In case anyone is curious, I put together a grading scale of ALL the raids in a public patreon post thats linked in the video description. In case you wanted to see how some of the raids not mentioned in the video stack up.
Don't really get the rankings. Antorus should be out and, based on your own evaluation in your patreon post, Tempest Keep should be in. If Tempest Keep as a raid is too short BT, Sunwell or Hellfire Citadel should be in and would even score better than some of the raids you mention later on. As you have a Legion raid later on in Nighthold the argument that you wanna spread it out over different expansions doesn't hold true either. Gotta be honest, I don't really get it. Good video though, I really appreciate your work
He psosted asking people what they like, and then added his twist to it. It is a very biased list. Just be thankful there are some raids you cannot ignore for how good they are. It just baffles me that BRF was on the list and he mentioned it was for once boss. If only one boss qualifies as good, then Magtheridan at the time it was relevant blew BRF out of the water To add, you forgot a lot of raids on this list, and even have some raids score differently on that list than they did in the video. HFC wasn't on your list, yet BRF which did worse, was. No mention of Onyxia's Lair (either of them), no Magtheridan's, no Ruby/Black Sanctums, no ZG, no AQ20. Not even ZA. Why make a list of raids when you don't include all the raids? How did I forget Gruul's Lair? You had to have a Mage Tank. I was that mage. It was terifying.
people gotta realize that the content inside of Warlords of Draenor wasn't bad, there just wasn't enough content. Thats why I cant take people seriously when they say everything in the expansion was worse than any other just because the expansion was short. the 3 raids were all awesome, Ashran was disliked by some people but it was innovative and fun, PvP was fine and the gear system was cool. and finally the Questing was awesome and in my opinion had the best questing zones in wow. The expansion was a disappointment in the promises that blizzard made but the content was not bad at all.
Warlords was supr great right at release, but man did it establsih the new "check in right after patch and play WoW for maybie a week ot two" cycle they're in now.
The content was great, for the little content it provided. I tell this to people all the time, if you played during that time, you most likely didn't enjoy the game all that much because everything was centered around a glorified Facebook game. That being said, I always look forward to questing in WoD on my low level alts because the zones are the best for questing and emersion in a game that favors questing and emersion.
I love WoD. I never had an issue with it. In current game whenever I'm leveling a new toon I cannot wait to get to WoD. I love my garrison, I love getting followers, setting up buildings, bodyguards, zone buffs. I enjoy it so much and do not understand the amount of hate it gets.
Going into Icecrown Citadel felt like a personal grudge against Arthas that spanned a decade. The years and sweat it took to build to that moment where we could put Arthas down was super satisfying. ICC was a climax point of the Warcraft Story. The raid also came out at a more-or-less perfect time with the popularity of WoW. I can go on and on but there are so few epic villains like Arthas in any franchise.
Both ICC and Ulduar are the reason I keep coming back to play wow, it's so nostalgic that the fall of the lich king cutscene and the chamber of titans ost tears me up so badly that I need to close the browser, this was an amazing video as always and the way you presented each raid is very accurate and comprehensive with that score system, keep up the good work!
Onyxia (the raid) is used Twice like Georges says...Once in Vanilla then updated for level 80 in WOTLK. Same raid. ....and her character is used again as an Undead raised by her brother in Blackwing Descent
He made a mistake by saying Naxx was the only raid used twice. Onyxia forsure counts as a raid. But it was such a forgettable fight in Wrath, just felt like a loot piñata .
4 horseman actually needs the 4-set bonus from the Dreadnaught's Battlegear.... aka the set from Naxx itself. So you had to farm up gear for 8 tanks from the rest of the raid before 4 horsemen would be achievable
One thing I loved about Black Rock Foundry was that pretty much every boss (other than Oregorger) had a reason for being there and for you to kill them. Pretty much every boss had a critical role in the Iron Horde and taking them all down played a pivotal roll in dismanteling it.
Scr8 Up Factz so much of that expansion relied on Garrisons. When it became a chore of me having to get on so that I could get easy gold and materials which then in turn hyper-inflates the economy of a server, only for me to take a break from wow, just to have blizzard nerf garrisons so people sat on mountains of gold and I came back with pennies.
Sunwell Plateau - Coolness 7/10, Uniqueness 4/10, Difficulty 10/10, Popularity 7/10. =28 Black Temple - Coolness 8/10, Uniqueness 4/10, Difficulty 7/10, Popularity 9/10. =28 Both would tie with ToT at number 8, or take up the 10 and 9 slots. I can see why they're both asked for.
Mikumo91 Probably because there was more to talk about with Antorus and Blackrock Foundry then there was with Sunwell and BT , Also they score low on uniqueness, and why clog up a list with 2 meh raids from tbc when Kara was on the list. Also I really want to know the scores for SSC lol feel like I'm the only one that gives that place any love.
Serpentshrine Cavern - Coolness 5/10, Uniqueness 4/10, Difficulty 7/10(post nerfs; use to be impossibly hard), Popularity 4/10. = 20. Only 4 points lower than the number 10 spot.
"The only raid in game to make two appearances as a raid" Yeah, if you just forget about Onyxia's Lair which was re-released in the *same expansion Naxxramas was re-released*
Yeah that is EXACTLY what I was thinking, I feel like BT would score very high in every category. Also Sunwell would probably get extremely high scores in all but popularity (because very few people even got to see it)
Later expansion raids were much better mechanically, had better aesthetics as expansions progressed, and were seen by many more players due to lengthy attunemen processes being gutted. Karazhan is the only one that makes the list due to it being stellar in every category except raid mechanics and difficulty. It was also experienced by the majority of the playerbase.
the big problem was the Attuning required to do those raids... TBC was so damn punishing if you want to do PvE content with alts The raids were great, but the ammount of people that manage to do those raids while they were current content is somewhat low
Probably because of TBC's brutal attunement process, so less people than you would think really experienced those higher levels raids, hence Kara being the standout, partially because it was the most run. Does make me sad tho, especially because I personally thought Black Temple is one of the coolest, most unique raids Blizz has ever done. No, it's not BRF, but it truly stands out, especially with Illidan as a real gem of a crown jewel (how many other fights required literally perfect tanking, or a lock tank?). TBC as a whole has some of the coolest and most unique raids, for better or worse. But this was also a day and age Blizz looked players dead in the eyes and said, "Git gud or get gone." And that very attitude is a double edged sword. I raided back then and loved it, but I know and knew a lot of people who sat TBC raiding out because of that simultaneous blessing and curse. (Also because Vanilla raiding was exhausting and they got burnt out.) Moral of the story: attunement processes and a "git gud" attitude is likely why TBC is overlooked, especially compared to Wrath
Ulduar was fantastic in its themes compared to all for one main reason. It was extremely complete in terms of its themes and very progressive in the way it did it. In practice I mean it started from a very bright and colorful overground and gradually but steadily descended into chaos and madness.
People always seem to forget Baleroc in FL, usually in favor of the two mentioned in the video that I found lackluster personally, though my PoV was tank/sometimes healer. Baleroc had a wholly unique healing mechanic that had to be used or most likely your tank was going to die. The healers had to balance a special mechanic that allowed their heals to get huge while the tank developed a larger and larger health pool, growing in size with their HP. Every so often, the boss would use an ability called Decimation Blades which was a set of two attacks that could be dodged, each taking the tank down by 90% of their current health. Due to the increased health pool, things like LoH did not work to save that tank, so if the healers didn't master the mechanic your tank was probably toast. That being said, while we learned the fight the healers struggled a lot while I was tanking as a Pally. On our first kill I went through three sets of Decimation Blades: 1st set: Got hit by first, HP at 10%, used an ability to dodge second. 2nd set: Got hit by first, HP at 10%, used trinket to dodge second. 3rd set: Got hit by first, HP at 10%, out of tricks, dodged second by sheer fucking luck It was a fight we had down the first night we attempted it and the healers got the hang of what was going on so it was farm material pretty quickly but we were a group that survived T11 as a 10 man N/H which was an interesting nightmare in and of itself. The fact that I still vividly remember the Baleroc fight nearly twelve years after first downing the thing as of writing this comment says a lot. A lot of lackluster boss fights tend to blend together even if I remember the boss to a point. Raids really can be a subjective thing when ranking them. I was never a fan of ToT to be honest and only really liked SoO out of all the raid tiers for MoP. Part of this may be because I am just not into all the troll stuff, or perhaps feel burned out on troll stuff, so running around a rather dank place didn't do a lot for me to begin with. Only three fights really stood out to me (honestly, it takes me a bit to remember the bosses in there despite the number of times I've killed them) and the couple of super gimmicky fights that get remembered were just an exercise in frustration while learning them. It also just felt overly huge to me - a grand size isn't necessarily a bad thing but for me, it didn't add anything in this case. On the flip side, I loved T11 even if BoT had way too much trash and the tier as a whole was shittly balanced for 10 man groups but it isn't a tier that gets thought of a lot.
Honestly, Hellfire Citadel from WoD is my personal favorite. It's no Ulduar, but, and this is personal bias talking, it was the first raid I ever completed on Heroic that I was guild leader for. I'm a filthy casual. Mythic raiding isn't my thing, but I do like a challenge. I needed a PUG since my guild is a social guild and you'd quite literally be better off getting chimps to help you raid then them. Regardless, All of the Heroic HFC raids demanded, as is standard with PUGs, way too high of an item level. So I decided to watch RUclips videos of the fights on Heroic and start the raid group. It took seven hours, about eighty different pick-up players, a bit of alcohol, and a dash of Metzin's plot armor to get me to beat Heroic Archemonde that day... But I fucking did it. I got a pair of gloves and the coolest one-handed sword in the game for transmog. Totes wurf.
