Hardmodes

There are a few hardmode I have under my belt and deserve a delta writeup.
I just have not had the time to do it!  Work has me under the pump at the moment, and I need to get that under control before I write too much more.

That said, there is not a lot of change between normal mode and hard modes.  The general idea is "hard modes hit harder" and that's about it really!

I wont even BOTHER with heroic loot boat because., honestly, if you can do normal loot boat, heroic is just a bit slower.

I think my favourite hard modes thus far are marrowgar (which actually requires skill) and Valithria (which is just plain fun as a healer).  The other hard modes are pretty much business as usual with 264 loot.  They feel a lot like normal modes did when we walked into ICC the first time.

Which leads me to a quick commentry on how this all works. 

Hardmodes are not new content. I don't get the excited feeling walking up to a hardmode boss, because I have done it before, you know? I have killed these pixels already!  Let me walk up to hard mode cold - give me uldar hardmodes!  I still believe ulduar was how it should be done.  Dont force me to run normal before I am allowed to make things hard, let me be the judge of that.  If I think I can turn up the pressure and not boil, then I should be able to do that.  Forced gating/attunements are a silly idea in this capacity when we only have "current content" to be done.

When there is more raid content available than we are able to achieve, sure, put on a simple attunemet (ie in order to get to Tier N+1 you need to have defeated the end boss of Tier N) but note I say tier content.  Hard modes are not new tier content, they are increase difficulty on CURRENT tier content - don't gate them.

But I am coming down with a cold and my brain is wafting around on the winds.  Looking at the ideas with cataclysm, I am not convinced that it will work the way we all hope. 

I have 2 happiness quotients out of it though: 1 ID per instance no matter the size, 2 emblem levels, this content and that content.  I hope this will sort out much of the problems of burnout and gear gaps for newer players.  The ID should force people to make a decision about what content they enjoy doing.  This I can only see as a positive thing.

Anyway, ramble over.  Expect new strats in the coming week for hardmodes.