*OT* raid reminiscing... (Off-Topic)

by Kahzgul, Monday, July 04, 2016, 14:58 (2875 days ago) @ slycrel
edited by Kahzgul, Monday, July 04, 2016, 15:13

They were raids in that, at launch, they were 15-20 person raid instance, then later on were tuned down to be 10-man raids. If you had full MC raid gear you could 5 man them. They weren't the 40 man raids, but certainly were not the 5 man dungeons like many of the others.

Incorrect.

Upper Blackrock Spire was originally 10 people, max, as I stated.

Lower Blackrock Spire was always (and still is) for 5 players.

Blackrock Depths, also only and ever for 5 players.

If you wanted the original raids, you've got to go to Onyxia (couple of small trash pulls and then one boss. Pretty good fight with several unique phases, a need for environmental awareness, and important player positioning for tanks and DPS) or Molten Core (lots of trash, many bosses. The boss fights tended not to have more than 1 or 2 phases, but were each unique in their own way. Unfortunately, because it was a 40 man raid and did not have quite the nuance of Ony, for players who were not the main tanks it was essentially the same fight every time with small positioning or awareness requirements added in.

The best of the early raids was easily Blackwing Lair, which had very little trash between bosses, truly diverse bosses where every single player had a significant role, though there was still often room for others to step up if someone died, and one of the more interesting rooms in the game (suppression room), which at the time had never really been seen before in games.

One final edit: Even though they weren't raids, I do agree that LBRS and BRD were some of the best design in the history of WoW. The fact that you had to clear them multiple times and in multiple ways just to access some of the bosses was really great. Sadly, it's also a dungeon design style that largely disappeared after these instances in favor of shorter and linear dungeons instead. I quit playing after Cataclysm, so maybe non-linear dungeons have returned, but based on the overall direction of the game, I doubt it. These were brilliant dungeons and deserve a look.