The HardCore Survival Guide

[Xeroshifter]

This will be a quick guide to surviving hard core.

+The Easiest time to fail hardcore is in the beginning. Just play an easy character for the first 3 floors, then put the equipment in the shared loot box so you dont die on the first floor.
+ Always keep your armor updated. It doesn't matter if it is orange and spiffy with enchantments. If a green or blue item in the store has better armor by more than 1 point, switch out. This is about survival, not damage. Exception: Health bonuses and Resistances. +10hp is better than +1 armor. Im guessing a good ratio would be 10hp = 3 armor. Take the armor @ and past that ratio. Resistances, unless they are above 15, forget em if the other piece has more than 3 armor.
+Learn the Town Portal spell. Learn the spell and have it on tab switch, because if you are about to die and dont have potions you can always jump back to town, and when you come back the enemies will have the same health as when you left.
+Keep anything valuable in the shared box. This is the closest thing you can do to not starting over when on HC if you die.
+Never pump all of your stats into your primary damage stat. This means as a vanquisher dont pump 5 into dex each level. as an alchemist dont pump it all into magic, and as a.... destroyer dont pump it all into strength. Put a minimum of 1pt into defense each level, recommended 2.
+Armor Proficiency is your friend. Put points into your armor proficiency ability, it doesn't have to be much, but even one point can mean a huge difference in later levels because proficiencies run on %s, so the more you have the more it gives you in bonuses.
+When ever you are in town, be sure to refill your potions.
+Heal your pet. Any time you are wounded or you are trying to fight range, your pet becomes your tank. Give him health necklaces and rings, and heal him. You should keep a close eye on his health, almost as close as yours (for those who dont know, you can use potions on your pet by holding the shift key and then hitting your potion hot key.)
+Pet spells. Your pet should have the spell Heal All (XX), as well as a summon spell. The more guys on your side, the less likely things are to attack you. Avoid the archer spell though, they wont attract much attention because they are ranged and will not move. Zombies move slow but are decent, skeletons are good, and swords are too.
+KnockBack is your friend. No, seriously, knockback is awesome. It keeps your enemies one step further away when they are attacking you. If you are a vanquisher it is a must. As an alchemist it is a big plus, and as a Destroyer it is a good thing.
+Lightning wins. When fighting many enemies lightning is your best buddy. Its criticals result in nice AOE damage, which can save your butt. Poison is great for fighting single enemies, and fire is too. Ice is nice when you are trying to avoid being hit, but over all Lightning will be the most useful as well as save your ass the most.
+DO PORTAL SIDE QUEST! The guy at the bottom oft he town gives portal quests, they tend to be geared towards a level higher than you, so they are hard, but if you can do them, they give good money and exp, making the normal dungeon easier.
+Map keys 1-6 with skills and pots. 1,2 for pots Hp and Mp in that order, then skills. Keep your fingers on keys 2-5 allowing for quick hitting of keys 1&6 without any stretch. Also highly recommended mapping qwerty if and when possible.
+Keep automap on and centerscreen, this way your eyes never have to wander to the corner where they might get distracted as something comes up on you.
Key: Red = Must, Orange = Highly Suggested Yellow = Suggested Green = Not Endorsed Blue= Exceptions and personal notes.
Suggested by other Users:
-never enter a phase portal
-Never look at your inventory or go afk for 5 seconds or more unless your in town, or 100% sure all monsters are dead in the area. The exception is having both pet and personal inventory open at the same time, as this pauses the game.
- Always shop for upgrades.
- Keep and eye out for good weapons to stash for your current character's next of kin.
- My favorite items have +health and +resists. I go with those over +damage rings and items. Especially +health for first 14 levels or so as elemental damage isn't too dangerous until then.
- Personal opinion(learned hard way), stay out of NPC purchased Map Portals until you are over the top level on the map.
- Top off your health after each fight. Burn through those potions.
- Old Diablo 2 trick, if your health gets below 1/3 or 1/2 use a red potion.
- Mouse Control, keep mouse cursor near character when you move. Maybe about an inch ahead. Don't move by clicking on the far side of screen.
- Fishing sites are not super common when you find one fish alot. Keep Fido stocked up.
- If you have older computer (like me) when you portal into a level or take stairs down, fire off your main skills once or twice. It seems like the animation chugs the first time I use each skill, or pop an urn or basket on a new level. Maybe that's just my crappy computer.
- the Draining Touch spell on my pet seems to work well to keep them in the fight longer.
- life or mana steal are good, but they don't work with skills only regular attacks
-Beware of popups! Popups can minimize your game and cause you to die while playing. If you have a program that gives popups, shut it down before playing on hardcore.
-Refreshing shop inventory. You can change what the shop keepers are carrying by simply popping in and then back out of a townportal or way gate. This will allow you to look for different spells, weapons, armor, gems.
-Have a magic find set. Keep a couple rings and a necklace, maybe its even a few pieces of armor handy that have bonuses to magic/gold find. This allows you to buy dungeon maps just bellow your level, or if you decide to enter a phase portal or do the portal side quests to find better gear and more money.
-If you enter a portal: phase portal, quest portal, or dungeon map, beware, most of the trouble will be right at the beginning, so be prepared to blast the crap outa stuff around you and pop hp pots like mad.
-If there is a boss/elite in the room, run around killing his minions first, kite them away and get out of his range. It is really easy to die by 10 guys doing 5dps a second vs 1 guy who does 50dps a second. Over all the little guys will kill faster cause they attack at different times..
-Have a weapon regen set. Keep your alternative weapon with regen enchants, it allows you to have it out when you are not fighting, so you can regen between battles instead of always topping off with pots.
Destroyer:

