If you are into the World of Warcraft community, you probably hear daily how certain guilds are achieving a so called hard-mode kill of a boss. Honestly, hard modes exist since the release of Ahn'Qiraj where the rewards and difficulty were determinate by the order of boss killing. 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.
   The hard mode encounters generally 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.
   It is obvious that 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.
   Blizzard extended the hard modes even further when the Ulduar patch was released. There fourteen bosses having hard modes in this instance such as 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.
   In Ulduar, Flame Leviathan is the first boss but his hard mode is really not that easy as the normal boss is. To start the event you have to speak to Lore Keeper of Norgannon first. The hard mode is determinate by the defensive towers you leave undestroyed. For the ultimate and real hard mode leave them all four, Leviathan's health points, damage and movement speed will scale accordingly.
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.
   Additionally 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 hallway team reaches Thorim within three minutes it triggers the Hard Mode. It consists into Sif, his wife, helping him in the encounter by shooting frost bolts and dealing massive area of effect damage. It's mostly a survival fight.\
   There is nothing much to explain in Hodir's hard mode. The boss is holding two rare caches with extra loot, if you kill him within three minutes - you will get both. If you kill him withing six minutes you will only one of them.
Freya is the modern version of Sartharion - Three Drakes encounter. You must leave the three keepers alive and engage Freya. It also gains new abilities to make the encounter even harder, with the exception of the nasty skills of the Keepers themselves.
You have probably already noticed the big Red Button which looks like "don't push me, or else". That is the hard mode activator, increasing the damage of all the three parts of Mimiron by 25% and also sets an enrage timer of eight minutes.
   For one of the last encounters, General Vezax is too easy. However, if you aim for the hard modes, you will get some trouble. The hard mode consists into not using the Saronite Vapors to regain mana. When the eight-cloud is spawned, considering none is used - a Saronite Animus will spawn. It applies debuff to the whole raid increasing shadow damage taken. Obviously the goal is to kill both Vezax and his little tool.
   Yogg Saron is for sure the hardest of the hard modes. It took the best guilds quite a while to get the achievement. It is normally engaged with all the watchers that you defeating helping - Thorim, Freya, Mimiron and Hodir. To activate Hard Mode you must only activate one watcher to help you.

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