Every class has two sides: the normal side you already play, and a Hardcore side that starts at level 1 with one life. A Hardcore run is one class with one life on that side: you play it exactly as you would any other class, and the first time it falls where a death costs you something, the run is over.

Beginning a run

• Open the class picker. Beneath any class you will see ☠ Begin a Hardcore run. Confirm, and the class loads on its Hardcore side: level 1, no EXP, the stats a new character starts with. Your normal side waits exactly as you left it.
• Only that side is on the run. Your other classes, the normal side of this one, and everything your account owns are untouched.
• Guest accounts cannot begin a run, and a class on a run cannot begin another until it has fallen.

Switching sides

• A class with two sides offers both on the class picker: Play the normal side or Play the Hardcore side. Each side keeps its own level, EXP and class stats. A switch is a class change: buffs end and you enter at full health.
• Both sides share the account: its items, titles, professions, spells, weapon skills and race. The class’s own progression stays with its side (below), and so do its currencies (Currencies do not cross, below).
• A Hardcore side fights alone: it cannot take a Support Class, and the Wandering Path (the Support Class quest) is closed to it — no accepting, no Sigils from its kills, no turn-in. The normal side keeps the Support Class it has.
• A run can only fall while you are playing the Hardcore side, so sides switch only out of harm’s way: not inside a dungeon, a raid or a duel, and not within a minute of a fight.

What a Hardcore side starts with

• A Hardcore side starts with none of its class’s progression: no Attunements, no Ascendant board, no Apotheosis, no Path, no Stance, no Crossroads choices. A Runesmith’s runes, a Mimic’s codex and a Tamer’s pet stay with the normal side. What the Hardcore side earns is its own, and a fall wipes it with the run.
• Its Class Mastery counts Hardcore sides only. The normal side’s Mastery counts normal sides only, and keeps counting a class while its Hardcore side is being played.
• What is account-wide stays owned: your items, gold, professions, spells, weapon skills, titles and race. But a Hardcore side on a run uses only what its run earned: it wears, drinks, eats and melds only what the run gained; gear, potions, food and essences from before the run, or from the normal side, stay in the bag unused (what it wore from before comes off when it loads, and the class locker dresses it with nothing). The crafting bench, the forge and the essence lab are closed to it; the Masterwork table raises only what the run earned, from the run’s own purse. What it gathers feeds the account.
• The Legends boards count your normal sides’ levels while you play a Hardcore one. The Hall of Legends has a Hardcore Legends list, players ranked by the total level of their living runs, above the living runs and the fallen.

Hardcore achievements and the boon

• Forty-four Hardcore achievements stand in their own category: the level a run reaches alive (10 to 20,000), runs begun and lost, days alive (1 to 365), living runs held at once, classes taken into Hardcore, kills and dungeons on one run, the level a run fell from, and items lost to falls.
• Every four Hardcore achievements you hold give your normal sides +1% to every stat, up to +10%. A Hardcore side gets none of it: the boon is the normal side’s reward for the risk.

Challenge runs and Hardcore points

A run is begun on a planner, with the modifiers it will play under. Each makes the run harder and multiplies the Hardcore points it earns; the run’s multiplier is the product of the steps you take, never past ×60. Modifiers are set for the whole run and cannot be changed once it begins.

• A Hardcore side on a run earns 1 point a monster kill, 3 points a duel won against another Hardcore side, 5 points a dungeon cleared and 10 points a raid cleared, each times the run multiplier (a kill on a ×3 run is 3 points). The points go to your account’s Hardcore wallet, and the run keeps its own count; a fall takes neither.
• While you play a Hardcore side on a run, the stat panel shows the wallet beside the skull; the number opens the shop. The Hardcore Legends list shows each player’s points earned.

The Hardcore shop

Open only to a Hardcore side on a run, from the points on the stat panel. Every price is in Hardcore points, and the shelf says what each comes to in kills at your run’s multiplier: a harder run buys the same reward in fewer kills.

• An essence or the weapon is the run’s own: it is used as the run’s gear is, and a fall takes it with the rest.
• Glows, auras, the theme and the titles are the account’s, worn on any side (the Wardrobe and the title list). They are sold nowhere else.

Currencies do not cross

• Gold, bank gold, Dark Crystal Shards, Ascension Dust, Ascendant Sigils and the Labyrinth’s Sigils belong to the side you are playing. When you load a Hardcore side, the normal side’s wait in a vault and the Hardcore side plays with its own (the first time, nothing); when you load a normal side, it takes its own back and the Hardcore side’s wait. All your Hardcore sides share one purse, as all your normal sides do.
• A fall takes the run’s purse with it. The normal side’s is untouched.
• Items are not currencies: the bag is the account’s, under the rule above (a Hardcore side uses only what its run earned).

Duels

• A Hardcore side on a run duels Hardcore sides only, in both directions: it cannot challenge a normal side, and a normal side cannot challenge it. The player card says so instead of offering a Challenge.
• A Hardcore side on a run cannot be made peaceful: Peaceful Mode cannot be raised while the run lives, and one raised before it sleeps until the run ends.
• Losing a duel never ends a run (duels are safe, below); winning one against another Hardcore side earns points.

What ends a run

• Falling in the overworld, a dungeon or a raid — the deaths that already cost you your carried gold and 20% of your EXP.
• The Labyrinth, guild raids, the echo arena and PvP duels are safe: the game treats those as non-deaths, so nobody can be duelled out of a run.
• A Last Resort that saves you is not a death. Any blow that leaves you standing leaves the run standing.

When a run falls

• The class returns to level 1 on its Hardcore side: that side’s level, EXP and class stats go back to their starting values, and the usual cost of that death still applies. The normal side is untouched.
• What the Hardcore side gained while you played it is destroyed: the loot, drops, crafts and purchases made on that side, wherever they sit — bag, worn, Vault, locker, or listed at the auction house. A stack loses only the units it gained there. What you owned before the run, and what your normal side or any other class gained, stays exactly as it was; an item the run gave away, sold or mailed belongs to its new owner.
• Your titles, and everything you bought or chose for that class before the run, stay; the run’s gold, Shards, Dust and Sigils go with it, and the normal side’s wait untouched in the vault. You may begin a new run on the class afterwards, or switch back to its normal side.
• The run keeps its place in the Hall of Legends, struck through: the level it reached, what felled it, where, and how long it lived.

Milestones

A living run earns a title, once, as it reaches each of these levels. The titles stay yours whatever happens afterwards.

While a run lives and you are playing its side, a ☠ skull stands beside your name in chat, on the online list and on your profile, and the Hall of Legends ranks every living run by its level.