GC, ToC was awesome! Where are you getting this data?

[lettuce]

Poll doesn't have a good option for me. I enjoyed ToC well enough but I wouldn't necessarily want to see more areas of similar design. It seemed like a very unnecessary divergence from the overarching plot. "Now that we're on to the final citadel... let's take a few months to fight each other and thin our numbers a bit. Have to give the Lich King a fighting chance, after all." It also released too soon in my opinion, when we were were still having fun in Ulduar.

Overall I'd give it a 6/10.

[Sicarius87]

I liked ToC for 2 reasons:
1: I dislike trash to be honest so ToC was awesome that you got to fight boss after boss. Only downside was there wasn't enough bosses.
2: I was able to run it twice every week because 10 and 25 were separate lockouts.

However, the raid itself (look and tier gear) were pretty bad.

I liked the horde priest gear. That was it. Rogues gear was terrible. The axes you got in 10 and 25m though, were badass.

[Whatisjuice]

I agree that it wasn't as epic or aesthetically pleasing as ulduar. But I think what really stood out to me in ToC were the boss mechanics. Some of those boss fights were just really fun.

[Sturmbringe]

TOC was so-so except for the PvP bosses which I really hated.

[Marema]

Really hope OP is trolling. Worst. Raid. Ever.

[Armourboy]

From what I remember, ToC was never supposed to be a raid, just a 5-man dungeon. The raid for that patch was supposed to be Azjol-Nerub, but got scrapped, and instead we got ToC as a raid. Also explains why there's some Azjol-Nerub stuff in ToC, and Why Anub'arak is the final boss (who was supposed to be the final boss in AN).

We probably should be happy we got a raid at all in that patch. In Cata, they just decided to remove the raid concept for one major patch completely

The entire are was supposed to be an underground zone housing instances, quests and raids. It is in fact the one thing GC continually says he regrets seeing never make it in as they wanted. If I remember right Old Kingdom was originally supposed to be the Raid for the area, which is why it is so big compared to the others ( I think Gundrak had the same type of thing happen to it)

As far as Anub being in ToC, it was something they added to try and tie it all in to the actual expansion. He originally wasn't even a boss for ToC, but they came up with that ending to kind of point us towards ICC. The other reason was that ToC was never supposed to be in the location that it was. It was originally slated for the area right below Dalaran, but due to worries of stability with Dalaran being in the same zone they moved it. The proof of that is the random Sunreaver and Silver Covenant flight paths opposite of each other in the zone which served no real purpose afterwards.

If you ever listen to all of the idea's that never developed in Wrath, it would of probably been double the size of what it was. Frankly after reading all of those remarks, I often wonder what the rush was to get us into Cata so quickly. It obviously wasn't ready, and if they had added all the raids they had originally planned ( along with the area's) I feel like Wrath, not TBC, would of ended up being the expansion everyone points to as the best.

Knowing all of those things, when you fly around Northrend you can see just how much got left out that could of been really good content. It wasn't the first time its happened, as there was some changes made with TBC too that I would of loved to see. Each hub was supposed to have normals, heroics, and Raids, and while some of them did that, not all of them did. ( Nagrand zone had nothing, Auchindoun had no raid as Shadow labs was converted into a 5 man, and Blades Edge only had a Raid) If I also remember right when they started talking about them, the heroics were supposed to have extra bosses that could be unlocked as well in different wings, but that never panned out either.

[thesmall001]

There was nothing wrong with the theme and the bosses in ToC. It was... well... literally everything else about the raid that made it awful.

1) Released far too soon after Ulduar but with much better gear. Why fight through the first 6-7 bosses in Ulduar so you can progress on Firefighter or hard mode General when you can just jump to ToC and get free gear that was better?

2) The Argent Tournament. While it made sense thematically with the overall expansion story, as a daily hub it is easily the worst daily hub to ever be introduced in a mid-expansion patch (compare to IQD, Firelands dailies, Isle of Thunder). The raid being associated with all of that cheapens the experience.

3) No trash. As much as we find trash annoying at times, the lack of trash entirely meant that you slammed your face into one boss, killed it, then immediately were on another. There was no break, no winding down in tension. The lack of trash lead to quick clear or grueling progression, which lead to clearing as many lockouts per week as possible because the whole place could be done in an hour per lockout. Some guilds killed 10 man normal, 25 man normal, and 10 man hard mode all in the same day to get gear for 25 man ToGC.

4) The 4 lockouts. I just covered this a bit, but that wore on people more than anything else, and was the sole ignition for the debate on whether 10 and 25 man should even have separate lockouts at all. I look back on ToC and see myself killing the same bosses 2 or 3 times a week on the same character, which was just plain irritating by the end of it.

