Just Beat this on Hardcore

[Smkn-G1]

All in one go! I am the ULTIMATE WARLOCK! It is a good game, I had fun. It took a bit of learning and a bit of doing, bit of strategy helped too. It's a bit of a challenge but nothing that can't be managed.

My advice to anyone wanting to hardcore this... and become an ultimate warlock also...

- Skip treasure hunter at level 5 and get student at level 8 (the earliest possible level) instead. This gives you an extra 2 stat points (randomly distributed), with treasure hunter at level 5, instead of two stat points you'll get a bit of treasure which is insignificant in the long run. And in the long run the earlier the get this the more random stat points it gives you. By the time you hit the end boss (assuming you collect everything, kill every enemy, and find every secret along the way) you'll be level 32, if you get student at level 8 (the earliest you can get it) you'll get 24 stat points randomly allocated throughout the course of your run. I can't stress how important student is.

- Get treasure hunter at some point, the earlier the better, best as the second unlock in my opinion. Between level 5 and level 8 you won't miss much... but between the rest of the game... thats *ALOT* of chances for health, treasure and ammo drops. You'll end up getting alot of drops which will help immensely in progressing

- Get Toughness, the +30 health is good but the real run saver comes from the 20% damage reduction. In hardcore the monsters deal 2x the damage! So reducing that number by 20% can save your run. All around it makes your health drain slower, and makes those precious health packs go a bit further.

- Get Ghost. This prevents you from being cornered, can be a run saver. You can still be hit by monsters as you run through them so be don't stand inside of a group or you'll become a ghost for real!

- Get Soul Collector. This basically feeds a loop for your staff and spells. The staff and spells help you kill stuff while preserving ammo, slain enemies drop blue mana skulls (that disappear after a second or two) you can pick up for 2 mana each. With the massive enemy numbers being thrown at you... soul collector equals alot of fully charged mana bars for just doing what you do best!

- Invest in Life until you have at least 300 health. Once you know the games nuances the maps and the bosses you can get away with less. But these monsters can hit ya hard as a group and end ya quick You want to make sure you can take a couple hits without dying. After that go wild I guess... I put all my points into life and let student do the work of upgrading everything else.

- Invest in your life by investing in bloodthirster. There is another way of generating mana for yourself through the soul collector perk so the mana axe is garbage for this run. This axe can generate lots of health for yourself and save tons of ammo, it slightly extends your range. All in all, a powerful run saving device.

- Flak cannon, and other weapons that set enemies on fire, will set enemies on fire and if they die while on fire it will cancel enemy transformations, turning into a pile of ash instead. Very useful for the later sections of the game when many heavy mult-stage enemies are thrown at you.

- It seemed to me like enemies that died to fire drop'd items more frequently. It *COULD* be random chance and haven't tested it at all... but when I was using flak cannon heavily I was getting massive amounts of drops.

- Melee is *VERY* useful in this game. Both your enemies and yourself have melee that is slightly long in the *range* department, and with the axe (whichever one you get) you can cut through large groups in a single swing. You'll end up wanting to use melee to save ammo, and if you get enough random stat points to have your strength be at about 5 or above, you can really start slicing through hordes with most foes falling in 1-3 swings.

- Melee master is a trap perk. Your axe does high damage alrady. The extra damage from 3rd swings won't be used well unless you have high strength, and at that point you do good damage with the axe anyway and don't really need the bonus swing. I didn't do a melee focus'd build, but I can see how the extra damage from 3rd swings could be helpful for boss fights if going a melee focus'd route. But when I tried melee master it just didn't fit, and wasn't worth the investment. Only 1 boss (the massive tank in episode 4) was an ez melee (broken fight basically) the other bosses had powerful options to make melee a bad idea. So I don't see melee master as a useful perk, except in builds that are specifically melee focus'd.

- My stuff you ask?
Perks in order of unlock:
Student, Treasure Hunter, Toughness, Ghost, Sprinter, Soul Collector

Weapons:
Bloodthirster, Lightning Staff, .50 Magnum, Auto-Loader, Flak Cannon, Akimbo Uzis, Heavy Bolter, Napalm Launcher, Frag Grenades, Fire Lance and Rail Gun

Spells:
Magic Light, Sammoner

Stats:
Strength:11
Life: 33
Spirit: 10
Capacity: 5

I dropped nearly every stat point into life and let student do the rest. I dropped 1 into spirit before going into episode 5 cause most of my random stat points (through student perk) were being put into strength and only had 6 spirit (7 needed for soul collector). In episode 5 I dropped 4 stat points into capacity near the end before getting the BFG. Not specifically to increase that weapons ammo pool but it does help... but because the final boss is a beefy tanky boi and you want to come in with alot of ammunition. Even at Capacity 5 I still needed to make ample use of the sammoner spell during the final fight, and when I did down him I was very low on ammo for every weapon.

- The 1st boss is the hardest, the rest are all downhill. If you can beat the first boss, you can beat the other bosses. Medieval, Egypt, and Hell all have hard bosses. Antarctica and Industrial have easy bosses. Just remember, if you can take down the 1st boss, you can take them all out.

