Ulduar far more interesting than ICC

[DistortionSleep]

Farm four maces for you'r guild and I promise you, you will never wanna step foot in Ulduar again.

[Deleted]

Farm four maces for you'r guild and I promise you, you will never wanna step foot in Ulduar again.

Imo, yes, the first ~5-6 bosses are boring, but yesterday i stepped in ulduar again, on my druid which was an alt back in those days, and it was FUN. We did KKKotW, FF, stuffles like that, none knew tactics (of hardmodes), yet it was fun.

Less part, however, was that we got this Algalon key in 2.5hours

[Kpoof]

Difficulty does NOT make a boss better. Making the difficulty fit in to your raid in a comfortable way (X amount of wipes + feeling progress) makes it good. Wiping on LK doesn't feel like progress, it is more like "crap, someone screwed up and casted this spell Y seconds too late, wipe pls." Ulduar is the best raid because of:

- Encounter lore / visuals
- New mechanics (compared to Naxx......)
- Most EPIC fucking voice acting
- Alot of hype before release, not many knew what to expect.

ICC was:

- yay, we get to kill LK...... Anything else?
- dead worthless voice acting (lady deathwhisper, stfu for once)
- ...

ICC only had the LK fight to shine with, that's it. I killed LK on 25 after 2 evenings of practice, and I totally lost interest with ICC. Yippie fucking kayyay, bone spikes during bonestorm, 2 extra oozes on professor, GUNSHIP LOOT = MORE GS!..

Icc was really terrible except for the LK fight. Nothing made sense at all, and I am really frustrated and disappointed with it compare to Ulduar. ICC has turned me from a hardcore raider (insanity 25, 64/64 achis in ulduar) to a social that farms money for Cataclysm.

Really really really disappointed.

[crabmousse]

I really feel that the designers put more effort into Ulduar than ICC. Not only is ICC more or less staring into one bland room compared to the extreme variety that Ulduar had just by moving from room to room, it just seemed like another ToC - another instance to buy time until the expansion. Ulduar had this certain feel to it, of just pure epic-ness that Icecrown really doesn't. Even with ToC going out as early as it did, they still couldn't make Icecrown surpass or even come close to, in my opinion, Ulduar standards.

What do you guys think?

you must be trippin. it's awesome how you start with the ashen verdict and cross the breach on that long corridor with Marrowgar hovering ominously at the end. when you walk into the upper spire it's epic, and the frozen throne is the coolest boss room in the game.

[Thundertom]

I do not think one raid is worse then the other. They are just different raids. I like the mechanics and fights in both of them. I really like the fact that ICC isn't about "oh let's hope the heal lands 0.000000001 secs after that massive hit, or else we'll wipe". They really did a good job on making bosses hit more, but slower.

[Taeloria]

I'm pretty sure this has been covered already, but I definately preferred ulduar over icc. Ulduar, every fight was unique and different. ICC it feels like they just took the same mechanics and gave it a shiny new coating. It always seems like it's pew pew, switch to add, pew pew, move out of fire, pew pew switch to add again, pew pew and boss dies we loot and go on.

[Aarnor]

Honestly I feel, as some one else stated, that there is a lot missing from ICC. One thing that was completely over looked was Mal'Ganis. When we defeated him in the cave under the Crimson Cathedral he said that he was going back to his home world to marshal his forces for the final assault on the LK. When we get to ICC nothing, no mention of him.

Yeah when ICC was released I was hoping we'd see Mal'Ganis again as an Algalon-esque boss with him bursting in after the LK was killed or having a section of ICC kind of like Stratholme with some Scarlet Onslaught guys breaking through from another point and Mal'Ganis being the end boss of that wing but oh well, one can dream.

[Bia]

I think your all missing one thing........................


Sarth was by far the best raid in Wotlk.

[Haku]

ICC

Pros: Expansion-end raid. Putricide HM was fun(compared with the rest). LK HM is unforgiving. Made us get out of ToC. Not as buggy as Ulduar when it was released.

Cons: Gunship too simplistic/easy. Sindragosa was poorly designed imo(Why piss off healers/ranged for merely playing their class/spec with senseless debuffs?) LDW/Sindragosa, some of the most annoying voice acting. Extremely long RP events(they're cool the first time or two but add to the endless boredom when you're resuming from wipes). Limited Attempt System. "Activating" hardmodes by merely selecting them.

Ulduar

Pros: Got us out of Naxx. Introduced hardmodes w/o attempt system(besides Algalon). Great area designs with different themes for some of the bosses(Hodir's hall = frost, Freya's = nature, etc). Most Hardmodes had to be "activated" by completing requirements in/before fight. Yogg0 was the longest standing boss in Wotlk(regardless if some deem LK 'hardest' Yogg stood longest). All hardmodes were available from the get go. Algalon was "limited" but optional and had a pretty hefty requirement to unlock in the first place, challenging to just get there.

