Not too long ago, Doone made his list of the top five raids in WoW. I tried to make my own little list, but I was hindered by a few things. First, while I've seen and finished all but one pre-Cataclysm raid, I'd done many of those during the next expansion and therefore with a different experience. Naxx at 70 is not the same as Naxx at 60, and of course neither are like new Naxx at 80.
Why wasn't I in those raids? Because I wasn't in guilds that were doing them. In Cataclysm I was almost never in a guild and consequently did almost no raiding. Ditto for Pandaria. LFR was raiding in visuals only.
If asked about the greatest raid ever, of all time, I will answer Karazhan. Why? Well it certainly was a great raid. The bosses were varied. Some were made-up for the raid, but many were straight out of the stories we'd hastily clicked past to get our quest reward or the games that made Warcraft a title that could sell millions of copies of a game in a completely different genre. Kara introduced many innovations such as tokens that reduced the tendency to get completely screwed by the RNG; a small, accessible raid; and polite ghosts.
Yet, why don't I say Ulduar? That was a place with a nifty story, varied bosses, and all manner of neat new tricks such as getting to punch a tank. It was perfectly tied into Storm Peaks and if there is one thing I love it is when instances are tied to their locations. The short reason is that I was in a different guild. I still enjoyed their company and stuck with them for a while after, but it wasn't the guild that I ran Kara with. I ran Kara with my guild, founded by my friends and me, filled with people of a similar mindset. Ulduar was someone else's guild that I was let into. Though in retrospect, when I took another shot at playing again in Cataclysm they were the ones I ran with, even giving up playing my paladin (it was on another server, this wasn't one of those "I quit my main to get into a raiding guild" stories). Just writing that was enough to make me start looking for them again. This is a dark road. :)
Anyway, there's the general trend: While Ulduar was on par with Karazhan, even a little difference in guild attachment can dramatically tip the scales. There is another issue though: I never finished Ulduar. We were stuck so close to the end, and I think slowly getting there and I would have gladly fought it out. Then someone set up a circus in Icecrown and we were off for some of the most forgettable bosses since Molten Core. My WoW experience was downhill from there, struggling through ICC, with Ulduar still bugging me, all because Blizzard yanked guilds away.
That brings me to my happiest time in Cataclysm. It wasn't a long time, but for a few brief moments I was back raiding with them again. I wasn't on my paladin. I don't think Dragon Soul was all that great of a raid. But I was with friends. About a week and a half ago I went looking for them, eventually going with the straightforward method of resubbing. Sadly, many of them are inactive now (not gquit), but a few are around and maybe more will come back. In the meantime, some low-key MoP is fun.
But about my top five raids...
Molten Core
Karazhan
Zul'Gurub
Gruul's Lair
Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj (20-man)
These are in no particular order. Nor do I suffer from the delusion that these are the Top Five Raids. They are only mine and are almost entirely due to my situation at the time.
Molten Core was my first raid. I have fond memories of fighting Garr, a fight which required many warlocks, and during which I demonstrated my creativity, figuring out, in a time before many guides were around, a better way to banish. Perhaps it was a small thing, but it was fun. While it was an amateurish raid design, it was also perfectly integrated into Blackrock Mountain, a place filled with instances and raids, all connected in one way or another, making it a prime destination for players 50-60. That made it a fun, or frustrating, place on a PvP server.
Karazhan was a hard-earned victory, fought through with my own guild of friends. It was there that my paladin went from alt to main, a position that would only be lost because of The Great Betrayal. There was such variety, such strange things to find.
Zul'Gurub was strange place. There are multiple optional bosses. One boss was different depending on the week, and somewhat difficult to summon, needing an alchemist and some odd ingredients. Another boss was fished up. Where MC was dull, ZG was bizarre and outlandish. Players could loot voodoo piles for a chance at voodoo dolls, needed for trinkets, a rare thing in those days, but they'd be mind-controlled for a while. The 'correct' response was to CC them, but why not kill them instead? In an era of 40-man raids, ZG only needed 20. Its loot was an unusual mix of purples and oddly-powerful blues, seemingly scattered at random. Even that long ago Blizzard was doing strange things with its raiding.
Gruul's Lair consisted of one incredibly hard pull and a somewhat pushover final boss. The Council was based on a good pull: get the mobs where they needed to be, attacking the right people, and things could go fairly smoothly. Screw it up and it's a horrible mess of everyone dying. The final boss, Gruul, was a fight about spreading out: he'd slowly turn players to stone, then shatter them, hurting those nearby, so spreading out 25 people just right was sometimes difficult. I'd recently joined a new guild, merging our fading one with another that needed a boost. They reluctantly let me tank Gruul, but called for a lot of misdirects, because "paladins have trouble with aggro." I proceeded to double everyone else, at a time when aggro wasn't a matter of sneezing with righteous fury on. That was a source of endless amusement for me. Even beside that, those were still days when paladin tanking was still in doubt, it wasn't that long ago that paladins were mostly just exceptionally mana-efficient healbots. Of course we were recognized as good trash and five-man tanks, with our mechanics perfectly suited to holding aggro on unlimited enemies, but handling just one was apparently in doubt. And, of course, I always pulled with my goblin rocket launcher, because if you're going to make a tank, why not do it in style?
