Worst WoW raid ever?

[Sills]

Dragon Soul

- Pitiful story
- Rehashed areas
- Uninspired boss design
- Snoozy encounters
- Just all around disappointing for a character as crazy and evil and powerful as Deathwing

The biggest thing for me with DS was that it was the final raid of the expansion. It was supposed to be this grand showdown between the defenders of Azeroth and one of the greatest evils we have seen. To(G)C was just another stepping stone to the showdown with the LK but DS was supposed to be this epic ending of Deathwing. The story of DS just did not deliver for me and that disappointment still sticks with me whenever I think about DS.

At least with Trial of the Crusader, there was no trash. I kind of enjoyed just getting in and getting down to business with the bosses. Clearing that raid didnt take much time...it was a raid of convenience.

[Zka]

On the flip side I expected so much more out of ICC, only to ultimately be let down when I realized the only coolest parts were the 5 mans, and the pinnacle/base of the Frozen Throne.

Yeah, the best content of LK were these ICC 5mans and Ulduar.

[Mormolyce]

Eh, RS was okay for a filler raid. What did you expect?

[Resentful]

Eh, RS was okay for a filler raid. What did you expect?

I didn't expect the exact same f'ing layout as OS just with... trees and a pink dragon in the middle of the area whos known as the PUG breaker.

[Lethora]

Circus in the Icecrown, also known as Trial of the Crusader.
That's the only raid that made me quit for several months.

[Zka]

Circus in the Icecrown, also known as Trial of the Crusader.
That's the only raid that made me quit for several months.

You're not alone, that was the first point when I quit the game for months, after playing for years. The last straw were the Champions. Really, a pvp boss? That boss is really good for someone who hates pvp, playing with 24 others who feel the same. Yeah. NOT

[nekobaka]

I didn't expect the exact same f'ing layout as OS just with... trees and a pink dragon in the middle of the area whos known as the PUG breaker.

When the Plague wing of ICC was released it was called the PuG breaker by raiding guilds on my realm, namely Festergut. One player could fuck up that fight along with a higher dps requirement on a fight that involved some movement for range which resulted in most PuGs and even casual guilds taking many months just to down two bosses in plague wing along with other factors like dbags that leave groups early.

[Lylandra]

Definitely ToC. I loathed the raid BEFORE it came out and thought it was just a joke so the "real thing" would be a big surprise (a la Azjol-Nerub)
I really really hate this instance, so this might come off as ranty

You had literally two boss rooms and one hallway with five bosses in total. In a "full raid tier" raid. You could farm it 4 times a week and - if you had a 10 man guild group and a 25 man conglomerate like me - you did exactly that. I don't mind the "no trash" thing, but it just doesn't feel right in an instance with more than 1-2 bosses.
Out of the five bosses, only 3 were enjoyable (Beasts, twins and Anub) and the other two were far too easy (Jaraxxus) or "WTF why PVP in a PVE fight??? why do I have to specc frost and do nothing but kite/CC??? Why can't you 'rupt them all?? HEAL?!?!?!". To make things worse, only one additional boss was available each fucking week. Artificial content barriers ftl....

And on top of that all... you had the worst story ever for a raid, the worst characterization of NPC and OOC-ness on top of that. Plus the worst moments of Mr. self-righteous Tirion that annoyed/angered my RP-char so much that she wanted to throw over the hierarchy of the argent crusade and dethrone him once and for all.

("If you don't mind to kill off your champions in this perverse arena game of yours IN FRONT OF THE SCOURGE then why....WHY in the light's name did you send me to the DREAM, ALEXSTRASZA and the NAARU just to save ONE Bridenbrad?!?!?!")

- - - Updated - - -

When the Plague wing of ICC was released it was called the PuG breaker by raiding guilds on my realm, namely Festergut. One player could fuck up that fight along with a higher dps requirement on a fight that involved some movement for range which resulted in most PuGs and even casual guilds taking many months just to down two bosses in plague wing along with other factors like dbags that leave groups early.

always thought Putricide to be the PuG-Breaker^^

[Deleted]

Circus in the Icecrown, also known as Trial of the Crusader.
That's the only raid that made me quit for several months.

Same here.
Except I quit after Heroic Spine too. Fck that boss.

[Deleted]

as many have said toc, but other than that, t11 and foward. It was when ----> IMO <---- they stoped adding things to make fights harder, and started adding annoyances instead (ofc there are exceptions).

[nekobaka]

always thought Putricide to be the PuG-Breaker^^

Putricide is my favorite fight of ICC along with the voice acting. Heroic was so much fun as well.

[Celista]

I liked RS as well. Its placement was just kinda shitty to be worthwhile particularly for the amount of effort required compared to ICC with the buff. I do think it had too much trash but otherwise the trash was fun.

Ruby Sanctum was great. The only thing wrong w/it was that it should have been released as a filler raid before ICC...mechanics were a lot of fun, trinkets were awesome.

[vesseblah]

Explain why there was a lack of substance? Ulduar was one of the lore-heaviest raids we've ever seen.

Ulduar's story was "we have this big baddie locked up in here, and now the prison guards are too bored to do their jobs so the adventurerers' job is to go kill everything from the staff to the inmates and close to place down". It was a place that turned old gods into recurring "x was just a setback" joke.

All of the interesting lore material in Ulduar was locked away with the bonus boss Algalon, in a place that guaranteed 99% of players wouldn't actually get to see it.

