Nice!. Do you plan to do this to all comming raids or just this one?

Meh, I liked the Ulduar way because it was actually quite challenging sometimes to even get to the hardmode...

But then again, you're right about those stupid achievements. Less of that please!

I like the idea of unlocking the heroic version by killing Arthas on normal first. The only issue I have with the system is the toggling the following week. Presumably guilds will just skip all heroic versions and go straight for Arthas heroic, which is really skipping straight to the end.

Will there be an Algalon system whereby other hard modes are required to unlock Arthas heroic?

I don't mind changing the way of enabling the hard modes but I hope the hard modes themselves will be more like in Ulduar, where the fight actually changed. Not just "hits 7 harder, has 31 more health, charges 1 second ealier" kind of hard "modes" that Circus Tent had to offer.

But I still have to ask. Don't you think that the excuse of not keeping the Ulduar system of starting the hard modes because "it was too confusing" is little too obvious? I haven't heard about a single guild that found enabling of the Ulduar hard mode to be the hard part. It's obviously done the way it's done now because it's less hassle (and less limitations) to do it this way. Thorim arena, Vezax clouds, watchers in Yogg-Saron room all get replaced by a single switch to flip.

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Q u o t e:
The only issue I have with the system is the toggling the following week. Presumably guilds will just skip all heroic versions and go straight for Arthas heroic, which is really skipping straight to the end.

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I imagine this would be like going straight for yogg +1, or even yogg+0, in naxx and malygos gear. Sure, some diehard guilds might go for it, but it would make more sense to clear on normal mode a couple times and then eventually get hardmodes down once the raid gets a little gear.

After all, Arthas HM is most likely tuned for a raid geared in ilvl 272's.

How is this going to work with instance ID's?

If for example you clear Icecrown up to Arthas on normal mode, then switch the difficulty to heroic, will that save your group to both difficulties?

I'm assuming there wont be a 50 try mechanic like we've got in ToC, but what happens if a few members have cleared a boss during one reset in heroic, while some others haven't then the raid moves to the next boss where those others have cleared it on heroic, while the rest weren't present?

Having a bit of trouble explaining what i mean, but from what I understand being able to switch between heroic difficulty and normal must surely save you to seperate ID's. Otherwise you'd be able to do the same boss twice a week in different raids.

Wouldn't it just make more sense to use the Ulduar method of making heroic mode a normal difficulty boss with more of a challenge strategy wise?

Hodir hard mode is such a good example of hard modes should be. He's such an easy boss to kill, but killing him on hard mode takes a lot more teamwork and focus from the raid.
Sure, the hard modes in Icecrown might be *hard* but they should be unlockable through raid performance. Being able to just turn on hardmodes seems a little bit of a blowout to me.

Hobbes - there's only going to be single raid ID for the place and difficulty will be enabled on per-boss basis. It means that - as long as you're not in combat with a boss - your raid leader can swap between heroic and normal while inside Icecrown and the current difficulty will apply to the next boss you pull. So it's exactly the same as Ulduar, except here you don't enable hard modes by doing anything in combat. You enable them by selecting heroic difficulty before the boss you want to kill in heroic mode.

Entire raid can access all heroic modes as long as raid leader killed Arthas on normal difficulty.

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Q u o t e:
I like the idea of unlocking the heroic version by killing Arthas on normal first. The only issue I have with the system is the toggling the following week. Presumably guilds will just skip all heroic versions and go straight for Arthas heroic, which is really skipping straight to the end.

Will there be an Algalon system whereby other hard modes are required to unlock Arthas heroic?

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I'd love to get this question cleared,

I like this idea, so whilst clearing this on normal mode, we can arrive at a boss we always find easy, and think 'Hey, let's try it on heroic!' After we're done, we can switch it back and continue normally - awesome.

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Q u o t e:
I like the idea of unlocking the heroic version by killing Arthas on normal first. The only issue I have with the system is the toggling the following week. Presumably guilds will just skip all heroic versions and go straight for Arthas heroic, which is really skipping straight to the end.

Will there be an Algalon system whereby other hard modes are required to unlock Arthas heroic?

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you will have to do so second week you are in there dont run straight to Arthas hardmode and clear all others on normal that will be a big mistake so plz do something to not let this happen. that will ruin everithing.

Oh, and one other question. Did you remember of disabling the hard modes globally for the first reset, just in case some fameseekers decide to server transfer their entire guild right after normal mode Arthas kill? Cause if you didn't, there might be some hilarious results :p

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Q u o t e:
Oh, and one other question. Did you remember of disabling the hard modes globally for the first reset, just in case some fameseekers decide to server transfer their entire guild right after normal mode Arthas kill? Cause if you didn't, there might be some hilarious results :p

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you're saved for the rest of the week regardless of transfers afaik.

It might be a good idea to make it clear that the difficulty has to be swapped before doing any of the trash that is linked to that boss (atleast on ptr we couldn't swap difficulty after having done the trash).

How in the world did you come to a conclusion that "it was to hard to activate hard modes"
Casuals are not interested in hardmodes, they are not doing them, let them enjoy normal content.

Hardmodes and normal modes were supposed to be aimed at different kind of players, why are you merging them now.....................

In other words.
"we believe some people are to stupid to know how to activate the hard modes, so we made it easier"

everyone loved Ulduar, make ICC similar,

Just make it TBC difficulty... there was not even close to this much whining...

Sounds great, I mean if we kill one boss easy, and have problems with the other bosses, we can always try the easy one on HC. Great feature

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Q u o t e:
I like the idea of unlocking the heroic version by killing Arthas on normal first. The only issue I have with the system is the toggling the following week. Presumably guilds will just skip all heroic versions and go straight for Arthas heroic, which is really skipping straight to the end.

Will there be an Algalon system whereby other hard modes are required to unlock Arthas heroic?

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I'd assume that you'd have to kill the 3 final bosses in each of the wing parts of icecrown for arthas heroic, but only time will tell.

Now then, about the hardmode toggling, a stupid question, I know, but does the trash before the boss, which have their respawns tied to that boss, have to be untouched to be able to toggle the hardmode or can you just do it right in front of the boss?