Alchemist:
-No matter how sexy the staff, don't use it. Wands only. Exception, have a staff equipped, you have 2 weapon configs, hit the w key to change during battle (default.) When enemies get close, wack'em and run. Do not purposly engage in melee though.
-Ember Shield is a key survival skill, at least get one point into it. It scales with your stats (50% defense/magic) so it will at least help you survive the One Shot deaths. You can recast it as fast as you need to because recast is instant.
Hit and run! If enemies get close to you, be sure to only stick around long enough to hit them once, then flee back to long range. Its not your dps that matters its theirs.
Vanquisher:
-For Vanquisher, use Pistol + Shield at all times, upgrade them both and potentially invest in Duel Wielding to make pistol stronger

If you have anything to add, please put it bellow in a quote box. It will be easier to find quote boxes than it will be to sift through every post to find that one sentence of vital information among troll posts, and paragraphs justifying your answers. If I like it, or think it is a need to know thing, ill edit my post to include it as well as who wrote it.
If you disagree with something i say, please state why and a full explantion, examples would be great as well but are unnecessary. If you present your argument well enough, i may remove the part you disagree with from my post, or at least put a note on it that you dont agree.
Most Recent Edit: 11/4/09 3:02pm Pacific (-8:00)
Most Recent Edit Content: Added several user suggested guidelines.

[clawface]

-never enter a phase portal
-For Vanquisher, use Pistol + Shield at all times, upgrade them both and potentially invest in Duel Wielding to make pistol stronger
-Never look at your inventory or go afk for 5 seconds or more unless your in town, or 100% sure all monsters are dead in the area, almost died due to this once.

[Xeroshifter]

I would like some explanation on the phase portal one, and I will slightly alter the afk one, because you can press the space bar or have both pet and your inventory open and it will the game. As per the vanquisher one I will put it under strong recomendation because it may not be in line with someone elses play style.

[Zen]

Looking at some of your suggestions I am assuming you are talking about either Hard or Very Hard difficulty as well as HC.

For that then..

Alchemists:

-No matter how sexy the staff, don't use it. Wands only.
-Ember Shield is a key survival skill, at least get one point into it. It scales with your stats (50% defense/magic) so it will at least help you survive the One Shot deaths. You can recast it as fast as you need to because recast is instant.

