Top 3 Worst raids ever

[Deleted]

Lol what? Vasjh was a complex fight but Kael wasnt?

I'm not sure how logic made Kael a bad fight? you're shooting fire from your hands, but the fact that he sends his henchmen to fight you first is silly? what?

The bad thing about the kael fight was it took like 20 minutes to kill, and the first 4 minutes was just killing the easy advisors one at a time. So when you were learning the actual Kael phase of the fight which starts like 10 minutes into the fight you would have a long time inbetween good tries. And the trash was horrible and corpse runs took ages. But in a lot of ways, it was a good boss.

[muto]

Trial of the (Grand) Crusader
Dragon Soul
Icecrown Citadel

I also dislike the Eye of Eternity, but it only has one boss, so it's not technically a "raid" in my opinion.

[Fitzgerald77]

2: Sunwell

lolwut? I fail to see how SWP was one of the worst raids >_>

[Bakis]

Worst
1. ToC
2. DS
3. FL

Best
1. SW
2. KZ
3. BT

[Kreepo]

1.EoE
2.ToC
3.Ruby Sanctum

[Malackai]

I dunno, when you fight Osiris and the sandstorm comes up, or going through the really insecty/slimy corridors after Buru on the way to Arakiss or w/e the flying on is called.... very creepy.

Temple was amazing! Pyramid outside that you enter the first halls of then descend through a slime covered tunnel into the lair of the insects.... and then from Twin Emperors onwards - Ouro and C'thun both brilliantly done...

AQ is probably one of my favourite raids. I'm not saying you're not entitled to your opinion on the matter, but I wouldn't call them bland. Ugly, sure thats up to the beholder, but bland? Naw...

I loved AQ 40 as well it always surprises me how big the dungeon feels. and I loved the vibe it gave even if back then it was the sunwell equivalent of Vanilla.
Now with the new patch and the old raid dungeons dropping some pets.
Started farming MC and BWL again and and they always feel spacious and big (even if there filled to the brim with trash packs).
I personally found that the Mop raids feel so smallish especially terrace. HoF that one feels a little bigger.

My worst are pretty much:

Dragon soul
ICC/NAXX (wrath edition never really did the vanilla one)
Mogu vaults

[ThatInternet]

Okay I have no problem chiming in here, most theads in here don't get my brain wracked as much as this one.

1. Gruul's Lair.

Though the two fights in this raid were fun and unique encounters for their time, they felt really out of place. Here's a Giant known for his dragon slaughtering abilities, yet during the fight he shows none of this, basically making him a hyped up Hogger experience

2. ToC

Why? Why did ToC have to happen. What purpose was it to make your army fight each other leaving it more vulnerable than ever on what was basically LK's backyard. it would of made sense if there was one mounted boss encounter, just to get everyone in there for the glory and triumph, and have things get drastic after that one fight have Sindragosa show up and cause the floor to collapse into the spider kindgom, where you would fight a few more spider based bosses(which could have the same mechanics as the actual bosses did). Lorewise, this was a big letdown.

3. Dragonsoul

Not only is the thrill of a new raid primarily the new zone they did not pull off a wasted dragonblight anywhere near they could of(which they ironically made work in the 5 man dungeon) Why wasn't the whole zone scorched, wasn't that what deathwing was doing for 2 patches randomly across the planet? They also royally fucked up with the Hagara fight. Not because it was also an older raid zone, but because it should of been Milhouse Manastorm, not random lore orc X. The fights in this raid were great, but dragonblight was seriously lame. it should of been totally scorched by dragonfire, ala the interior of the sunwell instance. Deathwing should of also had a ground phase in the first half of the dungeon in human form, underestimating the strength of the champions of the frozen wastes, and becoming injured in that form, making him easier to be completely incapacitated by the dragon soul. The madness fight in the maelstrom was the most cliche place for the madness fight. Did DW seriously want to go back there and get plated back up again? why? Why didn't he head for the dark portal and destroy it from the outland side, his damn fortress is just east of there... this could of given the bloodelves a time to shine with the final portal to shattrath being under their control.

I really don't like the boss tier system where you fight up the ranks. Ulduar(I skipped wrath so i never got to play this in it's heyday) made sense. You were delving into something much bigger than yourself, and the reveal of an old-god and the depth of his corruption played great with the first true introduction of the titans in the game.

The tier system has run it's course in wow, and it's time they look for new interesting ways to tell a story in raids, rather than stick to the main lacky>Overseer>general>council>final boss formula.

The Voljin Scenario in 5.1 is beautiful. It is WoW storytelling at it's best, and I hope they continue that in the raids to come for mists.

