I mean...he is not wrong Violet Hold story is like...we have some prisoners who want to escape. Vs Black Morass recreating the opening of the Black Portal an event that is crucial to the story.
Black Morass was enjoyable in the sense that it was a hurdle to overcome as part of your attunement to Karazhan. Violet Hold was just a bad dungeon with no context to prop it up and make it relevant.
@@CaffeinatedLala I actually like Culling of Stratholme, but that maybe has to do as Mike says that i *didn't play it that many times.* Is pretty much the same category, a good story for a dungeon. Maybe the bosses aren't as good (they are ok). But still from a story perspective a really great dungeon even more cause i get to relive the moments i played in Warcraft3, woudn't be on my top 10 tho, neither of them. I'm just saying that they have more of a contribution and impact than The Violet Hold.
I have a special fondness of Violet Hold, but I do understand why its where it is on the list. His brief mention that there was an unused lower level was new to me, and that would have made it so much more interesting if it was there, such as breaking into it but killing the upper level bosses. What could of been I guess.
BRD is something that probably cant exist in modern WoW and be played by many people more than once in a meaningful way, but GOD DAMN is BRD the absolute formula for what an MMORPG dungeon should be. It's not just going through a place and killing things, it's a literal adventure. It's a whole zone in itself, not just an instance.
Not to mention the enormous number of quest chains that were tied to it, and sent you back in there multiple times, yet often to a different part you hadn't explored yet. The place was indeed a zone onto itself. Back when the Jailbreak quest was about to be removed (wrath pre-patch?) me and some guildies grabbed an alt that hadn't done the Q yet and went back there just to see Marshal Windsor (and - afterwards - Bolvar) kick *ss one more time. So many runs. Yet I don't think I killed Thaurissan more than one or two times. Miss that place. And Dire Maul.
Yeah sadly. If you have a warrior in your party then something special should happen in dungeon similar to covenant shits in shadowlands. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE FIRST OF ITS KIND!
@@dallasscandling6329 The only time I really remember this was the druid boss in darkheart thicket that comments on druids in your party possessing a powerful weapon
I leveled a rogue early last year in Classic and doing ALL of BRD in a single run (over roughly 4 hours) was one of the most fun experiences I've had in a videogame in quite a while.
Could you imagine if they made a 4th Indiana Jones movie with Aliens and magic? It would probably be so bad that people block it from their memory and pretend like it doesn't exist.
The Iron Docks has some of the best dialogue in game, period. "Unleash the saberon and be done with it." "Are... are you sure it's a good idea to let that thing out of its cage? I don't think we've fed it since we found it!" "Put a muzzle on it." "Good idea, sir!" *"I didn't mean the cat."*
I remember popping into Halls of Origination as a Tank/Healer and just wishing there was some low geared player in the party so that I could use them as an excuse to clear the entire thing.
"The Oculus is fine!" Someone didn't main a bear back in wotlk Shift to caster. On the dragon. Fly. Shift to bear. Oops, all that rage you had before was gone. Make your party wait while while you re-get rage. Kill trash. Back to caster. On the dragon. Lose all your rage again. Cry.
Holy shit How could I forget about Deadmines?? This dungeon was also one of my first “true” dungeon experiences in WoW and man, did it have an impact. Even 16 years later I remember how it felt going in there. Such a good one.
The Classic Wow dungeons reflect the designers love for DnD, it was designed with classes and side quests in mind. Like you need keys but if you have a rogue you don't. They have kinda left that design method behind.
Yeah, I understand why they gutted it, but man I was upset when they announced it. ST was a different kind of experience if you ran the whole thing only rivalled by BRD.
I think in "De Other Side" the backtracking is like a nice relaxing moment where you just run and know that you get a break from constant fighting. It breaks up the wings I feel like.
Mr. Smight had the best lines - "You there, check out that noise!" "We're under attack! A vast, ye swabs! Repel the invaders!" "You landlubbers are tougher than I thought. I'll have to improvise!" "D'ah! Now you're making me angry!"
I was so hyped when they introduced a hwrouc version of SFK in Cata since it is my absolute favorite dungeon, then let down so hard when I found out they remade it. Even though the remake wasnt half bad, bosses definitely keep it high.
Skipped straight ahead to The Oculus section. It was so cool and never had a single issue with it before LFD was launched, even when always pugging it. Once the LFD tool launched...Good lord...I had no idea people could be so horrifically bad.
...Same experience leveling up new characters too... Used *_Dungeon Finder_* for leveling up and i discovered just how bad some players are... Notably, it starts to become painfully obvious in almost all four of the *_Auchindoun_* dungeons: (1) *_Auchenai Crypts:_* It's pretty infamous for groups wiping on the very 1st pull. But geez, that 1st Boss where nobody either knows the mechanics, or simply don't care about mechanics & would rather ZERG it, wiping over & over again because of BAD RNG placement of the Bosses DoT stacking up, killing your Top DPS & making the "DPS Race" impossible at that point. (2) *_Sethekk Halls:_* Because it is really embarrassing watching them fail on a very simple LOS (Line-Of-Sight) mechanic on the last boss: Ouch. And then you have (3) *_Mana Tombs_* with a moderate challenge and (4) *_Shadow Labs_* that "upped-the-ante" a bit: And it was surprising that not every group could complete them ? LOL, like WTF ??? Overall, the "PUG Experience" is WILD !!! ...Makes me wonder how I managed to successfully PUG so many Raids back in the day, like for my 25-man *_Magtheridon's Lair_* PUG, i'm thinking a lot of people got "carried", but i don't think anyone got carried when I pugged 25-man *_Sartherion_* 3-Drakes or 10-man Heroic *_Lich King_* ? ...And also, during *_Burning Crusade Classic,_* I remember having to "carry" people doing "GDKP" runs for 25-man *_Black Temple:_* But as far as pugging *_Sunwell Plateau,_* there's no doubt in my mind that nobody got carried: Everyone had to be Top of their game for that raid !!!
Wow, thanks for the nostalgia. Agree with most of your choices, give or take a few positions. I was reminiscing of guild runs and the excitement of discovery, exploration, team work, out of game research, challenge. I haven't had a sub for many months, having played on and off since Feb 2005, but this video is giving me the itch to rejoin, reguild and go exploring again. Thanks Mike
These videos are so good! I love talking about both new and old content but it’s fun to dive into stuff like this and hear your experiences in all of the dungeons/raids etc. Thanks for the great vids!
