Ah, Blizz closed down the beta for D2 and are working on the most mega patch for a game ever. I think i'll probably play it when it came out, i always did like it better than SC and WC.

[Flip]

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>Hardcore of course.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>The difficulty of the stuff on Act 5 Hell goes well beyond just having a good connection and good 'skills' can get past. You just can't play Hardcore when regular types of monsters can instant kill you.</div>

[Tortolia]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>From the beta reviews I've heard from a few people on IRC, the last thing that 1.10 did was make things easier.</div>

[Eric]

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Well, I'm sure he's referring to the final version. I have many a ICQ conversation with Don about D2's 1.10 difficulty. :)</div>

[Tortolia]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Even so, it seems like Blizzard's intent for 1.10 was to jack up the difficulty. I don't disagree with it, since D2 was never exceptionally difficult barring external factors like lag.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>D2 was not difficult yeah, and neither is 1.10 really. One hit kills from Gloams with max resist is not difficult, it's just cheap. There's really nothing you can do to not die in that kind of situation.</div>

[Cranky McCrankyson]

<div style='font: 14pt ; text-align: left; '>What guy was it? I dont think pally's or barbs get beat down by one hit... My zon will have a shield for the block and the DAE skills working for her so hopefully she wont get hit often.</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Lightning cannot be avoided by any skills as far as I know of, and they can kill you through max resist easy. The only way to not die if you're not above 1.5K HP is to never get hit by one.</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>of course if you get into a good clan that works together (i.e. a good mix of elemental sorcs, tanking barbs, an damage dealing zons) then i think any area is possible. You just cant have 80 fire sorcs running around like in 1.09</div>

[Tortolia]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I might try HC some more. You're right, going back to normal afterwards is a bit of a letdown.</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/basics ... l">blah</a>

The addition of ladder characters vs normal characters is way cool, but i hate the rule that you have to finish the game first as a normal guy to play HC! I've obviously done this a million times, but wonder if it will carry over?</div>

[Flip]

<div style='font: 12pt "Cooper Black"; text-align: left; '>dang, all my character accounts went over their 3 month limit and got deleted. I didnt have to recreate the accounts so maybe it still knows that that account beat the game still...</div>

[Don]

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I think you've to beat 1.10 normal first to do 1.10 HC anyway. Besides, it'd probaly be a good idea to get a feel for the difficulty.</div>