Ready Check: Hard modes and progression
by Jennie Lees 
May 24th 2009 at 2:00PM
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Archavon or Algalon, everyone can get in on the action and down some bosses. This week, we look at the hard modes in Ulduar.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a raiding guild, in possession of a good enough fortune to cover repair costs, must be in want of a challenge. Rather than make bosses difficult by default, the design of Ulduar is liberally sprinkled with the sort of challenge we only saw hints of before -- hard modes.
The idea behind hard modes is to cater for every type of raider. Whether you just want to see content, have difficulty killing it as-is, or fancy spending several evenings wiping to artificial constraints, you can do so. (Note that when I say 'normal mode' from now on I mean non-hard-mode, not 10-man.)
Why bother with hard modes at all? Fortunately, that's answered for us - not only achievement points (which enlarge our, ahem, sense of virtual importance) but often extra loot, and completing certain hard modes unlocks Algalon the Observer, Ulduar's extra boss. So in a way the introduction of hard modes, ostensibly to ensure everyone can access content while still giving guilds a challenge, is contradictory; guilds who are unable to complete hard modes won't see all the content. I'm guessing this isn't an issue for some people, while others expect to see it during tier 9 at the very least, and yet more are a little peeved by it.
Hard modes aren't really defined anywhere in-game -- take a look at your Ulduar achievements tab to see a vast array of bewildering achievements, from the humorous (mumble feral druid mumble) to the bizarre. Fortunately, there's a bit of a clue as to which achievements are considered important by looking at the meta-achievement, Glory of the Ulduar Raider.
Let's take a look:
Flame Leviathan - Orbit-uary
This one's pretty self-explanatory: keep four towers up and defeat Flame Leviathan. Unlike some of the other hard modes, this totally changes the dynamics of the fight from something that's pretty laughable to a very complex encounter. You'll need your highest ilvl gear for this, and it's probably worth 'practicing' with fewer towers first to get a feel for how the fight's different from normal mode.
Ignis - Stokin' the Furnace
Simply a time-based achievement, so as with other DPS races, ensure you're performing at your best and minimise the number of healers and tanks required. The problem with achievements like this is knowing when you've failed and controlling a wipe -- if it's very close and the boss has DoTs, he can die before you do. Get timers, get someone in charge of calling a wipe, and get good at dying fast!
Razorscale - Iron Dwarf, Medium Rare
Kill 50 dwarves with Razorscale's breath (halitosis can be fatal!). Interestingly, unlike other 'kill N' achievements, this seems to be cumulative -- so you can keep dragging dwarves into her breath every time you fight her until everyone has the achievement. It's just a matter of co-ordinating tanks and adds to ensure they die to the breath.
XT-002 - Heartbreaker
With this achievement recently changed, it's definitely doable now. The idea is to destroy XT-002's heart in one go when it spawns at 75%, requiring very good use of cooldowns, consumables etc to pump out maximum DPS during that period. As the boss has an enrage timer, high DPS is the overall theme, as well as coping with the usual encounter frills like Gravity Bomb, Tympanic Tantrum and Light Bomb.
Iron Council - I Choose You, Steelbreaker
This is the first 'hard-mode' achievement that significantly changes the nature of the boss encounter. The Iron Council can be fought in multiple ways, depending on which order you decide to kill the dwarves. For the hard mode, it's Steelbreaker last; this is (unsurprisingly) the most difficult way round. Killing either Steelbreaker or Molgeim last drops the Archivum Data Disc which starts the quest to unlock Algalon, so even if you don't manage this achievement first time round, try Molgeim.
Different abilities stack up as the dwarves die, meaning overwhelming damage to the Steelbreaker tank by the time he's the only one left alive; unfortunately, raid deaths heal him, so it's a matter of zero casualties and sacrificing tanks (several guilds used voidwalker tanks for this, as their deaths didn't heal him, but apparently this has been fixed now). Practice until no raid member dies, as you really can't afford the heals.
Kologarn - Disarmed
Kill both his arms within 10 seconds and ensure he dies from the arm deaths to get this achievement in the bag. This just involves co-ordinating DPS on the arms and body to ensure the arms die first, and ideally that he's under 30% when they die, so their deaths - each removing 15% of his health - finish him off. You can kill the arms multiple times and still get the achievement.
Auriaya - Crazy Cat Lady
Auriaya's pounce-happy adds deal a stacking DoT to their tanks. Presuming you've got the pull down to manage the adds on normal mode, you just need to off-tank them to get the achievement -- offtanking for the entire fight may kill your tanks, so think creatively about how you can avoid the DoT getting too high.
Hodir - I Could Say That This Cache Was Rare
Another time-based achievement, this one involves killing Hodir in 3 minutes. Thanks to the NPCs available during the fight, this becomes about maximising buffs and minimising DPS time lost to freezes etc. As with other speed kills, you also want to minimise healing, and so minimise the amount of raid damage taken from Biting Cold and Ice Shards.