I agree on waycrest manor. The whole theme and execution of drustvar was probably the best blizz could do with it. It also resembles one of the most iconic questlines in The Witcher 3, the one with the bloody baron and the ladies of the wood, which is by far one of the best gaming experiences I've gone through, so that's a bonus xd Really shows the potential of creepy and mysterious woods with witches lurking within.
Kul Tiras was such a better zone than Zandalar, Drustvar was amazing and waycrest Manor couldn't have been better thematically. What a good dungeon and zone
Like 5 times throughout the 2 parts: Preach: "I know people HATE this one..." Me: "Here we go, finally...." Also Me: "Wait, what? It's not The Oculus?"
Regarding The Oculus: I really treasured that place once I established myself in the expansion. It was actually a lot of fun just putting my ego away and teach people how to do something new and well. That whole expansion was a testament to self-made progress, and the Oculus was a good vehicle (pun?!) to get people started.
Great set of videos, really enjoyed your takes and found myself agreeing or at least seeing your point of view for all of them. Content like this is really fun, retroactively looking at the content we got over the years and the lessons to be learned from that.
Big agree on Halls of Origination. I love when dungeons have optional bosses, and the ones in this dungeon, especially all the ones at the end, were so sick. Riding the camels was sick too.
I think one of the big problems people had with Uldaman was that A. It was huge B. It's level range was even bigger. It covered like mid 30s to mid to late 40s at the end. So you just got hammered as you went on. Still fun though.
Something I realized with the previous video that I miss is bosses that start with adds. We get plenty that spawn adds, but I can't think of any boss that started with adds more recent than the first boss in Halls of Lightning. And just to pitch in with Occulus - I liked quite a lot, too. The only issue I had was having to mount up, fly to a platform, clear it, mount up, fly to a platform, clear it, and so on. The aerial combat was lacking in terms of quality and quantity, so riding around felt a little tedious. I didn't run it much (perhaps not at all) in between LFD being introduced and the extra bag being introduced, so I had little experience with people leaving.
This video makes me think of 2 main things: 1) some of the best memories that a lot of wow players have (including myself) is in dungeons. Dungeons are one of the best parts of world of warcraft, and despite the other BS we sometimes have to deal with in wow, blizzard have always made great dungeons. Why they dont just scrap all the other BS and make 15 dungeons for each expansion i have no idea. 2) there is a big hole in the modern game where the classic long form dungeons used to be. They abandoned the idea of the long form dungeon in tbc and replaced it with winged dungeons. Never since vanilla has it felt like we are going on a long adventure into the unknown dungeon. The massive uncharted underground mystery was replaced with shorter more gamified experiences. I love modern dungeons, and there is definitely a place for them, a big place. I just wish there were still larger slower dungeons, that we could just go and explore. I know the mega dungeons are a bit closer to this, but its still so gamified, with the standard 5xtrash pack followed by boss formula. I wish they would just make some dungeons for fun, that werent linked into the M+ system that were just there for us to explore, like deadmines was, or BRD, or uldaman. wishful thinking i guess, cos it isnt replayable. (it was though, i remember playing them multiple times... right?)
I think of the ICC dungeons as a package like Dire Maul. Getting in a group when they came out that went all the way through was a great experience even if some of the individual segments were weak.
I'm glad I'm not alone in my love for Shadowfang. I used to LOVE those level 20 class quests that always send you to SK to find some rare items to forge some new gear. I loved the atmosphere and the feel of sieging a castle filled with werewolves and the black magi that summon them. I'm really upset the Worgen in classic never really had anything else like this because of how good it was.
I used to lead Deadmine groups for the lowbies in my leveling guild back in BC, and loved seeing their reactions to clicking the cannon to blow open the door and stuff---I used to get asked whether attacking Mr. Smite would mark them PvP lol
After seeing part 1 and part 2 of your list, I got to revisit most of the dungeons myself. I can't decide between my top 3, but they are Deadmines, Halls of Lightning and UBRS. All of them for so very different reasons that I feel it would be unfair to "derank" one of them.
Temple of the Jade Serpent was really fun when you were trying to get the speedrun achievement at the start of the expac. having to try and do it within the time limit was really thrilling.
SFK is when WoW starts to hit its stride, when classes start to turn on and the combat gets great. Will always have fond memories of becoming more powerful through SFK runs back in my noob days
the mechanar was regarded as one of the easiest heroics to complete when TBC was current. it was one of the few heroic dungeons I was able to reliably clear as a child tank.
Tol Dagor is so good that the footage we see right here shows someone not allowed to LoS a garbage mechanic through a 75 ton giant canon. It's an objectively disgusting piece of insulting design only surpassed by the eternally boring violet holds (not even worth capitalizing the first letters). Here's why: - The first boss as no clear indication of what its arena is so anyone can randomly reset him without a single clue. - The crocodiles put a stacking debuff made to slow down the pace, make smaller pulls, or force the tank to kite, all of which are very bad on the fun-o-meter. - There's fucking runners in almost every pack inside. - Some walls have huge bug with LoS issues making players "accidently" pull extra stuff through walls. - Some packs in the corners where there's a kind of bar have that one mob patrolling and it's never clear where its link with the rest of the pack breaks so you're either forced to wait for the limit of it's pating to pull it or wait until it's completely rejoined the rest of the pack to skip that whole pull. - All the shooter mobs take FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORREEEEEEEEEEVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER to follow the tank trying to LoS them or straight up fucking ignore him even if he's top threat just to shoot their goddamn garbage at other people in sight. - Some packs require an ungodly amount of interrupts to be done at a respectable pace, that's fine with an organized group of friends or experienced players but the average clown make this design pretty annoying. - The last boss stun mechanic feels just so fucking bad man, the whole concept feels cancerous, a movement limitation in a fight where if you move incorrectly you get 1 shot AND there's forced movement that forces people to either be parked in a shit spot or get knocked around in a bad place anyway, the fight is just not fun even in the smoothest run and if it's not fun it has no place in a video game. Also, the snipe mechanic, to this day, is still very unclear for the vast majority of players even those who ran very high keys, that is mostly due to the icon not changing so people don't understand the difference between the first and second shot on someone also no visual queue whatsoever other than the debuff on the unit frame which is a giant problem since very often you'll need a dps to take the shot for someone else and we all know these dumb ass dps players who never look at their party frame or straight up don't even have that on their screen, let alone understand what debuffs look like. - The explosive barrel boss is fine with experienced players but the mechanic is very hard to understand for most players because the natural way to do it is to tank the boss in a corner, so when people go grab barrels their camera is not looking at the boss facing them to blast their ass and the game offers no other sign of where this is landing so most people just get bukkake'd by fire. - The worgen boss was bugged forever, would sometimes randomly pull from the floor bellow or through his prison wall, the channeled stun he (or the add) does shows up as uninterruptible even tho it can be interrupted. And why the hell does he open the EMPTY FUCKING JAIL CELLS?!??! HE SEES IT'S EMPTY WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
I love so many of the top picks...LBRS, The Oculus, Sunken Temple, Waycrest Manor, SfK, BRD, Halls of Origination, Scholomance. Thanks for showing some love to some of the VERY underappreciated dungeons.
