World of Warcraft: Guide to Activating Hard Modes in Ulduar

For more information about this instance dungeon, make sure you read the Complete Guide to Ulduar. You will find boss guides, lore information, maps, and loot information there.

If you are into the World of Warcraft community, then you probably hear daily how certain guilds are achieving a so called hard-mode kill of a boss. To be honest, hard modes exist since the release of Ahn'Qiraj where the rewards and difficulty were determinate by the order of boss killing. Yes, yes, that's the Three Bugs fight in the Temple for those who remember. Later one we've seen the idea being extended in Burning Crusade with the release of Zul'Aman patch - the goal here was getting the Amani War Bear before the timer runs out - certainly not an easy achievement for most players.

In general, the hard mode encounters offer better loot and achievements. This is the only way to get items with Item Level of 239. Have in mind most of the "best-in-slot" items are indeed from the hard modes only.

Obviously the idea of making hard mode encounters was welcomed nicely. This is how Blizzard introduced their "final release" of a hard mode with the Sartharion - Three drakes fight in Obsidian Sanctum.

When the Ulduar patch was released, Blizzard extended the hard modes even further. There fourteen bosses having hard modes in this instance: Flame Leviathan, XT-002, Assembly of Iron, Freya, Thorim, Hodir, Mimiron, Vezax, Yogg-Saron and Agalon the Observer. Speaking of Agalon, it's not a real hard mode because this fight actually has no normal mode.

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You have probably noticed that XT-002 is often exposing her heart to damage. If you manage to actually kill the heart, which requires extreme amounts of DPS, then you will enter the hard mode. XT heals up fully, gains 50% more health and does 25% more damage.

In adition, the light and gravity bombs are now spawning lightning sparks and void zones.

The Thorim encounter is divided in two parts - one team fighting at the arena and another clearing up the hallway up to Thorim. If the

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Freya is the modern version of Sartharion - Three Drakes encounter. You must leave the three keepers alive and engage Freya. In addition to the nasty skills of the Keepers themself, Freya also gain new abilities to make the encounter even harder.

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You have probably already noticed the big Red Button which looks like "don't push me, or else...". Yes, that's the Hard Mode activator - it increases the damage of all the three parts of Mimiron by 25% and also sets an enrage timer of eight minutes.