If you are particularly bold, you could use a Shiny Ditto. Do keep in mind though, this will infuriate your opponents due to Ditto's beauty. Please do not use Shiny Ditto. You have been warned.
Class specifics.
Examples: you needed Priests in Naxx to mind control, AQ40 you needed frost mages to kill that slime.
High king maul'gar (sp?) warlock controlling the Fel hounds made the fight a lot more easier.
The crazy cat bitch in ulduar: prot warriors being able to break fear and interrupt was huge.
It wasn't just a cinematic moment! They did a great job giving you the feel of that encounter. First you had to ask the pilot to bring the ship in close. Then, after the brief cinematic, you do land and have this precarious footing where you're likely to get tossed off at any moment.
I mean, would you rather have another surround-the-dragon-but-look-out-for-tail-swipe dungeon encounter?
"I Am Vengeance. I Am The Night. I Am Felfáádaern!"
To be a truly great raid it has to incorporate all parts. Good and *original* fight mechanics are a critical part, but there is more to it. The size of the raid, tuning, immersion, the area outside the raid leading up to it (which increases immersion), art, music, lore, etc. Kara and ICC stand out to me for those reasons as the best, but of course it's all subjective. Kara in it's time had an amazing area that added to the immersion leading up to it, needing a key or someone with the key to enter, optional paths, a back door, INCREDIBLE pvp outside Kara in it's day, awesome art/music/fights, random fights (the play), lore, new fight mechanics, chess I know people hated but was still cool. And ICC had really all of the same incredible immersion, art, fights, etc.
Ulduar was very good too and gets an honorable mention for sure, but I still personally rank ICC and Kara just a hair ahead. I'd also add Sepentshrine Cavern as an honorable mention as well. It's often overlooked, but in it's day SSC was great, had awesome fights, immersion, great pvp outside the door , The Lurker Below was about the coolest thing ever, and SCC had a couple of quite challenging fights for the time in the latter parts of it. Sadly many of the people that would vouch today for how great SSC and the other good wotlk and prior raids mentioned are no longer play wow or are around to speak their praises.
P.S. Dragon Soul takes the cake as the worst raid ever in my opinion for all of the same reasons. No immersion, just a hodge-podge of boring and copied fight mechanics from older raids (felt like a best of at times), and the Deathwing fight was beyond awful. All of Cata led up to fighting Deathwing, and the final fight of the expansion is to kill his feet, and you barely even see him? Gah that was a horrible raid.
Last edited by Auxora; 2016-06-22 at 05:03 PM.
ICC got a smaller, follow-up raid in the form of Ruby Sanctum. So people that were tired of it had something else to do.
- - - Updated - - -
A lot of people forget that Deathwing was absolutely flippin' gigantic, I mean his wingspan was 1200' - there was no way heroes could do a 'tank and spank' on something of that size.
Appreciate your time with friends and family while they're here. Don't wait until they're gone to tell them what they mean to you.
me healing it
I think it would have been terrible if we had been able to fight Deathwing as just another dragon. Having us attack whatever parts of him we could access made perfect sense, given his size. First it was prying at the scales on his back, then it was the claws he braced himself with as he stood in the maelstrom and tried to rip our planet apart. I've tanked lots of dragons over the years, from Onyxia to Syndragosa. Would have been terribly disappointing if Deathwing were handled the same way.
"I Am Vengeance. I Am The Night. I Am Felfáádaern!"
I have to say mechanics and there should be a good reason I'm fighting the boss/going through the area.
Take SoO as an example. A lot of those fights felt great lorewise and most the same mechanically. They tied in a lot of stuff you did through the expansion and leveling up and brought it all together. Fighting paragons, which you knew would happen eventually, still felt great even if the fight was annoying as hell until the fix to the order. I have to say my favorite fight in the whole instance was Nazgrim. I was horde at the time and I honestly felt regretful I had to fight this guy, who had literally been with me every step of the way when I was leveling.
That's what I think makes a great raid.