----

PS here are my two hopes for 5.2 raid/lore:

A. Voljin and the alliance Conquer the Zandalari with Voljin claiming reign over all trolls under the darkspear. this leads to the broken horde(horde players) joining forces with him(and baine obviously; sylvanas may switch sides once she sees garrosh no longer needs her forsaken, as he can construct his own stone armywhich in garrosh mindset is better that weak putrid corpses)

___________________Or this can happen:

B. Jaina will Begin to amass an army on Tel'Abim (supposedly between kalimdor and Pandaria) This army will have it's own landfall(reputation same as the argent crusade) and will join with Voljin to counterbalance garrosh. Garrosh will decimate the alliance forces with his newfound mogu magic combined with demonic power. Before this happens, Garrosh's forces, and the alliance forces will destroy the zandalari, leaving the darkspear the final endangered race of trolls. Once Voljin sees that his people are the last of their kind, he will return with his own secret power of pandaria(probably the kind that freed the pandaren from the mogu initially)

5.3.Garrosh will have bolstered his forces and severely fucked up with demon/mogu magic (My guess is a foreshadowing of Sargeras, through the unveiling of Y'shaarj) and we will have to kill Y'shaarj with the aid of Voljin's army, anduin and wrathion.

5.4 Garrosh's army have heavy losses from Y'shaarj and he retreats in desperation to orgrimmar, where he tries to again regain power through demon magic which is out of his control, opening a rift between orgrimmar and the demonic realm, Xoroth(we have opened small realms before from xoroth in order to acquire dreadsteeds) Garrosh will embrace full demonic power, and using his knowledge of mogu magic, he will somehow lift the curse of flesh upon him, essentially becoming a demon-titan hybrid (the process of which will allow xorothian warlocks to use their forces to fuck around in tomb of Sargeras(located on azeroth) welcoming the return of the TRUE burning legion in 6.0

Sorry I got off track. I do that sometimes, I just fucking love the lore in WoW and wish I could work for blizzard, even though you will probably find at least 1000 reasons nothing I said could happen.

[Matson]

1. Naxx 2.0
2. OS
3. Firelands after nerfs ( didn't get to see prenerfed version)

[Enderan]

Before I start the first 2 are really a toss up as to which is the worst, they were both truly terrible.

1. Dragon Soul: There was nothing challenging or fun about any of the boss encounters. I had been so pumped about getting to see and fight against deathwing, that i was letdown so hard by how dumb the spine mechanics were and the madness fight was. I know a lot of people that would complain constantly about how long ICC was the content to be at and how they wanted something new, but honestly when you think back we raided DS for about that long, and that was only 8 bosses not 12.

2. Firelands: Mechanics were old reused and boring. Again there was not much challenge about this place until heroic rag. The one thing that I can say that saved it from the no 1 spot for me had to be that my paladin tier looked so badass!

3. Throne of the four winds I don't know why i just couldn't stand this place.

[Kuniku]

of the raids i've done

ToC
AQ (didn't really like the style of them tbh, bosses were fun though!
EoE - bit lame

[Lap]

I don't understand all the people who bash on ToC, I thought that it was a fun instance overall. The fights were entertaining (except for Faction Champs, which was bullsh*t to the limit), the concept was smart (only the best of the best get to fight in ICC)

Stopped reading after that~ sorry Don. I just don't see how bringing 'only' your best, as opposed to your entire collective army, is a 'smart' move. I loved ToC btw, mainly as there was no trash and we could clear insanity runs very fast, leaving more time for pvp

*edit: Faction champs (for me) was the MOST entertaining fight!
I mean c'mon, compared to the rest of ToC... In 25man, although it was still pve and scripted, the AI was great fun to play against and the sheer number of control being thrown around made it an insane (pun intended) amount of fun! EXTREMELY entertaining.

[Vektorix]

Lol what? Vasjh was a complex fight but Kael wasnt?

I'm not sure how logic made Kael a bad fight? you're shooting fire from your hands, but the fact that he sends his henchmen to fight you first is silly? what?

I didn't say Kael wasn't a complex fight - it very much was. But it was also EXTREMELY scripted and predictable. Scripted encounters follow very specific and repetitive patterns, and often depend more on knowing what to do/where to stand/when to do specific abilities at specific times, which makes the encounter feel like a play you are acting in rather than an actual fight against a supremely powerful boss.

