.
CC res might also a be problem for a binder. There is some in Maiven line but not enough for comfortable hardcore.
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I’d say all or most Soldier based S&B builds are good for HC.
I have all combinations at level 100 ultimate and all of them are still alive (except for one Witchblade that I lost in vanilla).
I assume you don’t do high SR, correct?
I’ve lost plenty of commando and warlords there.
No, no SR for me
It would be interesting to know which is the highest SR level reached in HC.
SR seems so ramdom it would be stupid to try higher levels in HC
Lots of issues with that. On one hand, build performance is impacted by game patches. There’s no reference point. Shortly after FG release there were octavius/retal/warlord/commando builds that pushed high 80s. Now most of those are dead. An odd commando here and there can reach 75.
On the other hand, true HC can’t even reach high SR reliably. People restore their chars from saves or via GDStash all the time. At the very least, they abuse the escape key in critical situations. And you can’t really blame them. Which brings us to the main issue - lack of optimization for HC. We are the ugly child of GD. Apparently, being able to clear the campaign is all we can aim for. Crucible and SR farming is out of scope. We still do it and get pretty high up there, but it’s unreliable. Those who disagree are welcome to switch over to HC and try doing low 40-60s for a few hours for example. I’ve seen some immortal builds occasionally get oneshot in SR 35. Builds that can facetank Grava and Calla. It’s just too random. And I’m not bringing this up as a side observer. SR farming is basically all I do nowadays. Out of my 20+ polished HC builds, only 3 are guaranteed to survive 10/10 sub SR30 runs and none can reliably go above 40. I still do 60s and 70s, but it’s a total lottery and often times you just have to hit escape and quit. Here’s what it looks like. You run through the realm oneshotting everything until suddenly you get oneshot. All your perfect defensive stats and skill can’t save you from those horrible incoming damage spikes.
How can this issue be fixed? There should be a normalization of synergies between mutators and monster buffs and debuffs. Not going to happen because we are the absolute minority here and nobody gives a rats tail about HC.
PS: SR 88 was the highest I have seen in HC. Prenerf.
There are certain bosses in SR are just death traps. Garbol, Anasteria, Alek, Gravathul and Mad queen comes to mind. These you just want to reset and not bother.
Thanks for the feedback Contragor, you kinda prove my point 
Reviving dead HC toons and abusing escape key removes the whole purpose of playing hardcore.
A friend of mine tricked me into trying HC in D3 vanilla, after that experience I can’t really enjoy softcore anymore. Nothin to loose (SC) means no adrenaline - boring.
Sometimes though I wish I had gone SC instead in GD so I could enjoy the full content of the game and try the greater challenges without having to wait for someone to come up with a solid build and/or tactic to beat it without a 50/50 (or worse) chance of dying.
But I’ve invested way too much time in HC to switch…
I know the feeling. There’s a way to transfer your stash and chars from HC to SC if you really want, but I bet you will get bored very quickly after that.
My compromise:
Levelling and building new toons, clearing the campaign, all nemesis and secret bosses - no escape, no reviving. Death is final.
Farming builds for crucible and low SR - no escape, no reviving. Death is final.
Pushing builds for high SR / crucible - same, death is final.
Testing builds (made with GDStash) - crucible and high SR - escape and revive if necessary. These are deleted after the testing is done.
Up to shard 66 SR is fine for HC imo. My personal best was SR 70. I know Sauroc made shard 86 on HC with an Infiltrator and the brazilean beast Reinan22 made SR 90 on his spellbreaker (on patch 1.1.4.1). That’s the highest I know of so far.
TL;DR: people who think SR is unplayable in HC are either pussies, don’t have good builds or just suck at piloting.
The people I know, including me, don’t. It would be a little awkward, if a build that died on stream is suddenly revived.
This is a nono for me and most people I know, unless you decide at the start of your SR run that you absolutely don’t want to play with the mutators you got.
I do this on most of my builds and you can find the videos on my YT/twitch. At the very least all of my builds do SR 35-36 once to get all the SR skill/attribute points
As a streamer, you live in a slightly different world. It’s like Quinn69 calling D3 HC players pussies. Most people I know don’t have the luxury of testing high SR waters just to have to refarm all their rare items afterwards.
Plus, if you play a lot of MP, you know that there are a lot of deaths due to bugs and glitches. Ever seen two protective auras cancelling each other in the middle of a boss room fight?
And lastly, the safe SR level argument is pointless. I’ve seen most of your vids (good job btw), and can tell you, you don’t play very quishy toons. You also use a lot more potions than anyone from my clan. Skills and piloting are overrated here. This isn’t CS GO or LoL. I could also claim that all my 23 builds have completed SR35-36 at least once. But try farming those shards on a cycle 4-5 hours without quitting unpleasant mutators or bad boss combos with every one of your toons, then we will talk about pussies. I have done that and know exactly how bad it can get. Many new players have no clue about mutator + boss synergies and just rush forward, being confident their 5k Armor and overcapped resistances will save them all the time.
Eh, I don’t really think comparing me with Quinn69 is the right thing here (even though I kinda feel honored that you made this comparison in the first place), streaming is not my job, I study and have a small part time job on top, so I’d argue that I don’t have much more time to play the game than the average player.
I don’t play a lot of MP, but enough to know that playing MP SR in HC sucks! I’m asking for a “pre boss room” (a room that you enter after taking the rift taking you from chunk 3 to 4 with a barrier that separates you from the bosses). We had so many close calls with people, because of bosses charging the first guy who entered and the people entering after that being taken down to at least half HP before even being able to react due to all bosses sitting in their face… This is already problematic enough and I’m sure there are lots of additional bugs, etc. that make MP SR even worse. I very much prefer to just do roguelikes or crucible in MP. For single player though, SR is a lot of fun and better designed than crucible imo.
It’s HC after all, survivability over speed any time, but I don’t play metagolem builds either. Also most potions are super cheap and they exist in the game to be used imo.
It is not one of those games indeed, and I agree that piloting skill isn’t as impactful in GD, but proper piloting can still make a huge difference, especially in places like SR.
I can imagine that happening on shards 60+, but not in 35-36. As I’ve commented your “esc button abuse”, it does happen that you have to give up a high shard due to terrible mutators, but that’s just rng for you. Yes it sucks every now and then, but that doesn’t mean that SR is shit for HC. If anything I think it’s way too easy in SC…being able to reenter your shard after dying, pfft.
But yea for me personally to be able to enjoy farming SR for longer than 1h, I’d have to play MP, which is not ideal as I explained above. So I’ve actually not done 4-5h of SR farming so far. That is a personal and stream thing though, as I try to lvl and show off a new build every 1-2weeks. And well, you can’t lvl new chars in SR.
Maybe new players should spend more time learning the game in main campaign, low SR shards and crucible 100-150 before trying to attempt the hardest content in the game and expecting to not get slapped. Also the scenario you mentioned here “just rush forward, being confident their 5k Armor and overcapped resistances” is exactly where piloting skill comes into play and will make the difference between life or death of a char.
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I’d love to play together M8. Hope Crate can take a closer look at the state of the MP mode.
In the meantime, I will try pushing SR and see how far I get. That Brazilian SB finishing 90 is insane. Let’s beat it!
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