Best end of expansion raid?

[Dangg]

Didn't raid Naxx 40 unfortunately
Enjoyed all bosses in SW, the theme and every encounter was a challenge, no fillers
ICC was meh other than LK which is the best fight ever imo, the instance looked a bit 'lifeless'
I agree with the general criticism about DS, it's the worst end raid by far for
SoO is excellent, difficulty for all kind of raiders, some fun encounters, lots of content

[Airwaves]

Willing to bet 12/13 people who voted naxx never raided it. It was a terrible broken mess just like the rest of vanilla.

Final raid of wrath was ruby sanctum not ICC. Yes it was one boss but not the point.

[Orcbert]

I really like SoO so far, we'll see if it stands up for a few months.

I really didn't like ICC purely because I hated the blue/black ascetics all the way through. It was so prevalent for so much of the expansion I was tired of seeing it.

[Deleted]

I think Icecrown Citadel had the best quality to quantity ratio in terms of bosses. Lots of bosses, all of them great.

Never raided SoO, but that would definitely be second just by looking at the fights. I'd say ICC and SoO are equal in raiding content, but nothing beats the atmosphere of ICC, which is why I'm voting for it.

There is some chanting around Norushen, i couldn't help but be reminded of ICC.

[Felarion]

Despite that Icecrown lasts for year, nothing come even close to this imo. Story, feeling that we will finally bring Arthas down, fight against Lich King, ending cinematic.

[Rizendragon]

ICC. Prior to the stacking debuff that place was hard. Hardest content (even compared to SoO imo) that I have done. I never got into the hardmodes prior to the 15% debuff unfortunately, but doing PP normal pre5% nerf was a bitch and a half on 25 man.

It's the last bastion of the large sprawling single zone raids. I miss the atmosphere of pretty much all the WotLK raids excluding ToC/ToGC.

[CosmicGuitars]

I'd say Icecrown. It was the best raiding experience for me, as a healer.. though I do have to say I didn't care for how long it dragged on.

[Kanariya]

Definitely Naxxramas. Not sure why it has so few votes tho. It continues to be the best Raid instance in all of Warcraft.

[bufferunderrun]

I voted icc for lore reason but in term of quality SoO still on par with it i just don't like all the leaders coming after the fight say some silly quote and leave, saurfang event was way more epic.

[DenniZ]

ICC by about a gazillion miles.

[Mormolyce]

ICC will always have a special place in my heart, especially the Lich King fight.

I dunno why people act like DS is the worst thing ever, it had its flaws but it wasn't that bad. I'd still rather go back into DS than FL, personally (man I got sick of that place and its goddamn trash). I thought Zon'ozz and Yor'Sahj were tedious somewhat out of place bosses, Hagara was awful (the fight was a mix of okay and frustrating, but who the hell was she anyway? Some kind of random mage/shaman Orc? Trained by the Forsaken? The hell?) and Madness could've been cooler (it wasn't bad, just could've been better). But I loved Spine and Ultraxion. Morchok was good for a first boss, Blackhorn was okay. Some areas were cool, some were repetitive. It was so-so is all.

I didn't play Naxx back in Vanilla, but it's such a cool place, it's still one of my favourites. Sunwell is an awesome looking zone with some killer fights (but I also didn't play it at the time).

SoO seems cool so far, haven't played it enough to judge yet though.

Now that MoP is basically "over" in terms of raid content

Let me just stop you right there.

Let's reconvene in I dunno, a month or so.

Can I hate on DS for having the worst Trash-to-Boss ratio and worst setting of any raid?

Er, not sure what you're saying there... are you complaining about not enough trash? DS had fuck all trash.

[Durandro]

Er, not sure what you're saying there... are you complaining about not enough trash? DS had fuck all trash.

Well, there was a fair amount. But after Ultraxion there's none at all for three bosses.

...mind you, those bosses were heavy add fights. So that's why. I remember days of Blackhorn progress where we never even saw the 'boss'.

But no, Dragon Soul didn't suck. It just wasn't awesome. Needed to be four bosses longer, have more lore based bosses, a little less reused assets and a final fight where we actually fight Deathwing (heck, having two boss fights beforehand while we weaken him would account for then actually being able to fight him without instantly dying).

[voxTree]

You people who said ICC are insane. That place drove me crazy just by all the wings looking the same. I like a change of scenery in my instances, not slightly different colored walls/floors with a few new doodads around the room. I got sick of that place fast.

I've actually been happy with SoO, it's pretty well designed and I love going to different environments throughout the instance. All the bosses feel pretty unique from a DPS standpoint.

[Miley]

ICC what a surprise

[Jtbrig7390]

Final raid of wrath was ruby sanctum not ICC. Yes it was one boss but not the point.

Wrong ICC was the last official raid of WOTLK. Blizzard themselves even stated it right after the release of RS that ICC is the final raid of WOTLK because it ended the WOTLK story.

RS was the start of the CATA lore and was originally going to be apart of T11 but came out as a filler raid due to how long it would be from ICC to Cata's Release.

Ontopic: ICC was by far my most fav endgame raid or raid overall.

[Deleted]

Siege of Orgrimmar also had the most lore-affiliated bosses.

Fallen Protectors, Sha of Pride, Zaela/Galakras, Nazgrim, Malkorok, Klaxxi and Garrosh---that's half of the encounters having an actual reason why they were there in the raid; characters that you really hated and characters you were really attached to. Some were even developed during the course of the entire expansion. (Do you see Ultraxion as that one guy you hoped to face someday back in patch 4.1? nope)

Compare that to the other popular choices: ICC had LK, Sindragosa, Lootship, Saurfang, and maybe the Blood Princes qualifying as lore characters; the rest were just freaks inside ICC used by the LK to 'test' the players. In DS, only Deathwing (x2) was the only lore character you fight; you never heard of the rest of the Old God freaks before until DS.

I agree 1000000000% to this. Sure Icc was fun!( also my fav vilian LK!)Dragon soul had its moments! but..as a lore geek I love SoO so much!

[Iyarashii]

ICC with SoO as a very very close second, you can easily tell lots of time and effort went into making both raids and how amazing they look and feel.

[Armourboy]

I'm not sure why anyone is shocked that it is always Wrath winning out, it was the first version of the game where the general public had a progession. ICC will always win out because it was when the game was at the peak of its sub numbers, it will also always win out because it was the first end of expansion raid where most people got to see it. Prior to Wrath only a handful of the population ever set foot in Naxx 40 or Sunwell let alone down a boss which is why they will never win a vote.

Naxx40 may have been the ground breaker, the one that showed us just where raiding could go, but considering only 1% of the population ever saw it while it was current, and it was only out for a few months before TBC hit, there simply aren't enough people that ever did it to say just how good it was.

Sunwell falls into the same category, and also has the down side that it had very few bosses in it.

Now as far as most enjoyable raid I ever did, I won't lie most people over look it because we blew through it so many times by the end, but I loved Kara. It was some what difficult, the fights were interesting, and it was the first to have weird gimmick fights like Chess and Opera, also was the first 10 man raid ever created. After that I really liked BWL with all of the dragons, not to mention the gear looked pretty awesome too.

[LocNess]

Icecrown Citadel by far. It did last a long time, but I never got burnt out on it despite running it on mains and alts 10/25 man.

[Arrowstormen]

ICC was such a great and vast place to walk around in, the giant room with the ice tower in the middle and the three different rooms is one of the best things in WoW ever.