mini raids and side raids

[The Oblivion]

Ive been thinking back now about something i really miss, and that is mini raids that were around a lot in WotLK and Cata. Things like Vault of Archavon, the update to Onyxia's lair, Ruby Sanctum, Baradin hold, Obsidian Sanctum, and Eye of Eternity.

These offered solid gear and a fun mini raid experience that in my opinion, was much more casual and pug friendly. They also helped to break up the tedious grind that a single raid can sometimes feel like.

Does anyone else miss this content?

[Clozer]

world bosses. and to some degree invasion points.

It's the same just not the same dude each week and you dont have to zone in.

[tylen]

ToV felt like a mini raid for me TBH, but I do like them a lot. I had fond memories running VoA and OS a lot back in Wotlk.

[The Oblivion]

ToV felt like a mini raid for me TBH, but I do like them a lot. I had fond memories running VoA and OS a lot back in Wotlk.

I agree, it did kind of come close to that feeling, i kinda liken it more to ToC though. which i didnt hate, unlike the majority at the time of its release.

[Socialhealer]

world bosses. and to some degree invasion points.

nailed it, these have replaced such raids, while not as epic blizzard can release a lot of them and do it every tier so people can get a lot more half decent gear without actually even needing to join a pug group(like antorus where ilvl and armoury might be a factor in you getting in) just use LFG sign up, tag it and loot.

i think the current system is better than the old.

[The Oblivion]

world bosses. and to some degree invasion points.

It's the same just not the same dude each week and you dont have to zone in.

for me, those are closer to quests then raids, but i can see how blizz is using that as a sort of replacement.

[RoKPaNda]

No thanks. The reason we got filler garbage pre-LFR was because it was hard for Blizzard to justify the resources spent, so now we can get large raid tiers every tier and not need random fillers that are fairly useless after a handful of runs.

[Deleted]

No thanks. The reason we got filler garbage pre-LFR was because it was hard for Blizzard to justify the resources spent, so now we can get large raid tiers every tier and not need random fillers that are fairly useless after a handful of runs.

Wrath had more raid content than any post LFR expansion ever had.

[RoKPaNda]

Wrath had more raid content than any post LFR expansion ever had.

Yeah no. That's nostalgia talking. It had a rehash and two one boss reused asset raids at launch plus the PvP area with one boss. Ulduar as fondly as it was remembered is just open space with bosses in it and a lot of reused assets, ToC was the most minimal effort filler raid ever made, ICC was decent, and again Ruby Sanctum was just a throwaway.

[Marrilaife]

Never liked them. Having to travel to places like Throne of the 4 Winds for just 2 bosses felt lame and opposite of epic. I actually miss sprawling 12+ bosses raids (12-14) with multiple wings, instead of this constant 7-11 boss raids stream.

And nop, Halion or Malygos weren't "pug friendly", that depends on the ease of the encounter and lack of complexity rather than size of the raid. Now the complexity is controlled by raid difficulty (normal is pug friendly because it has less complexity than heroic, and heroic has less than mythic). I've never met anyone in WOTLK who enjoyed Halion or Malygos. Sartharion was popular by the end of expansion as an overgeared zerg for 100% dropchance mount, but not when it was current.

Nowadays that raids are designed around being divided into wings for LFR purposes, so they have skips, teleports and shortcuts, no reason to not develop big multi-winged raids where each wing creates a natural break point for LFR and pugs.

[Sencha]

I don't miss 1-boss raids. But I miss 10-man raids like ZG (first version).

[kamuimac]

No thanks. The reason we got filler garbage pre-LFR was because it was hard for Blizzard to justify the resources spent, so now we can get large raid tiers every tier and not need random fillers that are fairly useless after a handful of runs.

larger ? sure

but their quality if awefull since at least WoD.

[Nutri]

For me personally, I had the most fun raiding ZG/ZA/Kara. We kept on raiding those every week even tho we severely outgeared them, because we really enjoyed them.
Fond memories!

Would love to see the smaller / side raids like these return at some point.

[cparle87]

nailed it, these have replaced such raids, while not as epic blizzard can release a lot of them and do it every tier so people can get a lot more half decent gear without actually even needing to join a pug group(like antorus where ilvl and armoury might be a factor in you getting in) just use LFG sign up, tag it and loot.

i think the current system is better than the old.

Personally I thought we should've had a world boss up in each zone every week. Each zone has several and each week it goes down the list. Would also help people who need specific things like recipes or artifact appearances. I remember seeing comments on wowhead like "this boss is up for the first time in 5 months, kill him for your appearance or wait another 5 months" and that never sat right with me.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah no. That's nostalgia talking. It had a rehash and two one boss reused asset raids at launch plus the PvP area with one boss. Ulduar as fondly as it was remembered is just open space with bosses in it and a lot of reused assets, ToC was the most minimal effort filler raid ever made, ICC was decent, and again Ruby Sanctum was just a throwaway.

Pretty much this, sadly. As far are dungeons and raids went Wrath it was BC 2.0. You build a complex and put a couple dungeons and a raid in it and they all share the same artwork and theme. Hellfire Citadel. Auchindoun. Tempest Keep. Serpentshrine Cavern. Nexus. Azjol-Nerub. Ulduar. Argent Tournament.

[RoKPaNda]

larger ? sure

but their quality if awefull since at least WoD.

Well you're completely wrong. Raid quality was the only thing that WoD had going for it, and raid quality was fine in Legion as well.

[Phookah]

Well you're completely wrong. Raid quality was the only thing that WoD had going for it, and raid quality was fine in Legion as well.

Pretty much, their comment made me boggle a little. Good raids was virtually ALL WoD had going for it.

[The Oblivion]

For me personally, I had the most fun raiding ZG/ZA/Kara. We kept on raiding those every week even tho we severely outgeared them, because we really enjoyed them.
Fond memories!

Would love to see the smaller / side raids like these return at some point.

yeah i really would as well. i loved having the variety

[Kyphael]

Onyxia's Lair was epic and I wish they'd update it every other expansion just for fun, with new dragons, like one of her whelps we didn't kill grows up to take her place with a nostalgic fight with maybe one or two new mechanics. The location is that epic and just sits there. I know they updated it once already but they should update it more often. There's no reason why most old raids shouldn't scale to top level as an option so we can go back for gear and fun. It would broaden our choices of raiding by a bunch. Sort of like Black Temple, but instead of scaling us down to 70, scale it to our level.

[Deleted]

I miss having different raids. 1 ''main'' raid say 5-6 bosses and 2 others with 3 each or so just so you dont get so damn burned out running the same place month after month.

[Spotnick]

I don't miss the gigantic waste of time to get the raid from A to B on raid nights.