"52 bosses, holy crap! That's like... a lot! An entire deck of cards! Did I really learn all those encounters? And that guy was such a pain... Oh, and I remember how we struggled on this..."
I suppose it's a bit early to become nostalgic about Wrath, but Cassandri succeeded to get me into the mood the other day. In a post of epic proportions she ranked every single raid boss in Northrend from a difficulty perspective - from the easiest to the hardest for a group to kill.
First out on Cassandri's list is Noth, and last is - not surprisingly - Lich King himself. Since she takes gear requirements into account, the list is quite straight forward, mostly following the tiers. But there are a couple of exceptions, so for instance you'll find Flame Leviathan sneaking in among the Naxx bosses at spot 11 and Mimron ranked as number 38, harder than any ToC boss.
Cassandri ends her post with a question: would you rank the bosses differently? And you can take this post as my answer, even though it's made from a slightly different perspective.
In my version I haven't included gear requirements, but rather tried to look back and remember how I perceived the fight when it was new and we were geared for it, but not yet overgeared.
The list shows the learning curve for Larísa. How hard was it to get the dance steps rights, how much of frustration did it cause me? Of course it's a very personal thing. I'm pretty terrible for situational awareness and fights on the move, and this shows on the list.
What was hard to me might have been easy for you and the reversed, and it probably varies depending on your class you're playing. For instance if Patchwerk was a joke to a ranged dps:er, I can imagine that it required much more of a healer, not to speak of what Loatheb did.
This said: here we go. I present to you Larísa's complete list over the bosses of Wrath, presented in the order from easiest to hardest to learn. I've also added a short comment on each boss as a support for my memory in case I'll want to look back at this one day.
1-14 "Not much effort required"
1. Patchwerk, Naxxramas
I'm not a healer, so Patchwerk was basically one of the IF dummies moved into the instance. It required a little thinking about CD:s and mana management if you wanted to compete on the damage charts. That's all.
2. Flame Leviathan, Ulduar
After all this time I'm still not entirely comfortable with all the vehicles. I definitely can't drive a demolisher flawlessly and I'm totally uncapable of aiming correctly, tossing the passanger without risking to kill him. Vehicle fights always freak me out. But on the other hand you don't have to know what you're doing. The guy goes down no matter what, as long as you aren't doing achievements. No learning required.
3. Gunship Battle, Icecrown Citadel
No. This wasn't challenging. Not at all. We did this encounter first raiding blind, without addons or strat knowledge. That didn't help. It went down too easy anyway. It was absolutely a fun mechanic to begin with and I enjoyed the novelty as much as anyone else, but the enthusiasm we felt faded ever so quickly when we endured painful 15 min long fights due to lag.
4. Instructor Razuvious, Naxxramas
I remember that our priests struggled a bit before they got the hang of the mind controlling. For a non-mind controller this encounter was pointless. The only challenge was to keep the hands off your spell keys until sufficient aggro was established.
5. Loatheb, Naxxramas
The spores hanged around long enough for even a slow mover like me to grab them. The hardest thing about this boss was endurance: the ability not to fall asleep. We just stood there and did the same thing like forever. Utterly, utterly boring. Gear was a factor of course. I remember it was a bit of a dps race to begin with and not entirely trivial.
6. Archavon the Stone Watcher, Vault of Archavon
I always enjoyed when he throw that stone spell at my mirror images. Apart from that - move away from clouds a couple of times, boss dead. A boss made for pugging.
7. Noth the Plaguebringer, Naxxramas
Noth included some target switching and decursing, but above all keeping track of your aggro. Pretty easy yes but not the easiest boss in the entire Wrath, in my opinion.
8. Emalon the Storm Watcher, Vault of Archavon
OK, once in a while you switch to a skull. Zzzzz. No learning curve required.
9. Festergut, Icecrown Citadel
Slightly more exciting than Loatheb since you have to make sure you get inoculated, not just to increase your dps but not to die. Read through the strat once and be done with it.
10 Grand Widow Faerlina, Naxxramas
I'm lucky enough to have raid leaders who tell me what to do. With proper marking, a nuke order and a raid assist to follow, this is a no-brainer for a foot soldier like me.
11. Anub’Rekhan, Naxxramas
This was actually slightly complicated when we first did it, remember? Kiting, taking out the tiny spiders, switching between adds and boss. Still not that hard.
12. Gothik the Harvester, Naxxramas
The hardest task for this fight was for the RL to make a wise call splitting the dps. But the personal challenge and learning curve was more or less zero.
13. Koralon the Flame Watcher, Vault of Archavon
Fun times with Incanters Absorbation, keeping up fire ward and getting some crazy dps at times. Hard? Not very much
14. Toravon the Ice Watcher, Vault of Archavon
Honestly I've only done it a couple of times. But it didn't take much of research or learning at all. Switch to the orbs when they're up. Nuke the boss rest of the time. Meh. Yet another trivial VoA boss
15-28: Still pretty easy, but need to look out once in a while
15. Ignis the Furnace Master, Ulduar
Not much of a fun fight, the same thing over and over again with a slight increase if you're on add duty. Most fun was if you got into the pocket and could see it from another perspective.