I do think that the difficulty in getting *to* and/or getting groups *for* dungeons back in the day kind of dialed up the "epicness" (so to speak) of the experience. As you said, it was a real journey. When my younger siblings later on showed me random dungeon finder in whichever new expansion was their entry into WoW, I was kind of appalled lmao. Convenient to be sure, but I sort of feel like high levels of convenience is one of the things that counterintuitively makes certain games far less fun to play (including WoW).
I get why they remade some of them, but also having those longer dungeons was really great. With M+ we probably won't have anything like them again because they have to be balanced around speed and efficiency. I remember getting so lost in BRD. It felt like a run could take all day. I was just a kid so I only got to full clear it a handful of times before TBC because of just how much of a time investment it was.
I absolutely agree with your top 10. The big dungeons they just hit different. They are epic stories with a lot of challenge and story and it was an epic journey everytime. Checking how far you could come. I havent done the return to karazan in the original state. But even as a transmog run it is epic.
@Mike An amazing series :) I hope one day you do this for FF14 as well. This was all smiles even when you crapped on some of my favorite dungeons in your part one Sir :)
Man I remember running BRD so much during leveling in vanilla, then running it so many times for Fire resist gear... Same with BRS... I miss the days of vanilla (original, not remake) where the dungeons really could wow (no pun intended) you while playing them. TBC was like that too for the most part.
Thanks for this list Preach. I agree with all of what you expressed in your final few dungeons. A solid reminder we will never be able to recapture the discovery and mystery of classic WoW dungeons. It was truly unique and modern video game demands would never allow this to happen again with such a budget, probably. I say probably because I remain hopeful that one day some new game will instill the same feelings I had back then.
I have really loved these two videos, been such fun taking a trip down memory lane with Preach! Although, please correct me if I'm wrong, but, was Plageufall missing?
The TBC Wrath and Classic dungeons were awesome. The thing with those were that you ran with folks on your server, either guild or trade chat recruits. Sometimes the simplest mechanics were the best check, like the gap to jump in WC going to the last boss. Still have PTSD from Sunken Temple though
I ABSOLUTELY agree on shadowfang keep and sunken temple! I hold these dungeons responsible for keeping me hooked to the game. As I leveled up, shadowfang keep, a werewolf castle with that music, just gorgeous. Thats what you want from any MMO ! As for sunken temple, i very fondly remember my first run to take more than 4 hours with a group of 1 rl friend and 3 pugs who all stayed until the end. We were all new to the dungeon and had to figure out everything on our own. That was probably my purest experience in the entire game. Even finding the entrance was hard for us back than. I was so very sad when the catacylsm just devided it into multiple layers and the whole feeling of exploring a temple was simply lost. It's understandable because people today would just leave anyway but heck, THAT was the essence of dungeons!
I love the oculus. I don't know if it was the daily or the weekly reward where you have to complete the Oculus on heroic, but when I would answer someone's call for it in trade chat, and they did the Inquisition questions about if I knew what to do with what dragon and so on so forth, I felt like I was part of a small group that actually knew how to do the dungeon right. When you got people who understand that dungeon, it's a great dungeon when you got someone who doesn't or when they added lfg to the game, that is one of the worst dungeons you could be in
I will fight you on the Kael'thas encounter. MgT is my favorite dungeon to this day, and beyond even Kael'thas being my favorite villain, "I'll turn your world... upside down" absolutely blew my mind the first time I saw it. Once you know the mechanic, sure, maybe not incredibly interesting, but for its time (which is something you kept saying), the Kael fight is legendary, thematic, cinematic, had that wow factor that so many bosses can't pull of today because we've seen it all.
I love these videos! Also Tol Dagor was really cool when it worked but as someone that was often there doing higher keys with friends it was far more likely for stuff to be pulled from other floors and kill the key than for the run to work properly which is why its not remembered well.
I mean its way more than that. And mythic plus dungeons are really fun to some people. Also his number one dungeon which i kind of agree with was the first mega dungeon. And the second one would have been in top 10.
The Black Morass placement is complete nostalgia. It's got the exact same problems as the Violet Hold dungeons. The Assault on Violet Hold (Legion) had better bosses so even the 'good bosses' excuse doesn't work for it.
Sunken Temple of Atal'Hakkar is probably my favorite dungeon of all time, purely because of nostalgia. As a little noob in late TBC, I was leveling got a quest for the dungeon. I think it was connected to the Hakkar quest from Tanaris, but I could be wrong. Upon reaching the Sunken Temple I realized it was a dungeon. Another player around my level was waiting outside and invited me to join his group with his higher level friend. His friend was high enough level that it wasn't a problem for us to do it as a three person group, but none of us could heal or resurrect, if I remember correctly. None of us were experienced with the dungeon, so it ended up being a two hour trip when factoring in getting lost and dying to patrolling trash. To go through everything in the upper part and finally figuring out the mirrors only to do all the trash and bosses at the very bottom was just so amazing. It really sucks that the dungeon was gutted later in Cataclysm.
I really wish we'd see something like BRD again. All the optional bosses, side objectives like coffer keys, and events like the Grim Guzzler REALLY set it apart from other dungeons. Linear dungeons have their place as shorter quicker runs that can be more packed with detail, some of which I really love like SM and SFK. But man something about these expansive dungeons really make me feel like I'm in a lair , or in an underground Dwarven city, or a ruined night elf city like DM. I can't really say what my all time favorite dungeon is but BRD is 100 percent in my top 5. Your comparison of the sheer creativity of it compared to some of the stuff nowadays, couldnt have said it better myself.