5) Limited attempts. Progression is not fun when that one person that wipes the whole raid from a mistake doesn't just cost you time, but also potential loot and potentially even the chance to fight bosses at all. The inability to simply throw attempts at bosses also lead to the "why not" reasoning for farming 2-3 other lockouts each week, it's not like you could spend that time on real progression anyways.

6) Anub'arak. Not the fight itself, mind you, but everything else surrounding the fact that the fight was there. The Lich King coming in only reminded us how cheap his appearances were all expansion (to the point of cartoonish). The fact that Anub'arak was still alive reminded us of his cheap "demise" in a boring 5 man. Dropping down brought up painful reminders of the rumors of an entire Azjol-Nerub daily zone instead of the lame Tournament, and how arguably the most important part of Northrend itself was simply ignored in the expansion. Anub'arak being there in the circumstances that he was served as a painful reminder of how botched the patch cycle in WotLK was rather than an epic boss.

Beasts, JARAXXUS, Faction Champions, Twin Valkyrs, and Anub'arak were all great boss fights, but they had by far the worst surroundings of any tier in the game. It's not that ToC itself was bad, it was that the raiding tier as a whole was awful from a larger perspective.

I'll agree with all of this despite still loving ToC. None of your points are denyable. I don't deny them and nor does Blizzard. But that doesn't and shouldn't stop someone from enjoying it. I know it's easy to forget in this community but sometimes you CAN enjoy something because it's got some merit rather than not enjoy it because of a handful of flaws. I always look on the bright side of content and WoW. For me... ToC had some good stuff. Bad stuff be damned and forgotten.

Also the original plan for Wrath was an Azjol Nerub levelling zone roughly the size of Firelands and Molten Front combined and not a daily zone. Though it likely would've had a faction that provided rep and dailies. It also had a raid intended to prelude Ulduar and tie the Lich King, Yoggy and the Aspects stories together. (This and a story line in Zul'Drak regarding the missing watcher Tyr, The Silver Hand and the Argent Crusade were scrapped due to time restraints and are now being explored in the book Dawn of the Aspects.) The other "scrapped" content in Wrath was a raid of Zul'Drak which would have properly concluded their storyline and would have featured Frost King Malakk who now appears in the Throne of Thunder raid as part of the Tribal Council fight. ToC was not originally in the plans for Wrath and was conceived VERY late into developement as a quick fix for bad project management.

[Darksoldierr]

ToC was a pathethic shithole, after Ulduar it was dissapointing. Only the final boss fight was good. On heroic we cleared it till anub on the patch day. Terrible design, terrible bosses.


On a sidenote, i liked the PvP bossfight.

[Finnio]

TOC was utter shit, just because in your opinion it was good, doesn't mean the rest feel the same, hell this instance and DS are in my opinion the worst dungeons ever made in wow.

[Murderdoll]

Inb4 OP loves Dragon Soul as well.

I think one of the biggest problems ToC faced was it came after Ulduar. Ulduar was and still is praised as one of, if not the best raid ever created. After raiding Ulduar, with its rich art and design, the challenging bosses as well as the sheer amount of content that came with it, then heading to a 5 boss raid inside of 2 rooms, we were just flat out disappointed, to top it off, we had to raid it for 4 months and even when ICC came out, we still had to raid it due to trinkets like Deaths Choice and the staggered release of ICC.

I think the concept behind the raid itself was sound, but poorly executed. The raid definitely needed trash and needed more bosses. I also think the inclusion of Anub'Arak was a cheap end to his story, I was disappointed to see him relegated to a B Class raid and killed with very little story. I wouldve much prefered to see him in Icecrown Citadel. If they had to include him in Toc they couldve extended the Nerubian part of the raid and added say, another 2 bosses such as Mael Shelub (ignore the fact he hides in Lordaeron somewhere) and included some of the awesome Nerubian artwork along with some trash packs and it wouldve gone along way to improving the raid.

The big problems were, being stuck in 2 rooms, lack of bosses, lack of trash.

[BLSTMASTER]

Things I liked.

1. Short, concise (unlike any other raid tbh) that really got a lot of people into raiding. Recruiting /Pugging ICC with decent people (with gear and some raiding experience) was extremely easy because of this. Each encounter was very different from the other that allowed people that never raided some experience, even with only 5 bosses.
2. The trophy system was cool. I think they should revisit that idea somewhat (especially for 10mans)
3. YOU FACE JARAXXUS, EREDAR LORD OF THE BURNING LEGION


Things I didn't like

1. Too short for my taste.
2. I actually missed trash. (surprisingly lol)
3. Gating was horrible.
4. Limited attemps on the whole raid was a neat idea, that didn't really work out
5. timing of patch. I think a month longer of Uld would have been good, but I'm not sure. I'm sure a LOT of guilds just gave up on ulduar and was bored, so maybe ToC came at a good time.