1. look and atmosphere, it shouldnt look too similar and repetitive (like how literally 100% of firelands is just bright orange eye cancer)
2. diverse and interesting fights, it should have at least a couple mechanics weve never had before. and no 2 bosses should feel too similar
3. smooth difficulty curve (dont have one of the hardest bosses in the tier be one of the earliest hello gorefiend)
4. dont make the final boss too long with 55 phases and time for 2 bloodlust (hello kaelthas, imperator) lich king is sort of excused but i still hated how long it was.
5. lore/story investment, this is sort of personal for me and isnt necessarily so important for the masses but for me it is. i cant wait for emerald nightmare for that very reason
for bonus point i'd like to mention as little gearcheck fights as possible, i hated how kormrok was made infinitely easier if you split raided so you had gear to kill him before he went into the crazy phase at the end where everything happens at once, or the gear to kill gurtogg before he stacks the debuff to 4 and you dont have enough max health
Last edited by shaunika123; 2016-06-25 at 01:22 AM.
A raid without legacy players. Because they are bad and want to level.
I do believe a good raid should have first of all a good design (both for bosses and environment), secondly good mechanics (involving the environment too, not only pewpew bangbang).
Also they should try to make old raids not feel too useless, I know it's obvious to do so, but at least try to make them useful in some ways
Apparently it needs to be either a Titan themed raid or an undead theme raid.
People are sick to death of Orcs and Trolls, and even bugs and demons.
Speaking of which, they have never done a human raid didn't they?
I kind of agree with all of this. Ulduar had a lot of bosses but several were skippable (the Iron Dorfs, Razorscale, Ignis) and others (the Keepers) could be done in whatever order you wanted. Add in the variety of boss mechanics and it was mostly fun. The only thing I didn't like about it was the first boss. I get why Flame Leviathan was like it was, but that's a ton of trash to wade through to get to the first actual boss, esp if you wanted to take down some or all of the towers.
1. Good lore. There needs to be a reason why I'm here besides just "lul purplez." Even bigger is when new lore is discovered during the raid.
2. BIG. It needs to feel like an enemy stronghold. Lots of room, lots of areas, lots of enemies.
3. Smooth transitions between zones. It shouldn't be one mass space of everything being the same. There should be a flow between the beginning, middle, and end portions of the raid zone.
4. Aesthetically pleasing on the eyes. Good color schemes, nice artwork, that kinda thing. You spend hours in a place you don't want to look at dreck.
5. Interesting bosses. Mechanics that are challenging but fun, something you remember.
6. Trash that doesn't feel like an endless grind. There needs to be some trash, but there's a line between too much and not enough. And it shouldn't just all be an AOE-fest. Make us use skill to get through the trash.
7. Catchy music. My favorite raids all had epic music that really set the tone for the raid(i.e. Illidan, Black Temple, Kara).
8. Amazing last boss that really challenges your entire raid and puts a finishing touch on the raid, really making you feel a sense of accomplishment.
Diversity - that's why Ulduar is still so good.
Atoms are liars, they make up everything!
There are a few factors.
Decent mechanics are of course a necessity. A cohesive theme is important too — Firelands for example was a really impressive raid. Dragon Soul and Siege of Orgrimmar just feel like an Expansion Clipshow. But the most important thing? Threat.
Dragon Soul, well each boss is the 'Last of the [Insert Enemy Type]' so it feels less like you're battling for the fate of the world and more like you're doing a quick little cleanup. Siege of Orgrimmar? You spend the first part cleaning up Garrosh's mess, then moving on his last little bastion where he doesn't even have any really unique new things to throw at you.
Now compare those to Icecrown Citadel. You make a last ditch effort to attack the Lich King at the seat of his power, you spend 3 dungeons pushing to get any possible advantage and pretty much every push into it you make is a damn Pyrrhic Victory. Cohesive theme. Interesting and unique mechanics (if not always the best thought out). Strong sense of threat.
One day I look forward to seeing full grown adults realize that their averse reactions to levity and positive/contemplative expressions of emotion are a cry for therapy.