Data Analysis: The most difficult encounter in the history of the game.

[MidnyteTV]

This data analysis is aimed at finding which boss was statistically the hardest boss to kill in the history of World of Warcraft when comparing guild progression data. Due to data not being accurately collected until 2008, it is very difficult to come to a concrete answer. However, with the data available, I am able to come to several conclusions and make the argument that one boss was in fact, the most difficult encounter to defeat in the history of World of Warcraft.

There are limitations to this statistical analysis. This is not a subjective analysis. Many may try to point out factors such as mechanics or relative difficulty from their experience. This is an objective analysis using data available. It may or may not be 100% accurate due to not having all the data available.

The majority of the statistics were obtain via WoWprogress.com, the premiere website for tracking boss kills.

The statistics in question are as follows:

Subscription numbers

Number of guilds that were raiding at the time.

Number of guilds progression through the instance at the time.

Number of guilds defeating the encounter when it was active.

Availability of the encounter while it was active.

Because of the nature of the data, I will also be introducing several factors to accompany my analysis. This should suffice the majority of concerns about simply looking at raw data.

Encounter tuning (Nerfs or lack thereof). Minor hotfix nerfs will not be considered.

Resources available for players at the time (Websites, kill videos, guides, split runs, lockouts)

Timing of the Raid (mid/late-expac)/Accessibility

Encounter Gating


The number of guilds raiding during this time has been tracked by WoW progress since 2009. If a guild killed a boss during the tier, the website tracked progression kills via percentages which can still be seen on the website.

One key point I'd like to make when choosing which data to analyze was what I like to call an “active” kill. An “active” kill for this research is a kill that was obtained before the release of the next content tier/pre-patch. The reason why I looked at data for “active” kills was because when a pre-patch or the next tier of raiding is released, bosses usually get nerfed and/or new gear allows guilds to kill older bosses easier than it was when presented as new content.

I was very interested in trying to find overall data for Vanilla encounters. I have heard previously that C’Thun was mathematically unkillable for several weeks. I have also heard that only 21 (or 59)s guilds defeated Kel’Thuzad during Naxx-40. However, I am unable to find any data regarding Vanilla overall kill videos. Blizzard did give out instance numbers during Blizzcon 2005. But this data is limited due to not knowing overall percentages of guilds progressing through Vanilla instances. In fact, I am only able to track guild progression starting at Tier 6 (Sunwell Plateau). Therefore, I am only able to compare encounters to which there is data which would be Sunwell Plateau and onward. I know the default answer for some is C'Thun due to being mathematically impossible. But we have to consider what data the public has access to. Secondly, we unfortunately do not have data on non-guild raiding or PUG raiding.

Throughout my research, it was very quickly revealed to me that there would be 4 bosses that would be in consideration as being the hardest bosses statistically to defeat: Kil’Jaedan (Sunwell), Lich King (25m Heroic), Mythic Blackhand, and Mythic Kil'Jaedan.

Kil’Jaeden (Sunwell)



This version of Kil’Jaeden was the final encounter in the Sunwell Plateau raid during the Burning Crusade expansion. Sunwell Plateau, along with previous tiers in the Burning Crusade, were gated via attunements. Sunwell is known throughout the community as being one of the hardest instances ever released.

Active subscriptions while this encounter was active: 10 million

Number of guilds that were killing bosses during this tier/raid: Unknown

Number of guilds defeating the encounter while active: 377

Release Date: March 25, 2008

First Kill: May 25, 2008 (62 days after release)

Last Date for active kill – October 15, 2008 (3.0 Pre-patch release date)

Availability for active kill: 204 days

The Case For:

KJ is a boss not many raiders had the opportunity to see, let alone get close at killing it. Sunwell Plateau in general was not tuned properly and Blizzard has come out and said they did not bother fixing it because WotLK was on the horizon. The numbers do not lie, only 377 guilds were able to defeat this encounter with an average subscriber base of 10 million+, there were plenty of people available to try and kill this boss. Very few even dared. It took over 2 months for SK Gaming to finally defeat Kil’Jaeden for the World First kill. Clearing Sunwell is a badge of honor most guilds would give anything for.

