Sire Denathrius is one of the best Bosses ever. The Visuals, the Atmosphere, the Voicelines and the unique Mechanics just make for the perfect mix.

Haven't seen the vid yet, but a top 10 boss fights for every expansion is a pretty neat idea for a series.

Council of Blood was such a fun fight to me just because of the silliness of it. I really enjoyed it. I'm suprised it didnt make the cut...

Shadowlands was a rollercoaster in terms of difficulty. 1. Castle Nathria was by far the hardest early raid they've ever implemented and it was a good tier overall. Sire Denathrius was an epic fight, especially on Mythic when you had to run through like 40 lines across the screen at once at the end. The Council of Blood was pretty fun, especially when everyone had to dance. In terms of class balance: CN was at its worst because the meta comp stacking heavily favored certain specs over others. 2. Sanctum of Domination was very inconsistent on difficulty. There were a lot of bosses that were sub-20 pulls then you got to Painsmith and Sylvanas and they took 100s of pulls on Mythic. Sylvanas was the worst because she took 15 minutes and I absolutely hated Painsmith because one mistake and you die. Fatescribe was annoying because if one person made a mistake the whole raid would explode. I thought Soulrender and the Remnant of Ner'zhul were pretty cool. 3. Sepulcher of the First Ones was very overtuned, but had some cool fights. Anduin, Rygelon, and the Crab were fun. The Jailer was one of the lamest end game bosses. You literally just moved around in a room jumping in holes and breaking pillars.

I only did Halondrus in LFR since I basically skipped the last patch of Shadowlands, but my god it was a cool fight. I loved the sounds and all the effects this fight had. I could feel this heavy machine moving and shaking the world around me. Very well designed boss.

My List - as a Mythic raiding tank: 10. Sun Kings Salvation 9. Prototype Pantheon 8. Ner'zhul. 7. Xy'mox 2 6. Council of Blood 5. Painsmith 4. Halondrus 3. Sludgefist 2. Anduin 1. Denathrius

I remember when my Raid finally beat Anduin on Heroic with like a 15 man party. We were so hyped and exhausted and it took us a good month to do lol

as a mythic raider eye of the jailer was an amazing fight, the moment when there is a fairly straight forward mechanic of killing 2 eyes at each side of the room at the same time within a time limit but there still being multiple ways of playing it was cool

I saw Halondrus in the Thumbnail and checked to make sure that he had his #1 spot, as deserved. So glad you gave Raznal a top spot as well. Both were easily my top two.

Yeah I completely disagree with 9th place! That fight alone made me not want to do the whole raid ever again. Not only I have a major heigh fear, I also found Phase 1 insulting (boss won't go past X%HP and will keep just doing her scripted stuff until the timer says it's time to move on....)

I loved the Halondrus fight, the sound effects really set the scene and made it memorable to me

Maybe unpopular opinion but I really liked the court boss fight in Nathria especially on hc. It was a good step up in difficulty and I absolutely loved the idea of altering the fight and mechanics depending on the order you kill the bosses. I also think that putting in all these dance related abilities was just hilarious. Also I rky liked the jailer fight as a tank. Soaking those massive tank combo felt so satisfieing and i actually had a bit more agency then just " stand on X and taunt at 3 stacks" defenetly need more of those

The only one I disagree with is Sylvanas Her fight is so punishing when you’re learning for the first time, and the fact that the bridges have HOLES in them was the first middle finger they have to us. The second is the fact that the fight basically changes locations only. And the third, we get her to 50% health, and technically, we LOSE and sylvanas just passes out after something that should’ve been an epic lore moment. 2nd worst boss in my wow experience (worst is Kel’Thuzad from Sanctum). Sanctum of Domination is ruined because of those 2 alone

Sylvanas being on the list is hilarious.

I think there are a couple keys from some of these fights. One is Play-of-the-game moments where 1 player can save the entire raid from a wipe. Xy'mox was fun because if 2 DPS were running off with the portal, then as a SPriest I could just Lifegrip one into the right spot and fix the problem. And I could keep up DPS to boot. A couple fun fights like that. A second key is the "Click factor." When your raid is banging its head against the wall, then suddenly the mood of the entire raid shifts because ~something~ just clicked and everyone felt it. You may still be several wipes away from the kill, but these mechanics you've been fussing over for awhile suddenly fall into place and you're just in the cleanup and execute phase. That was Sire Denathrius for a lot of people.

