Looking Back: Level 60 Naxxramas

[WoRBot]

Carac took an opportunity to return to Naxxramas before it was removed in patch 3.0, and shares his memories of what was the pinnacle of World of Warcraft's pre-expansion era, and quite possibly the pinnacle of the game so far.

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[Kody]

Great job on the article, Carac. I agree completely that Naxxramas is probably still, even today, the best raid instance Blizzard has created.

I remember the first time my guild beat each of the bosses; especially ones like Patchwerk (holy crap was that such an adrenaline rush of an encounter), Loatheb, The Four Horsemen, Sapphiron, and Kel'thuzad. The zone is truly a gem in MMORPG content.

[Tom Phoenix]

When I read the title, I was hoping for a visit of the new Naxxramas from someone who played the old Naxxramas. A good read nevertheless.

[Kody]

Originally Posted by Tom Phoenix

When I read the title, I was hoping for a visit of the new Naxxramas from someone who played the old Naxxramas. A good read nevertheless.

Hm... good point, that was my title choice, but perhaps I should change it to "Looking Back: Level 60 Naxxramas"

However, you bring up a great idea for a followup article in a few weeks.

[thenoid]

honestly with the new 25 man raids I don't see there being anything in the game that will be able to match up to doing level 60 naxx with 40 people

bye naxx

[Mokoshne]

good read.

[MasterLoco]

Good article. Naxxramas is definitely the best designed instance in the game so far. I still think there's no encounter that can beat C'thun in epicness and that the original unnerfed sunwell was harder then Naxxramas ever was, but that doesn't take away the fact that Naxxramas just gave this very epic feeling in general while raiding it. The instance design, the boss encounters, the lore...
15 bosses in a single instance as well. I have to say, there was a downside to having this many bosses in the instance with all the re-clearing. I remember that it took us untill friday night to even just clear upto Sapphiron in the end after which we had sun-mon-tue to progress in Frostwyrm Lair. But still, the feeling of accomplishment after clearing an instance this size was just so much bigger then after clearing all the 4-6 boss instances TBC brought us.

[Kody]

Originally Posted by MasterLoco

Good article. Naxxramas is definitely the best designed instance in the game so far. I still think there's no encounter that can beat C'thun in epicness and that the original unnerfed sunwell was harder then Naxxramas ever was, but that doesn't take away the fact that Naxxramas just gave this very epic feeling in general while raiding it. The instance design, the boss encounters, the lore...
15 bosses in a single instance as well. I have to say, there was a downside to having this many bosses in the instance with all the re-clearing. I remember that it took us untill friday night to even just clear upto Sapphiron in the end after which we had sun-mon-tue to progress in Frostwyrm Lair. But still, the feeling of accomplishment after clearing an instance this size was just so much bigger then after clearing all the 4-6 boss instances TBC brought us.

Absolutely. I hope Icecrown Citadel is as epic as Naxxramas was. But I also hope that we don't have to wait until Icecrown for that epic feeling again, either.

Has anyone done Malygos on beta that can attest to whether or not fighting him feels "epic"?

[Karador]

Nothing in Beta has the Epic feel to it of 40 man Naxx @ 60 did. Naxx 25 is ok but its pretty much a " Here is a 25 man zone that you know every fight in but we released it a little late for Vanilla WoW so let's redo it "


Do not get me wrong..... I Enjoyed Naxx 25 at 80 on the beta but the epic feel had been ripped from it pretty bad ( cleared the whole place on several resets in 3.5-5 hours ) For Example - We did the dance and the only person that died was someone that got DC'd during a dance >.> Frogger is still there and it still WTFPWNS people every time! Good for a laugh after Patchwerk.

The Loot is good from there (T7 and good off pieces ) and will help a ton when the real 25 mans come out though ( 910 top end damage 2H Axe called Betrayer of Humanity from 25 man KT ).


As for Malygos IMO. Fun yes but not epic at all.

[fierystix]

I respectfully disagree. Frostwyrm Lair was cool, but I much prefer the Shrine of the Eclipse and its view of the Sunwell.