16. Maexxna, Naxxramas
There is something about this boss that I never liked. The transparent floor somehow disoriented me. If you were on cocoon duty, it meant quite a bit of target switching. And all those annoying silences, always coming when you last wanted it.
17. The Four Horsemen, Naxxramas
I can imagine that this fight was harder for people who were involved in tanking duties, coordinating with others in their side switching. For me it was a very simple fight as long as I moved along when I was told to, kept an eye on the debuff counter and stayed out of void zones.
18. Gluth, Naxxramas
I was always terrified that someone would insist on me speccing frost and becoming the kiter. Thankfully enough noone did, otherwise it would end up far higher on the list. The biggest focus in this fight was while entering the room. I didn't want to be THAT guy who fell down from the pipes.
19. Thaddius, Naxxramas
The plus-minus-dance is easier than the one in Mechanar. Addons ftw, just do what you're told and you'll be fine. The biggest issue with this fight was the Jump from the platform. You feel like a complete idiot if you miss it. I'm talking from experience. After this had happened a couple of times I remembered - or was reminded - about a handy little spell called "slow fall" and this wasn't an issue anymore.
20. Razorscale, Ulduar
This is the kind of fight that can confuse me with a ton of adds running around in a mess. However they made the Very Dangerous Adds bigger than the others, so it was fairly easy to pick the right target. Dodging fires from above can be a challenge to me, not too bad in this case. And once he was grounded it was tank and spank.
21. Onyxia
If you didn't do her in vanilla you might want to read the strats once. Then execute. It isn't complicated, it isn't particularly fun if you're not in it for nostalgia or are a fire mage who love pretty yellow numbers. And it didn't stay on our raiding menu for very long.
22. Grobbulous, Naxxramas
One of those bosses where everyone in the raid HAS to get it right or you'll just blow it for everyone. I was a bit nervous whenever I got infected; I worried about not putting it at the right distance, screwing up things for particularly our melee.
23 XT-00, Ulduar
I always found this fight was easier on hardmode than on normal, since I didn't have to flip the camera and look for the small healing bots to aoe. Tank and spank with occasional excursions to the sides. No environmental damage to react to. Easy to learn.
24. Kologarn, Ulduar
I admit it: I struggled a bit with the eyebeams. My addons kept alarming me when I in fact wasn't target and this made me spend more time running around like a chicken than actually being useful. I had to learn to trust my eyes more than addons.
25. Twin Val’kyr, Trial of the Crusader
It is a very easy fight unless you start to think too much. Suddenly you find yourself trying to get a white shield to protect you from dark vortex, or... hey, how was it? It's not about learning curve though. It's about your brain not messing up.
26, Auriaya, Ulduar
The most complicated about the fight is the pull and the initial dealing with the adds, which always seemed a bit chaotic to me. I think it's a worse fight for tanks and raid leaders who want to place the black zones at convenient places, not to mess up with the fears.
27. Lord Jaraxxus, Trial of the Crusader
Never has spellstealing been more appropriate and fun! Arcane mages rocked at this fight and I enjoyed it a lot. There were quite a few things to think of, but nothing more than that you could handle it with the help of an addon and a few good macros.
28. Faction Champions Trial of the Crusader
For a non-PvP:er this felt kind of strange and awkward. Why are they doing this to us? sort of. But if I don't remember it wrong, they nerfed it. Somehow it became doable even for me. I have no idea if I ever improved to be honest and I don't know where to place it in difficulty order so it will end up in the middle.
29-42: It's getting more difficult
29. Anub’arak Trial of the Crusader
Being chased always freaked me out, as well as the tiny adds you were supposed to get rid of quickly, being a ranged, and still not tanking them, because that hurt. Apart from that phase it was just simple tank and spank, probably more interesting for the healers.
30. The Assembly of Iron, Ulduar
I love it when you get some special assignment and can feel Important for a little while. Lot's of fun for mages here, spellstealing shields among others.
31. Valithria Dreamwalker, Icecrown Citadel
From a dps perspective this is like phase 1 of Kel’Thuzad, with the difference that you need to counterspell some adds, be quicker on others and stay out of a bit of crap. Not that interesting for a ranged dps:er, but I hope the healers are having a blast, whatever they're doing in that other realm.
32. Sartharion, Obsidian Sanctum
It took me quite a while to get the hang of the fire walls. It finally dawned upon me how they worked when I saw a highly pedagogic strategy where they included pictures of teddy bears in different positions. The jumping back and forward into the portals for the add dragons weren't entirely trivial either to begin with. It became a lot worse with +3 of course.
33. Lord Morrowgar, Icecrown Citadel
We killed this guy in a blind raid, working out tactics of our own. Dealing with spikes and staying out of fire wasn't enough to make me really frustrated.
34. Thorim, Ulduar
As long as we had to sheep one of the adds in the gauntlet this fight was a bit challenging with a lot of targetshifting, counterspelling, movements and an enrage timer not to let the arena be overwhelmed. Once our gear was better and had learned to look at the mean guy's firecasting hands, it was rather easy.
35. Northrend Beasts, Trial of the Crusader
With the constant threat of being demoted to pillock rank if I got hit by that hairy beast, this encounter always gave me a bit of pain in the stomach. The poison-fire-thing was also kinf of tricky.