Back when the burning throne came out, one of my guildies (If i remember correctly) had around 200+ tries on the sisters (Heroic I think) the first 2 weeks of it being open, idk if thats a big number compared to other stories, but safe to say when he finally killed them we were all super happy for him
BWL and MC have the most nostalgia for me. I was in a high end progressing guild during vanilla so we were part of a few on my server who would clear these weekly in a few hours.
I haven't plaid wow in a long time but I am biased for a similar reason. Throne of Thunder was a rain I main tanked for a server first kill, and even got Ra Den before the next patch. It was an older, not remotely competitive server but the memories of that place are forever. I played since classic but could never do the grind so I always tended to either only play during the first half or second half of an expansion, but MoP was the one expansion I played the whole way through, as well as the one I did the most "hardcore" raiding.
Surprised BT isnt on the list but no classic or BC raids are. The big reason Kara is remembered fondly is the fact it was most ppls 1st ever raid. Also Kara was not the only raid made into a dungeon ZG and ZA went from raids to dungeons
ZG was a 20man raid in Vanilla. ZA came out between BT and Sunwell iirc. ZG was made into a 10man in BC and then a 5 man in Wrath if i also remember correctly. ZA because a dungeon in Cataclysm.
I liked the point system for comparison. I also liked the detail you went into for each raid without going into the nitpicking details that some have gone into when comparing raids and dungeons. Overall it was an exceptional review.
hahaha I worked at a blast furnace for 7 years before posting out to steel pouring.... when you talked about blackrock, and said "ughhhhh, just more iron and slag..." Picture my thoughts for suiting up every day for my job lol. takes the words from my breath. HOWEVER, those things being who I am, still really gravitates me towards things like that in-game. like, it SUCKS irl until you see it in fantasy, then you become proud of it being that badass to be a WoW raid. Ironborn, and for the horde!
I feel like the list would be different if you could add a "fun" score to it. Some raids you just looked forward to going back and doing every week, others... not so much. Karazhan is so popular because even though few of the fights were particularly notable, so many of them were very fun. Black Temple, SSC and MC would also get high marks, perhaps changing up the bottom of the list some. Ulduar was very fun though, so #1 wouldn't be different! Also, Illidan was 22 minutes long for the first kills, and the fastest kills only brought it down to 15. We had Heroic Rag down to 9 minutes after a few weeks. He's not even close.
BT, SSC, and MC were some of the longest raids, you needed at LEAST a full night if not more depending on your guild to run em, and tho some parts were fun, I know many people (myself included) that dreaded going for the sheer amount of time required. Half the time I couldn't make the end of the raid, as I had work or class the next day.
The worst thing about MC (and most BC raids, Hyjahl i'm looking at you) was the death run. You wipe and then you are running 10mins back to the start of the instance, another 5 to get back to the boss you wiped on. This was pre speed boosts when dead too. Running 20% speed back was dull AF. TBH it wasn't much better with a mount. 40% and 60% were not much better.
I would definitely have added a category for "pacing". Some raids (like Siege of Orgrimmar) have a ton of pointless walking from one boss to the next (or backtracking after a boss is killed), while others (like Blackrock Foundry or Ulduar) minimise pointless walking with good map layout and shortcuts - or at least add some interesting trash between bosses. Also, I'd add a category for "this feels like it could be a real place and not just a series of weird rooms where mobs and bosses are sitting doing nothing besides waiting for players to go kill them".
One thing I’d say could’ve been used in the scoring is the retained popularity. There’s many raids that are still popular for people in pursuit of transmog and mounts. “Usefulness/Popularity of Loot”
There is no debating, Ulduar was the best raid ever made. >First of it's kind to allow multiple routes of progression >Best, most variable, and most unique implementation of hard modes >Most intuitive implementation of a legendary weapon >Best lore >First implementation of the "bridge boss"
Anyone who thinks Ulduar isn't the best raid WoW has ever released is delusional. I didn't even get to raid it, but soloing the content alone is very fun and that says something. 99% of all soloing is brainless button mash, but it feels like it's own continent and has such a wide array of feelings and gorgeous design. I love Karazhan, but Ulduar is a different animal when it comes to raids.
Sadly, while MC and Naxx had multiple paths, it was very linear. You defo would go to certain bosses first. In Naxx's case you wouldn't do Contruct bfore Spider, and the wing with FH was last. Ulduar had skipable bosses, hard modes that were attainable and arguably the first Mythic Boss before they were a thing. Alone In The Dark blew LK 25HC out the water on how hard he was.
Wings=/=different routes of progression. Also where are the routes in MC? Go cave or main path... to eventually go back to cave. ZG was not a progression raid, and neither was kara. Tk does not have multiple routes of progression it has 4 bosses you can kill in any order.
Very fair list, really liked the rating system! However, I personally think Karazhan deserves an extra point in both uniqueness and difficulty for the sheer memorability of the bosses, and how Blizzard executed the merging of visual-conceptual design and gameplay of the fights (Opera, Nightbane, Netherspite, and Shade in particular). I mean, who raided back then and doesn't remember: "I will not move when Flame Wreath is cast or the raid blows up"? As well, a lot of the Kara fights were so well designed and remembered they brought them back in the dungeon version. Kara had difficult, but fair mechanics that were also unique enough to be incredibly memorable and eventually, an iconic template and mechanic pool for later raids to draw from. But this is all just my opinion :) p.s. - I'd love to see you do this same type of video, but with all the worst raids ;) That'd be awesome haha
I think you were a little hard on Warlords raids in terms of popularity. The raids were one of the only real highlights of WoD, and were generally considered one of the better expansions for raiding, and as a raid list, I feel that should have been the only real part of scoring. The only really shit part of WoD raiding was how long we were in HFC, which was a fun raid for the first few months anyway. What drops Ulduar down in terms of popularity for me, was the fact the ToGC was so short, most raid groups had to continue to farm ulduar for 2 whole raid tiers at least just to farm those stupid maces for everyone and their mom's alt's off-spec. Also no group wanted to do yogg+0 in those runs, even in ICC gear because of how difficult it was. So many guilds capable of killing +0 only ever got 1 mim's head and never bothered again. And since I didn't win that 1 mim's head, I'm still salt.
I dont think we can really blame hiru for the wod situation, for while the raids were the highlight one, as he said, it was the wod hate bandwagon as the main fuel for that argument, and he is going with the main scope of most people who either had done it, or was there to do it.
S L I agree, Sunwell Plateau should be in place of Firelands, I mean I do like Firelands but it doesn’t compare with Sunwell. I just think Firelands is the best raid of an expansion full of shit raids.
flipboy420 That’s fair, but the other factors are p strong. If nax can get on with having an even less amount of players being able to clear it, then so should sunwell.
Pretty much everyone saw Nax after the re-release so I think Hiruma took that into consideration and the combination of the two strengthened his argument for the list. WoTLK Nax was good, very popular, and relatively easy to clear, Vanilla was the opposite while being much more difficult with a huge barrier for entry.
Sunwell wasn’t popular. I am sure you probably didn’t step a foot in there. Out of BC 90% of ppl spend their raid career in karazhan. If anything popular from BC it was BT and KARA.
The reason why people love Ulduar so much is that it's the raid nobody knew they wanted, it's like the iPhone, you never knew you wanted it before you had it. Meanwhile for example ICC was already known to happen, and the coolest thing about it was really the fight against Lich King because of the Warcraft lore mainly.
I would have done Difficulty going the opposite direction where fair but difficult fights got the higher score while easy/unfair/impossible fights got a lower score. Its fine to have a fight that took weeks and good gear to down, but giving raids a higher score because of unbalanced fights (Yogg 0 for example) is more detrimental imo. Otherwise outside of my own personal bias, you did a great job here. Would love to see the flip side and use a point system like this to determine the top 10 worst raids too, your lists are always entertaining!
My biggest complaint with this video is that the difficulty isn't a good include. I don't think being virtually impossible for most people should be a *compliment* to Naxx...
With icc one of its other big things were the achievments for the raids mount. Some were absolutely a joke and others expecially sindragosa were a nightmare to do and after the buff was maxed considered harder than heroic lk. I think with both ulduar and icc having the normal and hard/heroic mode as well as achievement ways of fighting them really also made the raids a lot more appealing because each week you may be doing each fight one of a few ways which just made it feel like a lot more content was available without the raids just being longer.
So, I sat and watched the whole video, even though it's the middle of the night here. I agreed with almost everything you said. You definetly deserve a lot more recognition. Earned a sub from me.
Hello. First, I really enjoy your videos :) Second, Blizzard just said in an interview with Forbes that they were really proud of Uldir as a very good first raid. Any chance you want to rank first raids of expansions? It would make a great video. And you've already done some of the work!
I still have nightmares of that Sindragosa "Betrays you!" scream... If there's a top ten most memorable boss dialogues, that gets my vote for number 1.
I know I'm 4 years late, I just wanted to say.. I loved it, and the only reason why I saw this, is because the effort you put on your daily basis, and yes, hail to Ulduar
Difficulty is a flawed scoring system if you ask me. It should be that appropriate difficulty, like in BRF, should get a 10/10 in that, while raids with unkillable or too hard bosses that had to be nerfed loosing points for that.
ICC 8/10 uniqueness really surprised me. I would easily give it 10/10. The fact that you fight your way, boss after boss, to get the the top of the tower, only to lose the fight when arthas kills you. And each boss was very unique in their own way. ICC should be #1
ICC and Ulduar were both great, because Ulduar essentially followed a retune of Naxx and a total of 3 more raid bosses (Archavon, Malygos, and Sartharion), and ICC followed ToC, which has 5 encounters and I believe is the smallest raid tier to date (6 encounters if you factor in the 3rd boss in Vault of Archavon). So they had a lot more development time to put into Ulduar and ICC, because they basically cheesed the tier before hand.
