Raiding Tiers Ranked Best to Worst

[Kerza]

6,3,2,4,5,1,8,7,10,9,12,13

had a break under the t11 period and just havnt gone back(yet)

[Rauno]

8, 12, 10, 11, 7, 13, 9. Didn't raid in vanilla and bc.

[quikbunny]

Would be better if you just listed the raid names, not sure if people are interested in reading a line of numbers.

[Silverspark]

Only started raiding during Ulduar.

8 - Ulduar
10 - Icecrown Citadel, (Ruby Sanctum)
11 - Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Decent, Throne of the Four Winds
12 - Firelands
13 - Dragon Soul
9 - Trial of the [Grand] Crusader, (Onyxia 10/25)

[BleedingHollowVeteran]

8: Ulduar
6: Serpeantshrine Cavern, Temptest Keep, (Zul'Aman)
1: Molten Core, (Zul'Gurub)
3: Naxx40
2: Blackwing Lair, Onyxia40, AQ40
4: Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair
5: Serpeantshrine Cavern, Temptest Keep, (Zul'Aman)
11: Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Decent, Throne of the Four Winds
10: Icecrown Citadel, (Ruby Sanctum)
12: Firelands
7: Naxx 10/25, Obsidium Sanctum 10/25, (Eye of Eternity)
13: Dragon Soul
9: Trial of the [Grand] Crusader, (Onyxia 10/25)

I have to say that the best time I had was during TBC, that's where I met most of my friends at in WoW.. I still have a few Vanilla buddies that still play, but not many.

Just want to say that the artwork in Ulduar and Sunwell... The best I've yet seen from Blizzard in WoW.

[Kae]

Having been the raid leader or class leader of my guild through all 13 tiers (though admittedly, only did half of tier 3), my personal opinion would be, from best to worst:

6 - Black Temple, Mt. Hyjal, Sunwell Plateau - Most enjoyable all round, great artwork and locations, good lore characters, creative bosses, great memories
8 - Ulduar - Creatively difficult bosses, nice and big, introduced hard modes, something for everyone compared to the horror of t7.
11 - Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Decent, Throne of the Four Winds - loved having multiple dungeons of similar difficulty at once again, varied locations, generally well-tuned (although 10-mans a bit OP)
12 - Firelands - very creative bosses, amazing final boss, let down by being nerfed too early.
5 - Serpeantshrine Cavern, Tempest Keep, (Zul'Aman)
2 - Blackwing Lair, Onyxia40, AQ40 - wonderful contrast to MC, great locations, variety, good mix of trash and bosses.
3 - Naxx40 - soul-crushing difficulty, great design at the time, let down by consumable farming.
4 - Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair - great design, nice bosses, 10->25 conversion a pain, too much trash in Kara.
13 - Dragon Soul - interesting approach, cool story based concept, disappointing last boss.
10 - Icecrown Citadel, (Ruby Sanctum) - great at first, got old fast, too many uninteresting bosses.
9 - Trial of the [Grand] Crusader - great bosses, poor setting. Would have liked a lot more if it was a more interesting concept/location.
1 - Molten Core, (Zul'Gurub) - seemed fun at the time cause it was the first raid but in reality... no.
7 - Naxx 10/25, Obsidium Sanctum 10/25, (Eye of Eternity) - awful tier, aoefest, all bosses down in 2 nights, achievements barely took much longer and not even any real hard modes yet to have something else to do, ruined memories of Naxx.

[arel00]

Anyone that doesn't push MC to the deepest bottom doesn't know what he's talking about. It's a friggin cave with nothing but boring trash and some variation of an endless tank and spank fight. The only boss which was vaguely interesting was Geddon, and Ragnaros. Put AQ40 as a close second on the horror. Giant cave, part 2, this time filled with bugs and oh, the wonders of farming MARAUDON to beat an endgame boss.

Nostalgia feelings need to die, now. As dull as ToC was, at least the bosses were decent.

[PandarianLeakage]

Top 3:
-Black Temple
-Karazhan
-Naxxramas

Bottom 3:
-ToC
-Dragon Soul
-Ruby Sanctum

[Kae]

Anyone that doesn't push MC to the deepest bottom doesn't know what he's talking about. It's a friggin cave with nothing but boring trash and some variation of an endless tank and spank fight. The only boss which was vaguely interesting was Geddon, and Ragnaros. Put AQ40 as a close second on the horror. Giant cave, part 2, this time filled with bugs and oh, the wonders of farming MARAUDON to beat an endgame boss.

