You have earned the title Boringslayer.

I got to thinking earlier today while consistently crashing in beta about Wrath and what it meant for me. A lot of people tend to agree that Wrath of the Lich King was "Too Easy", "Had terrible raids", and "Gave away too many Welfare Epics". While I agree with this all on some level it has given a lot of great things along with all the boring content. Wrath had some wonderful quests. Wrathgate was one of the best quest lines in the game. It brought the in game epic cut scene to WoW. Blizzard heard our plea for more questlines like this and put a ton of them in Cataclysm. Phasing is also a wonderful tool. It allows the player to change the world through questing and events. It makes you feel like you've changed the story instead of seeing the  guy you killed 20 mins later. Blizzard did a great job with the questing aspect of Wrath. Sure some zones were boring as hell, but others more than made up for it. 

My hunter going for a ride. Surfs up brah!

 Raiding however was very bland. Naxxramas was far too easy in my book. Yeah it was the entry level raid but far too easy. Lets take a look at previous entry level raids. We'll start with Burning Crusade. Karazhan was an awesome raid instance. It was challenging and the learning curve of boss encounters was somewhat difficult compared to Vanilla. Karazhan had everyones favorite boss THE ANIMAL BOSS!!! Kidding, We all know I'm talking about Moroes! Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon's lair are ok. The learning curve on Mag's lair was too high at the start of the expansion if you ask me. Naxxramas offered very few challenges. The main challenge of Naxx was how long could your raidleader could remain calm after wiping to Thaddius for the sixth time. Naxx did however introduce us to raiding meta achievements. I love achievements. They are one of my favorite things to work on when I'm not raiding and they can offer a more challenging way to defeat an encounter. I never got a chance to finish my Naxx achieves before they took the drake away but I loved working on them. 

One more for dinner tonight.

Ulduar was a fantasic raid. Blizzard really hit the nail on the head with this one. My only complaint with Ulduar was I never finished my Val'anyr!! (this was mostly due to people getting 15+ shards and transferring off the server but that's a whole other story in itself!). Ulduar was challenging on normal modes for your average WoW player. Yogg-Saron was fairly difficult. The amount of coordination you needed was definitely a step up from Naxx. Ulduar hardmodes brought a whole new challenge to the table. Iron Council hardmode seemed impossible forever. I still have nightmares of doing firefighter and One Light in the Darkness took me forever. So long in fact I didn't finish off Ulduar achives until December of last year. Overall Ulduar was perfect in my book.

Even Chuck Norris likes Ulduar.

HALING FROM THE DEEPEST DARKEST CAVERNS OF ICECROWN: THE WORSE RAID INSTANCE IN WOW HISTORY! Trial of the Crusader was the worse raid instance Blizzard has ever dreamed up. While the idea was good the instance itself was very very bland. However 25 man hardmode Anub'arak was impossible for my guild. Healing that fight was by far the most challenging thing I've done since Sunwell. We never managed to do it. ToC was just bad overall. A one room raiding instance with very few bosses and probably the worse looking tier gear in the game. Honestly what were they thinking by making everyone look identical? Blah. That's really all I can say about ToC. I'd like to forget it ever happened and I'm sure Blizzard feels the same way. (Maybe??) 

INFERRRRNNOOO!

Icecrown Citidel the mother of all raiding instances or is it? We brought the fight to Arthas. We tore down the walls of Icecrown. (sort of) We waited for months for the chance to kill Arthas. I like the idea of releaseing the bosses one wing at a time. It gave you a chance to gear up and really get the hang of the boss encounters to prepare you for the hardmodes. When you first walk into ICC you are taken back by the over all visual. The instance itself looks amazing. The bosses meet you with the same amazing visual. I think ICC is just right in terms of challenge. However, the ICC buff is just far too much for normal modes and some hardmodes. ICC brought a new type of raiding encounter. A fight where your healers are your dpsers. Dreamwalker is a great encounter from a healers perspective. There is one thing about ICC I dislike besides the buff. The fact that you get the same title for killing Lich King in 10 man and 25 man. I believe there should be two different titles much like the hardmode versions. I give props to any guild who can kill Lich King 25 hardmode by the way. That fight is not "easymode" by any means.  My whole raiding experience in Wrath of the Lich King has been fairly bland. Ulduar, ICC and Malygos (I love his voice over and he looks awesome) were great instances overall. 

My Terrible UI

Gearing in Wrath of the Lich King has been really easy. Every new raid instance they change the currency to coincide the new raid. While this makes gearing alts easier it also causes players to ignore the other raids. While this really isn't a draw back for WoW verteran players its bad idea for new comers to raiding. While some of those raiding instance should be forgotten until the end of time they still offer a chance for new players to grasp the idea of raiding. Heroics just don't do that. If you are brand new to raiding and you step foot in ICC chances are you wont make it past the first four bosses. The looking for group system has been a wonderful feature though. I love it. I'm weird I actually like doing randoms with people I don't know. It  gives you a chance to meet new people and see others play style.  I just wish more people talked in random heroics. Overall Wrath of the Lich King hasn't been a bad expansion. It's had its moments of greatness and its moments of failure. I do not like the ending of Wrath however. The whole Bolvar being the new "Lich King" seems forced, but that a whole other post all in itself. Is Blizzard headed in the right direction with Cataclysm? Only time will tell.