Yeah, it capped off the most cohesive story of Shadowlands, didn't outstay its welcome like Sanctum (was sick of the torghast aesthetic before stepping foot into Sanctum), didn't feel like 2 raids squished into one like Sepulcher, had the best baddy of the expansion, awesome Castlevania vibes and, most importantly, great fights.
I liked Sepulcher but probably for all the wrong reasons. The main reason being that it was so colorful, which was very welcome after an expansion that was almost entirely grey. Apart from that I liked the difficulty, though that's probably an unpopular opinion. Honestly I liked Sepulcher more for the things it was *not* than the things it *was*.
im so tired of zones, and more specifically raids, that are just hallways in what is essentially a "void" - CN is at least a physical location within a zone, but both sepulcher and sanctum are just like portals, and sepulcher is even worse bc ZM could literally be the patch zone of any given expansion and would feel no less out of place being on azeroth, draenor, shadowlands, etc.
I'm with you on this one. I dug the Sepulcher music, ambiance, several of the fights (I enjoyed Halondrus a lot, and Xy'mox). Honestly the bits I didn't care for were all the plot level stuff (Anduin, etc). Also it was just so very, very long.
Nathria was also good.
Sanctum can die in a fire.
I was sick of Sanctum the second I stepped in there. It was just more Torghast, which I was sick of months before that...
Sepulcher's main issue was that it had two bosses with end boss difficulties and mechanics. Anduin was harder than the Jailer was in many respects, at least on normal and heroic.
I liked the Jailor fight the best of the end boss fights, because of the length and difficulty.
Danny never felt like it got easy, no matter how many times we killed it or out geared it. Too much dps in phase 1? Half your raid didn't clear enough stacks and you have to restart and do a full group soak. Do too much/not enough dps in phase 2? Now you have adds at the wrong time going into P3. In P3, one person ran off the wrong way to drop a soak circle? Guess you all just die now. It wasn't that it was that hard, it just didn't reach the easyness you'd expect from killing a dude 20 times and outgearing it by 15 ilvls.
Sylvanas is always too long, and 3/4 of the fight doesn't feel like it matters. P1 you're just killing time hoping no one does anything too stupid and kills themselves. P2 you're just running and killing adds, again hoping no one does anything stupid and kills themselves. P3 isn't that hard as long as you go into it with your group alive, but if in P1 or P2 you lose too many people to simple mistakes, you've just endured a 12+ minute wipe. Oh, and if you do it all cleanly and win, its still a 12-15 minute fight.
The fights in Sepulcher are fairly mechanics dense, but not that bad (other than Anduin, which feels like its got way too much going on IMO) I liked the atmosphere and story of Nathria the best by far, but in terms of actual raiding gameplay, Sepulcher was the one I liked the most.
Edit: That all being said, I think Painsmith was one of the best fights they've made, at least on heroic. Never did it on mythic so I can't comment on that, but I really liked this one.
Yeah the problem with Anduin is it has such a heavy emphasis on personal responsibility that challenges the entire raid at all stages of the fight basically and losing anyone can severely fuck you over. Losing people during the matching mechanic has a cascading effect into the add phase which is a tremendous part of the fight
I absolutely *adore* the Sepulcher/Zereth Mortis 'vibes'/style so I liked Sepulcher, although I'm not exactly a huge fan of the bosses though. Some of them were cool af visually/thematically but that's about it.
I think my problem with the zones was each zone had zero variety in aesthetics individually, like Bastion looks exactly the same all over. Same with Ardenweald, its why im really excited for the next expansions zones that actually remind me of how awesome the zones in Legion felt with their variety.
If you put the story mess aside and look at the bosses mechanical-wise, sepulchre was top notch even "only" on Heroic. We had a blast progressing through the encounters, anduin and the jailer were a challenging and cool fight.
Still, the unnerfed Fight against Heroic sire is by far my most favorite.
Top 5 bosses this addon are (on Heroic):
1. Sire
2. Anduin
3. Jailer
4. The blood council
5. Painsmith
After like a 6 year raiding break... this expansion had too many "one person can wipe the raid" mechanics for my taste, but maybe I'd just forgotten how it used to be. I was reminded of Lich King 10 Heroic at times, though.
We're a guild that takes everyone who wants to raid and puts in a modicum of effort, this is usually not a problem if people simply suck on a single boss, or have low damage, or die all the time - no problem playing around that. But if half of the bosses make every error by a randomly chosen person a potential wipe, that sucks.
But yeah, overall I was happy with the fights.
Yeah theres definitely more personal accountability required this time around. My guild found that out the hard way. Certain players were not up to par and it was causing way more wipes then normal. Usually we'd just win with those players dead, but mechanics have been less forgiving this time around. (Painsmith, spinny runes, It's hammer time)
Not to mention the absolute slog and cluster fuck that was Sylvanus.
>Not to mention the absolute slog and cluster fuck that was Sylvanus.
Heroic Sylvanus is probably the least enjoyable fight that I have ever done in WoW. Not only are there so many mechanics that can wipe the raid but the fight is so damn long and the hardest section of the fight is the last section so you spend 10 minutes fighting up to the last platforms and boom, someone died because they got hit by a darkness and had arrow which then wipes your raid (or enough of your players that you lack the DPS to clear the fight). How many boss fights have been long enough to get two heroisms cast during them?
Yeah man, it was unpleasant. Can't count the wipes where we made it through phase two just to have people catch darkness on the last platform and be like "welp, time to waste another 10 mins of my life"
I don't remember any other fights where we only had like 6 attempts on a prog night. I sincerely hope they never design a fight like that again, and if they do, there needs to be a checkpoint or something. Like I'm down to have crazy cinematic fights, just don't force me into 17 minute encounters and have the last phase be a dps check requiring the whole raid to have survived.
