Things I've discovered about Hardcore - 23/02/10 04:06 AM
I haven't finished the game yet for the first time - I haven't even got out of the fortress in Act 1, but I decided to try out some tricks. I started a new Death Knight Mage/Paladin Warrior - on Very East, then I immediately switched to Hardcore to retain the two bonus points. The first level of the torture dungeon was okay, not too hard.
My discoveries about Hardcore:
1) There's a bunch of waiting around for your health and mana to refill. Have a good book handy.
2) Using Stealth is mandatory.
3) The hardest part of the Battlegrounds is the first few seconds of entering a new floor of the dungeon, when you're under attack by 6-10 skeletons at once. If you can survive the first room, you can stealth-clear the rest, albeit slowly.
4) Mages are pathetic and worthless. I maxed out a basic, instant-hit fire damage spell. 5 skill points, 43-95 damage. It takes 83 mana a shot, and it still doesn't one-shot Level 2 skeletons 100% of the time. That's the CHEAPEST spell. I had to dump pretty almost all my Death Knight's stat points into Intelligence, save for some Constitution so I don't get one-shotted. 5 skill points worth of spell should be MORE than enough to ALWAYS 1-shot a level 2 enemy. There is no excuse at all for a spell to cost that much mana for such pathetic damage.
5) The bonus enemies on Hardcore are scaled to your level. I discovered this after clearing out two floors of the battlefield dungeon (reaching level 8) so I could get tough enough to kill the ghosts in the arena prison cells. I COULD have saved myself a LOT of time and effort by doing the next floor down and getting the bedroll, bonus health book, restoration skills, but I wanted to kill the ghosts in the arena area first.
When I first tried killing the ghosts before entering the battlefields, the second ghost in the cells was level 6. AFTER the battlefields, when I was level 8, the ghost had increased to level 9. I WAS able to kill both from one cell after several fatal attempts, but it took so long, and it required me to drink far more potions than the experience was worth.
6) Summoning Dolls apparently aren't worth bothering with on Hardcore, except to hold loot when your characters become encumbered. At level 8, the doll I summoned had 75 HP and was killed in about 5 seconds in the first fight.
Well, that was an interesting experiment, and I appreciate the extra skill points, but it's a bit tedious, so I'm probably going to go back to a different skill level and finish the game on that first.
My discoveries about Hardcore:
1) There's a bunch of waiting around for your health and mana to refill. Have a good book handy.
2) Using Stealth is mandatory.
3) The hardest part of the Battlegrounds is the first few seconds of entering a new floor of the dungeon, when you're under attack by 6-10 skeletons at once. If you can survive the first room, you can stealth-clear the rest, albeit slowly.
4) Mages are pathetic and worthless. I maxed out a basic, instant-hit fire damage spell. 5 skill points, 43-95 damage. It takes 83 mana a shot, and it still doesn't one-shot Level 2 skeletons 100% of the time. That's the CHEAPEST spell. I had to dump pretty almost all my Death Knight's stat points into Intelligence, save for some Constitution so I don't get one-shotted. 5 skill points worth of spell should be MORE than enough to ALWAYS 1-shot a level 2 enemy. There is no excuse at all for a spell to cost that much mana for such pathetic damage.
5) The bonus enemies on Hardcore are scaled to your level. I discovered this after clearing out two floors of the battlefield dungeon (reaching level 8) so I could get tough enough to kill the ghosts in the arena prison cells. I COULD have saved myself a LOT of time and effort by doing the next floor down and getting the bedroll, bonus health book, restoration skills, but I wanted to kill the ghosts in the arena area first.
When I first tried killing the ghosts before entering the battlefields, the second ghost in the cells was level 6. AFTER the battlefields, when I was level 8, the ghost had increased to level 9. I WAS able to kill both from one cell after several fatal attempts, but it took so long, and it required me to drink far more potions than the experience was worth.
6) Summoning Dolls apparently aren't worth bothering with on Hardcore, except to hold loot when your characters become encumbered. At level 8, the doll I summoned had 75 HP and was killed in about 5 seconds in the first fight.
Well, that was an interesting experiment, and I appreciate the extra skill points, but it's a bit tedious, so I'm probably going to go back to a different skill level and finish the game on that first.