Shadowlands is the first expac I've ever raided current content......so everything else I've just done solo going back. Top 10: 10: Nighthold 9: Blackwing Lair (when I finally figured out the razorgore fight I did a victory dance) 8: Firelands 7: ICC 6: Blackrock Foundry 5: Ulduar 4: Sunwell 3: Black Temple 2: Molten Core (I just really enjoyed the "I'm in a volcano" vibe 1: Karazhan. All day long. I could do Karazhan over and over and still enjoy it. The big haunted mansion vibe, the opera event, the chess fight, getting higher up to realize there are giants and magical constructs to fight. Getting lost and ending back up in the great hall a few times..... I truly don't think there is another raid that got me like that (note I played it as a raid before it became a dungeon)
well Illidan is blind to, technically. Akara was dead, so he too was technically blind. BT also wasn't on the list depite it hacing some of the more unique bosses in the game.
ICC was an amazing capstone to WOTLK, but so many classes/specs were broken at that point since balancing was so out of wack (i.e. healers having infinite mana, etc) Ulduar was not only the best raid in WOTLK from a creative standpoint, but it was such an iconic pillar of what a well balanced raid was. No one could out-gear it and ignore mechanics, and at the same time even poorly geared players could succeed if they were clever and used the raid mechanics perfectly. It was a great playing field where everyone had to actually work hard and play their classes well to do succeed. (It also benefited players who went above and beyond, like Hunters taunting Hodir during Frozen Blows, or hybrid DPS doing off-spec healing during Freya's first phase because DPS was not needed, etc)
Naxxramas reappared because it was added to game close before TBC and that's why people didn't experience it, also because it was hard, yes. But I fully agree about ICC and Uludar takig 2 first spots (however Uludar 8/10 in unique fights ? Every fight was unique there, it should get at least 9/10). And Black Temple should be here.
I'm so glad ToT and Siege were put on here, I raided hardcore from Firelands all the way to Highmaul and came back in Legion and BFA to raid high end and nothing will ever compared to those two raids for me. Throne of Thunder sent me in to a whole new level of raiding as a tank and I'll never forget it.
Loved it! ToC was gear equalizer for b00ns who got stuck on uldu normal modes + only few heroic bosses. Then the long awaited ICC came out and evrybody could start raiding it. Also remember: Onyxias return was great too!
Fun Fact: As a player who hates PvP the Faction Champs was actually one of my Favourite Fights in all of WoW up until Cata (skipped MoP and WoD) and even after Legion :P
Matsen115 the whole popularity credential shouldn't have been a thing. It's ridiculous to think that the opinions of the majority who never either did these or never did them at the high level should make up an opinion for 25% of the score.
did you watch the same video as the rest of us? the popularity is based on community input, the community hated wod and anything related to wod even if it was good, so its less popular
I enjoyed the way you presented this video. It feels detailed and shows you have a meaning to what your saying instead of just being a "I like me give 7/10" feel. Very well done :D
My personal Top 15 raids: 1. Karahzan 2. Ulduar 3. Firelands 4.Blackrock Foundry 5.Throne of Thunder 6. Highmaul 7. Zul'Aman 8. Hellfire Citadel 9. ICC 10. Nighthold 11. Battle for Dazar'Alor 12. Tomb of Sargeras 13. Blackwing Descent 14. Bastion of Twilight 15. Siege of Orgrimmar Honorable: Black Temple(first 5 bosses were simply OK, that's why, Mother, Illidari and Illidan were awesome), Antorus(almost as good as ToS and NH, but not quite), CoS, tEP, Wrath Naxx. Objectively(well as objectively as possible, it's still pretty subjective), if we remove chronology from the picture, WoD has the best raids to date, with NH, ToS, BfDA, Firelands, Ulduar, Kara, ZA, ToT and SoO being close seconds.
While I appreciate the scale you used, my man, a lot of what you said indicated a lack of research, understanding, or experience with the raids, specifically in regards to when they were current.
Hey, regarding the boss’s theme music, it is actually a rescored version of the titan’s theme and “iron dwarves” which was used in wotlk! Great video though!
Wrath is still my all time Favorite Expac, And Yes I agree with 1 and 2 raids and Legion is my Second fav never completed mythic Antorus but loved heroic and would personally rate it higher myself .. I never played during Vanilla, but began during BC on free trial and bought games about week before Wrath went live. so by the time I did those raids I was solo farming them for xmogs lol . Great Video keep up the good work.
Just a quick correction: You mentioned that Naxx is the only raid to ever appear twice, still as a raid and not reharshed as a dungeon... well... what about Onyxia? ;)
It's a raid, a mini raid if you wish, but still a raid. Onyxia, Magtheridon, Malygos, Sartharion, Halyon, hell TotGC is just 1 room, and has no trash... and IS still a raid :) A world boss is a world boss... dosen't have a lair, nor a limit of people that can attack it at same time. Onyxia, is an instanced Raid boss, with her own lair AND trash. And her trash was pretty hard back in the day... like REALY VERY hard. So hard, that it wasn't uncommon to wipe on that trash if you happened to pull more then 1 at a time. And Onyxia is one of the most beloved raids from Vanilla and for pretty much any veteran of wow. In fact, she would have appeared in this top list. Her lair is the best example of what a dragon lair should look like, everything in there looks right, from the entrance, the burned rests of other adventurers, the lava raising from the cracks, the nests etc... It was a very cool raid, and is in fact the mother of all dragon fights. Onyxia defined pretty much what a dragon boss should be like. So the coolness of the raid lair is in fact, very high. Honestly, being one of the very first raids is hard to compare it with any other of its contemporary fights, but, her fight was quite unique for a while back in vanilla. Back then, other then Ragnaros hiding under the lava, and later on, Nefarion having the adds phase, then he coming down, then i guess when he raises the skeletons phase, most, if not all fights, where a single phase encounter. So, Onyxia having THREE phases was quite unique, and challenging, again, for the vanilla standard. A fight where you had to be very carefuly of where you stand, the danger of being trown to the egg hatchery, the flying phase where it was always hard to tell why somtimes she would make more deep breaths... So, all thing considered, a pretty Unique fight for a while. You REALY didn't get that many raid bosses with more then 2 phases until later on in TBC. When it comes to the dificulty. Certainly was not too hard. Yet, back then, i remember wiping a lot and having to run all the way down from Theramore! to her lair. But, she was harder than most of the Molten Core bosses, that is not saying much, but still. It was also a fight that was slightly harder for the Horde, because they didn't had fear ward. So not too hard, but still a good challenge for the people back in Vanilla. And, finaly, when it comes to popularity, i doubt there are many other bosses with that level of nostalgia like Onyxia. It was so popular that it got re-releazed in WotLK! And she was brough back AGAIN in Cata, as a zombie-dragon in the fight with Nefarion, who also came back!. Many people have very very fond memories of Onyxia's lair, hell even her atunnement is damn well loved and remembered! And there were other factors, like the Quel'Serrar quest! Having to bathe the blade in the blood of a black dragon, put it down in the floor for her to breath on it?! Like i said, many very good memories there. And of course... The mount! added later in the WotLK re-releaze.
I think I'm the only person that hates Ulduar. I love the aesthetics, the whole Titan city thing, but everything else about it... doesn't really do it for me.
I don't understand the whole hipe of Ulduar to be honest. I've ran the raid a couple of times, and once I got all the achievements done, I never went back. The raid seems awful to me, bosses seem boring, rather than unique, or just annoying. I prefer ICC over Ulduar by miles, and I also prefer Blackrock foundry and Hellfire Citadel over Ulduar As well. But, seeing as it's from a lot of peoples favourite expansion, can't really expect much else than the top 2 raids coming from it. ICC, completely understand, I go back to the raid every week (Mainly for Invincible, but I love the whole raid still). But Ulduar, maybe it's because I wasn't apart of Wrath that I can't understand how good it is, but I just don't see it.
See how little replies in agreement you have on your comment? Ulduar is the absolute GOAT raid and the wow community consensus backs that up. Even tho back in the day a lot of guilds got hard stuck on deconstructor, that raid still adored.
Ik it’s an old video but the set bonus is the 4 piece set bonus from T3 (the Naxx raid tier), meaning that guilds needed to kill other bosses before being able to complete the Military Wing.
It's with overall score 39/40, it has perfect scores on coolness, uniqueness, and popularity, simply because of "YOU FACE JARAXXUS, EREDAR LORD OF BURNING LEGION!"
Two words: faction champions. As someone who actually raided during Wrath's prime, I can tell you that I absolutely hated that fight, and for me it's what ruins the entire raid.
Oh yeah. The worst boss encounter ever inside a totally unremarkable raid doesn't help things. Wrath is, IMO, totally overrated as an expansion (MoP is my favorite...the only complaints people seem to have are the 14 month SoO cycle [not reflective of MoP/SoO] or haters who didn't read quest texts and thought it was "too cute").
@@Kylora2112 Wrath Naxx was great IMO, people only complained that it was too easy, but IMO that's not a problem, it was wonderful overall and a great first tier. TotC is the worst raid in WoW's history. It is also what caused the decline in WoW's player base. Yes it just plateaued but that's due to the huge hype train at the time, but many players were leaving.
MC was the best Raid. It was the first Raid ever so 10/10 Cool. First "strats" so unique at the time, 10/10 Unique. Everyone was in blue gear so 10/10 Difficulty. Everyone had to do MC so 10/10 Popularity.