I can't believe Council of Blood is not on this list. My absolute favourite

i loved using death's advance for artifcer xymox because i could just stand still

Great video! ^^ Love your lists and all your work :)

I agree with the choices, but not the order. Pain and anduin should be 1st and 2nd just becouse they mechanics doesnt felt unfair. Halondrus had a lot of unfair timers and those bombs were a nightmare before the nerf. Also halondrus had a big big huge difference between melee and range pov.

Just listening to 'TarraGRUE' and 'dark room' in the same segment made me realize that in 2022 Blizzard of all companies was still making a Zork reference in a AAA game.

i have to say i am so proud of my self for killing holondrus on mythic. And as a first time mythic raider and a tank at that. Had such a blast at that boss

Council of Blood's macabre dance should have been on this list. Boogie down! I much preferred Soulrender Dormazain to Ner'zhul simply because of the way Garrosh was incorporated into the fight. Playing among us to find the imposter in Lords of Dread ranks higher than Sylvanas in my opinion.

Where is my Council fight? Cmon man, it's atleast top 3 that can prance forward

Sire Denathrius not being number 1 is a troll

This video really should be renamed “MY top ten boss fights from shadowlands” because there’s some REALLY hot takes in here. Sylvanas seemed universally hated as a boss fight. Lotta other fights that seemed loved more over others here as well

this list is very agreeable! nice job :)

This is such a good video but can you please do a shadowlands review like you did with BFA ? That would be great!

Painsmith for me was the most fun boss for me mechanics-wise, maybe more than Sire. Just had a great balance of just difficult enough, and forcing you to be on your toes, without being overly punishing or overtuned. Halondrus definitely had a great feel thanks to great sound design and visual, especially with a cool transition phase. The ramp up to the hectic last phase is definitely heartracing. I'd swap out Sylvanas for Soulrender tbh. Sylvanas was so long and tedious, with a terrible phase 2 and pretty meh phase 1 and 3. Her being the final boss makes the fight even worse since final bosses are typically the best fights of raids.

Sepulcure was the very first raid I played tank in! It very much felt like a baptism through fire, having 1 - only started playing a tank a couple weeks prior, 2 - never played any class even capable of tanking before and 3 - only done a couple mythic dungeons before that. Halondrus was indeed easily my favourite fight in there, despite the absolutely horrific sounds it makes that kept scaring the life out of me :D

xymox from nathria was DEFINITELY one of my favorites. heroic xymox was a nice challenge. it didn’t feel impossible, but was difficult. the best 🥰 nathria was my fave raid of shadowlands tbh

I remember liking the Sludgefist fight so much that i perma looked for groups to try it. Even if the pugs always wiped it was always super fun

Mythic Sludgefist is probably the best Patchwerk style fight in the game hands down. The mechanics were tough, but you could still plant and DPS and you needed too because somehow even later into the expansion most guilds first kill was after hitting the wall with all 4 pillars gone. I did like Rhylegon, it just wasn't quite sludgefist level of good. And Terrorgrue was just fun each week with different powers and fucking with the raid with the annoying ones Crab was fun on mythic just to be able to say "I did it" and we only killed it twice. And it was in a very nerfed state , not the last set but it had been hit with hefty nerfs to the bomb timings when we got there.

I liked Halondrus because it was entertaining to see people blown off the edge or crushed by the walls because they fell behind.

My favorite fight was the Anduin fight. I loved the aesthetic of the fight, and I loved the transition phase to fighting Arthas. I'm still pissed on how Arthas was treated at the end of the fight.

I'm still upset at myself that I quit Shadowlands RIGHT before beating Sire Denathrius. I played and progressed through Heroic Castle Nathria and then right around the time we were getting started on fighting Denathrius I just randomly got an overwhelming urge to not want to play the game anymore. I still would've quit, but I wish I just stuck around until Denathrius was beaten and THEN quit.

