So how does SoO compare to ToT?

[kejer]

Just curious since ppl kept saying ToT is better than ICC and stuff.
So what's the verdict about SoO? Is it the best raid in the expansion?

[Barendon]

I really think it's a better raid, better design, better encounters and it really feels like we're taking over a city. ICC for example didn't give me the feeling we storm the lich king's citadel.

[jadedfuture]

TOT was a million times better, in my unbiased opinion.

Everyone's going to say that SoO is better because it just came out, and they all probably hate ToT because of the monotonous grind it became after a few months- like every other raid ever implemented.

This question should've been asked after the next xpac came out, not now while everyone hates it because grinding sucks.

[HonneurVilified]

TOT was a million times better, in my unbiased opinion.

There's no such thing as an unbiased opinion. Absolutely a valid opinion, though!

For me, I think they're about the same: both very, very good.

[Sliske]

better purely because the fights don't punish you simply for being a melee.

[Ayla]

I hate SoO with my entire soul. Nothing makes me want to quit raiding more than SoO. Then again, raids have been boring since LK, I don't get the sense that things fit like they used to. I didnt really care for the Tortos encounter, but I loved the boss! I giant turtle blocking our way, its genius! Just like how I like Immerseus.

Anyways, I think bosses for he most part have become too complex or annoying or just too busy. Do we really need to have addons to help us with specific bosses? aka Sha (terrace)/Malkorok. Protectors is a nightmare where I feel overwhelmed with trying to find the right damned target. Sha is annoying with its AOE on demand needed (and turn around!). Blackfuse needs to concentrate on one or two types of machinery. Garrosh is okay, at least I feel I can plan things for the most part.

Jaina needed more of a presence (for alliance at least), very little of the fight took place in Org, and why exactly are we going through RFC? Honestly, there is only 8 bosses that I don't hate

[CosmicGuitars]

SoO had the unfortunate situation of it's first 8 bosses being relatively easy, and the last 4 being rock hard. ToT was much better in it's difficulty scaling.

I do have to say I like the SoO bosses better, mechanically, save for one or two. (Galakras, Nazgrim).

[Sliske]

Anyways, I think bosses for he most part have become too complex or annoying or just too busy. Do we really need to have addons to help us with specific bosses? aka Sha (terrace)/Malkorok. Protectors is a nightmare where I feel overwhelmed with trying to find the right damned target. Sha is annoying with its AOE on demand needed (and turn around!). Blackfuse needs to concentrate on one or two types of machinery. Garrosh is okay, at least I feel I can plan things for the most part.

Your point is correct in my opinion, but the examples you gave were quite bad. Malkorok? Malkorok is arguably the easiest boss mechanics wise in the entire raid. You don't need any addons for it at all. Protectors, well, get yourself some name plates and you'll do just fine, personal learning issue here. Sha of Pride? Again quite an easy boss, no real addons required, maybe for calling cds for the big aoe explosion. Blackfuse, again, quite a simple boss (normal.) Jump on conveyer belt every 40 seconds or something and nuke the crawler mines. No mines? magnet. No magnet? Who cares, laser or something.

I know what addon you speak of i think, for sha and malk. That addon that tells you were to stand - uneeded. This is a personal L2P issue buddy, the vast majority of guilds just put markers down to show them were not to stand or simply just use their own memory :P

[Aqua]

better purely because the fights don't punish you simply for being a melee.

With a few exceptions I am going to agree that SoO has some much more melee friendly fights.

However they both seem on par with me. After cataclysm the raid content in mists has been WAY up there in terms of quality.

SoO had the unfortunate situation of it's first 8 bosses being relatively easy, and the last 4 being rock hard. ToT was much better in it's difficulty scaling.

See...I would agree with this, since my guild did the same thing which is belt through the first 8 and then hit a few snags on the last couple. (The conveyor belt on Siegecrafter took me a handful of wipes until I could reliably get a hang on jumping off at the right part while making sure I had the right skills and talents ready to see me off safely several times, but thankfully that's all been gravy for weeks now)

But other guilds I've observed have had a bit more of an uphill struggle starting anywhere from the Sha, Galakras, the Shaman dudes...
So I think the scaling was done fairly well, it's just those of us on MMO champion ...tend to be a little more on the higher end of Normal and Heroic raiding. At least if you're looking up strategies to better your play-style online you've already gone above and beyond flex and casual-normal raiders. So It's kinda difficult to tell without it just being your own experiences.