Great list man! Not a fan of the scoring system since it felt like it kind of dragged and wasn’t as organic as it should of been, but with those nitpicks aside I think the order is very solid and would love to see more of these
Hi Hiru, I'm watching this way out of time, in fact I'm looking all of your vídeos, and this is one of your best jobs. Like seriously! I loooooove it! You should keep doing vídeos, cause all of them are sooooo good!
Coven was the worst boss I've ever played in terms of RNG reliance. Just because I spent so much time on this frustrating, boring RNG fest I didn't include Antorus.
Agreed. I was so happy when my guild could finally bypass it. I understand you need some RNG for a raid boss, but when the success is entirely dependent on RNG, that's when you know it's not a well-designed fight.
Mythic didn't have the RNG element. The difference between heroic and mythic was that mythic Coven had only half the time between titan phases (45s instead of 90s) and that the rotation was set. In heroic, you'd get a different round of phases each time. For example, your first try could be Norgannon - Aman'thul - Khaz'goroth - Golganneth and your second try is Khaz'goroth - Norgannon - Aman'thul - Golganneth ... Which would be fine, but combined with the irregularity of the storm from the night mother, it became a horrible RNG-fest. For example, if you had Norgannon second, the AOE adds would spawn and walk towards the middle, but right when they are about to close in on you, a storm comes in, which almost always kills the more immobile classes instantly because they either can't find a safe space that isn't covered by one of the AOE adds or they can find one but eventually, an AOE add closes in on them and forces them to leave it. It's not impossible to overcome, but the fact that this random element can make the whole encounter so much harder is bullshit. Btw, Norgannon second isn't the only one either. Getting Aman'thul fourth (or third, not sure) is also bad, because just as the Adds that you're supposed to burst down come in, the storm might force the melees to seek a safe space that isn't close to one of the adds and renders them useless for almost the entire first cast of the adds.
I feel that Ulduar deserved a 10/10 for uniqueness for sure. The first fight was incredibly unique, Yogg-Saron, Algalon, Freya as well as the hardmode encounters. The whole raid certainly deserves a perfect 40/40. Btw, where's Black Temple?
AQ40 had the first ever Old God encounter, who is considered literally unkillable for an extended period time. The three bugs may have been the first ever actual hard mode encounter. You said Yogg was the first boss requiring you to attack its insides, but that was C'thun. The only fight more unique than Twin Emperors was Viscidus. And the coolness? You actually had a server wide attunement event with epic quest chains and a crazy battle scene at its opening. The artwork was phenomenal. And people still try to get the rare bug mounts. I'm not saying it was the best raid ever, but it is criminal that it did not make the top 10.
Wrath raids were the perfect example of every boss doesn't have the have a million 1 shot mechanics to be great. You don't have to jump through hoops for a whole fight to make it great. Blizzard slowly lost that. The raids did a good job of getting harder as you went through. Which is hard to do. Wrath gave you that breather Boss fight like Chess or The Gun Ship. Proving you didn't need a harder Boss to be fun. And they were fun. I still remember the fun when you heard and it was you, "Run away little girl, run away!!!" Wrath seemed to be made for the players. It was player friendly. You can't say that about much after Wrath.
I would argue if Throgar was that unique. To me it was a slight variation of Heigans Safety Dance from Naxxramas. But i can figure why people think it's unique, mainly because there was a lot of time between Wrath and WoD and Blizz hasn't brought up this concept in between.
23 guilds in NA cleared it at the end of vanilla there were about 8 million subs that means that only at least 920 people from NA out of 8 million total cleared Naxx yet it's not 10/10 difficulty for you?
think its around 60 guilds world wide and yes 1 guild vs 60 is a big difference. But sure if we compare to all raids it would probably be 10/10 but compared to the list i would say its 9/10. Mby thats how himu calced it but i guess we will never know
Or would AQ-40 be even higher because Ulduar was still clearable just much harder if you purposely tried to beat it the most difficult way possible. where as before there were extra difficulties or ways to make it harder the fights were just naturally hard without any modifiers.
This scoring system is dumb. How is making a raid impossibly difficult make it better? I believe the difficulty score should be higher if the raid is fair with the right amount of difficulty.
" How is making a raid impossibly difficult make it better?" It doesn't, that's why you probably didn't see Tomb of Sargeras on here, a very much maligned Raid because it was alienatingly difficult. Also, for some people, a raid actually being difficult is an incentive.
ProfessorGage I enjoy difficult raids because you spend more time progressing rather than just having it on farm for about 5 months, but Tomb of Sargeras was an actual joke, literally every fight was a messy RNG driven shitfest, only the first 3 bosses are not considered difficult and ridiculous.
A good raid will nail all aspects of raiding accordingly, difficulty being one. If a raid is challenging you as a player on a fair level then that can only increase the overall enjoyment. Take away fair challenge and we would be stuck with the LFR versions of every raid being the best.
ToS was pretty much on point difficulty-wise up until maiden though. Maiden was too punishing while being way too simple at the same time, making it extremely frustrating. Avatar was a great boss fight after the first round of nerfs. And in my experience Mannoroth in HFC was a way more difficult second-to-last boss. We didnt get to kill KJ (best trys were around 50-ish percent I think) so I can't judge that, but from what I have seen up to that point it just seemed to be a bit too punishing, which is really not fun.
Siegecrafter was considered the best boss ever created for most high-end guilds. It was not very fun to farm, however figuring out kill-orders on the fly on progress is probably one of the most unique and fun things I've personally ever done in WoW.
My only big issue with this list is the lack of inclusion for Black Temple somewhere on the list. Iconic and cool, reasonably difficult, very popular, the only place it probably drops down is in uniqueness where only a couple of the bosses are unique, and none of them are one of a kind.
In case anyone is curious, I put together a grading scale of ALL the raids in a public patreon post thats linked in the video description. In case you wanted to see how some of the raids not mentioned in the video stack up.
Rip Hyjal Raid.
Just kidding I hate that raid so much.
Don't get me wrong hirumaredx but it's called Naxxramas not Naxxaramas
Don't really get the rankings. Antorus should be out and, based on your own evaluation in your patreon post, Tempest Keep should be in. If Tempest Keep as a raid is too short BT, Sunwell or Hellfire Citadel should be in and would even score better than some of the raids you mention later on. As you have a Legion raid later on in Nighthold the argument that you wanna spread it out over different expansions doesn't hold true either. Gotta be honest, I don't really get it. Good video though, I really appreciate your work
He psosted asking people what they like, and then added his twist to it. It is a very biased list. Just be thankful there are some raids you cannot ignore for how good they are. It just baffles me that BRF was on the list and he mentioned it was for once boss. If only one boss qualifies as good, then Magtheridan at the time it was relevant blew BRF out of the water
To add, you forgot a lot of raids on this list, and even have some raids score differently on that list than they did in the video. HFC wasn't on your list, yet BRF which did worse, was. No mention of Onyxia's Lair (either of them), no Magtheridan's, no Ruby/Black Sanctums, no ZG, no AQ20. Not even ZA. Why make a list of raids when you don't include all the raids?
How did I forget Gruul's Lair? You had to have a Mage Tank. I was that mage. It was terifying.
The video was nice. Pls do the same thing for worst raids in wow history
You should do 10 worst raids with the same point system. I really enjoyed this style and liked the point system.
oh god, that would piss off so many people. Every raid is someones favorite raid
Yeah, I guess that's true.. It would still be a cool video though.
hirumaredx Isn't that the point?
Do it.
Rasmus Majlander agreed
When discussing the Karazan raid, you totally forgot about the uniqueness of the opera event.
No. You are the best raid.
Captain Grim Now kiss
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people gotta realize that the content inside of Warlords of Draenor wasn't bad, there just wasn't enough content. Thats why I cant take people seriously when they say everything in the expansion was worse than any other just because the expansion was short. the 3 raids were all awesome, Ashran was disliked by some people but it was innovative and fun, PvP was fine and the gear system was cool. and finally the Questing was awesome and in my opinion had the best questing zones in wow. The expansion was a disappointment in the promises that blizzard made but the content was not bad at all.
Warlords was supr great right at release, but man did it establsih the new "check in right after patch and play WoW for maybie a week ot two" cycle they're in now.
The content was great, for the little content it provided. I tell this to people all the time, if you played during that time, you most likely didn't enjoy the game all that much because everything was centered around a glorified Facebook game. That being said, I always look forward to questing in WoD on my low level alts because the zones are the best for questing and emersion in a game that favors questing and emersion.
I love WoD. I never had an issue with it. In current game whenever I'm leveling a new toon I cannot wait to get to WoD. I love my garrison, I love getting followers, setting up buildings, bodyguards, zone buffs. I enjoy it so much and do not understand the amount of hate it gets.
I can't say much about wod as a new player but the zones and music are great, questing was ok too but i didn't like the garrison stuff at all
YES!!!!!!YOU GET IT!!!!!!
I think you should do top 10 beat dungeons with the same way you did this vid
or like... the top 20
Considering the amount of dungeons vs. amount of raids, I'd say top 20 as well. Great concept that should be taken further!
Angry Chicken love this idea, definitely wouldn’t mind seeing that
Onyxia's Lair was also a raid that was put in twice
"Raid" of one room
Onyxia’s Lair was released a second time as well, not just Naxx :)
Karazhan, Naxx, Icecrown & Ulduar -- my four favs! Glad they made the list :)
Karazhan still is my favorite raid from my first run through it back in Burning Crusade. Just, because of the music. I loved that organ playing.
Going into Icecrown Citadel felt like a personal grudge against Arthas that spanned a decade. The years and sweat it took to build to that moment where we could put Arthas down was super satisfying. ICC was a climax point of the Warcraft Story. The raid also came out at a more-or-less perfect time with the popularity of WoW. I can go on and on but there are so few epic villains like Arthas in any franchise.