The Case Against:

While raiding was not as fine-tuned as it would become at the time, it was available for just under 6 months. Players seemed to have ample time to get more kills in, but it is clear that raiding wasn’t a top-priority amongst the majority of the population. It wasn’t until Wrath that raiding became the premiere content that the playerbase embraced. Competition wasn’t as relevant as it would become later on. The number of 377 guilds killing KJ can also be explained by the fact that Sunwell was a “gated” raid due to attunements. Therefore not many people we able to get until the instance, let alone go after KJ. It’s hard to say that a boss was hard if players can’t even try it out without beating the other raids before it. However, they did have 204 days to do it. We also do not have enough data on the number of guilds raiding as we would beginning in Wrath. The raiding population cannot be conclusively ascertained at the moment. Therefore comparative numbers cannot be obtained and a full disclosure of the case against Kil’Jaedan (Sunwell) is unsubstantiated.


Lich King (25-Man Heroic)



Active subscriptions while this encounter was active: 11 million

Number of guilds that were killing bosses during this tier/raid: 59,356 (25-man ICC), 84,136 (10-man ICC)

Number of guilds defeating the encounter while active: 1,101

Release Date: February 2, 2010 (Date Lich King encounter was available)

First Kill: March 26, 2010 (52 days after release)

Last Date for “active” kill – November 23, 2010 (4.0 Pre-patch release date)

Availability for active kill: 294 Days

The Case For:

Blizzard actually came out and said that more people were raiding during Wrath than at any period in the game’s history (Source Patch 5.4 Roundtable, quoted by Tom Chilton https://youtu.be/WeV5Cj7sES8). WoWprogress.com data agrees with this. The fact that this boss had more people with the opportunity to face this encounter makes this one of the toughest encounters ever simply put by how many people actually got the boss down. Relative competition and the player pool cannot be ignored. So very many people raided ICC, only 1,101 got it down on the hardest difficulty. Unlike previous raids, the Lich King would not become available until February 2, 2010, due to gating. The resources available at the time were out there, but not as pronounced as it would become towards the end of Cata/MoP-era. The most prominent resources were Elitist Jerks forums and TankSpot videos. Players were delegated to using Elitist Jerks forums for any insight regarding strategies and detailed boss kill videos were mainly provided by TankSpot.

Icecrown Citadel was nerfed 5% overall every week until it reach 30%. It was also an end-expansion raid that was out for nearly 300 days. Players had lots of time and help from Blizzard to kill this boss but many were still unsuccessful. It took 52 days before Paragon could shatter the soul of Arthas. Guilds were also impeded in their efforts by limited attempts per week on the boss. Something no other raid had ever introduced. The fact that the highest raiding population in the history of the game, coupled with the 30% nerf, proves Arthas was the more formidable foe in the history of the game. In fact, Paragon obtained the World First kill via the first 5% nerf to the encounter.

The Case Against:

Some human factors come into play in the case again Arthas. The emergence of 10-man heroic raiding saw players not even attempting 25-man raids. However, because ICC had 4 separate lockouts (10N, 10H, 25N, 25H), players were able to gear up quite significantly in preparation for the final battle with the Lich King. Other than that, I cannot find many good reasons why this fight was not the most difficult fight to kill. There’s a very strong case for The Lich King, not much against it. Players had plenty of time and ample resources to defeat the encounter.

Mythic Blackhand

Active subscriptions while this encounter was active: 7.1 million (End of Q1 2015)

Number of guilds that were killing bosses during this tier/raid: Highmaul – 41,996, Blackrock Foundry – 32,544

Number of guilds defeating the encounter while active: 717

Release Date: February 10, 2015.

First Kill: February 20, 2015 (10 Days after release)

Last date for “active” kill: June 23, 2015 (Release of Tier 18 Hellfire Citadel)

Availability for active kill: 133 Days

The Case For:

It is hard to deny that Warlord Blackhand was the very tough encounter to beat. One of the contributing factors is the sheer amount of guilds raiding at the time, the total number of active kills, and the very short availability of the encounter. Also, it wasn’t very hard to find strategies to defeat this encounter. Video guides, kill videos of other guild’s kills, and the size of the forum community providing insight was at an all-time high. The difficulty of Mythic Blackhand was so great; it can be argued that it was actually the albatross that has sent hardcore raiding into a steeper decline. This encounter broke many guilds, and for good reason. It was fucking hard. Players had ample resources to get this guy down and they couldn’t. Split-runs to gear out mains became the norm. Garrisons offered Mythic gear to any player that could kill the heroic difficulty of the raid. Players were given every chance and tools in the world (of Warcraft) to get him and only 717 did. Addons like Weakauras make certain mechanics trivial these days. One interesting note is that this is one of the shortest end-raid encounters. It's a fast and furious encounter which wipe counts can add up significantly.