[clawface]

yea diffntly that will depend on your game style, u can always go duel pistol or rifle, but just my personal experience.
Again phase portal, can be done, but there is a few things you need to know.
Example is my last portal (one i died on)
I entered it, and was attacked by group of 5-10 monsters the moment i got in. In high level, floor 27+ or 25+,those phase portal maps, there is a portal inside the map, where monsters come out, and they are considerably stronger then same level equivalent outside the map and also some monster can come out of 3-5 and all suddenly charge you hitting for 2000 damage+

IN a nut shell, phase portals can be done, but I personally strongly recommend against them due to the HARSH difficulty increase that could potentially arise.

[Hero]

Pure one-stat build don't bother defense leave that to your gear... kill things before they can hit you.

[mejobloggs]

-never enter a phase portal

Thanks for this. After a quick play to level 10 on hard I've jumped into the game with Very Hard + Hardcore.

I killed a phase beast and have been very tempted to walk into the portal. I keep coming back to it and thinking... naaaah. Definitely wont try it now

[Tjuhl]

- remap your keybindings for your abilities / spells / potions / scrolls to 1-5 and WERT (Q can strangely not be remapped)

[Korialstrazs]

I didn't start my first character hardcore, but I'm 37 now and haven't died yet.

Got real close on the final boss though. -_- My armor is pretty high, but my resists are low, so I got smacked with my lowest resist by a bunch of the adds and had to pause the game with space to get a potion off in time.

[archpsi]

Always keep your armor updated. It doesn't matter if it is orange and spiffy with enchantments. If a green or blue item in the store has better armor by more than 1 point, switch out. This is about survival, not damage.

There is more about survivability than just armour, which is actually a less effective stat in torchlight than it was in d2. Same applies for resists. Basically I've seen a few players go all out armour/resists and eventually they gimp their damage by over 50%. Meaning that monsters have close to twice the time to engage them and for ranged builds that is devastating survival wise.

In d2 you could really make tanks who can outlast any damage done to them by the majority of enemies. For now it is pretty hard to get the same direct mitigation as in d2, unless you're using specific exploits.

[RonkTyvek]

I am only halfway through game so not sure if these are valid for end game, but they've got my Vanquisher to level 17, so these are useful tips to get you that far.

- Always shop for upgrades.
- Keep and eye out for good weapons to stash for your current character's next of kin.
- My favorite items have +health and +resists. I go with those over +damage rings and items. Especially +health for first 14 levels or so as elemental damage isn't too dangerous until then.
- Personal opinion(learned hard way), stay out of NPC purchased Map Portals until you are over the top level on the map.
- Top off your health after each fight. Burn through those potions.
- Old Diablo 2 trick, if your health gets below 1/3 or 1/2 use a red potion.
- Mouse Control, keep mouse cursor near character when you move. Maybe about an inch ahead. Don't move by clicking on the far side of screen.
- Fish in town to stock up.
- If you have older computer (like me) when you portal into a level or take stairs down, fire off your main skills once or twice. It seems like the animation chugs the first time I use each skill, or pop an urn or basket on a new level. Maybe that's just my crappy computer.
- the Draining Touch spell on my pet seems to work well to keep them in the fight longer.
- life or mana steal are good, but they don't work with skills only regular attacks

That's all for now. Hope these helps keep some people alive. If I'm mistaken about any of this please correct.

[XenBlue]

the Draining Touch spell on my pet seems to work well to keep them in the fight longer.

Do you find that works better than the "heal all" (or "heal self") spell? I am talking about pet survivability here (ignoring the PC's healing benefit)..

[Wyvern]

- remap your keybindings for your abilities / spells / potions / scrolls to 1-5 and WERT (Q can strangely not be remapped)

Actually, you CAN map Q. It'll say "NA" under it on the bar, but the skill will still go off when you press Q.

[Xeroshifter]

Updated. Thankyou everyone who has submitted so far.
Also: This guide is for any difficulty of HC, but most of it assumes you are on Normal or higher difficulty, if you are dying on easy hc with this guide... you may just be SOL.

[stax]

Fishing tip: Fish for tunnel sharks. They turn your pet into a burrower, giving it an insane HP boost. At level 1 the pet has 320 HP, feeding it a shark raises it to 1200. Burrower pets are able to tank bosses effectively even on very hard. As a bonus, burrowers use AOE lightning attack. Can fish for it in town too, improving the survival chances of level 1 HC characters considerably.