Both ICC and Ulduar are the reason I keep coming back to play wow, it's so nostalgic that the fall of the lich king cutscene and the chamber of titans ost tears me up so badly that I need to close the browser, this was an amazing video as always and the way you presented each raid is very accurate and comprehensive with that score system, keep up the good work!
Onyxia raid was used twice as well?
trokker0 Onyxia was used twice
No, it was used twice. Once in vanilla and once again in Wrath of the Lich King; same raid, same place.
to be fair that was only one boss though, can you really consider that a raid and not an encounter?
Onyxia (the raid) is used Twice like Georges says...Once in Vanilla then updated for level 80 in WOTLK. Same raid. ....and her character is used again as an Undead raised by her brother in Blackwing Descent
He made a mistake by saying Naxx was the only raid used twice. Onyxia forsure counts as a raid. But it was such a forgettable fight in Wrath, just felt like a loot piñata
.
4 horseman actually needs the 4-set bonus from the Dreadnaught's Battlegear.... aka the set from Naxx itself. So you had to farm up gear for 8 tanks from the rest of the raid before 4 horsemen would be achievable
surely you wanted the 4 set , but it was more then doable without using the reel frmom ZG
Yeah this just isn’t true lmfao
One thing I loved about Black Rock Foundry was that pretty much every boss (other than Oregorger) had a reason for being there and for you to kill them. Pretty much every boss had a critical role in the Iron Horde and taking them all down played a pivotal roll in dismanteling it.
I have said it before I will say it again, WoD had fun raids the only problem with them was the drought of content between the raids
Scr8 Up Factz so much of that expansion relied on Garrisons. When it became a chore of me having to get on so that I could get easy gold and materials which then in turn hyper-inflates the economy of a server, only for me to take a break from wow, just to have blizzard nerf garrisons so people sat on mountains of gold and I came back with pennies.
I am genuinely curious as to how good Sunwell or Black Temple would score on this system, as a lot of people are asking about that.
Sunwell Plateau - Coolness 7/10, Uniqueness 4/10, Difficulty 10/10, Popularity 7/10. =28
Black Temple - Coolness 8/10, Uniqueness 4/10, Difficulty 7/10, Popularity 9/10. =28
Both would tie with ToT at number 8, or take up the 10 and 9 slots. I can see why they're both asked for.
Mikumo91 Probably because there was more to talk about with Antorus and Blackrock Foundry then there was with Sunwell and BT , Also they score low on uniqueness, and why clog up a list with 2 meh raids from tbc when Kara was on the list.
Also I really want to know the scores for SSC lol feel like I'm the only one that gives that place any love.
Serpentshrine Cavern - Coolness 5/10, Uniqueness 4/10, Difficulty 7/10(post nerfs; use to be impossibly hard), Popularity 4/10. = 20. Only 4 points lower than the number 10 spot.
Nothin' left to do, let's do something NEW
So come meet me at ULDUAR!
"The only raid in game to make two appearances as a raid"
Yeah, if you just forget about Onyxia's Lair which was re-released in the *same expansion Naxxramas was re-released*
Damn y'all really hate TBC... no Sunwell or Black Temple?
Sunwell was glorious
Yeah that is EXACTLY what I was thinking, I feel like BT would score very high in every category.
Also Sunwell would probably get extremely high scores in all but popularity (because very few people even got to see it)
Later expansion raids were much better mechanically, had better aesthetics as expansions progressed, and were seen by many more players due to lengthy attunemen processes being gutted. Karazhan is the only one that makes the list due to it being stellar in every category except raid mechanics and difficulty. It was also experienced by the majority of the playerbase.
the big problem was the Attuning required to do those raids... TBC was so damn punishing if you want to do PvE content with alts
The raids were great, but the ammount of people that manage to do those raids while they were current content is somewhat low
Probably because of TBC's brutal attunement process, so less people than you would think really experienced those higher levels raids, hence Kara being the standout, partially because it was the most run. Does make me sad tho, especially because I personally thought Black Temple is one of the coolest, most unique raids Blizz has ever done. No, it's not BRF, but it truly stands out, especially with Illidan as a real gem of a crown jewel (how many other fights required literally perfect tanking, or a lock tank?).
TBC as a whole has some of the coolest and most unique raids, for better or worse. But this was also a day and age Blizz looked players dead in the eyes and said, "Git gud or get gone." And that very attitude is a double edged sword. I raided back then and loved it, but I know and knew a lot of people who sat TBC raiding out because of that simultaneous blessing and curse. (Also because Vanilla raiding was exhausting and they got burnt out.)
Moral of the story: attunement processes and a "git gud" attitude is likely why TBC is overlooked, especially compared to Wrath
Ulduar was fantastic in its themes compared to all for one main reason. It was extremely complete in terms of its themes and very progressive in the way it did it. In practice I mean it started from a very bright and colorful overground and gradually but steadily descended into chaos and madness.
Top 3 was fair but surely bt or sunwell should have made it to top 10
People always seem to forget Baleroc in FL, usually in favor of the two mentioned in the video that I found lackluster personally, though my PoV was tank/sometimes healer. Baleroc had a wholly unique healing mechanic that had to be used or most likely your tank was going to die. The healers had to balance a special mechanic that allowed their heals to get huge while the tank developed a larger and larger health pool, growing in size with their HP. Every so often, the boss would use an ability called Decimation Blades which was a set of two attacks that could be dodged, each taking the tank down by 90% of their current health. Due to the increased health pool, things like LoH did not work to save that tank, so if the healers didn't master the mechanic your tank was probably toast.
That being said, while we learned the fight the healers struggled a lot while I was tanking as a Pally. On our first kill I went through three sets of Decimation Blades:
1st set: Got hit by first, HP at 10%, used an ability to dodge second.
2nd set: Got hit by first, HP at 10%, used trinket to dodge second.
3rd set: Got hit by first, HP at 10%, out of tricks, dodged second by sheer fucking luck
It was a fight we had down the first night we attempted it and the healers got the hang of what was going on so it was farm material pretty quickly but we were a group that survived T11 as a 10 man N/H which was an interesting nightmare in and of itself. The fact that I still vividly remember the Baleroc fight nearly twelve years after first downing the thing as of writing this comment says a lot. A lot of lackluster boss fights tend to blend together even if I remember the boss to a point.
Raids really can be a subjective thing when ranking them. I was never a fan of ToT to be honest and only really liked SoO out of all the raid tiers for MoP. Part of this may be because I am just not into all the troll stuff, or perhaps feel burned out on troll stuff, so running around a rather dank place didn't do a lot for me to begin with. Only three fights really stood out to me (honestly, it takes me a bit to remember the bosses in there despite the number of times I've killed them) and the couple of super gimmicky fights that get remembered were just an exercise in frustration while learning them. It also just felt overly huge to me - a grand size isn't necessarily a bad thing but for me, it didn't add anything in this case. On the flip side, I loved T11 even if BoT had way too much trash and the tier as a whole was shittly balanced for 10 man groups but it isn't a tier that gets thought of a lot.
Honestly, Hellfire Citadel from WoD is my personal favorite. It's no Ulduar, but, and this is personal bias talking, it was the first raid I ever completed on Heroic that I was guild leader for. I'm a filthy casual. Mythic raiding isn't my thing, but I do like a challenge. I needed a PUG since my guild is a social guild and you'd quite literally be better off getting chimps to help you raid then them. Regardless, All of the Heroic HFC raids demanded, as is standard with PUGs, way too high of an item level. So I decided to watch RUclips videos of the fights on Heroic and start the raid group.
It took seven hours, about eighty different pick-up players, a bit of alcohol, and a dash of Metzin's plot armor to get me to beat Heroic Archemonde that day... But I fucking did it. I got a pair of gloves and the coolest one-handed sword in the game for transmog. Totes wurf.
Unpopular opinion: Blackrock Foundry was the best raid wow ever made and it perfectly balanced hard fights with getting newcomers into raiding
Personally:
10. AQ40
9. Blackrock Foundry
8. Naxxramas
7. Nighthold
6. Hellfire Citadel
5. Ulduar
4. Black Temple
3. Siege of Orgrimmar
2. Karazhan
1. Icecrown Citadel
Honorable mentions: Sunwell Plateau, Blackwing's Lair, Firelands, Antorus...
Back when the burning throne came out, one of my guildies (If i remember correctly) had around 200+ tries on the sisters (Heroic I think) the first 2 weeks of it being open, idk if thats a big number compared to other stories, but safe to say when he finally killed them we were all super happy for him
BWL and MC have the most nostalgia for me. I was in a high end progressing guild during vanilla so we were part of a few on my server who would clear these weekly in a few hours.
My favorite raid was Throne of Thunder, because that was the last raid my guild cleared before everyone broke up :S
I haven't plaid wow in a long time but I am biased for a similar reason. Throne of Thunder was a rain I main tanked for a server first kill, and even got Ra Den before the next patch. It was an older, not remotely competitive server but the memories of that place are forever. I played since classic but could never do the grind so I always tended to either only play during the first half or second half of an expansion, but MoP was the one expansion I played the whole way through, as well as the one I did the most "hardcore" raiding.
Surprised BT isnt on the list but no classic or BC raids are.
The big reason Kara is remembered fondly is the fact it was most ppls 1st ever raid.
Also Kara was not the only raid made into a dungeon ZG and ZA went from raids to dungeons
i forgot Kara was a BC raid , but i think BT is pretty popular
I loved the Argus fight but it never felt like an end of expac deal
I can't remember the ZA raid or the ZG dungeon, when were they out?