36. Heigan, Naxxramas
I'm not the best of dancers. And with my former computer and the lag I endured on it, it was far from easy. I was insanely happy when I finally "got it" and after that I did the safety dance many many times. But it was tough learning and I was frustrated.
37. Deathbringer Saurfang Icecrown Citadel
I hate when I have to pick a certain target quickly as it spawns in the middle of a group. I somehow always manage to pick the wrong one. Since we have a strat where we're working in couples on the bloodbeasts I get away with it, using an assist-macro. Yeah, I know I'm a cheater.
38. Sapphiron, Naxxramas
One of the more challenging fights in Naxxramas to me personally. Stay out of general frost damage, be quick on the decursing, get behind tombs and still manage to keep up a decent dps. It demanded you to be awake so to say.
39. Kel’Thuzad, Naxxramas
Quite tough and required me to be on my toes, including instant-sheeping of mc:d people, which can be a bit of a hassle when you're not in ranged. Void zones, get away from the group with the mana detonations... And adds making it more intense toward the end. A worthy endboss, apart from phase 1, which was ridiculously boring. I could have killed for a fast-forward button.
40. Blood Queen Lana’thel, Icecrown Citadel
This fight was challenging the first couple of times before we got that addon that did half of the job for us. It wiped out half of the difficulty of the fight, if not more.
41. Mimiron Ulduar
Oh, I love Mimron. No other fight has had as much of "this is a dance"-feeling since Aran in Kharazan. Clear, solid phases, easy-to grasp movements and target switching and a brief, well needed breaks between every phase so you can reposition, evocate and put on a damage if needed while you're still entertained by gnome. There's some crap to get out of - like the beam - but for some reason it never bothered me that much. It's probably far worse for a healer.
42. Lady Deathwhisper Icecrown Citadel
Lots of stuff to deal with for a mage! Not only target switching, you're also spellstealing for a change, decursing, emergency-sheeping, counterspelling frost bolts and like everyone else: staying out of crap. It took me a while to get hang of it.
43-58: My biggest challenges in Wrath
43. Rotface, Icecrown Citadel
This fight was about getting better at using the camera, keeping track of the kiter so I knew where to run when I was infected. A lot of movement involved, a lot of green crap to stay out of, but somehow it was way easier to me than Hodir ever was.
44. Malygos, The Eye of Eternity
My learning curve hasn't ended. I've never got the hang of phase 3, I can't say I'd master it even today. It's not something I'm proud of, it's just the way it is. I don't match very well with vehicles. It was a beautifully crafted encounter, but it didn't work out as intended since noone wanted to run it in the end.
45. Freya, Ulduar
This fight was like Mimron very predictable with the alternating phases, but way, way more chaotic with the positioning under the little mushrooms, the get-away with debuff and the look-out-for-tree things. And on top of that having some of the adds to die at the same time.
It took me quite some time before I had it all clear for me.
46. General Vezax, Ulduar
Objects that fly quickly towards me that I have to flee from. I hate it. If it wasn't for the DXE addon they'd still be crashing in my head. Sadly enough.
47. Blood Prince Council, Icecrown Citadel
An utterly confusing fight which I still don't really get, no matter how much I look at the given strats. I used to be a bit scared of the kinetic bomb duty, nowadays I don't mind it. At least I know I'm doing something useful. There are simply too many spheres and bubbles for me to grasp.
48. Hodir, Ulduar
Hodir, oh, Hodir. I don't know if truly can say I master him yet. Too many circles to keep track of, and fires and npcs and beams and godknowswhat. Worse to learn than a great deal of the bosses in ICC, I might even put him higher than Sindragosa if I wasn't so embarrassed about it.
49. Professor Putricide, Icecrown Citadel
I would dare say that Putricide is exactly as difficult as Sindragosa, but then I've always been terrible at seeing things tossed at me from above. It was the same with Void Reaver and Genereal Vezaxx. Only reluctantly do I flip my camera up and if I'm then required to move I'm kind of lost. There's a lot of stuff going on at the screen and you also have to keep track of Putri's health to get the phase transitions right. Complicated.
50. Sindragosa, Icecrown Citadel
This is the opposite of tank and spank, requiring speed and precision in every detail - debuff handling, placing the iceblocks correctly and nuking them down at the perfect pace. Being a mage helps a bit; if it wasn't for blink I'd surely die from her chains. It took me quite a while to learn this though.
51. Yogg-Saron Ulduar
Three glorious phases! Tentacles! Decursing! Liberating mates from their chains! Turning away from gaze! Escape the beams! Always on the move and on the top of that keeping track of your sanity! It was a mega-long fight which was exhausting but fun, fun, fun. And as a sugarcoating: no corpse run, but a convenient teleport, which was very welcome since the fight as such took so long time. It took me quite a while though to go from the chaotic stadium to understand what I was doing. I feel sorry for everyone who never got around to do it because their guild wanted into the looting node of ToC.
52. The Lich King, Icecrown Citadel
I've only killed him once so far and I certainly don't expect the next kill to be a piece of cake. We have the gear, no doubt. But LK requires me to be on my toes like no boss has before.
