What do you think was the worst raid tier?

[garicasha]

It's up to the user to decide what "worst" means. Take "/" to mean "or".

Wasn't easy to fit them in to 20 options but I tried to leave the likely most hated raids on their own line:
AQ40
Battle for Mount Hyjal
Trial of the Crusader
Dragon Soul
Hellfire Citadel, or more accurately, the raid that we should have gotten after HFC
Tomb of Sargeras
I didn't raid BfA
Sanctum of Domination

And for reference, separated out:
Molten Core (Onyxia / ZG)
Blackwing Lair
AQ40 (AQ20)
Naxxramas

Karazhan / Gruul / Magtheridon
Serpentshrine Cavern / The Eye of Tempest Keep
Battle for Mount Hyjal / Black Temple / Sunwell / (ZA)

Naxx 2.0 / Obsidian Sanctum / Eye of Eternity
Ulduar
(Grand) Trial of the Crusader
Icecrown Citadel / Ruby Sanctum

Blackwing Descent / Throne of the Four Winds / Bastion of Twilight
Firelands
Dragon Soul

Mogu'shan Vaults / Heart of Fear / Terrace of Endless Spring
Throne of Thunder
Siege of Orgrimmar

Blackrock Foundry / Highmaul
Hellfire Citadel

Emerald Nightmare / Trial of Valor
The Nighthold
Tomb of Sargeras
Antorus, The Burning Throne

Uldir /Battle of Dazar'alor / Crucible of Storms I dunno what is actually a tier in BfA
The Eternal Palace / Ny'alotha

Castle Nathria
Sanctum of Domination
Sepulcher of the First Ones

[Mendzia]

Dragon Soul
As i love Classic i think AQ40 and Hyjal were absolutely horrible too.
Did not do much past Cata.

[NineSpine]

It's up to the user to decide what "worst" means. Take "/" to mean "or".

Wasn't easy to fit them in to 20 options but I'm pretty sure the frontrunners will be:
AQ40
Battle for Mount Hyjal
Trial of the Crusader
Dragon Soul
Hellfire Citadel, or more accurately, the raid that we should have gotten after HFC
Tomb of Sargeras
I didn't raid BfA
Sanctum of Domination

And for reference, separated out:
Molten Core / Blackwing Lair / Onyxia / ZG
AQ40 / Naxxramas / AQ20

Karazhan / Gruul / Magtheridon
Serpentshrine Cavern / The Eye of Tempest Keep
Battle for Mount Hyjal / Black Temple / Sunwell

Naxx 2.0 / Obsidian Sanctum / Eye of Eternity
Ulduar
(Grand) Trial of the Crusader
Icecrown Citadel / Ruby Sanctum

Blackwing Descent / Throne of the Four Winds / Bastion of Twilight
Firelands
Dragon Soul

Mogu'shan Vaults / Heart of Fear / Terrace of Endless Spring
Throne of Thunder
Siege of Orgrimmar

Blackrock Foundry / Highmaul
Hellfire Citadel

Emerald Nightmare / Trial of Valor
The Nighthold
Tomb of Sargeras
Antorus, The Burning Throne

Uldir /Battle of Dazar'alor / Crucible of Storms I dunno what is actually a tier in BfA
The Eternal Palace / Ny'alotha

Castle Nathria
Sanctum of Domination
Sepulcher of the First Ones

This poll isn't raid tiers. It's random groupings of raids that are in the same expansion.

[garicasha]

This poll isn't raid tiers. It's random groupings of raids that are in the same expansion.

I did the best I could to keep the likely "winners" on their own line. Poll options max is 20 and there's almost 30 raid tiers now. For example I doubt Ulduar was gonna get many votes so I lumped it with Wrath tier 1. I didn't really want to put all of Pandaria together but I also didn't want to put raids from two expansions on the same line.

