What do you think were the best boss fights in WoW?

[DeltrusDisc]

Yogg Saron.
Algalon.

[Al Gorefiend]

Basically you like gimmick fights.

Every fight is a gimmick fight. Except Patchwerk

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Ragnaros and Lich King were some of the most epic fights ever. I mean my guild extended raid time an hour just so we could SUMMON Ragnaros, just so we could SEE him, knowing full well he'd murder us all.

And the defile was just a great mechanic to wipe to, that fight just had everything it should've...Tirion, Frostmourne, Val'kyr, Defile, he hit hard as ----, the plague, etc.

Malchezzar was pretty cool, and his voice acting was really good. "Madness....has brought you to me."

The keepers of Ulduar were all amazing fights in their own right. I really think Ulduar was the best raid ever, but none of the individual fights stand out so much. Descending in to madness to fight Yogg was so much fun though, and learning that he was observing/controlling all of Azeroth's most pivotal moments from the shadows...

Anyone that mentioned a raid that may or may not have existed between Ulduar and ICC should have their account deleted.

Ragnaros 2.0 was pretty epic (I wasn't raiding hardcore then.) Nef 2.0 was kinda fun but the lore was such a joke...why is he alive after we cut his head off and hung it from the rafters of Stormwind?

I'm surprised some people mentioned Spine of Deathwing, I didn't raid it but I thought most people despised that encounter...1 min DPS CDs or GTFO. Dragon Soul was one of the weakest raid instances ever IMO.

Didn't raid Pandaria or really first part of WoD.

Hellfire Citadel meh.

Star Augur Etraeus was a LOT of fun. That's probably one of the fights I liked the most that other people didn't. I like the "match the shapes" type of encounters, keeps each attempt kind of interesting. Making the whole raid spread then people slowly match up and then it's safer for the other people to run through. Just a really neat encounter.

Grand Magistrix I didn't care for at the time but it was a really neat idea to fight her 3x in a time bubble with things from the first times affecting the later ones.

I liked Fallen Avatar P1, beam soaking is the kind of guild-wide coordination I really like to see, really makes it satisfying when he goes down.

KJ was just hard.

Mythic Aggramar was a lot of fun, I would have really liked to see the class design change for these fights with tons of adds. I would also like to see CC tools moved from DPS to tanks, but that would obviously have enormous impacts on PvP (which I never do). The idea is that tanks instead of just getting smacked hard would gain more abilities to control the monsters and tanking would be more about that than "DPS except they react to getting hit."

Didn't raid BfA.

I also thought Flame Leviathan was enormously fun.

Least favorite--Mistress Sassz'ine in Tomb of Sargeras. A bewildering hodgepodge of every clump up / spread out mechanic that only an ADHD kid could love. And I was on a resto druid, which were incredibly mobile in Legion! (Remember displacer beast, aka druids get blink?)

I never did him on hardmode but I also loved the idea of the Gothik fight. Kinda like Aggramar, where there's an enormous amount of the raid working together to control a ton of adds.

Honorable mentions: Professor Putricide, Valithria Dreamwalker

I'll also give a shoutout to Fatescribe Ruh'kalo as the one fight in all of WoW that requires the most different strategy for a coordinated guild group in a large raid vs a small disorganized pug. That fight isn't that tough to pug...except 99% of people dunno how to adjust from what they read in their strategy guide. I put a post on how to do it in this forum, it's probably 2-3 pages down.

Oh and one last shoutout to probably the biggest laugh I got in the last ten years of WoW....SASHAY LEFT!!!

I saw that beef about ToC. People hate on ToC, it had some great fights and little trash mobs. More raids should aspire to be ToC. Running down a hallway fighting waves of trash mobs is my least favorite part of raiding

[Kokolums]

Vanilla - onyxia
Bc - magtheridan
Wrath - putricide
Cata - didnt raid
Mop - didnt raid
Wod - ragnaros (but skipped most raids)
Legion - avatar of sargeras
Bfa - jaina
SL - council of blood

Magtheridon is prolly #1

[God Save The King]

Vanilla: Four Horsemen
The Burning Crusade: Illidan.
Wrath of the Lich King: Yogg'Saron, Alone in the Darkness
Cataclysm: Ragnaros
Mists of Pandaria: Lei Shen
Warlords of Draenor: Archimonde
Legion: Elisande (didn't raid Tomb of Sargeras or Antorus)
Battle For Azeroth: Queen Azshara
Shadowlands (For now): Fatescribe Roh-Kalo

These are based on the highest level difficulty available at the time

[Ezyah]

Yogg
Algalon
Firelands Ragnaros
Lei shen
Argus

[deenman]

memorable....hmm...seeing sapphiron form for the first time just felt epic for some reason

but as for best fight mechanicaly,i think i would have to give it to wod archimonde(if you did it pre crazy legend ring buffs)

[Arcreid]

If i take away lore reason and score it entirely on the fun aspect, it's Blackhand, 7 minutes fight of pure fun and spectacle. 2nd favorite is the train boss, Operator Thogar, the rest of WOW bosses is miles below these 2 bosses.

Both are from BRF, the raid mechanics has been mediocre after that raid.