The End
I suppose it's a bit early to become nostalgic about Wrath, but Cassandri succeeded to get me into the mood the other day. In a post of epic proportions she ranked every single raid boss in Northrend from a difficulty perspective - from the easiest to the hardest for a group to kill.
First out on Cassandri's list is Noth, and last is - not surprisingly - Lich King himself. Since she takes gear requirements into account, the list is quite straight forward, mostly following the tiers. But there are a couple of exceptions, so for instance you'll find Flame Leviathan sneaking in among the Naxx bosses at spot 11 and Mimron ranked as number 38, harder than any ToC boss.
Cassandri ends her post with a question: would you rank the bosses differently? And you can take this post as my answer, even though it's made from a slightly different perspective.
In my version I haven't included gear requirements, but rather tried to look back and remember how I perceived the fight when it was new and we were geared for it, but not yet overgeared.
The list shows the learning curve for Larísa. How hard was it to get the dance steps rights, how much of frustration did it cause me? Of course it's a very personal thing. I'm pretty terrible for situational awareness and fights on the move, and this shows on the list.
What was hard to me might have been easy for you and the reversed, and it probably varies depending on your class you're playing. For instance if Patchwerk was a joke to a ranged dps:er, I can imagine that it required much more of a healer, not to speak of what Loatheb did.
This said: here we go. I present to you Larísa's complete list over the bosses of Wrath, presented in the order from easiest to hardest to learn. I've also added a short comment on each boss as a support for my memory in case I'll want to look back at this one day.
1-14 "Not much effort required"
1. Patchwerk, Naxxramas
I'm not a healer, so Patchwerk was basically one of the IF dummies moved into the instance. It required a little thinking about CD:s and mana management if you wanted to compete on the damage charts. That's all.
2. Flame Leviathan, Ulduar
After all this time I'm still not entirely comfortable with all the vehicles. I definitely can't drive a demolisher flawlessly and I'm totally uncapable of aiming correctly, tossing the passanger without risking to kill him. Vehicle fights always freak me out. But on the other hand you don't have to know what you're doing. The guy goes down no matter what, as long as you aren't doing achievements. No learning required.
3. Gunship Battle, Icecrown Citadel
No. This wasn't challenging. Not at all. We did this encounter first raiding blind, without addons or strat knowledge. That didn't help. It went down too easy anyway. It was absolutely a fun mechanic to begin with and I enjoyed the novelty as much as anyone else, but the enthusiasm we felt faded ever so quickly when we endured painful 15 min long fights due to lag.
4. Instructor Razuvious, Naxxramas
I remember that our priests struggled a bit before they got the hang of the mind controlling. For a non-mind controller this encounter was pointless. The only challenge was to keep the hands off your spell keys until sufficient aggro was established.
5. Loatheb, Naxxramas
The spores hanged around long enough for even a slow mover like me to grab them. The hardest thing about this boss was endurance: the ability not to fall asleep. We just stood there and did the same thing like forever. Utterly, utterly boring. Gear was a factor of course. I remember it was a bit of a dps race to begin with and not entirely trivial.
6. Archavon the Stone Watcher, Vault of Archavon
I always enjoyed when he throw that stone spell at my mirror images. Apart from that - move away from clouds a couple of times, boss dead. A boss made for pugging.
7. Noth the Plaguebringer, Naxxramas
Noth included some target switching and decursing, but above all keeping track of your aggro. Pretty easy yes but not the easiest boss in the entire Wrath, in my opinion.
8. Emalon the Storm Watcher, Vault of Archavon
OK, once in a while you switch to a skull. Zzzzz. No learning curve required.
9. Festergut, Icecrown Citadel
Slightly more exciting than Loatheb since you have to make sure you get inoculated, not just to increase your dps but not to die. Read through the strat once and be done with it.
10 Grand Widow Faerlina, Naxxramas
I'm lucky enough to have raid leaders who tell me what to do. With proper marking, a nuke order and a raid assist to follow, this is a no-brainer for a foot soldier like me.
11. Anub’Rekhan, Naxxramas
This was actually slightly complicated when we first did it, remember? Kiting, taking out the tiny spiders, switching between adds and boss. Still not that hard.
12. Gothik the Harvester, Naxxramas
The hardest task for this fight was for the RL to make a wise call splitting the dps. But the personal challenge and learning curve was more or less zero.
13. Koralon the Flame Watcher, Vault of Archavon
Fun times with Incanters Absorbation, keeping up fire ward and getting some crazy dps at times. Hard? Not very much
14. Toravon the Ice Watcher, Vault of Archavon
Honestly I've only done it a couple of times. But it didn't take much of research or learning at all. Switch to the orbs when they're up. Nuke the boss rest of the time. Meh. Yet another trivial VoA boss
15-28: Still pretty easy, but need to look out once in a while
15. Ignis the Furnace Master, Ulduar
Not much of a fun fight, the same thing over and over again with a slight increase if you're on add duty. Most fun was if you got into the pocket and could see it from another perspective.
16. Maexxna, Naxxramas
There is something about this boss that I never liked. The transparent floor somehow disoriented me. If you were on cocoon duty, it meant quite a bit of target switching. And all those annoying silences, always coming when you last wanted it.
