Best trash ever

[Nario64]

I'm probably the odd man out but worst trash was ToC... It was very boring for me to just go in and do bosses. Trash is like filler in a story, otherwise it's just "Once upon a time, the dragon king died. The end." I love trash!

Best trash, tough call. The trash in the blood wing of ICC was great because everyone was fighting to get that orb buff. OR! Best trash was the gold trash in Karazhan, everyone looked forward to that theater room.

Worst is probably corehound packs in MC, mess that up and it's a wipe or run out reset (which is sometimes a wipe if the imps have respawned).

[Deleted]

the worse trash had to be in MH.
line after line of the stuff & if you had the misfortune of wiping (@lvl70) on a boss, you had to do it all over again.
a right royal pain in the arse.

[Crym]

Trash in general isn't very interesting. A fight has to last a while and have a number of mechanics to manage before it is actually engaging. At best trash can be used to introduce a certain mechanic before a boss fight where it's heavily penalized. Most of the time it's just there so a guild raids 2 hours a night instead of 1 and gets through the same amount of content.

[Deleted]

I dont think there's ever been good trash, it's boring as fuck and a major downside to what else would be a great raid instance in ToT. I get that they need to break the bosses up but they have overdone it in ToT.

[Dreyo]

The best trash is that which contributes to the ambiance of a raid, but doesn't do so in an annoying or overly time-consuming fashion.

Black Temple trash was the best, in my opinion. It gave the sense that this really is the enemy stronghold, the source of the enemy's army and power. From the naga relegated to the depths for their weak position within the hierarchy, to the fel orc assembly and training areas, to the demons on guard, to the blood elves in the upper reaches, the entire structure of Illidan's forces is on display, and gives weight to his claim as Big Bad Evil Guy.

Karazhan also has good trash. It starts off simply haunted, with the ghosts of those who lived there during its heyday still lingering, but then as the demonic influence starts to show it gets creepier and more outwardly threatening.

Worst trash is the stuff that's just kind of there, but isn't memorable beyond how much you wanted to gouge your eyes out rather than clear it again. Ultraxion's trash is the clear winner here, but mostly for its failed potential. A major dragon attack on the top of Wyrmrest should have been awesome, yet it ended up as a pointless grind of unthreatening drakes. Another example of bad trash is Sunwell - all it is is "oh, yes, more elves. great. wake me when they become interesting."

Much of the early raid trash falls into this category, but that's understandable. And the later raids do a much better job of adding atmosphere.

What I don't agree with, however, is that the trash should go away. Trash is an important component to the atmosphere of a raid, and a place like Black Temple simply wouldn't be as awesome as it is without the trash. A place that's a great example of a raid that should be amazingly epic but ends up feeling hollow due to lack of trash is Blackwing Descent. The bosses were memorable, but the place just feels empty and deserted. Maybe that's intentional, but it didn't feel epic like Black Temple or even Blackwing Lair.

[Djolisimo]

I remember when I was raiding hardcore TK in BC, trash in Voidreaver's huge room was ridiculous, you have to use lots of CC and people would die like crazy, you couldn't avoid it. Whole TK trash was ridiculous.

Karazhan trash was very good, imo, one of my favorite raids, there was probably a bit too much of it.

[Deleted]

Blizzard actually discussed trash in one of the earlier blizzcons.

basically, they do trash because it gives a sense of pacing. ToC had no trash, which meant that it was just 5 bosses with nothing in between. some people like this because it meant a quick raid, but a lot of people thought this was the worst raid in WoTLK, and one of the worst in the game, mainly because every pull required you to focus on the boss. Trash, however, means you can usually relax between the bosses, especially during farm runs. it allows you to come down from your euphoria from another successfull kill, and 99% of the trash in raids is far easier than the boss before it, meaning you don't need to perform at max capacity.

It's similar to why, say, a formula one track has both technical stuff and easy straight or slightly curved lines. the technical stuff is there to challenge the racer on his skill, while the straight lines can be used to mentally prepare you for the next technical part. nearly every successfull sport has this. Soccer pauses the game after each foul and each time the ball leaves the field. Tennis pauzes the game a few times each match so the players can drink something, eat a banana and maybe get some medic assistance. Even WoW battlegrounds have this, in multiple ways: when you die, you release and have to sit out a rez timer, which you can use to think about what you did wrong and how to handle it better next time. and after each engagement, the next battle doesn't start right away, giving you time to regroup and discuss the next thing to do. Arenas last short, so you got a break between them, and long drawn out healer battles in arenas aren't fun for anyone.

however, trash, to fulfill the above goal, needs to have 3 basic properties:

1) It can't be too hard: if the trash is harder than the boss before or after, you can't relax and you stay tensed up and focused.
2) it needs to be the right amount: too much and it becomes tedious and you become bored before you reach the boss. too little and you don't have enough time to properly relax from the boss. Troll trash in Throne is too much.
3) it needs to be interesting: it should either prepare you for the next boss and learn tactics, or it should have an interesting mechanic that is hard to add to a boss. either way, it can't just be an AoE fest or a tank and spank.

