It's done. I have completed the Diablo 4 campaign on the Hardcore realm and I did it without dying even once. One attempt, one victory. I'm either a god gamer or just very lucky. If I had to choose myself I would of course choose the former.
I have no idea how long it took me to complete the campaign the second time around. Definitely less time than the first time I did it on my eternal realm sorceress but I definitely could have completed it even faster still. I decided that there's no reward in rushing things in hardcore seeing as my character only has one life. I took it slow and spent quite a lot of time looking through all of the items I got and to refine my build every step of the way.
At the time of completing the campaign Barbell the Barbarian was at level 45. Basically what is the minimum recommended level to fight the last boss. I could have gone in sooner but I didn't want to risk my one life dying to the endgame boss because she was a higher level than me. It's just not worth the risk.
I have to say that I was quite nervous going into each and every boss fight during the campaign and especially the last boss. This boss has a mechanic tied to her that will one shot you if you don't pay attention. It's very easy to avoid but it can definitely be messed up. Luckily I managed to keep my concentration up and blast her down with relative easy thanks to my strong build. Spending extra time on refining my build has definitely rewarded me in the end.
On the journey my barbarian has become quite the powerhouse. I've redone my build and stat priority several times before finally having landed on something that feels like it's going to carry me for quite some time. I take pride in making my own builds and choosing my own stats as I don't find it any fun to just follow guides. If I do that it doesn't feel like I'm playing and exploring the game on my own.
I've landed on a build that exploits the "vulnerable" status in enemies. To explain it in short there are several skills in the game that can apply the vulnerable effect on enemies which makes them take 20% increased damage. I'm also stacking items that grants me even more damage to vulnerable enemies on top of damage increases to my core skill and the good old critical hit chance and critical hit damage. This is all of course mixed together with a decent amount of defensive stats like extra health and armor.
I'm currently using the Hammer of the Ancients core skill as my main ability. I'm using Steel Grasp that launched a set of hooks to pull enemies in and apply vulnerable and then smash them with my core skill. This obliterates pretty much everything. Elites die in one or two hits and I sometimes take as much as 20% off bosses health if I get a lucky crit. I'm using Iron Skin to have some barrier and extra defense and the Rallying Cry shout to help me build fury faster. This build bonks hard.
Now that I've completed the campaign on hardcore and collected all the accompanying achievements and titles my next goal is to reach level 50 and unlock world tier 3. There's an achievement for reaching level 50 with one character and then another for reaching level 50 on all classes. I will probably make those two my next goal. The dream would of course be to take Barbell all the way to level 100 for the ultimate achievement but I sadly don't think I'll be bale to keep her alive for that long. It would be a dream if I could.
To get to level 50 I plan to collect the remaining level 3 renown rewards for all the regions. That will give me 5 extra skill points to play around with which will be quite helpful. These skill points will also be unlocked for any future characters I decide to make which will make starting new characters a tad easier. Luckily you get to keep something when you die on hardcore.
Hopefully my next post related to Diablo 4 will be about reaching level 50 and not my character meeting het inevitable death. The difficulty is only going to ramp up from here.
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.
