Practical Tips for Hardcore Mode

As a player who was able to beat one of the hardest achievements in this game:
Defeat Van Aldritch in Port Valbury on Hardcore Mode

I wanted to contribute somehow to all who intent on beating this challenge!

I can guarantee all these tips will keep you alive during your entire journey, I will try to update this whenever I have better ideas and will accept opinions from anyone, though I consider the basics to be all covered in here.

Nothing else matters, only survivability

Think about it, if you die on Hardcore Mode, it's all gone, you lose everything you worked very hard on.

With that in mind, and if you wish to play SAFE I strongly recommend you use the following:

- Turtle Shell Devotion: This will always activate when you reach 40% health, and will make a sound and glowing effect to show you that you are close to your death. It avoids sudden bursts of damage that could kill you without a fair warning.

- Menhir's Will: A Soldier skill, it activates when your health drops below 30%, healing part of it back. Very good to avoid low health and deaths.

- Use a shield: For obvious reasons, this will make it much harder to kill you, it's also an extra piece of gear to add up to your resistences (Elemental, Piercing, etc). I do not recommend using two handed melee weapons for the damage, because of the extra risk you take.

- Pick Shaman or Soldier, or both: These two classes have good defensive and health regenerating skills, so I recommend choosing one of them to your own build.

- Vitality Damage and Life Steal: Some items will give you Life Steal or convert your Vitality damage into Health back to you. They are a BIG GAME CHANGER and I strongly recommend having a build based on that, or that you at least give preference to these items.

Focus on your resistances, the law of 80%

Do not underestimate the power that the resistances will give you, if you have everything on 80% or higher, you will be safe most of the time. I would say the most dangerous ones to leave it on the low are Poison & Acid and Piercing. Poison does very high damage (Loghorrean could insta kill you, for example), and Piercing makes all your ranged enemies more dangerous.
But overall all resistances are important.

Solution: When crafting items, choose resistance bonuses first, instead of damage.

Focus on two damage sources

Why this is important:

- If you only focus in one damage source, for example Lightning when playing Shaman, I can assure you, that you will be very overpowered agaisn't certain enemies. But as soon as you encounter an enemy with very high Lightning resistance, you won't be able to beat it.

Solution: Split your damage to another source, like Physical damage and Lightning damage. Try to balance them out.

Stick to your damage sources!

- Don't try to mix or split your damage sources too much, for example, if you are focusing on Lightning and Physical damage, but find a very overpowered weapon with high Chaos damage, resist the temptation to use it. You will only lose your damage potential. You will end up with a character who uses all kinds of damage but has no HIGH concentration of damage. This applies to your devotion points too, if your weapon does Lightning and Physical damage, set your priorities to Lightning and Physical devotions only!

Solution: Stick to your guns!

You are not a hero, play with fear

Arrogance will get you killed, don't try to tank unnecessary damage, one slip could get you killed.
Realize how most enemies miss when you back away, alot of the attacks in this game can be easily avoided just by running around, so use this to your advantage!

If you take a high burst of damage from an enemy, or you notice he will obviously crush you, just back away! Have patience and go Farm / Level Up in another area, then come back!

Set your priorities

In combat, you should be focusing on the important targets first. So Healers should always die first, because they will make your battle endless if they are alive. Then the Ranged enemies, they cannot corner you, but they will still damage you if you need to run away. Chargers and Giant enemies should be lured to an empty room or dealt with when the rest of the room is clear.

Always be drinking

I have a rule when using Health Potions on Hardcore, whenever my health goes below 70% I drink them, this will become a habit for you, avoiding the dangers of getting to low health. Keep in mind though that they have a cooldown, so save them if you know a big burst of damage is about to come!

Watch for stuns and freezes

It's very recommended that you build resistances agaisn't that or avoid these attacks at ANY COSTS, they will just leave you defenseless, some Nemesis enemies can make you PERMA FREEZED, this is death for sure. The Hoarfrost Ointment potion reduces freezes to a 100%. You should carry a few with you.

Gang attacks

Avoid being cornered in a circle of enemies. If possible, lure a few of them to an empty room and just kill them one at a time, this is very easy to do, and avoids alot of damage. Use doorways and corridors to your advantage, skills that do damage in a "line direction" are perfect for situations like this.

Carry a ranged weapon!

There's an option of quick switching to an alternative weapon in the game (Keyboard Bindings). Some enemies are very powerful in close range, but can be easily defeated if you just hit it from far away. Carry a good ranged weapon that matches with your damage choices for situations like this.

Before trying on the harder modes on hardcore (Elite and Ultimate), you should do a full clean up on the Normal Veteran mode. That means completing all the quests, opening all the chests you can and getting all the shrines, basically having patience and taking your time before moving on.

I also recommend you study your enemies on the Grim Dawn Wiki if you are unsure you can take a specific Boss or Nemesis, it's a great website with alot of info:

Grim Dawn Wiki[grimdawn.fandom.com]

These might seem like obvious tips, but I can assure you that they WILL WORK!

My build was a Witchblade (Occultist + Soldier) that focused on Vitality, Chaos and Physical Damage. What kept me alive was choosing to stack alot of Vitality Damage with items that would convert my Vitality Damage into HP. The Occultist also has an active skill called Sigil of Consumption that converts Vitality Damage into HP.

Like I said in the beggining, I am open to update this article and add better tips if anyone wishes to share their opinions, or whenever I have better ideas.

But more importantly, I really hope you enjoy the game!

For the real purpose of Hardcore Mode is all the fun adrenaline it gives you, if you follow these tips though, you should be able to beat it in one piece!

Thank you.