The Totalbiscuit clips caught me off guard Rest in peace

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.

Preach: Violet Hold is dead last Also Preach: I love Black Morass

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.

Source: TotalBiscuit .... man, that hurts.

The way they gutted Sunken Temple where about 80% of the dungeon is completely gone is utterly criminal.

This 2 part series goes to show that Preach wants an Indiana Jones MMO that just goes off the rails into aliens and magic.

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!

Halls of valor is less cool if your a warrior, cuz it's like " oh this place i hang out in has enemies now"

As a long-time PUG healer, the Oculus is my Vietnam.

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.

You really stepped up the content lately, it’s awesome

> Skyreach AHHHH SKYREACH, I'VE NOT BEEN CLOSE TO HER IN MANY YEARS.

The resurgence of the wonderful compilation videos give me hope that the Legacy of the Druid may come someday :)

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."*

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 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.

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.

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.

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!

Modern dungeons are very polished and thought out, but hot damn Classic dungeons are the pinnacle of RPG in wow.

Waycrest Manor was my jam: digging through the ditches, burning through the witches, wicker monsters, pig faces, and finally, "Your Mother..."

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!"

Violet Hold: Worst dungeon of all time Violet Hold in the woods (Black Morass): Love it You ok Preach?

'waiting to see where tol dagor is on the list' ive never felt so called out

Been waiting all week for this!!

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.

So glad you rated deadmines & SFK so high. I loved them so much and I was absolutely devastated when they remade them

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.

3:27 holy crap its Totalbiscuit! Man I miss the guy a lot... his content was top notch. May he rest in peace.

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?"

Thoroughly enjoyed P1 and P2 of this list, Preach. The nostalgia was off the charts at times.

Great video, hope you can do more of these in the future.

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.

"I will fight anyone who disputes that" (Throne of Tides). Sir, the gloves have come off. Raise your fists!

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.

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

Your videos are so enjoyable to watch, brilliantly engaging and nostalgic too

very cool that you included a clip from TB :) awesome stuff

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.

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

I was just sitting around, waiting for this :)

You and I have very very similar memories. Glad you brought up Shadowfang!, scholomance and redone Karazan!!!

Man that clip with you without hair actually felt weird now. Its coming in good, congrats man.

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 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.

Great Video and a great list. as you said the efficient way kills off many things.

The vanilla dungeons hold such a special place because the journey it took to get to them and also to run through them

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

That moment you realize the Stellaris Music in the background

Cheers for the Friday beers and nostalgia Preach, crying now

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.

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.

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.

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.

Great video Mike!!

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

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.

Love these kinds of videos

Loved these two videos.

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 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.

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

Still remember the first time I ever did deadmines with some IRL friends (going in blind) Defining moment of my life.

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!

Loved these

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.

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 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.

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

@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 :)

Deadmines was definitely what really hooked me into the game initially.

Why we can't have fun creative dungeons anymore: Mythic Plus

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

RIP TotalBiscuit. ❤️

I was doing Utgarde Pinnacle WHILE you were talking about it lol

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

How can you talk about old school Deadmines and not mention Mr. Smite's voice?!

"Oculus is a good dungeon" So much heresy in this claim

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.

I love longer vids keep this up!!!

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.

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.

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.

My all time favorite is Gun Drak. Going down into the temple and fighting through it was really fun

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

Thank you, Mike, for putting the Return to Karazhan at #1. I agree entirely. And the Mechagon dungeons are awesome too.

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.

"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.

The thing i remember most about the Ozumat fight is not knowing what was going on at all because i had my camera angled down to watch the floor of the chamber for adds.

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.

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.

With you on the occulus, remember doing the all green drake strategy on my first run with guild team shortly after release, challenging but real fun. Also got achievement grats add-ons banned in guild

SFK and Deadmines are indeed as good as you list here. Some of my fondest memories of WoW ever.

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

People still automatically leave Oculus to this day just like they did when I played during WOTLK.

excited to see whats near the top, I'm hoping for the karazhan superdungeon to be high!

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 remember when LFR first came out and horde members could run Stockades, but Blizzard hadn't updated where the horde's graveyard was. It was an insta-leave if you or the tank or the healer died. That was one of the reasons I didn't like leveling horde characters, and why most of my main characters were and still are alliance. It's funny how something so trivial can influence such big decisions and how long those little things stay in your mind, continuing to do so long after they've changed.

This really takes me back, me and my clutch companion conquering the world, rest in peace amz