Cons: Buggy at release on quite a few fights and some trash packs(XT trash, XT hardmode, Ignis not losing stacks, etc). Nerfs came in too quickly on some of the fights that were automatically being deemed "impossible" (Thankfully they didn't do much to nerf Yogg0). Maybe not so much a con of just Ulduar but this was the time of the extremely widespread "Instance is currently full" problems, which also dulled the Ulduar experience. Should have lasted longer so we wouldn't have to bother with ToC. Original Iron Dwarf Medium Rare achievement was completely not necessary (only achievement where wiping on a boss was a requirement??), infact it still is kinda useless and tedious imo =/

[Belial-sama]

Hehe, Sarth was babe

OT: I prefer Ulduar's design to ICC

Also, working on HMs in ICC right now, there is quite a bit of difference from when we did HMs in Ulduar
Ulduar, honestly, we had countless stupid wipes due to one or 2 individuals failing at their job. However, it never made me feel like faking a DC and going out like ICC HM wiping is.

And no, it's not the whole drain issue either, I most certainly enjoy raiding and don't plan on taking a break any time soon. But for some reason, wipes in ICC just make me furious, whereas in Ulduar, almost every wipe seemed different and almost worth it, as you usually got another glance or 2 at a specific stage in encounters

[Gron]

Blue post said they will not do a mistake like Ulduar again.
Cba to search for it again...

[ragas]

I must say Ulduar bosses were much more fun tactics-wise (on average) compared to ICC. Do I think it was superior than ICC, no, it was just slightly better but not to the extent to QQ about how crappy ICC is compared to Ulduar.

I hated the leviathan fight, as I do not like the gunship fight in ICC.

I should also note that I do like the idea of Blizzard rehashing some of the hold content - like Naxx and Onyxia. It is a good idea for us old players to go visit old foes and also for new players to see the fights... AQ, next?

[chrisisvacant]

It's my opinion that ICC displays way better design than Ulduar any day.

The aesthetic design of the instance is fantastic. A no-frills fortress built around a spire at the tip of a huge glacier where within you find the pinnacle of all of Arthas' machinations. Putricide, the LK's right hand man when it comes to plagues and blights, seems like a truly mad individual whose experiments seem to be getting more and more grotesque the closer to his laboratory you get. The queen of the San'layn and her handmaidens and man-servants commanding various Scourge incursions all over the globe from a silk-draped hall. And the finest Ymirjar soldiers protecting the desecration of a green dragon, showing Arthas had begun plans to mutate dragons of flights other than the blue flight who would, potentially, possess different abilities than their counterparts.

You don't need ICC to be lavish and decadent and filled with various objects of wonder like Ulduar. This was simply a fortress protecting the Frozen Throne. All the necessary components to Arthas' rule exist in this fortress and it is very clearly the seat of all power in the Scourge. Truthfully, I'm surprised Kel'thuzad was played up as being as important as he was given that Lady Deathwhisper is clearly more malevolent.

[thilicen]

I feel the same, but the reason is obvious; Blizzard had a restricted hand on designing ICC. It has to be a spire, the major themes of the Lich King had to be present, and the architecture had to be gothic to fit the theme. On the flipside, Ulduar was completely free to be absolutely anything and the designers went nuts. And the result was great. Of course, those kinds of raids also probably utterly exhaust their resources, so I wouldn't expect them to make every raid that way. It'd be nice but unrealistic.

This. I loved Ulduar to death, and I still think ICC is awesome but it can't compete with ulduar for many reasons. Especially the ones mentioned above.

[Tobyjohn]

What could they have done more to ICC? it's not like it's much more then a tower built around the frozen throne.

[Exavie]

I agree what the OP said. Ulduar was may more interesting, with more challenging encounters from the start, I rember Ignis when the instance was released, damn that was some hard shit... Also the environment.. From Freya's extremely Nature-ish hippieroom to Mimiron's workshop.

Raiding Ulduar was the best part of my raidingcareer, challenging encounters, yet fun, awesome environment and encounter styles.


Imagine if they saved everything they did with Ulduar to ICC instead....

[RumlyD]

Ulduar is my favourite. More variety and just all around fun concepts, from the look of the rooms to the encounter design and boss emotes.

I think ICC has it's moments, like the first time seeing the bottom of the frozon throne with all the cool ice effects etc, and then later... erm actually that's it, haha. I prefered the HM activation system from Ulduar and Sarth to simply switching on Heroic mode, it had a lot more imagination to it and added something to a fight tbh.