TLDR: A lot of people tried to kill this boss, very few did, and you had a very short window to get the kill.

The Case Against:

It’s difficult to truly understand how difficult this boss was against KJ and Arthas because it was a mid-expansion boss. The very short window the boss was open does make it more difficult, but it also makes it more difficult to compare it to the previous examples. However, Method was able to take down Blackhand within 10 days of Mythic raiding opening it. While they may have had more resources and the overall player skillcap has been raised, it’s over a month faster than KJ or LK.

Mythic Kil'Jaedan (Tomb of Sargeras)



Active subscriptions while this encounter was active: Unknown (Most likely anywhere between 7-10 Million)

Number of guilds that were killing bosses during this tier/raid: 27,114 (Heroic guilds), 8,894 (Number of guilds that killed a Mythic boss in ToS)

Number of guilds defeating the encounter while active: 851

Release Date: June 28, 2017

First Kill: July 16, 2017 (18 days after release)

Last Date for “counted” kill – November 28, 2017 (Release of Tier 21 Antorus)

Availability for active kill: 153 Days

The Case For:

Including Mythic KJ in this analysis may be somewhat controversial. Like other raid bosses mentioned previously such as C'Thun, this encounter was plagued with tuning adjustments made as the top guilds were progressing on the encounter. In fact, the entire instance of Tomb of Sargeras was criticized for its tuning. According to WoWprogrss statistics, 1.91% of all active guilds killed Mythic KJ while it was available. That's slightly above 25-Man Heroic LK (1.85%). Furthermore, KJ's mechanics were also praised by top-end raiders as being one of the most difficult encounters to master. Much like Mythic Blackhand, KJ was also a guild killer. Many top-raiding guilds threw in the towel as did other guilds. It also had a very low overall percentage of guilds killing it, at 1.91%. This analysis deems that KJ deserves to be considered one of the hardest encounters in WoW history.

The Case Against:

Just looking at the overall numbers, it appeas as though Mythic Blackhand was clearly a more difficult encounter for guilds than Mythic KJ. The overall guild raiding population was higher during Tier 17, but the subscriber numbers are unclear for Tomb of Sargeras. KJ was available for 20 days longer than Blackhand with an arguable higher amount of raiders raiding Mythic content. To be exact, 8,894 guilds killed a mythic boss in Tomb of Sargeras, while 7,997 killed a mythic boss in Blackrock Foundry (16,132 killed Mythic Kargath, and 5,057 killed Mythic Imperator in Highmaul, the previous raid to BrF). Furthermore, a smaller percentage of guilds (0.8%) were able to defeat Blackhand as opposed to KJ which had a 1.91% kill-rate amongst guilds. The resources available for guilds for these two encouters are virtually identical.

While top-end raiders may have praised the encounter's difficulty, it did not stop Method from killing him in less than 3 weeks. However, the overall raiding population paled in comparison to ICC.

This was not an easy analysis by any means. With this information, you could make the case that any of these three bosses would be most difficult. However as an analyst by trade, I must come up with a recommendation/conclusion. With all data and factors under consideration, I will make the argument that the most difficult encounter to defeat was:

The Lich King (25-Man Heroic)






One of the most glaring statistics I analyzed was the number of guilds progressing through each instance in order to get to one of these bosses, and the number of guilds that actually killed the boss. It's easy to look at the overall raiding figures and say “Well, just because a guild killed a mythic boss doesn't mean that they were trying to kill the last boss in the instance.” I agree. We are now going to use the data to see how many guilds were progressing throughout these instances and how many guilds had the opportunity to kill the abovementioned bosses.


16,103 guilds killed 25-Man Heroic Lord Marrowgar, while the 25-Man Heroic raiding population progression counts remained steady of about 10,000+ guilds until Heroic Sindragosa. That means around 11,000 guilds were actively progressing 25-Man Heroic ICC, while only 1,101 defeating Arthas. The most glaring number is 5,673 guilds killed 25-Man Heroic Sindragosa. That means 4,572 guilds were knocking on Arthas' door, only to get knocked out. Only 19% of guilds with the opportunity to kill Arthas were able to defeat him.

