Everblue recently posted a retrospective on Wrath of the Lich King from one tank’s perspective. I liked the format, and I’m feeling nostalgic, so here’s my version.
Favourite instance
I have to agree with popular opinion here, and go for Ulduar. The grand scale of the instance, as well as the tremendous variety of the bosses kept it exciting and interesting right the way through. I also loved the way the hard modes were implemented, generally adding mechanics rather than just bumping bosses’ HP and damage output.
This was also the phase of the game where I also felt at my most flexible as a Disc Priest, being able to keep up with tank heals or switch to raid healing depending on the requirements of the fight. And since most of my hardmode experience of Ulduar was on 10-man, I really used that flexibility.
Most difficult encounter
With the exception of heroic Lich King which we’ve not attempted on either format yet, the hardest boss for me personally and for my guild has to have been heroic Anub’arak.
You had to position the adds relative to the boss extremely precisely or you didn’t have the DPS to keep up with the fight, not to mention the many, many “kersplat” moments we had when an add got behind their tank, and for healers the reaction time needed in Phase 3 was not much fun either, especially combined with the lack of anything much to do in the rest of the fight.
Least fun encounter
If not for the fact that there’s so much else going on to keep the fight interesting, I’d pick the Lich King. Spending 10+ hours a week in 10-minute bursts of bubble-spam is definitely not on my list of fun experiences.
However I’d probably pick Faction Champions, just for the sheer helplessness of it from a healer’s perspective. Random people being nuked before you can react, aggro lighting up everywhere, the inability to properly strategise (we’re not much for PvP in my guild, so we didn’t have people accustomed to calling targets or responding to key deaths); it all combined to make for a very frustrating experience.
Most fun encounter
Firefighter, without question. Mimiron is one of the best bosses I’ve ever come across in WoW in just about every way. From the enticingly cartoonish Big Red Button to the well-written dialog the designers outdid themselves, and the mechanics were tuned very neatly to stretch you without introducing too much RNG; just about every mechanic could be mitigated or controlled through the raid’s actions.
A distant second would be either of the Mind Control encounters: Instructor Razuvious or the Who Needs Bloodlust? achievement. It’s nice to be central to an encounter, and to use a trick that usually doesn’t get much of an outing.
Most rewarding boss to heal
Another tie here.
Heroic Anub’arak-10 felt really, really good when we finally got it down. It demanded a lot from two healers, with tanks being absolutely pounded at the same time as the raid needed complete focus because Penetrating cold could take people out pretty quickly. Those two healers needed to work together to get everything covered.
As my other choice, I’m going to nominate early Mimiron once again. You can’t beat a fight where the focus shifts from spot healing to raid-wide healing (and on to total chaos), and needs coordination and defensive cooldowns to make it work.
Especially one which takes a lot of learning time to defeat, the rejoicing on Vent was amazing.
Proudest moment
Yet another Ulduar memory: getting my hands on the Rusted Proto-Drake. This was pretty much the golden period in Wrath for me, working through the achievements with a really tight-knit group of people. Even though it took a long time to get Firefighter down, spirits always stayed high and we kept plugging away until we got it, and then kept going back for a few weeks afterwards to make sure everyone who’d work for it got their drake too.