[Doktor Faustus]

ToC killed Ulduar way before it's time, and was shit-ass boring to grind week after week.

[Littleraven]

yeah.....OP you are in the vast minority. out of ALL the people i know who play WoW. none of them liked ToC. now some like it more than others but the general consensus is that it was a huge step back after ulduar and hell even naxx 2.0. i personally was ok with it. i just cant argue with GC on this one. as a raid it was underwhelming.

faction champions was an interesting fight though.

[Deleted]

TOCG and TOC was fun , but is was so easy. I quited the game and the minute i logged back in after 3months of no play , i was in a group for this raid. we downed 4 bosses and kept wiping on the 5th so we killed that later. So yes really fun instance but way to short and way to easy.

(The 4 kills were normal not hc)

[Deleted]

I raided from MC through TBC,hit TOC in WoTLK and quit raiding,it was a terrible half arsed,pathetic excuse for a raid.

[dirk123]

Wasn't the original raid plan for Ulduar's final boss to be Loken, and Azjol Nerub's raid's final boss to be Yogg-Soron? (Faceless being there in WC3, and the creature in WC3 having a similar look as C'thun P1)

I liked ToC, but I think the main reason people hate it is because it made the Ulduar raid and its gear kinda useless....

[Aoyi]

I liked ToC. I just really wish it had more bosses. Twin Valkyrs was possibly my favorite because I loved the game Ikaruga. That fight felt like I was right in the middle of a 3D version of that game. The reason most people became so sick of it was just how many versions you ended up running to maximize your week (4 runs per week per character). A full clear only took about 30-40 minutes so I'd be running ToGC 10 and ToC on Tuesday nights, then ToGC/ToC 25 Wednesday. Then Ulduar 25 for achievements on Thursday.

[Xeraxis]

I liked ToC for 2 reasons:
1: I dislike trash to be honest so ToC was awesome that you got to fight boss after boss. Only downside was there wasn't enough bosses.
2: I was able to run it twice every week because 10 and 25 were separate lockouts.

However, the raid itself (look and tier gear) were pretty bad.

I ran it at minimum 4 times a week. That's what made it fun for me and must of my raid team was just the sheer number of times you could raid it due to how quickly it went not having to waste time fighting trash that has no point. The look of the gear (though separate Horde and Alliance gear was nice) and the rather bland raid environment did weigh on you however.

[thesmall001]

Wasn't the original raid plan for Ulduar's final boss to be Loken, and Azjol Nerub's raid's final boss to be Yogg-Soron? (Faceless being there in WC3, and the creature in WC3 having a similar look as C'thun P1)

I liked ToC, but I think the main reason people hate it is because it made the Ulduar raid and its gear kinda useless....

No, Loken's story was always intended to set up the story of the Titan watchers in Ulduar. His end was always going to be in the Halls of Lightning because that was his jazz. Loken used Lightning, Thorim used Storm (Ice/Winds) and Raden uses Thunder which leads me to think that Raden is related to them.

Azjol Nerub and Ahn'Kahet were originally a single raid (AN lead into OK) and would have ended with Anub and then the Faceless leader who would have revealed the relation between the corruption stemming from Yogg'Saron who was imprisoned in Ulduar, the Nerubians (as his version of the Qiraji/Mantid/Makura) and the Lich King.

People often overlook the "point" of Yogg Saron and his relation to the story of Wrath. He is the eternal god of UNDEATH. He lives UNDER Northrend. The creation of the Lich King, because of Nerzhul, is often attributed to the Legion but it is more likely that it was Yogg Saron who orchestrated the events in Northrend. Icecrown Citadel was made from his blood after all and it's therefore likely that the Twilight Cultists now have the shards of Ol' Frosty. This was all meant to be explained (and actually was contextually infered) in Wrath but they just failed to execute the story well and it's only now in Dawn of the Aspects that we're starting to see this all fit together.

[Deleted]

ToC was the worst tier in whole WoW hands down, even MC was more entertaining back in the day. Anub on heroic wasnt bad but rest was rubbish, plus the overall look of the raid and gear was just horrible. Now, considering it was released after Ulduar, its not hard to see why theres so much dislike towards the raid.