- The rest is just learning the game, learning the maps, learning the secrets (a few of the guides have them for ya), learning the monsters and weapons and stuff and it'll come if you play good, play patient, play to survive and play to win.

~~~

I hope that my advice will help those brave and foolish enough to risk the challenge to rise above the viscera and maybe become... ULTIMATE WARLOCKS!

Good luck out there!
-SmokeMcCloud

[pvnco - afk til 2026]

nice- playing through for the first time on hardcore and will take this into consideration.

[PCMaker]

you can do hardcore easily, even if you die, you can restart hardcore save by selecting certain stage, just dont start new game

you can also redo all stages with current save which means infinite upgrade points and some more exp to boost you

[Adriation]

Originally posted by PCMaker:

you can do hardcore easily, even if you die, you can restart hardcore save by selecting certain stage, just dont start new game

you can also redo all stages with current save which means infinite upgrade points and some more exp to boost you

Wait, so it is possible to replay hardcore missions by selecting single stage and you still get to keep the XP/upgrade points? I was messing around with this in hard difficulty to farm ammo for the last boss but didn't know it was possible in hardcore.

[PCMaker]

Originally posted by Adriation:

Originally posted by PCMaker:

you can do hardcore easily, even if you die, you can restart hardcore save by selecting certain stage, just dont start new game

you can also redo all stages with current save which means infinite upgrade points and some more exp to boost you

Wait, so it is possible to replay hardcore missions by selecting single stage and you still get to keep the XP/upgrade points? I was messing around with this in hard difficulty to farm ammo for the last boss but didn't know it was possible in hardcore.

yes, i dont think its intended but this is how it worked for me, given this game was made by one guy, i dont assume it will get patched

[Smkn-G1]

Originally posted by PCMaker:

you can do hardcore easily, even if you die, you can restart hardcore save by selecting certain stage, just dont start new game

you can also redo all stages with current save which means infinite upgrade points and some more exp to boost you

Thats a shame thats possible. I would implore anyone wanting to accomplish this feat to do it properly.

It's not like you can get killed then just select a different stage on your way to Mars.

[Adriation]

Originally posted by PCMaker:

Originally posted by Adriation:

Wait, so it is possible to replay hardcore missions by selecting single stage and you still get to keep the XP/upgrade points? I was messing around with this in hard difficulty to farm ammo for the last boss but didn't know it was possible in hardcore.

yes, i dont think its intended but this is how it worked for me, given this game was made by one guy, i dont assume it will get patched

I'm putting it to the test right now. If I can get it to work I'll add it to the achievement guide I've been working on. Do you want me to credit you?

Originally posted by SmokeMcCloud:

Originally posted by PCMaker:

you can do hardcore easily, even if you die, you can restart hardcore save by selecting certain stage, just dont start new game

you can also redo all stages with current save which means infinite upgrade points and some more exp to boost you

Thats a shame thats possible. I would implore anyone wanting to accomplish this feat to do it properly.

It's not like you can get killed then just select a different stage on your way to Mars.

I know what it feels to put a lot of work into something only to see other people cheesing it. Nevertheless, I'm running a hardcore run at the moment and so far your tips has been great and I haven't died once. When i'm done with the run I'm gonna update my achievement guide and link it to this thread. I would also suggest you make your own guide for hardcore since it will get more visibility that way.

[Smkn-G1]

Ya know what, maybe I will... maybe I will...

Another question, would any of you be interested If I stream'd hardcore attempt?

[Adriation]

Kinda depends on when and where. Would be fun to watch someone else take on hardcore just to see how people play it differently.

[PCMaker]

Originally posted by Adriation:

Originally posted by PCMaker:

yes, i dont think its intended but this is how it worked for me, given this game was made by one guy, i dont assume it will get patched

I'm putting it to the test right now. If I can get it to work I'll add it to the achievement guide I've been working on. Do you want me to credit you?

sure, that would be swell :D

[Smkn-G1]

For the record, I did not know about cheesing the hardcore victory. I don't advocate cheesing the hardcore victory. And I did not intend for this thread to become a vector for cheesing the hardcore victory.

It's really not that hard to get hardcore, you should go for it.

[Adriation]

Yeah no I definitely agree with you, didn't mean to hijack your thread and make it about cheesing. I primarly linked to this linked to this thread because you gave some pretty solid tips for hardcore and I doubt anyone needs to cheese it as long as they follow your recommendations.

I didn't come close to dying when I followed your tips. If I would add one thing it would be to buy frag grenade and bomberman spell. It lets you clear rooms without you even having to enter it as the shrapnel instantly kills enemies while at the same thing does minimal damage to you. Just keep your distance. Additionally if you have map knowledge you could throw frag grenade over walls that you know has enemies behind them. That way when you activate a switch you wont get overwhelmed.

[lilKriT]

Just a quick question:
How long did you practice to finish on hardcore?

[Adriation]

I think I finished the game three times before attempting hardcore. Once on normal and twice on Hard. I believe map knowledge is very important, especially for secrets so I highly recommend you look for a guide on where to find them.

[lilKriT]

That's not so bad. I will try it :)

[lilKriT]

Do you have any advice on the first boss?
I get him to last phase without a problem. But then he starts charging me without a break and I can't do anything about it. I tried cover, I tried distance.

Any tips?