Nostalgia feelings need to die, now. As dull as ToC was, at least the bosses were decent.

ToC was definitely not as bad as I think most people remember, it had cool boss fights it was just a dull setting/lore and a bit short... and it came out right after Ulduar, which leaves a sour taste for many. It was definitely better than MC.

I would disagree on AQ though. I mean, Huhuran was pretty stupid, but the rest of the raid had some great fights so I can forgive it.

[undercovergnome]

i cant rank them all, but my favorites are probably ulduar and t11, and least favorite t13 and t9

---------- Post added 2012-03-16 at 12:04 PM ----------

ToC was definitely not as bad as I think most people remember, it had cool boss fights it was just a dull setting/lore and a bit short... and it came out right after Ulduar, which leaves a sour taste for many. It was definitely better than MC.

I would disagree on AQ though. I mean, Huhuran was pretty stupid, but the rest of the raid had some great fights so I can forgive it.

well t9 visually was bad, it just seemed dull, i think setting plays a big role in games, ulduar was cool because it felt like you were working deeper and deeper into the place as you progressed, and it had a mysterious feel about it,

[Kakera]

8
11
10
6
5
3
2
1
4
12
7
13
9

[Kae]

i
well t9 visually was bad, it just seemed dull, i think setting plays a big role in games, ulduar was cool because it felt like you were working deeper and deeper into the place as you progressed, and it had a mysterious feel about it,

Yep, I know, I agree! It's still in my bottom 3 raids, because of that very fact. Just not the very bottom. If they'd made it more interesting even with keeping the same boss mechanics, I'd have ranked it much higher.

Even if the floor-breaking had just happened after 2 bosses in the arena and there was an underground area with trash and walkways and actual rooms to explore with the remaining 3 bosses spread about inside, it would have been a much much higher ranked raid I think.

[Anjerith]

Visually? It's impossible for me to rank, each tier has had at least one very, very good design that I have loved. Since I don't care about the ones I don't play, they are all relatively equal to me.

[Thalmar]

6 >>> 10 > 5 > 4 >>> 11 > 12 >>> 13 > 7,9

Black Temple and Sunwell, my all time favourites. Archimonde was cool but that trash, oh god.
Icc surprisingly had good atmosphere, similar to Black Temple but couldn't compete with it. Although LK encounter was awesome, with some fun bosses (Putricide, Queen).
Karazhan, another great example of cool atmosphere, along with The Eye.
Cataclysm raids were good but not that great, I actually liked Throne of the Four Winds.

Bad raids were Naxx 2.0 and ToC.

[geirkri]

I like the idea behind the thread but AQ40 should be removed from tier 2 as it had tier 2.5 (had its own set bonuses atleast).

Anyways for my own ranking it has to be something like this (I stepped away from the game when fireland came out, and only did a few bosses there so I won`t rank that.

1. Black Temple, Mt. Hyjal, Sunwell Plateau - the Illidan fight is still the most fun fight I ever had and I did enjoy that entire tier of raids. The tier looked pretty cool for most classes also

2. Blackwing Lair, Onyxia40, AQ40 - Was a paladin back then and getting judgement after the reskin was so worth it. Also take into account a couple of cool mechanic fights (Vael even though he deserves the name guild destroyer) and also Onyxia had a good feeling to it back in the day.

3. Molten Core, (Zul'Gurub) - MC was a noobfest back in the day but still got fond memories of it due to the feel it gave and just how "big" the raid was. Getting a sulf back in vanilla clearly makes it a raid I really enjoyed and have good memories from.

4. Ulduar - Stunning looking, a bit too gimmicky for my personal taste in some of the fights.

5. Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Descent, Throne of the Four Winds - I found this to be really enjoyable as there was such a difference in the entire raids.

6. Icecrown Citadel, (Ruby Sanctum) - Pretty decent but wished Arthas had gotten a "better fight" overall, didn`t feel as good as the Illidan fight overall and a couple of other bosses was boring. Also raided it for way too long and that does make it go down on the "epicness scale".

