Any expansion where the capstone raid was the final raid?

[Shelly]

So with all the hoopla about Ny'Alotha I got to thinking about how in pretty much every expansion the last raid is the anti-climax. The last little bump to keep you satisfied until the next book or movie. It's the part where the hero gets to kiss the girl, not the big fight scene.

Since MoP they've mostly been used to set up the next expansion and hopefully tie up any loose ends of the current content.

Like in BC the capstone raid was definitely the Black Temple, it was the best raid in the most interesting environment. Now the Kael'Thas fight was definitely the most interesting fight of the expansion, but for just pure raid, Black Temple blows every other raid out of the water from BC. Though you might make an exception for Kara, but that was was weekly poke night for the majority of the player base compared to BT which was going out dancing.

Then in WotLK Icecrown Citadel is honestly kinda boring. There's not much new or much we have already prepared for outside of the LK fight itself, though they do have encounters like the Green Dragon you need to heal and beat the encounter. But the capstone raid that really makes the expansion is definitely Ulduar. It's the most impressive in scope, visuals and boss design. Across the board it had the best looking armor sets of the expansion, varied environments and great theme that Icecrown never really captured and I think for a lot of people they remember the Frostmourne Halls 3-series dungeons as more interesting than most things in ICC.

Cataclysm has even worse problems with Dragon Soul. Not even getting into how long it went on but my god the loot tables are truncated. If you like your armor set that's cool, but there's not even really off-set pieces to grab to add in say Paladin shoulders on your DK or a Rogue helm for your Druid. The fights were definitely interesting and up there, but the raid just lacks stuff to keep you wanting to come back to it. Then you compare it to Firelands which had an entire story-zone progression for you to follow, the nicest armor sets of the expansion and the heroic version of Ragnaros actually changed the encounter significantly. Plus there was very little slowdown or exposition between each boss so it flowed really well rather than waiting for a 5-minute dialogue to finish.

Mists of Pandaria, the most SoO has going for it is that the instance is huge. That's it. Most of the armor just looks like an excuse to put strobe lights on helms and shoulders. The Garrosh fight doesn't do much for folks and is definitely eclipsed by the Siegemaster fight. That you can't mount up in most of it too means you just walk forever. Then you have Throne of Thunder, not sure I'd say it's the best armor sets - those ones in MoP went to the PvP and challenge dungeon vendors - but it's definitely the most interesting. It gives a great capstone to the story you've been dealing with since Kun'Lai summit, you have Jaina and the Blood Elves out there getting their hands dirty and the raid itself is the most striking out of all the MoP raids.

Warlords of Draenor. Nothing compares to Blackrock Foundry. The armor is amazing - especially the Mythic sets - the environment is fantastic even if you're just slaying orcs all day long. The last boss has probably the best three-phase encounter in the game. The Maidens fight has jobs for everyone, Hanz and Franz are great, the Gruul fight is a fantastic call-back to BC. There's only one annoying fight in there and that's Furnace. It legitimately got you excited for what was coming next, which was sadly Hellfire Citadel which starts with the most boring fight in WoW. Like worse than Patchwork or the Butcher. At least in SoO you felt like you were part of a larger force that was taking down Garrosh, but there's none of that in HFC, instead we just get this weird final cinematic where Grom is now a good guy for some reason? At least the Archimonde and Soul Robot fights were interesting.

Legion, I feel like the capstone here was Nighthold. You're sneaking in the city. You've got beautiful armor sets to collect. Best trinket in the game for so many classes. The final fight with Gul'Dan is fantastic, number padders on Scorp just about jizz in their pants when it's so much as mentioned. Each fight offering varied mechanics. Then if you compare that to Tomb of Sargeras or Antorus the biggest difference you find is first color pallet - especially in Antorus - the number of fights that made things World of Soak-craft and while they definitely stand out and look nice Tomb's armors are still just T6 high-res. I love them, but it's true right up until you get to the mythic models.

Now here in Battle for Azeroth we've got Ny'Alotha. Which with the exception of not being able to mount in the first chamber, isn't terrible, but it is lackluster. We are stuck in purple town, though the bosses do some interesting things. I quite like Hivemind, Drestagath, Prophet and Il'Gynoth. Not a huge fan of Inquisitor but that's mostly because there's just so little room for failure. The heroic armor set is cool with that great red on black contrast, but for the most part it's tentacle town. Though I don't hold the armor models against them too much as it's clear the elite PvP/Warfront gear is where the heart was. Desperately missing the variety in visuals from having class-based tier. The capstone raid though was definitely Battle of Daz'Alor. You really get this feeling like you're going in and kicking ass, an awesome point-of-view switch. Jaina's mount is one of the coolest in the game. The fights all stand out - treasure room, mechatorque, Jaina, Rahstakhan, even the great ape and the mage plus monk all stand out as fantastic. Sadly except for the Mythic Plate set the armor doesn't stand out too much.

So which fights do you all think are the capstones? The final ones, the mid-tier ones? Or do you think that Eternal Palace or Tomb of Sargeras should be rated over the other raids?

[Nebron]

In my opinion, it's all about the build up. Wheter they are able to create a mysterious mood around the last boss. Let's loom at the case of the Lich King. Not only do we know him from WC3. But we meet him literally only a few timew throughout our journey in WotLK. We know he's there. We can feel his presence. We know he rukes over all these monsters and psychos we need to defeat. And then, in Icecrown, you climb the Citadel yourself. Boss after a boss, until you defeat his loyal companion - Sindragosa. Now, he's the only one that left. And you are fully aware of that, and some probablygot their goosebumps. You ascend to the throne room and here he is. Majestically sitting on his Frozen Throne. Isn't that exciting?

Deathwing had a lot of potential, but the build up for him began to be a mess. Time travelling, anti-climatic Wyrmrest Temple as a raid. And the fight that didn't even mirrored Deathwing's power. Basically, stories of his power were simply overhyped it began great and exciting as you could have been burnt to ash as a random event. But then as the expansion progressed, the vibe has been succesively killed.

If Gul'dan had more build up in WoD, and the expansion had at least 6.3, and possibly 6.4, with Faralon and Auchindoun raid, and much more story for Shadow Council, I can inagine Gul'dan being one of the best end bosses.

Garrosh in MoP was pretty cool too, we knew the direction of the story. We have observed as Garrosh becomes a villian, a dictator that resembles nazis.it was good, but it also would require at least one more patch of proper build up for sieging the Orgrimmar. Something about gathering allies and resources for the war.

Now, look at Argus. There has been 0 build up for him being the world soul - last boss. So as fight was cool, it had no impact storywise whatsoever. It was a bad concept.

Look at Archimonde. It has NO BUILD UP AT ALL. He just pops up in the last minute and that's it. It's just an emotional ride on sentiment to Battle for the Hyjal.

N'zoth has been ruined, since he played on us for quite a while and his power is literally a joke. We defeat him in a single patch. I know, I know. Same happened to, Cthun and Yogg. But the narrative has been drastically changed since chronicles came out.

So yeag man, it's all about a proper, mysterious build up. And it's pretty inportant that the end boss is the main antagonist at the same time. And they kind of change that type of storytelling since WoD.