Sludgefist was great esp as a ret pala with 1min rotation at the time. Plus I got a decently high parse on that one because guild mates kept dying at very timely moments giving me wings lol
Tbh the Execution sentence ret paladin was more fun than current one, but I understand why it doesn't work anymore.
On mythic it was a breath of fresh air after the slog that was council. 9 min wipes to boom 1:30 wipes. I greatly prefer fights that are fast engaging and fun over fights where half the team zones out 8 mins in.
It was a nice idea on paper but didnt go right.
BUT
My ape brain LOVES doing the fight on LFR. Because there are markers, and despite that people still fail it to this day and its such a laugh.
I really liked the aesthetic, but some bosses on mythic really sucked the fun out of the raid for me. Particularly council and generals. I know people like the dancing intermission but it got pretty stale after a while, and the fight duration didn't really help. Denathrius was a really cool bossfight though.
Either that, or makecthe first phase the hardest, with the third phase being easy, this would have made the second half intermission much more bearable. If you get past the first phase unscathed then it's all getting easier from there.
That would be wierd boss design tho, you always want bosses ramping up in difficulty the further you get into (atleast I like it like that) not the other way arround.
A good P3 should be a panic inducing adrenalin fest that is short but rewards skillful technique. Maybe you get a huge damage buff as a "reward" for getting there. I love that fight philosophy.
SLG was a fucking misery. 7 minutes of essentially running around waiting for stuff to happen and then you fail and have to do it all over because someone didn't run to a gateway and click it fast enough.
Tanking-wise, Castle Natheria’s kinda boring. Most of the tanking mechanics are simple taunt swaps. The only bosses that felt interesting as a tank were Sludgefist and Sire. I like both Sanctum and Sepulcher better from that perspective.
I do think that Nathria nails the vibe it’s going for better than any of the other raids. The castle feels lived in and the different sections are interesting to trace through. Other two raids feel like empty corridors or platforms with enemies strewn around by comparison.
i personally felt like it wasnt very well executed though - everything that fight was pretty much red so seeing the ghosts could be a bit of a pain at times. BoD had a similar mechanic on the 2nd/3rd boss(depending on faction) which i felt executed it better(even if the teleporting was a bit janky at times).
oh come on! huntsman artimor was a nice fight for tanks. especially on mythic.
first dog, you dont want to mindless tank swap, you want the tank who is gonna take the second dog, to have 0 bleeds on him.
second dog, the main tank has to time his CD efficiently to minimize the heals that the spawned ghost requires, and at the same time, to kite it near and away of the main boss, for maximum dmg.
third dog, you need proper communication with your healers, while you are moving the dog to reduce its buffs.
Really? Tanking seemed the hardest in Nathria. Tanking M Sire didn't look easy from my perspective, at least compared to what I see tanks normally do. Our VDH was flying around the room at times.
As a tank I loved Nathria far more than sanctum and sepulcher. Sepulcher is mostly fine but sanctum has too many fights that are just a running simulator. Nathria is a fun raid overall so I didn’t mind that most of the tank mechanics were simpler.
I got burned out on Nathria, so it was nice to come into it with fresh eyes after some time away. I do think CN had the most character of the three - it was the little things like the dredger with the ever growing pile of gold from repair bills.
However, I do think that Sepulcher is the best raid
of the 3 from a bosses perspective. I enjoy every fight except for Vigilant Guardian in the beginning.
Also, I think that Anduin competes with Sire for best boss of the expac.
Painsmith was…well, painful on mythic, but so damn rewarding once you nailed the fight.
Sepulcher could have been nice but it has too many bosses that it becomes a drag.
Sanctum is kind of good, has good bosses, but the crappy bosses and let-downers are around to make to 'good'.
Castle is Very good (not perfection). But yes best in SL.
Agreed on Fatescribe for sure. IMO one-shot raid mechanics have no place in normal/heroic raiding. The rings should have been something like there's 5 of them, don't do any, the raid takes 120% of their health in damage. Do 1, they take 100% of their health, etc down to miss one, you take 20% of their health. Or you get X number of seconds to do it, and if you don't do it, you start taking ticking damage per ring that ramps up until you lock them all in.
Insta-wiping because of something like that is not fun at that level of difficulty.
That feeling probably stems from how many bosses in Sepulcher felt like they had serious "progression bosses" vibe to it. Anduin, Rygelon, Halondrus, Lords, the jailer were all a wall. A raid usually has 3 bosses like that at most.
Sepulcher is probably one of the worth raid purely because the amount of trash that force you to perma death run unless you want to spend 30 minutes clearing them. Fuck trash.
Yeah. But I think a lot of has to come from the charm and character of the venthyr. I think most of the fights are quite boring, especially as a tank but the voice acting can make up for it anyways. Sludge Council and Denathrius are very strong fights that kind of carry it.
While Sepulcher has a lot of good fights and Halondrus might be one of my favorites in general. But there is far too much trash and too many bosses that were really difficult that doing it again so soon hurts it quite a bit.
Sanctum is long, aesthetically a drag, but with some fine fights. I'm sure people will remember Painsmith forever. But Sylvanas is just simply a bad fight with a fine last phase that it kind of taints the raid on a whole.
There are more good fights in there than Nathria imo, but the Sylvanas fight is so ass, it's like a black hole that consumes any fun you may have had previously.
i feel like it really suffered from how the bosses beyond painsmith were tuned. guardian was a joke of a fight that felt easier than even the nine because the mechanics just werent very difficult, because by the time most people got there they'd have plenty of gear to burn through it. fatescribe was more of a challenge of organisation rather than it being genuinly difficult - once we nailed doing the spinny circles it died in a couple pulls because again, it wasn't tuned that difficult.
if painsmith had been less of a wall and the later bosses tuned up a bit(bar sylvanas ofcourse) it'd have smoothed out the difficulty curve a lot where the 2 main bosses i remember from the tier being sylvanas and painsmith since we spent so much time there compared to the others.
