Ulduar: Best Raid EVER - Or Simply Overrated? | Wrath Classic

Ulduar will soon be a past raid for the second time ever in WoW officially.
This raid was one of Blizzard's most highly rated pieces of work out of all raids they have done.
But upon its re-release in 2023 - did it meet expectations, or did it fall short?
This is Ulduar: BEST Raid Ever - Or Simply Overrated? | Wrath Classic
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[@AnnihilatorCZ]

For me, an inexperienced raid leader of a rather casual (but willing) guild of Czech countrymen, leading my group of friends to an eventual, hard won Algalon kill is something I'll never forget. Living my childhood dreams whils now being in the center of those scenarios has been a very fulfilling experience.

[@scottsanderson8855]

now this is why people ever wanted classic giving some the feeling of what it was like years ago. congrats nothing better that the feeling your just explained!

[@Vihara2]

Im very happy for you, this was truly the last hurrah of the blizzard of old, icc is great too, but ulduar was the last piece of content that the old guard of blizzard devs worked on before being fired or moved on to other failed projects. General vezax was a flawed fight, and the trash got tedious after a few months, but otherwise its a brilliant raid and the peak of the game for me, im quitting once i get bored of killing arthas btw.

[@emetsalt2678]

​@@Vihara2 you do realize that those devs also worked on ICC right?

[@Vihara2]

@@emetsalt2678 they did some early alpha work yes, but the silent majority who dont have the names like ion or ghostcrawler where moved on, removed or fired/quit at that point, im stand by my statement.

[@xarbinchaoticneutral1785]

​@Vihara2 you mean the breastmilk stealing cubicle crawlers? Blizzard old guard were pr3ds but glad they could design hallways! Bro is a chronic commenter. True classic wow Andy 🤣 🤣 🤣

[@PerfectHighdra]

Really think they should have doubled the hard mode loot for each boss after ToC released. The value proposition for ToC vs Ulduar isn't even close, you get double the amount of relevant items for only a third of the time investment to clear.

[@BaseSRKI]

Indeed, was an idea

[@dobiusla8281]

O, why are you crying. We knew that and w know that since years. Just get over it and have actually fun raiding.

[@PerfectHighdra]

@@dobiusla8281 Because the goal of the increased ilvl hardmode loot in Ulduar was for the purpose of keeping the content relevant during ToC. Yet ToC gives way more loot, takes less time and is easy as hell. There are only a few specific pieces that most guilds are willing to farm. Also, stating an opinion is not crying mate. Its a just a video game.

[@Holbry]

The only boss I didn't like was iron council. The boss delaying his rune and then casting a death rune immediately afterwards happened way too often.

[@andromidius]

It is annoying - but I still get a real buzz on every kill even now. Minus the rune nonsense its a good fight - and I get to shine on the meters as a Hunter without feeling like I'm padding (and I am, a little, just not as much as the Fire Mages are).

[@user-zg5ew2bm7l]

Ι'd do IC 5 times in a row instead of Vezax HM

[@ZeroX252]

This honestly seemed bugged. I don't remember ever having that problem back in the day, yet it happened consistently here.

[@WillEmmo]

Forgot to mention this, random cast times were not good

[@NuyiNL]

@@WillEmmo Didn't it add some coordination instead of just watching a timer and execute move X? It made it difficult, but tbh I kinda liked that. Most encounters are extremely predictable already.

[@griffonion]

Ulduar was overall a great raid, but the high difficulty and certain encounter designs that had made progressing the raid fun also made farming it for months a huge pain. The increased item level of gear certainly helped, but certain bosses always required you to "try-hard" even after killing them 20 times, which was exhausting.

[@Hasan-iq7hm]

..Are you complaining about content being difficult..?

[@Epidombe]

@@Hasan-iq7hmits not that it’s difficult but thats theres a lack of fun. My guild turned to gambling during trash just to make the pain of an hour of wasted time go away

[@griffonion]

@@Hasan-iq7hm As I said, during progression the difficulty was (subjectively) perfectly fine. We are a pretty casual group and we had cleared everything (all hardmodes + Algalon) by week 5 without any ptr practice, and while those few weeks of progression were intense, the 4+ months of farming the raid afterwards wasn't as fun. Part of the reason for that was encounter design paired with how the content was tuned. Mimiron for example was by far the best boss in there, and after our progression kill, we one shot him every single week, whereas bosses like IC, Yogg, Vezax or Algalon have mechanics where even after many weeks of killing them, a single mistake (or bad overlap) can mean a wipe, regardless of your gear. Saying "X is difficult" will invariably be met with "you are a shitter" nowadays, and I do enjoy difficult raids, but I do actually think that for what classic is, and for how the bosses were designed, Ulduar this time around was "too difficult".

[@Psilocybin77]

@@Hasan-iq7hmbelieve it or not a lot of ppl don’t equate one shot mechanics with fun. I mean everyone on YT is a pro and carries their raid, but some ppl have lives and don’t play 23 hours a day. The penalty for small mistakes outweighs the difficulty in WoW and everyone knows this except for self righteous Reddit enjoyers.

