Planning Your Hardmodes

This is an article I wrote up for my blog, but I thought the guide would be handy for this Ulduar section since the Rawrcast seems to grab a decent amount of raiders who would be interested. My podcast and blog can be found here.



So one of the major issues that top and bottom guild alike are having an issue with is the non-linear progression of Ulduar. Forget the two tiers of 10 and 25man, but also the introduction of Hardmodes. Some of these hardmodes even have scalable hardmodes (Iron Assembly, Flame Leviathan, Freya, Yogg-Saron) where some of the smaller are rather easy, but are nigh some of the hardest challenges in Ulduar when at their maximum setting. So I’m going to give you guys some handy tips and tricks to try and get you through this rough time where deciding what you need to do next.

1. The Scalables:
Several of the bosses have scalable hardmodes, some call them medium modes or whatever but like Sartharion, they scale up difficulty on multiple levels. These are excellent fodder for some of your first hardmodes to knock out. My basic rule of thumb for this would be, if you killed it last week try it out with one tower up or with Runemaster last or whatever. If your attempts are showing it to be too hard, give it another week. Not only do these give you some experience, but when you get these first hardmodes, you are further ramping up the rate you get loot and badges for further encounters. These are also good practice for the maximum setting hardmode you’ll one day encounter.

2. The Timers
Thorim and Hodir have literal time limits on their hardmodes, others like Steelbreaker and Vezax need time in order to not kill yourself. So one good way to prep for the hardmodes of these encounters is to work each week on bettering your time on bosses. The more comfortable you are with the normal mode, the easier the addition of the hardmode mechanics will come easier to you. If you learn Tee-Ball before Baseball you’ll find the progression a lot easier.

3. The Ten-mans
Now if you can only raid ten-mans, I’m sorry but this point is not for you. If you have recently cleared or are still progressing through 25-man Ulduar, one of the best things you can do to practice the mechanics of normal and hard mode in an easier atmosphere is to have as much of your raid core going into 10-man as possible. The encounters are tuned much lower, but their mechanics are almost identical. This makes for good practice of bosses and when you clear Ulduar, you can practice the hardmodes before you go in 25-man to progress. If you can get all or a majority of your raid core progressing through Ulduar 10-man, you’ll find a lot of your raiders much more comfortable with the encounters for the big leagues. The extra gear doesn’t hurt either.

4. Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
When you finally get to the point to where you are doing real for the meta hardmodes, you need to treat these like honest progression. I don’t recommend starting some of the harder ones until the instance is cleared for a week or two, but when push comes to shove treat these as new content. The only time I’d cave and go to easy mode is if losing the rest of the bosses to the reset timer is at risk. Don’t back out too soon or you’ll jsut find yourself giving up all the time.

In conclusion, these bosses represent some of the most challenging encounters Blizzard has ever implemented, and the challenge really tests your raid’s mettle. The only thing is, will you be prepared?