Project Lore

If you've read up on the latest Icecrown Citadel preview, you might have noticed the following text in the description:

"Icecrown Citadel features 10- and 25-player versions of the raid dungeon, and each version has 12 encounters. Each encounter can be fought in either normal or Heroic mode, and players can use a new user interface feature to toggle easily between difficulties."

As it implies, ICC will be returning to a more traditional style of raid progression, with only two lockouts (10-man and 25-man) as opposed to four, like Trial of the Crusader (10-man, 25-man, and heroic versions of each). But the wording didn't seem entirely clear. What exactly did it mean by each encounter being fought in either normal or Heroic mode, then? Well, the problem seems to be that Blizzard is doing a little dance with their own terminology. It should really read "each encounter being fought in either normal or Hard mode," since Heroic is once again being used as a label for the 25-man version of the dungeon. What this really means is not that you will be able to switch between 10 and 25-man at will, but rather that you will have the opportunity to tweak the difficult of individual boss battles at any time you want outside of actually being in combat with one. This is different from the way the mechanic is handled in Ulduar, where the Hard modes for each boss are activated in different ways like timers, buttons, and damage dealt. Bornakk confirms:

"Assuming everything goes as planned, you can switch it back and forth as much as you like. Encounter 1 on hard, 2 on normal, 3 on hard, 4 on normal, etc. In effect it works out similar to Ulduar but it's with a much more clear method in the UI as opposed to the fairly confusing process of figuring out some encounter mechanics just to activate it."

To be honest, I'm not sure if this is necessarily a good change. Sure, it'll give everyone a chance to try out the Hard modes as they see fit, but sometimes the limits placed on accessing them also served as a trial to see whether or not a given raid group was cut out for it. For instance, if you don't have the chops to kill XT-002's heart, then you probably won't be able to finish the fight without dying or hitting the Enrage on Hard. Allowing just anyone to take a crack is going to end in a lot of bitter tears, and may even lead to some Hard modes being nerfed faster, since there will be a greater number of unprepared players engaging them and, thus, complaining about them. I'm all for convenience, but sometimes it feels as though tweaks like this further marginalize the hardcore player base. If Hard modes are supposed to challenge top level raiding guilds, why not just leave it that way? What say you, readers?

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Yes, I know it’s popular for everyone to want to get easy loot off of easy bosses, but not everyone feels that way. I personally love a challenge, and I know I am far from alone.

It is for this reason that Naxx was somewhat disappointing to me, I know it was their plan to make the first tier of raiding accessible, but after farming for months on end, I feel it got somewhat mind-numbing.

It is for that reason I was fairly nervous going into Ulduar the first time yesterday. While I knew it would be harder, I was concerned that it too would quickly become another boring farm grind. I was really hoping they would give a challenge.

Man, did I get my wish! Ladies and gentleman, I am happy to report the bosses in Ulduar are SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult that those in tier 7, and even harder than I had ever expected. Now I’m sure there are those among you that will disagree, no doubt some of you crazies out there went in and demolished the place, I even saw that Ensidia has downed Yogg-Saron. But for me, I’m pretty confident this content will keep me busy for a while.

My guild was able to make quick work of Flame Leviathan (one shot, dare I say he was easy? :p), but man did things take a turn after that. Ingis was incredibly challenging, and after a few hours of diligently wiping we moved on the both of the other bosses that are available after Leviathan goes down. While both Razorscale and XT-002 seemed much more manageable, we were unable to down either of them. I’m feeling pretty good that at least one of these guys will be going down tonight, but I am just thrilled at the new mindset this has put me in.

No longer do I expect to clear half the instance in a day, I don’t even know if we can clear half the instance in a month! Ulduar is a challenge, and we haven’t even hit the hard modes yet. I couldn’t be more excited for the level of difficulty lying ahead of us.

How are you guys doing in there? More importantly, how do you find the difficulty? Are you guys knocking down bosses because it is too easy, or are you hitting your head against a wall because it is too hard? I’d love to hear your experiences.

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