[@jagosvujovic2086]

When someone says that Ulduar is hard they dont mean that its on the same level of hard as retail Mythic raids, but Ulduar IS without a doubt a huge jump in difficutly compared to anything that came before it in classic, hell, its harder than ToGC and arguably even harder overall than ICC

[@tomoda7602]

Im so early UBRS is still endgame content

[@Underdog74745]

It was an experience it was basically Disney world in Wow. Lots to do, but man, going back because you bought the pass gets boring

[@thatg-unitguy7934]

Ulduar delivered in atmosphere and difficulty and because of that we had people go to Hardcore kek

[@TheNewLooter]

I raid in an actual dad guild and Ulduar had the most satisfying progression BY FAR. The non-linearity and possibility of mixing up normal and hard modes at will elliminated the frustration of being stuck on that one boss (screw you, M'uru). We finally cleared Algalon mid-April and it felt amazing.

[@roujin518]

This is a raid that if you cleared it it was "super fun" and if you didn't clear it it was a slog. My problem with the raid was: 1. Only 1 loot per HM clear on 25 made it feel like shit to do all that work only to get a Holy pally piece of HM loot for the 35x. 2. Multiple bosses were just annoying on HM. Vesax takes 6 mins to start the HM, IC puts runes down at random times, XT sometimes spawns additional robot adds, Hodir is just a troll with whom it puts the storm cloud buff on, Freya requires too much precision on knock backs and Dsac timers. 3. Alg being locked behind Mim HM is such a troll when its easier than most other HMs.

[@dnlespy]

A miss the old Willie video intros where it was, “Hello ladies and gentlemen. Willie here” and then there was the challenge of trying to find the bald headed gnome somewhere in the frame

[@mcfarvo]

Boo! Hiss! ;)

[@badass6300]

For pre-Cata raids Ulduar, ICC, Naxx, BT, TK and Karazhan were the best raids ever. Cata took raids to a whole new level, then WoD was the next big step in raid quality.

[@andromidius]

As much as I have strong negative feelings about WoD, the raids weren't one of them. Sure, Highmaul was a big middling - but Blackrock Foundry was mind blowing with how good it was. Even if Blast Furnace haunts my nightmares still from time to time.

[@badass6300]

@@andromidius I'd say all 3 raids were top tier raids and perhaps the best raids to date, though 1-2 raids per expansion since have come super close to them. NH, ToS, BfDA, EP, CN, AtSC were super close.

[@andromidius]

@@badass6300 TBH I might be hard on Highmaul. I was grumpy about the quality of the rest of the expansion.

[@HarrDarr]

@@andromidius fights like imperator and sha of fear which take ~20 minutes to kill pretty shit. lich king can easily reach 20+ minutes as well in bad guilds, it's going to be rough

[@demoonlee]

in my opinion sw is the best in TBC

[@Lazydino59]

When I did ulduar in a hardcore guild it was by far the most fun in raiding I’d had. When I did ulduar in any pug/gdkp/less try hard form it was miserable and made me angry. Definitely bittersweet to never have to raid it again

[@Imicicle]

I raided almost every reset of ulduar and by the end I was realy burnt out on that raid. The Ilvl change was good enough, now people still do skip run ulduars. Though, togc has been a really nice change of pace. 1 hour raid and get bis loot, I've never raid logged as hard as on wotlk.

[@XxKinGzxX100]

Had to create alts just so i could fill out my raid days

[@booradley6832]

You already know the answer, its severely overhyped because of nostalgia. We saw it repeatedly in classic's launch and this is the pinnacle of "good old wow." But its an evolving game, you can never have "Good old wow" back as you remember it. You can visit places you liked and go through the motions but never truly have it back. Edit: lol I was actually talking about ICC but didnt put down enough hints. These raid hype cycles are interchangeable, is the joke.

[@dobiusla8281]

Funny that Most of the ppl here in the comments section liked ulduar tho. Thank you for speaking all of us.

[@booradley6832]

You can like a raid without it being the best raid ever. Lots of people liked all the raids of classic up until this point but they dont compare to the image of them held up by people prior to the raid. That is the entire point of this video and the related comment. Thank you for speaking for all the stupid people at once.

[@freddelarsson4434]

From what I remember of Wotlk back in the day, whenever you entered Ulduar, specifically 'The Antechamber of Ulduar' - you got this feeling of that you shouldn't be here. That it was forbidden or something haha. Now I was a kid of maybe 13-14 years back when I did Ulduar for the first time, so it might be because of that I don't know. But I remember having the exact same feeling when I did ICC for the first time aswell. Since Blizz made Arthas as a perfect vilain it felt like I was completely chanceless to go up against him and his forces. I am not able to relive this in classic even if I tried because I'll never have 10+ or something people from school to play with. And that was the whole heart and soul of my Wotlk experience back in the day. Good times.

[@Destiny4Travail]

Glad to see a video that isn't about hardcore wow.

[@Fallenbrave]

I agree but MOP had great raids too. SoO and ToT was amazing.

[@AnnihilatorCZ]

As for having buffed the ilvl of HM items, I think it has worked a treat. In P2, 25 HM items felt like an hefty reward and a massive power upgrade, and now in P3 we still have fun and bants hunting those few BiS pieces casually destroying the bosses that used to be massive challenge for us just a few months ago.

