So how on earth do people do ALL the acts in a matter of hours?
A guild officer told me players can do Act 1 in 12 mins...like seriously? It would take me 12 mins to look at my spells, have a drink, decide on what to pick on the skill tree, and then find my way out of town! I think I took around 2 hours to finish Act 1, and I was trying to rush.
Anyway, in this one I went back to playing with my favorite AoE (Area of Effect) spell, Contagion.
It was something 
As seen by my screenshot above, it's the purple smokey effect I love so much. I'm not sure why, but it is always satisfying to use. I coupled it with Essence Drain (ED) which is meant to be a complimentary spell. I used this previously in Softcore, but gave up on it to go back to Fireball, because the dps was simply much better. But I was determined to build on ED and Contagion early. Still, I couldn't see the net benefit of the spells combined (ED + Contagion). I think some of the mobs died faster, but it's hard to tell...I need to read up on it a bit more.
Also, since I didn't have access to Phase Run, which is my favourite movement spell, I finally gave Flame Dash a proper test.
It was great once I got used to how it zapped across the screen.
So with that horrible end, I googled why I died. This was what I found:
A rain of blood in the entire arena except for a bubble around Dominus himself. You will want to stay inside the bubble or risk losing a lot of HP very rapidly. This is the most dangerous attack during the second phase and it is not advisable to risk getting caught up in it, so stay close to him at all times during this phase.
This is an example of doing your research before you run into the arena. I knew he was bad news too, which was why I ran away back to town once to re-group and rejig my configuration. But I was too lazy to google up on him. It was a case of "Meh, it should be fine. I just need to keep running and stay out of reach".
Clearly, that was the wrong thing to do at the last stage!
I think this will be my last training attempt for Matt Clarke's race. It takes so much out of you to invest in a HC toon and then to see it defeated.
crying
I need to go back to decorating my hideout, doing some writing or chatting to PoE players. Anything to chill from the stress of Hardcore!!
So I was officially invited into my Guild recently!! Woohoo!
And now that I have been officially indoctrinated into their Guild, I like to remind them that there are (cranky old) women reading stuff on the server now...
Okay, I couldn't resist trolling them, and it was not an easy feat to discreetly find a theme-appropriate image on a crowded train!
XD
They ignored me, but I wonder how long it will take them before they boot me from the guild. lol
And finally, from their server, a Guild Officer shared a link of a live twitch session where a PoE Developer was discussing the next league Synthesis with a few popular Streamers. It was a great session and I sat through almost to the end. I felt like a total PoE nerd for even doing so! And the scary thing is, I'm even half-tempted to purchase a ticket for Exilecon in NZ later this year in November. I've never been to NZ but my husband loves the country, it's been on my plans to take our girls there for a cheaper holiday...Maybe...
smh
However, they will only have a venue that will host 1500 people! Talk about under-selling themselves. I agreed with the streamers, I'd expect those tickets will sell out FAST.
Here is the video highlights from the session if you're interested.
Twitch Session with Chris Wilson
So this brings me to the end of yet another PoE post. I really need to get out of my seat, onto the crosstrainer and back into 
Keep your eyes peeled for
EDIT ( a few minutes later):
And then I saw Matt had posted his announcement just before I posted. Here it is:
https://steemit.com/poecomp/@mattclarke/the-path-of-exile-24-hour-hardcore-race-is-on-again-march-8th-160-steem-up-for-grabs
YAY!!!! 