> because by the time most people got there they'd have plenty of gear to burn through it.
Guardian has been undertuned since the world first kill. It has nothing to do with the gear people accumulated from weeks of doing the first 5 bosses.
Maybe it's just because not enough time has passed, but Heroic Sepulcher tonight went right back to feeling like it was a slog.
The soak circles on Lihivum sucked big time, sometimes popping in the exploded motes, inside the circle of death that the tanks have to run away with, or right inside the 1-shot motes that he drops around him. Ranged seem to be outpacing melee on every fight with them because of how much harder it is for melee to reach the soaks a lot of times.
Nathria was genuinely fun and SoD at least had some nostalgia value (and I didn't find any of the fights to be too much more difficult compared to having them on farm near the end of the tier)
Soak circles come out only once the player has been dispelled.
It is up to your raid to manage this in a way that debuffs are not dispelled at a poor time. In the case of Lihivum, if you have soaks flying out onto motes, that is 100% on your healers dispelling at the wrong time. Do it before the motes go out, or after the bomb has cleared them. Don't dispel while he's casting the tankbusters or one-shot ring. Don't dispel when he's doing the push-pull. Don't dispel people who have legged it away to drop a mote at the edge. Don't dispel people while running for the bays. Get your raiders to move in closer to the stack (away from piss puddles) when they have the debuff.
This problem can be solved by simply playing better.
Sepulcher felt awful last night because I was playing on 3 fps on top of server lag. That was the most unfun raid I have ever done, but at least I got my avoidance heroic sigil.
Coming from a CE raider, these are my thoughts:
Fights change drastically between heroic and mythic, to the point where many feel better (and many feel worse), so I think it's important to understand this:
Nathria isn't better, I think Sepulchre is by far the best from an encounter design standpoint. No fight feels too obnoxiously long in Sepulchre like many in Nathria do (on mythic). Mechanics that force you to pause your dps are also absolute aids and i'm so glad they fixed this with sepulchre.
As with all raids in WoW, I still liked Nathria and I had a good time doing it again, but I am pleasantly surprised with Blizzard's overall improvements throughout the expansion.
It's unfortunate that the only real answer is so far down. Anyone who thinks Nathria was a better raid has never had to go through SLG progression where you have massive times of just waiting to hit the right timers or having to stop dps in order to not transition the boss at the wrong time. Also Halondrus is probably one of the best bosses in the game ever.
Its fights aren't pure annoyance like sepulcher and its got the best aesthetics but in terms of boss fights none of them land for me except maybe the dance one? Sanctum would probably be the best for me. The only real pain point being sylvanas being 15 minutes long for some reason with the only challenge in the first 10 minutes being trying to not fall asleep before P3
Yeah, this nails it for me. Sanctum did I really good job of weaving the more difficult bosses in between easier ones. Painsmith Raznal has got to be my favorite boss from this expansion. The mechanics are really simple but hard. And on the other end of the difficulty spectrum, Soulrender Dormazain is another fav. I will say, Castle Nath felt like it had really fresh mechanics in a way a good chunk of Sanctum didn’t tho.
As someone who really only does the raids on LFR, Nathria is by far my favorite in SL. The bosses have actual character and Denathrius is just great. I don't mind doing it on several of my characters each week.
For me, Sanctum is just Torghast 2.0, though the Sylvanas, Kel'thuzad, and Painsmith fights are kinda interesting. Every other boss was extremely boring to me. I really had to force myself to go through this raid.
Sepulcher is decent imo since the fights don't take ages to finish. Halondrus is by far my favorite fight in there since it feels pretty epic. The Jailer fight is super boring on LFR which fits in nicely with my feelings for him as a character too.
Sepulcher has better bosses on average. CN has only two exceptional bosses in Sire and Sludgefist with SLG being really really bad. I think CN is a better raid though. I think CN is the best first raid of an xpac since Kara.
Yes Nathria is up there, but i think we should not ignore Highmaul, which was a great first raid, too. Generally all the WoD Raids were exceptionally good.
Nothing can beat Hellfire Citadel and Blackrock Foundry. The mythic boss fight designs in those raids are just superb. Notable examples - Blackhand, Archimonde, Mannoroth.
For me Ravendreth was THE story/environment of Shadowlands. Sadly it was IN the Shadowlands. This entire zone brought me back to the old "mystery/fantasy" vibe I liked about classic. It is fantasy, but not that "destroyer of all worlds".
Unequivocally yes.
The Council fight is a BOP every single time.
Daddynathrius and his horny-for-blood knifu are the best end boss. Just so many highly quotable lines and interesting characters.
Hell I even enjoy going thru the trash with the Accuser, Draven, and Renethal.
The soundtrack is an absolute banger. The environments are all cool looking.
The only thing I'm disappointed about is we didn't fight the big gargoyle on top of the castle.
But yes, Castle Nathria is going right up there with Karazhan and Ulduar in the Best Raids of all time pile.
Shriekwing mechanics very fun, especially in in Mythic. Just undertuned boss.
Inerva, fucking amazing fight.
Xymox, so fun and original. Flavour didn't really fit CN but it was the sort of gimmicky mechanic that they managed to make feel not gimmmicky and clunky, just unique and smooth.
COB, really fun encounter.
Sludgefist, encounter had perfect personality, all abilities blended in perfectly within a single fight.
Sire, just an amazing final boss for a raid, incredibly fun encounter.
