How would you rank (by "like", not difficulty) all the boss fights in Cata?

[DraconusIX]

Note - Please say if you are ranking the normal or hard modes. I am ranking the heroic fights only, not normals. this is all from the role of a ranged dps.

1) Ragnaros - Satisfying fight. Great variety, great strats, then the fight takes on a completely new dynamic with LEGS (sadly i miss triangle stacking). The only fight that i would rank as epic
2) Valiona & Theralion Fight that very nicely tested stacking and unstacking, with good rotation clipping, multidotting, and CD management mattering a lot. Rewarded the good dps.
3) Cho'gal - I like fighting chars with more lore behind them, combine that with good multi-phase fight and a good difficulty. Rewards people for not being stupid with environment, yet does not auto-wipe the raid for screwing up(only complaint is the worship is annoying when a warlock fears you across the room and forgot to glyph it).
4) Zon'ozz - Not sure why exactly, but I loved the fight. A good twist on heroic with how P2 works, and breaking up the monotany with well spaced Movement and killing tentacles.
5) Atramedes - good fight for testing tons of movement, while not being to severe with small screw ups.
6) Baelroc - I loved this tank n spank with a twist fight. The downside was the dps requirements pre-nerf combined with 2 of your 3 heals (yes you 3 or 4healed it in 25 early on) getting the link.
7) Sinestra - Wrack and unaware tunnel visioners who got a shadow cutter was painful, but the fight was still dynamic and fun.
8) Madness of deathwing. Fight had a hard time tuning itself, with most of the fight being dynamic, but undertuned then 2 extreme spikes in difficulty(sub 5% and 4th platform) For the endboss, was overall to easy, and I was highly disappointed that you dpsed static tentacles or deathwing.
9) Ultraxion - tank n spank fight, but the fading light is a meh mechanic imo. Soaking the booms though was a nice feature.
10) Alysrazor - flying was all number maxing, but dpsing on the ground was a good bit of fun. Really stressed your raid awareness and good movement if you were dpsing on the ground.
11) Majordomo - not the best fight when you are a ranged without an instant - get me out of here- ability. Had some interesting raid mechanics and movement though.
12) Halfus - another fight that could of been ranked higher if only it was tuned better.
13) Omnotron - excellent awareness fight, though it relied a little to heavily on interrupters and having to stop dots early is always painful to avoid breaking those shields.
14) Shannox - good fight, my knock on it was it was woefully undertuned
15) Mediocre fight, badly undertuned
16) Maloriak - fight was a mediocre one. Combine that with having to stop dps so you can get a green phase to clear adds (which basically was punishment for being good dps) and it was boring and dull.
17) Gunship - Fight was one of extremes. In many ways it was nice as it rewarded people for smart movement and min/maxing your multi-target moves. it was utterly painful when fire decides it is going to cover the whole ship when you reach p2 with the ship at 38% and the gnomes wont put it out. the RNG on the fire....awful. Nearly every wipe was due to something going wrong due to fire.
18) Nefarian - P2 was .....gah when your resto shaman is your best interupter. Combine that with P3 being all about 1 person learning to kite adds....
19) Beth'tilac - Fight was fairly annoying to learn as its 90% teaching 3 people to soak broodlings while soaking little spiders. Worst part is that slow from the broodling explosion then 3 hightail it for the middle soaker at once. Once you get the fight down, boring as not uncommon for everything within 40 yards to be dead.
20) Yorsahj - Any mana user with a 3 min CD on their mana talent understands the frustration of trying to maintain competitive dps with several blues in a row.
21) Magmaw - I kite. Pretty boring to kite for the whole time. Not hard, just boring.
22) Ascendant Council - frost orb is on "player that likes to tunnel vision". Probably the worst fight for that 1 out of 25 person causing a wipe. Combine that with the annoying spread and shifts between ground and air....
23) Hagara - pillars not wanting to light. both healers getting ice blocked. insta-gibs from the stacking ice buff and lance. A fight that wasn't that interesting combined with RNG.
24) Conclave of wind - Guess what - I kited the adds. Anyone who dislikes kiting and was forced to kite this fight understands.
25) Chimaeron - I love fights that cause tank gibs and punishes dps who lack threat drops. Combine that with the miss chance from ooze screwing up your rotation very unpredictably....
26) Rhyolith - getting dps to switch feet collectively and cleave just right is pretty frustrating. combine that with having to teach the RL how to call out steering (which dps to switch) and the fight was a pain to learn at first, before becoming a snoozefest once people learn it. there just was no middle ground.
27) Spine - Stack arcane mages and die a few hundred times to P3 bloods.
28) Al'akir - double squall lines crossing and wind blast converge on tank heals at once. Hated the RNG and sheer difficulty of this fight on 25H

