My Bloodlines/Hardcore Experience

First off, I'm a softcore player for around a year. Basically because I a) have a laggy laptop and crappy internet and b) because I like to play relaxed.

Since I got tired of hunting the last missing ghost for the challenge, I decided to take on the bloodlines challenge.

I created a witch that should later on use Flameblast, because I thought it would be handy against dangerous blue packs and because its strong. Everything went faily well. I played more carefully than usual and tried to get as much life and capped resists (obviously). Played smoothly through normal difficulty, until the fight against Dominus. Had 1,4k life and capped resists. I fought dominus about a trillion times already, so there should have been no problem. SHOULD.

Got some nasty stun related desync against the blackguard trio bosses. When I realised why I my character got the 'you're punched' animation while standing half a screen away from the mobs, I alt-f4'd (not used to doing so) after spamming my pots while I suspected that I propably ripped.

Indeed, on logging back in my Witch was in Standard league. Alright, what's happened can't be undone, so I created a Templar the next day with the same build. This time I even dropped a 15% cast speed Stone of Lazwhar and bought a Lifesprig, a q15 Flameblast and an elepro gem from a friend. It went really well, much better than the witch. This time I didn't desync against Dominus and killed him easily.

On the ship graveyard cruel I encountered Vorici, who wanted me to kill an Exile with at least one guard alive. Since my sofcore-mindset is 'Exile=free loot', I happily ran in the direction he showed. Exile was Vickas Giantbone, the dual EK-totem guy, with enf/vuln and beartrap.

As I saw him, I should have backed off, but I wanted to see what I could do.
Kited him, blasted him, he soon lost half his HP.
Then I got bear trapped. Usually no problem, pressed the Q button, where usually my movement skill is.

But wait, I had none at this point! Wasn't offered Warp was a quest reward yet and found none either. Okay, I thought, let's just tank this out. Had 1,7k hp, a 20q inc armor granite, 2 lvl 34 life flasks, of which one was half instant recovery.

Next he casted vulnerabiltiy on me. Half of my pots were down at this point.

Then all of the guards (didnt kill most because of vorici quest) and his two op-totems started attacking/stunlocking me. During that pinata-abuse I used up my last pots and alt-f4'd again, but I suspected that I died again. That was the case.


I don't really mind dying in a HC league, it's just a game. But I hate the fact that in both cases I couldnt really do anything to prevent my rip except not engaging the boss (how boring).

Crying NERFFF HIM!!!!!1!!1 won't do anything, in fact I find people who do that very annying.
So here are a few suggestions:

-Remove op exiles from lower difficulties
-acutally offer escape/movement skills early in game (maybe even as a must-take reward)
-at least remove Vickas' Beartrap on normal/early cruel.

It would have been fine if I was allowed to actually kite him. The first half of the fight was actually thrilling, but it really went 'meh' when I ripped a second time without being able to do anything.

I'm totally demotivated to try HC again soon. Maybe at the end of the league after I leveld two more characters...

Alright, back to hunting that freaking vaal cultist some more, while stuck at 21/25 Bloodlines.

TL;DR Ripped two times to desync and IMBA EK totem exile, which sucks.

Cheers and Good luck, everyone :)

Your first death was unfortunate, although from your explanation it seems like you had quite a lot of time to log/tp out. It is really hard to die superfast to those three blackguard bosses with 1,4k hp. Still, desync can be quite a bitch if you don't really know how to counter, reduce or recognize it quickly.

Second death is 100% your fault. You should have kited the exile more and perhaps pulled one his guards apart from others, after which zerging the exile down without having to worry about killing the guards would've been no problem at all. Again, based on your explanation, you had all the time in the world to log/tp out. Thus, you saying there was nothing you could have done to prevent your deaths is false. I agree that it would be fair to get some kind of a movement skill as Templar before a1m, pretty much every other class gets leap/wb/lw long before a2c. They really should change this.

I also really don't think that Vickas Giantbone is anywhere near op, unlike for example Minara Anemina or Magnus Stonethorn. There are a lot of different ways to counter/mitigate his damage. His bear trap can be a real pain in the butt but again, there are ways to not get killed because of it, even without a movement skill.

Wait... So you hate crying for nerfs and won't ask for nerfs yourself.
Instead you ask for things to be removed? Sorry but I find that hilarious.

In both cases I alt-f4'd at 20% hp and when the pots were emtpy. The fact that I still died might be because of my not immeditaly responding laptop.

You should have used alt-f4 the moment you got bear-trapped without a movement skill.

Not that i enjoy that strategy, but this was the valid response to the situation in hc.

Peace,

-Boem-

Ahahah hilarious :D, very funny post indeed, i really enjoy when SC players play HC and then share their experience. Try melee next time on BL and have fun (or maybe not)