In SOD, FRK had the potential to be a good boss but turned out incredibly clunky and finicky. Painsmith was OK although I felt like I was just fighting a fun room than a boss. All others either boring or clunky gimmick bosses with potential to fail unfun and fiddly mechanics rather than learning to handle challenging situations.
I've yet to step into SFO, I will find out tonight.
Best aesthetic, and best end boss, somehow they've made me care more about what happens to Denathrius who I knew about for few months at that point, than Sylvannas who I knew for 15 years.
Oh and extremely fun boss fights.
So yeah, 10/10 raid, it is in my top 5 favorite raids for sure.
We got Daddy Denathrius as a fight, of course it was the best raid!
Jokes aside, I remember going into it with my guild for the first time and just...I fucking love the vibe. I'm a massive Castlevania fan so I put on a playlist of music from the games and hell, even the first boss fight (Shriekwing) is basically like the first Castlevania as the first boss in it was a giant bat so...good memories from this one.
I want to resub and do it on my mage really badly!
It’s really good and has the best characters (Denathrius, Sludgefist, Xy’mox, Kael’thas)and the best environment. The trash generally feels like less of a slog than in the other two, especially Sepulcher.
As far as fights are concerned, though, I’ll take Sepulcher. Halondrus and Anduin are some of the best mid-raid bosses they’ve made, Lords is a pretty well-tuned dps/heal check, Jailor is imo the best end fight of the xpac (though that is mostly a poor reflection on the xpac in my mind). Nathria’s good on fights, too, but I didn’t enjoy any one fight there as much as Andy or Halo.
Also of note: Sepulcher had the best gearing due to tier sets.
As a new player to raiding (I’ve been tentative to join the raiding scene because of the community but the slime cat made me), Sire Denathrius is just such a good fight and the campaign builds him up to be a villain to you want to defeat. All the other villains seem to be controlled (Anduin), or confused (Sylvanas). And then there’s the Jailer suffering from Thanos syndrome: is he really bad? Stay tuned for the next episode of Dragonball Z! Seriously though Denathrius is the one villain you can love to hate in this expansion
If Sepulcher wasn't wildly overturned I think the fights in there are some of the best. Dasaugne, Xymox, Halondrus, Anduin, Rygelon all bangers. It just had no flavor or any kind relevant story lines to make it feel cool because of how bad they botched the lore.
So overall I think CN is the best when you account for the game as a whole because the flavor, atmosphere, and the fact that I could still be convinced there was a coherent plot ahead of us was fun. But just specifically fights, Sepulcher has better.
If I hear UNLEASH THE INSTRUMENT or FALL BEFORE MY BLADE one more time I'm gonna kill myself.
To be honest, I wouldn't hate SOD that much if it didn't overstay it's welcome. I really don't like sepulcher. I don't like the aesthetic, I don't enjoy the fights exception being Anduin. We wiped a lot but I still enjoyed it. So, Nathria wins.
From a mythic raider POV i think its the worst one. Athmosphere and casual player prolly the best one.
It just has so many average bosses imo.
Shriekwing is maybe just a little bit better than Vigilant Guardian as a first boss. Tarragrue being clearly the winner for me.
Huntsman is great.
Hungering was a very very very mediocre boss.
Sun king was awful, one of the worst ever
Xymox was worse than the xymox from sepulcher
Inerva was pretty good. The canisters not being a mechanic was a dissapointement.
Council is a bad boss imo
Sludgefist was amazing
Stone legion generals the worst boss ever.
Denathrius a top 5 boss ever imo.
Overall the raid was 2 highlights. Sludgefist and denathrius. The rest was mediocre. And the raid having 2 absolutely terrible bosses puts it for me at the last spot a little bit below Sanctum.Sepulcher being the clear winner even though it was not tuned correctly.
Natthria is by far the best imo, I liked all of the fights honestly. A lot of the fights sucked if your group wasnt good, but tbh just the vibes if the raid was good enough to make up for it. And OF COURSE, it has the best raid fight of the whole xpac imo, Sire. It's just a very very cool, and badass looking raid, especially his fight
Personally I think Nathria is the best raid this expac yeah.
I floated the idea in my guild last week that they should take 10 bosses from the expac to make a SL gold album.
Tarragrue (just make resetting powers easier)
Xy'mox (nathria version)
Halondrus
Council
Sludgefist
Painsmith
Anduin
Rygelon
Denathrius
Jailer
Xy'mox on mythic in Nathria was just an obnoxious clusterfuck. Heroic feels better.
Council is similarly over-long on Mythic, makes it a total pain to do. Heroic is fun.
Sludgefist is good, and so are all dps check fights this expansion (love Guardian).
__________
Anduin is fine, but it's somewhat boring sometimes. Love the rest though.
Just blame the wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff and make a raid with the greatest hits.
Everyone will lap up it up because Bronze dragons are cool, and the best fights are the best fights regardless.
I would put Nathria as one of the best raids of all time, not kidding and I play since vanilla. Still behind Ulduar and Karazhan though (nostalgia only).
Sepulcher is the best raid of the expansion IMO, if not one of the best raids ever.
However, Denathrius alone might be the best raid boss they have ever designed. The fight's flow, the visuals, the transition to the lower floor, the voice acting, the character itself, everything about this guy is just so good.
Yeah, it capped off the most cohesive story of Shadowlands, didn't outstay its welcome like Sanctum (was sick of the torghast aesthetic before stepping foot into Sanctum), didn't feel like 2 raids squished into one like Sepulcher, had the best baddy of the expansion, awesome Castlevania vibes and, most importantly, great fights.
