Is Blood Furnace the hardest heroic dungeon in TBC/the game?

[Akka]

But thing is, it worked. By making it so accessible (though arguably too easy for many), they achieved their highest WoW subscriber numbers, ever, exactly at that point.

That's a common misconception. WotLK was actually the moment WoW stopped growing and plateaued. The customer peak was reached DURING CATACLYSM PRE-PATCH. Vanilla and TBC saw huge growth, that WotLK stopped dead in its track.
What WotLK did was to bring a ton of new players, BUT to drive away a ton of veterans, both balancing pretty much equally. There is a reason the expression "wrath's babies" exists and only applies to this single expansion. WotLK was when the "new WoW" killed the "old WoW" and paved the way for the decline of the game. Cataclysm made promise to go back to a more meaningful game, but it crashed down when Blizzard only made hard 5-men that were easily outgeared, without changing anything else.

In fact, for all the talk about "overtuned heroics drove people out", the fact is that even more people left after their nerf than before. It tends to indicate that the outcry was overblown and what made people leave was deeper than that.

[garicasha]

If my 15 year old memories serve, Blood Furnace got a lot easier after everyone had done it a million times and just knew where the stealth mobs were, to stay out of the land mines, which guys in the gauntlet to CC, etc.

Shattered Halls still needed a poly or two (although I wasn't a hardcore raider so it's not like I was in T6).

And note that in five pages of discussion on the topic, the first and last boss of BF have yet to even be mentioned. Taking the title of the thread at face value, it's hard to argue that it's the hardest dungeon in the game when literally all people are talking about is the second boss. If we could see completion stats somehow I'd bet it'd be something like:

Easiest:
Slave Pens
Ramparts
Mechanar

<the rest not named here>

Blood Furnace
Shadow Labyrinth
Arcatraz
Shattered Halls

[Oneer]

First off, you can't mark these mobs beforehand, making coordinating CC a lot more difficult, Sap is also a dead CC in there due to that.

I found having a mage opening with frost nova on each wave is invaluable for breathing room for some quick marking and getting CC off in a semi coordinated manner, but i've pretty much only run it with a mage/lock combo & priest healer so we fell back to scream / intimidating on the 4-mob packs.

[Edit] -

And note that in five pages of discussion on the topic, the first and last boss of BF have yet to even be mentioned.

To clarify on this, a significant portion of bosses across all heroics simply are completely inconsequential compared to the trash that reside in the same instance as them and most fail to offer any mechanical challenge.

Having said that there are some pretty savage encounters, notably bosses with heavy aoe shadow damage with honourable mentions going out to the first bosses in MT & Arca respectively which are rough.

There's also 1 or 2 melee-based bosses that can 3-shot lower geared tanks if the healer isn't on it like the 1st boss in Durnholde with his 5k hamstrings.

[Rageonit]

That's a common misconception. WotLK was actually the moment WoW stopped growing and plateaued. The customer peak was reached DURING CATACLYSM PRE-PATCH. Vanilla and TBC saw huge growth, that WotLK stopped dead in its track.
What WotLK did was to bring a ton of new players, BUT to drive away a ton of veterans, both balancing pretty much equally. There is a reason the expression "wrath's babies" exists and only applies to this single expansion. WotLK was when the "new WoW" killed the "old WoW" and paved the way for the decline of the game. Cataclysm made promise to go back to a more meaningful game, but it crashed down when Blizzard only made hard 5-men that were easily outgeared, without changing anything else.

In fact, for all the talk about "overtuned heroics drove people out", the fact is that even more people left after their nerf than before. It tends to indicate that the outcry was overblown and what made people leave was deeper than that.

Subscriptions don't expire overnight, so I guess it's not that easy to determine who left when; still got my 6m subscription running, even though I don't play since like 3 months now - but technically, it means I didn't quit yet. But yeah, I agree - back then the reasons were deeper than that; still, Blizzard dancing between two very different groups of players didn't help. Trying to appease both, they failed to satisfy any. Whatever path you take, stick to it; changing your mind one way and then another will not win you any fans.

[Nite92]

IIRC no dungeon ever had larger pulls than Shattered Halls.

I really think after you do Blood Furnace a few more times you won't find it that hard. If you're trolling yah got me to bite.

Large pulls aren't the issue, with good gear you can just facetank shh, but bf the unarmed mobs murder you. If you don't have good cc, bf is probably the hardest one.