[aceperson]

i can't speak to sanctum or sepulcher as i haven't bothered with retail since january 2021, but i'd honestly say castle nathria was my worst. the raid launched over tuned, class design is at the worst i've seen it, gearing became less fun and more of a mandatory grind due to the raid being over tuned, etc. it also doesn't help that obvious issues were ignored like covenants until well after launch.

in terms of raid design itself, i absolutely hate mechanics that put my characters life in the hands of another player such as the pairing mechanics on the dance boss and the 3rd to last boss. i get it's group content, but another persons mistake should not mean my instant death without any input from me being able to mitigate it.

[Karawaka]

Dragon soul, sanctum, and sepulcher are all just the worst

[garicasha]

Dragon Soul

Thinking about if I would play Cata classic made me think of Dragon Soul...which made me write this post. (I wouldn't mind doing Blackwing Descent, though, I had fun in there!)

The first 3 bosses were utterly forgettable, the fights were in like 4 different tilesets, the lore made little to no sense until the final two bosses, the gunship fight was kinda gimmicky...and that was all on normal.

On heroic Spine of Deathwing is one of the most complained-about fights ever (ridiculous amount of mobs and an insane prioritization of 1 minute cooldowns to break the sinews), and the fact that the final boss was a pushover just also led to more disappointment. Plus it followed a very popular boss, Heroic Ragnaros, which was arguably the first mega-hard modern WoW raid boss.

WoD was lacking a raid which kind of made HFC current content for 12 million years.

Tomb of Sargeras had its soaking problems on mythic, but there were some redeeming moments. I loved Fallen Avatar P1, I would like to see more encounters with that level of coordination.

Didn't raid BfA.

I loved Castle Nathria and ...well Sanctum of Domination kind of had to be greyscale, which meant it would never be that popular. Like bug zones or troll zones. Sylvanas chain phase really needed an overhaul, but overall I liked it. And I LOVED Fatescribe, great fight, really made me think as a raid leader pugging it. Sepulcher was far too hard on heroic and insanely hard on mythic but I would still take it over Dragon Soul any day. If it was in two parts as intended with Anduin at the end of part 1 and Jailer at the end of part 2 it'd have been fine.

I also hated Trial of the Crusader but I have gaslighted myself in to thinking it didn't exist, and that two of the best raids ever, Ulduar and ICC , just fed right in to each other.

And depending on your definition of worst, original Naxx could win because by modern standards it wasn't really all that hard, required stupid levels of farming, almost no one did it, and was far too large. The ambience, however, was just killer.

[Khaza-R]

Dragon Soul.

Options are really weird though. Why is WotLK Naxx combined with Ulduar? And why is Uldir (easily the worst BfA raid) combined with BoD (by far the best BfA raid)?

[Makorus]

How is HFC one of the most hated raid?

Other than the fact that it lasted way too long, it is probably Top 5 in terms of raids.

[rogoth]

Dragon Soul.

Options are really weird though. Why is WotLK Naxx combined with Ulduar? And why is Uldir (easily the worst BfA raid) combined with BoD (by far the best BfA raid)?

hyjal is the worst raid in WoW history, nothing even comes close to the utter snoozefest that shit was, dragon soul while bad in terms of tuning and in terms of how long it lasted before new content released, wasn't as bad as hyjal overall, and while entirely subjective i really liked TOGC, it was a pleasant change to not have to waste hours of a raid night clearing trash just to spend 5-10 mins on a boss then back to clearing yet more trash, granted it did get boring doing the same instance 4 times a week but that's more of a social issue than the game issue imho.

- - - Updated - - -

How is HFC one of the most hated raid?

Other than the fact that it lasted way too long, it is probably Top 5 in terms of raids.

because of how stupidly tuned gorefiend was on both heroic mode and especially mythic mode, that boss encounter saw a decline in raid guilds more than any encounter in the history of the game, that's why it's hated so much.

[callipygoustp]

Dragon Soul, no question.

Edit:
Hyjal was before my time, but that was a monumental snore fest.

[Peacemoon]

It's up to the user to decide what "worst" means. Take "/" to mean "or".

