Which encounter in the game is, in your opinion, the most well designed?

[Deleted]

Picking up the legendary weapons in the Kael'Thas was pretty awesome!

Also nearly having a heart attack when I had my headset on full volume and hearing Anar'alah belore! bellowed at me.

Other than that, the class calls for Nefarion were great too and just the feel of the fight, it felt like the end of the raid. I know that sounds obvious, but fighting your way up to the pinnacle of Blackrock Mountain and having him fly in was cool.

More recently though I really enjoyed Blackhand too!

[Ergar]

Alysrazor hc as a tank. Loved everything about that fight. Other than that probably spirit kings hc or Blackhand.

[Sylf]

Easily Lei Shen for me.

[vsb]

Lich King heroic was the best IMO. I liked Nefarian from Cataclysm too, it was the most challenging fight for me, as a tank, I kited skeletons there and kiting them as DK required a lot of effort, I think, it was the most difficult fight I've ever experienced as a tank.

[Evangeliste]

Of course nobody mentions ruby sanctum as it was actually hard as fuck. No, we talk about bosses with 3 mechanics being dynamic instead.

Heigan was well designed. He showed the world how 90% of raiders could not even walk properly.

Those twilight cutters were a real fucking pain, it surprised me they added it to Trillax and people somehow managed better with it.

[Deleted]

For me its a tie between blackfuse and lei shen heroic

[McNeil]

I love most boss fights from the final boss of every expansion, they purposely try to make them more epic and immersive to end an expansion with and it works. The Lich King is my favorite as it felt really well designed that pushes every role to its limits, with a satisfying ending. Illidan was also quite epic in its time. Deathwing had a good theme behind it but the actual fights turned out rather dissapointing. Garrosh was good, Archimonde had a bit to many mechanics for my likes.

[Zafu]

Alysrazor hc as a tank. Loved everything about that fight. Other than that probably spirit kings hc or Blackhand.

Spirit Kings, Omnotron Defence, Ascendant Council and Iron Council, for me, are examples of council fights that worked really well.

I didn't enjoy Council of Elders, Blood Princes, or even Hellfire High Council - I think they ended up being quite messy and the bosses didn't play off each other in the same way.

[Deleted]

Blackhand.

Wasn't a slog. Had three distinct phases. Great setting. Great challenge.

Shoutout goes to Blackfuse as I used to solo the belts and it was fun as shit.

[Deleted]

Siegecrafter Blackfuse (25 hc) remains the best ever designed boss:
- no cheesing with immunities
- creative liberty(so many strategies around what gets empowered, why they get empowered, when and where the boss gets position to deal with what, etc)
- no bugs (except that he double overcharged the mines)
- the only thing wrong with it is that belts could be cheesed (also imagine killing a perfectly designed boss like Blackfuse and walking into the original Paragooooons of the Klaxxi 25 hc -including sick designs like 600k multishot, aura of death locust, reflecting scorpion and the random melee from the air)

[Tojara]

Ultimately I feel like Blackhand and Lei Shen are the best encounters they ever made. Heroic Ragnaros is a really good encounter too, but after the initial rush of P4 the danger sort of subsides (mind you not rooting him would essentially be a wipe).

Blackhand made all of the phases feel like a race without actually having an enrage timer. This feels organic and awesome in my opinion, and considering that every phase is fairly unique, it makes for a really good encounter. There is nothing more anti climatic than getting to the final phase and it being designed easier, or at the very least have very little danger present. Errors on Blackhand persisted through the entire encounter, and each phase had you slowly running out of room. By the final phase space was a luxury, while your entire raid could die any minute as basically everybody had debuffs on them.

Nice thing about Blackhand too is he had really cool voice acting, and the setting of each phase was different. It also wasn't an incredibly long encounter.

Lei Shen has the same elements (danger) to his final phase as Blackhand, but was unique in regards to how you could engage him. Every intermission was a bit different, but not different enough that RNG would fuck you up. Visually it was intense as well, which always helps.

Blackhand > Lei Shen > Ragnaros IMO. Ragnaros would be higher, but it's a really long encounter and feels kinda flat after the meteors die in P4.

[Krille]

Mythic Helya is really fun. Team co-ordination, movement, add swaps, soaking big hits, stacking and aoe dispels. Lots of shit going on.

- - - Updated - - -

Of course nobody mentions ruby sanctum as it was actually hard as fuck. No, we talk about bosses with 3 mechanics being dynamic instead.

Heigan was well designed. He showed the world how 90% of raiders could not even walk properly.

Ruby Sanctum wasn't that much fun though. Hard for sure, but fun? Nah.

[gushDH]

You... I remember you...

[bmjclark]

Operator thoggar

[Banshee Prince]

Garrosh Hellscream. I know people didn't like the multiple healthbar thing but it reminded me of my youth playing games like Spyro (Ripto's Rage mostly)where you had to 'kill' the boss in every phase of the fight. I also enjoyed the tactics in general. Killing the spikey hall summoners, bursting down the axes interrupting on the last phase to stop mind control and racing through those the Pandaren temples to slapdown Garry.

It felt epic.

[Lellybaby]

Original 4 Horseman from Vanilla Naxx.

8 groups of 5 people having to rotate around a room coordinating so perfectly to ensure that noone died.

I only ever got 2 nights of attempts on it before TBC came out but the kill videos from the world first guilds were amazing to watch.

[Sills]

The one that immediately pops into my mind is The Lich King fight. For me, the way you move through the phases with the intermission coupled with the amazing voice acting, the drama involved (as well as the way the ending plays out as a bit of an epic moment in the history of the game with a little "do not release" trolling) and the feeling of dread because of the immense stakes if we fail to take down the LK made the fight the most memorable for me.

Mechanics can be interchangeable from fight to fight without leaving much impression. For me, it's the weight of a fight, the stakes at hand and the environment/characters/script/voice acting that make the most well designed fights for me. Culminations of story that are told in epic, climatic and challenging fashion are what I look at for "well-designed". I realize that it's a purely personal thing for me, but it's how I've always played.

[PowerGamez]

A few that I think were quite well designed:

LK 25 Heroic
Firelands Ragnaros 25 Heroic
Mythic Operator Thogar
Mimiron 25 Heroic
Yogg Saron 0
Mythic Blackhand
Mythic Gul'dan

[AlmightyGerkin]

oh wait, we including him in this? then yeah by far. I did it like, 20ilvls below average and it took me exactly 38 attempts. Most satisfying thing ive done in the game on my own.

Placing my vote with Kanrethad as well. It was exciting and frustrating to know what to do, when to interrupt, when to LoS etc. It really tested on how well you could micro manage with a bunch of shit going on.

[TheCount]

TBC: I would say High King Maulgar. So much organized chaos, I loved it. Having to assign locks to tank, mages needing to spellsteal the mage shield and a hunter tanking. All the while needing to burst down targets asap. It seemed like it really asked the most out of each class.
WoTLK: Lady Deathchill is how add fights should be like. Having to manage how the adds are dealt with while still the boss is still throwing things around. Then the boss shield pops and its time to go nuts on her.
Cata: Ascendant Council was just a fun fight imo. Dealing with the 4 elemental lords and countering mechanics based on which 2 were up seemed fun. The final elementium monstrosity was a very fun burn phase.
MoP: The last boss in MSV. Will of the Emperor? I think. The dance melee had to do in order to unleash a nuke on the bosses while ranged had to deal with the sparks. Add in the various adds that would drop down and it was a very fun fight.