The hardest final expansion encounter so far?

[YUPPIE]

Before Legion, it's cool to recount

If you were actually around for KT vanilla, props to you. In fact it's a testament to a poster's cred to have experienced every boss here during their relevant periods so I suppose speculation based on encounter nature is also sorta okay. Not including Raid Finder incarnations, Ruby Sanctum, and generally with the bosses at their hardest difficulties and tuning in mind but since not everyone will experience those, just regular is okay too.

[Keyblader]

Heroic Lich King 25 was pretty Nuckin Futs

[Deleted]

Arthas hands down (with no ICC buff)


KT was quite easy considering Naxx, it was the 4hm that were cockblocking most guilds.

Other than that - I'd probably mention Ragnaros from Firelands (I know he wasn't the last expansion boss), that was some hard piece of shit. Reminded me of Mimiron HM in terms of difficulty.

[YUPPIE]

Arthas hands down (with no ICC buff)


KT was quite easy considering Naxx, it was the 4hm that were cockblocking most guilds.

Other than that - I'd probably mention Ragnaros from Firelands (I know he wasn't the last expansion boss), that was some hard piece of shit. Reminded me of Mimiron HM in terms of difficulty.

surprised not many people so far think Deathwing was all that difficult.

[tankbug]

Wasn't C'tun so hard, they had to nerf the encounter before world first?

[Rixis]

He was similar to Kel'thuzad, in that the difficulty came in an earlier fight.

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Wasn't C'tun so hard, they had to nerf the encounter before world first?

Yes, but he wasn't the end boss of an expansion (nor vanilla). Then you get the 50/50 arguments of bugs versus difficulty and whatnot.

[DarkTZeratul]

He was similar to Kel'thuzad, in that the difficulty came in an earlier fight.

Yes, but he wasn't the end boss of an expansion (nor vanilla). Then you get the 50/50 arguments of bugs versus difficulty and whatnot.

Yeah, the really hard boss in Temple of Ahn'Qiraj was the Twin Emperors. C'Thun wasn't exactly easy (not in the same way that I hear Kel'Thuzad was after Four Horsemen and Sapphiron), but the reason it took so long for him to die was because he was bugged (and the world first kill was the same day as the bug fix).

[Mask]

Naxx-40 and Sunwell were both incredibly difficult during their primary runs. Like insanely difficult.

Overall I think Naxx 40 clears are a bit more prestigious because the zone didn't get nerfed into oblivion during the next expansions prepatch like Sunwell did. A lot of guilds who were completely stuck on Muru or KJ could easily clear the zone after the Wrath prepatch happened.

As for the difficulty of only the final boss, without taking into account prepatch nonsense, I think my ranking would be 1.) Kil'jaeden, 2.) Heroic Garrosh, 3.) Kel'thuzad

[DarkTZeratul]

Naxx-40 and Sunwell were both incredibly difficult during their primary runs. Like insanely difficult.

Overall I think Naxx 40 clears are a bit more prestigious because the zone didn't get nerfed into oblivion during the next expansions prepatch like Sunwell did. A lot of guilds who were completely stuck on Muru or KJ could easily clear the zone after the Wrath prepatch happened.

Speaking of M'uru, thinking back on it it seems like in most of the final raids, the hardest boss wasn't the last one. Naxxramas had Four Horsemen. Sunwell had M'uru. Dragon Soul had Spine of Deathwing. The Lich King was appropriately the hardest fight in Icecrown Citadel, but I feel like something other than Garrosh was the hardest boss in Siege of Orgrimmar. I haven't kept up on Hellfire Citadel, but does the same hold true there, too? Is another boss harder than Archimonde?

[Callypso]

surprised not many people so far think Deathwing was all that difficult.

That's because he wasn't, especially if you took the dragons in the easiest order. SPINE of Deathwing on the other hand (the encounter before madness) was quite the DPS check (and somewhat of a kite-skill-check for your assigned tank).

I think you'll get a lot of answers from people that can be summarized as 'this was the first final boss I did when raiding', as it tends to work that way.

Personally I think most of the final bosses were quite hard in their own rights. I'm one of those ancient players that actually did all of them in their own time and led progress raids on about half of them. I am tempted to go with either Sargeras but that might be my own perception because Sunwell was such a major step up from everything else before that, and the first endboss I actually led the raids on myself.

[Deleted]

Hm... wanted to vote KJ at first, because Sunwell was legitimely hard, but thinking about it, it challenge came more in the form of gearing and class stacking. Kael'thas and Illidan were hard too when they were THE endbosses. 4 phase, 10+ minutes long fights, with specialist roles needed, and wast consumable requirements.

But HC Lich King (no buff) was the first where the challenge wasn't in getting the right classes or getting the right gear and the difficulty didn't came from gimicky mechanics. It not only needed high dps, but was a complex fight and everyone needed to be on their toes and know what they were doing.

But I'd say Yogg no keepers was the hardest. Maybe it's the fight itself, but no other boss kill gave me the same satisfaction. BUt I admit, it had gimicky mechanics (madness) and needed high dps.

[Ciddy]

I never got anywhere near that far in Classic myself (my guild went into Naxx just for the lulz and got destroyed by trash), but I keep hearing about how only a small percentage of guilds in the world even made it to Kel'thuzad at level 60, much less downed him. I'd be interested to hear comparisons from someone who downed both level 60 KT and heroic 25 Lich King.

[Deleted]

Kel'thuzad and or Kil'jaeden were miles ahead of the Lich King in difficulty.

Kil'jaeden wasn't THAT hard, compared to M'uru. LK was hard due to limitations in attempts, making people think and strategize differently.

[Cracked]

This is not even a contest, Archimonde was by far the hardest boss by design. The shell you see now is nothing like the boss we were killing in August 2015.

[Zephirdd]

the difficulty in early expansions came from logistics(very little loot for 40/25 man) or artificial difficulty(limited attempts on LK). The difficulty on later expansions was due to actual mechanic difficulty as opposed to logistics - even making Archimonde pretty much impossible without addons.

I'd say KT was the hardest logistically, Archimonde the hardest mechanically.

[Lotus Victoria]

Either Arthas or Archi. All depends on the difficulty (10m, 25m) itself.

[cFortyfive]

Ez for archimonde

[Mhyroth]

Personally speaking here, Arthas was a really close fight for when we did it and I still feel (everytime I visit ICC) how it used to be.

[Deleted]

Wasn't C'tun so hard, they had to nerf the encounter before world first?

bugged does not equal to hard.

well if addons wouldnt exist archimonde would easily be the hardest one.

[klaps_05]

i wouldnt call sunwell difficult, but more disgusting than anything. also in cata for example, rag was tuned to perfection and u literally had to fight for miliseconds, while madness had at least 5-10 sec leeway