Sire mythic was probably one of the best mythic mechanic phases of all time, the mirror dance was insanely fun imo

Castle & Sanctum are probably 2 of my top 10 favorite raids in wow. Painsmith was just hands down fun for me. I loved when u walking up to him u hear the hammering and once u enter his room the whole floor just shoots spikes up showing us whats coming. and then in CN u have the council for dancing and huntsman and his bear looking pets. So many fun raid fights in SL's. I enjoyed shadowlands the only thing i really disliked was all the currency they implemented only for it to be used only like once all xpac like the charms u got to use at the renown vendor or the stygia or soul ash/cinders. kind of was a demotivation to farm all the stuff on multiple toons cause some of it didnt come so easy.

I never played the last patch of Shadowlands because I was taking a break from the game but I did raid Nathria and Sanctum. Nathria has to be one of my favorite raids ever, I haven't been playing the game too long (joined at the beginning of BfA) but the only boss I can remember disliking from that raid is Inerva Darkvein because of the annoying orb mechanics. Maybe an unpopular opinion but N'Zoth was my favorite boss for a while and though Denathrius didn't take his spot, he got pretty close. The thing that makes Denathrius is his charisma, he's one of those villains you just love to hate and I'm excited for his return at some point in the future.

You should do a video on the most unique or best dungeon fights throughout all expansions

Hoo boy, the Jailer not making this list of his own expansion, yikes

Sludgefist chose his current target to charge, which should be a tank if done right.

i absolutely loved rygelon, visual and mechanic wise

You say best I say infuriating for most of them (I died a lot to all those bosses)

Agree with most of them except sludgefist, for me it always a snorefest like most of the mechanics were either heal checks or oneshots that were easily avoidable and since it was tuned so you were pretty close to the hard enrage the fight felt so damn long

I really expected to see the dance boss from nathria. I am, and am not surprised that Roh kalo didnt make it to this list. I reallly loved that fight

Halondrus was my fave in SL by far. Prenerf this fight was hard as hell and it made alot of fun aswell.

Ah, the memories.... "We hope you had a wonderful trip, and thank you for flying with Air'Zhul. " 🤣

I stopped playing wow during the first patch of shadowlands, and I happened to catch the world first race for sepulcher while it was happening. And as much as I didn't want to play shadowlands or resub, watching mythic halondrus the fight seemed so incredibly cool, I really considered resubbing JUST for that fight. It was just so incredible looking. I did come back to wow during the fated season between shadowlands and dragonflight, and was able to fight halondrus in the end. It's such a good boss, easily the best of the expansion.

Sludgefist isn't a random player, he would always choose the closest tank to charge. You could always bait which tank that would be.

For Remnant of Ner'zhul you actually could Mass Dispell the bombs and it was one of the key strategies to have an easier time on Mythic, especially in 3rd phase. The only bit that didn't work was there was a low chance that one of the bomb guys would get knocked away from the other bomb holder instead, so players who could negate the knockback or save themselves would position themselves just barely in front of the guy who couldn't. The Mass Dispell strat was such a strong option that many guilds required not just one but two Priests to just to cover every bomb spawn even if one of the Priests was low geared or low skilled, so I'm not sure where you're getting the bit about not being able to MD the bombs.

Hot take incoming: My favorite boss is Dausegne. On Normal and Heroic, she had way too little health, but on Mythic, she had buffed up and was ready for a long haul. Players had to focus on dodging her rings, focusing down her add, and handling a soak mechanic that was really painful to do as intended. On top of all of that, she was NEVER nerfed. She stood at the pinnacle of her design from start to finish. Every other boss got shafted at some point, but Dausegne lived on!

Halondrus was the reason I couldn't hate on the Automa despite the whole, "they're just robots," aspect of them. When you witness Halondrus in action it actually reestablishes some of the "unknowable/beyond our understanding" feel of the cosmos. The sights and sounds of it just doing what it does are what sell it. To me it seems the only reason it fights us is because we're annoyances interfering with it doing its job. Also the fact we don't actually destroy Holondrus but get it to "recall" or retreat helps in this regard. Oh and I would completely swap the Sylvanas fight with the Jailer fight for #9. Why? Because, at least on the difficulty I did it on, it was refreshingly easy. It's like they finally understood how much people disliked Zovaal and gave us a break when it came to his fight. I definitely was relieved that I didn't have moments of getting stuck on a fight against such a lame villain.

