Worst Designed Dungeon/Raid Boss Encounter *In your Opinion*

[KOUNTERPARTS]

The only raid boss encounter that sticks out in my mind for all of these years, and the reason may shock you, is Hellfire Assault and for the reason of all of the fucking downtime that happens. Even back when it was current content the amount of time of not doing anything was unbearable.


Probably an overly critical take on such a minor aspect of the fight that does not technically have to do with the mechanics of the boss, but in my opinion, substantial enough.


For dungeon bosses I feel that Shirrak the Dead Watcher in Auchenai Crypts (TBC) has the absolute worst design for a boss. 200% increased casting time to spells/abilities? Just RIP any caster/healer that comes in. I understand that you have to move around in order to deal with this but take the scenario of a bunch of random people who have either A.) never been here before (TBC Classic is gonna be fun), B.) been so long and have forgotten, or C.) not paying attention (almost always an issue)... fuck that boss.

[GnomeEU]

My absolute hate bosses are those with extreme dexterity movement required.

Like the 2nd boss in spires. That just shoots random bolts everywhere. Or the spears at the end of the dungeon. Especially when one mob throws 4 spears because of low dps.
You just feel so helpless in encounters like that.

Compare that to the end boss, even if you fight him 30 min. Its dodge charge, move to circle. Shit like that I can handle.
But random bolts while you watch unit frames etc is just super annoying.

Same goes for shriekwing. That boss would be the absolute nightmare if he was the last boss with a super tight dps check.
And every ability one shot 100k dmg.

The amount of random deaths from bouncing blades would make me smash my computer.

In workshop there was another boss, with the fire beams and the bouncing blades. Idk how people Did that boss on +25 keys. I'd die to a blade every 2nd try, if they one shot.

[exsanguinate]

The Queen's Court (Eternal Palace) was an awful boss design which I hated to the bones
Fetid Devourer (Ul'dir). Probably f*cked up as a melee dps on mythic and overall boring fight

That's all I can think off. Maybe Drest'agath

[kaminaris]

Xanesh. There are many versions of encounters like this but I hate encounters that are built around a gimmicky mechanic that hits random people in the raid and one shots the group if not handled correctly.

What? No, Xanesh is one of the best bosses ever designed. No stupid dps checks, just pure skill check. And it doesn't target random people, you had to delegate people to stand in circles to handle the football.

Helya probably from all expansions i've played. Boring, uninspired, bad mechanics, barely anything to see, clusterfuck.

[Natureseer]

Heroic Sha of Fear comes to mind

[Shaqthefat]

What? No, Xanesh is one of the best bosses ever designed. No stupid dps checks, just pure skill check. And it doesn't target random people, you had to delegate people to stand in circles to handle the football.

Helya probably from all expansions i've played. Boring, uninspired, bad mechanics, barely anything to see, clusterfuck.

Xanesh wasn't a skill check at all. I was able to easily do the balls as a warlock without burning rush. While it was fun doing the orbs, the rest of the fight was a target dummy. Far from one of the best fights and far from one of the worst.

[Ohvul]

Spine, confined space fights are awful in this game

[exochaft]

My worst designed is mythic Gorefiend from HFC, solely because it relies upon things not being buggy... especially during the first and second weeks of mythic prog. It was one of the reasons why my guild at the time fell apart, as they were sick of buggy encounters, and this one took the cake.

For those that don't remember, the main mechanic was you had to "die" in order to get ported to Gorefiend's stomach to kill adds, and mythic required intentionally "killing" yourself. The problem that we'd always have 1-2 people on most attempts actually get killed instead of getting ported down to Gorefiend's stomach, and there was nothing you could do to prevent this. Took Blizz over a month to fix it, and even though we had killed and progressed beyond that boss by the time they fixed it, the experience was just draining and frustrating to that point that many people in my guild quit WoW after that raid tier.

While I do think Blizz can come up with some neat encounter designs, it's all for naught if the encounters are bugged and/or remain bugged for extended periods of time if you are a progression guild.

[Freedom]

The gong boss in TBC era ZA, followed by Hexlord Malacrass, just because I never did get that stupid mail headpiece. I hated that place so much when PUGging...

The most serious answer I have is driving on Heroic Rhyolith. A very chaotic fight, and I didn't like the pressure of having to continually drive, swap legs and communicate with everyone else.

