The Phrozen Keep

So I want to play this mod on Hardcore(is it HC viable?), and I have been doing it with a Barbarian and a Summoner.

I am having issues with my Barbarian(level 12) getting hit really hard by the Rare packs (purple enemies with 4 or 5 "friends").
So far I have been doing 8 into Vitality, and 2 into strength per level.
I am using Whirlwind, with 3 shouts(%Defence, %Health, %Ele Res), I also use Ancient Horn (summons 1 magic blade) and I use Colossus.

Here is my Barbarian's Gear
http://i.imgur.com/fD3ShZ8.png
I dont have an Artifact yet.
My chest has 5 sockets, my gloves have 1 socket. Should I fill these sockets with Vitality gems? Do runes do anything by them self?

On my barbarian I Have been farming the first cave quest in Tran Athulua

I think it would help if i had Life on Hit items for my Whirlwind, but I read that in 6.00 that mod and other mods will be removed.

No , dont try hardcore . It is not viable . Unless you are going a range hero ?!
Play some more and you will see why sorc / amazon or necro are far better than all melee heroes .

Do you know if Hardcore will become viable in 6.00?

Also how do i upgrade my skill cap? Some of my skills are at 5 of 20 because it says current max level = 5, how do i boost that?

Thanks!

depends on the amount of work Xaphan puts into balancing the game...but i doubt it will be with 6.00,most probably 7.00 when he actually gets to his monsters and the higher difficulties...

Could you help me out with the skill system? I am at skill level 5 out of 20, but it says "current max level 5" how do I improve current level skills?

Well you can try hardcore but keep in mind things are not balanced well in current version. Depending of skills you use you can have little to no difficulties in some areas, and absolute pain in others.

With the next version I'm working on that, and hopefully it will be more hardcore friendly (But there will probably be more adjustements needed).

For the skill system, you must put points into your mastery to increase the max skill level of skills of that mastery. Ie : put points into War mastery to increase max level of all skills in the War mastery tab. Note that you need to put more than 1 point into the mastery to increase the max level.

Last note : You character won't be compatible with version 6.00, so use and abuse of life/mana per hit, it's pretty much needed in version 5.02 anyway...

Thanks for the reply and info, I love this mod, but I am going to wait for 6.00 since the mod is really new for me, that way i get the latest update.

Also what is the song in Tran Athula town? I looked at the Credits but it doesnt give direct song names, and there are a lot of songs from different games.

It's from Sacred 2. You can listen to it here.

Ahh good 'ol Sacred 2, Thought it sounded familiar

You can still get alot out of the mod in version 5.03 Ratchulas, Knowledge of the mod being the most important and it's still very very enjoyable. I recall the first time i played this act 1 was only available and I still played the hell out of it haha, so so many items to horde and play/experiment with(If that's your sort of thing )also your imput can help Xaphan in future patches

As for the skills, I find getting the mastery to level 5 - 10 in the beginning for whatever tree Im currently building helps greatly, Put a point into the main skills you plan on using and then pump up the mastery, It will boost your core stats hugely and your dmg/survivability also.

A quick edit.. Also don't for get to put up your Path of Victory skill with the fame you get from killing monsters, It actually increases pretty fast and you can get into better gear Level Armors