Twitterers on what makes an epic encounter
by Mike Schramm 
May 14th 2008 at 4:30PM
As you may have heard the other day, our Twitter account is up and running, and one of the most vocal participants so far has been our new Priest blogger, Matticus from World of Matticus. The other day, he posted a question on the Twitter account that he'd also asked people on his own blog: what makes an encounter epic?The answers are all pretty good (I've put them all behind the break -- thanks, Twitterers!). From what most people said, lore and story play a huge part in making a fight feel epic, and not just the story of the game, but the story of the guild playing as well -- when your guild almost wipes, and pulls off a great kill, that's an epic battle whether it's in Karazhan or in Sunwell Plateau. Challenge also helps -- people raid to be pushed to the edge of their endgame abilities, and when a well-tuned fight does that, it's one of the best experiences in the game.
Great answers all -- hopefully we'll get to see more epic encounters than not in the Wrath of the Lich King (as Matticus points out, we don't need 40 or even 25 players to have a truly epic encounter with Arthas). And if you haven't started following our Twitter account (@WoWInsider) yet, please do, and stay tuned for more interesting and informal Twitter polls like this.
lipinski77: Epic encounter: Downing a new boss after 1 wipe with no deaths. Also, all the drops are needed, no DE necessary.
pkdan14850: A fight that the players never know for sure they are going to win until the very end, with all power bars low when they finish.
danielandlions: an "epic" encounter has a large scope. Karazhan feels epic when you're in blues and wiping to learn it. Molten Core felt epic because it took 40 of us. BWL and Naxx the same.
admiraljustin: I'd imagine it is: no matter how good you became, or how scripted the actions, you do something amazing that you can't repeat.
shinmeko: What makes an encounter epic is the skills and grandiose feel the fight imbues the player with. Talent + respectable challenge!
ipwn: a combo of lore, strategy and presentation. Epic: Mags, Vashj, Leo. Nonepic: BM (no strat), Rokmar (no lore), VR (boring pres)
JohnNewsom: I'd consider something to be epic if it produces a good story. Even a wipe can be epic.
isheepthings: the raid/encounter is epic if I am moved to mute vent and turn up the game sound to hear the boss monologue.
danielwhitcomb: Good Lore, Menacing feel to the boss, and clever mechanics to the fight.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, WoW Insider Business, Instances, Raiding, Bosses
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Candina@WH May 14th 2008 4:46PM
Just wanted to comment. I didn't see anyone calling Arena fights epic.
Hmm... this might actually be my first troll. If so, I am sorry, not my actual intention.
dv0rak May 15th 2008 2:56PM
When I (a rogue starting at half-health) stunlock-bandage-stunlock-ed a warrior down from 75% to win a 3s match, that felt pretty epic.
Kaeb May 14th 2008 5:05PM
Let me expand on my "Large Scope" comment. Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and Naxxramas are the most "epic" dungeons yet, in my opinion.
Molten Core because it's the first time you need 40 people. Plus, the first time Ragnaros spawns out of the lava, 40 feet tall and one-shots Majordomo (the boss you just fought tooth and nail), you're in awe. The size and scale of the dungeon is TONS larger than UBRS or Dire Maul.
Blackwing Lair: The Zerg of Orcs for Razorgore
The all-out DPS fest for Vaelastrasz (How many guilds did Vael kill? It was like every day someone broke up over Vael.)
The Suppresion Room and the teamwork that takes
and Nefarian on the balcony make that dungeon day and night more difficult than Zul'Gurub. You would read strategies and think "We have to kill Vael in THREE MINUTES?" or "We have to go through 42 draknoids, THEN start the boss? That's nuts!"
Naxx: 4 wings, a crapton of bosses. Guild in full Tier 2 can't even down the first boss. It was a monumental challenge and almost ended our guild.
As fun as some of the BC dungeons are, the nostalgia for the preBC 40man instances still defines "epic" for me.
slimj091 May 14th 2008 5:55PM
i agree about blackwing lair and molten core.. never got a chance to run naxx before the expansion. however they only felt epic the first few run throughs of the dungeon. once you beat the place and have it on farm status it doesnt really feel epic anymore. your just going through the motions to get gear.
now for me.. a true epic encounter is an encounter that your never sure your raid/group will beat. wether it's the first time or the 100th time. and that can be done with any sized group.
Knucker May 14th 2008 5:29PM
I guess I didn't see the post earlier, but I guess I'll put something in.
My guild has downed Gruul a couple of times when all of the tanks were down and he was running around picking off DPS/healers.
Mister K May 14th 2008 5:36PM
Yeah I noticed no Epic PVP references either so I'll mention one I was in. We won an EOTS 2000 to 1991, by 4 capping when we were down 1991 to 1300 or so. We had been getting stomped and to turn it around at basically the last second like that had everyone in the BG screaming "Epic Win!!" We still talk about that one even weeks later.