Ohf is also dumb, with slayer mobs hitting for 8k, with 2 in one pack.

[ellieg]

There's a few cheese comps you can use to make HC SHH manageable, i've done several runs now as a prot warrior with a mage specced imp. blizzard and a warlock via seed kiting, the trick is you have your last DPS (we used a rogue) kill the centurion and keep the casters locked down in the aoe while the mage & lock seed kite the other 6 mobs, with this method it made most of the dungeon pretty trivial.

Bring a mage and lock makes SHH so easy. Pulling mobs around a corner and just aoeing them down while they are slowed. No real need for a tank in the majority of the instance

[Northern Goblin]

Semi decent geared Protadin + Warlocks makes SHH an absolute breeze.

[Tojara]

Most of the dungeons aren't that bad, nearly everything can be kited. Just bring a hunter, mage, warrior (with piercing howl), or have your rogue spam shiv on everything. There are loads of options to group kite mobs, especially when you want to pull big, or you try to pull mobs that actually hit really hard. For everything else, you can just traditionally CC stuff, but our group composition just kites everything.

The last boss in Arcatraz is super fucking dumb though.

[Master Guns]

As a healer with 1824 +healing, heroic BF without proper group comp is by far the hardest. Those add waves before 2nd boss literally 2 shot tanks with 13k hp without proper cc. H Shattered halls is easy in comparison.

[Romanthony]

I believe Escapee from Durnholde, was considered the hardest heroic till, Magisters Terrace was released

[Millyraynge]

I believe Escapee from Durnholde, was considered the hardest heroic till, Magisters Terrace was released

Most people just don't use thrall as a meat shield, especially just before the last boss. You can literally cheese this instance by clever use of game mechanic.

Blood Furnance on the other hand offers the highest incoming single target damage. Pretty much each melee add delivers the same dps like the first boss in durnhold hc.

[Chaelexi]

Answer is Manatombs first boss unless you get some SR gear.

[Lora]

lmfao no. the hardest heroic back in the day was shattering halls and magisters terrace. shattering halls sucked ass and the trash in magisters terrace was far harder than the bosses.

- - - Updated - - -

IIRC no dungeon ever had larger pulls than Shattered Halls.

I really think after you do Blood Furnace a few more times you won't find it that hard. If you're trolling yah got me to bite.

you are correct. shattering had large shitty pulls and sucked ass. it was 100% the hardest heroic to tank until magisters terrace.

[D3athsting]

Arcatraz was pretty hard too

[Pozz]

If my 15 year old memories serve, Blood Furnace got a lot easier after everyone had done it a million times and just knew where the stealth mobs were, to stay out of the land mines, which guys in the gauntlet to CC, etc.

Shattered Halls still needed a poly or two (although I wasn't a hardcore raider so it's not like I was in T6).

And note that in five pages of discussion on the topic, the first and last boss of BF have yet to even be mentioned. Taking the title of the thread at face value, it's hard to argue that it's the hardest dungeon in the game when literally all people are talking about is the second boss. If we could see completion stats somehow I'd bet it'd be something like:

Easiest:
Slave Pens
Ramparts
Mechanar

<the rest not named here>

Blood Furnace
Shadow Labyrinth
Arcatraz
Shattered Halls

W00t? What's SL doing there?

[Mendzia]

My opinion as pala/priest healer:

Easy:
AC
SP
UB
SV
Ramps
Mech
Bot

Medium:
MT (1st boss is rough tho)
OHF
SH
BM

Hard (or atleast annoying):
SHH
Arca
SL
BF

[Adonijah]

Speaking as an Elemental Shaman, the second boss event from Blood Furnace sucks ass. The mobs can't be slowed, kill me in 3 hits with 10k armor, and murder my elementals. Other than straight up dps, my only options are War Stomp and Drums of Panic.

[Cracked]

Because of the tank damage, it might be. Idk what people are saying here, SHH heroic wasn't hard even in original TBC, and actually the gauntlet there was harder than the large pulls. Also funny seeing people put SL as hard, when it's only "hard" when you can't kick mobs / MC mobs / cc 2 mobs. I don't find Arcatraz particularly hard either, but in comparison, it might be harder than most others, yes. Mana Tombs with a tank that is not decked out, though.. ouch.

[AeneasBK]

Can people stop pretending there's anything difficult about Shattered Halls Heroic.

[ellieg]

Can people stop pretending there's anything difficult about Shattered Halls Heroic.

Them mortal strikes do be hittin do