[Gestopft]

-Last boss of Oculus- being on the dragon for the entire fight.
-Grand Magus Telestra (Nexus), but mostly because her "throwing you around the room" thing did like no damage and was basically useless
-Ichoron from Violet Hold (og)- like a worse version of Immersius
-King Ymiron (Utgarde Pinnacle)- unless you were really slow in the DPS department, you'd spend half the fight stunned- or more.
-Loatheb (Naxx)- interesting concept for one encounter I suppose, but I can see why they haven't done that again. It's very limiting, and better done (as has been done since) as a heal absorption instead
-Commander Vo'jak (Siege of Nuizao Temple)- the...reverse gauntlet?...with the mantid running up the stairs takes foreeeeeevvvvvveeeeeeerrrrrr
-Wise Mari (Temple of the Jade Serpent)- the opening add phase is frustratingly long and super easy; boss has literally one ability once that phase is over and it becomes attackable. I think this one takes the cake for worst from a design standpoint
-Knight-Captain Valyri (Tol Dagor)- my least favorite boss of my least favorite BFA dungeon. It was visually very assaulting, and it went off the rails very easily. Seemed to me that if you didn't start it perfectly, there was very little chance you could get back on track. Before I saw what a successful strategy on that fight actually was, and got the flow of it when done correctly, I can't think of another fight- ever- where I spent so much time just figuring out where the hell I could safely stand and/or move to. While I think Wise Mari is definitely worse from strictly a design standpoint, this one was probably the most frustrating to do

[Steelangel]

I don't think I really hated any boss in dungeons until I hit Vol'kaal in Atal'Dazar. It was just a shitshow every time.

The worst raid boss was definitely Spoils in Ogrimmar. It may have seemed like a neat concept in the design phases, but it was not fun. Same goes for Furnace in Blackrock; near concept, was actually terrible.

- - - Updated - - -

-Commander Vo'jak (Siege of Nuizao Temple)- the...reverse gauntlet?...with the mantid running up the stairs takes foreeeeeevvvvvveeeeeeerrrrrr

^^ This too

[Mashingspoon]

immerseus
/10char

[Doffen]

immerseus
/10char

I couldn't think of any on top of my head, but then I read this, and yep, it all came to me. Such a mind-numbing encounter.

[Ragnarohk]

I'll throw another to the list.

Will of the Emperor. What the hell kind of last boss encounter is that?

[stormrage666]

I don't remember anything bad.
All I remember was good fights.

I started on WotLK... So...

NAxx, obsidium and Malygus was good to me. (Malygus was hard to understand to don't spam dragon skills, but tha'ts pretty ok to me)
Ulduar (still the best raid in my hearth till today)
TotC (nothing bad... maybe only overtuned orbs from Valkyr)
ICC (all good)

Cataclysm
Sinestra bugging orbs
Ragnaros H was a bit harsh because of lag. There were a moment that raid needed to stack and move. It was like a 1s window and took a little bit of raid coordination...
Dragon sould was also ok... even the back of Deathwing

Mop
All fine... I just couldn't check H Sha of Fear at the time...
Thunder raid I stopped raiding...

So... That's it
Dungeons were all fine but Cata overtunning at start.

Reading more here...
I'd say Furnace in Blackrock...

Because... it could finish your try doing mistakes on phase 1 (heating the heart of montain, overbuffing it just to reach it almost unkillable on phase 3), but you could complete phase 1 and reach phase 2 (Idk, but even reach phase 3 of fight). So... at end, if you couldn't master phase 1, you would only waste your time with phase 2 and further because last phase was about doing the first right.


Also... I can't remember, but there were a lot of fights that if you don't start it right it was a insta wipe (I like that, but I only remember Auriaya from Ulduar)

[Miyagie]

As a Tank, the Klaxxi council fight on heroic in SoO.
9 heroic bosses with different skills that all look the same...

[Relapses]

I'll throw another to the list.

Will of the Emperor. What the hell kind of last boss encounter is that?

A fun one. At least on 25M. Shit sucked on 10M. :^)

My personal least favorite was Ambershaper. Not because it was a poorly designed encounter (in fact, quite the opposite), just that most people were simply too fucking stupid to do the encounter correctly.

[Sithalos]

For raid bosses it's easily Xanesh for me. She hit all of my pet peeves at once; super gimmicky, requiring a chain interrupt rotation, and an instant wipe mechanic if one person failed the stupid gimmick even slightly.

As for dungeon bosses, Manastorms in SL actually pisses me off. Any encounter that requires a full dps stop if you go "too hard" is already flawed, but to see it in a dungeon? Fuck off.

[Temp name]

Spine, confined space fights are awful in this game

Especially as a tank on heroic. Hello, my job is to run in circles for however long it takes this boss to die. Oh, someone else fucked up mechanics and we wiped? Cooooool, I'll just run in circles more.

[Smash Adams]

Spine of Deathwing. The concept sounded great. But holy shit what an abortion. Just a mind numbing experience. There was absolutely nothing about that fight that was fun for anyone. I have never loathed progression more than I did on that fight.