Gulbrandt May 14th 2008 7:49PM
When I think "epic", I can't help but think of the Illiad. An epic story is usually one about It's a story about a legendary hero and the many nigh-improbable encounters he/she/they had, and their victory against seemingly impossible odds.
It's going from "We're never going to beat this!" to "We wiped that guy ALL over the floor!" It's all the blood, sweat and tears building up to that moment. It's awe. It's dread. It's cold-sweat desperation. It's elation. "Epic" is something that you will not forget any time soon. "Epic" is something that eventually becomes sweet nostalgia.
I think that's pretty close, IMHO. =)
Chaaos May 14th 2008 9:41PM
If you feel like you accomplished something, then the fight was epic especially if downing the boss was the first time for everyone or nearly everyone, (if it was a raid boss then that means you most likely wiped a few times if everyone is new to it).
Frayzer May 15th 2008 4:28AM
Where do i get epic lager?
Eternalpayn May 15th 2008 7:44AM
The epic liquor store, of course.
Dilana May 15th 2008 9:34AM
For me the most epic thing ever was in Kara against Netherspite with a group that only had like 4/10 that had been in the fight before. We get him down to 15% when five of us go down. He's at 4% when tank goes down. He kills everyone else except our Rogue and our holy pally and then the pally dies leaving the rogue to finish off the last 1.5% by himself.
In my limited raiding experience this was Epic for me. We still call that rogue the Super Rogue.
Rahrnok May 15th 2008 11:26AM
I just recently went back into BRD three man and was astounded with the scale of that simple 5-man. Pre-BC dungeons were HUGE and confusing in comparison to the BC ones... and if the WLK dungeons really turn out to be completable in under and hour, that will really change how the 5-mans feel, yet again. When the scale of the world and the depth of the design suprises you, it can be pretty epic, without there even being an encounter involved.
As far as encounters... I love the ZF encounter on the stairs with swarms of mobs and another 5-man helping you. I love when you blow the horn outside Mara and all the centaurs come and attack you up the ramp. Downing a boss for the first time can always feel pretty epic too.
-Rahr
http://lockandroll.blogspot.com
Archenemy May 15th 2008 2:31PM
PVE best moment:
We did durnholde. We weren't too strong, but somehow we managed to get to the end boss. There some mistakes were made... tank died, boss at 15%... healer died, while boss went down to 10%... dps-es died when the boss had only 2% left...
But someone was still alive... Our king Thrall continued to fight! We all died, couldnt res, we all just watched the battle, screaming Go Thrall Go! Thrall was losing health quickly... Boss is at 1%... Thrall at 20%.... aaaand, with a final strike, Thrall killed the boss!
OMG EPIC WIN! :D
Then i released my spirit, so i didnt completed the quest :/
Best PvP moment:
I got that "1% to reflect a spell" metagem. I have seen a warlock casting fear, and i knew it will be out before i can do anything. Then i see that the warlock finished casting, and begins to run around like mad: spell reflected!
I lolled, and would have forgotten it, but in the same match, after about two minutes, the same warlock came, and tried to fear me again.
And it was reflected again! I laughed so hard, i was barely able to kill him.
Before that i was always thinking on that +18 stam, +5% snare resist pvp gem, but this moment was too sweet, so i decided to keep the reflect gem after all, even if i rarely use the spellcrit bonus on it.
Fishy May 15th 2008 8:52PM
It doesn't necessarily have to be a raid encounter or big endboss type of thing for encounter to be referred to as "epic" in my book. It's those times that you remember fpr months to come, sometimes even years, because you managed to pull something off when all odds were against you and nobody thought it would work out or something similar.
In BC for me it was pretty much Kael'Thas in TK, our guild almost fell apart over him and yet someday we finally managed to down him. After that we truly felt epic.
In the past there's one event that comes to mind right now. This was back when we we're running around in blues and tier1's in vanilla wow, it was a 2 1/2 hour battle against Azuregos in Azshara. Back then I played on a high-pop pvp server with login queue times of more than 20 minutes. So after we had fought it out with the alliance who'd get the first attempt we went ahead and pulled him. Naturally some died to either Azuregos or the alliance who couldn't keep their hand off us. But the real challenge was when due to enormous crowd present many got lags and eventually DCed and then got stuck in a 20 min queue to log back in. So at any given moment of the encounter at least 20, at times even more, were either dead and waiting for their mark debuff to run out or in vent listening to us, while beeing stuck in a 20 min queue. At one point I was the only healer (RShaman) left to keep the tank alive until a few minutes later healers returned from their DC or death.
That was, for me at least, THE most memorable fight ever and it's been years since it happened.
Apart from that of course a few memorable pvp fight that I'd also call epic.