[wariofan1]

Raggy, Atramedes, Nefarian and Al'Akir would be ranked highest, damn I loved BWD. Madness, Spine, Ultraxion and Yor'shaj would hit rock bottom, Madness hitting the very lowest place possible, it was the most dissapointing fight ever for what used to be one of Warcraft's best characters. Metzen is such a fool...

[Quarts]

BWD was fun overall, Nefarian being the best fight in there. BoT had solid bosses and Cho'gall was fun, but kinda felt short. Conclave was boring, but Al'akir was really fun (although slightly frustrating to learn).

For Firelands, Rhyolith sucked but the rest of the fights were decent and Ragnaros was the best fight of Cataclysm.

Dragonsoul was repetitive overall, with mostly tank and spank fights. Madness was incredibly boring to progress on (14 minutes of silence in Mumble then the last minute being hectic). Spine was equally boring but less rewarding because it hardly felt like a boss encounter. Ultraxion was fun as a Holy Paladin and the rest of the fights were easy and simple.

[Darkfrosty]

Heroic Ragnaros is one of the best fights of all time to me. Nef was good Sinestra was good. I enjoy most of the heroic DS encounters my favorites would have to be Warmaster and Hagraa. Currently progressing on Spine and I have to admit I enjoy it thus far.

[Deleted]

I hated some bosses while progressing on them, but looking back some of those are my fondest memories from cata

1) Omnotron
2) Valiona & Theralion
3) Ragnaros
4) Atramedes
5) Chimaeron
6) Nefarian
7) Chogall

Uhh, cba to rank from here. Wind council was the worst one though. Nice concept but i hated it.



No DS fights in there as i'm still doing those and they all feel kind of boring atm :P

[Deleted]

Firelands - Shannox was decent but not amazing, Rhyolith sucked, Alysrazor was TERRIBLE to heal but fun in other ways, Beth was meh, Baleroc was nice to heal especially as disc priest, Majordomo was a nice fight, Ragnaros was pretty amazing
DS - Morchok as with shannox decent but not amazing, Yor'sahj was very cool, Zon'ozz difficult & fun to heal, Hagara unique but kinda boring, Ultraxion unique but kinda boring, Warmaster not that great really, Spine I really liked despite what people say about it, Madness was OK but not amazing (and nothing on Ragnaros)

Standout fights therefore were

Alysrazor because it was so PAINFUL, that fight really did punish mistakes
Rhyolith because it took us over a month to kill, but boring fight overall
RAGNAROS because it's awesome, best fight of Cataclysm for me
Yor'sahj because of it's uniqueness, and it's very cool to heal
Zon'ozz like Alys because it was so PAINFUL, we wiped so much to this boss even after killing it

It's funny because I think I'll remember the bad fights more than I will the good ones (aside from Raggy)

[Letharg]

10m mostly heroic from heal and boomkin PoV.

