The Enigma Order

The 5 best raid instances

World of Warcraft is not only about raiding, but it’s a damn important part of the game. Raiding is where it happens, when you have reached max level, are finished with all the dungeons, and want a greater challenge. Not only are the bosses harder, with more complex tactics than in the 5-man instances, there’s also the factor of a bigger group of players that has to co-operate, and play their best. We love them, either for their epic boss fights, the fat loot, the lore, good graphics, or simply something intangible.

This is probably a bit less comedic than the last two lists, but like the previous chapters, it’s really more about re-visiting memories and looking at the game’s rich history than it is about what is best or worst.

I will start with giving an honorable mention to Molten Core for the simple reason that it was the first. And it will always be held in high regard by most players, specially those who went there back in 2005. Why isn’t MC on the list, you ask? Well, admittedly if I ever make a top list of raid bosses, Ragnaros is a contender for the top spot. But apart from that, the bosses are kinda lame. The serpents are identical in looks, and the tactics are obviously as simple as they get. The environment is... well it looks like it should, it looks like the inside of a volcano. And it’s boring.
And it’s still one of my favorite instances.

But let us start with the actual list...


5. Naxxramas



Naxxramas was released 6 months too late. Most guilds were not nearly done in Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, and even less had the chance of conquering this instance before The Burning Crusade hit. And this was a tragedy on so many levels. Because not only did it feel like a wasted effort from Blizzard, but the players also missed out on some of the most memorable gaming moments in the WoW. Now, at this point I can already see you clenching your fists. But it doesn’t matter. When Blizzard got around to re-releasing Naxxramas, it was already too late. And in the fashion it was done, most players who had simply set their foot inside old Naxx were just left with a bad taste in their fictional mouths. Naxx 25 was just a poor man’s copy of Naxx 40.

What made Naxxramas so amazing was first and foremost the general feeling of it. It just felt like something incredibly important. You had a giant invasion before hand, skeletons popping up everywhere. A faction that you hadn’t given the slightest consideration before was now suddenly not only relevant, but required for entrance. Lore that fit perfectly with several story lines you already had played. Yes, Naxxramas was epic stuff even before we entered.
Then there was the mater of it’s layout. The instance wasn’t linear. Now, we saw quite a bit of this in TBC, but up until this point, all our instances had a certain path you could follow. Yes, there were optional bosses in AQ40, and yes, you didn’t have to take bosses in the same order in AQ20 and ZG. But with Naxx we had a choice which wing to start with, and each wing almost felt like an instance on it’s own. This was new and refreshing. But the brilliance of Naxx didn’t stop at the layout.
And after dealing with dragons, elementals and yuck.. bugs, a huge variety of undead mobs and bosses was in fact, refreshing. The likes of Grobbulus and Thaddius were fascinating to say the least. And hot damn did they drop great loot. Not surprisingly was it the best that dropped in vanilla wow, but the difference between AQ40 and Naxx was staggering. I’ll not go into the armor sets, as I’ll cover those in the near future. Instead I’ll linger a bit on the weapons. Might of Menethil and the previously mentioned Corrupted Ashbringer were perhaps the two most memorable. These were the kind of weapons that would grant you server fame. And they were just epics! I can also mention delightful looks of Grand Widow’s weapons: The Widow’s Embrace and Widow’s Remorse. And ask any oldschool rogue about a certain Kingsfall... On top of this you had the first caster legendary, which also was given consideration in my first list.
Oh, did I mention the music? Yes, some of us play with ingame music, and is rewarded for it. The music in Naxxramas was unbelievably good.

I hold Naxx in high regard, but it was just the wrong time. They should have released this instead of AQ, and just never bothered with the bugs at all. But hey, at least we got to play through it in wotlk. Over and over and over... Yup, Naxx could have topped this list if things had happened slightly different. But as it stands, Naxxramas was not a better instance than...


4. Icecrown Citadel



I played through this instance once, 10 man easy mode. I’m glad I did. You see, I dropped the game when Blizzard failed to release content after Naxx. I got bored. But I returned in late WotLK. I had to see Icecrown Citadel from the inside. It’s not like the instance was any better than a lot of the instances from my days as active raider. In fact if you compare ICC gameplay and instance design, it’s really not better than let’s say Serpentshrine Caverns or Mount Hyjal.

But there was something special with the way Icecrown Citadel was presented. You first saw Arthas/Lich King very early in the expansion, specially if you played Howling Fjords, but he popped up regularly as you leveled. It escalated through out Wrath... With a natural progression from entering Icecrown, to maintaining control over the area, defeating minions, and finally breaking into the citadel. Not only did it feel like the entire expansion had led to this point, it felt like the entire bloody game had been a preparation for the encounter with the Lich King.
If you also include some amazingly fun fights – like the gunship event and Dreamwalker, great music, and one of the most epic ingame cut scenes in the game, well... it should come as no surprise to anyone that ICC deserves a spot on the list.

Four different versions of ICC diminishes the general expression you’re left with. Obviously I see the need for 25 and 10 man versions, and I see the need for hard mode. But personally, I think it would have been better if there was just one version of Icecrown Citadel, and maybe at a difficulty somewhere between normal and hard mode.