[@andromidius]

Overall? I liked it. Never got bored of it, even if some bosses sucked. Now we're going back to farm certain items... its starting to outstay its welcome a bit. I still love XT, Mimiron, Iron Council and to a lesser extent Yogg - but a lot of the others are feeling very stale or frustrating now. Vezax being the prime culprit - he's just a very long and boring fight where any loss of concentration (while bored) can ruin a smooth kill. And he never drops Flare. Never. So he feels like an anti-fun roadblock now.

[@TheFalladin]

Only boss I still enjoy is Alga... But again I think you nailed it in your last sentence. Not only flare but the damn wrist/ring from mim or other HM only drops. That they only drop 1 HM item sucks ass. We only need 2 more flares for our guild but he haven't dropped any in weeks. Or mim we've seen the ring twice and wrists once. If we would have saved them we would soon have the damn tank cloak for every single raider. Then there were Freya that for 24 weeks or w/e NEVER dropped the tank neck, NEVER. At some point it's no longer fun. This problem should be a thing of the past now since now a HC boss... well they drop like 6 items but the 1 item limit in Uld HM was just bad and still is.

[@andromidius]

@@TheFalladin Yup yup yup. I'd be fine with them removing the normal mode items from the loot tables on hard mode if they just increased the hard mode drops even by one - preferably two. Not seeing anything useful drop week after week is demoralising. Heck, we didn't even get any shards drops for two weeks running before those were buffed (and even then, only one non-guaranteed shard dropped last reset, FML on ever getting a third mace for our Druid).

[@thesufiofrome]

@@TheFalladin 28+ kills of Firefighter and we have seen 15 offhands, 6 crowns, 4 cloaks, 3 rings, 0 bracers. Actually disgusting. The piss-poor design of the loot tables is so much more punishing since it only drops a single piece. Delirium's Touch + Starshard Edge are the worst troll drops in the game tbh and I have PTSD from seeing so many.

[@luckiness9500]

8:46 Actually that's easy to answer. Ion hazzikozstas. there was a recent interview in which he stated he was in charged of making pretty much all bosses design encounters on ulduar including hardmodes. he also stated he had to recycled codes from other previous bosses so far in order to make something new back in those days. that's why Ulduar along with TOC/TOGC and ICC felt so simple (Yet lackluster) in term of mechanics and boss design.

[@frozenbbfan]

I think the number of people quit the game during Ulduar is more than your graph shows. If you show the number of unique accounts that are still playing you'd be shocked. I know for a fact a large portion of people clearing are Alts. My server had a pretty high population at one point but not anymore. That makes Ulduar a disaster in my opinion.

[@meta1152]

Nobody logs in for Ulduar night in both of my guilds.

[@theoutlander1411]

Yeah Ulduar was brutal. WOTLKC is my first WOTLK playthrough and even people who played WOTLK back in the day quit, even ones who said they loved Ulduar, as I dogged on. Filling rosters got to be difficult. There was real burnout, even among people who were skilled enough to do HM's. Objectively, I found the raid mid, but subjectively if I could travel back in time to January I would have suggested skipping Phase 2 Ulduar. What a tumultuous period.

[@ogunquit5]

I haven't played WoW since Warlords at all and stopped raiding seriously during Cata but I can honestly say that for my experience, Ulduar is still the greatest raid ever made. It was incredibly fun, difficult and when I led a 10 man group to defeat Algalon for the first time, it was probably one of the top 5 moments i ever had playing.

[@Shiirow]

this is always the outcome when people whine for harder content, they dont really want hard content they want prestige and extra goodie bags. the next step is always to whine that the loot isnt good enough. honestly, I would delete the hard mode gear off the loot table and institute individual achievements for each hard mode similar to Mythic does with each boss and a meta raid achievement which awards a title and a mount. have something like " the Starcrossed" and instead of having the sparkle pony as a cash shop mount it could have been attached to the achievement for defeating every hard mode. then Algalon could have had a special item drop for all players "Starcrossed Locket" that transforms your weapon into a Starcrossed Weapon with a similar model to the mount and Algalon, it has no timer and lasted until you right click it off, and can be re-applied by clicking the locket again.

[@theoutlander1411]

The people that want harder content are often not the majority of the playerbase but are the ones that are catered to. They aren't whining in regret, they're the ones saying they loved Ulduar in WOTLKC. The only popular video maker I have heard say they didn't like WOTLKC Ulduar was Asmongold and that's because he was playing with what the average player was working with in regards to guildmates, not guilds of people who practiced on pservers or PTR's and come straight from Retail.

[@ThePhysin]

cries in "ONE SINGULAR COMETS TRAIL" dropping to this very reset

[@Deceiver493]

It's going to sound like I'm being hyperbolic here, but I'm dead serious. Context, I play a melee class. Once progression was over (it was only ok IMO), Ulduar proved to be my least favorite raiding experience I've ever had in Classic. I would prefer to run Mount Hyjal again, or farm Molten Core. Seriously, I dislike the HM system that much, and we had to suffer through it in both 10 and 25 man for 22 weeks. We essentially cleared 44 Ulduar lockouts on one character as mandatory power progression because BiS was tied to both sizes of the instance. The real kicker here is that we now have to raid Ulduar until ICC comes out, because they buffed the ilvl. It's a big reason behind why I've lost my passion for raiding in Classic and why I've exclusively raid logged for the last 3 months. Being in Ulduar is a genuinely uncomfortable time for me at this point. I'm so sick of it. On top of all of that, every boss had something about it that could ruin your parse. Ignis pots you as melee, repeated void bombs on XT, IC drops death rune right after dropping power/delays power rune for a long time, etc. Ulduar sits under AQ20 in my list. Most overblown hype for a raid I have ever seen.