I'll always remember Tab target pulling when you get to the ship in Deadmines. Gotta love an early level dungeon that teaches you how the game works and give you some tools for what is to come.
1 of the biggest reason people hate some of those dungeons is because of timewalking. When timewalking week is out, blizzard send people only to 2-3 same dungeons over and over and over over and over. People do the same dungeons so many freaking time they vomits at the end and they will hate those dungeons for the rest of the time.
I unfortunately didn’t raid in TBC. But yes, return to Kara was so good. You had some questionable dungeons at the end and I was worried for the last one lol
The funny thing about WCM is that I preferred playing as Horde because just having Lady Waycrest roast your group the whole time was better than the "real" RP with Lucille.
My Top 10 Favorite Dungeons in WoW are: 1: Return to Kara 2: Magister's Terrace 3: Blackrock Depths 4: Halls of Origination 5: Da Other Side 6: The Mechanaar 7: Pit of Saron 8: Well of Eternity 9: Skyreach 10: Tol Dagor
Think you nailed it on the head with everything you said about classic dungeons, perhaps they do benefit from some nostalgia points but it still feels epic going back in now with leveling characters to do ZF, SFK, deadmines, sunken temple, Uldaman. Uldaman and ZF always stuck out to me. Told a story and had epic visuals and general feel. It's a shame that hasn't been quite reproduced.
Deadmines, in my opinion, is utterly unrivalled in the top spot. The first dungeon I ever ran with a few pugs and my brother, we ran it over and over into the early hours of the morning. Then, when Classic came out, myself and 4 of my chums entered the Deadmines at about 11pm. We finally killed VanCleef at 4am. We took our time, enjoyed the dungeon, wiped a few times. I was the only veteren player of the group and acted as our guide, and I was delighted to see that there were parts that I'd forgotten or misremembered, because it felt like I was discovering this truly wonderful place all over again. My friends and I eventually stopped playing together, and most of them stopped playing Classic completely, but that night we shared will be one of the most treasured memories I have. Not just in my gaming experience, but my life as a whole.
Preach: Violet Hold is dead last
Also Preach: I love Black Morass
I mean...he is not wrong Violet Hold story is like...we have some prisoners who want to escape. Vs Black Morass recreating the opening of the Black Portal an event that is crucial to the story.
@@Gef105 ok, culling of stratholm is bottom 5.
Black Morass was enjoyable in the sense that it was a hurdle to overcome as part of your attunement to Karazhan. Violet Hold was just a bad dungeon with no context to prop it up and make it relevant.
@@CaffeinatedLala I actually like Culling of Stratholme, but that maybe has to do as Mike says that i *didn't play it that many times.*
Is pretty much the same category, a good story for a dungeon. Maybe the bosses aren't as good (they are ok). But still from a story perspective a really great dungeon even more cause i get to relive the moments i played in Warcraft3, woudn't be on my top 10 tho, neither of them. I'm just saying that they have more of a contribution and impact than The Violet Hold.
I have a special fondness of Violet Hold, but I do understand why its where it is on the list. His brief mention that there was an unused lower level was new to me, and that would have made it so much more interesting if it was there, such as breaking into it but killing the upper level bosses. What could of been I guess.
BRD is something that probably cant exist in modern WoW and be played by many people more than once in a meaningful way, but GOD DAMN is BRD the absolute formula for what an MMORPG dungeon should be. It's not just going through a place and killing things, it's a literal adventure. It's a whole zone in itself, not just an instance.
You nailed it... an adventure. I miss those dungeons. By the time you made it out of there.. you were all adding each other to your friend lists.
Not to mention the enormous number of quest chains that were tied to it, and sent you back in there multiple times, yet often to a different part you hadn't explored yet. The place was indeed a zone onto itself.
Back when the Jailbreak quest was about to be removed (wrath pre-patch?) me and some guildies grabbed an alt that hadn't done the Q yet and went back there just to see Marshal Windsor (and - afterwards - Bolvar) kick *ss one more time. So many runs. Yet I don't think I killed Thaurissan more than one or two times.
Miss that place. And Dire Maul.
@Tristan Jaxen yea, I've been using Kaldrostream for since november myself :)
@Tristan Jaxen Yea, been using kaldrostream for years myself :D
@Tristan Jaxen Definitely, have been using KaldroStream for since november myself :D
The Totalbiscuit clips caught me off guard
Rest in peace
agree
Halls of valor is less cool if your a warrior, cuz it's like " oh this place i hang out in has enemies now"
Yeah sadly. If you have a warrior in your party then something special should happen in dungeon similar to covenant shits in shadowlands. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE FIRST OF ITS KIND!
@@dallasscandling6329 The only time I really remember this was the druid boss in darkheart thicket that comments on druids in your party possessing a powerful weapon
@@Wahligma he says that anyway if you're all in heirlooms.
Thats how i feel about Castle Nathria as a Venthyr. Its just more red vampires like i dont see enough of them in revendreth every single day.
I leveled a rogue early last year in Classic and doing ALL of BRD in a single run (over roughly 4 hours) was one of the most fun experiences I've had in a videogame in quite a while.
Brd full runs are such an epic experience.
you have not warcrafted til you do BRD in its entirety at-level
I did not know it was gonna be 4 hours until about 3 hours in. Still an awesome time
I also played a rogue in vanilla and classic and BRD was fantastic on a full run. Same with LBRS and UBRS.
The way they gutted Sunken Temple where about 80% of the dungeon is completely gone is utterly criminal.
shrunken temple :(
I totally forgot how much more dungeon there was back in the old ST. You just sent me back in time back to 2005. Thank you.
Sunkent temple was good dungeon even when it was big..but for example new wailing caverns vs old the new is better
I honestly still think about this to this day
@@SapoQLxd the water was cold
This 2 part series goes to show that Preach wants an Indiana Jones MMO that just goes off the rails into aliens and magic.
Could you imagine if they made a 4th Indiana Jones movie with Aliens and magic? It would probably be so bad that people block it from their memory and pretend like it doesn't exist.