For all of you 10 Man Heroic fans out there, the numbers for 10 Man Heroic Lich King are as follows:

5,664 guild kills for a 6.71% guild-kill rate.

21,323 guild kills for Sindragose, which means 26.5% of guilds that killed Singragosa on 10-Man Heroic killed 10-Man Heroic Lich King. The 25-Man encounter was harder...

A quick side note: Wowprogress lists overall numbers of killing Mythic Blackhand and Mythic KJ to be higher than what will be listed below. Some of these kills were achieved after the next tier of raiding was released. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, only “active” kills are being analyzed. “Active” kills are kills that were achieved before pre-patch/release of the next tier of content.

Let's take a look at the other tiers for insight. Unfortunately we do not have comparative data for Tier 6 Sunwell for Kil'Jaeden. The only Sunwell data we have is how many guilds cleared the entire instance.

Taking a look at Tier 17 data, it is clear that guilds were better at killing Blackhand once they were able to conquer The Blast Furnace as opposed to getting Arthas after beating Sindragosa. 1,206 guilds killed The Blast Furnace (the second least killed boss in BrF and widely agreed to be the 2nd hardest boss in the instance), while 717 guilds cleared Mythic Blackhand. That means 59.4% of guilds were able to kill Blackhand after clearing the Blast Furnace.

The numbers for Tier 20 Tomb of Sargeras are also compelling. 1,383 guilds killed Fallen Avatar while 852 guilds were able to get KJ. That means 61.6% of guilds were able to get KJ.

So judging 3 out of the 4 fights listed above solely on the percentage of capable guilds were able to beat the boss. The TLDR is as follows:

25-Man Heroic Lich King – 4,572 guilds had the best opportunity to kill him. Only 19% (1,101) of guilds could get him.

Mythic Blackhand – 1,206 guilds had the best opportunity to kill him. 59.4% of guilds could get him.

Mythic Kil'Jaedan – 1,383 guilds had the best opportunity to kill him. 61.6% of guilds got him.

This data clearly shows that more guilds had the best opportunity to kill Heroic Lich King than Mythic Blackhand or Mythic KJ. And, a lesser percentage of guilds were able to kill Heroic Lich King. Let's not forget, Heroic Lich King had a 30% overall nerf while active.

There were plenty of players trying to kill LK, but very few did. Proportionally and statistically the least killed encounter when compared to its counterparts, sub numbers, and overall raiding population.

However, the one key piece of data missing is the number of guilds actively raiding Sunwell Plateau while it was active. If we could compare those numbers, it could change my conclusion. Kil’Jaedan is colloquially known as one of the most difficult bosses to defeat, many players never even stepped into Sunwell to begin with. That data isn’t available to me; therefore I cannot come to an ironclad conclusion. But if I were making a recommendation based on the data at hand, 25-Man Heroic LK is most difficult encounter in the history of the World....of Warcraft. Terenas Menethil said, “No King rules forver.” Maybe time will tell if another boss can be as difficult at Arthas...

[Nitros14]

You forgot about Alone in the Darkness 25. It was out for 5 months and only 10 guilds got a kill before Trial of the Crusader released and the huge nerf came in early August.

[bmjclark]

I think the strongest case against Heroic Lich King being the hardest is that you actually had a limited number of attempts on it, which obviously top guilds would use alts to get extra attempts in, but thats probably only something top 100 guilds would do. Heroic Lich King was also significantly harder than the entire rest of heroic ICC. There was no logical difficulty curve there so shitty random guilds could easily clear the place then slam into a brickwall with him, where as most raids after this point didn't have that issue. If your guild killed mythic blast furnace, chances are you could go on to kill blackhand because there was at least some logical progression there. This kind of throws the percentage of guilds that attempted to kill him vs actually killed him statistic for a loop compared to most raids that came after.

Also, Nitros14 pointed out, alone in the darkness was brutal.

[asil]

As someone that did all of these bosses, the idea LK was anywhere near as hard as, for example, pre-nerf Uu'nat is wild. Like Sunwell wasn't even hard, the fights, mechanically, were pretty easy.

The exception being maybe M'uru, which was mainly hard due to number checks. Players have also gotten much better at the game. mythic KJ was leaps and bounds harder than lich king in both terms of numbers and mechanics.