Thorim - Lose Your Illusion
This has two aspects to it - firstly clearing the gauntlet at speed in order to reach Thorim before 3 minutes are up, ensuring Sif is part of the fight; secondly, dealing with the extra damage from Sif's frost-based abilities. The basic fight really stays the same, but with extra stuff to avoid, and extra healing needed - healers will need to be very awake to cope with tank damage as well as the raid.
Freya - Knock, Knock, Knock on Wood
Ah, it's Sarth+3 all over again. Sort of. Leaving three elders up and killing Freya changes the numbers side of the encounter, but the fight itself stays pretty similar. The elders' buffs increase the damage done by Freya and her allies, so this achievement is about having enough DPS to kill the waves of adds -- and Freya herself -- while also having enough healing to cope with the increased damage. Self-preservation and high stamina are very important, even to the point of equipping stamina trinkets and respeccing to ensure you minimise the chances of death to unlucky combinations of effects such as roots, sunbeam, Nature's Fury and exploding adds.
Mimiron - Firefighter
This achievement is really fun to do, but you will soon get tired of fire. Hitting the 'Do not push this button' button enables hard mode, starting a ten minute self-destruct timer and increasing his health and damage. More importantly, the element of fire has been added to the fight, with Archimonde-like fires snaking around the room that need to be avoided and controlled, and extra fire-related encounter elements such as Frost Bomb and Flame Suppressant.
You still need to deal with all the usual Mimiron fun such as Plasma Blast, Shock Blast, Proximity Mines, Napalm Shell, Rocket Blast... as well as avoiding fire. Have fun.
(Mimiron, Freya, Thorim and Hodir are the four bosses which drop sigils to unlock Algalon, once you've defeated Iron Council and started the quest.)
General Vezax - I Love The Smell Of Saronite In The Morning
This hardmode also changes the encounter, as you have to leave the saronite vapours alive rather than use their mana-restoring capability. It's all about mana management, and then when the Saronite Animus coalesces from the vapours, ensuring your healers have enough mana to keep the tank and raid alive long enough to finish it, and the boss, off. A combination of a DPS race and a very challenging mana-management fight for casters.
Yogg-Saron - One Light In The Darkness
Another fun variant on a fight that mostly involves losing buffs and outside assistance. Again, you can practice with three or two Keepers alive before trying one, as the combination of losing (nearly) everything can be overwhelming. It's up to you which Keeper you have up - they each contribute different buffs and special abilities.
Depending on where you have trouble, you can choose to: increase healing received and gain Sanity Wells (Freya); increase movement speed and destabilize tentacles (Mimiron); increase total health and enable phase 3 adds to be killed (Thorim); or reduce damage taken and gain ice blocks to save near-deaths (Hodir).
If this isn't challenging enough for you, try it with zero Keepers - you could even try this to figure out which Keeper you most need to save your raid.
Hard or Not-So-Hard?
Some of the achievements above are clearly less 'hard-mode' than just 'special-mode' or 'speed-mode'. However, each of them poses a challenge and grants a feeling of achievement.
One thing I've noticed doing several of the hard modes above is that they really help you understand the fight. There's a lot to take in at once in Ulduar, and often our knowledge of fights can be a little patchy when our specific role in them isn't too complicated. For example, as I've alluded to before, I wasn't around during initial Ulduar clearing -- so when I turned up to Mimiron, I was told 'avoid x and y, stay behind him in phase 2, assist Bob'. However, while learning Firefighter, I really got to grips with every last boss ability and danger involved in the fight. It's the same with Yogg-Saron.
Thanks to the implementation of Ulduar as a 10 and 25-man instance, the hard modes are also really accessible to 25-man guilds by having groups, especially raid leaders, try them out on 10-man first to figure out what goes on and how best to beat the encounter on 25-man. Often things are a little easier on 10-man, due to the nature of the adjustment down to a smaller group; some of the DPS fights may require tougher class composition than we're used to in 10-mans, though.
The only thing really to say is that it's a shame so few of the hard modes drastically change the form of the encounter, with several number-based buffs adjusting the difficulty of the fight through gear, rather than through skill. Hardmodes like Firefighter and Saronite are really good fun because it's not just the same old fight with a time limit, or with increased damage; let's hope we see more of these in future.
Filed under: Raiding, Bosses, Guides, Ready Check (Raiding), Achievements
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Tevri May 24th 2009 2:18PM
/sigh@ "Hard Mode" Heroics should be hard and normals should be easy. That wouldn't have worked out much better; there's already a good gear gap to justify it.
Tevri May 24th 2009 2:21PM
Oops, typo. I meant to say I think it *would* have worked out better--Death to typos.
