The hardest final expansion encounter so far?

[Toybox]

Didn't do Naxx40 at level 60, but I did at least attempt the rest.

If you took a good group of 2016 raiders, put them on servers where each of those bosses were at their pomp, give them level appropriate gear & the tools available at the time, I reckon Kil'jaeden, Arthas, & Deathwing would go down pretty fast compared to Garrosh & Archimonde. They're mechanically-lite by 2016 standards, and many of the classes were brainless, even compared to today (I went through T4/T5/T6 content with a 0/21/40 Warlock alt that just put up CoD & spammed Shadowbolt).

Which was the hardest at the time for the playerbase? To me, a pre-nerf SWP clear carries the most weight.

[Obsession]

It would have been LK but the stacking debuff made it so much easier than it would have been without. Even with it, only one guild killed it at 5% and less than 10 total had it killed before the 15% nerf went in to effect (there was a flood of guilds that day). Because of that, most guilds never got to experience how difficult the boss would have actually been. Archimonde was insanely hard during progression without the addons you guys use today that help with wrought, early strategies involved making weird ass shapes while trying to deal with fire and the other mechanics.

Anyway, LK was made easier every month and archimonde was made easier with an addon, but still probably took most guilds several hundred attempts pre-item upgrade.

[shaunika123]

lich king 100%

noone even killed him before the first 5% global nerf to ICC

[plato13]

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

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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.

well lichking wasnt the final boss either

[Jayburner]

4 Horsemen blocked our guilds progress in naxx 40. It was fun though.

[Arbs]

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

Kil'jaeden was a joke compared to what M'uru was, KT itself wasn't hard either you just had to have 40 people geared anough to get to him was the real challenge.

Lich King 25man Heroic has my vote.

[taishar68]

well lichking wasnt the final boss either

Poor Halion, gets no respect.

[Jrealness]

I voted based on my experience, not completely objectively. I still want to rip my hair out when I think about all those low percentage wipes on garry because of the mind control. My guild struggled so hard with him it's embarassing. Archie on the other hand came about fairly naturally after about two weeks of just farming and steadily getting further and further into the fight. On paper though, Archie hands down with HC lich king just a hair behind because I feel the attempt gating made people think he was harder than he actually was.

[Sliske]

Archimonde easily. Then Arthas. Kel'Thuzad, Kiljaeden, Deathwing and Garrosh weren't too difficult relative to earlier bosses in the same tier or expansion.

[Deleted]

Archimonde is easily the hardest encounter so far.

[Deleted]

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

LK was still hard fight but without max of 50attemps a week he wouldve been killed sooner.

[hulkgor]

Considering every boss, not just final encounters, Mu'ru (Sunwell), Firefighter (Mimiron's HM), Lich King HC (without buff), Ragnaros HC (Firelands one), Kael'Thas (pre-nerfs\fixes) were all insanely hard at their appropriate time.

[Saeis]

If only M'uru could be listed as an end boss... Drums of battle for the entire raid. Shamans and warlock class stacking... Rotating shamans for bloodlust, and requiring you to completely change your raid composition healer/tank wise from the last boss. I know class stacking and dps requirements do not make a boss "difficult", but there were some other things with the fight making it a supreme pain in the ass. Tank didn't pick up an add fast enough? Rip healers... Dps attacking the wrong target? You fall behind on adds and get overwhelmed by the next pack. Priest didn't mass dispel fast enough? Wipe. Literally just about anything goes wrong? Chain reaction of bad things happening leading to a wipe. This is all just phase 1, and even if you made it to p2 you had to hope the dps was enough and not lose anyone to aoe spells or during the phase transition.

Maybe a bit nostalgia but M'uru gets my vote even if it's not an "end-boss"

[Orby]

Vanilla raids were annoyingly hard, the guild I was in at the time never got as far as BWL :P

It wasnt until TBC when I finally got into the guild I been with up to this day and beyond where I finally raided hardcore and we never did kill KJ, Sunwell was a huge step up from Black Temple as far as I remember and needed people to be so aware and on their toes, I would say KJ for that.

Arthas wasnt that hard, our guild killed him so many times and every end boss from that expansion onwards.

for hardest raids in all I would say Vanilla hands down. Those were stupidly hard. WotLK was pretty standard, fun but standard. Vanilla and TBC were far more harder than anything form the WotLK onwards.

[melodramocracy]

Poll needs to include the "12+ month drought boss" that has shown up a few times lately

[Deleted]

I would agree that Archi without addons and WAs is nearly impossible fight.
I didn't play Yoggy, but I watched the proggresion of one IRL friend of mine who played back then. Even with some of the watchers the fight looked quite difficult even for me, all tho i had very little knowledge about the game at that time.
Spine of too damn tight dps check and compared to it Madness looked like faceroll.
Garosh... oh Garosh... that son of a btch, i don't even want to start there.

