Diablo 3 Hardcore Journey

[Sathias]

It probably helps a lot focussing on one class too... my bank is filled with gear suitable for all 5 classes, if you focussed on just one you would AH the rest and bank the stuff for your chosen class.

[Marius]

Yeah it does. I do want a wizard, though...

I can get up to the end of nightmare at least with just one stash tab and one mule, and there are still 2 more stash tabs to buy, and up to 10 characters.

Once you start finding the absolute top-end gear as a result of a few run-throughs, it can last for a bit. Usually I try to replace a weapon every 5 levels, and all other gear every 10.

So if you're just keeping the best gear you acquire, you can potentially keep everything needed for a complete 1-60 run on one or two mules.

Probably enough room/mule space for 3 hardcore characters per account.

[Marius]

Some hardcore comments by developers.

How many players play hardcore:

The data I have on hand is from yesterday, at which time 4.1% of the characters are made in Hardcore. Hardcore is a super exciting way to play so it's very important to us.

We take into account Hardcore for every design decision. I'll take this opportunity to mention I feel particularly bad about a few hotfixes that went in shortly after release that put the lives of some Hardcore characters at risk. You'll have noticed that after the initial handful of hotfix changes to skills in the first week there were many less skill changes - hardcore was part of the reason for the general stop/slow on skill changes. In hindsight, changes such as the Wizard Armor Force Armor hotfix should have been communicated in advance, and philosophically I absolutely want to see future changes that could put a Hardcore character at risk communicated well in advance through patch notes, patch previews, or the hotfix blog that has since been put in place.

Percentage of characters in HC:

Sure why not.

I'll just pick 2 data points arbitrarily. 46-50 - where I think the game starts to get hard enough to risk death against serious players, and level 60.

Level 46-50
Barbarian: 25.86%
Monk: 23.90%
Demon Hunter: 18.47%
Wizard: 16.96%
Witch Doctor: 14.81%

Level 60
Barbarian: 22.67%
Monk: 21.83%
Demon Hunter: 21.04%
Wizard: 19.23%
Witch Doctor: 15.23%

If you are pulling out a calculator to add all of these up to make sure it totals 100% with an intention to call me out of it doesn't, I <3 you