[@IFNH8UALL]

Heroic Rag in FL is legit no joke.

[@andromidius]

100%, he's a beast. Even normal version is no joke until you outgear him. Perhaps one of the best tuned normal modes ever made.

[@fuzzelump3]

Cata, in general, is going to cock slap most 1 button classic enjoyers right in the face. I cant wait for hard content to begin. I tried cata private servers to see what i can look forward to. Holy fuk is the game just better, alt friendly. More reasons to be in the world. No more skipping difficulty. I definitely see why people were turned away. But its better suited for the average classic player in our current community. I dont understand the reasoning behind the hate. Old world is dead in azeroth, outland and its pretty barren in northrend. Im excited for the bloated trees to get stripped down and be rewarded for putting on higher ilvl gear and see a noticeable change. The classes play smoother. Reforging makes gear acquisition feel more rewarding. Gearing offspec is more reliable. Pvp is amazing. Rated battlegrounds. Guild leveling. Guild achieves. Its closer to wrath than retail. Just more refined version of things that should just be baseline. Everything doesnt always have to be working against you, and thats how i feel the "difficulty" portion of classic is so far. Im convinced that people quit back then because they couldnt spam 1 button and collect loot. They actually had to play, try, and not suck to get the gear. I would almost bet that cata will retain players and keep them engaged longer than wrath of the raid logger. 95% of the people that compare cata to retail. Hasnt played retail. If wrath felt as good as cata, it would be the best xpac (imo) i still gotta hand it to legion as being my personal favorite. Wrath in second place. Loses points due to nothing to do in the world anymore. Just wait till raid night.

[@andromidius]

@@fuzzelump3 Cata was a shock to the system for sure - but since I played during TBC I vaguely knew what to do once I realised AoE chain pulling was no longer the way to go. And it made me a better player. Better then I am now, that's for sure. I'm rusty still, a bit too comfortable. I want to get a reality check from Cata so I can improve again. And enjoy some quality of life too, honestly.

[@Vihara2]

​@@fuzzelump3thanks for that trainwreck of an opinion, i don't recall the difficulty of anything in cata ever bothering me, it was literally everything but that i hated.

[@fuzzelump3]

@andromidius Just the quality upgrade in mechaince in cata is a breath of fresh air for me. You will shake the rust off in no time!!! *cheers*

[@teetime4254]

David Lance Arneson October 1, 1947] - April 7, 2009 was an American game designer best known for co-developing the first published role-playing game (RPG), Dungeons & Dragons, with Gary Gygax, in the early 1970s. Activision Blizzard posted a tribute to Arneson on their website and on April 14, 2009, released patch 3.1 of the online role-playing game World of Warcraft, The Secrets of Ulduar, dedicated to Arneson. "Blizzard Entertainment would like to dedicate Secrets of Ulduar in memory of Dave Arneson. We were greatly saddened by the news of Dave's passing. His work, passion, and creativity helped give life to an entirely new genre of gaming, and our fondest memories of playing Dungeons & Dragons continue to inspire us. Farewell, Dave, and thank you. You will be missed."

[@ryanmullen483]

Ya my biggest gripe with ulduar by a mile was hard mode loot distribution is just dog shit

[@ryanmullen483]

Also Vezax Iron council and Hodir are all dog shit fights

[@Vihara2]

True and real

[@FuuuckOffff]

It's a really enjoyable raid. Was more challenging than I'd anticipated as well, basically the first raid that can be tricky for good players to clear in Week One. However, I've more or less had enough of it now, phase length was about right.

[@no-sleep]

still hands down the best raiding experience I've ever had

[@sherpagoolsbee8390]

The problem with Ulduar is that if you perform an analysis of the raid by encounter, the encounters fail to live up to expectations. Ulduar is about pace... its about one encounter that stresses healers, then next stresses tanks, the next mdps. It is about flow. It is about the overall experience. Additionally, the normal vs hard mode allowed your guild to progress a hard mode encounter for 45 minutes or so and then just blast on normal. You get a little better at hard mode each week until you down the encounter. Compare this to retail mythic. My retail guild spent 6 hours on a single fight last week. Not nearly as good as an experience as Ulduar presented. Until I experience another raid with the flow of Ulduar, Ulduar is the GOAT IMO.

[@brandonkruse6412]

I would argue that Throne of Thunder did everything Ulduar tried to do, but better and with much more polish and meat on the bones. I will never enjoy a raid more than I did Throne.

[@quinn562]

As someone who started around march as a hpal who didnt do uld back in the day I had a great time, especially when it came to alg because you're a crucial piece of the fight so you had to be on point - the cherry on top was the timer which added a whole new layer of stress that was unmatched. 50/50 attempts in togc isn't nearly as stressful comparibly I'm shocked 239 was the old hardmode cap, didn't realize uld got such a big boost to ilvl no wonder it died out back in the day The only fight I thought was disappointing was yogg, anything other than zero light there isn't any kind of healing challenge - plus maybe it's the nostalgia talking but cthun felt way more epic as well

[@Peleski]

Designwise a beautiful, expansive and epic location. The problem with the game at this stage was that it was Ulduar and nothing else. At least in previous expansions there were three or 4 raids to occupy both casual and extreme players.