Send in Brann Bronzebeard
Me, jokingly: "I can excuse aliens, but i draw the line at refrigerators with exaggerated sturdiness."
Me, also jokingly: "You can excuse aliens?"
The Iron Docks has some of the best dialogue in game, period. "Unleash the saberon and be done with it."
"Are... are you sure it's a good idea to let that thing out of its cage? I don't think we've fed it since we found it!"
"Put a muzzle on it."
"Good idea, sir!"
*"I didn't mean the cat."*
I love Theater of Pain, it's SUCH a well-realized version of what it wants to be, a coliseum of champions from all over Maldraxxus!
Trash is pretty trash though.
It’s a cool dungeon if it were a normal dungeon, for m+ it’s trash, literally no choices
Its only Bad if people dont Kick bonespear, necroball Volleys and the plague. Rest of the trash is super easy.
@@Shyftus no, you obviously don't do high keys lol
@@bithon5242 enlighten me what you feel the difficulty with TOP is 😉
As a long-time PUG healer, the Oculus is my Vietnam.
It's the worst!!!
As a tank I will leave is 100% of the time I will for the rest of time
It was horrible to heal the last boss until i just asked them all to be on the ground and i would heal without the stupid healing drake.
@@jenat82 if it didn’t have vehicles I could tolerate it
That fucking dungeon... I had to use the green dragon even if I went as dps because no one knew how to use the dragon
> Skyreach
AHHHH SKYREACH, I'VE NOT BEEN CLOSE TO HER IN MANY YEARS.
did you farm it for raw gold by chance?
Skyreach is top tier
You really stepped up the content lately, it’s awesome
Source: TotalBiscuit .... man, that hurts.
Remember, reject Sadge, return to FeelsStrongMan.
@@itskhro T_T
Rest in Peace, John.
Remember don’t ignore a bleeding ass
And for that it’s time, for your daily grind!
I remember popping into Halls of Origination as a Tank/Healer and just wishing there was some low geared player in the party so that I could use them as an excuse to clear the entire thing.
"The Oculus is fine!"
Someone didn't main a bear back in wotlk
Shift to caster. On the dragon. Fly. Shift to bear. Oops, all that rage you had before was gone. Make your party wait while while you re-get rage. Kill trash. Back to caster. On the dragon. Lose all your rage again. Cry.
Holy shit How could I forget about Deadmines?? This dungeon was also one of my first “true” dungeon experiences in WoW and man, did it have an impact. Even 16 years later I remember how it felt going in there. Such a good one.
Here is a notification to get you to remember that good memory now 19/20 years later :)
The resurgence of the wonderful compilation videos give me hope that the Legacy of the Druid may come someday :)
The Classic Wow dungeons reflect the designers love for DnD, it was designed with classes and side quests in mind. Like you need keys but if you have a rogue you don't. They have kinda left that design method behind.
I wish they returned to it. Dnd is still popular today for a reason. It’s immersive, fun and it’s an adventure. I miss those types of dungeons so much
Violet Hold: Worst dungeon of all time
Violet Hold in the woods (Black Morass): Love it
You ok Preach?
They're literally the same dungeon reskinned lol
He liked Scholo, but didn't like Strath; that's as much evidence as you need.
@@someguy9970 BRD is the best dungeon in WoW though.
@@someguy9970 There's no point in doing it, just like there's no point in playing Classic until pre-patch.
Scholo is far better than strath in all fairness.
I was so sad when I came back to Wow after a 5 year break, entered Atal Hakkar, and realised that half of it was gone.
Yeah, I understand why they gutted it, but man I was upset when they announced it. ST was a different kind of experience if you ran the whole thing only rivalled by BRD.
all of the remade dungeons are worse imo. all they are are shorter. boring...
3:27 holy crap its Totalbiscuit! Man I miss the guy a lot... his content was top notch. May he rest in peace.
yes I loved him. I recently told a guildie about his guides and he told me he died. He should get a NPC in WoW.
@@jackphilipsen452 he was very critical of it and stopped playing eventually
@@Pau1T so did reckful and he got one
Waycrest Manor was my jam: digging through the ditches, burning through the witches, wicker monsters, pig faces, and finally, "Your Mother..."
I think in "De Other Side" the backtracking is like a nice relaxing moment where you just run and know that you get a break from constant fighting. It breaks up the wings I feel like.
Mr. Smight had the best lines -
"You there, check out that noise!"
"We're under attack! A vast, ye swabs! Repel the invaders!"
"You landlubbers are tougher than I thought. I'll have to improvise!"
"D'ah! Now you're making me angry!"
So good they brought him back in MoP for a toy
Thoroughly enjoyed P1 and P2 of this list, Preach. The nostalgia was off the charts at times.
So glad you rated deadmines & SFK so high. I loved them so much and I was absolutely devastated when they remade them
I was so hyped when they introduced a hwrouc version of SFK in Cata since it is my absolute favorite dungeon, then let down so hard when I found out they remade it. Even though the remake wasnt half bad, bosses definitely keep it high.
Modern dungeons are very polished and thought out, but hot damn Classic dungeons are the pinnacle of RPG in wow.
"I will fight anyone who disputes that" (Throne of Tides). Sir, the gloves have come off. Raise your fists!
I’m with Preach on Maw of Souls I loved that dungeon. First time doing it killing the first boss hitting the horn and being on a boat was amazing
Skipped straight ahead to The Oculus section. It was so cool and never had a single issue with it before LFD was launched, even when always pugging it. Once the LFD tool launched...Good lord...I had no idea people could be so horrifically bad.
...Same experience leveling up new characters too... Used *_Dungeon Finder_* for leveling up and i discovered just how bad some players are... Notably, it starts to become painfully obvious in almost all four of the *_Auchindoun_* dungeons:
(1) *_Auchenai Crypts:_* It's pretty infamous for groups wiping on the very 1st pull.
But geez, that 1st Boss where nobody either knows the mechanics, or simply don't care about mechanics & would rather ZERG it, wiping over & over again because of BAD RNG placement of the Bosses DoT stacking up, killing your Top DPS & making the "DPS Race" impossible at that point.
(2) *_Sethekk Halls:_* Because it is really embarrassing watching them fail on a very simple LOS (Line-Of-Sight) mechanic on the last boss: Ouch.