Archi>Garosh>Spine>Yoggy

[Deleted]

It would have been LK but the stacking debuff made it so much easier than it would have been without. Even with it, only one guild killed it at 5% and less than 10 total had it killed before the 15% nerf went in to effect (there was a flood of guilds that day). Because of that, most guilds never got to experience how difficult the boss would have actually been. Archimonde was insanely hard during progression without the addons you guys use today that help with wrought, early strategies involved making weird ass shapes while trying to deal with fire and the other mechanics.

Anyway, LK was made easier every month and archimonde was made easier with an addon, but still probably took most guilds several hundred attempts pre-item upgrade.

teh world first kills has addons for wrought and focused chaos on M so.

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Considering every boss, not just final encounters, Mu'ru (Sunwell), Firefighter (Mimiron's HM), Lich King HC (without buff), Ragnaros HC (Firelands one), Kael'Thas (pre-nerfs\fixes) were all insanely hard at their appropriate time.

Kael was impossible just like c'thun before they fixed them.

[Sliske]

People are crazy brain washed if they think Kel'thuzad is the hardest end boss ever... Most of Naxx 40 was beaten in 2 weeks if you exclude the ridiculous gear gaps on shit like 4Horsemen.

As for LK, as others have said, he had 50 max attempts and was tuned several leagues above Sindragosa. LK was not designed to be fought in ILVL 250-260, as every other boss in that instance was. LK was designed (intentionally or unintentionally) to be fought with 265 ILVL+.

In Kil'jaeden's case, KJ lasted i think 2 days after Muru? Muru itself was a clusterfuck. A hard boss due to how tedious it was. Addings spawning constantly and threat being relatively shit back in TBC, it was a boss designed for a WoTLK raid, not a TBC one.

Deathwing I don't think I even need to explain. Ragnaros was the hardest boss this expansion.

Garrosh again beaten by an earlier boss - Lei Shen or Blackfuse was the hardest boss this expansion. I'd personally go with Lei Shen.

Then we get to Archimonde. Archimonde is a fantastic boss. Easily one of the hardest bosses released, if not the hardest. The only thing that could beat it would be Lei Shen really.

At least no one (from what i've seen) has said C'thun. Jesus I hate how brainwashed people are from top 5 and top 10 videos on youtube. Those videos have shit like Kael'thas, Muru, C'thun, 4Horsemen as the hardest bosses in WoW. Their mechanics can be listed on the tips of your fingers.

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Vanilla raids were annoyingly hard, the guild I was in at the time never got as far as BWL :P

Yeah asking your healers to read their tooltips on what spell rank is most efficient, then spam it on a specific group during the bosses only mechanic - a pulse aoe, was really hard...

[Deleted]

People are crazy brain washed if they think Kel'thuzad is the hardest end boss ever... Most of Naxx 40 was beaten in 2 weeks if you exclude the ridiculous gear gaps on shit like 4Horsemen.

As for LK, as others have said, he had 50 max attempts and was tuned several leagues above Sindragosa. LK was not designed to be fought in ILVL 250-260, as every other boss in that instance was. LK was designed (intentionally or unintentionally) to be fought with 265 ILVL+.

In Kil'jaeden's case, KJ lasted i think 2 days after Muru? Muru itself was a clusterfuck. A hard boss due to how tedious it was. Addings spawning constantly and threat being relatively shit back in TBC, it was a boss designed for a WoTLK raid, not a TBC one.

Deathwing I don't think I even need to explain. Ragnaros was the hardest boss this expansion.

Garrosh again beaten by an earlier boss - Lei Shen or Blackfuse was the hardest boss this expansion. I'd personally go with Lei Shen.

Then we get to Archimonde. Archimonde is a fantastic boss. Easily one of the hardest bosses released, if not the hardest. The only thing that could beat it would be Lei Shen really.

At least no one (from what i've seen) has said C'thun. Jesus I hate how brainwashed people are from top 5 and top 10 videos on youtube. Those videos have shit like Kael'thas, Muru, C'thun, 4Horsemen as the hardest bosses in WoW. Their mechanics can be listed on the tips of your fingers.

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Yeah asking your healers to read their tooltips on what spell rank is most efficient, then spam it on a specific group during the bosses only mechanic - a pulse aoe, was really hard...

4horse men well the 8tanks needed was largly the reason, kael and c'thun unkillble before fixes so not fair. muru i could understand was tightly tuned (according to preachs vid and what ive read) but still are harder bosses.

[OrcsRLame]

Mechanically, there's absolutely no comparison to Archimonde and Garrosh as far as final bosses go. And between those two Archimonde was the harder boss.