[MrWilson]

ulduar. to big and flashy and no substance

Don't feed the trolls

[UR1L]

Hyjal has to be the worst. The trash was annoying and stupid and the bosses were way too easy. The hardest part was "lag"(ie people's stupidity) on Archimonde.
Dragon Soul might have been reused content and unepic for a final raid but it was alot harder than any TBC raids apart from Sunwell.

Molten Core was pretty shit aswell but since it's vanilla and the difficulty had to be easy enough for 40 people I'll let it pass.

[Beet]

DS, when you consider it is was the climax of Cataclysm.

But if take that context out, ToGC, Ruby Sanctum, MC and alot of the vanilla content are the worse now.

Not sure how anyone can label MC or any vanilla content as the worst, lol. It was rather amazing for its time. I mean when you consider MC to be a joke, you have to realize many people couldn't pug it for a long long time. And if I see anyone mention BWL or AQ40 as the worst I'd smack someone. BWL was imo one of the most creative raids at least for it's time. AQ40 is also very under appreciated. Fights like Twin Emperors were examples of clever but manangable mechanics we don't see anymore. Well for one we can't see them anymore since Blizzard decided to make every raid a two tank max fight.

I actually miss fights taking 4 or so tanks. Being forced to one or two tanks only pigeon holds the raid developers severely in what they can do. Which is why we see so much of the same stuff repeated. And this isn't just my opinion this is exactly what Tigole said back in WotLK.

But yeah for me the worst raid by far was Dragon Soul. Such a let down and on all aspects. Bland fights, terrible scenery and rehashed models for everything but Deathwing himself. I mean seriously when I saw two of the bosses were simply a Female Orc and a Male Tauren I was cringing. Was lame too because Firelands was so amazing right before DS.

I'd throw Naxx 2.0 in the hat for being one of the worst raids ever too. To this day I don't think any dungeon during it's peak was as easy and watered down as Naxx 2.0 was. It was especially sad because many people heard how epic it was and were dying to experfience the greatness for themselves.. But alas..

Also I'd say Cata's launch raids have been very underrated and am saddened to hear them mentioned as the worst!

- - - Updated - - -

As a rule TotC wins. But why no poll.

Without rose tinted glasses, I am actually leaning towards Molten Core. Imagine this raid today: A huge cave. Trash and bosses share the same models. Most of these models are all known from mobs you encountered while levelling.

As for people hitting on the DS encounter mechanics? Well..in MC we fight:
A Snake with 2 adds (CC / kill adds, kill boss)
A snake with 4 adds (CC / kill adds, kill boss)
A snake with 6 adds (CC / kill adds, kill boss)..maybe it was 8 adds..so long ago.

The mechanics of Magmadar required you to only do Lucifron for 4 weeks to get your 4 hunters a book of tranquil shot to tranq the enrage. Etc.

No question..I loved MC back then. We had nothing else but Onyxia (another cave with 1 boss) but already BWL put it to shame.

You see here's the difference. MC came out almost a decade ago and it actually put some of the EQ raids to shame. Dragon Soul came out right after we did Firelands which was amazing, AND it was the last raid of the expansion. So yeah DS without a down wins worst raid ever.

Also to the people hating on Ruby Sanctum - Did you actually do it? For one if anyone expected it to be a tier on par with ICC they were ignorant. It was said it would be filler from the get go. And IMO the boss fight was actually very fun. I had a blast taking a break from H25LK to work on Heroic Halion too.

[wariofan1]

Dragon Soul by the thousands of landslides that ruined Deathwing's character to begin with.

People hate on DS because of the LFR versions being so easy it didnt feel epic. I assure you heroic at the time felt pretty epic. That said, level design was a factory of reused zones, and the only new place was DW's spine.

The problem with Dragon Soul lied in so many other things than the encounters too. It was supposed to be the Deathwing raid, a raid so many of us have waited for even longer than we waited for ICC. What we got was a completely rehashed location that didn't make much sense other than Blizzard being too lazy to take us underground. Deathwing not acting like Deathwing at all, I don't see any intelligence in the big generic dragon we took down. And once again it put waaaaaay too much focus on Thrall, heck, it was Thrall's raid more than it was Deathwing's. Add to it that the Deathwing encounters felt like gauntlet event, and the rest of the encounters were very uninspired too, and Deathwing is single handedly the one thing in Blizzard's history that they have butchered the most, nevermind Diablo 3. Of course we had a half-assed death scene to go with our poor butchered character, the guy who was once acknowledged as one of the best Warcraft villains ever was degraded to a tool for Metzen's precious little Thrall to bounce off of.

[Djuntas]

TOTC, just cause it was very small, not the most fun bosses and inn general didn't make much sence lore-wise if you ask me.

DS. I was lucky to manage a pre-nerf HC spine kill inn my formor guild as a trial - All the rumours about bull-shit class stacking was true...We benched hunters etc. Basicly overall the hole raid was just crap. I sort off liked the boss with the blobs, thoes colors, but rest....no thanks. Edit: Not to mention how easy it was. My old guild (before I tried out for the mentioned trial) that had a world rank off like 3k (So very average/bad) cleared normal mode before Sunday, and could have been done on friday if it wasen't cause off bugs on Deathwing fight....basicly fuck the hole patch.

No other raids than thoes 2 really.

[Felarion]

Dragon Soul. Re-used models,re-used terrain, only 8 bosses for Last Tier of the Expac.

[Proxant]

Heart of Fear.