And then you have (3) *_Mana Tombs_* with a moderate challenge and (4) *_Shadow Labs_* that "upped-the-ante" a bit: And it was surprising that not every group could complete them ? LOL, like WTF ???
Overall, the "PUG Experience" is WILD !!! ...Makes me wonder how I managed to successfully PUG so many Raids back in the day, like for my 25-man *_Magtheridon's Lair_* PUG, i'm thinking a lot of people got "carried", but i don't think anyone got carried when I pugged 25-man *_Sartherion_* 3-Drakes or 10-man Heroic *_Lich King_* ?
...And also, during *_Burning Crusade Classic,_* I remember having to "carry" people doing "GDKP" runs for 25-man *_Black Temple:_* But as far as pugging *_Sunwell Plateau,_* there's no doubt in my mind that nobody got carried: Everyone had to be Top of their game for that raid !!!
Wow, thanks for the nostalgia. Agree with most of your choices, give or take a few positions. I was reminiscing of guild runs and the excitement of discovery, exploration, team work, out of game research, challenge. I haven't had a sub for many months, having played on and off since Feb 2005, but this video is giving me the itch to rejoin, reguild and go exploring again. Thanks Mike
'waiting to see where tol dagor is on the list' ive never felt so called out
These videos are so good! I love talking about both new and old content but it’s fun to dive into stuff like this and hear your experiences in all of the dungeons/raids etc. Thanks for the great vids!
I agree on waycrest manor. The whole theme and execution of drustvar was probably the best blizz could do with it. It also resembles one of the most iconic questlines in The Witcher 3, the one with the bloody baron and the ladies of the wood, which is by far one of the best gaming experiences I've gone through, so that's a bonus xd Really shows the potential of creepy and mysterious woods with witches lurking within.
Kul Tiras was such a better zone than Zandalar, Drustvar was amazing and waycrest Manor couldn't have been better thematically. What a good dungeon and zone
Like 5 times throughout the 2 parts:
Preach: "I know people HATE this one..."
Me: "Here we go, finally...."
Also Me: "Wait, what? It's not The Oculus?"
Regarding The Oculus: I really treasured that place once I established myself in the expansion. It was actually a lot of fun just putting my ego away and teach people how to do something new and well. That whole expansion was a testament to self-made progress, and the Oculus was a good vehicle (pun?!) to get people started.
Great set of videos, really enjoyed your takes and found myself agreeing or at least seeing your point of view for all of them.
Content like this is really fun, retroactively looking at the content we got over the years and the lessons to be learned from that.
What I liked about the undead kings that get raised at the end is that they make an appearance in Halls of Valor. A nice touch
Big agree on Halls of Origination. I love when dungeons have optional bosses, and the ones in this dungeon, especially all the ones at the end, were so sick. Riding the camels was sick too.
I think one of the big problems people had with Uldaman was that
A. It was huge
B. It's level range was even bigger. It covered like mid 30s to mid to late 40s at the end. So you just got hammered as you went on.
Still fun though.
Doesnt help that the quests you had to do outside the instance were really tedious , the instance itself is great though.
Something I realized with the previous video that I miss is bosses that start with adds. We get plenty that spawn adds, but I can't think of any boss that started with adds more recent than the first boss in Halls of Lightning.
And just to pitch in with Occulus - I liked quite a lot, too. The only issue I had was having to mount up, fly to a platform, clear it, mount up, fly to a platform, clear it, and so on. The aerial combat was lacking in terms of quality and quantity, so riding around felt a little tedious. I didn't run it much (perhaps not at all) in between LFD being introduced and the extra bag being introduced, so I had little experience with people leaving.
Glad SFK is so high. Absolutely loved that dungeon and Arugal and the worgen was such a compelling story for me while leveling back in Vanilla
This video makes me think of 2 main things:
1) some of the best memories that a lot of wow players have (including myself) is in dungeons. Dungeons are one of the best parts of world of warcraft, and despite the other BS we sometimes have to deal with in wow, blizzard have always made great dungeons. Why they dont just scrap all the other BS and make 15 dungeons for each expansion i have no idea.
2) there is a big hole in the modern game where the classic long form dungeons used to be. They abandoned the idea of the long form dungeon in tbc and replaced it with winged dungeons. Never since vanilla has it felt like we are going on a long adventure into the unknown dungeon. The massive uncharted underground mystery was replaced with shorter more gamified experiences. I love modern dungeons, and there is definitely a place for them, a big place. I just wish there were still larger slower dungeons, that we could just go and explore. I know the mega dungeons are a bit closer to this, but its still so gamified, with the standard 5xtrash pack followed by boss formula. I wish they would just make some dungeons for fun, that werent linked into the M+ system that were just there for us to explore, like deadmines was, or BRD, or uldaman. wishful thinking i guess, cos it isnt replayable. (it was though, i remember playing them multiple times... right?)
You and I have very very similar memories. Glad you brought up Shadowfang!, scholomance and redone Karazan!!!
I think of the ICC dungeons as a package like Dire Maul. Getting in a group when they came out that went all the way through was a great experience even if some of the individual segments were weak.
I'm glad I'm not alone in my love for Shadowfang. I used to LOVE those level 20 class quests that always send you to SK to find some rare items to forge some new gear. I loved the atmosphere and the feel of sieging a castle filled with werewolves and the black magi that summon them. I'm really upset the Worgen in classic never really had anything else like this because of how good it was.
How can you talk about old school Deadmines and not mention Mr. Smite's voice?!
I used to lead Deadmine groups for the lowbies in my leveling guild back in BC, and loved seeing their reactions to clicking the cannon to blow open the door and stuff---I used to get asked whether attacking Mr. Smite would mark them PvP lol
After seeing part 1 and part 2 of your list, I got to revisit most of the dungeons myself. I can't decide between my top 3, but they are Deadmines, Halls of Lightning and UBRS. All of them for so very different reasons that I feel it would be unfair to "derank" one of them.
Temple of the Jade Serpent was really fun when you were trying to get the speedrun achievement at the start of the expac. having to try and do it within the time limit was really thrilling.
RIP TotalBiscuit. ❤️
58:44 It took me until *here* to realize that you were playing Stellaris music in the background! And I have been listening to that for 1500 hours!
Still remember the first time I ever did deadmines with some IRL friends (going in blind)
Defining moment of my life.
Deadmines was definitely what really hooked me into the game initially.
