Starting my first Hardcore character advice please

I’ve got lots of hours played in Grimdawn and quite a few 100 characters. I thought I would try and get all the achievments and I’ve never played a hardcore character (only on D2) and wanted to level a 2h Warder for a while. Is this a viable build and what should i focus on when leveling. Was thinking leveling as 2H melee primal strike build. Could that sustain on ultimate? Thanks for any suggestions or advice :slight_smile:

Quite doable, one of the easier leveling builds. Just make sure you max your resistances, have 100% Armor absorption and you will be fine. Can’t go wrong with trying something new either, can always respec if you don’t like it. Though, personally, I prefer one-handed weapon + offhand or shield as it gives more flexibility in terms of components, augments, leading to a better survivability. Unlike other arpgs with less diversity, there’s no real meta here. You can even build a tank mage with a shield if you want. As long as you enjoy the play style, you will be able to beat the game in HC.

Here’s one important tip: upgrade your armor frequently. When I first started playing, I only looked at the stats on armor, not on the armor rating itself, but having good armor and armor absorption makes a huge difference in the number of hits you can take.

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This times a thousand. I swear my high level HC deaths have been almost entirely because I got too stubborn about upgrading (“ugh, this random green is only halfway perfect for my build, I can do better”), only to eventually get my shit pushed in by some big physical mob because my armor slowly grew inadequate for my level.

My low level HC deaths, incidentally, are mostly due to not respecting shotgun bosses and/or enemies that I don’t have good resistances for yet. Always respect the shotgun, always respect anything that deals a lot of damage you don’t resist well yet.

One very general build tip, try to keep it balanced between offense and defense. I level a lot of oddball homebrew HC builds and my basic approach is to think of a build in thirds: 1/3 offense, 1/3 defense and 1/3 flex. For something like a 2h melee warder, you’ll be in close range with no shield and limited mitigation, so you probably want to go full 2:1 defense:offense. Defensive gearing, devotions, etc. Resist the urge to stack every damage boost you can get your hand on. This isn’t to say playing HC is about bunkering up and tiptoeing around every corner; on the contrary, one of the neat things about HC is you’ll grow a good feel for when you actually need to pay attention, and when it’s safe to autopilot.

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All good tips. One more thing about defensive stats that can’t be stressed enough is regeneration. I put it on the same level as Armor and resistances. A char with good Armor and res can still die very quickly in situations with lots of DoT effects. Especially in Crucible and SR. I could sacrifice some Armor and even resistances in favour of a good regen.

Obviously, if your DA is low enough to let mobs Crit you - no Armor, res, regen will provide a RIP-free experience.

Cheers for the advice and reached 54 on elite but got too cocky in the conflagration. Those aether bastards.

Yep, that’s another reason to have regen, you can walk on aether corrupted ground and lava without needing potions. Need about 3-4K regen for that. So, devotions: Tree of life, Giant, lizard, Harvestman’s Scythe. Gear wise, fleshwarped bulwark (green shield), tinkerer’s belt.

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The common opinion I see on the forum is that regen isn’t all that powerful of a defensive stat. Am I just missing stuff people are saying? If I’m not missing anything, why do you think people typically undervalue regen? Because heavy enough investment in it slows you down too much in crucible and shattered realm?

Oi! 3k regen takes some good gear and it’s still 5 long seconds to refill the life bar. Thankfully the relevant devotions come with some good heal spells but they are proc on hit not life % :frowning: so my life is in the hands of dice gods.

With good gear, you can get 8k passive, 17k proc regen. I can tank Callagadra with that regen despite all his wind pets. Aikimox’s Immortal commando has 5.5k base and 15k proc regen. It can just stand idle through most if not all waves of crucible up to 170 in hardcore. That’s a lot of incoming damage and debuffs. As for gear and leveling, at level 40-50, your base regen is around 1.5-2k with just 2 mandatory items. One is farmable from level 20 and drops frequently. The second one is crafted.

@grasida because you can’t combine good enough regen with every build. In fact, there’s only a handful of builds out there that have decent enough damage. And yeah, most people are all about crucible performance as the main metric to judge the build.

8k would be sweet! Do you think solder is mandatory for any such build?

Unfortunately, yes. Both Soldier and Demo, so you are pigeonholed into using Commando and Conduit of Destructive whispers with the vindictive flame regen roll. You would also need a 3-piece Pyran to get that sweet +100 flat and 50%+ regen.

Thanks. Is going for anything less a viable option? An EoR Shieldbreaker with passive heal devotions for example?

EoR Shieldbreaker is fine build! You can go fire or lightning. Both versions can be build tanky. Fire can be Justicar set+conduit to vindictive flames or SR set. Lightning have Cyclone set.

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I have a bunch of very viable builds with 3-4K regen and no ADCTH in HC and they are all doing great. But I won’t be pushing SR or Crucible or Celestials with any of them. Great for campaign though.

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