3. Black Temple



Black Temple was the equivalent of Icecrown Citadel in The Burning Crusade. The first video we saw was Illidan being his gloomy self, and the entire expansion was about Illidan and all the things he had done. Basically, this was it, the moment we had been playing towards. And wow!, Black Temple did not disappoint. I’ll get in to more relevant reasons soon, but I’d like to start off with the difficulty level. Yes, I see the reason for both 10/25 versions and hard modes. But with Black Temple, Blizzard showed they could make a fantastic instance that was incredibly hard, but not to the point where only a handful would ever clear it (like hard mode Arthas). And the encounters were of the nature that single players could have bad luck, but it was still possible to do it. I’ve never been a fan of that ”oh shit we’re wiping because someone had a +120 str gem instead of a +140 one”. The margins were not ridiculous, like some of the encounters in hard modes, but it was still a real challenge all over.

The timing was also great, they released BT in the middle of the expansion, and not at the very end. Sunwell was perfect for such an instance, not really a big deal, just a cool instance (cue rant from people that will claim Kil’Jaeden matters. I care). So most guilds had time to at least try their luck in BT. And that was good. The ones in the small guilds should get to see the big stuff too.
Now back to the specifics of the instance. It actually feels a lot like Blackwing Lair in layout, only infinitely better. There’s great variation, you start in the sewer, you go outside in the courtyard, you go to the basement, you go to the terrace, you go to the roof.

We got the biggest boss in the game so far in Supremus, the weirdest in Reliquary of Souls, the most bad ass boss in Teron Gorefiend, and uhm.. the hottest in Mother Sharaz. And of course Illidan, which was incredible in every way. The voice, the look, the moves, the death, the loot.
Oh yeah the loot.. is there any boss in the game with a cooler loot table than Illidan? Unlikely. Tier 6 is a chapter for itself, and Illidan drops the chest token. Now take a look at this...: The staff (ugly, but still amazingly cool), the shield (god damn riot shield with spikes), the bow (that almost looks like it could work), the healing mace (ugly, but sweet stats). Lore items like Skull of Gul’dan and various nelf items. The absolute coolest headpiece ever (well next to First Mate Hat). And on top of this, he can drop not one, but two legendary items! It’s breath taking.


2. Zul’Gurub



This instance is sadly no longer in the game. Here’s to hoping they bring it back in some form. You see, Zul’Gurub was freedom in raid form after the gigantic prisons that were Molten Core and Blackwing Lair. It was everything the big two weren’t. No forced route, in fact I’m pretty sure you can go straight to the last boss. Optional bosses, what do you know? Imagine MC where you could skip Magmadar! Or BWL where you could skip depression room. You could mount! It had a 3 day reset, making it easily farmable And you almost had to farm it, there was just so much good to get out of it. In addition to some great weapons and armors, you had drops that were just for fun, like mounts and pets. You could even loot a spell (Polymorph: Turtle). And finally, humanoid mobs. A lot of humanoid mobs. 
All this made ZG feel like such an enjoyable instance, almost relaxing.

But the very thing that makes ZG reach this far is that it represented the first shift away from the 40-man raids. Two more 40-man raids were still to come, but the reception Blizzard got from Zul’Gurub was unmistakable. The gigantic raids were a dying species.



And the best raid instance in the game is...


...




1. Karazhan

Where do I begin? Karazhan was the perfect instance, it had literally everything a good instance should have. You see all the stuff I mentioned with Zul’Gurub? Yeah, Karazhan had all that. And more.

I’d like to begin with the general mood in the instance. This place felt like it was an actual building that had been trapped in some sort of magic dimension for years. Everything inside the instance made sense. You had the stables with a stable master, with a critter-infested cellar below. You had a ball room with people dancing, you had a steward that hosted dinner, there was even a kitchen, with skeleton waiters. You had the sleeping quarters with the obvious concubines and temptresses. And it goes on and on, from the theater to the balcony. Onwards to the library with the lootable books, to the observatory with the magic dragon, the hidden door that lead to the crazy demon, to the gaming room with the giant chess pieces. And finally to the spire where reality has ruptured, and the true villain is revealed. It all makes sense. The individual parts of the instance makes sense. The mobs and the bosses makes sense.

The fantastic mood in the instance is increased tenfolds by incredible music, and if you start to look around at all the details in the instance, you just feel for this place, in a tragic, but also entertaining way.
Some of the boss fights completely blew our minds, they were just that much more different than anything we’d tried. The theater event and the chess game comes to mind, but most of the fights in Karazhan are a pure joy. All those tiny details you probably not realize at the time, like the fact that almost all bosses has a voice, or that the quest chain takes you deeper and deeper into the mystery of what has happened to this place.

I feel it’s almost redundant to talk about loot at this point, yes there were great items to be had in Kara. But even if the only items that dropped were Twill hats and linen cloth, there would still be many enough reasons to enjoy this instance. And that’s why Karazhan is the best instance in World of Warcraft.