[arkanon]

Every fight is a gimmick fight. Except Patchwerk

If you are foolish enough to think a council fight or a phased 2 boss fight is in the same "gimmick" catagory as not controlling your character at all and driving around in tanks instead, then there is nothing else to discuss, because that is an absurd notion.

[Boricha]

Siegecrafter Blackfuse was my personal favorite. ToT and SoO were both incredible raids.

[AlmightyGerkin]

ragnaros heroic.

he got fucking legs!

[Uoyredrum]

For all the ones I've done:

Vanilla: C'thun
TBC: Kil'jaeden
Wrath: Lich King
MoP: Garrosh
WoD: High Imperator
SL: Only did castle nathria but they all sucked IMO

[arkanon]

he got fucking legs!

I remember an early post about him having legs, and laughing my ass off and mocking anyone stupid enough to believe they would actually do something that idiotic. Egg - meet face.

Personally, OT, i think there are just way too many variables to the question for me to answer - some encounters have fantastic designs, but were tuned horribly, resulting in an overall negative experience. Some were a lot of FUN for the first few times, then became a free loot very quickly, crushing my enjoyment of it. Fights could also be very different on heroic/mythic compared to lower difficulties, almost feeling like entirely different fights.

Personally, i enjoy encounters with an opportunity for a specific (chosen, not random) person to really shine. It didnt have to be ME doing that mechanic, but the feeling of the entire raid being on your shoulders for a moment was really awesome - sure, sometimes it went pear-shaped, but when it went right, that feeling is something special. No good in pugs really, but with a dedicated raid team it was a great feeling, even if it was someone else doing it - patting them on the back was a nice feeling still.

Again, the opposite is true for me personally - when i played more socially (heroic raids, USUALLY getting cutting edge but not focused on it) i played with a very diverse group of players. Some where from my main mythic team, quite a bit ahead of others who tbh, should have stayed in heroic. So when we had an entirely random mechanic that targeted an entirely random player, it was frustrating as fuck.

[garicasha]

I saw that beef about ToC. People hate on ToC, it had some great fights and little trash mobs. More raids should aspire to be ToC. Running down a hallway fighting waves of trash mobs is my least favorite part of raiding

If, hypothetically speaking, Blizzard put a raid encounter in where each Faction's Champions fought the raid, it would be very difficult to raid lead because how do you judge the metrics of PvP in a mass battle? Interrupts? DPS? CCs applied? I mean if things are going wrong it gets very difficult to actually say where the problem is.

And this game has enough idiot raid leaders as is.

[Eace]

Dreamwalker - I just love "healer fights"
Ultraxxion - Same here, healer fights are cool and we should have more of them
Imperator - It had a lot of phases, but progressing it and learning the fight felt satisfying
G'huun - Running the orbs solo as a monk and being an integral part of the boss going down was rewarding

[sandini]

My Top 3:
Iscar in Hellfire Citadell
Garajal in Mogu'shan Vaults
Il'gynoth in emerald Nightmare

[melzas]

There are so many great raid fights that's it hard to cherry pick the best ones. Encounter design was always one of wows greatest strengths.

Personally I always enjoyed gimmick fights with unusual mechanics (especially healer gimmicks as I main that, Valylthira, Tsulong, Ultraxxion etc.), but even more straightforward fights are often fun.

[melodramocracy]

Not much of a raider, but I really enjoyed Council in CN. Fairly technical enough, humorous, and enjoyable. Same goes for Professor Putricide in ICC.

Beasts of Northrend and Valkyr's in ToC, simply because the memories of hearing pug players scream about either screwing up Beasts (tranq shot now!!!) or screwing up the colors brought so many laughs.


I'll break tradition here and say that Nitrogg Thundertower was one of the more interesting bosses in the entire game, even though he was just a 5 man boss fight.

[Doffen]

Illidan
TBC KJ
Mu'ru
Shade of Aran
Gorefiend TBC(When you didn't get targeted)
Brutallus
Patchwerk
Maggy(made weekly pugs, man clicking is hard)
Hodir(That critbuff was so awesome)
Spellblade Aluriel
Grand Magistrix Elisande
Argus the Unmaker
King Rastakhan
Yoggi
Deathbringer Saurfang

Probably forgot a couple. I really like those fights were you have to push your spec/class to win the fight. The so called tank and spank. Some other types are fun too, but I rather do fights were the performance of your spec wins the fight, rather than moving out of 10 fires.

[KrayZ33]

Difficult

BC: I'm the only person on the planet who enjoyed the trash fights before every boss in Hyal, but if I had to name a boss it'd probably be Vashj, Kil'jaeden or Kael'thas
WotLK: Yogg-0/Algalon
Cataclysm: - (didn't play)
MoP: - (didn't play)
WoD: Almost every single one of Blackrock Foundry. It's probably the best raid ever made in WoW so far. The only boss in there that was boring for me was Gruul
Legion: Star Augur
Shadowlands: Prince or the Dance-Masters.

[Toybox]

I think Legion has a disproportionate amount of great fights. Augur > Elisande > Guldan was a brilliant way to finish a raid, & Fallen Avatar > KJ / Aggramar > Argus were also fantastic.

From a tank POV, Fallen Avatar > KJ mythic is probably my favourite one-two punch in raiding history.