At first, I thought the skill/leveling system would be amazing

I'm sure that's the reaction most of us have when they see that gigantic passive tree.

"wow! there's so many passives and so many paths I can take!" Nope.

In HC, all the best/good builds are about stacking nothing but life. I don't even look forward to leveling anymore because I don't really care about +10 strength or +% life...

because dying is such a real possibility of course all of the HC builds are going to stack as much life as possible.

Well, stacking HP is the result of playing hardcore, not the result of some inherent property of the passive tree.

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zachpnnc wrote:

because dying is such a real possibility of course all of the HC builds are going to stack as much life as possible.

They should at least make all the other defensive stats like armor and evasion not totally worthless.

Or just remove life completely from the tree, and rebalance the game around that.

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breno2342 wrote:

Well, stacking HP is the result of playing hardcore, not the result of some inherent property of the passive tree.

Consider lvl 75+ in default HC too. 15% penalty at dying is a huge setback (reason why so many are stuck in 70's for such a long time)

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timed wrote:

I'm sure that's the reaction most of us have when they see that gigantic passive tree.

But in HC, all the best builds are about stacking nothing but life. I don't even look forward to leveling anymore because I don't really care about +10 strength or +% life...

This isn't true. Go ask around. Don't listen to popular opinions every time. Especially when they are regarding a cut-throat game.

So people should not have the option to make their character overly survivable if they choose?

You are free to run a dps build in HC if you like. Some people do, and props for that.

Im not saying that the game is perfect, but I always object to anything that removes peoples choices in how they build their character.

Luckily GGG seems to agree so I have no worries there. My biggest issue with hc atm has nothing to do with the game itself but lag and disconnects, and not just on POEs end. Net connections drop or get interrupted from time to time, lag bursts happen, the more hp your char has the better the chance of it still being there when you get back in.

And really you spend very little time overall in the game fighting bosses that hit hard enough to make 'armor and evasion worthless', they are important stats for most of what you are doing. Bosses are more about tactics anyway, avoiding strong attacks or perhaps being careful with certain map mods.
Its just easier to survive hc (mostly to survive your own mistakes) by having lots of survivability.

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breno2342 wrote:

Well, stacking HP is the result of playing hardcore, not the result of some inherent property of the passive tree.

You'd expect HC to stack defensive passives, not just HP. But that's not what happens. Everyone just stacks HP.

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Deceptionist wrote:

This isn't true. Go ask around. Don't listen to popular opinions every time. Especially when they are regarding a cut-throat game.

I'm sure you could skimp on the life nodes. But you greatly increase your chances of getting 1-shot and losing 100s of hours.

My main HC build before open beat was a high move speed archer who used split arrow + ~90% pierce. I was pure evasion and only got enough HP to not get one shot. This really was not that hard to achieve and was easy to balance due to the fact that I had +45% life recovery from flasks as a key part of my passive build. I am actually in the process of reproducing this character right now (sitting at start of cruel currently) and would be further if I wasn't getting distracted by trying out other fun builds.

While I can admit this isn't as safe as staking hp and being nigh indestructible, I find it to be a lot more fun. Try using your imagination! Just because there are "better" builds, does not mean you can't find something that is much more fun :P