Welcome back to our second week of the style="font-style: italic;">World of Warcraft Top
Ten List. Last week we looked at some of the best practices in use by
Blizzard to keep the economy in check and fight dreaded inflation in
the world of Azeroth, and this week we turn our gaze to the meat of the
game – PvE dungeons and the bosses that inhabit them. While the
original game shipped with very little in the way of end game content
there has certainly been a marked improvement in volume and complexity
of raid encounters. Our criteria this week isn’t focused on any one
particular element, such as relative difficulty, but looks more for the
fun factor and overall innovation. I must forewarn you however, some of
these baddies muscled their way onto the list through pure intimidation
– I don’t want you to go into this NOT PREPARED!


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10) Onyxia
-  The dragon who started it all, this first available raid
encounter ushered in a whole new era of raiding both to MMOG newbies
and veterans alike. Displaying many of the mechanics that have come to
be expected of Azerothian dragons such as cleave, tailswipe and a bad
case of halitosis – Onyxia and her infamous whelps will forever be an
important part of the WoW experience. More dots!



9) Thorim –
Despite the fact that The
Wrath of the Lich King
turned more players into raiders
than any other expansion to date, to most seasoned raiders it was
overall a rather mediocre experience. Sandwiched in the middle of the
one zone that most agree was the best designed and most cohesive of the
expansion – the Thorim encounter was one of our favorites. Raids needed
to split into two forces, one blazing a trail through a perilous
hallway, while the remaining players withstood waves of angry dwarves.
Thorim wasn’t such a bad guy in the end; he just got a little confused
– IN THE MOUNTAINS.



8) Baron Geddon –
It didn’t get the nickname Molten Bore without good cause, but this
long, meandering, cavernous instance created some of our most lasting
memories. While most of the encounters in MC required a bit of
strategy, no other encounter taught us a more important lesson – that
blowing up your friends is way more fun than blowing up NPC mobs. Baron
Geddon also taught the developers some lessons, like not allowing raid
debuffs to work in the Auction House and not allowing players to remain
out of combat to rez once an encounter starts. Hey, you’re the bomb.


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7) Kharazan Opera House – style="font-style: italic;"> The Burning Crusade
got off to a bit of a rocky start to say the least as guilds struggled
with the change from 40 player raid zones to the more compact 25 player
versions. To add even more drama to the already touchy subject, the
first raid zone in the new expansion was a 10 player affair that was
packed with the upgrades needed to tackle more progressed content.
Luckily the zone was, for the most part, compelling and fun. Among the
most interesting of these encounters was found in the Opera House,
where the show must always go on. A random trio of boss events played
out on the stage with your group featured as the main attraction,
ad-libbing your way to epic drops.



6) Professor Putricide –
Good news everybody! The master mixologist from Icecrown Citadel
managed to ooze his way on to our list. Besides being the first real
roadblock in the zone, Putricide had all the elements that have come to
typify WoW raiding; situational awareness, movement, props, vehicle
control, DPS swaps and bad stuff on the floor not to stand in. The
three phases of this encounter kept players on their toes and the
changes to the heroic version definitely added a strong sense of
accomplishment once this fight was mastered.



5) Lady Vashj –
Once the whole Kharazan ordeal was over and guild mates started
speaking to each other again, it was time to move on to bigger and
meaner things. TBC featured some challenging content, but few
encounters had the learning curve of the final boss in Serpentshrine
Caverns. This fustercluck of an encounter was one part boss fight, one
part game of rugby and one part warlock running for its life. Getting
this Naga, along with her Tempest Keep counterpart, down was title
worthy.

/use Tainted Core

/tell %t YOU HAVE THE CORE!


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4) Heroic Lich King
– Not since pre-nerf M’uru has Blizzard thrown such a difficult
encounter out to its players. With an average number of 175 attempts to
achieve a successful kill, many guilds simply gave up in trying to down
Arthas when there was a skull on the zone portal. Kudos goes to
Blizzard for never modifying the encounter (other than the 30% damage
buff of course) and kudos to those that stuck it out and downed him.



3) Yogg-Saron
– It must be hard being an Old God, slumbering for eons while the world
moves on without you then suddenly waking up and having to fend off
would be heroes trying to beat you into submission - but enough about
Brett Favre. Laying low in the recesses of Ulduar, this ugly
manipulator has been causing all sorts of trouble.



Throughout WotLK Blizzard tinkered with hard modes and their
implementation, and with Yogg they gave adventurers 5 different
difficulty levels for the raid to choose from. In addition to the
“chose your own adventure” style of the encounter, the real beauty was
the portal phase. Players who got to enter the portals that spawned mid
fight were treated to experiencing visions of some of the most
important events in Azeroth’s history.


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2) Illidan –
Even though things didn’t go quite as expected in regards to the raid
scene in The Burning
Crusade
and Sunwell Plateau ended up being the
final raid zone, Illidan was still the face of the expansion. Steeped
in WoW lore and brooding pensively high atop Black Temple, this story
was concluded with an epic fight befitting its significance quite
nicely. The encounter laid the groundwork for the Lich King fight as
well with noteworthy NPCs lending a hand and helping to advance the
storyline. Blizzard’s current trend of reintroducing major players like
Ragnaros, Cenarius and Nefarian bodes well for those of us with a soft
spot for Maive.


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1) C’Thun –
Life is rough for the Old Gods here on Azeroth, like our friend
Yogg-Saron, C’Thun was simply trying to extinguish humanity – and he
would have gotten away with it if weren’t for those pesky kids. The
journey through AQ40 was a mostly laborious task of bug extermination
but for those who had the fortitude to see it to its final conclusion,
but the reward was an epic encounter full of eye balls, laser beams,
tentacle pron and stomach acid.



What  distinguished this fight enough that it made it to the
top of our list? It was quite evident that Blizzard wanted to make each
player more crucial, as evidenced by the ever shrinking raid sizes –
but C’Thun was able to capture that edge of your seat feeling in a 40
player environment. It’s easy to make a 10 player fight where no one
can screw up, but much more difficult to do it in one with 4 times as
many people. Or maybe it was the voices in our heads.



In 6 years WoW has managed to dream up hundreds of bosses and
encounters to torment and entertain us. Some have been nothing more
than extravagant loot piñatas, and others have been way too much work
for the reward – but the vast majority has been well designed and fun
encounters that are as much fun to discuss as they are to beat up.
Which of your favorites have we omitted? Let us know on the forums and
check back next week as we continue to count backwards from 10


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our World of Warcraft Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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