17. The Four Horsemen, Naxxramas
I can imagine that this fight was harder for people who were involved in tanking duties, coordinating with others in their side switching. For me it was a very simple fight as long as I moved along when I was told to, kept an eye on the debuff counter and stayed out of void zones.
18. Gluth, Naxxramas
I was always terrified that someone would insist on me speccing frost and becoming the kiter. Thankfully enough noone did, otherwise it would end up far higher on the list. The biggest focus in this fight was while entering the room. I didn't want to be THAT guy who fell down from the pipes.
19. Thaddius, Naxxramas
The plus-minus-dance is easier than the one in Mechanar. Addons ftw, just do what you're told and you'll be fine. The biggest issue with this fight was the Jump from the platform. You feel like a complete idiot if you miss it. I'm talking from experience. After this had happened a couple of times I remembered - or was reminded - about a handy little spell called "slow fall" and this wasn't an issue anymore.
20. Razorscale, Ulduar
This is the kind of fight that can confuse me with a ton of adds running around in a mess. However they made the Very Dangerous Adds bigger than the others, so it was fairly easy to pick the right target. Dodging fires from above can be a challenge to me, not too bad in this case. And once he was grounded it was tank and spank.
21. Onyxia
If you didn't do her in vanilla you might want to read the strats once. Then execute. It isn't complicated, it isn't particularly fun if you're not in it for nostalgia or are a fire mage who love pretty yellow numbers. And it didn't stay on our raiding menu for very long.
22. Grobbulous, Naxxramas
One of those bosses where everyone in the raid HAS to get it right or you'll just blow it for everyone. I was a bit nervous whenever I got infected; I worried about not putting it at the right distance, screwing up things for particularly our melee.
23 XT-00, Ulduar
I always found this fight was easier on hardmode than on normal, since I didn't have to flip the camera and look for the small healing bots to aoe. Tank and spank with occasional excursions to the sides. No environmental damage to react to. Easy to learn.
24. Kologarn, Ulduar
I admit it: I struggled a bit with the eyebeams. My addons kept alarming me when I in fact wasn't target and this made me spend more time running around like a chicken than actually being useful. I had to learn to trust my eyes more than addons.
25. Twin Val’kyr, Trial of the Crusader
It is a very easy fight unless you start to think too much. Suddenly you find yourself trying to get a white shield to protect you from dark vortex, or... hey, how was it? It's not about learning curve though. It's about your brain not messing up.
26, Auriaya, Ulduar
The most complicated about the fight is the pull and the initial dealing with the adds, which always seemed a bit chaotic to me. I think it's a worse fight for tanks and raid leaders who want to place the black zones at convenient places, not to mess up with the fears.
27. Lord Jaraxxus, Trial of the Crusader
Never has spellstealing been more appropriate and fun! Arcane mages rocked at this fight and I enjoyed it a lot. There were quite a few things to think of, but nothing more than that you could handle it with the help of an addon and a few good macros.
28. Faction Champions Trial of the Crusader
For a non-PvP:er this felt kind of strange and awkward. Why are they doing this to us? sort of. But if I don't remember it wrong, they nerfed it. Somehow it became doable even for me. I have no idea if I ever improved to be honest and I don't know where to place it in difficulty order so it will end up in the middle.
29-42: It's getting more difficult
29. Anub’arak Trial of the Crusader
Being chased always freaked me out, as well as the tiny adds you were supposed to get rid of quickly, being a ranged, and still not tanking them, because that hurt. Apart from that phase it was just simple tank and spank, probably more interesting for the healers.
30. The Assembly of Iron, Ulduar
I love it when you get some special assignment and can feel Important for a little while. Lot's of fun for mages here, spellstealing shields among others.
31. Valithria Dreamwalker, Icecrown Citadel
From a dps perspective this is like phase 1 of Kel’Thuzad, with the difference that you need to counterspell some adds, be quicker on others and stay out of a bit of crap. Not that interesting for a ranged dps:er, but I hope the healers are having a blast, whatever they're doing in that other realm.
32. Sartharion, Obsidian Sanctum
It took me quite a while to get the hang of the fire walls. It finally dawned upon me how they worked when I saw a highly pedagogic strategy where they included pictures of teddy bears in different positions. The jumping back and forward into the portals for the add dragons weren't entirely trivial either to begin with. It became a lot worse with +3 of course.
33. Lord Morrowgar, Icecrown Citadel
We killed this guy in a blind raid, working out tactics of our own. Dealing with spikes and staying out of fire wasn't enough to make me really frustrated.
34. Thorim, Ulduar
As long as we had to sheep one of the adds in the gauntlet this fight was a bit challenging with a lot of targetshifting, counterspelling, movements and an enrage timer not to let the arena be overwhelmed. Once our gear was better and had learned to look at the mean guy's firecasting hands, it was rather easy.
35. Northrend Beasts, Trial of the Crusader
With the constant threat of being demoted to pillock rank if I got hit by that hairy beast, this encounter always gave me a bit of pain in the stomach. The poison-fire-thing was also kinf of tricky.
36. Heigan, Naxxramas
I'm not the best of dancers. And with my former computer and the lag I endured on it, it was far from easy. I was insanely happy when I finally "got it" and after that I did the safety dance many many times. But it was tough learning and I was frustrated.