ZG was a 20man raid in Vanilla. ZA came out between BT and Sunwell iirc.
ZG was made into a 10man in BC and then a 5 man in Wrath if i also remember correctly. ZA because a dungeon in Cataclysm.
Both ZGand ZA were made into 5 mans in cata . 4.1 Rise of the Zandalari patch
Naxxramas is a classic raid you know
I liked the point system for comparison. I also liked the detail you went into for each raid without going into the nitpicking details that some have gone into when comparing raids and dungeons. Overall it was an exceptional review.
hahaha I worked at a blast furnace for 7 years before posting out to steel pouring.... when you talked about blackrock, and said "ughhhhh, just more iron and slag..." Picture my thoughts for suiting up every day for my job lol. takes the words from my breath. HOWEVER, those things being who I am, still really gravitates me towards things like that in-game. like, it SUCKS irl until you see it in fantasy, then you become proud of it being that badass to be a WoW raid. Ironborn, and for the horde!
Karazhan will always be my most favorite raid -- glad it made the list :)
I feel like the list would be different if you could add a "fun" score to it. Some raids you just looked forward to going back and doing every week, others... not so much. Karazhan is so popular because even though few of the fights were particularly notable, so many of them were very fun. Black Temple, SSC and MC would also get high marks, perhaps changing up the bottom of the list some. Ulduar was very fun though, so #1 wouldn't be different!
Also, Illidan was 22 minutes long for the first kills, and the fastest kills only brought it down to 15. We had Heroic Rag down to 9 minutes after a few weeks. He's not even close.
BT, SSC, and MC were some of the longest raids, you needed at LEAST a full night if not more depending on your guild to run em, and tho some parts were fun, I know many people (myself included) that dreaded going for the sheer amount of time required. Half the time I couldn't make the end of the raid, as I had work or class the next day.
The worst thing about MC (and most BC raids, Hyjahl i'm looking at you) was the death run. You wipe and then you are running 10mins back to the start of the instance, another 5 to get back to the boss you wiped on.
This was pre speed boosts when dead too. Running 20% speed back was dull AF. TBH it wasn't much better with a mount. 40% and 60% were not much better.
I would definitely have added a category for "pacing". Some raids (like Siege of Orgrimmar) have a ton of pointless walking from one boss to the next (or backtracking after a boss is killed), while others (like Blackrock Foundry or Ulduar) minimise pointless walking with good map layout and shortcuts - or at least add some interesting trash between bosses.
Also, I'd add a category for "this feels like it could be a real place and not just a series of weird rooms where mobs and bosses are sitting doing nothing besides waiting for players to go kill them".
One thing I’d say could’ve been used in the scoring is the retained popularity. There’s many raids that are still popular for people in pursuit of transmog and mounts. “Usefulness/Popularity of Loot”
26:14 "you didn't flip a switch to activate hardmodes" Mimiron hardmode you press the big red button XD
There is no debating, Ulduar was the best raid ever made.
>First of it's kind to allow multiple routes of progression
>Best, most variable, and most unique implementation of hard modes
>Most intuitive implementation of a legendary weapon
>Best lore
>First implementation of the "bridge boss"
Anyone who thinks Ulduar isn't the best raid WoW has ever released is delusional.
I didn't even get to raid it, but soloing the content alone is very fun and that says something. 99% of all soloing is brainless button mash, but it feels like it's own continent and has such a wide array of feelings and gorgeous design. I love Karazhan, but Ulduar is a different animal when it comes to raids.
Very good points DASKZ.
Josh Lynch I feel exactly the same way.
Sadly, while MC and Naxx had multiple paths, it was very linear. You defo would go to certain bosses first. In Naxx's case you wouldn't do Contruct bfore Spider, and the wing with FH was last.
Ulduar had skipable bosses, hard modes that were attainable and arguably the first Mythic Boss before they were a thing. Alone In The Dark blew LK 25HC out the water on how hard he was.
Wings=/=different routes of progression.
Also where are the routes in MC? Go cave or main path... to eventually go back to cave.
ZG was not a progression raid, and neither was kara.
Tk does not have multiple routes of progression it has 4 bosses you can kill in any order.
Very fair list, really liked the rating system! However, I personally think Karazhan deserves an extra point in both uniqueness and difficulty for the sheer memorability of the bosses, and how Blizzard executed the merging of visual-conceptual design and gameplay of the fights (Opera, Nightbane, Netherspite, and Shade in particular). I mean, who raided back then and doesn't remember: "I will not move when Flame Wreath is cast or the raid blows up"? As well, a lot of the Kara fights were so well designed and remembered they brought them back in the dungeon version. Kara had difficult, but fair mechanics that were also unique enough to be incredibly memorable and eventually, an iconic template and mechanic pool for later raids to draw from. But this is all just my opinion :)
p.s. - I'd love to see you do this same type of video, but with all the worst raids ;) That'd be awesome haha
Kara was the very 2ed raid i ever did with Aq 20 being the first. I loved Kara so much than every Saturday was kara even with ssc gear.
I think you were a little hard on Warlords raids in terms of popularity. The raids were one of the only real highlights of WoD, and were generally considered one of the better expansions for raiding, and as a raid list, I feel that should have been the only real part of scoring. The only really shit part of WoD raiding was how long we were in HFC, which was a fun raid for the first few months anyway.
What drops Ulduar down in terms of popularity for me, was the fact the ToGC was so short, most raid groups had to continue to farm ulduar for 2 whole raid tiers at least just to farm those stupid maces for everyone and their mom's alt's off-spec. Also no group wanted to do yogg+0 in those runs, even in ICC gear because of how difficult it was. So many guilds capable of killing +0 only ever got 1 mim's head and never bothered again. And since I didn't win that 1 mim's head, I'm still salt.
I dont think we can really blame hiru for the wod situation, for while the raids were the highlight one, as he said, it was the wod hate bandwagon as the main fuel for that argument, and he is going with the main scope of most people who either had done it, or was there to do it.
Lol no Sunwell Plateu? Some of the hardest bosses, very popular, a unique place kinda, and definitely cool.
S L
I agree, Sunwell Plateau should be in place of Firelands, I mean I do like Firelands but it doesn’t compare with Sunwell. I just think Firelands is the best raid of an expansion full of shit raids.
I'd argue against it's popularity. Sure it was a good raid with a lot to offer but very few actually saw it back when it was current.
flipboy420 That’s fair, but the other factors are p strong. If nax can get on with having an even less amount of players being able to clear it, then so should sunwell.
Pretty much everyone saw Nax after the re-release so I think Hiruma took that into consideration and the combination of the two strengthened his argument for the list. WoTLK Nax was good, very popular, and relatively easy to clear, Vanilla was the opposite while being much more difficult with a huge barrier for entry.
Sunwell wasn’t popular. I am sure you probably didn’t step a foot in there. Out of BC 90% of ppl spend their raid career in karazhan. If anything popular from BC it was BT and KARA.
The reason why people love Ulduar so much is that it's the raid nobody knew they wanted, it's like the iPhone, you never knew you wanted it before you had it.
Meanwhile for example ICC was already known to happen, and the coolest thing about it was really the fight against Lich King because of the Warcraft lore mainly.
I would have done Difficulty going the opposite direction where fair but difficult fights got the higher score while easy/unfair/impossible fights got a lower score. Its fine to have a fight that took weeks and good gear to down, but giving raids a higher score because of unbalanced fights (Yogg 0 for example) is more detrimental imo. Otherwise outside of my own personal bias, you did a great job here. Would love to see the flip side and use a point system like this to determine the top 10 worst raids too, your lists are always entertaining!
Great grading system, now do the same with dungeons!
My biggest complaint with this video is that the difficulty isn't a good include. I don't think being virtually impossible for most people should be a *compliment* to Naxx...
It wasn't even necessarily difficult to complete. The attunement was just such a chore right before TBC would launch that nobody bothered.
With icc one of its other big things were the achievments for the raids mount. Some were absolutely a joke and others expecially sindragosa were a nightmare to do and after the buff was maxed considered harder than heroic lk. I think with both ulduar and icc having the normal and hard/heroic mode as well as achievement ways of fighting them really also made the raids a lot more appealing because each week you may be doing each fight one of a few ways which just made it feel like a lot more content was available without the raids just being longer.
So, I sat and watched the whole video, even though it's the middle of the night here. I agreed with almost everything you said. You definetly deserve a lot more recognition. Earned a sub from me.
Hello.
First, I really enjoy your videos :)
Second, Blizzard just said in an interview with Forbes that they were really proud of Uldir as a very good first raid. Any chance you want to rank first raids of expansions? It would make a great video. And you've already done some of the work!
there is a fine line between a fair but hard fight, and a hard fight because its unfair / lazy / bad design
I still have nightmares of that Sindragosa "Betrays you!" scream... If there's a top ten most memorable boss dialogues, that gets my vote for number 1.
Naxx isn't the only raid in game that appeared twice, Onyxia's Lair did as well.
Do worst classes/specs in WoW history. The specs no one would ever take during raiding in their time or were too boring to play.
Antorus will age extremely well imo
I think just because doing Chevo runs on it is so fun, so it'll get new players just trickling back into it from time to time
if I were to make a list purely on nostalgia BWL would actually be pretty high up.
I actually loved doing it back in vanilla.
I know I'm 4 years late, I just wanted to say.. I loved it, and the only reason why I saw this, is because the effort you put on your daily basis, and yes, hail to Ulduar
Thank you hiru very cool
Difficulty is a flawed scoring system if you ask me. It should be that appropriate difficulty, like in BRF, should get a 10/10 in that, while raids with unkillable or too hard bosses that had to be nerfed loosing points for that.
