Black Temple, by contrast, was well-designed, extremely atmospheric and even enjoyable up to a point. The months of farming for certain drops have certainly benumbed many raiders to the instance's charms, but who can forget the first time Naj'entus ever put his shield up and half the raid died? The ability of pretty much everyone to die in a fire during Supremus (we're noticing a theme, here)? Or the way Akama used to be, with controlled side tanking instead of the zerg he is today?

After these three 'easy' bosses, Black Temple started to get fairly challenging, requiring individual competence for Teron, threat management for Bloodboil and a general awareness (plus ability not to kill oneself) for RoS. Plenty of time to practice these while the guild bank accrued enough Hearts of Darkness to fight Mother Shahraz, a fight which required raiders to know how to run away (and, as with others, was nerfed fairly early on). Mother gains a special place in tanks' hearts for being a great fight to alt-tab on, if you were offtanking. Then it was off to pay a visit to the Illidari Council -- provided you got past One-Shot the Robot, of course.

As with Maulgar and Karathress, getting past the hilarity pulls on Council was the first step, then it was up to your raid to not stand in fire, blizzards, consecration or let the Council heal. Note that raid members with a previous attraction to standing in fire will most likely do all of the first three. Initially, Council was a great challenge due to the length of the fight versus the gear levels of the raid, but as the raid started to outgear it, it lost a lot of its difficulty.


Then Illidan. A notable encounter for many reasons, and a difficult one to master the first time. As a fire resist tank, I wiped my raid more times than I wish to remember, due to a strange affinity for eye blasts; the challenges of managing the varied elements of the encounter, including shifts between demon and human forms, repositioning each phase, dealing with shadow demons, dragging Illidan to traps or somehow outhealing the enrage were all hurdles everyone fell to at one point or another. Suddenly, one day, everything went right -- and down he went. Game over.

Or was it? Enter Zul'Aman, a quick ten-man foray that mostly resulted in nice loot for half the raiding population and free bears for the other half. A quick distraction before we really had fun in Sunwell, the guild-killer extraordinaire. An instance that laid accountability at individuals' feet, stretched tanks, healers and DPS to the limits and caused endless arguments over raid composition; we salute you.

To Kalecgos, thanks for giving everyone in the raid some responsibility, and helping us teach people what controlled DPS meant. To Brutallus, the over-hyped DPS check, we miss the sight of tanks falling flat under your big stompy feet. To Felmyst, we wonder aloud why some people think "up" means "down", and we quietly fume at your strict skill requirements for priests (is priest: check. can Mass Dispel reliably: uh-oh). To the Eredar Twins, we are no longer angry when people die to the ledge boss, or conflagrate the raid; we expect it. To M'uru, we wonder if you conspired with the Twins to make our healing and tank rosters as complicated and dissatisfied as possible? Your current state is a joke, but it's only revenge. And to Kil'jaeden, seriously, what's with the "standing in fire" theme? Ok, it's meteors, but you should know by now that we have primeval urges that can't keep us away from them.


The next time most of us see these instances, we'll be level 80 and running them for nostalgic reasons, and what challenge remains in the encounters post-3.0.3 will be all but gone. But thanks for being difficult, and fun, while you lasted. Plus, a personal note of thanks to the guild I saw most of this content with -- though I've moved on, I haven't forgotten some of the great moments, and our Kael'thas kill will always stay with me.

Are you happy to be leaving the past behind, or feeling a little nostalgic? What raiding moment will you most treasure from TBC, and what are you looking forward to in WotLK? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Filed under: Raiding, Ready Check (Raiding)