Ten best fights (1 best)
1. Magmaw (first hm I killed after a long pause and I loved it)
2. Alysrazor (awesome fight very different damage incoming for every phase lots of stuff to dodge and healing while running and flying was sooo much fun)
3. Al akir (very fun mechanics and looks great ^^)
3 Gunship (well its rng but it was the first fight in DS hero where I really had problems with movement and had to learn it and it takes me back to
firefighter my overall number one)
4. Yor sahj (I liked the purble debuffs and its the only boss in DS that isnt bugged =D)
5 Nefarian (just felt right)
6. Madness (well it may be to repetitive but the fight is going in the right direction)
7. Council (only killed it nh but i liked it)
8. Omnotron (same as above)
9. Bethi (a lot to heal, not that much movement but overall fun fight)
10. hagara (rather easy fight but the frost phase really is fun and im the dispeller, too. lightning phase on the other hand isnt really fun to heal.)


10 worst fights: (1=worst)

1. Spine (without words)
2. Ragnaros (maybe because 2/3 of our group failed mechanics for 3 or 4 weeks that I had no problems with after the 3rd pull)
3. Halfus (was something different but not really fun)
4. Ryolith (too much RNG)
5. Shannox (boring)
6. Baleroc (was fun in the beginning but got annoying very fast)

ok only 6 worst ^^ rest was ok but nothing special

[Deleted]

Heroic 10M:

Best (1 being the best):
1. Ragnaros
2. Cho'gall
3. Neferian
4. Yor'sahj
5. Atramedes

I know most of these were not "hard", but at least it didn't feel like luck when you killed them.

Worst (1 being the worst):
1. Ascendent Council
2. Madness of Deathwing
3. Conclave of Wind
4. Lord Rhylioth
5. Al'Akir

[Deleted]

Hmm. Interesting thread. I have actually thought about it myself and asked my friends the same question. There are bosses I dont like at all, no matter how good the voice acting or concept or difficulty is. There are bosses that are really awesome from a design perspective even if they were cheesed in some way or another on live (Majordomo). And there are bosses where just the immersion is enough to make you adore it. And bosses were all aspects fall in line and create a wonderful experience. Most of these were in Tier 11. I like bosses which are complex, have multiple aspects to it and several intricate mechanics that test the whole raid.

1. Ascendant Council Heroic.
2. Ragnaros Heroic
3. Omnotron Defense System Heroic
4. Alysrazor Heroic

tiny gap

5. Cho'gall Heroic
6. Sinestra
7. Magmaw Heroic

another gap

8. Baleroc Heroic
9. Maloriak Heroic
10. Valiona & Theralion Heroic
11. Majordomo Heroic

more gaps

12. Ultraxion Heroic
13. Atramedes Heroic
14. Morchok Heroic

gap

15. Nefarian Heroic
16. Conclave of Wind Heroic
17. Warlord Zon'ozz Heroic
18. Al'Akir Heroic
19. Warmaster Blackhorn Heroic
20. Beth'tilac Heroic
21. Yor'sahj the Unsleeping Heroic
22. Chimaeron Heroic
23. Halfus Wyrmbreaker Heroic

huge gap - the following are the least favourite


24. Hagara the Stormbinder Heroic
25. Madness of Deathwing Heroic
26. Lord Rhyolith Heroic
27. Shannox Heroic
28. Spine of Deathwing Heroic

[BrokenHearthstone]

I thought Firelands had the best fights. After that would definitely be BWD, and then i would say the last four bosses of Dragon Soul. All the other fights were okay, some were boring, but some were fun.

[thehordemage]

1) Ragnaros
2) Ascendant Council
3) Spine of Deathwing
4) Warmaster Blackhorn
5) Omnitron Defense System

[Deleted]

10 man heroic!

1) ragnaros
2) nefarian
3) spine of deathwing
4) warmaster blackhorn
5) cho'gall
6) sinestra
7) ascendant council
8) baleroc
9) ultraxion
10) halfus wyrmbreaker
11) yor'shaj
12) maloriak

[DraconusIX]

A lot of you must of had better interrupters then me to rank nefarian so high. I liked the fight, but memories were quite tainted because of the interrupts. And letharg - try kiting council and magmaw as boomkin. It can be done...but is.....