Zul May 24th 2009 4:56PM
I agree, I think.
10 mans should be the much much easier version, and 25 man should be much harder like hard modes default. I just like it when the boss is hard right off...
trogdor7 May 24th 2009 3:00PM
I am so tired of this mentality. Just because someone raids 10 man doesn't mean they aren't looking for a challenge, or are a bad player. It could just mean they like raiding with only 10 people.
Sparcrypt May 25th 2009 2:36AM
/agree with Trog on this one.
I'm sick of the attitude of 'you're only good if you can get 25 people together! Some encounters can be more difficult on 10 man for the simple reason that you cannot handle *any* deaths. In a 25, most fights you lose a couple DPS or a single healer, no big deal. You can still win.
In 10 man losing 1 DPS can mean you lose 20% of your raids DPS output (assuming 2 tanks 3 healers. More or less depending on your raid makeup, the fight and who died). In 25 one DPS might only be 5-6% of your raids output - much easier to recover from. Plus 25 you can bring every class quite easily, and multiple paladins for more buffs and auras. In 10 man, you have to choose what to bring and often you're stuck with 1 pally buff.
I personally have more fun with 10 mans because the 25's we run tend to carry at least a few people who just aren't interested in learning the fights beforehand, though it's getting better. Mostly I go to 25's because the loot is just of a higher calibre and when you DO get 25 people working together properly it's great fun.
The hardest thing in 25 man IMO is getting 24 people to do what you tell them to... fights like Thaddius bring this out where one person not doing what they are supposed to can make the fight impossible to finish.
Anyway I've gone on a bit of a rant here, but long story short is that 10 man players still want a challenge, not just to have bosses fall over when you look at them.
Blizzard have given you the option of making the 25 mans harder.. hence, hard mode. You can't then say 'but I just want it to be hard to start with, make it so noone other then us can do it!'.
/rant.
Charlie May 25th 2009 7:49AM
Granted, some of the bosses on 10 man are really eazy compared to 25 man. Thorim is absolutley the first that comes to mind. He's a joke on 10 man, but add 15 more people and his chain lightning becomes a bitch (I've seen it wipe out 10 people in a single shot before, lol). Not to mention the shockwave and the gauntlet.
Razorscale, Kologarn are others that are far eazier on 10 man as well. Auriya too. Anyboss with adds i feel like it loads eazier, just because you have to have so many fewer.
Gryph667 May 24th 2009 2:23PM
It always irritated me when someone would complain about how t7 content was too easy and then less than 5 mins later assert achievements were stupid and lame. Logically the one cancels out the other, as Blizz could have engineered the encounters such that the achievement mode was mandatory; ie a person dies during Heigan, he enrages and wipes the raid. They chose to enfold multiple levels of difficulty into each situation from the preschool level to taking the bar exam while blindfolded. This has worked out well for their business model and their stockholders. The days of wiping for weeks in MC are over as the company had to evolve or die. (first rule of business.)
I must admit that getting them done when grouped with people that already have their laurels is like pulling teeth, as they have done it already; they remember the nightmare that was their repair bill and never wish to repeat it again.
tapdov May 24th 2009 2:34PM
Imagine if, instead of making Hard Modes, Blizzard made Easy Modes.
You probably would still get complaints about "nubz" getting to see content, but at least hardcore guilds couldn't claim to have "finished everything" until they do the "normal modes" (i.e. today's Hard Modes). I think that would get rid of a lot of the opposition to hard modes.
Your guild finished FL with all towers down? lol, ez faceroll mode.
Holgar May 24th 2009 3:49PM
That would have been hilarious..
Methuus May 24th 2009 2:52PM
Achievement Completed: "World and Warcraft"
NarwhalFrenzy May 24th 2009 3:09PM
Nice Pride and Prejudice reference.
gazrj May 24th 2009 9:17PM
Love the Jane Austin reworking at the beginning of this article, very clever :-)
Dave May 24th 2009 10:36PM
I disagree with the assertion that 25-man non-hard mode is "normal".
Clearly the nomenclature set from Blizzard is to say that a 10-Man without anything extra going on is considered a normal encounter. To say otherwise implies a bit too much of an elitist attitude and an unspoken "lol 10-mans are easy mode"
If this column is going to be nothing but an elitist tilt towards people who aren't raiding 25-man hard modes, I don't think it's going to be very popular amongst the masses here and I sure won't be reading it.
To imply that the only 'serious' raider (as described in the elevator pitch for the column) is doing 25-man raids, pretty much pisses on over half of the raid community. Most of the stats tend to trend towards there being far more 10-man guilds than 25-man guilds once you remove the overlap of 25's who do 10's for kicks. Approximately 4x the number of Glory of the Raider guilds exist over their Heroic variant so EVEN if you just count guilds vs guilds rather than people vs people you're still looking at a TON more people whose primary focus is on the 10-man raids, perhaps because that's pretty much the only size guild they can keep together.