He even makes a point that insanely hard isn't usually good
#1 = Ulduar, cool, unique, difficult, popular.
Not only that but Ulduar had a great theme, great story and the optional hard modes was amazing.
Great way to present the top 10! I generally crave for details and this video so delivered! Much more enjoyable and involving than the previous format
ICC 8/10 uniqueness really surprised me. I would easily give it 10/10. The fact that you fight your way, boss after boss, to get the the top of the tower, only to lose the fight when arthas kills you. And each boss was very unique in their own way. ICC should be #1
so every second Raid in Expansion its the best Raids Confirmed ?
Careful there... don't forget Tomb of Saltgeras
Tomb was the third raid? Emerald and Nighthold were before it.
Ehm, nighthold is the third raid.
Trial of valor?
forgot about that one, didn't really see it as a raid.
already forgot about that raid
ICC and Ulduar were both great, because Ulduar essentially followed a retune of Naxx and a total of 3 more raid bosses (Archavon, Malygos, and Sartharion), and ICC followed ToC, which has 5 encounters and I believe is the smallest raid tier to date (6 encounters if you factor in the 3rd boss in Vault of Archavon). So they had a lot more development time to put into Ulduar and ICC, because they basically cheesed the tier before hand.
Shadowlands is the first expac I've ever raided current content......so everything else I've just done solo going back.
Top 10:
10: Nighthold
9: Blackwing Lair (when I finally figured out the razorgore fight I did a victory dance)
8: Firelands
7: ICC
6: Blackrock Foundry
5: Ulduar
4: Sunwell
3: Black Temple
2: Molten Core (I just really enjoyed the "I'm in a volcano" vibe
1: Karazhan. All day long. I could do Karazhan over and over and still enjoy it. The big haunted mansion vibe, the opera event, the chess fight, getting higher up to realize there are giants and magical constructs to fight. Getting lost and ending back up in the great hall a few times..... I truly don't think there is another raid that got me like that (note I played it as a raid before it became a dungeon)
Shadow Legends was the best raid, IMO
No Serpentshrine Cavern! How many bosses do you know that require fishing? Or how many raids require you to beat up a blind person?
well Illidan is blind to, technically. Akara was dead, so he too was technically blind. BT also wasn't on the list depite it hacing some of the more unique bosses in the game.
Illidan is blind
ICC was an amazing capstone to WOTLK, but so many classes/specs were broken at that point since balancing was so out of wack (i.e. healers having infinite mana, etc)
Ulduar was not only the best raid in WOTLK from a creative standpoint, but it was such an iconic pillar of what a well balanced raid was. No one could out-gear it and ignore mechanics, and at the same time even poorly geared players could succeed if they were clever and used the raid mechanics perfectly. It was a great playing field where everyone had to actually work hard and play their classes well to do succeed. (It also benefited players who went above and beyond, like Hunters taunting Hodir during Frozen Blows, or hybrid DPS doing off-spec healing during Freya's first phase because DPS was not needed, etc)
AQ20/40 & BT honestly should be here as well but not a bad list.
Top10 best raid? You better put half Of WOTLK on your list.
I’m satisfied
Dont say alysrazor like that ever again lmao
I always thought of it as "Uh-liss-ruh-zor"
@@tedstudt8550 Alice Razor
Naxxramas reappared because it was added to game close before TBC and that's why people didn't experience it, also because it was hard, yes. But I fully agree about ICC and Uludar takig 2 first spots (however Uludar 8/10 in unique fights ? Every fight was unique there, it should get at least 9/10). And Black Temple should be here.
I'm so glad ToT and Siege were put on here, I raided hardcore from Firelands all the way to Highmaul and came back in Legion and BFA to raid high end and nothing will ever compared to those two raids for me. Throne of Thunder sent me in to a whole new level of raiding as a tank and I'll never forget it.
Hey wait where the best raid ever "Trial of the crusader" ever one love it.
Valipower It was too expansive for my tastes. Too many adds
Not one, but TWO Jormungars !!!
Its second to kara for me :)
Loved it! ToC was gear equalizer for b00ns who got stuck on uldu normal modes + only few heroic bosses. Then the long awaited ICC came out and evrybody could start raiding it. Also remember: Onyxias return was great too!
Fun Fact: As a player who hates PvP the Faction Champs was actually one of my Favourite Fights in all of WoW up until Cata (skipped MoP and WoD) and even after Legion :P
i cant believe you based Blackrock Foundry's popularity solely on it being from WoD. i bet it was actually popular when it was current.
Matsen115 the whole popularity credential shouldn't have been a thing. It's ridiculous to think that the opinions of the majority who never either did these or never did them at the high level should make up an opinion for 25% of the score.
did you watch the same video as the rest of us? the popularity is based on community input, the community hated wod and anything related to wod even if it was good, so its less popular
Penguin the community is huge, most of the wow community still s keys and clicks, fuck their opinion.
yet he merely gave it 2 less points.
Penguin still tho, maybe they hated the WoD too much to remember if they loved BRF during progression
I enjoyed the way you presented this video. It feels detailed and shows you have a meaning to what your saying instead of just being a "I like me give 7/10" feel. Very well done :D
My personal Top 15 raids:
1. Karahzan
2. Ulduar
3. Firelands
4.Blackrock Foundry
5.Throne of Thunder
6. Highmaul
7. Zul'Aman
8. Hellfire Citadel
9. ICC
10. Nighthold
11. Battle for Dazar'Alor
12. Tomb of Sargeras
13. Blackwing Descent
14. Bastion of Twilight
15. Siege of Orgrimmar
Honorable: Black Temple(first 5 bosses were simply OK, that's why, Mother, Illidari and Illidan were awesome), Antorus(almost as good as ToS and NH, but not quite), CoS, tEP, Wrath Naxx.
Objectively(well as objectively as possible, it's still pretty subjective), if we remove chronology from the picture, WoD has the best raids to date, with NH, ToS, BfDA, Firelands, Ulduar, Kara, ZA, ToT and SoO being close seconds.
Great video, it's very good... not Ulduar good though :D joking!
While I appreciate the scale you used, my man, a lot of what you said indicated a lack of research, understanding, or experience with the raids, specifically in regards to when they were current.
You can tell he came into the game late, for sure. A lot of the scores made me lol.
Hey, regarding the boss’s theme music, it is actually a rescored version of the titan’s theme and “iron dwarves” which was used in wotlk!
Great video though!
Wrath is still my all time Favorite Expac, And Yes I agree with 1 and 2 raids and Legion is my Second fav never completed mythic Antorus but loved heroic and would personally rate it higher myself .. I never played during Vanilla, but began during BC on free trial and bought games about week before Wrath went live. so by the time I did those raids I was solo farming them for xmogs lol . Great Video keep up the good work.
Just a quick correction: You mentioned that Naxx is the only raid to ever appear twice, still as a raid and not reharshed as a dungeon... well... what about Onyxia? ;)
true true
Tho, I think onyxia isn’t truly a raid.
It is a single boss... so I would more call it a “world boss” or something.
Tnecniw It is instanced so is a Raid
It's a raid, a mini raid if you wish, but still a raid. Onyxia, Magtheridon, Malygos, Sartharion, Halyon, hell TotGC is just 1 room, and has no trash... and IS still a raid :)
A world boss is a world boss... dosen't have a lair, nor a limit of people that can attack it at same time. Onyxia, is an instanced Raid boss, with her own lair AND trash. And her trash was pretty hard back in the day... like REALY VERY hard. So hard, that it wasn't uncommon to wipe on that trash if you happened to pull more then 1 at a time.
And Onyxia is one of the most beloved raids from Vanilla and for pretty much any veteran of wow. In fact, she would have appeared in this top list.
Her lair is the best example of what a dragon lair should look like, everything in there looks right, from the entrance, the burned rests of other adventurers, the lava raising from the cracks, the nests etc... It was a very cool raid, and is in fact the mother of all dragon fights. Onyxia defined pretty much what a dragon boss should be like. So the coolness of the raid lair is in fact, very high.
Honestly, being one of the very first raids is hard to compare it with any other of its contemporary fights, but, her fight was quite unique for a while back in vanilla. Back then, other then Ragnaros hiding under the lava, and later on, Nefarion having the adds phase, then he coming down, then i guess when he raises the skeletons phase, most, if not all fights, where a single phase encounter. So, Onyxia having THREE phases was quite unique, and challenging, again, for the vanilla standard. A fight where you had to be very carefuly of where you stand, the danger of being trown to the egg hatchery, the flying phase where it was always hard to tell why somtimes she would make more deep breaths... So, all thing considered, a pretty Unique fight for a while. You REALY didn't get that many raid bosses with more then 2 phases until later on in TBC.
When it comes to the dificulty. Certainly was not too hard. Yet, back then, i remember wiping a lot and having to run all the way down from Theramore! to her lair. But, she was harder than most of the Molten Core bosses, that is not saying much, but still. It was also a fight that was slightly harder for the Horde, because they didn't had fear ward. So not too hard, but still a good challenge for the people back in Vanilla.
And, finaly, when it comes to popularity, i doubt there are many other bosses with that level of nostalgia like Onyxia. It was so popular that it got re-releazed in WotLK! And she was brough back AGAIN in Cata, as a zombie-dragon in the fight with Nefarion, who also came back!. Many people have very very fond memories of Onyxia's lair, hell even her atunnement is damn well loved and remembered! And there were other factors, like the Quel'Serrar quest! Having to bathe the blade in the blood of a black dragon, put it down in the floor for her to breath on it?! Like i said, many very good memories there. And of course... The mount! added later in the WotLK re-releaze.
