There have been so many raid bosses in the World of Warcraft it is sometimes hard to remember them all.  Some, however, you simply can not forget. Some are memorable due to their difficulty, their mechanics, their lore, their voice acting, or any number of other factors.  Some are memorable because of how much we liked them, and others because of how much we disliked them.  With Cataclysm coming soon I thought it was a good time to look at which bosses I would like to see in the third World of Warcraft expansion.

In addition just looking at the bosses that I would like to see though, I’m going to discuss some other bosses as well.  I’ll look at the few bosses we know are going to be in Cataclysm and what mechanics I’d like to see on them.  Also I’ll talk about some fun bosses that would be entertaining to be in Cataclysm.

Bosses we Know Are Coming in Cataclysm

First up let’s discuss bosses that we know will be in Cataclysm.  The ones I want to discuss are Ragnaros and Deathwing. 

Almost everyone that raids will remember Ragnaros from the early vanilla days of WoW raiding. He was the final boss in World of Warcraft’s first true raid, the Molten Core. Sure Onyxia’s Lair existed at the same time, but it was a single boss encounter.  Ragnaros gave many raiding groups fits to defeat the first time.  The encounter featured many items that made it difficult to deal with and learn and was multi phased with a main phase and a son’s phase. 

Who wouldn't want another shot at Ragnaros

We have been warned that Ragnaros will make his return in Cataclysm and we can only assume that it will be once again as a raid boss. While the Ragnaros fight was difficult for it’s time, it is comparatively simple by today’s standards.  I would personally like to see this fight keep the same basic mechanics but add some complexity to it.  Let’s see how current raiders that haven seen blowback handle being thrown 100 yards into lava because they are miss-positioned!  I think I would be quite happy if the first half of the fight was essentially the same as previously, but then in the second half we see Ragnaros fully emerge from his lava pool and start an entirely new phase as he chases players around the room, making sure that everyone needs to evade an AoE fire aura.

Next up, we know that Deathwing will make an appearance, or several, in the expansion.  Deathwing will likely be the last major raid boss in the expansion much like Arthas is in WotLK.  Knowing that this fight is going to be quite a ways in the future, all I really know is that I want it to be long, complicated and hard.  No more easy fights please.  Wouldn’t it be cool to merge a lot of the dragon abilities that we have seen so far all into one long multi-phase fight?  Then throw in something completely new just for more fun.

Bosses I Would Like to See in Cataclysm

Many of the really well known lore figures from World of Warcraft have already been dealt with in the games many previous raids.  There are relatively few well known new bosses to deal with, so expect some old ones to return. There are a few that I would like to see make a return, a few lore based ones that haven’t been dealt with, and some from other sources such as NPC’s and the WoW comic.

One of the new zones in the expansion is the underwater zone of Vashj'ir.  Since this is a heavily naga influenced zone it would be nice to at least see Queen Azshara and potentially fight her as a raid boss.  Initially I thought this was unlikely as it was stated at BlizzCon 2009 that we should not expect to see her in this expansion.  Plans can change though and it appears that they may have since she is now listed on the lore page for Cataclysm on the official site.

Since Azshara is supposed to be incredible beautiful, manipulative and one of the strongest magical talents in Azeroth I would really like to see her have abilites based around that.  The fight could revolve around a few phases.  One phase could be based on dealing with her magical talents and surviving huge AoE damage output. A second phase could be dealing with mind controlling type abilities where you would have to tank or control your own players that are turned to her will.  I believe there is a lot of potential for a great raid encounter if we see her.

Let's see Medivh again please

One boss that has been seen in multiple instances and I would love to see again is Medivh.  Sure, he’s apparently dead, but he has been reported dead multiple times over, so is he really gone?  Also if we can head back in time through the Cavern of Time what’s to stop him from coming forward, or us going to visit him again in another time period. I think lore wise it would be very cool to work Medivh into the storyline once again.  One possible situation would be having to defeat him to force him to teach you an ability that would slow or stop Deathwing’s plans in Azeroth, after all Medivh is the keeper of secrets.

A boss I would like to see purely based on his appearance in the WoW comic book is Cho’Gall. For those who do not know who he is, Cho’Gall is a very powerful two headed ogre that entered the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj to resurrect the body of C’Thun.  This occurs in the comic while both the Alliance and Horde are distracted by the Lich King.  While resurrecting C’thun he is first deformed and then attacked by Med’an and buried in Ahn’Qiraj.  There is no mention of his death though, and his ties to the Old Gods and to his clan of Ogres called the Twilight’s Hammer is a solid indication that he could be back.  The Twilight Hammer clan are already known to be supporting Deathwing which could tie Cho’Gall to him as well.

Another past boss that could make a return is C’thun who was defeated but not killed in Silithus.  Even if C’thun is not brought back, brining one of the other Old Gods into the expansion makes a lot of sense as both Cho’Gall and Deathwing serve them. Since the main enemy of the expansion is an enemy due to the Old Gods influence an appearance makes solid logical sense. Since we do not even know the names of any of the other Old Gods besides C’thun of Yogg-Saron it is hard to speculate where one would appear of what its abilities should be.  The only thing I know is that both previous Old Gods were great fights that represented some of the best raid fights in the game.  Therefore, let’s see another.

Fun Bosses That I Would Like to See in Cataclysm

In addition to the serious raid bosses that I would like to see listed above, there are a number of bosses would be cool to see.  Some I would like to see for comedy value, some because it would be cool and some just because.  Here are a few of my fun raid bosses.

Hogger deserves his own raid, doesn't he?

Hogger!  You had to know this one was coming.  Hogger used to be the destroyer of noobs in vanilla WoW.  You would be happily questing through the forest and all of a sudden come across a level 11 elite.  Not knowing what elite meant, many players would engage him and quickly die.  Even though he is no longer elite, he still has a reputation and it would be awesome to see him become a raid boss.

Edwin VanCleef is another instance boss that I would like to see become a raid boss.  Since the Deadmines are gaining a heroic version in the expansion apparently he will make a return there.  However wouldn’t it be great to see him return with even more power as a raid boss?  After all he was supposedly one of the best engineers in human history, shouldn’t he get a little respect?

Lastly, I would love to see the Human and Orc faction leaders (especially Garrosh) become a raid boss.  I think it would be a lot of fun to raid the enemy faction’s home city and be able to fight their leader.  To make it even cooler Blizzard could work in a method that only opened up the raids at set times and whichever faction defeated the opponent’s leader first would gain a PvE world or PvP buff for a set time.  I think it could add a lot of flavour to the game.

Which Bosses Would You Like to See and Why?

Well, those are the bosses I want to see in Cataclysm, now it’s your turn.  Do you like my picks, hate them, have different ones? Speak up in our forums and let me know which bosses you would like to see and why. Remember, you can pick bosses for any reason you want, as long as you provide some explanation so we all know why you picked those bosses.