I just died in HC! Need help @ Character Analysis

Hi Guys


i need help:
I just died at the lvl of 41 on cruel difficulty. it's my second ever played characater in this game, and my first ever HC character in any game. there are still many things i don't know about, simply because i couldnt make any experience in later difficulties. and now that i died, i am a little scared to die again, before i ever see merciless. thats why i was hoping to find people who could might help me and tell me what i did wrong so far.

i would really appreciate your advice, and it would encourage me to keep on playing hc!


scene of crime:
there was a lvl 36 skeleton archer with cold dmg who killed me in just like 2 secs.
so obviously i need more cold resistance (22% as you can see below).

In general: how much resistance do i need when i hit cruel?

what do i have to consider when i use sweep and heavy strike? i used them both with added fire dmg and life on hit gems. what i experienced was, that at the end of normal difficulty my life startet to drop very fast, i would definitely not survive without life on hit.


Also was my build order ok?

build at lvl 41 was:


planed build:



What about my gear? im not really sure whats important. i was looking for + life, regen, armor and resistance. is my gear too crappy for lvl 41?

my gear at lvl 41:

Nothing wrong that I can see really, Some of your gear items could have been better, like that amulet and ring.

But I think that your main mistake was probably just not being knowledgeable enough about the game. If you have completed the game up to Merciless on normal, you can know and plan out what resists you need beforehand. You can know what was hurting and what was not.

Also, most people tend to suggest a 2 handed mace with GS instead of sweep. Sweep allows them to surround you and do more dmg to you. I am guessing that the cold archer froze you up and the accompanying mobs melted your face.

As far as your build and planned build are concerned, I see nothing wrong. Some people might suggest getting Unwavering instead of going to the life nodes in the middle, but to me its all personal preference really.

I would finish the game with a normal char and get a feel for skills, gear and difficulty before heading down the HC route.

1. For HC you should completely SHIT on damage. Just concentrate on health nodes and health regen nodes.

2. You used Sweep over Gound Slam. If you hate Ground Slam use Leap Slam over Sweep. Its always better.

3. You didn't used Endurance Charges

4. You should change your equipment to resistance-health wise. This will cause in over 100 health per second

Biggest issue was definitely your lack of resistances. If you can't successfully balance them out to atleast 45% at that point you need to be changing out rings to have proper resistances occording to zone. Also as a few people before me mentioned I'd highly recommend running ground slam instead as it gives you more of a gap to deal damage from. I'd also take a look at a totem or two. The taunt is nice to drop if you're in a bind and the health regen is a huge boost at lower levels.

biggest issue i would say is ur gear, its blue and/or from a2 norm. your weap has really low dmg. you are using es gloves. also needs a bigger focus on life and resists. im assumning that belt is form the a2 quest reward? if so id go with the life belt instead of the str belt, since if u get a life mod on it in addition to the base life its extra good.( i got lucky on mine life mod with double resist and armor) to give u an idea. i just started my hc char a few days ago and am in a3 now. i currently have 80% fire and lightning resist and 65% cold and 150 more armor than ur char did, and im level 33. i will disagree with guy who doesn't like sweep. i use sweep/ground slam situationally, sweep in open areas where u have mobs on multiple sides, ground slam in hallways or at doer openings where everything is being bottlenecked into your slam. im new as well but have played hc in other games, so don't take this as perfect advice, but rather a starting point.

Low life

Low resistances ( get elemental adaptation and swap out different 30%+ rings for when you encounter different types of elemental mobs)

A lot of really bad gear ( your amulet is atrocious, 2.6 life regen should NEVER be valued over more resistances or just more life or anything really)

Sweep puts you in a lot of danger pick a better skill.

If you don't have high armor/resistances use a shield if you have to until you get better gear.


Basically your items are the biggest problem, you want life/resistances/armor and a shield if your items are of low quality on average.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAxthYYz38UFB8uIzPKS72SF8_VEnnUu8Oud3Uj_IvGS4n7dlhrKpXDXKpWfORztIhfNnAGrvtns2QVacwp4T3vhQgGjhQR-w4OthN2J48jHaBbwSzFE0CcaloogA=

Theres a decent build for lowish level, basically you don't want to get life/regen/maybe a bit of armor nodes before any damage nodes and then add some damage later based on how you feel your doing.


Oh and on gear you want high armor/life/resistances and high physical damage on your weapon as life leech is dependent on your physical damage. You also need more than 2% life overall and should use life on hit gems at lower levels.

I would have used



at your level. Note that I have one str point north of diamond skin that seems useless. However, that point allows you to add/remove the resistances after diamond skin to fit your gear. You can choose to skip that point for now and move towards golem's blood.

As for endurance charges, I feel at your level you don't need to invest in more than 3 endurance charges just yet. However, after grabbing golem's blood, you should try to get enduring cry and start investing points in enduring charge. Here's the final spec with 25 points remaining:



Finally I'm aiming for:


Bonus: Search vendors everytime you level and keep all +30 resist or +12 all resist rings. Try to roll them into blues with HP/another resist.

Credits to Mouz for the build I think.

Thanks a lot for your replys! this will help me a lot :)

i like the idea to put some points into the resistance nodes and then remove them later! i wont invest in any dmg nodes this time. atleast not that early.

im still not sure why my gear is so crappy maybe because i didnt use any orbs. i wanted to save them for end game, i felt it didnt make any sense to waste them on low lvls.

i wonder i cant read in all the hc threads something about Enfeeble (let it at lvl 1).

do u all not think , this is a must have ?
its 25% dmg reduce.

It's not ur gear or u.. it's the game mate. PoE is all about NOT GETTING HIT by mobs. Every marauder out there is using GS or LS and that is a ranged attack. There's no D2 barbarian character as of now... melee is a total joke in PoE.