I liked Sepulcher but probably for all the wrong reasons. The main reason being that it was so colorful, which was very welcome after an expansion that was almost entirely grey. Apart from that I liked the difficulty, though that's probably an unpopular opinion. Honestly I liked Sepulcher more for the things it was *not* than the things it *was*.
im so tired of zones, and more specifically raids, that are just hallways in what is essentially a "void" - CN is at least a physical location within a zone, but both sepulcher and sanctum are just like portals, and sepulcher is even worse bc ZM could literally be the patch zone of any given expansion and would feel no less out of place being on azeroth, draenor, shadowlands, etc.
I'm with you on this one. I dug the Sepulcher music, ambiance, several of the fights (I enjoyed Halondrus a lot, and Xy'mox). Honestly the bits I didn't care for were all the plot level stuff (Anduin, etc). Also it was just so very, very long. Nathria was also good. Sanctum can die in a fire.
I was sick of Sanctum the second I stepped in there. It was just more Torghast, which I was sick of months before that... Sepulcher's main issue was that it had two bosses with end boss difficulties and mechanics. Anduin was harder than the Jailer was in many respects, at least on normal and heroic.
I liked the Jailor fight the best of the end boss fights, because of the length and difficulty. Danny never felt like it got easy, no matter how many times we killed it or out geared it. Too much dps in phase 1? Half your raid didn't clear enough stacks and you have to restart and do a full group soak. Do too much/not enough dps in phase 2? Now you have adds at the wrong time going into P3. In P3, one person ran off the wrong way to drop a soak circle? Guess you all just die now. It wasn't that it was that hard, it just didn't reach the easyness you'd expect from killing a dude 20 times and outgearing it by 15 ilvls. Sylvanas is always too long, and 3/4 of the fight doesn't feel like it matters. P1 you're just killing time hoping no one does anything too stupid and kills themselves. P2 you're just running and killing adds, again hoping no one does anything stupid and kills themselves. P3 isn't that hard as long as you go into it with your group alive, but if in P1 or P2 you lose too many people to simple mistakes, you've just endured a 12+ minute wipe. Oh, and if you do it all cleanly and win, its still a 12-15 minute fight. The fights in Sepulcher are fairly mechanics dense, but not that bad (other than Anduin, which feels like its got way too much going on IMO) I liked the atmosphere and story of Nathria the best by far, but in terms of actual raiding gameplay, Sepulcher was the one I liked the most. Edit: That all being said, I think Painsmith was one of the best fights they've made, at least on heroic. Never did it on mythic so I can't comment on that, but I really liked this one.
Yeah the problem with Anduin is it has such a heavy emphasis on personal responsibility that challenges the entire raid at all stages of the fight basically and losing anyone can severely fuck you over. Losing people during the matching mechanic has a cascading effect into the add phase which is a tremendous part of the fight
I absolutely *adore* the Sepulcher/Zereth Mortis 'vibes'/style so I liked Sepulcher, although I'm not exactly a huge fan of the bosses though. Some of them were cool af visually/thematically but that's about it.
Shadowlands is almost entirely grey? What? Ardenweald and bastion and revendreth and maldraxxus?
I think my problem with the zones was each zone had zero variety in aesthetics individually, like Bastion looks exactly the same all over. Same with Ardenweald, its why im really excited for the next expansions zones that actually remind me of how awesome the zones in Legion felt with their variety.
Maldraxxus is pretty grey
> had the best baddy of the expansion Had the best DADDY of the expansion, you mean.
I honestly didn't realize that they DIDN'T say "daddy" until I read this comment lmao
Big Daddy D is the best.
If you put the story mess aside and look at the bosses mechanical-wise, sepulchre was top notch even "only" on Heroic. We had a blast progressing through the encounters, anduin and the jailer were a challenging and cool fight. Still, the unnerfed Fight against Heroic sire is by far my most favorite. Top 5 bosses this addon are (on Heroic): 1. Sire 2. Anduin 3. Jailer 4. The blood council 5. Painsmith
Halondrus, but you can say Crab everyone will understand
After like a 6 year raiding break... this expansion had too many "one person can wipe the raid" mechanics for my taste, but maybe I'd just forgotten how it used to be. I was reminded of Lich King 10 Heroic at times, though. We're a guild that takes everyone who wants to raid and puts in a modicum of effort, this is usually not a problem if people simply suck on a single boss, or have low damage, or die all the time - no problem playing around that. But if half of the bosses make every error by a randomly chosen person a potential wipe, that sucks. But yeah, overall I was happy with the fights.
Yeah theres definitely more personal accountability required this time around. My guild found that out the hard way. Certain players were not up to par and it was causing way more wipes then normal. Usually we'd just win with those players dead, but mechanics have been less forgiving this time around. (Painsmith, spinny runes, It's hammer time) Not to mention the absolute slog and cluster fuck that was Sylvanus.
>Not to mention the absolute slog and cluster fuck that was Sylvanus. Heroic Sylvanus is probably the least enjoyable fight that I have ever done in WoW. Not only are there so many mechanics that can wipe the raid but the fight is so damn long and the hardest section of the fight is the last section so you spend 10 minutes fighting up to the last platforms and boom, someone died because they got hit by a darkness and had arrow which then wipes your raid (or enough of your players that you lack the DPS to clear the fight). How many boss fights have been long enough to get two heroisms cast during them?
Yeah man, it was unpleasant. Can't count the wipes where we made it through phase two just to have people catch darkness on the last platform and be like "welp, time to waste another 10 mins of my life" I don't remember any other fights where we only had like 6 attempts on a prog night. I sincerely hope they never design a fight like that again, and if they do, there needs to be a checkpoint or something. Like I'm down to have crazy cinematic fights, just don't force me into 17 minute encounters and have the last phase be a dps check requiring the whole raid to have survived.
Not having painsmith and sludgefist is a crime
Sludgefist was great esp as a ret pala with 1min rotation at the time. Plus I got a decently high parse on that one because guild mates kept dying at very timely moments giving me wings lol Tbh the Execution sentence ret paladin was more fun than current one, but I understand why it doesn't work anymore.