[brainfizz]

I disagree with the Alchemist comments above. Staves are vastly superior to wands. You'll be doing almost all of your ranged damage using spells and skills and if you get swarmed wands only hit 1 thing at a time whereas staves sweep opponents and hit a few at a time. They also have a much higher DPS and better stats. Grab a good staff with HP per hit and Mana per hit so that you can deal with swarms. My first Alch was a wand user and only ever used it when he ran out of mana from ember lance. My newer, hugely better, alchemist is a staff user, using ember bolt (awesome spell for hardcore - good damage after level 5, knockback, reasonable area of effect) and mana pots.
Phaze portals: Not a problem as long as you can survive the first few seconds. Enter them and spam ember bolt/ricochet/quake until the first room is dead then slowly pull from the further rooms. The loot and exp in these things is fantastic. I entered one on dungeon level 3 and came out 3 levels higher. Walked Brink in less than 5 seconds.
Defense/Armour: Not as important as it looks as though it might be. The amount of damage reduced by armour is very small. I've not seen any difference between 200 armour and 20 armour.
Critical skill: Massively important. Criticals will kill you enemies and thus remove them from the fight. With skills like Ember Lance and Ricochet this gives your skills several chances to annihilate your foes. +crit chance equipment is vital too.
HP per hit/Mana per hit: Only trigger when using basic attacks. Can be very handy but depends on your build.

[RonkTyvek]

Ok a silly tip but I almost made this mistake.

When you upgrade from one health potion class to the next, say the 400 to the 800 make sure you change your hot keys on the keyboard. I just use the default 1 and 2 keys for Health and Mana. I had just stashed my 400 point health potions and stocked up on 800s but I never changed the keys. Luckily, I had a fast firing gun with awsome health steal (+47) so I did about half a level with greyed out buttons and no quick way drink a pot. I would hate to have to post a RIP message because of that.

Only bothered posting because sometimes its the little stupid things that get you, or me.

[Xeroshifter]

I disagree with the Alchemist comments above. Staves are vastly superior to wands. You'll be doing almost all of your ranged damage using spells and skills and if you get swarmed wands only hit 1 thing at a time whereas staves sweep opponents and hit a few at a time. They also have a much higher DPS and better stats. Grab a good staff with HP per hit and Mana per hit so that you can deal with swarms. My first Alch was a wand user and only ever used it when he ran out of mana from ember lance. My newer, hugely better, alchemist is a staff user, using ember bolt (awesome spell for hardcore - good damage after level 5, knockback, reasonable area of effect) and mana pots.
Phaze portals: Not a problem as long as you can survive the first few seconds. Enter them and spam ember bolt/ricochet/quake until the first room is dead then slowly pull from the further rooms. The loot and exp in these things is fantastic. I entered one on dungeon level 3 and came out 3 levels higher. Walked Brink in less than 5 seconds.
Defense/Armour: Not as important as it looks as though it might be. The amount of damage reduced by armour is very small. I've not seen any difference between 200 armour and 20 armour.
Critical skill: Massively important. Criticals will kill you enemies and thus remove them from the fight. With skills like Ember Lance and Ricochet this gives your skills several chances to annihilate your foes. +crit chance equipment is vital too.
HP per hit/Mana per hit: Only trigger when using basic attacks. Can be very handy but depends on your build.

The only problem with what you say is that in order to use a staff you must be up close in the action. Being inside the fight gets you killed quicker. So where staffs might be better for damage or even dealing with a few mobs at once ultimately it is better to wield wands possibly even a shield instead. Though your comments are noted and i will put something to the effect of your point up there (once i get home from school.)

[Omen]

It has already been said, but I just want to reiterate.

Do not be afraid to use potions.

In VHHC, money is tight. You will spend alot of money on potions. I found out the hard way that if you drop below 1/2 health, potion. Sometimes you may get swarmed by enough mobs that the regen on a health potion will not keep up with incoming damage. Spike damage is not alot, it's being attacked by alot of small things at once.


=) Do not be afraid to use health potions.

[Omen]

Oh.. a tip I do use that I did not see listed.... Equip the Heal All spell on your pet. Mine seems to cast it quite often =) YMMV.