[Zantera]

I like ToT more, but SoO is fine. The main problem with SoO is that most of the first two wings is really painful and slow. Once you get to the last two wings, the bossfights are more fun and interesting. ToT on the other hand felt more awesome all the way through, despite a few "meh"-fights.

[melodramocracy]

SoO is far better. Fewer dumb, out of place fights. "lets all open teh boxez!" is probably the only fight in SoO that strikes me as rather dumb.

Just the fact that there's no troll encounter makes it trump ToT.

[huth]

TOT was a million times better, in my unbiased opinion.

Might as well talk about dry water. An opinion is necessarily always biased.

IMHO, it's a tad undertuned on heroic(the first half, anyway), but overall quite nice

[melodramocracy]

Everyone's going to say that SoO is better because it just came out, and they all probably hate ToT because of the monotonous grind it became after a few months- like every other raid ever implemented.

ToT being overhyped and rather terrible was evident on the very first visit. So no.

[MrExcelion]

A bleeding edge guild will probably say ToT, but as a US50 something 25m guild I gotta go with SoO. Looking forward to just a 3 month tier and actually have enough time to farm enough Garrosh mounts so there's no drama. Everything in ToT was a 100+ wipe grind for us, whereas the first 11 bosses in SoO fell over in 50 or less pulls. Sure we still have 3 hard bosses ahead of us, but I like giving half the instance to heroic guilds of any skill level to have something to sink their teeth into and farm. ToT's 2nd boss was a guild killer. Everyone's generally happy when you can get enough heroic bosses down to fill all your gear slots. If there's an accelerated raid pace (3-5 months as they claim) in WoD then half the instance as Jinrohk level bosses would make sense. Clearing T14 and T15 full heroic with 6 weeks or less to farm was no bueno. I think we had 2 weeks for T14.

Lei Shen was still the pinnacle of the expansion, no doubt, though I could have done with the class stacking or input lag. The bleeding edge does hold Blackfuse in high regard, but they seem to think Paragons is a horrible fight and that Garrosh as an end boss is underwhelming. So I guess you could ultimately break it down and compare those two bosses if you wanted, and maybe Paragons up against Animus or something.

[celinamuna]

Both are fairly good and ToT + SoO are probably 2 out of top 5 favorite raids.

[Haywire5714]

The bosses in ToT are better mechanically and visually.
The linear difficulty is nice in SoO though.

ToT overall had less disappointing bosses so I'll go with that.

[Glorious Leader]

It would be hard to do worse than throne...

[Deleted]

What i like about SoO:

-Linear Progression... in ToT HC the difficulty scaling was terrible! It was more important to find out which bosses are the easier ones than actually progressing bosses. Horridon and Council were overtuned while Ji-kun and Tortos who came later in the instance were really easy. In SoO you could just kill all bosses from 1 to 14 in a fix order. Ok maybe Nazgrim is way easier than Dark Shamans but thats all. I also like that the first bosses are really easy and can be killed without too much preparation.

-Flex Raiding... the raiding experience in Flex is much better than in LFR which i personally dont do anymore at all.

-Many bosses can be played with LOTS of possible strategies. I always like it when bosses can be played in multiple ways. Blackfuse, Dark Shamans and Paragons are the best example.

What i dont like:

-Garrosh HC... overtuned like hell in 10man and its generally one of the worse fights in WoW. Ragnaros HC was difficult too but the fight was just epic and entertaining. Garrosh just feels like a pain in the arse, its not fun to do hundreads of pulls on a boss with bad design that isnt epic at all.

-10man vs 25man balance generally... the first 8 Bosses may be easy in 10man but they are complete faceroll in 25man. The other bosses are easier in 25man too... i dont want to turn this into a 10man vs 25man thread but method killing garrosh hc with 100 trys while paragon needed 400 says all doesnt it? Thunderforged and Warforged gear has a way to big impact on the difficulty of bosses.

[wariofan1]

ToT is a little bit better, but not by much. They're both great though.

[sam86]

a raid that is still fresh vs a raid that u geared ur 5th alt at and run it over 200time already
ToT may be better, but vote here will go for SoO surely because most people are overfed with ToT that they don't want to go anymore