It's a viscious game when you consider the whole poaching, progress and recruitment aspect of things, and a column that decries the 10-man as something for people who don't give a crap about the game only helps to further perpetuate the horrible atmosphere of elitism that's still managed to keep going with raids.
I hope it doesn't continue, but I suspect it will.
Spider May 25th 2009 12:02AM
Hop down off the soap box and calm down a moment there sparky; I think you're misinterpreting what was said.
When Jennie said "Note that when I say 'normal mode' from now on I mean non-hard-mode, not 10-man." I believe they were clarifying a common semantic issue that I've seen crop up; that being how "normal" can refer to "non-heroic" and "non-hard mode."
We commonly refer to 10 and 25 mans as "Normal" and "Heroic" respectively (in fact, those are the very terms used by Blizzard when you click your character unit frame and choose the instance difficulty).
Once you're in 10 or 25 man, you also then refer to "Normal" and "Hard" mode, ie 0 tower FL v. 1 tower FL.
I read Jennie's statement as saying "normal mode" is referring to Non-Hard mode in either 10 or 25 man. They're clarifying which of the two common meanings for "normal" they are referring to. I see nothing else in the article that makes any of the implications you claim to see.
So take a deep breath, reread the post and go from there.
Jennie Lees May 25th 2009 7:21AM
Spider's put it better than I could; I was simply defining what context I was using the word 'normal' in so readers didn't get mixed up later on in the column. There's no point doing two separate articles for 10-man hard modes and 25-man hard modes, wouldn't you agree?
As for the general point, the idea of Ready Check is that it's about hardcore, endgame raiding. I really see no point in focusing on 10-man raids when almost everything I write is applicable to both, and when I personally spend all my time raiding 25s. Plenty of people do both; for example, my guild got 10-man Ulduar Glory before 25, as we were practicing and learning hard-modes on 10-man between our 25-man raids.
Charlie May 25th 2009 7:55AM
"Approximately 4x the number of Glory of the Raider guilds exist over their Heroic variant"
Wouldn't it be more direct to say that quote means that there are more people who have completed the non-heroic glory of the raider because its eazier, not because there are more people who wanted to do it?
Just play devils advocate. (Though it is true, immortal is way eazier than undying, as are many of the acheivements).
And you can't deny that for the highest challenge you have to do 25 mans. They are harder. This isn't some "i'm an elitist raider" crap, since i've only ever done 1 hard mode (FL w/ 1 tower up, lawl), and im farther in 10 than 25. But they are harder. Thorim is a freaking joke. If we would have pushed it they other day we would have enabled hardmode. In 25 man were not even close to making the timer. Not to mention how damn eazy those mobs are to kill in 10 man.
M May 26th 2009 10:35AM
"As for the general point, the idea of Ready Check is that it's about hardcore, endgame raiding."
I have enjoyed the columns thus far, but unfortunately, that statement is an utter failure. There is absolutely NOTHING that says you can't have a "hardcore" 10-man raiding guild/group, except the prejudice of 25-man raiders. It doesn't help that the "hardcore" 25-man groups treat 10-mans as training grounds.
If you only run 25-man raids, then that's wonderful. Many groups can't assemble 25 people consistently (which is, er, why Blizzard added a focus on 10-man raiding in Wrath). However, Blizzard's goal is to make 10-man or 25-man different options, not to make one "hardcore" and one "ez-mode" or "training mode". Blizzard just has problems getting things balanced properly (T7 and now T8). If I had to choose, I'd take harder 10-mans vs easier 25-mans, just to shut up the "hardcore" crowd.
Lose the elitism, and keep the good information that had always been in this column. It will make for a much better column.
Chri May 28th 2009 4:20AM
Don't get your knickers in a twist.
I read wowinsider.com alot and I'm surprised at how many writers are clearly writing from 10 man raiding guilds. It doesn't devalue their knowledge and I still read those articles.
I guess what I'm saying is, some articles are going to be written by 25 man raiders and some are going to be written by 10 man raiders. I think you're reading too much into the "tone" of the piece. Everyone thinks whatever they raid is the norm (10 or 25) and everyone else is the minority.
Jennie Lees May 26th 2009 11:01AM
I think we have different definitions of 'hardcore', perhaps.
Show me a 10-man guild that wipes for 6+ hours a night, 7 nights a week on cutting edge progression, and show me a site that acknowledges this as a world standing, and I'll rethink my definition. ;)
Charlie May 25th 2009 7:57AM
I am happy that it has been realized (finally) that Hardmodes that grant more loot are considered progression.
Yay.
(I also liked the fact that for the drake you had to do all the hardmode bosses, not a bunch of random achievements in Ulduar, well played blizz, well played)