Wasn't easy to fit them in to 20 options but I tried to leave the likely most hated raids on their own line:
AQ40
Battle for Mount Hyjal
Trial of the Crusader
Dragon Soul
Hellfire Citadel, or more accurately, the raid that we should have gotten after HFC
Tomb of Sargeras
I didn't raid BfA
Sanctum of Domination

And for reference, separated out:
Molten Core (Onyxia / ZG)
Blackwing Lair
AQ40 (AQ20)
Naxxramas

Karazhan / Gruul / Magtheridon
Serpentshrine Cavern / The Eye of Tempest Keep
Battle for Mount Hyjal / Black Temple / Sunwell / (ZA)

Naxx 2.0 / Obsidian Sanctum / Eye of Eternity
Ulduar
(Grand) Trial of the Crusader
Icecrown Citadel / Ruby Sanctum

Blackwing Descent / Throne of the Four Winds / Bastion of Twilight
Firelands
Dragon Soul

Mogu'shan Vaults / Heart of Fear / Terrace of Endless Spring
Throne of Thunder
Siege of Orgrimmar

Blackrock Foundry / Highmaul
Hellfire Citadel

Emerald Nightmare / Trial of Valor
The Nighthold
Tomb of Sargeras
Antorus, The Burning Throne

Uldir /Battle of Dazar'alor / Crucible of Storms I dunno what is actually a tier in BfA
The Eternal Palace / Ny'alotha

Castle Nathria
Sanctum of Domination
Sepulcher of the First Ones

Classic: AQ40. Not only the location but the loot being massively ugly (after BWL) and being quite confusing with all the items needed.
TBC: Tempest Keep. Simplistic design and just a pain to run. The final boss west complicated and hard compared to prior bosses.
WotLK: Trial of the Crusader - just cut short Ulduar, and all took place in one room (except for the final boss yes). Should have been a side raid to Ulduar, with the niche of being much quicker to run, and not it’s own tier.
Cata: I didn’t raid. Firelands was a lot smaller than I thought it would be and Dragon Soul was just an ugly mesh of reused areas. Throwing Deathwing into the Maelstrom should have been the first thing, and then the raid should have taken place in Deep Holm.. going deeper and deeper underground..
MoP: I think all the raid tiers were good. Probably Heart of Fear if I had to pick one.
WoD didn’t raid this.
Legion: didn’t raid before Argus patch.
BfA: only did BoD, which I adore massively!
SL:they were all good. Probably Selulcher of the First Ones just because of how hard they made it.

Nice discussion

[Calfredd]

hyjal is the worst raid in WoW history, nothing even comes close to the utter snoozefest that shit was, dragon soul while bad in terms of tuning and in terms of how long it lasted before new content released, wasn't as bad as hyjal overall, and while entirely subjective i really liked TOGC, it was a pleasant change to not have to waste hours of a raid night clearing trash just to spend 5-10 mins on a boss then back to clearing yet more trash, granted it did get boring doing the same instance 4 times a week but that's more of a social issue than the game issue imho.

- - - Updated - - -



because of how stupidly tuned gorefiend was on both heroic mode and especially mythic mode, that boss encounter saw a decline in raid guilds more than any encounter in the history of the game, that's why it's hated so much.

Wait, Gorefiend beat out M'uru as the guild killer?

[rogoth]

Wait, Gorefiend beat out M'uru as the guild killer?

yes, and it ain't even close.

[Khaza-R]

hyjal is the worst raid in WoW history, nothing even comes close to the utter snoozefest that shit was, dragon soul while bad in terms of tuning and in terms of how long it lasted before new content released, wasn't as bad as hyjal overall, and while entirely subjective i really liked TOGC, it was a pleasant change to not have to waste hours of a raid night clearing trash just to spend 5-10 mins on a boss then back to clearing yet more trash, granted it did get boring doing the same instance 4 times a week but that's more of a social issue than the game issue imho.

I don't disagree. But I think far more people experienced DS over the original Hyjal. I would also add, the final raid tier should generally be the strongest one of the expansion. Most of the time its going to be the one you remember the most. I judge DS especially harshly because it forever left a bad taste for Cataclysm. Hyjal was really boring and incredibly monotonous but it doesn't make me dislike TBC.

