How would you rate Legions raids?

[Icaras]

I don't do pre-organised group raids anymore, nor have any interest in doing normal and beyond, so for me, the look of a raid and the lore of the place tend to be more important.

On that note, I really liked the raids so far, the Emerald Nightmare was interesting enough, so I quite liked the place. 7/10.

Nighthold was a cool elf city themed raid, so the whole place was interesting to be in and look at, and I also enjoyed how it was tied quite strongly into the storyline, with a massive quest chain leading up to the player actually going in (As opposed to some previous raids where even if you looked at the whole storyline, you still kinda wonder "how is my character even aware this place exists to be attacking it?). I'm also glad it deals with the last AU Dreanor character that was hanging around. If we're going to develop a character, I'd prefer it to be somebody from our Azeroth. When it's an AU version of a character, it feels like it doesn't mater what happens, because it's not the "real" version, ya know? Anyway, I enjoyed running this place in LFR, so 8/10

Tomb of Sargeras is a major lore location, and again had a quest chain leading up to the player attacking the place...hell, the intro scenario kinda sets it up as well. I'd been looking forward to doing this place, as it was a location I'd wondered why it wasn't already in the game for a long time (Having 1st read about it via the Warcraft 2 manual back in the late nineties).
I haven't run this place awhole lot, as I only resubbed to WoW a month or so ago, but I can't say I've found the place too ugly, which I did find with the orc themed dungeons at the end of WoD. I'd say a solid 7/10.

As for Antorus...I can't really comment on it, as I'm still trapped behind the LFR gating. I did quite like the 1st boss and how he'd attack with one of his 2 cannons which you need to break, but otherwise I can't really comment until I get to see the whole place.

[Kelathos]

As a Heroic raider the expansion was almost entirely under tuned. Because Blizzard let loose with item levels and the player base is clearly a tier above whatever mark they set.

I rate it a five, because many other things such as themes, aesthetics were great. Design is pretty good, Kil'Jaden RNG instant death being a glaring exception. It's largely brought down by the tuning.

Warlords raids were a lot better.

[Battlebeard]

Short version:

EN - 8/10, really fun raid, ye boss sucks but overall good.
ToV - 5/10, kinda "meh", don't like first or third, too many boring mechanics.
NH - 8/10, really solid raid, few encounters I dislike, though kinda boring atmosphere, I don't like this whole nightborne theme
ToS - 9/10, the best raid of Legion! Fun fights (except sisters), and some exceptionally good like Maiden!
Antorus - 3/10, I only done 5 bosses, and so far, it's hell on earth, or rather hell in game. Not cause it's full of demons, but it's simply overtuned and awful

[Kazuchika]

Antorus is "overtuned"

I don't think you know what that word means.

[Craaazyyy]

pretty bad.. from classes being boring to raids being too easy or too boring aswell.. NH was okay, ToS was retarded.. also 3 out of last 5 raids being about demons and looking almost the same is retarded.. HFC/ToS/Antorus(i know HFC was WoD, but still)

[Doffen]

A solid 7.

EN - 5
TOV - 5
NH - 9
TOS - 6/7
AtB - 9

TBC Raiding - 10 <3

[therealstegblob]

Antorus - 3/10, I only done 5 bosses, and so far, it's hell on earth, or rather hell in game. Not cause it's full of demons, but it's simply overtuned and awful

Well, someone had to claim it was 'too hard' eventually, I guess.

[Xirrohon]

Too early to ask this question since Antorus is still fairly new. Ask this again once we are about a month out from BfA. If we end up doing anything close to 12+ months of Antorus this will be considered one of the worst expansions for raiding. It might already be once you take into account Titanforging, AP grinding. RNG with Relics, mechanics that favored a small amount of classes, lackluster final raid. The only thing that seems exciting about Antorus is Argus. Worldbreaker took the title from Jinrohk as worst first raid Boss.

[Dastreus]

TOV was fucking dog shit. EN was good, NH was mostly good, Tomb was a little underwhelming, but Antorus seems good. I say seems because I haven't seen past high council.

Overall B grade.

[TheFirstOnes]

Emerald Nightmare: 2/10.

Nighthold: 7/10.

Tomb of Sargeras: 6/10.