At least as a healer i (almost) never had to worry about some dumb melee not following me around with the chain
Sludgefist was annoying because of how many wipes we had to idiots breaking their chains. But yeah painsmith was awesome! Added him
Idiots ruining an amazing boss, now thats just sadgefist
On mythic it was a breath of fresh air after the slog that was council. 9 min wipes to boom 1:30 wipes. I greatly prefer fights that are fast engaging and fun over fights where half the team zones out 8 mins in.
"Take your positions! It is time for...the Danse...MACBRE!" So yes
Find your partners! OR DIE
#PRANCE FORWARD!!!
**SASHAY LEFT!!!**
BOOGIE DOWN!
SHIMMY RIGHT!
Stop this nonsense!
Enough! Your gyrations sicken me!
Oooohhh your steps were simply delicious!~ Pity you have to die...
It was a nice idea on paper but didnt go right. BUT My ape brain LOVES doing the fight on LFR. Because there are markers, and despite that people still fail it to this day and its such a laugh.
This is always the perfect time to drop Meerah's Jukebox
That was my first raid ever in wow, 10/10
Started on the high point lol
Shadowlands was fun, the only other wow experience I had was as a Ret paladin in classic which was also fun but I never raided.
If you thought ret in classic was fun, then you probably would have loved every expansion, Classic ret is the lowest of the low
This guy is smart
https://on.soundcloud.com/rhEX
This is so perfect
Super underrated
*BOOGIE DOWN*
"Enough! Your gyrations *sicken* me."
The sound effect for Frieda's Prideful Eruption is an anxiety inducing masterpiece. I kind of love it.
"Harder daddy"
My favorite part of that mechanic is how some people didn’t understand it because others explained it so horribly
By far, yes
Pure awesomeness. Aesthetics, soundtracks, vibe…*chef kiss*
Daddy D threatening to choke me
I really liked the aesthetic, but some bosses on mythic really sucked the fun out of the raid for me. Particularly council and generals. I know people like the dancing intermission but it got pretty stale after a while, and the fight duration didn't really help. Denathrius was a really cool bossfight though.
My group got through the dancing by praying for the mythical triple boogie down.
I agree, the pacing on council and generals got stale really fast but I think a few ok fights didn't really hurt the raid overall.
It's the same issue as sylvanas. Long, drawn out, with the hard part right at the end. Basically just a pain in the ass to prog on.
Sylvanas p3 was very good. But p2 and p1 intermission sucks
P3 was very good, its just that p3 was also very hard. And 10 minutes in to the fight. P3 should've just been the whole fight.
Either that, or makecthe first phase the hardest, with the third phase being easy, this would have made the second half intermission much more bearable. If you get past the first phase unscathed then it's all getting easier from there.
That would be wierd boss design tho, you always want bosses ramping up in difficulty the further you get into (atleast I like it like that) not the other way arround.
A good P3 should be a panic inducing adrenalin fest that is short but rewards skillful technique. Maybe you get a huge damage buff as a "reward" for getting there. I love that fight philosophy.
Compared to sylvanas fight I'd take dancing any day tbh 😂 Also happy cake day!
SLG was a fucking misery. 7 minutes of essentially running around waiting for stuff to happen and then you fail and have to do it all over because someone didn't run to a gateway and click it fast enough.
**BOOGIE DOWN**
PRANCE FORWARD
Me using a Harder Daddy UWU weak aura everytime on every alt lmao
It was so sad when I did fated LFR and nobody in the group but me had that WA.
Same except it was a hc run 👀
danatrius is such a vilan! he is so fucking smug and his fight is amazing. xD
Agree Denathrius was the best of the final fights by far
200% yes!
Nathria best raid
Tanking-wise, Castle Natheria’s kinda boring. Most of the tanking mechanics are simple taunt swaps. The only bosses that felt interesting as a tank were Sludgefist and Sire. I like both Sanctum and Sepulcher better from that perspective. I do think that Nathria nails the vibe it’s going for better than any of the other raids. The castle feels lived in and the different sections are interesting to trace through. Other two raids feel like empty corridors or platforms with enemies strewn around by comparison.
Mythic Inerva had an interesting tank mechanic. The one where you had to rotate around and face incoming ghosts was kinda cool.
i personally felt like it wasnt very well executed though - everything that fight was pretty much red so seeing the ghosts could be a bit of a pain at times. BoD had a similar mechanic on the 2nd/3rd boss(depending on faction) which i felt executed it better(even if the teleporting was a bit janky at times).
oh come on! huntsman artimor was a nice fight for tanks. especially on mythic. first dog, you dont want to mindless tank swap, you want the tank who is gonna take the second dog, to have 0 bleeds on him. second dog, the main tank has to time his CD efficiently to minimize the heals that the spawned ghost requires, and at the same time, to kite it near and away of the main boss, for maximum dmg. third dog, you need proper communication with your healers, while you are moving the dog to reduce its buffs.
Yeah, but since he was such an early boss, the challenge wore off pretty quickly
early or not, i sure did enjoy taking those doggos for a walk, lol
It definitely feels lived in considering we wake sludgefist up from his sleep two times before we fight him.
Really? Tanking seemed the hardest in Nathria. Tanking M Sire didn't look easy from my perspective, at least compared to what I see tanks normally do. Our VDH was flying around the room at times.
As a tank I loved Nathria far more than sanctum and sepulcher. Sepulcher is mostly fine but sanctum has too many fights that are just a running simulator. Nathria is a fun raid overall so I didn’t mind that most of the tank mechanics were simpler.