[MidnyteTV]

I think the strongest case against Heroic Lich King being the hardest is that you actually had a limited number of attempts on it, which obviously top guilds would use alts to get extra attempts in, but thats probably only something top 100 guilds would do. Heroic Lich King was also significantly harder than the entire rest of heroic ICC. There was no logical difficulty curve there so shitty random guilds could easily clear the place then slam into a brickwall with him, where as most raids after this point didn't have that issue. If your guild killed mythic blast furnace, chances are you could go on to kill blackhand because there was at least some logical progression there. This kind of throws the percentage of guilds that attempted to kill him vs actually killed him statistic for a loop compared to most raids that came after.

Also, Nitros14 pointed out, alone in the darkness was brutal.

I think you raise some good points.

However, the stat that stuck out in my mind was the fact that only 19% of guilds that could get to the boss actually downed him. Where as the other bosses mentioned, particularly Mythic KJ as another poster stated, had much higher success rates if you got there.

It's very difficult to try and ascertain difficulty when the game changes drastically, sometimes within an expansion, when you're talking about different eras.

For instance, the class design during 3.3 Wrath is leaps and bounds different than 7.2 Mythic KJ ToS.

- - - Updated - - -

As someone that did all of these bosses, the idea LK was anywhere near as hard as, for example, pre-nerf Uu'nat is wild. Like Sunwell wasn't even hard, the fights, mechanically, were pretty easy.

The exception being maybe M'uru, which was mainly hard due to number checks. Players have also gotten much better at the game. mythic KJ was leaps and bounds harder than lich king in both terms of numbers and mechanics.

Pre-nerf KJ was unkillable. I mean Cthun was mathematically unkillable, does that make it the hardest? No. It makes it unkillable.

I also agree that players have gotten better, but there was such a higher pool of raiders during Wrath, coupled with the fact that there was such a low kill rate amongst guilds that killed Heroic SIndragosa. Just my two cents.

Appreciate the feedback, I had been working on this for some time, and used mostly data to come up with conclusions.

Method did say Mythic KJ was hard, but clearly it wasn't hard enough for the majority of guilds that killed Mythic Avatar.

[Nitros14]

I think you raise some good points.

However, the stat that stuck out in my mind was the fact that only 19% of guilds that could get to the boss actually downed him. Where as the other bosses mentioned, particularly Mythic KJ as another poster stated, had much higher success rates if you got there.

It's very difficult to try and ascertain difficulty when the game changes drastically, sometimes within an expansion, when you're talking about different eras.

For instance, the class design during 3.3 Wrath is leaps and bounds different than 7.2 Mythic KJ ToS.

- - - Updated - - -



Pre-nerf KJ was unkillable. I mean Cthun was mathematically unkillable, does that make it the hardest? No. It makes it unkillable.

I also agree that players have gotten better, but there was such a higher pool of raiders during Wrath, coupled with the fact that there was such a low kill rate amongst guilds that killed Heroic SIndragosa. Just my two cents.

Appreciate the feedback, I had been working on this for some time, and used mostly data to come up with conclusions.

Method did say Mythic KJ was hard, but clearly it wasn't hard enough for the majority of guilds that killed Mythic Avatar.

Here's some data.

https://www.wowprogress.com/achievement/3164 10 guilds got Alone in the Darkness 25 before August 4th and Trial of the Crusader/big nerfs.

The previous bosses were, depending on your point of view:
One Light in the Darkness (256 kills before Aug 4th)
Firefighter Mimiron Hard Mode (443 kills before Aug 4th)
Knock on Wood x3 Freya Hard Mode (295 kills before Aug 4th)
Algalon the Observer (100 kills before Aug 4th, but only 1 hour of attempts a week)

Let's take One Light as the prior boss and say that guilds that could do that could get to Alone in the Darkness.

That would mean that only 3% of the guilds that could get to the boss could kill it. Not to mention it received no serious nerfs until Aug 4th and it wasn't killed for 3 months, which is a lot of resets of gear.


Also Blackhand wasn't as hard as Mythic Archimonde at release. But there was an enormous passive nerf of that fight through the legendary rings so it was massively easier for the later guilds. Method took 5 days and 260 pulls for mythic Blackhand and 9 days and 500+ pulls for mythic Archimonde.

Having raided at the time I can assure you Yogg-Saron Alone in the Darkness was a notably harder fight than Lich King 25 Heroic. Lich King was mainly hard because of tight numbers checks and rough overlaps in phase 2 with defile/val'kyr.