[@j325]

Was my first time seeing Ulduar and luckily I have a great guild so progression wasn’t soul crushing. I was happy to do something I never got to do when I was younger but for me the high water mark was SWP. The fights were so fun and fast and the raid itself was beautiful. And call me crazy but M’uru was actually quite fun!

[@user-zv1wb1sl7h]

The majority of people straight up dislike Ulduar. It was basically overhyped and the ilvl buffs were done only for the high end players. No one benefitted from this change. On the 5th week we already started losing members due to burnout. ToC is bad, but Ulduar was by far the worst tier in Classic I've ever seen.

[@Legs94]

Ulduar was very fun. Def was not the most fun unfortunately and didn’t live up to the hype. I compared it to SWP and I personally enjoyed SWP more. We’ll see with ICC but for me BWL i enjoyed the most so far .

[@Banelock]

Couldn't have said it better myself. The raid is pretty good but I think the main reason its remembered as this legendary tier raid is because it was way better than 99% of the stuff that came before it. These days after years of great raids it is just one of the good ones. Around top 10 imo.

[@johanlahti84]

Ok, now compare the amount of participants in Naxx vs Ulduar, and tell me if it is a good raid.

[@theoutlander1411]

Going for the proto-drake achievements in Naxx was really fun too. Ulduar's is just all hard modes plus two annoying ones.

[@c.krueger9530]

Ulduar is a good mixture of raiding. Fantasy. Robots. Vehicles. Dragons, Giants (titans). Only the first part was annoying with the vehicles and towers imho

[@sortedevaras]

MoP had some bangers. Throne of Thunder and Siege of Org are objectively better raids.

[@MrChemicalDisaster]

Hard modes started in AQ40 with the Council fight there

[@Nurofaen]

The ICC 10HM airship fight has a trinket that sims just as good/better for most casters and is much easier to farm. I'm personally waiting for that one to pair with my Reign of the Dead rather than going to Ulduar with either 120k in a GDKP or rolling vs 14 other people every week.

[@saezthetics7557]

Super annoyed they didn't make more hardmode pieces drop with togc release. Also don't understand why a teleporter wasn't added for vezax room and make his animus spawn when he gets below 10%.

[@andromidius]

Vezax is possibly the worst boss of the expansion for me right now. I absolutely hate him - and I'm not even healing it.

[@jagosvujovic2086]

I swear vezax is the one fight that makes me not want to do ulduar. Unless youre a caster this fight is incredibly boring, and thats not even counting the 60+ seconds you have to wait once you get him to 5%

[@highrhino]

They cant just make it spawn at 10%. That would mean normal mode no longer exists, but what they should have done is get the clouds to spawn at health points or all of them at the start, and if no clouds are killed for mana then animus spawns immediately at 10%

[@jagosvujovic2086]

@@highrhino If you get the boss down to 5% before all of the saronite spawns then i think the add should just appear. If you want to do normal mode just kill one of the saronite and thats it, but yeah the saronite spawning at certain HP tresholds makes more sense.

[@Vihara2]

​@@highrhinothey can, the casters just have to not trigger any of the clouds, no mana returns, bam, no problem, heres your hard mode

[@Creamandoreo]

My biggest flex of all time was healing solo algalon back when we had a timer limit and gear not better than naxx 25. Fyi managed to do "He feeds on your tears also"

[@brandonkruse6412]

If you’re an endgame focused player, I think you’ll find the content vastly more enjoyable and challenging from Cataclysm through Legion. I quit raiding a few weeks into Tomb of Sargarus, that was the point I feel that raiding became too convoluted with too much personal responsibility.

[@Scarletpimpanel73]

A lot of people dislike the RNG component of some boss fights. That really is a matter of personal preference. For me personally I like bosses with RNG elements (such as Iron Council) as it keeps you guessing so that you can't just rely of set formular responses with any confidence. A lot of people who play other games with heavy rng "unfair" mechanics would probably feel the same way. /cough Dark Souls. But RNG is going to be a divisive feature. I really liked Ulduar and I liked some of those more divisive bosses. But I do wish it only ran for around 12-16 weeks. When bliz upped the ilvls to keep it relevant, what I expected was for Ulduar to run a regular number of weeks but still have reason to run it after TOGC released (which is a very short raid). Instead, it meant running Ulduar for double the length of time and then releasing a very short raid such that we end up probably running it for triple the length of time ... just complete overkill and it ruins the experience imo. Much like listening to your favourite track over and over again a hundred or so times. You end up hating anything with that level of saturation.

[@josephkay4945]

Imagine seeing death's verdict...

[@andromidius]

Dropped first time for my guild - and hasn't again since. There's about ten of us wanting it. I've been cursed with trinkets the entire expansion so far - the only good one I have is the Greatness I crafted for myself during the first fortnight (and it was so worth it, not going to lie - its still BiS now for me, which makes no logical sense but the numbers don't lie - its an overstatted item that beats things 58 item levels higher then it!).

