For one reason or another, you’re now looking at doing hard modes. The hard part, of course, is in picking which to try!
I haven’t tried them all yet to say, but to steal from Rhidach’s Twitter, his ranking is as follows:
Gunship > Marrow > Rotface > BQL > Dreamwalker > Festergut > Saurfang > Princes > LDW
You wanna know something though? The second HM we did in SiB, after Lootship…was LDW. Chew on that for a moment. The real answer when it comes to picking hard modes, although this is not the answer you want to hear, is: it depends.
I’ve done my best to compile a list with notes on what makes each heroic mode hard, so that you can adjust at will: if you don’t have your ace healers or a strange, raid healing light raid comp, you know to skip BQL, etc. Now I havent’ done all of these myself and don’t have notes for all of them yet either, so feel free to comment and toss your own experiences out there so I can update this.
<3
Gunship: is full of lulz and should be doable by just about anyone.
Marrowgar: Can demand some tricky positioning work on behalf of the tanks. Healers and DPS need to be more alert for boned targets during bone storm, but I don’t remember it being an especial strain. It’s definitely more about getting everyone to stand in the right spot.
BQL: Is healing intensive, but aside from that, not overly difficult in my opinion. Good for new tanks because you just slot them in as OT and tell them to go play Tetris.
Rotface: We’ve only tried one night, and we struggled in part due to a newish tank (and my love for hugging slimes?). I’d say it’s a lot of situational awareness and the slime tank keeping the booger where it needs to be.
LDW: Awaremess, awareness, awareness. New tanks should avoid tanking the adds. Your CCing DPS needs to be on the ball for MC’d targets.
Putricide: DPS, DPS, DPS. I’d say positioning, too, just going from the normal fight.
Saurfang: Tank heals need to be solid (I hear holy pally is the favorite for this), and your ranged needs to be good at handling the adds.
Fester: high DPS and “a pulse” according to one lovely Twitter comment. XD
Princes: no concrete answers on this one yet, but if awareness isn’t up there I don’t know what would be.
Dreamwalker: ?
I Like Bubbles 
#1 by ambient on September 13, 2010 - 12:03 pm
Heh, I’d say you need way more than just a pulse for Festergut — it took us a while to pin down positioning for it, and dancing around incoming Malleable Ooze is a pain when there’s a lot of blight on the floor.
For Saurfang I highly recommend dropping to two healers (presuming you usually run with three). Your healers won’t be able to survive long if a 3rd mark goes out, so push push push!
And LDW is by far my favorite heroic ICC10 fight! As disc priest, I get to do tons of the CC — yes, you actually use Psychic Scream in raid! Take a central position so that you’re only a couple steps from everyone, and you can dash over and instant-cast CC the MC folks. Polymorph, standard warlock fear, and hex all have a cast time! For this to work reliably, you need to swap a couple gear pieces to reach the 4% PvP hit cap, or your scream will frequently miss.
#2 by Argon on September 13, 2010 - 12:13 pm
It also depends on whether you are doing 10 or 25. Marrowgar 10 heroic was quite difficult for us at first (in 25 man gear!), because there’s less slack to cover when healers get spiked. On the other hand, whereas we got it our first time we tried it in 25 man.
LDW10 heroic wasn’t that bad, but for 25, it was one of the later ones we got down. Part of the problem with LDW is that it sits right at the start of the instance, so spending a few hours wiping on it is not fun for people when there’s a whole instance ahead of them.
#3 by Katherine on September 13, 2010 - 4:13 pm
So that’s why we never do heroic Marrowgar! Our MT is, well, lazy and wants everything to be easymode for him :P
#4 by Nzete on September 13, 2010 - 4:39 pm
Dreamwalker10 H: three healers (two that are good at portals of the h pally/resto shammy/tree persuasion and one sucker that has to heal the entire outside with full regen consumables), dps that can assist the healer outside (innervate on cooldown, shadow priest who drops form part of the way through the fight to fire off both hymns), alcoholic beverage to be given to the outside healer after the fight. Bonus points for heroism and/or focus magic to be given to the portal healers or if the outside healer is a holy priest with guardian spirit on the dragon at every other portal.
Princes 10H requires three tanks, three healers, and prayer. (Bonus points for a H pally).
There are definate differences in difficulty in the hard modes between 10 and 25 man. LDW 10H very doable (alts can) LDW 25H was have succeeded once. Princes 25H is easier than the fight in 10H.
#5 by Lara on September 13, 2010 - 5:03 pm
Our heroic order was Marrowgar, Lootship, Saurfang, then the next week we got Deathwhisper, and then Dreamwalker. I actually think Dreamwalker is one of the easier fights to learn on heroic, once you can reliably do it in normal mode. For us, the additional difficulties about heroic Dreamwalker (at least on 10-player) were:
1. Fewer orbs inside the portals, and they put a stacking DoT on the portal healers. So, portal healers have to be extra careful not to drop their stacks and also keep themselves alive. On the positive side, the healing buff is twice as powerful per stack as on normal mode.
2. Valithria herself doesn’t call out when the portals spawn on heroic mode, so the portal healers have to keep their eyes open. DBM helps, but it’s another “thing” to keep track of.
3. Suppressors simply have to die ASAP, or no amount of healing will suffice. It’s better now with the ICC buff at 30%, but it’s still an issue.