If I were pressed to make a list of the hardest encounters in the game's history overall before serious nerfs it'd probably be

Mythic Kil'jaeden
Mythic Archimonde
Heroic Ragnaros
Alone in the Darkness 25

Uu'nat is probably up there too looking at current completion numbers.

[MidnyteTV]

Here's some data.

https://www.wowprogress.com/achievement/3164 10 guilds got Alone in the Darkness 25 before August 4th and Trial of the Crusader/big nerfs.

The previous bosses were, depending on your point of view:
One Light in the Darkness (256 kills before Aug 4th)
Firefighter Mimiron Hard Mode (443 kills before Aug 4th)
Knock on Wood x3 Freya Hard Mode (295 kills before Aug 4th)
Algalon the Observer (100 kills before Aug 4th, but only 1 hour of attempts a week)

Let's take One Light as the prior boss and say that guilds that could do that could get to Alone in the Darkness.

That would mean that only 3% of the guilds that could get to the boss could kill it. Not to mention it received no serious nerfs until Aug 4th and it wasn't killed for 3 months, which is a lot of resets of gear.


Also Blackhand wasn't as hard as Mythic Archimonde at release. But there was an enormous passive nerf of that fight through the legendary rings so it was massively easier for the later guilds. Method took 5 days and 260 pulls for mythic Blackhand and 9 days and 500+ pulls for mythic Archimonde.

I think the inherent issue with Yogg +0 and Heroic LK is attempt gating. As well as the fact that not as many guilds were going after it. Especially with ToGC on the horizon.

It's a tough nut to crack. Ulduar was a great and tough raid. But Heroic LK had almost a year of time for people and a big nerf and it was still tough to get.

So many intangibles are present which makes for a great discussion.

[MrExcelion]

Thanks for taking the time to make this thread. It can be tough to compare bosses when they go through all these waves of nerfs, and like with some low kill count bosses, the shorter tiers have less wiggle room for Blizzard to continually nerf the fights, like with ToS and BRF. Here's my two cents:

It'd be tough to quantify in numbers, but one angle that hasn't really been looked at enough in these discussions over the years is the mechanics themselves. Generally it's going to favor newer bosses, which it probably should anyway because players are getting better at the game and Blizzard's tried to keep pace. I think the pass/fail aspect of KJ soaking and everything else you had to do perfectly for such a long time is at or near the top of the list. Heroic Rag 25 might not show up in the metrics (10 man was easy to just 9 man and sell mounts), but mechanically it absolutely is near the top too, which is saying something considering it was a Cata fight. Avatar's initial version must have been absolute hell. Avatar soaking sucked but really everything there just did too much damage. I'll be honest though, idk how many people would still be raiding mythic right now if everybody boss was designed with the kind of "hard" that KJ and Avatar were. Pass/fail has its place but you can't overdo it. To speak briefly on Blackhand, there was some element of getting womboed by the arena adds, but other than that, guilds weren't as willing to bring the optimal comp for that fight. If you did, it was just a numbers check really. The tank ended up being easy to deal with, and you had foxes for the P1 movement, token rogues soaked the last phase smashes. Now you look at Crucible and the mentality has changed towards all their melee having ranged alts.

There's also the angle that a boss can have mechanics that are so punishing that you have to bring an entire raid full of ranged or the other forms of stacking, and I don't know what else to say about that. People don't consider that 'hard' because of how you can just prepare for it, so whatever. But the one of the hardest parts of Archi was Infernals in last phase, but if you brought 4 or 5 competent hunters it was a joke tbh. Or it just being hard because it has too much hp or does too much damage. Or being at the mercy of spawn RNG because some patterns of something can be easier than others (that part can be just as frustrating as pass/fail)

Not going to make a comprehensive list or ranking but yeah shoutout to Rag 25 and KJ I guess. Rag definitely was heads and shoulders more mechanically difficult than the bosses created up until that point. Blizzard did tone down the pass/fail after KJ but I think that's how you make an encounter difficult other than just numbers. Just crank that up to 11 and everyone loses their minds and wants to quit the game. You wanna talk about a fight that was really hard but just numbers, Spine encapsulates that the best. LK definitely skews more towards numbers too. Perspective can also be further skewed based on what role you had in the fight, how good the rest of your raid team was, how you were doing IRL at that point in your life, etc.