[@nothanks7833]

love that cozy music from howling fjord :/

[@Puppetmaster2005]

I think Ulduar just succeeds all other raids in WoW due its overall DESIGN rather than the encounters / loot itself. It has a strong titan themes and was REALLY immersive. Even though i was basically on skype with other humans the whole time, progressing through, nothing could take away the immersion and sheer feeling of wonder i felt when journeying deeper and deeper into the complex. It was an experience. Smashing through the front door in vehicles, seeing Kologarn rise from the depths and tower over me for the first time, Taking the train to mimiron and taking in the titan structure's surroundings, walking into freya's garden, going deeper and running into faceless ones and eventually yogg.... Damn... Those memories were good. Icecrown and the lich king may have been the climax of WoW, but Ulduar... Ulduar was the WoW team putting their best foot forward and showing us what they could REALLY do.

[@PollyCot]

It was the best because it came after Naxx and the mechanics were something we never saw before.

[@jpbarry93]

I was more stressed out tanking some of the buffed ulduar bosses than mythic KJ

[@Schmittyy]

Yea the loot is a serious problem, it shouldn't be possible there's still so many pieces my guild hasn't seen drop and its been on farm for awhile. Bedlam bracers off Mim, Bracers and neck off of Hodir, Legs off of Yogg and a couple pieces we didn't see until the last 1-2 resets.

[@dobiusla8281]

Those are times none cares about anyway. Especially now with togc. Yes they where really good while ulduar. But the key item for sure are algalon loot and flare. The rest is not worth mentioning.

[@theoutlander1411]

There was a primary weapon that was BiS for me that pretty much everyone else (even people with a blue in their inventory) had that just couldn't drop for me. It certainly was a big point of frustration.

[@Schmittyy]

@@dobiusla8281 Both bracers I mentioned are still bis this phase (Frost & UH DK for mim, and Ele shaman for hodir) So I wouldnt say no one cares about them.. Yea flare is obviously more important but still.

[@Inxx89]

Ulduar was fun...for a while. It became tedious to do the same stuff week after week praying that that one item from HM you need drops. After a while of that I just gave up and stopped playing, as did most of my guild. We were notoriously unlucky with our loot since TBC launched, waiting on key items for our casters to just never have them drop. ToC as a transitional raid is fine, and I hope we manage to get enough players to come back for ICC.

[@demoonlee]

its by far the hardest raid for classic for sure. And with the ivl adjustment the progress curve is very healthy. You have to admit Blizzard did a great adjustment.

[@dekaay8867]

Rogue Main & ive never seen the IC shoulders drop on 2 Rogues

[@TheOnlyGBeast]

Vezax hard mode isn't a bad idea, it just gets old really fast on subsequent clears I have always said that ulduar is absolutely not the best raid of all time, and not even the best raid in wotlk. I still stand by that conviction now, and believe that ICC is the better raid through and through

[@dreadwaters7898]

Yeah hearing that this was the best raid ever then getting into it. It was a huge letdown for me

[@lazer9870]

changing the item levels and the length of the phase are the problem. People are sick of ulduar but now have to keep running it.

[@dobiusla8281]

You would also run ulduar with 239 ilvl flare.

[@runeserpent1449]

Not playing anymore but I really enjoyed clearing alg and all the hc fights with my guild, but Togc is resident sleeper and I was pugging togc 25 (rip guild) and it’s kinda resident sleeper af. (Playing RSham/enhance)

[@CombatMedic1O]

Proggin Ulduar was one of the most fun experiences I've ever had playing a video game. It was a time when I had free time to run multiple raids a week 10 and 25. 10 man was not super challenging (except alg) but not boring. It was just super fun. The loot system was very frustrating, took me 4 months to get runestone. The armor pen legs only dropped once the whole tier and our casters got maybe 2 flares from 18-19 resets we had killed on HM. We got that dumb leather chest piece every week and that dumb leather crit gloves from hodir every week. I enjoyed flame levithan too. That being said about the loot system, you could still get very geared on an alt from 10 man HM gear, 232 teir, boes and normal mode loot. Would've liked to see 10 man used off-tanks more. seem by the last half a prot pally could just solo tank the whole thing.

[@brandonkruse6412]

Death’s Verdict has a chance to roll twice on the loot table. Might explain why there’s so many.

[@dobiusla8281]

That would count for every item. But I myself run togc on 5 chars per week and I see it usually at least 2 times dropping. It's not rare at all xd

[@dennyrobertson5873]

Ulduar has become the first raid in classic so far that I dread entering. Hardmodes were fun to progress, but they stopped being fun shortly after the first win.

[@Jasdoer123]

I can see why people at the time thought this was the greatest raid ever. It was something new and way harder than seen before. But there is a reason HM bosses didn''t stick around, Normal/HC/Mythic is just a better system for both casual and more hardcore players. Glad I got to experience it, but not the best raid in my opinion.

[@berner]

Hey WillE, have you had a chance to play Baldur's Gate 3? I know you tried branching out with Final Fantasy and New World, but Baldur's looks like it could be fun to see you do a couple videos since it's a fresh new title.

[@GdotWdot]

I'm sure the harsh tuning heavily contributed to virtually all of my best in-game friends I've made since TBCC launch quitting. I still play, it's my favourite game, but it's no longer my happy place.