37. Deathbringer Saurfang Icecrown Citadel
I hate when I have to pick a certain target quickly as it spawns in the middle of a group. I somehow always manage to pick the wrong one. Since we have a strat where we're working in couples on the bloodbeasts I get away with it, using an assist-macro. Yeah, I know I'm a cheater.
38. Sapphiron, Naxxramas
One of the more challenging fights in Naxxramas to me personally. Stay out of general frost damage, be quick on the decursing, get behind tombs and still manage to keep up a decent dps. It demanded you to be awake so to say.
39. Kel’Thuzad, Naxxramas
Quite tough and required me to be on my toes, including instant-sheeping of mc:d people, which can be a bit of a hassle when you're not in ranged. Void zones, get away from the group with the mana detonations... And adds making it more intense toward the end. A worthy endboss, apart from phase 1, which was ridiculously boring. I could have killed for a fast-forward button.
40. Blood Queen Lana’thel, Icecrown Citadel
This fight was challenging the first couple of times before we got that addon that did half of the job for us. It wiped out half of the difficulty of the fight, if not more.
41. Mimiron Ulduar
Oh, I love Mimron. No other fight has had as much of "this is a dance"-feeling since Aran in Kharazan. Clear, solid phases, easy-to grasp movements and target switching and a brief, well needed breaks between every phase so you can reposition, evocate and put on a damage if needed while you're still entertained by gnome. There's some crap to get out of - like the beam - but for some reason it never bothered me that much. It's probably far worse for a healer.
42. Lady Deathwhisper Icecrown Citadel
Lots of stuff to deal with for a mage! Not only target switching, you're also spellstealing for a change, decursing, emergency-sheeping, counterspelling frost bolts and like everyone else: staying out of crap. It took me a while to get hang of it.
43-58: My biggest challenges in Wrath
43. Rotface, Icecrown Citadel
This fight was about getting better at using the camera, keeping track of the kiter so I knew where to run when I was infected. A lot of movement involved, a lot of green crap to stay out of, but somehow it was way easier to me than Hodir ever was.
44. Malygos, The Eye of Eternity
My learning curve hasn't ended. I've never got the hang of phase 3, I can't say I'd master it even today. It's not something I'm proud of, it's just the way it is. I don't match very well with vehicles. It was a beautifully crafted encounter, but it didn't work out as intended since noone wanted to run it in the end.
45. Freya, Ulduar
This fight was like Mimron very predictable with the alternating phases, but way, way more chaotic with the positioning under the little mushrooms, the get-away with debuff and the look-out-for-tree things. And on top of that having some of the adds to die at the same time.
It took me quite some time before I had it all clear for me.
46. General Vezax, Ulduar
Objects that fly quickly towards me that I have to flee from. I hate it. If it wasn't for the DXE addon they'd still be crashing in my head. Sadly enough.
47. Blood Prince Council, Icecrown Citadel
An utterly confusing fight which I still don't really get, no matter how much I look at the given strats. I used to be a bit scared of the kinetic bomb duty, nowadays I don't mind it. At least I know I'm doing something useful. There are simply too many spheres and bubbles for me to grasp.
48. Hodir, Ulduar
Hodir, oh, Hodir. I don't know if truly can say I master him yet. Too many circles to keep track of, and fires and npcs and beams and godknowswhat. Worse to learn than a great deal of the bosses in ICC, I might even put him higher than Sindragosa if I wasn't so embarrassed about it.
49. Professor Putricide, Icecrown Citadel
I would dare say that Putricide is exactly as difficult as Sindragosa, but then I've always been terrible at seeing things tossed at me from above. It was the same with Void Reaver and Genereal Vezaxx. Only reluctantly do I flip my camera up and if I'm then required to move I'm kind of lost. There's a lot of stuff going on at the screen and you also have to keep track of Putri's health to get the phase transitions right. Complicated.
50. Sindragosa, Icecrown Citadel
This is the opposite of tank and spank, requiring speed and precision in every detail - debuff handling, placing the iceblocks correctly and nuking them down at the perfect pace. Being a mage helps a bit; if it wasn't for blink I'd surely die from her chains. It took me quite a while to learn this though.
51. Yogg-Saron Ulduar
Three glorious phases! Tentacles! Decursing! Liberating mates from their chains! Turning away from gaze! Escape the beams! Always on the move and on the top of that keeping track of your sanity! It was a mega-long fight which was exhausting but fun, fun, fun. And as a sugarcoating: no corpse run, but a convenient teleport, which was very welcome since the fight as such took so long time. It took me quite a while though to go from the chaotic stadium to understand what I was doing. I feel sorry for everyone who never got around to do it because their guild wanted into the looting node of ToC.
52. The Lich King, Icecrown Citadel
I've only killed him once so far and I certainly don't expect the next kill to be a piece of cake. We have the gear, no doubt. But LK requires me to be on my toes like no boss has before.
The End
And that's the end of the list. We still have the Ruby Sanctum dragon to mix into this; it will be interesting to see where on the scale it lands. I would suspect they'll keep it on the simple side so the PUGs have something to deal with over the summer. Guilds who complain might get achievements to play around with to make it more interesting.