To sum this up, I think you have to look at what "kind" of difficult a fight was. How much of it was numbers, and how much of it was how easy it was to just wipe to a mechanic, how extreme the comp stacking was, and other angles you can take. I find the mechanical angle more interesting myself since you're looking at how things have really changed over the years in terms of fight design, and what kinds of mechanics are a "fun" hard or just plain annoying hard. I can say that the Crucible fights are an annoying hard too, it's too early to rank them but kill counts will be low (guilds are outright skipping it like a filler raid)

[MidnyteTV]

I couldn't agree more MrExcelion. That's why the title was Data Analysis.

When it comes to mechanics, the fights just kept getting harder and harder over time. That is indisputable. Method clearly indicated Mythic KJ was the hardest boss they ever did, so I have to take their word for it.

But I really enjoyed looking at numbers, I'm fascinated by how many people play the game and how many actually do it. Hence why getting those cutting edge titles actually means something.

When it comes to data, I'd say someone who got 25M Heroic LK down has a lot to be proud of. In my book, moreso than any other boss I could find data on.

[Argorwal]

For Mythic KJ and being impossible, it still took a long time after the round of hotfixes for Method to land the kill.

It was still 600+ wipes.

World second was still a full week later, and > 900 wipes despite it being cleared.

Then we saw 5 massive waves of documented tuning and mechanical nerfs to barely reach 850 kills before antorus.

The fight by the end was a shell of what Method and Exorsus killed (first wave of documented nerfs came after world second kill) and most guilds still didn't even bother.

Uu'nat may end up on this list at some point as well just for the fact that the guilds were gear capped as well.

I'm also trying to imagine a 50 pull limit for KJ or Uu'nat...

The % chance to kill the last boss also really depends on how easy the rest of the raid is.

For example in BoD 8/9 isn't "that" hard so a ton of guilds will wall on Jaina.

ToS had 4 killer bosses in a row (mistriss/maiden/avatar/KJ) with Avatar being hard enough to be a final boss in virtually any other raid.

[Nitros14]

When it comes to data, I'd say someone who got 25M Heroic LK down has a lot to be proud of. In my book, moreso than any other boss I could find data on.

Lich King wasn't even the hardest boss in its own expansion. Alone in the Darkness 25 is clearly harder. The data is right on wowprogress, 10 kills in 5 months. No limited attempts on it either.

Tons of guilds were working on it especially once STARS proved it was killable, including Exodus who got banned exploiting it. The "no one was working on it" came from the lame excuse Ensidia gave on why they lost world first.

[The Cheat]

Minor footnote, Sunwell Plateau had no direct attunement. Black Temple and Hyjal still did when it was released, so those needing to gear up for it would have to attune to those raids, but that isn't quite the same as not being able to set foot inside the mentioned raid itself.

[infinitemeridian]

Mythic KJ, Star Auger, and Helya probably. Uu'nat as well.

[Nitros14]

Mythic KJ, Star Auger, and Helya probably. Uu'nat as well.

Star Augur went down in less than two days to Serenity and a bunch of kills followed so probably not that. Helya was down in two days as well.

Kil'jaeden took 12 days, Uu'nat 8 so those are far more likely.

[crabmousse]

this is very interesting, thank you for taking the time to put this together

[Kaver]

I think the inherent issue with Yogg +0 and Heroic LK is attempt gating. As well as the fact that not as many guilds were going after it. Especially with ToGC on the horizon.

It's a tough nut to crack. Ulduar was a great and tough raid. But Heroic LK had almost a year of time for people and a big nerf and it was still tough to get.

So many intangibles are present which makes for a great discussion.

It also depends on whether you are making a subjective (taking the skill level of guilds etc. into account) or objective assessment.

[muto]

Uu'nat and KJ.

[Turboblaat]

I think the "limited attempts system" in several raids was the hardest to beat...
For example you had 20 attempts (shared between the endbosses of each wing) the first week that all 4 wings where open in ICC.

[GreenJesus]

I think the "limited attempts system" in several raids was the hardest to beat...
For example you had 20 attempts (shared between the endbosses of each wing) the first week that all 4 wings where open in ICC.

Damn.. would that include pulls where the mage was testing out a macro and accidentally frostbolted the boss during a break? Our guild would have gotten 0 legit pulls with all the accidental pulls we did.