Why wasn't I in those raids? Because I wasn't in guilds that were doing them. In Cataclysm I was almost never in a guild and consequently did almost no raiding. Ditto for Pandaria. LFR was raiding in visuals only.
If asked about the greatest raid ever, of all time, I will answer Karazhan. Why? Well it certainly was a great raid. The bosses were varied. Some were made-up for the raid, but many were straight out of the stories we'd hastily clicked past to get our quest reward or the games that made Warcraft a title that could sell millions of copies of a game in a completely different genre. Kara introduced many innovations such as tokens that reduced the tendency to get completely screwed by the RNG; a small, accessible raid; and polite ghosts.
Yet, why don't I say Ulduar? That was a place with a nifty story, varied bosses, and all manner of neat new tricks such as getting to punch a tank. It was perfectly tied into Storm Peaks and if there is one thing I love it is when instances are tied to their locations. The short reason is that I was in a different guild. I still enjoyed their company and stuck with them for a while after, but it wasn't the guild that I ran Kara with. I ran Kara with my guild, founded by my friends and me, filled with people of a similar mindset. Ulduar was someone else's guild that I was let into. Though in retrospect, when I took another shot at playing again in Cataclysm they were the ones I ran with, even giving up playing my paladin (it was on another server, this wasn't one of those "I quit my main to get into a raiding guild" stories). Just writing that was enough to make me start looking for them again. This is a dark road. :)
Anyway, there's the general trend: While Ulduar was on par with Karazhan, even a little difference in guild attachment can dramatically tip the scales. There is another issue though: I never finished Ulduar. We were stuck so close to the end, and I think slowly getting there and I would have gladly fought it out. Then someone set up a circus in Icecrown and we were off for some of the most forgettable bosses since Molten Core. My WoW experience was downhill from there, struggling through ICC, with Ulduar still bugging me, all because Blizzard yanked guilds away.
That brings me to my happiest time in Cataclysm. It wasn't a long time, but for a few brief moments I was back raiding with them again. I wasn't on my paladin. I don't think Dragon Soul was all that great of a raid. But I was with friends. About a week and a half ago I went looking for them, eventually going with the straightforward method of resubbing. Sadly, many of them are inactive now (not gquit), but a few are around and maybe more will come back. In the meantime, some low-key MoP is fun.
But about my top five raids...
Molten Core
Karazhan
Zul'Gurub
Gruul's Lair
Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj (20-man)
These are in no particular order. Nor do I suffer from the delusion that these are the Top Five Raids. They are only mine and are almost entirely due to my situation at the time.
Molten Core was my first raid. I have fond memories of fighting Garr, a fight which required many warlocks, and during which I demonstrated my creativity, figuring out, in a time before many guides were around, a better way to banish. Perhaps it was a small thing, but it was fun. While it was an amateurish raid design, it was also perfectly integrated into Blackrock Mountain, a place filled with instances and raids, all connected in one way or another, making it a prime destination for players 50-60. That made it a fun, or frustrating, place on a PvP server.
Karazhan was a hard-earned victory, fought through with my own guild of friends. It was there that my paladin went from alt to main, a position that would only be lost because of The Great Betrayal. There was such variety, such strange things to find.
Zul'Gurub was strange place. There are multiple optional bosses. One boss was different depending on the week, and somewhat difficult to summon, needing an alchemist and some odd ingredients. Another boss was fished up. Where MC was dull, ZG was bizarre and outlandish. Players could loot voodoo piles for a chance at voodoo dolls, needed for trinkets, a rare thing in those days, but they'd be mind-controlled for a while. The 'correct' response was to CC them, but why not kill them instead? In an era of 40-man raids, ZG only needed 20. Its loot was an unusual mix of purples and oddly-powerful blues, seemingly scattered at random. Even that long ago Blizzard was doing strange things with its raiding.
Gruul's Lair consisted of one incredibly hard pull and a somewhat pushover final boss. The Council was based on a good pull: get the mobs where they needed to be, attacking the right people, and things could go fairly smoothly. Screw it up and it's a horrible mess of everyone dying. The final boss, Gruul, was a fight about spreading out: he'd slowly turn players to stone, then shatter them, hurting those nearby, so spreading out 25 people just right was sometimes difficult. I'd recently joined a new guild, merging our fading one with another that needed a boost. They reluctantly let me tank Gruul, but called for a lot of misdirects, because "paladins have trouble with aggro." I proceeded to double everyone else, at a time when aggro wasn't a matter of sneezing with righteous fury on. That was a source of endless amusement for me. Even beside that, those were still days when paladin tanking was still in doubt, it wasn't that long ago that paladins were mostly just exceptionally mana-efficient healbots. Of course we were recognized as good trash and five-man tanks, with our mechanics perfectly suited to holding aggro on unlimited enemies, but handling just one was apparently in doubt. And, of course, I always pulled with my goblin rocket launcher, because if you're going to make a tank, why not do it in style?
2 comments:
You know I have some super fond memories of Molten Core too. Youre right about being in the right guild at the right time. That was a huge factor in my enjoyment of those raids. In MC, though, we didn't have a bunch of warlocks so Garr was like ...always an adventure for us. We didnt know how many times we'd wipe. One of our druids had to bear tank one of Garr's adds on the pull just so we could get through! Good times.
I recall we needed a druid to tank as well. Ah, the memories... Remember how you'd be standing there wondering how long it was going to take for the hunter to successfully pull Baron?
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