"But...but...you haven't taken the hardmodes into the mix". Right. No I haven't, since I've done far from all of them myself and wouldn't know what I was talking about. Sorry. But please go ahead, make your own lists and fill in whatever is missing!
Thanks to Cassandri for the lovely idea! I don't know how much my version of the list adds to the original post, but I certainly had a ton of fun writing it, and that's what this is all about.
"But...but...you haven't taken the hardmodes into the mix". Right. No I haven't, since I've done far from all of them myself and wouldn't know what I was talking about. Sorry. But please go ahead, make your own lists and fill in whatever is missing!
Thanks to Cassandri for the lovely idea! I don't know how much my version of the list adds to the original post, but I certainly had a ton of fun writing it, and that's what this is all about.
16 comments:
What an interesting idea. I notice you haven't included any of the hard modes in this list which is what would change it up for me. (We don't do all the hard modes by any means but Sarth+adds was one of the big tanking fights in the expansion -- way harder than say, Sindragosa.)
The only thing I know for sure is that the easiest one for us was Noth. That was the only boss where we killed him and people on raid chat were saying, "Wait, was that really a raid boss?"
But what I'm more curious to know is which ones were most fun for you?
Heh, how different it is from the perspective of healer in 10-man only guild:-) I was biting fingers to keep little mages alive in many encounters you described as easy, and gnomes like you were bored!
The very major thing i have to agree with is placing Yogg down there before LK, it's not as hard for individual player, but is quite challenging for the raid as whole, esp the hardmode was nutcakes on steroids. And mimiron, ha! place him 3rd out of pure love for the fight :)
: Yeah, I excluded them since I've done so few myself. I imagine Firefighter as insanely hard, but I haven't done it so... I could have included Sarth+3 I suppose. In that case it would have ended up on place 3, right after Yogg.
There's definitely a correspondence between how hard it is and how fun it is. (Harder = more fun, in case anyone had doubts about that.) The only exception is Hodir, which basically broak down my confidence and just made me feel miserable and frustrated. There are a few simple fights who have been fun. Gunship was fun initially until you knew the drill and had suffered from too many bad lag nights. Nowadays it's more like clearing trash tbh. We did the heroic version last night and you can't tell the difference.
@Tomasz: hehe, I suspected it could be something like that. Which is kind of cool. Some fights put more pressure on the tanks, others on healers, yet others on dps. and I'm fine with that. We all have our moments of slackig or shining.
@Antoxa: I adore Mimron too, it's all awesome - including the train trip. What is there not to love about it? It's very well crafted, but for some reason the learning curve for my own part was way shorter for him than for others of the top bosses.
It's a "she"!!!
I'm sorry to be nitpicky but I loved the quest chain and hated having to kill "her" a bit later. "Veranus" recognizing her long absent master was a touching moment. And then Loken had to tranform her into Razorscale... What will Thorim ride now that we freed him?
Oh, just to be on topic, loved the list, but then again i'm a sucker for list and ranks! :D
I have to agree with spinks, the inclusion of hard modes would change this list, Alone in the Darkness would probably move Yogg to the top of your list, that fight in correct gear is indescribable.
Yeah, I'm with Tomasz here - reading through your list from the perspective of someone who's been a healer in most of these encounters is quite strange :D
Razuvious especially is a tough one for the shadow priests - "what do you mean we have to tank?!" (at least on 25man - on 10man the tanks just use the MC crystal things). It's technically a "vehicle" fight though, so you'd probably not like it ;)
There's others too that are tough for the different classes: Loatheb, although still fairly straight forward (cast your biggest AoE heal every 17 seconds) requires careful attention to the paid to the debuff. Festergut is a pretty intense spam-a-thon for healers too, requiring a change of focus as the gas gets inhaled.
In fact I think I might do one of these posts myself from a healer perspective, although it'd have to miss the last few ICC bosses as we're only up to Putricide in my guild, and I've been melee DPS for that :)
That's a great list !
I noticed you didn't put Algalon in but you said you didn't included hardmode fights. Algalon is fun though.
I should do a list too. But I think I would organize it as a list of fun. Not which was the most difficult, but rather the one I loved most. I think both lists would be quite similar.
I think most of my best raiding memories are linked with some hardmode first kills. My first Leviathan 4T kill in 10-man was awesome, it was a guild first and it was the day I really found my place in my new guild. Now the guild is disbanded but I'm still friend with those awesome people. Since, I love Leviathan and would rank it higher.
I agree with you one nearly all the hardest bosses : LK, Yogg, Freya, Mimiron, Putricide, are a lot of fun and pretty hard.
As I said on my blog with the exception of the first few bosses, and the last few bosses everything in the middle is in such flux for me my brain hurts. With effectively 6 different roles, tank/offtank/melee dps/ranged/main tank healer/raid healer and I having played all of them every tier each fight is a story.
XT was a snooze for the main tank, heck for heallers scrambling during tantrum and average difficulty for everyone else.
Whereas Sarth3d was tanking nightmare of heck. Rotface was easy for the main tank and hell for a pally offtank. Festergut was easy for d ps, easy for tanks, heallers generally wanted to rip their earballs out.