Just to think that during raid testing Halondrus was a totally different fight. There were pillars around the room that were immune to damage that gave the boss a constant damage reduction. Tanks needed to point the beam at the pillars which would allow for them to be damaged to progress the encounter. Then the fight was changed to what it ended up being on live without any public testing on the new version.

I’m shocked that council of blood was not here. However loved the video :)

did I miss it or is the dancing one not on this list? I loved that!!

I never met a single person that said "oh boy the anduin fight was soo good." It was a BS fight. The court boss tho in CN

Nathria Xymox was the most fun ist ever had as a DK. Love the fight!

I like boss fights that keep me on my toes. If I just have to sit there and attack the boss, I literally get sleepy eyes

That would actually be a cool top 10 list. "Top 10 Best First Boss Fights" or "Top 10 Worst First Boss Fights"

Seems like you hired the shadowlands writers to write your description.

oh painsmith... so many people didnt know that they could just walk between spikes in that one second, and just were hit all over..:D

I watch all your vids but YOU ARE TRIPPIN for this video. Sire Denathrius IS #1.

My only issue with Remnant was the treatment such an iconic and important character got, poor Ner'zhul.

An absolutely random question but hopefully someone can help me find the answer to it - the progress bar with cooldowns above the skill bar that you're using... is it a weakaura? If yes, what's its name?

Remnant of Ner'zhul, geared people in dragonflight still can't do it due to the mechanics lol

Poor Jailer doesn't even get a honorific mention in this video lol

As soon as I clicked the video I knew Halondrus would be first spot. Its a perfect fight. I did it in Heroic and it was one of the best experiences I've had. I felt like I was 16 all over again.

No shot Sylvanas made this list in any capacity.

No hate, but it still cracks me up seeing u use MK's scrolling combat tex.

ranzal is easily my favorite boss, and i almost favor bosses that require a specific class just to complete it like blast furnace you needed a priest to MC a security guard. most fights like that are super well made. i’d change sylvanas over soul render is probably the most fun mythic boss i’ve ever done

on remnant mass dispelling doesnt knock entire raid off platform it is actually the tactic on mythic...

Shadowlands will always go down as having some of the best raid fights simply because it's the first expansion that I killed every boss on a real difficulty in.

The Tarrague scared the crap out of me when it showed up in Torghast

POWERFUL CRAB.

Sludgefist was mostly right, but it's missing three bits in its description, and one mistake. It's not a random player he charges, it's always the closest Tank. The three missing bits are the knockback and the associated communication needed (If one person pushes through/immunes, they die anyway due to chain snap), the chain yank at a pack of ranged players where you either had to carefully plan who went into it in Heroic or you had to keep enough immune-capable ranged players to counter the yank, and lastly, on Mythic, the impacts would spawn damage zones where you needed four groups to soak, and then twelve players to soak.

Top 3 on this list is top 3 on my personal list for SL bosses. I absolutely loved Halondrus (even on LFR) - never could understand why folks would bail on that fight.

Halondrus at #1? You're on crack my guy Also Sylvanas was horrendous

That number one pick has every melee class question your sanity.

MY LIST Painsmith Sire Halo im so happy i did progress thoese bosses on mythic!

The simple explanation for Sylvanas chains of "run away until someone breaks your chain" never really seemed to sink in with most people, causing the fight to be absolutely horrendous at times. Nothing like constant wipes to chains, rive, and bridge boss

DUDE i love your ui would love to have that

Could you rank the bosses in the new vault of incarnate raids? Just curious on what you thought about them