And, lastly, Antorus: 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000/10.

Antorus is the best Raid ever, though it is rivaled by both Ulduar and ToT.

So, overall: 8/10. Would've been a 5-4, had it not been for Antorus.

[Uselessrouge]

pretty poor imo

emerald nightmare was to easy was a entry raid but still , was not realy fun

nighthold was actualy one of the better ones i find


trial was kinda fun , but not realy interesting , it was good for a 3 boss raid even if the balance was well.. not so good

Tomb was just about soaking shit not realy interesting


antoruis is to new to judge

[Gasparde]

EN gets a 5 - some interesting fights, but poor tuning combined with TF ridiculousness and cheesing made the place a joke.

ToV gets a... 7 - again, pretty poor tuning ruining some otherwise pretty neat fights (Odyn and Helya being way too repetitive, Guarm was actually swell for a Patchwerk).

Nighthold's an 8 - another set of questionable tuning jumps, most bosses were pretty neat though, Botanist was kinda meh, augur was just annoying, other than that, good raid.

ToS gets a generous 4 - seriously fuck that place, tuning felt worse than EN, most Bosses felt tedious, barely anything interesting, can't actually think of 1 boss that I'd consider fun... fuck that, it's a 3.

Antorus so far I'd rate as 8 - bosses are interesting (except the major fuck up Varimathras, wtf), tuning seems fine, time will tell in this case.

All of this is from a mythic PoV - in that regard I'd rank my overall raiding experience with a 6-7, leaning towards 7. ToS pretty much ruined the experience for me, worst raid for quite some time.

[cparle87]

Probably the worst raids I've seen so far. For all of the year I've kept wishing we had another year of HFC instead of this bland uninspired mess.

Didn't you brag somewhere about how you've been unsubbed since early HFC?

[Emerald Archer]

Probably the worst raids I've seen so far. For all of the year I've kept wishing we had another year of HFC instead of this bland uninspired mess.

Antorus is a very good raid, but the mythic tuning has let it down for sure. If it wasn't for the tuning, i'd say only slightly worse than throne of thunder (which is a 10/10) so probably a 9/10, but the tuning puts it at about a 7/10

[cparle87]

The lore seems a mess at best with nothing adequately explained imo. A really disappointing end to what was a reasonably solid set of raids.

Have any specifics there?

[Maruka]

I have not delved into mythic but as far as heroic goes they have been fun but probably a bit on the easy side. I have pugged all the AOTC's within 2 resets, which is prolly a bit too fast.

[Argorwal]

After wrath the raids have pretty much been hot garbage. The entire game is trash after cata.

I didn't think raids could get more like hot garbage than Naxx reskin and ToC.

Ulduar is really the only saving grace.

ICC was great but suffered the same burn out fate like all end of expac raids.


It's also interesting to read the dichotomy between players always wanting harder raids, then ToS comes and is the hardest raid ever released, and it pretty much hated because of how punishing it was.

[BiggestNoob]

It's also interesting to read the dichotomy between players always wanting harder raids, then ToS comes and is the hardest raid ever released, and it pretty much hated because of how punishing it was.

It wasn't hard, it was uninteresting simple mechanics that were repeated frequently with minor errors causing instant raid wipes, along with an extreme reliance on the soak meme and a huge imbalance in the difficulty of encounters based solely on not having a number of a specific class. There's also stuff like the murk on Sassy which should've just dealt stacking damage, not further widening the gap between melee and ranged characters on that encounter.

Tedious, repetitive, unforgiving of trivial mistakes, and poorly designed is not challenging. People want interesting challenging mechanics that require thought and aren't just the same 20 seconds repeated for 7 minutes where one person in 20 makes a mistake and it's an instant wipe. This has been known for a very long time, it should be on the checklist of things to check before considering an encounter design ready for testing.

The way you tune an encounter to be unforgiving is by giving it a hard enrage and a big enough health pool that losing someone for any significant period of time in appropriate gear is likely a wipe. This way when you do eventually outgear the place farming it isn't a pain in the ass, especially if you plan on bringing in recruits or rotating people in who haven't otherwise seen the fight. In the worst case that they kill themselves to mechanics, you can still kill the boss, you aren't then forced to pull until they figure out and perfect the mechanics.