Number 1 most difficult encounter would be the elevator boss (especially the Antorus one that would actually kill you if you stood under it) or the Swapblaster boss

[Teaklog]

Some other things you should consider in your analysis--

Guild leaders of prominent guilds of the time could tell you how many wipes they spent on certain bosses. For the major contending bosses you could get a list of 10 or so guilds that killed the boss, find any of their raid leaders (or even just go on their website if its still around) and pull any data you can find on how many wipes they spent. If you could get an average wipe / kill ratio for the first kill for those bosses it would be extremely helpful. Then take into account the time it takes to kill each boss.

For example, you can't go off saying blackhand was a harder boss than imperator because blackhand took 500 wipes and imperator took 200. Reason for this is because imperator took 18 minutes to kill, blackhand enraged at 5 minutes (blackhand was the harder boss though, this is just an example). You could normalize it by boss kill time.

While you can't directly use this point to say 'this is the hardest boss,' you can use it to remove a boss or two from your list by saying 'despite how few guilds killed this boss, the ones that did killed the boss in only 50 pulls.' It will help you with bosses that only a small portion of the playerbase got to see.

For example, Paragon wiped ~170 times to Lich King 25m HC. (Keep in mind though they had killed lich king on normal and 10m HC, which reduces this number) -- source: https://www.paragon.fi/node/86.html

Paragon wiped to Imperator Margok 122 times source: https://www.paragon.fi/node/1103.html

Method wiped to Uu'nat 731 times

Method wiped to Blackhand roughly 325 times source: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...krock_foundry/

The drawbacks of this metric is that certain guilds may have different approaches and take fewer wipes over more time vs another which will spend less time discussing the effects of a wipe and more time slamming their face at the boss.

This page on MMOC is also helpful https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-count-version
it includes a wipe count for a few world firsts

Contents:

#1 Kil'Jaeden, Tomb of Sargeras - 654 (Method)
!!innacurate!! Ragnaros, Firelands - 500+ (Paragon) ; in their site they say 500+ wipes they lost count at some point
#2 Archimonde, Hellfire Citadel - 472 (Method)
#3 Fallen Avatar, Tomb of Sargeras - 453 (Method)
#4 Blackhand, Blackrock Foundry - 325 (Method)
!!innacurate!! Lei Shen, Throne of Thunder - 310 (Method) ; i need a better source on this one
#5 Garrosh, Siege of Orgrimmar -272 (Method)
#6 Gul'Dan, Nighthold - 248 (Exorsus)
#7 Siegecrafter, Siege of Orgrimmar - 229 (Method)
#8 Elisande, Nighthold -229 (Serenity)
#9 Paragons, Siege of Orgrimmar - 222 (Method)
#10 Xhul'Horac, Hellfire Citadel - 180 (Method)

And to illustrate the method I was describing above, mythic blackhand took 10:42, mythic imperator took 18:05. This would give mythic blackhand a score of 208,650, imperator a score of 132,370. For comparison, Method wiped to Kil'jaedon 654 times, and the fight was 14:40, giving it a score of 575,520. This method would rank Kil'jaeden above Blackhand. I'm not saying this is THE method, but certainly use it to make the comparisons and help you rank your bosses along with your other data. Below depicts this for some of the bosses in your list:

Tier A:
Kil'jaedon - 654 wipes, 14:40 kill time, score of 575,520
Uunat - 731 wipes, 12:43 kill time, score of 557,753
Ragnaros - 500+ wipes, 16:30 kill time, score of 495,000 minimum
Kil'jaedon (Sunwell) - 50 - 55 hours of attempts. Other scores are using full kill time per attempt, this kill would be a score of 180,000 of ACTUAL attempt time

Tier B:
Archimonde - 472 wipes, 13:00 kill time, score of 368,160

Tier C:
Fallen Avatar - 453 wipes, 8:30 kill time, score of 231,030
Blackhand - 325 wipes, 10:42 kill time, score of 208,650
Lich King 25 HC - 170 wipes, 15:19 kill time, score of 156,320 ** Limited attempts, in actuality would be ranked higher

Tier D:
Mar'gok - 122 wipes, 18:05 kill time, score of 132,370

If you were to take this a step further, you might want to modify the values to account for nerfs / hotfixes. The main drawbacks of this are it doesn't account for limited wipes, and we don't have exact wipe numbers for certain bosses. The benefits though are that its unaffected by gating, subscription numbers, and number of guilds trying. Overall though I think it helps compare the bosses or at least separate them into tiers. Blackhand, for example, I think can safely be removed from your list.