Ragnaros seems to be an overall highly ranking fight.

Prob my favorite raid overall was firelands (ragnaros was my #2 fav kill of all time), with BoT the 2nd best raid. DS was a bit better then BWD imo, but the worst easily was To4W. RNG and having to kite adds as a moonkin.

[Masoa]

As a rogue 25H:

1) Alysrazor (flying)
2) Al'Akir
3) Hagara
4) Atramedes
5) Sinestra

[Pikevinge]

You ask us to rank without using difficulty, but that is what you do in a lot of your boss descriptions...

[NaaBcAke]

1. Ragnaros HC
2. Ascendent Council HC
3. Sinestra HC
4. Omnitron HC
5. Al Akir HC

Huge dissapointment with DS, didnt like any of the fights, almost progressed on 2 fights with playing with only 1 hand...

[a21fa7c67f26f6d49a20c2c51]

It's hard to rank them. I know nearly all of my favorite encounters were in tier 11. I wonder if that is just because it was the most difficult tier or because the "new shiny" hadn't warn off after a year of ICC.
T11 has robot council, captain planet, genie council, al'akir, sinestra. They were all fun for various reasons but I think my favorite of the lot was element in monstosity because it had a high degree of personal responsibility, many moving parts, and a stuff DPS and coordination check so you couldnt stack healers and bore the boss to death. Firelands added ragnaros to the mix but it should be said I never got tired of alysrazor (flying). Dragon soul doesn't have anything in that league. I think you can point to something like heroic twilight council as an example of how hard modes aren't just "the same fight with bigger numbers" but t13 hard modes that doesn't really follow. The only encounter with a noticeably more complex strategy on hard mode is Zon-Ozz and that just makes for a largely forgettable tier.

The only fights I felt were bad (as opposed to just forgettable) were post-nerf halfus, 25-man maloriak, and Chimeron, Rhyolith, and bug-tastic madness I try to remember encounters in their most fun forms but these ones strike me as fights where the game would have been better off without them. They were either insultingly easy for hard modes or broken to the point of frustration. I guess you could lump 25 man al'akir in there due to phase one nonsense. I try not to hold tuning difficulty against fights (the fact that everyone hit heroic spine or rag 2-3 weeks into the patch and hadn't farmed enough gear to easily hit DPS requirements doesn't feel like a flaw with the encounter so much as a flaw in the pacing of fights leading up to them. I shouldn't have made it to heroic rag still in full heroic T11. If I'd have got there in say the ~385 I finally killed it in then the weeks of trying p3 wouldn't have felt so wasted.

The fact that I liked encounters that we're challenging is coincident with the fact that I "liked" these fights. You can point to stuff like pre-nerf spine as a hard encounter but it wouldnt make my list of fun fights and therefore I wouldn't say I liked it.

[StupidPanda]

Warlock pov

Fights I like:

1) Omnotron Defense System
2) Al'akir
3) Ragnaros
4) V&T
5) Yor'sahj
6) Cho'gall
7) Ascendant Council
8) Magmaw
9) Ultraxion
10) Staghelm


Fights I hate:

1) Hagara
2) Rhyolith
3) Nefarian
4) Alysrazor
5) Spine

[Deleted]

I like all fights, I only don't like bugs.

The ball of Zon'ozz bugs, the jumping of Madness bugs, the Rhyolith 'can't enter instance in heroic' bug, etc.

I think a lot of players dislike novel fights due to conservatism.

e.g. there is no excuse to "hate" Hagara, other than its novel nature.

[Durbi]

Fights i like:

Sinestra
Ragnaros hc
Cho'gal hc
Magmaw hc
Nefarian hc

Fights i dislike:

Al'akir
Spine of Deathwing
Lord Rhyiloth
Atramedes
Madness of Deathwing normal