World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

It seems like an eternity ago that players were complaining about the lack of difficulty in Icecrown Citadel, World of Warcraft's latest epic raid instance. Now, the last day before hardmodes can be unlocked, many WoW players find themselves wondering if perhaps Blizzard overdid it this time.

Wrath of the Lich King has been a mixed bag in terms of raid difficulties. Naxxramas 25 was perhaps the least difficult full-sized raid in WoW history, with pick-up raids boasting full clears well before Ulduar was released.

Ulduar was hailed as one of Blizzard's greatest achievements, keeping players of all skill levels busy with the introduction of variable difficulty bosses. These unlockable "hard mode" style encounters were to become the norm for WOTLK raiding from that point forward. The 3.2.0 patch that introduced Trial of the Crusader was billed as a stop-gap between Ulduar and Icecrown, being significantly lower difficulty and bringing back Naxxramas style pick-up raiding. As a result, raiders ranging from casual to hardcore have been on a rollercoaster of expectations, never knowing exactly what Blizzard had in store for them next.

At the time of writing this, 26 guilds worldwide have killed Lich King normal mode on 25 person difficulty according to WoW Progress. That is a pretty paltry number, and calls into question the need for limited attempt encounters and the wisdom of applying a limited attempt scheme to normal difficulty encounters. Evidently Blizzard agrees with this assessment and has announced tonight that as of the Tuesday server resets there will no longer be limited attempts for normal mode encounters:

Daelo Icecrown Citadel attempts on Normal

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After each region's maintenance this week, raids will no longer lose attempts on wipes in Normal mode for Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King.

There will still be limited attempts in Heroic mode. We will continue to monitor developments in Icecrown Citadel in the future, especially since the Heroic difficulty has been unlocked by a significant number of raids

This will no doubt bring a sigh of relief to guilds all over the world as they no longer will have to deal with the additional stress of limited attempts on top of difficult content. We should expect to see hundreds of guilds defeating the Lich King this coming week and starting in on hardmode content the week following. In the mean time, stay tuned as the race for world firsts heats up this week among the world's elite raiders, just in time for the Olympics. Coincidence? Perhaps..