HIRU ! Onyxia next Villain's corner! DO IT !
Mention everything from the lore to the quest chain step by step!
I think I'm the only person that hates Ulduar. I love the aesthetics, the whole Titan city thing, but everything else about it... doesn't really do it for me.
I don't hate Ulduar, but imo it is kinda overrated. The first boss was boring as hell and the layout was kinda confusing.
I don't understand the whole hipe of Ulduar to be honest. I've ran the raid a couple of times, and once I got all the achievements done, I never went back. The raid seems awful to me, bosses seem boring, rather than unique, or just annoying. I prefer ICC over Ulduar by miles, and I also prefer Blackrock foundry and Hellfire Citadel over Ulduar As well. But, seeing as it's from a lot of peoples favourite expansion, can't really expect much else than the top 2 raids coming from it. ICC, completely understand, I go back to the raid every week (Mainly for Invincible, but I love the whole raid still). But Ulduar, maybe it's because I wasn't apart of Wrath that I can't understand how good it is, but I just don't see it.
Wrath was my favorite expansion, and ICC my favorite raid. I concur though, Ulduar is overrated.
I didn't really like ulduar either.
See how little replies in agreement you have on your comment? Ulduar is the absolute GOAT raid and the wow community consensus backs that up. Even tho back in the day a lot of guilds got hard stuck on deconstructor, that raid still adored.
I think that this scoring system was an well done way to portray an opinion with others, and some statistics.
Ik it’s an old video but the set bonus is the 4 piece set bonus from T3 (the Naxx raid tier), meaning that guilds needed to kill other bosses before being able to complete the Military Wing.
Evryone knows that Trial of the Crusader is the best raid
It's with overall score 39/40, it has perfect scores on coolness, uniqueness, and popularity, simply because of "YOU FACE JARAXXUS, EREDAR LORD OF BURNING LEGION!"
Wrath fanboys tend to forget about how poorly received TotC and Naxx (Naxx10 and Naxx25 are two of the easiest raids ever released) were back in 2010.
Two words: faction champions. As someone who actually raided during Wrath's prime, I can tell you that I absolutely hated that fight, and for me it's what ruins the entire raid.
Oh yeah. The worst boss encounter ever inside a totally unremarkable raid doesn't help things. Wrath is, IMO, totally overrated as an expansion (MoP is my favorite...the only complaints people seem to have are the 14 month SoO cycle [not reflective of MoP/SoO] or haters who didn't read quest texts and thought it was "too cute").
@@Kylora2112 Wrath Naxx was great IMO, people only complained that it was too easy, but IMO that's not a problem, it was wonderful overall and a great first tier. TotC is the worst raid in WoW's history. It is also what caused the decline in WoW's player base. Yes it just plateaued but that's due to the huge hype train at the time, but many players were leaving.
MC was the best Raid. It was the first Raid ever so 10/10 Cool. First "strats" so unique at the time, 10/10 Unique. Everyone was in blue gear so 10/10 Difficulty. Everyone had to do MC so 10/10 Popularity.
Great list man! Not a fan of the scoring system since it felt like it kind of dragged and wasn’t as organic as it should of been, but with those nitpicks aside I think the order is very solid and would love to see more of these
Hi Hiru, I'm watching this way out of time, in fact I'm looking all of your vídeos, and this is one of your best jobs. Like seriously! I loooooove it! You should keep doing vídeos, cause all of them are sooooo good!
I think that you have forgotten to mention vanilla priest racials...
Coven was the worst boss I've ever played in terms of RNG reliance. Just because I spent so much time on this frustrating, boring RNG fest I didn't include Antorus.
Wormy
The whole raid was a pathetic RNG fest, I hate Tomb I’m a glad I never have to back for mounts and useful achievements.
sisters mythic was a LOT less rng, and even the small amount of rng could be predicted rather well.
Agreed. I was so happy when my guild could finally bypass it. I understand you need some RNG for a raid boss, but when the success is entirely dependent on RNG, that's when you know it's not a well-designed fight.
Entirely dependant on RNG? What?
I only remember mythic, completely forgot what the difference to heroic/normal was, but how was it RNG?
Mythic didn't have the RNG element.
The difference between heroic and mythic was that mythic Coven had only half the time between titan phases (45s instead of 90s) and that the rotation was set.
In heroic, you'd get a different round of phases each time. For example, your first try could be
Norgannon - Aman'thul - Khaz'goroth - Golganneth
and your second try is
Khaz'goroth - Norgannon - Aman'thul - Golganneth
...
Which would be fine, but combined with the irregularity of the storm from the night mother, it became a horrible RNG-fest. For example, if you had Norgannon second, the AOE adds would spawn and walk towards the middle, but right when they are about to close in on you, a storm comes in, which almost always kills the more immobile classes instantly because they either can't find a safe space that isn't covered by one of the AOE adds or they can find one but eventually, an AOE add closes in on them and forces them to leave it.
It's not impossible to overcome, but the fact that this random element can make the whole encounter so much harder is bullshit.
Btw, Norgannon second isn't the only one either. Getting Aman'thul fourth (or third, not sure) is also bad, because just as the Adds that you're supposed to burst down come in, the storm might force the melees to seek a safe space that isn't close to one of the adds and renders them useless for almost the entire first cast of the adds.
I feel that Ulduar deserved a 10/10 for uniqueness for sure. The first fight was incredibly unique, Yogg-Saron, Algalon, Freya as well as the hardmode encounters. The whole raid certainly deserves a perfect 40/40.
Btw, where's Black Temple?
in your ass
AQ40 had the first ever Old God encounter, who is considered literally unkillable for an extended period time.
The three bugs may have been the first ever actual hard mode encounter. You said Yogg was the first boss requiring you to attack its insides, but that was C'thun. The only fight more unique than Twin Emperors was Viscidus. And the coolness? You actually had a server wide attunement event with epic quest chains and a crazy battle scene at its opening. The artwork was phenomenal. And people still try to get the rare bug mounts. I'm not saying it was the best raid ever, but it is criminal that it did not make the top 10.
play at 1.25 speed and thank me later
Wow so much better
Naxx *A* ramas lul...
Anyway, I rather like your bias top 10... it's kinda your style
I try my best! lol, but yah theres always going to be a little bias in these videos, I wont deny that.
Wrath raids were the perfect example of every boss doesn't have the have a million 1 shot mechanics to be great. You don't have to jump through hoops for a whole fight to make it great. Blizzard slowly lost that. The raids did a good job of getting harder as you went through. Which is hard to do. Wrath gave you that breather Boss fight like Chess or The Gun Ship. Proving you didn't need a harder Boss to be fun. And they were fun. I still remember the fun when you heard and it was you, "Run away little girl, run away!!!" Wrath seemed to be made for the players. It was player friendly. You can't say that about much after Wrath.
I would argue if Throgar was that unique. To me it was a slight variation of Heigans Safety Dance from Naxxramas. But i can figure why people think it's unique, mainly because there was a lot of time between Wrath and WoD and Blizz hasn't brought up this concept in between.
Magic Medic Thogar
9/10 for difficulty for vanilla Naxx, OK
well if 10/10 is only 1 guild in the world beat it (in the case of prenerf yogg+0) vanilla naxx would indeed fall to 9/10
23 guilds in NA cleared it at the end of vanilla there were about 8 million subs that means that only at least 920 people from NA out of 8 million total cleared Naxx yet it's not 10/10 difficulty for you?
think its around 60 guilds world wide and yes 1 guild vs 60 is a big difference. But sure if we compare to all raids it would probably be 10/10 but compared to the list i would say its 9/10. Mby thats how himu calced it but i guess we will never know
Then in your regard AQ-40 would be 10/10 difficulty because 0 guilds beat it pre c-thun nerf.
Or would AQ-40 be even higher because Ulduar was still clearable just much harder if you purposely tried to beat it the most difficult way possible. where as before there were extra difficulties or ways to make it harder the fights were just naturally hard without any modifiers.
This scoring system is dumb. How is making a raid impossibly difficult make it better? I believe the difficulty score should be higher if the raid is fair with the right amount of difficulty.
" How is making a raid impossibly difficult make it better?"
It doesn't, that's why you probably didn't see Tomb of Sargeras on here, a very much maligned Raid because it was alienatingly difficult.
Also, for some people, a raid actually being difficult is an incentive.
Limb Legion gets it.
ProfessorGage
I enjoy difficult raids because you spend more time progressing rather than just having it on farm for about 5 months, but Tomb of Sargeras was an actual joke, literally every fight was a messy RNG driven shitfest, only the first 3 bosses are not considered difficult and ridiculous.
A good raid will nail all aspects of raiding accordingly, difficulty being one. If a raid is challenging you as a player on a fair level then that can only increase the overall enjoyment. Take away fair challenge and we would be stuck with the LFR versions of every raid being the best.
ToS was pretty much on point difficulty-wise up until maiden though. Maiden was too punishing while being way too simple at the same time, making it extremely frustrating. Avatar was a great boss fight after the first round of nerfs. And in my experience Mannoroth in HFC was a way more difficult second-to-last boss. We didnt get to kill KJ (best trys were around 50-ish percent I think) so I can't judge that, but from what I have seen up to that point it just seemed to be a bit too punishing, which is really not fun.
Siegecrafter was considered the best boss ever created for most high-end guilds. It was not very fun to farm, however figuring out kill-orders on the fly on progress is probably one of the most unique and fun things I've personally ever done in WoW.
My only big issue with this list is the lack of inclusion for Black Temple somewhere on the list. Iconic and cool, reasonably difficult, very popular, the only place it probably drops down is in uniqueness where only a couple of the bosses are unique, and none of them are one of a kind.