SFK is when WoW starts to hit its stride, when classes start to turn on and the combat gets great. Will always have fond memories of becoming more powerful through SFK runs back in my noob days
the mechanar was regarded as one of the easiest heroics to complete when TBC was current. it was one of the few heroic dungeons I was able to reliably clear as a child tank.
Tol Dagor is so good that the footage we see right here shows someone not allowed to LoS a garbage mechanic through a 75 ton giant canon.
It's an objectively disgusting piece of insulting design only surpassed by the eternally boring violet holds (not even worth capitalizing the first letters).
Here's why:
- The first boss as no clear indication of what its arena is so anyone can randomly reset him without a single clue.
- The crocodiles put a stacking debuff made to slow down the pace, make smaller pulls, or force the tank to kite, all of which are very bad on the fun-o-meter.
- There's fucking runners in almost every pack inside.
- Some walls have huge bug with LoS issues making players "accidently" pull extra stuff through walls.
- Some packs in the corners where there's a kind of bar have that one mob patrolling and it's never clear where its link with the rest of the pack breaks so you're either forced to wait for the limit of it's pating to pull it or wait until it's completely rejoined the rest of the pack to skip that whole pull.
- All the shooter mobs take FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORREEEEEEEEEEVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER to follow the tank trying to LoS them or straight up fucking ignore him even if he's top threat just to shoot their goddamn garbage at other people in sight.
- Some packs require an ungodly amount of interrupts to be done at a respectable pace, that's fine with an organized group of friends or experienced players but the average clown make this design pretty annoying.
- The last boss stun mechanic feels just so fucking bad man, the whole concept feels cancerous, a movement limitation in a fight where if you move incorrectly you get 1 shot AND there's forced movement that forces people to either be parked in a shit spot or get knocked around in a bad place anyway, the fight is just not fun even in the smoothest run and if it's not fun it has no place in a video game. Also, the snipe mechanic, to this day, is still very unclear for the vast majority of players even those who ran very high keys, that is mostly due to the icon not changing so people don't understand the difference between the first and second shot on someone also no visual queue whatsoever other than the debuff on the unit frame which is a giant problem since very often you'll need a dps to take the shot for someone else and we all know these dumb ass dps players who never look at their party frame or straight up don't even have that on their screen, let alone understand what debuffs look like.
- The explosive barrel boss is fine with experienced players but the mechanic is very hard to understand for most players because the natural way to do it is to tank the boss in a corner, so when people go grab barrels their camera is not looking at the boss facing them to blast their ass and the game offers no other sign of where this is landing so most people just get bukkake'd by fire.
- The worgen boss was bugged forever, would sometimes randomly pull from the floor bellow or through his prison wall, the channeled stun he (or the add) does shows up as uninterruptible even tho it can be interrupted. And why the hell does he open the EMPTY FUCKING JAIL CELLS?!??! HE SEES IT'S EMPTY WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
I love so many of the top picks...LBRS, The Oculus, Sunken Temple, Waycrest Manor, SfK, BRD, Halls of Origination, Scholomance. Thanks for showing some love to some of the VERY underappreciated dungeons.
The vanilla dungeons hold such a special place because the journey it took to get to them and also to run through them
I do think that the difficulty in getting *to* and/or getting groups *for* dungeons back in the day kind of dialed up the "epicness" (so to speak) of the experience. As you said, it was a real journey. When my younger siblings later on showed me random dungeon finder in whichever new expansion was their entry into WoW, I was kind of appalled lmao. Convenient to be sure, but I sort of feel like high levels of convenience is one of the things that counterintuitively makes certain games far less fun to play (including WoW).
I get why they remade some of them, but also having those longer dungeons was really great. With M+ we probably won't have anything like them again because they have to be balanced around speed and efficiency. I remember getting so lost in BRD. It felt like a run could take all day. I was just a kid so I only got to full clear it a handful of times before TBC because of just how much of a time investment it was.
That moment you realize the Stellaris Music in the background
I absolutely agree with your top 10. The big dungeons they just hit different. They are epic stories with a lot of challenge and story and it was an epic journey everytime. Checking how far you could come. I havent done the return to karazan in the original state. But even as a transmog run it is epic.
@Mike An amazing series :) I hope one day you do this for FF14 as well. This was all smiles even when you crapped on some of my favorite dungeons in your part one Sir :)
Man I remember running BRD so much during leveling in vanilla, then running it so many times for Fire resist gear... Same with BRS... I miss the days of vanilla (original, not remake) where the dungeons really could wow (no pun intended) you while playing them. TBC was like that too for the most part.
Thanks for this list Preach. I agree with all of what you expressed in your final few dungeons. A solid reminder we will never be able to recapture the discovery and mystery of classic WoW dungeons. It was truly unique and modern video game demands would never allow this to happen again with such a budget, probably. I say probably because I remain hopeful that one day some new game will instill the same feelings I had back then.
“ I don’t know where to go” Mike: “UP UP UP”
I have really loved these two videos, been such fun taking a trip down memory lane with Preach! Although, please correct me if I'm wrong, but, was Plageufall missing?
Thank you, Mike, for putting the Return to Karazhan at #1. I agree entirely. And the Mechagon dungeons are awesome too.
The TBC Wrath and Classic dungeons were awesome. The thing with those were that you ran with folks on your server, either guild or trade chat recruits. Sometimes the simplest mechanics were the best check, like the gap to jump in WC going to the last boss. Still have PTSD from Sunken Temple though
Man that clip with you without hair actually felt weird now. Its coming in good, congrats man.
SFK and Deadmines are indeed as good as you list here. Some of my fondest memories of WoW ever.
I ABSOLUTELY agree on shadowfang keep and sunken temple! I hold these dungeons responsible for keeping me hooked to the game. As I leveled up, shadowfang keep, a werewolf castle with that music, just gorgeous. Thats what you want from any MMO !
As for sunken temple, i very fondly remember my first run to take more than 4 hours with a group of 1 rl friend and 3 pugs who all stayed until the end. We were all new to the dungeon and had to figure out everything on our own. That was probably my purest experience in the entire game. Even finding the entrance was hard for us back than. I was so very sad when the catacylsm just devided it into multiple layers and the whole feeling of exploring a temple was simply lost. It's understandable because people today would just leave anyway but heck, THAT was the essence of dungeons!
