Thursday 5 November 2015

Top 5 Raid Bosses in WoD...

The approaching Blizzcon should give us plenty to look forward to so I think now is an excellent opportunity to look back for a moment.

One aspect that most people agree Blizzard got right in WoD is the raiding so here is a list of my favourite bosses of the expansion.

Disclaimer:  This list is completely subjective based on my own opinions of the design and how much fun I had killing them on Heroic difficulty. 

Number 5 - Shadow-Lord Iskar

I loved the whole 'Eye of Anzu' concept and I think it was built it into the fight perfectly.  The winds were hilarious at times and the other abilities kept the healers and tanks busy.

When they come up with ideas like this it makes me wish Fatboss and the like didn't exist. 
Can you imagine how great it would have been to experience this fight without knowing the mechanics in advance? 
How much fun it would be to work out the uses of the Eye?

The amount of knowledge available to us, and the way it affects our play, is a discussion for another day though... on to the other parts of the fight!
 
The Fel Incineration was what I consider personal responsibility done right, with mistakes or slow reactions making the fight harder rather than instant death/wipe... who am I kidding, it's all about the eye.

The only disappointment in the fight is the ending, the final 20% just feels easy once the last set of adds dies.  Maybe there should have been an enrage or something.

Number 4 - Imperator Mar'gok

This fight was incredible!
An amazing test of awareness, skill, positioning, solo- and group-movement, prioritising targets and concentration... pretty much every aspect of raiding was tested in this one fight.

Add in a near-perfect difficulty curve as the fight progressed and this is up there as one of the best designed bosses of all time, truly fitting of an end of raid boss.

Two drawbacks prevent this boss being higher on the list...
First, it was so bloody long. 
Each time we wiped, it seemed to take forever to get back to that position in the fight to hopefully progress and learn a bit more.
I think our first kill on Heroic was at around the 13 minute mark.

Second, who the hell is Imperator Mar'gok?
For the last boss of a raid, we knew virtually nothing about him.

Number 3 - Oregorger

It's a giant rolling Goren, what's not to love?

We had a lot of fun with George, particularly in his rolling phase.  Some of our team just couldn't work it out, or would lose sight of him at crucial times, and be crushed over and over as he rolled around.

One night we even made all the ones who repeatedly failed the rolling phase just follow me around to stay safe.  Of course, I then started making mistakes and killed even more people. 

This boss was just plain good fun.
 
Number 2 - Socrethar the Eternal

I may have moaned once or twice about this guy but it's not the boss that's at fault, it's usually the people trying to kill him.

I think the fight is beautifully designed with the Construct and it's abilities synergising perfectly with the rest of the fight. 
And considering the fight revolves so much around that Construct, they did an amazing job of making the rest of the raid just as relevant.

I often get frustrated by people's lack of awareness or poor positioning but, even when everyone is on the same page, this fight is still quite challenging and a lot of fun.

 Number 1 - Twin Ogron
 
Probably in a minority here but I loved this fight! 
 
The blending of the abilities was great, particularly with the separation mechanic challenging you to tank them as close together as you dared.
 
Personal responsibility was high but, again, there was some forgiveness there.  Failing mechanics once didn't outright kill you, it just made it harder.
 
A stack or two from the fire, one or two people not making it into the Enfeebling Roar etc. made the fight more difficult but you could recover.  And I think the line drawn before it became too hard was judged perfectly, particularly for a fight with so much happening at any one time.
 
The fight also allowed opportunities to shine with excellent play, the best example being our rogue who used a combination of OP rogue abilities and his own skill to maintain 100% uptime on the bosses while other people just tried to stay alive. 
 
All in all, a fantastic test of positioning, awareness, movement and coordination, and I loved every minute of it.
 
Incidentally, one of very few fights I have completed in all 4 roles.
 
(The fight was easier if you tanked the bosses near the door but we never used that tactic.  We were also at the right gear level to make that 'forgiveness line' absolutely perfect.  If either gear or tactics made the fight easier, my opinion would probably be different.)
 
Honourable Mentions...
Hans & Franz and Thogar were both lots of fun but I found the 'gimmick' for each fight to be too... well, gimmicky I suppose.
 
Blackhand and Archimonde are both 'final bosses' and should be judged to a different standard as far as I am concerned.  Archimonde doesn't meet that standard for me but Blackhand was very close to making the list.  
We didn't kill it though, and it also spelled the end of my time with that guild, so it's more personal reasons than design ones.
 
I hope you like the list... let me know if you agree or disagree. 
 
What were your top 5 bosses in Warlords of Draenor?
 




4 comments:

  1. Thogar is my favourite boss in Draenor - I know you found the fight gimmicky but I quite enjoyed the train thing and I was good at track jumping.

    My next favourites are a tie between Brackenspore and Iskar because I liked that I had a role in the fight other than just heal people - healing mushrooms and throwing balls and dispelling but keeping good communication with my tank for orb passing is really fun.

    My next favourite was Imperator Margok because I found the movement bit challenging yet also satisfying especially when it all came together.

    Number 5 on my list is Kromog because I actually quite liked the grabby hands mechanics (which is seen to a small extent on Kormrok too) and it was a good test of healer cooldowns.

    Beastlord didn't quite make the list but I did like the mechanics of that fight.

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    1. Hi Navi.

      Thanks for your list :)

      Thogar was really close to making my list and 'gimmicky' is just the reason I used for it being 6th or 7th rather than higher up. It's great fun, particularly the first couple of times before everyone masters the train dance.

      I also thought about Brackenspore but it was only fun if you had a flamethrower, I didn't think it engaged the rest of the raid in the same way as, say, Socrethar. Good point about the healer mushrooms though, had forgotten about those.

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    2. Oh I totally forgot about the flame thrower aspect of Brackenspore. See what happens when I tunnel on only my aspect of the fight :D
      Now I want to make a post on it too, I think this was a cool post!

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    3. Excellent! Looking forward to reading your full list :)

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