Quote Originally Posted by KarstenS View Post
There is no official statement, that tell us this. Just players speculation.

In my eyes it would be wrong to do it this way. I did all coils before it gone DF, got echo and nerfs and I want enjoy the Alexander story like in coil before and not in the easy mode.
There is. In one of the lives Yoshida said that clearing the normal mode and obtaining the normal mode gear is required to clear the hard mode. He is fully aware that Lucrezia pretty much pushed FCoB down in week one in mostly IL110 gear, but he is pretty sure that you will need the normal mode gear to touch the hard mode.

The hard mode is like SCoB Savage when it was released where you want to be in the highest level gear. Yoshida said that Alex HM will be equal to savage or higher.