7. Naxx40 - When it came out it was pure awesome, has fallen a bit in my personal preference due to beeing reused in wrath though.

8. Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair - Not bad but not good either, never was really into any of these raids.

9. Serpentshrine Cavern, Tempest Keep, (Zul'Aman) - Much the same as #8.

10. Trial of the [Grand] Crusader, (Onyxia 10/25) - ToGC was meh, reusing Onyxia was mega meh.

11. Naxx 10/25, Obsidium Sanctum 10/25, (Eye of Eternity) - Naxx beeing reused brings this on the bottom of my list, saw mostly everything back in vanilla, having it reused again made me "meh".


--

Did some adjustment along the way, and in general 1-9 can easily be adjusted for some reason of if I get some kind of memory that made me think fondly of a place. For me its more the negative that shines out with Tier 8 and 9 which landed the bottom 2 by a longshot.

[Duskmoon]

Sorted into groups from the most favourite to least (the further down, the less I liked it):

Black Temple, Mount Hyjal, Sunwell Plateau
Karazhan
Naxxramas 40
Ulduar

Ahn Qiraj 40, Ahn Qiraj 20
Blackwing Lair, Onyxia 40
Zul'Gurub
Zul'Aman


Serpeantshrine Cavern, Temptest Keep
Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair
Molten Core




Icecrown Citadel, Ruby Sanctum
Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Decent, Throne of the Four Winds




Firelands
Obsidium Sanctum, Eye of Eternity




Naxxramas v2
Trial of the Crusader, Onyxia v2














Dragon Soul

[geirkri]

Anyone that doesn't push MC to the deepest bottom doesn't know what he's talking about. It's a friggin cave with nothing but boring trash and some variation of an endless tank and spank fight. The only boss which was vaguely interesting was Geddon, and Ragnaros. Put AQ40 as a close second on the horror. Giant cave, part 2, this time filled with bugs and oh, the wonders of farming MARAUDON to beat an endgame boss.

Nostalgia feelings need to die, now. As dull as ToC was, at least the bosses were decent.

If you go back and play most of the former raids now its only a shell of what it used to be. A ranking like this will always be biased, and even though lots of later raids visually is on a different level to MC and also AQ40 was massive and fun at the time.

Yes the fights were boring, but the average skill of the players was not the same lvl it is today + you had 10-15 people running around like headless chickens).

In BT you had to farm shadow resist gear and tanks had to get fire res gear, that wasn`t much better compared to the nature resist farming for AQ tbh. or what about frost resist gear farming for Naxx40? :P

[Twoflower]

1 - Molten Core, (Zul'Gurub)
2 - Blackwing Lair, Onyxia40, AQ40
3 - Naxx40
4 - Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair
5 - Serpeantshrine Cavern, Temptest Keep, (Zul'Aman)
6 - Black Temple, Mt. Hyjal, Sunwell Plateau
7 - Naxx 10/25, Obsidium Sanctum 10/25, (Eye of Eternity)
8 - Ulduar
9 - Trial of the [Grand] Crusader, (Onyxia 10/25)
10 - Icecrown Citadel, (Ruby Sanctum)
11 - Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Decent, Throne of the Four Winds
12 - Firelands
13 - Dragon Soul

8, 5, 4, 2, 11, then i dont rely care, but at the end it's ... 1, 7, 9

[Ackbarspiff]

1 - Molten Core, (Zul'Gurub)
2 - Blackwing Lair, Onyxia40, AQ40
3 - Naxx40
4 - Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair
5 - Serpeantshrine Cavern, Temptest Keep, (Zul'Aman)
6 - Black Temple, Mt. Hyjal, Sunwell Plateau
7 - Naxx 10/25, Obsidium Sanctum 10/25, (Eye of Eternity)
8 - Ulduar
9 - Trial of the [Grand] Crusader, (Onyxia 10/25)
10 - Icecrown Citadel, (Ruby Sanctum)
11 - Bastion of Twilight, Blackwing Decent, Throne of the Four Winds
12 - Firelands
13 - Dragon Soul

From my experience:

3
2(mainly for AQ40/AQ20)
6
1(rose tinted glasses ftw =) )
8
5
4
10
9
7

cancelled slowly after Cata