[@Infyra]

After 7 resets of Togc I have gotten 1 upgrade to drop for my dk, the plate dps pants, all other upgrades were from badges and throphies. Something seems off with the drop chances where we are de-ing tank look already, but most of the dps players have had only a few upgrades so far.

[@XxKinGzxX100]

Think that's just the luck of the draw mate.

[@Melodeath00]

Tank and Hunter loot is always the first to get DE'd, no matter what expansion or raid.

[@flexwheeler707]

the only thing that was a horrible idea was the itemlevel boost in my opinion, made the raid too easy and gave characters so much stats that even togc now is easier because of it. all bosses are fun to do except Vezax as i find it boring to wait for animus spawn every single time you attempt him. overall very enjoyable raid for the most part.

[@nodrog051]

Hello, Willie here. Miss those days

[@Westerdahl]

the thing i liked about classic was that it was possible to raid without minmaxing and raidlogging etc.... Ulduar HM ruined that. Everyone wants HM and if you dont do x amount of dmg or healing then you will be replaced. Cant wait for ICC with just normal and heroic mode... that way it can still be a chill enviroment. :=)

[@likemike9405]

Great video my friend

[@styxzero1675]

Ulduar might be the best raid in wotlk for normal players, but TOC must be the best raid for GDKP runners. It is quick, no trash and pretty easy. They can do like 20 runs a day.

[@ntall123]

I quit because they wait too long to release the "new" raids. Phase 1 was brutal with how long it was. Its hard to keep a raid team together when literally everyone in the raid is bored to tears after having done the same thing 20 weeks in a row.

[@user-bx9vb3sn3k]

Ulduar was the best raid of Wrath, but that's not saying much. Most of the expansion was nerfed for the casuals. I liked how hard modes were implemented.

[@SanjiKunTheLoveCook]

tbh i liked the idea of hardmode not as a setting but as something that you could do to spice things up and make the fight more challenging. I mean i was ok with the setting but it just makes more sense that the fight would just be different if you took a different approach to it, instead of just being "different" just because. Ulduar was an amazing raid to me but i still prefer icc. Toc was just an alright raid, not too good, but not too bad either

[@_TG]

Great raid. But coming from being active in mythic raiding on retail, I really felt the age on many of the bosses, which was hugely disappointing. I'm not asking for even retail HC standard, but honestly some fights were just target dummies and felt dated.

[@alrightylol]

Well got some fun there, maybe like first 10 weeks, then stoped 2 go there, like all mains was around 5k+ and i dont give F about full bis gear.

[@toraso842]

Ulduar is considered the best because it was the first to introduce HM in a fun way and designs and overall raid was amazing, every step back than was considered a achievement getting gear, to titles, to mounts. It felt like you actually progressed it sucks cause back TOGC came too quick I feel like

[@mc19965]

As a warlock, I really enjoyed XT hardmode because of almost constant multidotting with sparks. Mimeron firefighter is probably my favourite fight, multidotting, a lot of mechanics, keeping yourself alive, importance of positioning in the last two phases to get the most out of your dps. Yogg is also very fun for warlocks for obvious reasons. On the other hand, Thorim seemed way too long and boring, Hodir was kinda too RNG in the beginning, Vezaxx hardmode is horrible, Algalon seems to be only fun during progress, Razorscale and Ignis is mediocre and I hated FL of course… Iron Council was sometimes fun for affli locks due to the double-dipping to snapshot corruption on overlapping runes, Aurieyayaya kinda seemed all right because it was short enough( the same goes for Kologarn) and Freya was also fine I suppose, although a bit too long especially if you wipe closer to the last phase.

[@burntfish123]

I really enjoyed ulduar itself minus a boss or two... but the phase went on too long and in the latter 1/3 our guild started running into nasty roster boss issues and then progression stagnation due to it. They also really should have made some of the 25hm loot more accessible after toc dropped. I get why they didn't put 25hm loot in 10hm but stuff like flare that's still bis for many casters and vold that's still a big upgrade for 2h users (saw 0 of either) are already locked behind one of the most aids encounters in the raid, guaranteed 5 val shards but they're locked behind the 2 hardest encounters so if you weren't already consistently clearing them get screwed I guess, etc. The post loot changes only helped extra casual and extra hardcore guilds, didn't do much for the middle of the pack guilds

[@paladinpariah325]

Tanks... Robotic Vikings... Cthulu Monsters... Ulduar sucked back in the day, sucks now, and it was painful having the patch going for extra months this time around. The obsession way too much of the playerbase has for raid challenge very much blunted the excited for Wrath Classic. This was supposed to be the ultimate casual expansion and instead you were buried in a slurry of hardcore garbage and intolerant power gamers chest beating all the time.

[@Zarkawi17]

Surprised you didn't mention another annoying thing about Vezax. Not really so much an issue anymore, but while progressing his hard mode, a wipe was almost guaranteed to take 5-6 minutes to happen since the only dangerous part of the fight is at the very end. This just compounded with the stupidly long run-back and made him waste a ton of time. I do love ulduar overall, but vezax hardmode is really stupid.

[@harmstrongg]

Remember Ulduar as we got it in classic was way harder and more abnoxious than what we experienced back in the day.