And in terms of overall encounter design, Sunwell is by far better. Its only downside was its timing. It was released before the summer, meaning many guilds were reaching the hardest bosses in the game when attrition was reaching its peak. Summer attrition for Naxx occurred primarily during the early bosses, making it easier for guilds to recover from and giving people a rather distorted opinion of each.

Naxx was the best instance produced at the time. And for that it should be remembered. But Sunwell is much more well-rounded in terms of quality over quantity. And because I prefer the art involved in Sunwell over Naxx, I am going to have to disagree.

[Chrono]

My naxx experience is very very limited however the little I've seen if the instance is(was?) very impressive though I'm still a fan of good old MC and BWL

Great article regardless!

[Tom Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Kody

Hm... good point, that was my title choice, but perhaps I should change it to "Looking Back: Level 60 Naxxramas"

However, you bring up a great idea for a followup article in a few weeks.

Looking forward to it.

[rollo]

sunwell fun hmm

wiping on bosses like twins muru and kil jaden 100 + times before a kill

isnt my idea of fun

up to 4 horseman in naxx pre tbc naxx was fun. After that it went downhill fast.
gearing up 6-8 tanks to beat 1 encounter is sheer madness.

as is bringing

11 + healers for twins

muru phase 1 is imba

phase 2 is flawed.

kil jaden is perhaps the best encounter in WOW. Even better than the orginal cthun. ( at least hes killable cthun wasnt)

3 years of hardcore raiding is finally over from my part. Ill be dropping down to casual 10man. For 2 hrs or so on a night with friends.

blizzard have broken whats left of the orginal hardcore game. if you have a list of guilds killing kel tuzed pre tbc. And a list now of whos killing sunwell. Take out nihilum and curse (sk gaming). And whos left of the old top 10

it isnt a pretty site

[beasty34]

I dunno what you expect really rollo, people move on and stop playing, guilds do die or reform! Even in the guilds that still exist from pre TBC such as my own I think you'll find that most of the players playing in it are different players.

Personally I loved spending a lot of time learning an encounter as it feels so damn good to beat it, nobody beat those encounters quickly, some might have spent whole days learning it after the gate came up but the man hours were about the same and that was great.

[Leviathonlx]

I found the Malygos encounter to be pretty epic. I did like the bigger instances though and like how they are going back to that with WotLK (think it was mentioned Ulduar will have over 10 bosses). I enjoyed the instances in the Beta and like how they were balanced for the most part but they were a bit too much on the easy side but that's how starter raids are supposed to be. I'd imagine Ulduar will not be such a pushover.

At least it seems to me that raiding in WotLK is a bit more funner than it was in TBC.

A big part of it has to do with lore since I am so into it. I disliked how in TBC there was no reason for half the raids. For example what are the Naga doing in Serpentshrine (we can only assume making a new Well), why do we kill Gruul, why is a Eredar in Karazhan, and why did we go to The Battle of Mount Hyjal (Blizzard got lazy and rushed it while they worked on BT). The Kael'thas / Burning Legion storyline with TK and later Sunwell was probably the most thought out story of the expansion.

At least with WotLK I know why we are fighting Malygos, why we are going into Naxxramas, why we are going to go into Ulduar and why we go into Icecrown Citadel. Even the Obsidian Sanctum seems like a continuation of the story that started in Shadowmoon and the beginnings of Neltharions plan for making Netherwing/Black Dragon hybrids.

I overall enjoyed the encounters in TBC although I stopped raiding once I got to M'uru as I just found Sunwell to be a half assed instance whose only purpose was to give raiders a bone till WotLK. I found most the encounters to be pretty lame such as the stacking healers for Twins, stacking shamans and locks for M'uru etc. Judging by the loading screen in the files and where files for Quel'danas are stored I really think Quel'danas and Sunwell were meant to be WotLK content that was just pushed since they needed to add something.

I do like the direction they are taking things with raiding with the concept of making things more available. I liked raiding hardcore years ago but unfortunately I do not have the time to spend 30 hours a week learning an encounter any longer. I enjoy the fact that there are no fights anymore (other than unbalanced encounters such as pre-nerf Gruul and Magtheridon or pre-nerf M'uru) that take months to learn.