[Caesonia]

worst would be cthun trash by a long shot, my least hated would have to be....thorim trash i guess, nice and short

[MrWiggles]

mount hyjal

with mimiron trash in second, we would have a pally run in first and bubble to get the bombs, well one night our GL a priest decided to bubble the pally and all the bombs ran her down, was awesome.

[furcouch514]

worst: Sunwell for sure, every mob had to be cc'd except the kill target.
Best/funnest: I like those snails in ToT ^_^

[Deleted]

As one who has been raiding since the beginning of cata (That is, not very long), here's my list for the worst:
BoT 'brigde' trash. Yeah, the one that knocks you away.
Firelands. Not because the trash was bad, but because there was SO MUCH OF IT.
Ultraxion drakes.
Elegon trash because of stupid health pools at the time.
Lei Shi on RF - Tanks can and will get oneshotted.
Bridge trash because of obvious reasons (First few pulls).
First place goes to Dark Animus though.

Best trash? I don't really enjoy any kind of trash, but I guess the sheer hilarity of the snails when they eat half the raid in LFR on the first day scores some points.

[SamR]

AQ40 trash is Overrated.

[Akairos]

Worst Trash (Difficult): AQ40, Najentus Trash, Kalecgos Trash, Naxx40 plague wing, Halfus Wyrmbreaker trash,
Worst Trash (Boring): Post-Valenthria Dreamwalker trash, Hyjal Trash, Naxx25 Plague wing, Halls of reflection.

Best Trash: All of Sunwell Trash

[proteen]

Worst: C'thun trash. No, it's not a typo. I didn't mean to say AQ40. Legit, the trash between Twin Emps and C'Thun is the biggest pain. ever.

Best: Blackwing Lair - loved the theme.

[l33t]

Blizzard actually discussed trash in one of the earlier blizzcons.
basically, they do trash because it gives a sense of pacing. ToC had no trash, which meant that it was just 5 bosses with nothing in between. some people like this because it meant a quick raid, but a lot of people thought this was the worst raid in WoTLK, and one of the worst in the game, mainly because every pull required you to focus on the boss. Trash, however, means you can usually relax between the bosses, especially during farm runs. it allows you to come down from your euphoria from another successfull kill, and 99% of the trash in raids is far easier than the boss before it, meaning you don't need to perform at max capacity.

Sorry, but it looks like standart blizzard GC-style bullshit with a flavor of mass mind manipulation. Something like this: "Actually you WANT items to be locked behind double gating", or "Actually you WANT to play rogue who crits with its finishers two times less than a holypriest's smite is". I am raiding since start of BC, and I don't understand what is that mystical sense of pacing is, since we don't raid for killing usual crappy mobs, we do raid to kill bosses, and I'd better have a cup of tea in a 5 min break between boss fights than have to kill another nonamed pack of generic mobs. What I do understand, however, that Chinese (or w/e) players now have a different pay method, so Blizz do everything to artificially slow gameplay process, so Chinese players have to pay more for the same mass of content, since they pay played hours only.
Also, I never heard that people hated ToC for no trash before Blizz started to bluepost that thesis in their Q&A. People hated ToC for dull and easy bosses, for crappy Anub, for forced pvp-style boss in pve environment, for superbad design of tier items. Our raid, personally, loved ToC, since we could farm 25, ony 25, 2x toc 10 and 2x Ony 10 in two days, and then pvp/altraid whole week. Nowadays trash eats so much time, its almost scary trying to gather alt raid alltogether since it is so much time wasting.

however, trash, to fulfill the above goal, needs to have 3 basic properties:

Sorry to say, but since Firelands every trash tend to fail at least two of three your basic properties. It is hard and its numbers are much, and it is impossible to "relax" during trash fights, since some trash fights are more complex than a boss himself.

[smelltheglove]

i hated TK trash with a passion

[TidesOfBlood]

gnomeregon in vanilla. there was just too many.

[Fhi]

Gastropods is still one of my favorites. Never gets old.

[Deleted]

Trash shouldn't go away. It adds to atmosphere if done right. As someone mentioned, good example would be training grounds for fel orcs in Black Temple. Can you honestly say that Black Temple would be better without trash and you just run from one boss to another? Or Karazhan trash? That tower felt "alive" although all were dead :P
Oh, and snails are hilarious. Go and wake the snail

That said, trash before Ultraxion has to be the dumbest trash ever. Trash in Mount Hyjal was most annoying.

Oh, we raid Orgrimmar in patch 5.4. I hope there will be trash there as in Horde who lives in it and defenders of Garrosh. Would be stupid it's empty.

[Deleted]

Best trash is thrah that serves a function. For example, the trash before Durumu teaches you the mechanics of the fight. The fog beasts that reveal adds when they die, the eye thingies that create a mini-maze that you have to run. That's good trash.

Bad trash: Piles of mindless trash that serves no other purpose but stretching the raid out, with (almost) no reward. Mount Hyjal comes to mind with the silly attack waves.