While I agree on Spine with the author, I couldn't disagree more on Madness. When I think of final raid (and expansion) bosses I think of the Lich King or even FL Ragnaros. Multiple phases that are all unique in terms of mechanics and a steady buildup of pressure leading to a hectic few seconds at the end where you don't know if you're going to make it or not.

Maybe its because I saw the fight on raid finder several times before defeating it in normal mode, but Madness has little of this. You have two platforms of naptime, one platform of mild difficulty, one solidly difficult platform, and a final platform of mild difficulty. I think my guild (which is hardly a hardcore top of the line progression team) spend less time on Madness than we did several other fights. From talking to people who've cleared all of heroic DS, most spent more time on H-Spine than they did H-Madness.

This does not scream epic final battle to me. That's not to say DS as a whole is bad, I enjoyed it overall. However Madness just doesn't live up to what it is supposed to be. Rags was definitely the best of the end bosses of this expansion.

As an aside I also disagree regarding number of fights. DS falls in the perfect range for me. It isn't a dozen bosses that will take multiple days to clear even while on farm status, but isn't a quick raid like BoT. I for one am very glad they gave up on the concept of multiple smaller raids that they debuted in T11 content for a compromise between the small and the epically long.

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