The Kael'thas encounter starts by his four advisors attacking you in the exact same order every time, with the aim to have them die in certain areas of the room making it easier to control them when they are resurrected. Then you fight and loot their weapons, SOLELY for the purpose of getting buffs that help you later in the encounter (why would a boss want to give you more of a chance to beat him?) Then you have to fight the resurrected advisors, and kill them before 120 seconds pass and Kael'thas joins the fight (before then you just can't attack him at all). When Kael joins the fight he has some very powerful abilities, but when he reaches 50% health he completely switches to different abilities until you kill him. Yes it's a complex fight but it's very predictable and repetitious.

Contrast to Lady Vashj, which was also complex, but relied more on player skill and knowledge than just following the script. Phase One was mostly simple tank and spank, but was also a DPS/healing check - if you were having trouble handling the damage output of Vashj during Phase One, you weren't going to make it through Phase Three. Phase Two was the hard one, where there were like five jobs that needed doing (tank and kill adds quickly so they don't start overlapping, kite and kill striders quickly so THEY don't start overlapping, kill normal elementals before they reached Vashj, find and kill poisoned elementals, then toss the crystals from player to player in order to deactivate shield generators - which I must say is the big flaw in this encounter - having the key to switching off the boss' protective shield being readily available from mobs, plus keeping the raid healed and avoiding unnecessary damage), and any player could be required to do almost any of those jobs at any time. It was chaos, and it really tested whether you had 25 players who could think on their feet. Finally Phase Three was just like Phase One, only longer, and with the hazard of poison zones that restricted your movement and acted as a soft enrage timer.

I wasn't saying that Kael'thas was less complex or less hard than Lady Vashj, but I WAS saying that Lady Vashj was by far a much better encounter, in my opinion. I always disliked scripted boss encounters (Kael, Illidan, Lich King) way more than more free-form bosses (Lady Vashj, Archimonde, Faction Champs). The former depended upon you knowing the flow of the encounter and executing it just right, whereas the latter depended more upon you being a good player and being able to make the most of your skills and opportunities.

[Tokas]

1. everything cataclysm related
2. everything cataclysm related
3. everything cataclysm related

[Madruga]

Intersting how ToC always gets a lot of "love" in these threads.

Personally, I liked the place, but probably because I didn't do it for long. But I can see where this hatred comes from... only 5 bosses, scenario doesn't change, limited attempts, 4 separate lockouts leading to extreme burnout and, on top of all that, came after the largely revered Ulduar raid.

But now it has a powerful contender...

Dragon Soul!

I had said back then that this would be a runner up for worst raid ever... And it lived up to my expectations!

Now, to crown the third permanent spot in "Worst Raids ever"... Because the other 2 are set for good!

[Drihan]

ToC, ICC, and DS. I think it's unfair to use MoP raids in my list as it's still ongoing, but let's just say that I enjoyed WotLK more than MoP, and that says a lot considering how much I hate that piece of shit and waste of time expansion who ended up doing more harm than good than all the other expansions combined.

[Marema]

Everything that has a 'hardmode' version. Raids were 'hardmode' back in my raiding days and didn't need a gimmick to make it so.

[Deleted]

1. DS(but only this freaking deathwing repeat everything 4 times until death shit encounters, the other 6 were fresh)
2. FL(i really hate so much magma and fire in one place)
3. naxx 2.0 / bwl (vael wipes for the lulz)

[Outofmana]

Everything that has a 'hardmode' version. Raids were 'hardmode' back in my raiding days and didn't need a gimmick to make it so.

Aye, I actually quit wow for a few months right after our Yoggsaron25 normal kill because I wasn't gonna do the whole place again just for some hardmodes. Felt retarded.

1. Dragonsoul. Everything was terrible but the most terrible, lazy, boring boss encounter ever created ingame is the Hagara one. They actually recycled _everything_ on that boss, from the room to the boss' gear. At the end of the fight I expected the floor to explode and drakes to apear.
2. TotGC
3. Firelands / BwD / ICC..... all 3 deserve a spot in this list as well.

[Tetriss]

1.ToC - The Idea of training raiders to go into ICC by slaying many of them was just retarded. Many died in the process. Blizzard at it's all time worst.
2. Naxx2.0 - Nearly identical remake of Naxx, we get bored of content halfway through the tier, when i found out i had to do it again i was at an all time low.
3. Dragon Soul - Didn't match up to how epic and powerful they made deathwing sound, overall raid was just very badly designed and boring. The only encounters in that raid that actually got in your way were morchok and ultraxion, hagara and yorsahj and zonozz felt very very pointless to kill.

[Chickat]

1. Dragon Soul
2. Naxx 2.0
3. ToC