[@Scarletpimpanel73]

And our gear was much more buffed ...

[@moh608]

Droprates of certain items are such gargabe - we had 4 Flares in 28 raids...while havin what 10 caster + in the raid ... sure you know you wont get BiS in a phase but instead we got like 20 Dreambinder?! Blizz could change algaloot depending on the setups nowadays...

[@TheDeliciousMystery]

For the time i think it was very good and offered a lot of novel ideas. But then Throne of Thunder basically did the same thing but better -unless you were a complete smoothmind filtered by the snails and you have a grudge like 15 years later- and in retrospect ulduar is like classic wow in a way. You remember it being much harder than it is because there is a more modern version you have experience with thats sort of mixing the two in your head but then when you go back you realise it was never that hard you were just like 16 and now you are in your 30's.

[@cyanophage4351]

Yeah I'm still waiting for Flare to drop. The fact that there are no better trinkets in ToC is even more a slap in the face

[@alfonsomural4792]

Would've been better if they did it in wings imo, were some fights I absolutely hated in there like auriaya, freya and vezax.

[@richmarrero1313]

The Rng on hard mode iron council was infuriating in the begining

[@maui_wowie_]

I would rather run Ulduar for 3h than Togc 2x. Ulduar was and still is fun and challenging.

[@sunshineofthenightfall6332]

I really liked Ulduar, even if the raid felt a bit long. Especially the way they implemented hardmodes I think was really fantastic - not you Vezax, your "wait for 90 seconds doing nothing before the hardmode starts" can go fuck itself. I do think that despite it being a great raid, it's a little bit overrated - but probably for a good nostalgic reason. Have to remember that this was the first 'real' wotlk raid compared to the laughable naxx 25. My biggest problems with Ulduar were the rng in some fights like Iron Council (the wildly random timer on rune of death), and Yogg-Saron (Getting constricted into a crusher tentacle). + a more general wotlk issue where things on the ground and auras take up to a few seconds to register that your character should/shouldn't be affected by them (getting silenced by emergency fire bots for 3 seconds even after they're dead).

[@TheFalladin]

Ulduar really changed the raiding scene forever with HM which lead to HC etc... But no way near best. I did quit my hardcore raiding in Legion so wont really talk about recent raids. But every expasion since wotlk have had atleast 1 raid that's been better imo. In cata I would say BoT and FL were better. MoP had ToT which is top 2 for me. WoD was a mess but HFC was great but BRF is just the greatest raid ever that I experienced.

[@blibbax]

The week 1 clear stats mask the fact that Ulduar ended up far, far easier than SWP/SSC/etc - once you got the buffed loot starting to rack up.

[@lolimadethisvid]

Ulduar is a fantastic raid but some of the fights are really dated. Vezax being a great example. Why do i have enough time to pour a drink and take a piss before Animus spawns on Vezax?

[@GoldbondPowder]

IC is the worst RNG bullshit ever. It's not hard, it's that the fight actively trolls you.

[@Brandon-kb1nq]

Players don't want difficulty because they don't want to wipe. This modern playerbase would rather have the content be very easy and never wipe than difficult content that requires progression. Ulduar was hard enough that you can wipe on it, and so it's not being enjoyed by many

[@dennispresiloski3964]

The conversation on my server is that people are "sick and tired" of Ulduar and now "love" ToC!! The exact opposite of sentiment back in the day.

[@TakaChan569]

Is it the best no there are some fights that are a bore(cat lady,kolagron) a few more are annoying, but it is one of the greats and is fun just to go though again on a mage for the first time(was an ele shaman main in retail wotlk).

[@rct6518]

I loved Ulduar overall. 22 weeks was too long & the Vezax transition phase should have been "changed" at some point. I am one who enjoys the increasing "difficulty" in high level raids but I can see why a lot of more casual guilds struggled for a long time in there. Bottom line is: this isn't your Vanilla Classic WoW that you imagine from your childhood any longer. From now on 1/2 your raiders can't be semi-afk with no idea of how to play a class/do mechanics. Those who want face roll raids should go play games with face roll raids imo. There are so many options out there now. Please don't ruin Cataclysm raids/dungeons by complaining how "hard" it is. Those who can't be bothered to coordinate with others or attempt to improve their play should go play something that requires none of that. Cata raids were great (Dargonsoul sucked). I'm 50/50 on playing Cata and waiting to see how they "change" it. If they dumb it down, I'm out. I am quitting WoW for good if/when Ashes of Creation ever comes out anyway.

[@CapOfXav]

Personally I can't wait to do Blackwind Descent and Bastion of Twillight, the best first tier of raiding Blizzard ever released IMO

[@MoonTurky]

Ashes of creation, the next big MMO that will last 1-2 months tops before dying like all the others And then you go back to wow lmao

[@theoutlander1411]

Are you kidding me? Why would you be concerned that Blizzard would "dumb things down" when in WOTLK all they have done is buff?

[@leimerthe]

It was a good raid but doesnt make the top 5 of my favorite raids released so far in classic

[@pjah7226]

For me Classic has been great even tho i played and raided back in the day i play now at a casual level i've done everything i could'nt do back in the day

[@General12th]

Hi Will! I'm looking forward to Cata.