I thought I would switch things up a bit with the Top 5 list and take a look at the Top 5 raids in the game today. Blizzard’s done a great deal with the raiding system and the environments, and some players spend 90% of their game time in them. So, it only seems fair.
5. Sunwell Plateau
The final raid for The Burning Crusade expansion, players (lore wise) had to head to the Isle of Quel’Danas and prevent Kil’jaeden from entering Azeroth via a portal. Visually impressive, and the benchmark for difficulty at the time, Sunwell did a great job of tiding most players over until Wrath of the Lich Kind was released. The bosses were varied, and challenging. I still remember when you had to be a solid raid team just to get past Brutallus before he raged.
4. Molten Core
You couldn’t compile a list without including the original. Yes, Onyxia’s Lair was also available on launch but Molten Core is the design most raids have followed, with the classic dungeon crawl system. Ragnaros is the grandfather of end bosses, as such and back then it took 40 people to take him down. This was the pinnacle of the game at the time and it set the gauntlet for players having to work hard and spend a lot of time trying before they actually succeeded.
3. Temple of Ahn’Qiraj
Both Ahn’Qiraj instances arrived in Patch 1.9 via what I still consider one of the coolest ideas Blizzard has had in the game. The Qiraji war effort server wide, building towards the opening of the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj was brilliant and has never been duplicated even slightly. The Temple was the 40 man raid of the two, and brought players in contact with an Old God for the first time, in C’thun. Say what you want about the content getting easier over time but all you need to know about AQ40 (as it was called for so long) is that to this day you still can’t beat The Twins or Viscidus without proper build components…and wiping on C’thun can still easily happen if you don’t know the fight.
2. Ulduar
Forget the fact people are going back to it more now than ever thanks to Transmogrification, Ulduar had everything going for it. There was a great patch release video with Brann Bronzebeard filling us in on the situation, a fight players were farming in no time (Flame Leviathan) and a vast and beautiful environment that was incredibly rich and deep. It all around felt epic from start to finish. It also did a great job of pulling together much of the lore we encountered throughout Northrend with Freya, Thorim, and more.
1. Karazhan
If you know me, or have read this blog for a while, you knew this would top the list. Karazhan revolutionized the raiding system in World of Warcraft. Don’t believe me? Every raid in the last two expansions has included a 10-man option.
A small part of that is because developers recognized 25-man guilds are far less common, but mostly it’s due to the fact that Karazhan was the very first 10-man and it was a huge hit. From entering Deadwind Pass and the creak of the opening gate, to the organ music inside, all the way to the top with the echoing voice of Prince Malchezaar, the soundtrack is perfect. The fights were varied and challenging, and much like Ulduar it’s incredibly epic visually. To this day I love taking players inside because unfortunately most skip it on their way to 85.
So there’s the list. The top 5 raids in the game. I debated strongly on the list, cutting it down from seven actually as Black Temple and Naxxramas are both great raids as well. What are your thoughts? Did your personal favourite make today’s list?
Your top 2 are my top 2! I am not sure what other instances I like best after that…
But I do agree, that the opening of the gates of AQ was the BEST WoW world event ever, I loved the whole everyone contribue to the thing to get the gates open. I wish they would do more “community” things like that. Instead of this all for yourself business.
I don’t want it to turn into one of “those” discussions, but that’s actually one of the things Guild Wars 2 is pushing. Their system encourages grouping in a variety of ways including mobs not getting tagged “grey” as it were, and the more people join the fight the difficulty and rewards increase.
Glad you agree with the top two. It’s too bad more aren’t like them, to be honest.
Ah.. Kara, I ran that until my eyes bled but never got tired of it! The whole art and ambiance of that raid was just beautiful.
I know, right? Even now there’s not much in the game that can hold a candle to it (Ulduar’s about as close as they’ve gotten since).
I love both Kara and Ulduar for their great atmosphere. I finally got to go to Sunwell for the first time last night, and it was as amazing as I’d heard!
That’s kind of how I feel about Icecrown at the moment, as I’ve only been as far as the gunship. I’ve heard good things about it, but at the same time not enough that made me feel it could replace any of today’s choices.
I wish you could hear my voice when I say this, but these posts about past game play have been some of the most endearing, helpful, and — enchanting for me. Being relatively new to the world, and seeing and reading what you all love so much, well -thank you. I knew I tripped down a special rabbit hole, but really – your time and energy when putting these posts/information together make me so happy, and feel included.
Big hug from a doofus Draenei -
Good choice, as I give awesome hugs. As someone told me once, “your hugs are just…real.” So, yeah.
Honestly, I joined the game some time between patches 2.3 and 2.4 so I don’t often consider myself a veteran of the game. This is probably exacerbated by the fact most of the people I know who play the game (in guild and RL) were around from vanilla on. It never occurs to me that I might know people who’ve joined after me (aside from one or two guildies).
Glad you enjoyed this post, and others (both mine and from various authors) and know that I didn’t need to hear your voice to still hear what you were saying and how you were saying it.