[Argorwal]

It wasn't hard, it was uninteresting simple mechanics that were repeated frequently with minor errors causing instant raid wipes, along with an extreme reliance on the soak meme and a huge imbalance in the difficulty of encounters based solely on not having a number of a specific class. There's also stuff like the murk on Sassy which should've just dealt stacking damage, not further widening the gap between melee and ranged characters on that encounter.

Tedious, repetitive, unforgiving of trivial mistakes, and poorly designed is not challenging. People want interesting challenging mechanics that require thought and aren't just the same 20 seconds repeated for 7 minutes where one person in 20 makes a mistake and it's an instant wipe. This has been known for a very long time, it should be on the checklist of things to check before considering an encounter design ready for testing.

The way you tune an encounter to be unforgiving is by giving it a hard enrage and a big enough health pool that losing someone for any significant period of time in appropriate gear is likely a wipe. This way when you do eventually outgear the place farming it isn't a pain in the ass, especially if you plan on bringing in recruits or rotating people in who haven't otherwise seen the fight. In the worst case that they kill themselves to mechanics, you can still kill the boss, you aren't then forced to pull until they figure out and perfect the mechanics.

Well, having the ability for every raid member to wipe the raid at any point is indeed much more difficult than just worrying about your own death.

Pushing for enrage only encourages class stacking the top dps, and is only tight for a very small window where player skill and gear is in the sweet spot to make it challenging yet possible.

The simple/boring/etc comments on soaking to me is rediculous. We've been essentially "standin/out of fire" for 13 years now, but because ToS made it much more punishing than normal it gets labeled boring as an excuse on why players are failing it.

If Antorus had a lot of "move out with debuff" that punished you with a raid wipe the same complaints about "move out" mechanics are boring/simple would start coming out.

[BiggestNoob]

Well, having the ability for every raid member to wipe the raid at any point is indeed much more difficult than just worrying about your own death.

No. This does not make the mechanic difficult. The mechanic is trivial, but any failure, for instance seeing an animation that is similar to the one that indicates you've finished the mechanic but mistakenly leaving early because you're so uninterested in the trivial mechanic you're doing for the 500th time, thus causing an instant wipe is not "difficulty."

We have highways, people drive down highways every day. Accidents are fairly rare. In the event that the accident is caused by human error and not a mechanical failure, driving without error is fairly easy. People from 15 years old to 80 years old do it every day, people drive for 50+ years without making any serious errors. Now imagine a world where when one person gets into an accident by making an error, even if they just run themselves off the road, every car on the road was crushed, killing everyone inside.

Is driving suddenly more difficult?

Doing things error-free, especially coordinating error-free operation of N independent parts, when each part has an expected error rate is an exercise in frustration because it's just probability at that point. If you have a machine built from 20 pieces, each of which has an independent failure rate of 2%, where any piece failing causes a catastrophic failure in the system, the probability that a single operation of the machine will catastrophically fail is 33.24%. So if you have 20 people in your raid, each of which will make A SINGLE MISTAKE in 50 pulls, you have a very high wipe chance. To have a 90% chance of success you need an individual failure rate of just 0.527%, or one failure in 190 pulls.

If you instead say each failure causes a 50% chance of a total system failure, with an individual failure rate of 2%, the chance a failure happens in a single operation is about 19.6% instead of 33.24%, and at 20% chance it's just 8%.

If instead of an instant wipe the punishment for failure is say killing the player, or spawning an add, or doing something that can actually be dealt with but not instantly wiping the raid, you can add difficulty far above the basic mechanics and yet keep the boss killable in the presence of failure by just dealing with those more difficult, optional mechanics, well enough to overcome the initial failure. Every boss will always be trivial if every player in the raid executes 100% perfectly. It shouldn't be a binary thing though, where you only kill a boss as you approach that point, especially not when the fight is boring, repetitive, and it's just a trivial thing like standing in something every 30 seconds.

Designing this way is just superior because you can actually introduce really difficult to deal with mechanics with error conditions that aren't catastrophic, and the boss can be killable either doing the difficult mechanic or dealing with the repercussions of failing it. Just having trivial mechanics that are incredibly punishing isn't a rewarding thing for players. It's boring, it's frustrating, and it's definitely not fun.