Hard Mode Tips

[XenoEvil]

Wow, hard mode is so ridiculous that rats could kill me if dont pay attention and I didnt even know that rats could even attack. Anyone have any tips for early game hard mode so that I dont get one shot by everything?

[gdbluecardinal]

play as a strider and shoot things at a distance also dodging LOTS.

[BurlsoL]

The thing to keep in mind with hardmode is that every bit of damage that passes through your defenses will do a fixed amount of extra damage regardless of what sources it. Meaning that smaller attacks that hit repeatedly can be more deadly than single large hits at mid-game.

The other thing is, that as mentioned, Hardmode is usually best off for NG+ instead of your first run through. This is less about a supposed difficulty of hardmode, and more about how doing alot of extra fighting can leave you overleveled, but under-equipped so your pawn is much less likely to be hired after level 20 since it is still usually wearing earlygame equipment and lacks quest, area, or bestiary knowledge, while others are already fairly far along the storyquest and sporting griffin armor and the like. The better equiped pawns you will usually end up renting because of this often ends up making your encounters easier since they come from players who have progressed much further through the story.

This isn't darksouls. There is no well-tuned difficulty curve with NG+, even hardmode is very poorly balanced. If you're looking to challenge yourself, you will usually have to intentionally limit yourself in some way.

[GrandTickler]

the game is not really well designed or balanced to play on hardmode from the start which will leave players with more frustration than fun having you manually save after every single encounter, which destroys the whole feeling of purpose or challenge you get from this mode. but if you would still like to attempt this mode i find it most fun to aproach it like this: Finish the original game on normal mode first, make sure you got everything you need from the everfall. then get your affinity up with fournival and buy about 100-200 veteran's periapt and a couple hundred periapts that increase either magic or str, the more the better. then start new game+ and initiate hard mode. now its offline UR-dragon grind time, using 4 str/mag periapts at the start of battle and one of the veteran periapts right before it dies should get u about 5 levelups per kill at a pretty fast rate, keep doing this till the xp starts to slow down. you should be ready to take on bitterblack isle on hard mode now.

[Rob'sEvilTwin]

Originally posted by XenoEvil:

Wow, hard mode is so ridiculous that rats could kill me if dont pay attention and I didnt even know that rats could even attack. Anyone have any tips for early game hard mode so that I dont get one shot by everything?

I died maybe 100 times by 50 :D I died maybe 5 times between 50 and 100. Whether that frustrates you or whether you take each death as a learning opportunity will tell you whether to stay on hardmode.

Run from the usual suspects until you level up a bit (some groups of bandits and so on), you will level fast on wolves and goblins. Save a lot. If you must take on every mob and not avoid some fights (for now), take throwblasts :D

[BMtK Ender]

Well since everyone is just posting the same useless "don't play hard until new game+" ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I'll actually answer the OP. Here's a list of things I picked up during my hard mode run.

1. Let your pawns do the tanking. Pawns are not affected by the damage increase that comes with hard mode.

2. Prioritize ranged spell casters or bow users first. They will also one shot you and they'll disrupt you if you ignore them.

3. Learn the best way to knock down each enemy. Enemies that are on the ground take increased damage from all attacks. Ex: after an ogre charges and he's off balance, a strong attack with make him fall.

4. If you're playing a ranged class, make use of special arrows. Explosive, sleeping, poison. They help immensely when used on the correct enemies.

5. Grab the damage reduction augments from the warrior and fighter class.

6. Don't be afraid to run if an enemy is just too tough at the time.

[Moon Punisher]

Attacking from so far away you can barely see what you are hitting is probably the best option , that and trying to climb high places so enemies cant get to you easilly.

In the end , hard mode isnt actually hard at all unless you do it from low lvl , did on NG+ , it was a cakewalk even before i went to BBI.

Same will also happen to you ofc , since you are getting mass exp , but at really low lvl you will have a actually hard experience.

[Candy Witch]

Master Thief can be a nice skill for Hard mode. You can use it to steal useful (Stamina-restoring) items from pawns wandering on the roads early on, like Liquid Vim.

Which leads me to another Hard mode tip; always bring a lot of Stamina curatives. Once you get access to them, use those Augments that halve Stamina consumption of skills. If you skipped Normal mode, using or even sometimes spamming skills is required much more than Hard mode's ridiculous Stamina-consumption rules would lead you to believe.

Don't hesitate to use tools like Periapts that boost your attack and defense ratings. They will help you a lot in quickly and safely ending fights and the game showers you with them.

Originally posted by BMtK Ender:

Well since everyone is just posting the same useless "don't play hard until new game+" ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I'll actually answer the OP. Here's a list of things I picked up during my hard mode run.

In all fairness, "don't play Hard mode" is a great tip, because it's really just not that good in this game. It was poorly balanced and introduced long after release of the game; pretty much as an afterthought. Your tips are top-notch, though.

[VGShrine]

I'm in hard mode, first playthrough as strider, now I'm at the everfall post game. Just today I killed the Dragon with lvl 55 with 72-75 hours of gameplay.

Everyone says play it hard mode in NG+, but at that point you will be lvl 50 or more, with good gear etc and the game won't be so difficult.

I died a lot but dying is a learning process, you will learn how enemies moves and attacks, how to move/fight inside dungeons with small passages/rooms. You will get used to think before rush into a fight and start to hit your opponent for example killing mages and long range enemies first from a bandit group.

As an advice, start with a mage pawn and customize his/her affinity skills before departing to any dungeon.

Enjoy the game ;-)

[XenoEvil]

Okay, I have played and beaten this game before and I though hard mode would be a good challenge for someone with experience with the game. Thanks for the advices, I'll see if I can tough this out before switching difficulty.

[legendaryhero]

Originally posted by XenoEvil:

Wow, hard mode is so ridiculous that rats could kill me if dont pay attention and I didnt even know that rats could even attack. Anyone have any tips for early game hard mode so that I dont get one shot by everything?

umm... dont get hit?