1st character, first day in game, Hardcore! tips?

As the title suggests, I picked up this game and decided I'm going to play just straight hardcore. I have no idea what I'm doing. I haven't died yet, and I was wondering if there is a good list of general tips to keep from getting murdered in Hardcore, so I can keep this first character up and walking for as long as possible.

Thanks!

Hello there,


Glad to hear you just started playing PoE.

Playing hardcore means, that one day or another, you will get murdered anyway. I never, never encourage new players to start in HC straight away. The good thing is that when you die, your character will get transported to standard and you will be able to continue your journey over there. It is a much better place to learn the ropes so to speak.


1) Carry resistance rings with you and swap rings depending on the elemental type of damage the monsters deal.

2) Roll your flasks with transmute and alteration orbs. Flasks are powerful tools in combat.

3) Make sure you invest equally into defense as offensive abilities. The more layered your defenses are (gearing, skill gem use, passive skill tree node selection), the better.

4) You will find masters throughout your journey. Do their quests and level them. They will give you the oppportunity to use their crafting brenches. These make it possible to add mods on items at a fixed price.

5) Don't blindly open strongboxes.

6) Keep your portal scrolls close at hand.

-Life flasks are important, make sure to have always the highest tier of flask available for your level. Read the wiki for more info: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Flask

-Elemental resistances are important, make sure to grab more resistances when you can

"

Reinhart wrote:

Hello there,


Glad to hear you just started playing PoE.

Playing hardcore means, that one day or another, you will get murdered anyway. I never, never encourage new players to start in HC straight away. The good thing is that when you die, your character will get transported to standard and you will be able to continue your journey over there. It is a much better place to learn the ropes so to speak.

oh, no worries. It's been over 10 years, but I'm used to the whole hardcore concept. If(when) I die, i intend to take it like a man, delete the sorry fuck out of Standard so i can get my name back, and re-roll. There will be some repetition.

"

Reinhart wrote:

2) Roll your flasks with transmute and alteration orbs. Flasks are powerful tools in combat.

Elaborate: roll the flask? what does that entail?

"

Reinhart wrote:

3) Make sure you invest equally into defense as offensive abilities. The more layered your defenses are (gearing, skill gem use, passive skill tree node selection), the better.

As a duelist, i should be all about evasion right? or is that the other guy with the pointy things?

"

Reinhart wrote:

5) Don't blindly open strongboxes.

Do tell....what happens if i blindly open things? how do i not blindly open things?


Thanks for all this!

Look up logout macros.

No "hardcore" player goes without one. To the point where Grinding gear has basically admitted that they balance hardcore around the existence of logout macros.

And yet hardcore players still give standard-only guys grief about being sissies and wimplords and all that. Heh...kinna funny, huh?

"Roll the flask" means to give the flask the mods you want (or can tolerate). Right clicking an Orb of Transmutation and left clicking a normal Flask makes the Flask magic, giving it 1 to 2 modifiers, and consumes the Trans.

Same deal with Alteration to remove whatever existing modifiers are on the magic Flask and give it 1 to 2 new mods.

Duelist is aligned with Strength and Dexterity, meaning that he most comfortably fits in a mix of Evasion and Armour. If you dislike the way Evasion works, you can also grab the Iron Reflexes keystone passive to convert Evasion into Armour.

Strongboxes are a specific type of container. To not open them blindly entails using a Scroll of Wisdom on them when they have blue or yellow text (and read "Unidentified.")

EDIT: I personally play softcore, but if you dislike logout macros, you may still want to practice quick-quit, which means hitting Esc and left clicking the log out button.

Layered defenses also means using a variety of tools to shore up your defense further. For example:
Fortify is a buff reduces incoming Hit damage. Usually generated in Melee via Vigilant Strike while leveling or for casters, and preferably with Fortify Support in endgame.
Enfeeble is a Curse that reduces enemy damage output.
Arctic Armour is a buff that reserves Mana by default and grants less Physical and Fire Hit damage taken.
Endurance Charges are a pseudo buff that grants physical damage reduction and elemental resistances, though you never want to rely on them for resists as they can be removed or expire during combat, depending on how you generate them.

"

1453R wrote:

And yet hardcore players still give standard-only guys grief about being sissies and wimplords and all that. Heh...kinna funny, huh?

I guess you could do that, if you feel the need to justify your masochism to others. I just set my heart on the hardcore thing because i want my mistakes to matter.

that said, i'm assuming a Logout macro is like a kill-button you can use to immediately pull your character out of game to rescue him from impending doom. If the game is not impossible to beat without them, then i'll hold off for now. I can see how it would be useful for experimentation though.

I kind of can't believe no one has mentioned this yet... Maybe it is just presumed to be blindingly obvious to any lifetime Hardcore player, I'm not sure, I'm used to softcore.

Maximizing your buffer is absolutely critical. For new players, this generally means getting as much bonus to maximum Life on gear (+flat) and on the passive tree (x% increased) as you can. If and when you'd like to get fancy, this is Energy Shield instead of Life.

When you get to gearing up, you need Life on all or almost all of your gear pieces: helmet, chest, gloves, boots, ring, ring, amulet, belt, and if you use a shield, then shield too. And you want the highest roll the piece can give you for your level as well (or fairly high, if it has lots of other desirable stats, mainly resistances).

As Reinhardt alluded to with his first point, you want capped elemental resistances (75%) as soon as possible. For the early levels, of course, you can't really reach that as a new player, so Reinhardt's ring swap trick helps a lot.

I didnt read every post but just so you are aware hardcore in this game is not like others. There are so many times you are going ti be instagibbed or one shot etc and not even see it coming.

I mean if you take your time I suppose you will be alright for a while.

There are just soooo many mechanics in this game that take a while to learn. I cant imagine playing hardcore when i first started... i just dont think it would be fun.

You sound set on doing it though so goodluck. Id be interested to see updates on your progress.

"

misterprofessionality wrote:

"

1453R wrote:

And yet hardcore players still give standard-only guys grief about being sissies and wimplords and all that. Heh...kinna funny, huh?

I guess you could do that, if you feel the need to justify your masochism to others. I just set my heart on the hardcore thing because i want my mistakes to matter.

that said, i'm assuming a Logout macro is like a kill-button you can use to immediately pull your character out of game to rescue him from impending doom. If the game is not impossible to beat without them, then i'll hold off for now. I can see how it would be useful for experimentation though.

You should just get in the mindset of logging out quickly if you need to. The developers of the game even said it was intended to be used. There are some situations you will know that you arent going to live through.