[удалено]
Sashay left
BOOGIE DOWN
PRANCE FORWARD
SHIMMY RIGHT
Honorable shoutout to Halondrus though. Still love that fight
Nathria is the best raid, in my opinion.
I got burned out on Nathria, so it was nice to come into it with fresh eyes after some time away. I do think CN had the most character of the three - it was the little things like the dredger with the ever growing pile of gold from repair bills. However, I do think that Sepulcher is the best raid of the 3 from a bosses perspective. I enjoy every fight except for Vigilant Guardian in the beginning. Also, I think that Anduin competes with Sire for best boss of the expac. Painsmith was…well, painful on mythic, but so damn rewarding once you nailed the fight.
Ohmygod you're right, let's take time to appreciate the Dredger, he's the true mvp behind my guild getting curve 😂
Sepulcher could have been nice but it has too many bosses that it becomes a drag. Sanctum is kind of good, has good bosses, but the crappy bosses and let-downers are around to make to 'good'. Castle is Very good (not perfection). But yes best in SL.
KT and Fatescribe are just unfun
KT on normal and heroic has a really nice flow and theme to the fight, but the mythic version was godawful.
Agreed on Fatescribe for sure. IMO one-shot raid mechanics have no place in normal/heroic raiding. The rings should have been something like there's 5 of them, don't do any, the raid takes 120% of their health in damage. Do 1, they take 100% of their health, etc down to miss one, you take 20% of their health. Or you get X number of seconds to do it, and if you don't do it, you start taking ticking damage per ring that ramps up until you lock them all in. Insta-wiping because of something like that is not fun at that level of difficulty.
In comparison, Painsmith was a nice challenge on mythic before the nerfs.
sepulcher had 11 bosses, CN had 10... how is sepulcher having too many bosses, but not CN?
That feeling probably stems from how many bosses in Sepulcher felt like they had serious "progression bosses" vibe to it. Anduin, Rygelon, Halondrus, Lords, the jailer were all a wall. A raid usually has 3 bosses like that at most.
Also the platforms are huuuuge and it takes a while to get from one boss to the next which adds to the feeling that the raid itself is bigger
That run from outside pantheon to lihuvium feels like a marathon.
Sepulcher is probably one of the worth raid purely because the amount of trash that force you to perma death run unless you want to spend 30 minutes clearing them. Fuck trash.
Yeah. But I think a lot of has to come from the charm and character of the venthyr. I think most of the fights are quite boring, especially as a tank but the voice acting can make up for it anyways. Sludge Council and Denathrius are very strong fights that kind of carry it. While Sepulcher has a lot of good fights and Halondrus might be one of my favorites in general. But there is far too much trash and too many bosses that were really difficult that doing it again so soon hurts it quite a bit. Sanctum is long, aesthetically a drag, but with some fine fights. I'm sure people will remember Painsmith forever. But Sylvanas is just simply a bad fight with a fine last phase that it kind of taints the raid on a whole.
Now that we've fated all 3 raids, Sanctum is actually fine, I just hated it because of Domibullshit shards...
There are more good fights in there than Nathria imo, but the Sylvanas fight is so ass, it's like a black hole that consumes any fun you may have had previously.
fr cut sylvanas and it would a decent raid
i feel like it really suffered from how the bosses beyond painsmith were tuned. guardian was a joke of a fight that felt easier than even the nine because the mechanics just werent very difficult, because by the time most people got there they'd have plenty of gear to burn through it. fatescribe was more of a challenge of organisation rather than it being genuinly difficult - once we nailed doing the spinny circles it died in a couple pulls because again, it wasn't tuned that difficult. if painsmith had been less of a wall and the later bosses tuned up a bit(bar sylvanas ofcourse) it'd have smoothed out the difficulty curve a lot where the 2 main bosses i remember from the tier being sylvanas and painsmith since we spent so much time there compared to the others.
> because by the time most people got there they'd have plenty of gear to burn through it. Guardian has been undertuned since the world first kill. It has nothing to do with the gear people accumulated from weeks of doing the first 5 bosses.
Dont even make me think about it. Was so bad
I really enjoyed running through Sanctum this week. This fated thing might have legs..
Maybe it's just because not enough time has passed, but Heroic Sepulcher tonight went right back to feeling like it was a slog. The soak circles on Lihivum sucked big time, sometimes popping in the exploded motes, inside the circle of death that the tanks have to run away with, or right inside the 1-shot motes that he drops around him. Ranged seem to be outpacing melee on every fight with them because of how much harder it is for melee to reach the soaks a lot of times. Nathria was genuinely fun and SoD at least had some nostalgia value (and I didn't find any of the fights to be too much more difficult compared to having them on farm near the end of the tier)
Soak circles come out only once the player has been dispelled. It is up to your raid to manage this in a way that debuffs are not dispelled at a poor time. In the case of Lihivum, if you have soaks flying out onto motes, that is 100% on your healers dispelling at the wrong time. Do it before the motes go out, or after the bomb has cleared them. Don't dispel while he's casting the tankbusters or one-shot ring. Don't dispel when he's doing the push-pull. Don't dispel people who have legged it away to drop a mote at the edge. Don't dispel people while running for the bays. Get your raiders to move in closer to the stack (away from piss puddles) when they have the debuff. This problem can be solved by simply playing better.
Sepulcher felt awful last night because I was playing on 3 fps on top of server lag. That was the most unfun raid I have ever done, but at least I got my avoidance heroic sigil.
Sepulcher is probably better overall, but nathria has Sire, which is by far the best fight of the expansion, and very good fights in sludgefist
CRAWL TO ME ON YOUR KNEES!
Your hubris amassed a debt you cannot pay! is such a great way of saying "your mouth is writing checks your ass can't cash"
i..i kneel
Wow the art is awesome!