Sylvanas fight was cool thematically as an event. You could do it once in LFR and call it incredible, because of storytelling and overall design. But it fails spectacularly on prog and reclears because of 2 things 1) It is SO LONG. You can literally Bloodlust twice on it, even when you are super geared by the end of expac. 2) That dispel mechanic on the last phase. If you do it wrong - you wipe immidiately, it is a oneshot mechanic. It requires every single person in your raid to deal with it in some way, whether to avoid puddles, call for dispels when you accidentally collect it, and for every person in the raid to avoid the corner the tank is while the tank is getting their dispel. And to add an insult to injury, it is a completely new mechanic, it only appears on p3 in any for for the first time. Imagine you've been learning first 2 phases, you arrive and p3, and you see that, you wipe. Now you gotta suffer another 10 minutes of intense bossfight just to arrive to p3 again ONLY TO TRY THE NEW MECHANIC AGAIN AND TRY TO LEARN IT. You get to try once every 12-14 minutes, considering wipe recovery times, means about 5-6 tries per hour at best. Considering that it is the last boss of the raid, it is supposed to be hard, and you should spend your most wipes on prog there, up to 200-300 wipes on mythic at times. That is about 50 hours of wiping trying to just get to that past phase mechanic and learn it. most raid times are about 3-4 hours a day, with a middling guild doing 3-4 days per week raiding. That makes 15 or so weeks of prog for sylvanas, FOUR MONTHS JUST WIPING ON THAT STUPID BANSHEE BITCH, SUFFERING A SLOG OF 2 FIRST PHASES JUST TO SEE THE DISPEL MECHANIC AND TRY IT AGAIN. Again, in theory, as a one-off thing its fun to do it. Once in LFR. It is not made as it is to be a part of regular raid content.

I'm glad to see Zovaal either didn't make it to the list.

Have to hard disagree with Sylvanas being anywhere on this list. A 13-14 minute fight where an intermission is more running than actually playing the game is not fun. It was also ruined by the fact that you needed to save your resses until P3 just in case, so getting a single death in P1 meant a wipe. She was also finnicky, and sometimes decided not to transition properly and if you transitioned slightly early or late it was an automatic wipe. You just spent extremely long and uninteresting pulls to get to the only good phase in P3, which is the only part of the fight that was interesting to play.

I heard that FlyingButtress was gonna do lore videos for the channel. Where are they? :D

I wana start off with, because of the "delaed" opening of LFR I first ran the first 2 raid because of the faited system, this needs to be a staple of the "end" of every x-pac

I couldn’t even watch this video because I haven’t gotten over the trauma of Shadowlands…..

Painsmith should've played a flaming guitar in the intermission.

Daddy D was my favorite of Shadowlands but probably had more fun clearing and progressing Krabby Boi

Lol, up to 10 minutes you say for Sylvanas that's cute, you were able to use Bloodlust on the pull and then again on the third platform in phase 3, she took closer to 14 minutes unless you completely outgeared the fight, but I bet it still would be around 12 minutes. Honestly the second phase wasn't that bad, I personally think the worst part about her fight was the first phase which was basically a formality and not really needed.

bro is literally running away from chained partner on sludgefist lol

Guardian of the First Ones was probably the most fun to heal especially as a holy priest.

I really hated halondrus, comes really as a surprise to me that he was Loved at all :O would really Like to hear what class/Spec Players played who Liked him aswell as disliked him (mage/wl for me)

Gonna guess it's all Nathria and then the Spider mech boss and painsmith

In my opinion Halondrus was just on Mythic the best fight shadowlands, because it was so mechanically challenging and I loved Progressing it. On Heroic/Normal the boss made cool sounds and all but wasn’t that fun to play imo. If you want to rate the best bosses overall I wouldn’t put him that high on the list compared to bosses like Sludgefist or Sire who where also quite unique and fun to play on heroic

Even seeing Halondrus in a video without screen shake disabled is making me sick to my stomach. I really appreciate Blizzard adding that option.

sire denathrius is one of the best new wow villains they have ever done

I would 100% put Sire om 1st probably my all time favoritt boss (CN def my favorite raid ever). Painsmith 2nd and Crab 3rd.

As a tank, I gotta say, not a fan of halondrus. All of the camera movements to find the shielded motes for the beams made me dizzy. It didn't help that my guild took a while on progression, far more than any more boss in that tier. My co tank didn't enjoy the fight either. It looked like a super fun boss for any other role though! shame I only got to tank it. Edit: going to throw out that sylvanas kind of sucked for tanks too since we constantly had to run away in phase 1 and 3 because of the wailing arrows or to pick up the patches on the ground and drop them on other platforms