[NineSpine]

I did the best I could to keep the likely "winners" on their own line. Poll options max is 20 and there's almost 30 raid tiers now. For example I doubt Ulduar was gonna get many votes so I lumped it with Wrath tier 1. I didn't really want to put all of Pandaria together but I also didn't want to put raids from two expansions on the same line.

By lumping the most lauded tier of all time, Ulduar, with one of the most panned of all time, Naxx 2.0, you mess the whole thing up. It's like having a poll of "Least favorite food" and you put "Cheeseburger / Shit Sandwich" on one line. I don't want to say my least favorite food is a cheeseburger, even if I really don't want to eat a shit sandwich.

A better solution would have been to just pick the clear most lauded raids of all time and leave them off. Ulduar doesn't need to be on the list at all.

[rogoth]

I don't disagree. But I think far more people experienced DS over the original Hyjal. I would also add, the final raid tier should generally be the strongest one of the expansion. Most of the time its going to be the one you remember the most. I judge DS especially harshly because it forever left a bad taste for Cataclysm. Hyjal was really boring and incredibly monotonous but it doesn't make me dislike TBC.

that's a fair arguement, personally for me i enjoyed 4.3 for a few different reasons, firstly because once i cleared heroic mode and had the place on farm, we were done with the entire raid within like an hour AT MOST for the entire week, which meant i could freely go and do whatever i wanted outside of that, and during that time it was rare for me to have 'free time' for stuff that i actually wanted to do, so i viewed that as a small blessing in disguise, i also had fun with LFR, because i was fully BiS geared with the legendary staff, i would go in with a few friends queued up who were also BiS geared from different classes/specs, and we used to have personal dps competitions to see who could end the fight the highest on the meters, literally doing the same amount of damage on my own as 4-5 of the randoms who were there solo combined, aside from providing them with easy loot it was a fun time (maybe not fun for them in the long run but it what it is), and having cleared everything during cataclysm, i would say it was better than a lot of people seem to remember, it had very obvious flaws, and the cut content was a huge miss, but overall i would take a classic version of it over TBC any day because of how comparatively easy TBC was and is by comparison.

[Doffen]

Highmaul and Uldir.

Theme means a lot to me in a raid, and those two just wasn't exciting.

[Makorus]

hyjal is the worst raid in WoW history, nothing even comes close to the utter snoozefest that shit was, dragon soul while bad in terms of tuning and in terms of how long it lasted before new content released, wasn't as bad as hyjal overall, and while entirely subjective i really liked TOGC, it was a pleasant change to not have to waste hours of a raid night clearing trash just to spend 5-10 mins on a boss then back to clearing yet more trash, granted it did get boring doing the same instance 4 times a week but that's more of a social issue than the game issue imho.

- - - Updated - - -



because of how stupidly tuned gorefiend was on both heroic mode and especially mythic mode, that boss encounter saw a decline in raid guilds more than any encounter in the history of the game, that's why it's hated so much.

While Gorefiend was a big difficulty spike, he was hardly the hardest boss.

He was a boss like Anduin/Fatescribe to name recent examples where if you fuck up one mechanic you might as well wipe.

He was also the only boss that didn't get invalidated by the Legendary Ring.

[Accendor]

So, Castle Nathria was super cool, with SLG being completely overtuned on mythic, but it had awesome asthetics, an interesting storyline and a very cool final boss.
SoD had some super annoying and unfun bossfights, the storyline was dogshit, but at least some of the encounters were cool. Sylvanas however is most likely the worst final fight ever.
Still, those two combined were pretty solid. However, then we got Sepulcher and that simply was the worst experience I ever had in raiding.
Everything completely overtuned, dogshit story line again, I personally hate the asthetics as well and basically every bossfight is annoying as hell. On top of that, the final boss is the least memorable villian we ever had. Fucking Van Cleef has more personality and background story.
The absolute Highlight of the raid was a fucking mechanical crab boss without any personality at all and it still managed to outshine everything else.

So yeah. Sepulcher was the worst raid ever.