I love the oculus. I don't know if it was the daily or the weekly reward where you have to complete the Oculus on heroic, but when I would answer someone's call for it in trade chat, and they did the Inquisition questions about if I knew what to do with what dragon and so on so forth, I felt like I was part of a small group that actually knew how to do the dungeon right. When you got people who understand that dungeon, it's a great dungeon when you got someone who doesn't or when they added lfg to the game, that is one of the worst dungeons you could be in
I will fight you on the Kael'thas encounter. MgT is my favorite dungeon to this day, and beyond even Kael'thas being my favorite villain, "I'll turn your world... upside down" absolutely blew my mind the first time I saw it. Once you know the mechanic, sure, maybe not incredibly interesting, but for its time (which is something you kept saying), the Kael fight is legendary, thematic, cinematic, had that wow factor that so many bosses can't pull of today because we've seen it all.
Been waiting all week for this!!
My all time favorite is Gun Drak. Going down into the temple and fighting through it was really fun
What i got from this video is that me and preach got a very different taste in dungeons 😂
Black Rock Depths was more like a zone than a dungeon it was so long and had so many paths and bosses and things to do
Your videos are so enjoyable to watch, brilliantly engaging and nostalgic too
I love these videos!
Also Tol Dagor was really cool when it worked but as someone that was often there doing higher keys with friends it was far more likely for stuff to be pulled from other floors and kill the key than for the run to work properly which is why its not remembered well.
"COME ON BOYS!! RIP OPEN THOSE DOORS!!" Not quite PTSD for me but nearly there haha. Always felt for the healers in pugs with that dungeon haha.
Why we can't have fun creative dungeons anymore: Mythic Plus
this is the truth and the sadness that has become wow
I mean its way more than that. And mythic plus dungeons are really fun to some people. Also his number one dungeon which i kind of agree with was the first mega dungeon. And the second one would have been in top 10.
The Black Morass placement is complete nostalgia. It's got the exact same problems as the Violet Hold dungeons. The Assault on Violet Hold (Legion) had better bosses so even the 'good bosses' excuse doesn't work for it.
Sunken Temple of Atal'Hakkar is probably my favorite dungeon of all time, purely because of nostalgia. As a little noob in late TBC, I was leveling got a quest for the dungeon. I think it was connected to the Hakkar quest from Tanaris, but I could be wrong. Upon reaching the Sunken Temple I realized it was a dungeon. Another player around my level was waiting outside and invited me to join his group with his higher level friend. His friend was high enough level that it wasn't a problem for us to do it as a three person group, but none of us could heal or resurrect, if I remember correctly. None of us were experienced with the dungeon, so it ended up being a two hour trip when factoring in getting lost and dying to patrolling trash. To go through everything in the upper part and finally figuring out the mirrors only to do all the trash and bosses at the very bottom was just so amazing. It really sucks that the dungeon was gutted later in Cataclysm.
17:08 Iron Docks gave me my youtube handle. I love that place
I really wish we'd see something like BRD again. All the optional bosses, side objectives like coffer keys, and events like the Grim Guzzler REALLY set it apart from other dungeons. Linear dungeons have their place as shorter quicker runs that can be more packed with detail, some of which I really love like SM and SFK. But man something about these expansive dungeons really make me feel like I'm in a lair , or in an underground Dwarven city, or a ruined night elf city like DM. I can't really say what my all time favorite dungeon is but BRD is 100 percent in my top 5. Your comparison of the sheer creativity of it compared to some of the stuff nowadays, couldnt have said it better myself.
I'll always remember Tab target pulling when you get to the ship in Deadmines. Gotta love an early level dungeon that teaches you how the game works and give you some tools for what is to come.
Return to Kara is also my fav dungeon I think. Legion had GREAT dungeons and that one tops the cake. Space and the world being upside down? Wow.
going straight from knocking DOS for its backtracking into praising throne of tides is pretty funny
There's a teleporter back to the junction after every boss in Throne of Tides though.
@@Turskaify while that's a good point he also knocked ToP a bit for that and it has shortcuts back too
Even after all these years I’m still a firm believer that BRD is the best MMO dungeon, but return to Kara isn’t far behind in my book
"Oculus is a good dungeon" So much heresy in this claim
1 of the biggest reason people hate some of those dungeons is because of timewalking.
When timewalking week is out, blizzard send people only to 2-3 same dungeons over and over and over over and over. People do the same dungeons so many freaking time they vomits at the end and they will hate those dungeons for the rest of the time.
Been w8ing for this video for days now! BRD and KZ share #1 spot. A class ahead of the rest
I unfortunately didn’t raid in TBC. But yes, return to Kara was so good. You had some questionable dungeons at the end and I was worried for the last one lol
Great Video and a great list. as you said the efficient way kills off many things.
Little did preach know that Y axis was up
The funny thing about WCM is that I preferred playing as Horde because just having Lady Waycrest roast your group the whole time was better than the "real" RP with Lucille.
My Top 10 Favorite Dungeons in WoW are:
1: Return to Kara
2: Magister's Terrace
3: Blackrock Depths
4: Halls of Origination
5: Da Other Side
6: The Mechanaar
7: Pit of Saron
8: Well of Eternity
9: Skyreach
10: Tol Dagor
Think you nailed it on the head with everything you said about classic dungeons, perhaps they do benefit from some nostalgia points but it still feels epic going back in now with leveling characters to do ZF, SFK, deadmines, sunken temple, Uldaman. Uldaman and ZF always stuck out to me. Told a story and had epic visuals and general feel. It's a shame that hasn't been quite reproduced.
Deadmines, in my opinion, is utterly unrivalled in the top spot. The first dungeon I ever ran with a few pugs and my brother, we ran it over and over into the early hours of the morning. Then, when Classic came out, myself and 4 of my chums entered the Deadmines at about 11pm. We finally killed VanCleef at 4am. We took our time, enjoyed the dungeon, wiped a few times. I was the only veteren player of the group and acted as our guide, and I was delighted to see that there were parts that I'd forgotten or misremembered, because it felt like I was discovering this truly wonderful place all over again. My friends and I eventually stopped playing together, and most of them stopped playing Classic completely, but that night we shared will be one of the most treasured memories I have. Not just in my gaming experience, but my life as a whole.
I was just sitting around, waiting for this :)