In our 10-player group, we had a holy paladin and a resto druid (me) inside the portals, and since the bear-tank and I never needed our own Innervates, we were able to give it to the outside healer (a discipline priest) every cooldown. That was a very successful healing comp for us; heroic Dreamwalker was the first we got of the upper spire bosses. Rotface and Festergut were also pretty easy. Putricide took us a lot longer.
#6 by Xerian on September 13, 2010 - 7:16 pm
25man and 10man rankings about hardmode difficulties should vary considerably.
I imagine his ranking is 25man, judging from the higher ranking of Saurfang, Festergut and LDW.
These are among the easiest in 10 man heroic.
#7 by evisceratespam on September 14, 2010 - 9:03 am
Currently in Triv’s group we’re 8/12 so here’s some advice (that i can feel jsutified giving)
1. Festergut, the key here is to not get goo’ed on, pay attention! This gets especially stupid during spores
2.Dreamwalker; run like a kenyan if you kite, run like a kenyan if your melee, run like a kenyan if your a tank, and run like a kenyan chasing orbs.Most importantly though, avoid the mobs that run like kenyans
3.Rotface; situational awareness is key. Stay far away enough from each not to chain vomit, stay far away from slime. Try not to get vomitted on by rotface (although this is sometimes unavoidable)
4.Saurfang; add control, avoid as much blood power build-up as possible.
5.BQL; as far as bites are concerned it takes adaptability, otherwise stay away from other people during bloodbolt whirl. Healers will probably hate this fate, or enjoy it if you have a slightly masochist touch
6.LDW; CC, there have been countless times we wiped because I was CC’ed and killed the healers. Whoever is CC’ing has to seriously be on his OMG A GAME REACTION.
The last two are well….lulzy almost
in 10 man the ranking is more like such
Gunship<Marrowgar<LDW<Rotface<Saurfang<Festergut<BQL<Dreamwalker<Princes<Sindy<Putricide<LK
Princes and sindy is kinda arguable as to which one is overall worse
#8 by Escobar on September 14, 2010 - 12:30 pm
Agreed. The order really depends on the group size. I’m in a 10man guild. Lootship was, of course, the first one we ever did, followed by Marrowgar (one tank, three healers, lots of screaming), LDW (as long as your CC people are on point and people remember that she’s untauntable, it’s cake), and Saurfang (the hardest of the first wing, IMO; ranged dps has to be standout, or it falls apart FAST). We did manage to take down the first wing on heroic our first night in.
First past that was BQL, because aside from the damage, it’s really no different than regular, and then the plague twins. Rot died first (we found that a pally tank had the best toolbox for dealing with the aggro the crazy heals puts on the big ooze), then Fester (“For the love of all that is holy, stop getting the healers slimed!”) Then we spent a couple of weeks beating our brains against the Vamp Boys and Valithria. Team Edward took a dive first (bear tank on Kel FTW), followed by the dragon (a lot of rearranging of roles until we got it just right).
Our current target is Putricide, which…seriously, who thought of that fight? It reminds me of Mimiron hard. “Let’s do the same stuff, mostly, only it all hits harder, and…FUEGO!” “Only replace ‘FUEGO!’ with ‘PLAGUEO!'” “BRILLIANT!” And then there were high fives all around the office, and coal was tossed into the oven to fuel my hate.
#9 by evisceratespam on September 14, 2010 - 2:00 pm
plagueo salsa!
and you thought chipotle salsa gave you the runs
#10 by Shintar on September 15, 2010 - 6:13 am
Talking about 10-man, we didn’t find LDW particularly difficult; our biggest problem was people not watching their aggro in phase two and getting splatted because she’s untauntable.
Saurfang was pretty hard – everyone needs to play very precisely, taunting at the right time and not letting the adds touch them, but most of all it’s a crazy healing test during the last 30% or so. We did it with a holy priest and resto druid, neither the ideal single target healers, and found it extremely tough even though we were overgeared.
Festergut, Rotface and BQL are mostly healing and high dps checks, if you got those down, the actual strategy is not very different from normal mode.
Only done the Princes once – they are annoying enough on normal, and on heroic you’ll just wipe everyime someone messes up even a little (drops a kinetic, kills a shadow orb, stands in a shock vortex etc.)
Valithria relies on your healers being comfortable with gathering the floaty balls and your dps being good at quick target switching – both areas we struggle with sometimes, so it’s been very hard for us.
#11 by Elelereth on September 16, 2010 - 8:53 am
Princes is absolutely horrible in 10-man. Hardest in there, I’d say. Doing that fight with only two ranged, and one of the healers covering the rest of the room is… nasty. It’s a fight that was clearly balanced with 25 people in mind, not 10.
Valithria took us a while – not being a healer, I never really gathered why.
#12 by Golle on October 11, 2010 - 6:30 pm
Contrary to what Elelereth said about Princes being a 25man encounter I say it’s a 10man encounter. You design an encounter in a confined space where 25 players all become voidzones(imp. shock vortex) and give them 3 seconds to find an empty spot before they blow up and do awesome knockback.
I am melee and that fight is a total bitch. Oh yes, someone decided it was a good idea to add a debuff that stacks everytime you move. OSHI SHOCKVORTEX BOOM O H FUCK WHERE IS BOSS RUN RUN OH FU WHERE THE DAMAGE COMING FR.. DEAD.
Also, Putri HM is totally a 10man encounter fucked up in 25man. You try to run away with Unbound Plague as melee while standing in a group of 7 other DPS-horny tards in 25man and then try to prove me wrong.
Stupid 10man encounter squeezed into 25man, no thank you.