Guild Wars 2 Community Challenge
Classic Hardcore
One account, free-to-play, and every character gets a single life. Join the [cHC] guild and see how far you can get without dying.
The Challenge
What is Classic Hardcore?
Welcome to Guild Wars 2 Classic Hardcore, a player-driven Hardcore community and challenge for all Tyrian adventurers!
The event is open to the whole Guild Wars 2 community, and everyone is welcome to give Hardcore a try. Are you up for the challenge? Check out the rules below.
The Community
To foster a community and preserve the integrity of the challenge, the in-game guild [cHC], its Discord server and the Hardcore Addon provided by Raidcore are the foundation of this initiative.
The Hardcore Community is based on the NA server. Since a free-to-play account is the base requirement, EU players can join on the NA server as well.
Sign Up
Verify Your Account
Sign up with a Guild Wars 2 API key to verify that you are playing on a free-to-play account. You can create an API key here.
The Rules
These rules are the guidelines for joining the [cHC] guild. If you want to do your own ironman runs with stricter rules, or keep to a more solo experience, you are completely allowed.
Free-to-Play Only
You MUST play on a free-to-play account and verify it by signing up on this page with your API key.
This keeps the challenge fair within the guild, so players with strict rulesets (like Hardcore-only parties) can be sure they stay intact.
One Life
You MUST delete your character when it dies. There are no second chances.
Safe and Unsafe Storage
A character's inventory is "Unsafe": if you die with high-value items in your bags, they are deleted with the character.
The account's Bank, including the Material Storage, is "Safe".
Alternate Characters
Alts are allowed, but the entire account is considered HARDCORE. If an achievement for your main requires dying, you can sacrifice an alt to keep your main eligible.
Alts can also be used to get a Gift of Battle without risking your main in World versus World, or by streamers to avoid stream-snipers.
Use Alts Sparingly
Alts are a grey area, as they can be heavily abused. Be cautious with expendable alts and ideally limit them to extremely high-risk scenarios, certain-death achievements or WvW zones.
No Outside Help
Trading with, or transferring items from, a retail account to a Hardcore account is banned from the community, with the exception of clearing the house.
The Spirit of the Challenge
There are no server splits between the retail and free-to-play versions of the game, and there is no official infrastructure for Hardcore communities. The spirit of the challenge is critically important: it is up to us to respect and enforce the rules.
Challenge Goals
The primary goal of Hardcore is to get as far as you possibly can without dying. Engaging with holiday and Rush events is encouraged. Besides surviving, there are many more milestones to achieve, from Guild Missions, Bounties, Treks and Puzzles to crafting rare items and defeating Raid encounters. Here is a sneak peek of what you can expect:
- Crafting Generation 1 legendary weapons.
- Completing the core story and Living World Season 1.
- Completing the Memory of Old Lion's Arch achievement and acquiring the Lion's Pride gizmo.
- Completing all Fractals (tiers 1-100) and all Challenge Modes.
- Completing the Old Lion's Court Raid encounter on Challenge Mode.
- Acquiring the Fractal Capacitor backpack.
- Obtaining the Dungeon Master and Dungeoneer titles.
Resources about F2P goals, functional F2P builds, guides for Dungeons and more are all available on the cHC Community Discord.
Ready to Bear the Mark?
Sign up, join the [cHC] guild and find your fellow adventurers on Discord. Hope to see you there!
Join the Hardcore Discord