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The majority of this guide was written by Username, mazunki, @ERRORMONSTER#8764 of the discord community with modernization and Throne of the Herald Expansion content added by @Zxv#0157 / Zxv975 / /u/Zxv975. If you have any questions, or if anything is wrong, please make sure to reach out to any of us. Feel free to edit the guide or add anything to it as needed.
HCCO stands for HardcoreCombat Only. This implies that you cannot use any non-Combat skills at any time, and must play on Hardcore. There is a secondary challenge, 12b, which means you may not buy any Bank slots, and are limited to the 12 provided to you by default. This is a popular additional challenge and most of the guide is directly applicable to 12b players (albeit with a lot more bank management).
To create a HCCO account, one can create a typical hardcore account and abstain from all non-combat skills. Alternatively, through the official mod manager one can use the Combat Only Account Mod to create an account with non-combat skills completely disabled and hidden. This mod offers the option for a mediumcore version, which is identical but doesn't have permadeath (you still lose one random item on death). This is different to a Standard account (aka Softcore), which has a different combat triangle that is less punishing and has health regen. Most of this guide will assume HC and therefore will sometimes be overly conservative for a softcore account.
There are currently no tangible differences between either of these options for playing HCCO mode, and one can convert between gamemodes through the use of mods. It is recommended to use the mod for MCCO or HCCO mode for the most immersive experience, as the community will add unique content specifically designed for CO in future, including a CO option in the collection log.
Preface
Food is vital to a HCCO account, and your first food source (and one that you will be relying on for quite a while) is Plants. Starting out, you should fight Plants for the Potatoes they drop and to increase your combat levels.
Note about Attack vs Strength vs Defence: All three combat skills are very useful to level in their own ways. Attack increases your chance to hit and unlocks new weapons to use, Strength increases your maximum hit, and Defence increases your chance to not get hit (which saves you food). In general, they should all be leveled equally.
Defence should be the first combat skill that you level, as it greatly reduces the amount of damage that you will take from Plants (roughly by half). Attack should be second, Strength should be last. Since you have a low chance to hit, it’s more important to level Attack rather than Strength.
Weapons in this game have different attack speeds depending on their type. Daggers attack quickly, with an attack speed of 2.2 seconds, and Battleaxes attack slowly, with an attack speed of 3.1 seconds, for instance. Weapons that attack more slowly also deal more damage per hit and weapons that hit quickly usually do less damage per hit.
There are different styles in the game, depending on the weapon you’re wielding. Melee weapons, which will be our main focus initially, have Stab, Slash and Block. Each style gets a bonus to the accuracy rating depending on the specific weapon. Swords usually have a better stabbing accuracy, while scimitars are better at slashing, for instance.
The style you choose will also give you experience towards the combat skill in question: Stabbing gives Attack experience, Slashing gives Strength experience, while Blocking is used to train Defence. At the start, you’ll have to eat manually to ensure that you won’t die. Later on, you will unlock Auto Eat, so eating will be less of a worry.
Chapters
Chapter I: Gearing Up
To start, you should have: Nothing! At the end, you should have: 4 Steel Armour pieces
To start, you should have: Full Steel Armour, 20 / 20 / 20, Steel Scimitar At the end, you should have:Auto Eat - Tier I, 4-5 pieces of Mithril Armour, 40 / 40 / 40, Ice Sword, Adamant Dagger
To start, you should have:1 and 1 At the end, you should have:85 with Full (U) Ancient D-hide, Ancient Crossbow and Scaled Shield and 85 with Mystic Air Staff and Ancient Wizard Robes or Black Wizard Robes
Hardcore 
Combat Only. This implies that you cannot use any non-Combat skills at any time, and must play on 
Plants. Starting out, you should fight 
Potatoes they drop and to increase your combat levels.
Attack vs 
Strength vs 
Defence: All three combat skills are very useful to level in their own ways. 
Auto Eat, so eating will be less of a worry.
To start, you should have: Nothing! 
Steel Armour pieces
Steel Scimitar 
Mithril Armour, 
Ice Sword, 
Adamant Dagger
(G) Adamant Armour, 
Amulet of Looting, 
Rune 2H Sword, 
(G) Rune Boots, 
Desert Wrappings, 
Auto Eat - Tier II 
(G) Rune Armour, 
Paladin Gloves, 
Elite Amulet of Strength, 
Sunset Rapier / 
Ancient Sword, 
Auto Eat - Tier III
(G) Ancient Armour, 
Elite Amulet of Defence, 
Dragonfire Shield, 
Sandstorm Ring
1 and 
1 
(U) Ancient D-hide, 
Ancient Crossbow and 
Scaled Shield and 
Mystic Air Staff and 
Ancient Wizard Robes or 
Black Wizard Robes
Ancient Arrows, 
Death Runes and 
Food. 
Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs and full 
Aeris,
Glacia,
Terran and 
Ragnar God Armour.
Dungeon Equipment Swapping 
Passive Slot