Ranking bosses is a neat idea, but for me to do it would take weeks 'one from each perspective, then we have to include hard modes from each perspective, my list is over 1000 entries long!'
Nice list, but there were a number of bosses on it that I found harder than you did. Maybe it's mage perspective?
IMO Emalon should be higher. Lots of people had trouble with him when he first came out. The latter 2 VoA bosses are actually easier.
Thaddius is also harder than a lot of the bosses you put later. Too easy for one person to wipe you by being on the wrong side.
Twin Valkyr harder than you give them credit for until you overgear them. Easier on 25 man though, so maybe that's why.
And I don't know how faction champs got that low on your list. I'd put them in top 10 of difficulty.
I'd drop sarth, valithra, and marrowgar down a few pegs as well.
: who are you talking about? Razorscale? I'm such a lore noob... which is painfully apparent sometimes. But I'm glad you appreciated the list!
@Imoh: Oh, if I had ever gotten the opportunity I would SO have included it on the list. But I can't rank what I haven't done really.
@Andy: yeah, it's definitely about perspective, but also about personal weaker sides you might have. I would be happy to read another version of this! I'm normally not a list post fan, but this was kind of fun to me.
@Kinie: oh, would love to see another version, ranked from "fun". In my case it would look pretty much as ranked from difficulty, with perhaps a few changes.
@Holly: hehe, you're thinking too much! I agree you'll never be able to make a list if you take all that stuff into consideration. I decided to do it very much simple and from my gut feeling. And even so it took me a great deal more of time and effort than I had pictured tbh. I got into a sort of obsessed mindset - otherwise I wouldn't have pulled it through.
@Hatch: remember that the list is based on what I personally thought were the hardest fights to learn. Not the fights that were hardest for an entire raid to pull through. If you see the difference. I think you're right about twins and Thaddius. It is a bit tricky there with the potential of 25 people mixing up black/white, + and -... I just thought that the dance moves were pretty easy to grasp for me (once I had gotten the idea to do slow fall to jump to Thaddius.) On the other hand Hodire, there arent really any dance steps to learn, you have to react to your surrounding. Which always has been what is hardest and most challenging to me, personally.
About the faction champions... it's really hard to grade it. I don't think I ever learned it that well. It was just a matter of survival, trying to sheep a certain target as much as possible and following the main assist.
Anyway... I've moved around those bosses A LOT. Everytime I read it through I did rearrangements, wondering: "what was I THINKING putting it in THAT positohn?" And if I re-read it I would probably switch around yet a few bosses, maybe in the lines you suggest.
Most of all I think the list serves as a ground for further discussions. Something to chat about here at the barside. And if we can get a few bosses to disagree about, well the better!
I find strange you keep Hodir in that place. Is one of the easiest fights I've seen in Ulduar (haven't seen it all, just up to Hodir and Thorim). Free the bonfire add, avoid circles and when the big ones appear, wait in the border until snow comes and you climb it up. Rinse and repeat. I found more complicated Thorim or Assembly of Iron.
Anyway these ratings are usually too personal. It depends a lot also on your role. Fights like Grobbulus are easier for the ranged dps than for tanks or healers. On the other hand, Festergut and Saurfang are easy and boring fights for the tanks, while the healers and dps go crazy.
@Kurnak: considering my difficulties with Hodir: I know! It SHOULD be more easy, but I've got to be honest with myself. Now, thinking closer about it I think I'm mixing it up a bit. The normal modes weren't that hard, because it didn't matter that I failed at getting into the buff beams as much as I should. But we spent a lot of time on the hardmode. And that's what broke my self confidence. Sometimes I did very well, but I was inconsistent to say the least. Hmm... Following the logics of this list, not including hardmodes, Hodir should be further down. Fail by me. :(
I won't change it now though. People can have a laugh at my expense, I don't mind.
Great list! I love that you put Heigan where you did. I've gone into Naxx for fun and some achievments with some pretty well geared folk, and every time the only people left standing are me (healer), tank and often just 1 dps.
It takes a few min, we get him down, and everyone says "Ooohh, now I get it." Too late, we did it without you!
Definately, like a few mentioned, different roles create different perspectives. Bashing on Saurfang's behind as a melee dps is easier than healing those with the marks, keeping tanks up, topping off ranged and avoiding the adds that get away and chase you around till ranged picks them up again.
Yeah, perspective plays a role, but I have nothing in disagreement with your list in general. Well done!
I know I'm late,sorry, but your list made me think.
As a melee dps my list would be entirely different from yours, some similar, but mostly not. For example Saurfang, a walk in the park, like having your own training dummy and 25 man buffs..
But anyway, that's not what I was thinking about. I thought about the designers coming up with new fights, trying not to make them repeatedly difficult (or easy) for one class, deciding which boss in the progression was easy for whom and which class it would stress this time.
I see commentators being rude about Blizz designers but they do a pretty good job with what they have to deal with.
Wow - even if I'd written my list from a gear-doesn't-matter perspective I would have listed bosses completely differently!
Hodir? Comon it's not different than the Pit of Saron gauntlet - move out of circles :D
I like these lists. Hopefully more will be written! Esp like the little descriptions because they jog my memory some too.
Also totally agree - XT was actually easier to understand on hard mode than easy.
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