Most of the raid encounters in World of Warcraft has the same basic concept. You got a boss, and you tank it until dead. Tank ‘n’ spank. Then you add a “gimmick” feature on top of the tank ‘n’ spank fight and get a standard raid encounter. Onyxia fears, Prince Malchezaar summons infernals, Flame Leviathan are done in vehicles, etc.
I have done pretty much all of WoW’s raid content, from Classic up to now, and below is a list of what I consider the most original encounters in the game. Not fun, challenging, or awesome (although some are all of these), just original. An encounter where you can imagine that the designers just went crazy in the brainstorm sessions where they came up with them. In no specific order:
Gunship Battle – Icecrown Citadel, Wrath of the Lich King
The Gunship Battle is an aerial fight between the Horde gunship Orgrim’s Hammer and the Alliance Skybreaker. As if fighting on an airborne gunships wasn’t cool enough, you also have to fire cannons on the other ship and use Jet Packs to fly over to the other ship and times to take out a mage that freezes your guns.
You ultimately have to kill him in a tank and spank fight, but to get to that point you have to take control of the boss and break all the eggs in the room. It’s up to the rest of the raid to protect Razorgore and the controller from the hordes of adds that are summoned from all four corners of the room. It is a frenzy that borders oh so close on full chaos.
A relatively easy fight is made impossible since Hakkar siphons life from every raid member at specific times. How do you kill a self-healing boss? I would love to know just how the first raiders thought about this, since the solution is not the most obvious. You have to kite a mob that spawns on the way to Hakkar, kill it at precise timing, and then have every raid member stand in the poison cloud that appears. Hakkar then siphons your life – but it’s poison! Problem solved.
Majordomo - Molten Core, Classic
Original in the sense that you actually don’t kill the boss, you just kill his adds. Majordomo comes with 8 adds, 4 of which must be tanked, and 4 which must be crowd controlled. When all adds are killed Majordomo surrenders (“Impossible! Stay your attack, mortal… I submit! I submit!”) and goes to summon Ragnaros.
Ossirian starts the fight in Supreme Mode, which is well worthy of capitalization, since in this mode he hits like a truck. Instead tanks have to quickly grab some aggro on him, and then start running. You kite him to huge pillars that appear in the ground to dispel the Supreme Mode and make Ossirian vulnerable to a school of magic. Repeat until dead.
Opera Event – Karazhan, The Burning Crusade
The Opera Event in Karazhan breaks the mould in more than one aspect. First of all you don’t know which of three random encounters you will get before the start, and secondly the encounters is based on real life tales and movies. You have:
- Big Bad Wolf (“What phat lewts you have grandmother”; “All the better to own you with!”) based on the Little Red Riding Hood tale. Turns one of the raid members into a gnome with a red hood, and the Big Bad Wolf will start chasing you. Then it’s another raid members turn.
- Wizard of Oz (“Oh dear, we simply must find a way home! The old wizard could be our only hope! Strawman, Roar, Tinhead, will you… wait! Oh golly, look! We have visitors!”), based on the tale with the same name. You have to fight five bosses (Dorothee, Roar, Strawman, Tinhead, and Tito the dog), each who has to be handled in a specific way.
- Romulo and Julianna (“What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?”), based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. First you have to kill Julianna, then Romulo, and then both at once.
Chess Event – Karazhan, The Burning Crusade
You are not fighting a boss at all, you are fighting chess! Each player take control of a piece on a chess board, and then you must kill all the opposite pieces controlled by Medivh (who cheats). Chess has never been so exciting.
Heigan the Unclean – Naxxramas, Classic/Wrath of the Lick King
“A Necromancer specialized in diseases and dancing.” A simple tank and spank fight, except that at intervals you all have to avoid the floor erupting in flames by standing in specific places and then move to another location after each eruption. Also known as “The Heigan Dance”. Holy crap! The floor’s trying to kill us!
Loatheb – Naxxramas, Classic/Wrath of the Lick King
Loatheb is an anagram for “Healbot”. Loatheb casts an aura that reduces healing by 100%, and you only have 3 seconds to actually heal before he recasts it. With normal tanking and AoE damage it makes the fight very interesting from a healing perspective.
Thaddius - Naxxramas, Classic/Wrath of the Lick King
Thaddius is a fight, not just against the boss, but also against electricity. Everyone in the raid will receive either a negative or a positive debuff, and if a player with negative stand close to one with positive the raid might wipe. If two players with the same debuff stands close they receive a damage buff. Then he will change the debuffs several times during the fight so people have to rearrange themselves.
I played a Paladin for most of Burning Crusade. Mostly he was Holy, but I more than dibbed in the forbidden arts of Retribution and Protection as well. I guess you could say I got burned out, because all I did was heal, heal, heal, heal, heal… (*waves hands like Paul Barnett*) and it wasn’t fun. Yes, it was fun in keeping people alive, but the mechanics and tools I had to my disposal made the task boring. Flash of Light and Holy Light, that was the stuff.
Say if Blizzard were to invite me to their beta testing of the Cataclyms expansion, would I accept? Hard choice. Very hard choice.