Playing a Hardcore character

Hi,

I've been a few years into the game and I've not really played any Hardcore league character.
This has now changed and I'd like to try, mainly because of the ingame Achievements I don't yet have.

Which class would you recommend? Juggernaut as the most tankiest?
Is there a difference between the effectiveness of Armour, Evasion and Energy Shield?

What are the dos and don'ts when playing as a Hardcore character? For example, is it OK going mainly full life and full armour/defense, staff or shield etc?

Many thanks for your inputs and thoughts!

Zizaran has a couple of videos on playing hardcore. I haven't watched them but his stuff is usually pretty solid.

HC is about having a build for it, knowing the build pretty well, knowing a lot about what can kill you, and developing different play habits.

If it's a build you haven't played before, I'd suggest playing it through acts in SC before you try it HC.

You can check Ninja for what's being played in HC this league. I ended up doing HC SSF on a Blade Blast Chieftain and I'm really enjoying it. It's quite tanky with very solid damage, both aoe and single.

If you want a guide, Ziz has a video and there are some in the forums here I think. You can also see what folks on Ninja are doing.

Good luck.

I think it's more about how you play than about the build itself. I'm trying to get the level 90 HC achievement, but I only play that character every now and then.

I've been using a hybrid flame wall / minion elementalist. I use shooter spectres with feeding frenzy who shoot through the flame wall for added damage. I also have four different golems, with all the + golem buff effects from the tree. Zombies with meat shield. Vitality plus stone golem over-buffs puts me at around 1000 regen.

It's not what I would call tanky. But it's pretty easy to stay out of harm's way with that build.

The trick is to not get in a hurry. Don't ever take chances. When your gut feeling says don't do something, then don't do it. Not ever. It's about knowing your character, knowing the dangers, and self discipline.

I'm currently at 87 and slowly creeping up. Even if I don't make it to 90, it's still an achievement for me, because it's the highest I've gotten in HC.

If you are unfamiliar with HC, I'd recommend any max block build - either glad or necro as it's the easiest to max.
You're unlikely to reach the level of content where high mitigation builds shine while block ones drop the ball, so it's the dirt cheap carrier for +85.

Skill doesn't matter much, pick whatever you like.

I tried a hardcore character some leagues ago to get my challenges at this time.
I decided to make it SoloSelfFound to get the full feeling of, no trade upgradesand no buying gems, just use what thee is offered by the game.
As class I took the necro, because best to stand in background using a decoy totem and let my creatures do the killing. With some time I got more defense and it felt very easy until I reached level 70, then I started to feel no longer comfortly and the hardcore action started. Maybe some day I will take it to level 80.
It was my first SSF hero and this is very fun. It feels more rewarding than normal trade league.
Stay alive.

Good thoughts above. A few others...

HC trade can feel like SSF. A lot of things that would be easy to find in SC trade are either not readily available or much more expensive. Even if you don't play it SSF, you should plan it that way.

I did two leagues starts in Ritual, one in SC trade (which I played tradeless most of the way) and now the HCSSF build. With both, many of my key items pre-80 came from Rituals. (Weapons, flasks, 5L/Tabula). Rituals require you to work in a really limited space with a lot of mobs, so having a build that can do some face tanking is helpful. You can skip Rituals, but you'll be missing some gearing opportunities if you do.

Whatever the build, you'll want to pay attention to a good balance of offense and defense through the entire leveling process. More so than in SC. You aren't going to have the end game defensive layers of the final build so you need to make sure you have good enough layers during your journey.

OP just have reasonable objectives, take your time and play a strong build you are comfortable with over a meta build directly.

If you've not got anything specific in mind i'd say block/bleed glad is about the easiest and safest way to play for newer players. 75/75 block, a recovery shield and corpse destruction mean you can snooze to 90 as soon as the items are situated. Easy to level too.

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a recovery shield and corpse destruction mean you can snooze to 90 as soon as the items are situated

This is a good example of why HC needs to be planned as SSF even if playing in trade. Life recovery on block is cheap and available in SC. Not so much in HC.

life recovery on block is cheap on HC aside from like the first 3 days, any shaper shield will roll it fairly reliably with life spam from harvest or fossils and even regular 100 life on block the non influenced mod probably covers it.

This was more or less what I meant by "needs to be planned as SSF". :-)

You can't just go buy the shield for 10c, so you need to think about how you're going to craft one. Harvest isn't available until maps and fossils only are in small quantities. Even alt crafting is going to require a number of those (for t1) that will be challenging while leveling in a league start situation.

All possible. Just not as easy as popping into trade.