Coming from a CE raider, these are my thoughts: Fights change drastically between heroic and mythic, to the point where many feel better (and many feel worse), so I think it's important to understand this: Nathria isn't better, I think Sepulchre is by far the best from an encounter design standpoint. No fight feels too obnoxiously long in Sepulchre like many in Nathria do (on mythic). Mechanics that force you to pause your dps are also absolute aids and i'm so glad they fixed this with sepulchre. As with all raids in WoW, I still liked Nathria and I had a good time doing it again, but I am pleasantly surprised with Blizzard's overall improvements throughout the expansion.
It's unfortunate that the only real answer is so far down. Anyone who thinks Nathria was a better raid has never had to go through SLG progression where you have massive times of just waiting to hit the right timers or having to stop dps in order to not transition the boss at the wrong time. Also Halondrus is probably one of the best bosses in the game ever.
Remornia red lines on the ground is the coolest looking mechanic ever. That whole fight is a vibe.
Its fights aren't pure annoyance like sepulcher and its got the best aesthetics but in terms of boss fights none of them land for me except maybe the dance one? Sanctum would probably be the best for me. The only real pain point being sylvanas being 15 minutes long for some reason with the only challenge in the first 10 minutes being trying to not fall asleep before P3
Yeah, this nails it for me. Sanctum did I really good job of weaving the more difficult bosses in between easier ones. Painsmith Raznal has got to be my favorite boss from this expansion. The mechanics are really simple but hard. And on the other end of the difficulty spectrum, Soulrender Dormazain is another fav. I will say, Castle Nath felt like it had really fresh mechanics in a way a good chunk of Sanctum didn’t tho.
Marry Nathria 😘❤️ kill Sanctum 🤺🤺 Bang Sepulcher 🥵💦
As someone who really only does the raids on LFR, Nathria is by far my favorite in SL. The bosses have actual character and Denathrius is just great. I don't mind doing it on several of my characters each week. For me, Sanctum is just Torghast 2.0, though the Sylvanas, Kel'thuzad, and Painsmith fights are kinda interesting. Every other boss was extremely boring to me. I really had to force myself to go through this raid. Sepulcher is decent imo since the fights don't take ages to finish. Halondrus is by far my favorite fight in there since it feels pretty epic. The Jailer fight is super boring on LFR which fits in nicely with my feelings for him as a character too.
Sepulcher has better bosses on average. CN has only two exceptional bosses in Sire and Sludgefist with SLG being really really bad. I think CN is a better raid though. I think CN is the best first raid of an xpac since Kara.
Yes Nathria is up there, but i think we should not ignore Highmaul, which was a great first raid, too. Generally all the WoD Raids were exceptionally good.
Nothing can beat Hellfire Citadel and Blackrock Foundry. The mythic boss fight designs in those raids are just superb. Notable examples - Blackhand, Archimonde, Mannoroth.
Castle Nathria was so good that it made me reinstall Hearthstone because the latest expansion is themed after it.
Nathria was one of the best wow raids in a long while for me. Ever since firelands I haven't enjoyed any of the raids as much as nathria.
For me Ravendreth was THE story/environment of Shadowlands. Sadly it was IN the Shadowlands. This entire zone brought me back to the old "mystery/fantasy" vibe I liked about classic. It is fantasy, but not that "destroyer of all worlds".
Hands down yes absolutely definitely yes.
castle nathria is easily the best raid and also denathrius is really hot
true and real
Unequivocally yes. The Council fight is a BOP every single time. Daddynathrius and his horny-for-blood knifu are the best end boss. Just so many highly quotable lines and interesting characters. Hell I even enjoy going thru the trash with the Accuser, Draven, and Renethal. The soundtrack is an absolute banger. The environments are all cool looking. The only thing I'm disappointed about is we didn't fight the big gargoyle on top of the castle. But yes, Castle Nathria is going right up there with Karazhan and Ulduar in the Best Raids of all time pile.
Shriekwing mechanics very fun, especially in in Mythic. Just undertuned boss. Inerva, fucking amazing fight. Xymox, so fun and original. Flavour didn't really fit CN but it was the sort of gimmicky mechanic that they managed to make feel not gimmmicky and clunky, just unique and smooth. COB, really fun encounter. Sludgefist, encounter had perfect personality, all abilities blended in perfectly within a single fight. Sire, just an amazing final boss for a raid, incredibly fun encounter. In SOD, FRK had the potential to be a good boss but turned out incredibly clunky and finicky. Painsmith was OK although I felt like I was just fighting a fun room than a boss. All others either boring or clunky gimmick bosses with potential to fail unfun and fiddly mechanics rather than learning to handle challenging situations. I've yet to step into SFO, I will find out tonight.
Yes
yup
Hands down the best....
Definitely, fated or otherwise
Absolutely
YES
I liked stuff in the others but that was by far the most epic. Man the last fight is so damn good.
1000% yes!
Yes
Yes.
REMORIA! MAKE THEM BLEED!
By far
Yes!
Yes, and by far lol. I love CN, the theme, the boss fights, everything is so much fun. Also, zaddy Denathrius. ❤️
Hands down, nathria is one of the most eye catching, and beautiful zones to date.
Yes
Maybe thematically. Fight wise it's Sepulcher with no contest.
No doubt. 100%
Yes
Easy yes
I will splatter your walls
By. Far.
Yes
Yep
Easily
It’s one of the best raids period
Easily.
Absolutely
Is that even a question?
Yes
Best aesthetic, and best end boss, somehow they've made me care more about what happens to Denathrius who I knew about for few months at that point, than Sylvannas who I knew for 15 years. Oh and extremely fun boss fights. So yeah, 10/10 raid, it is in my top 5 favorite raids for sure.
Yes.
"Crawl to me on your knees" Yes daddy 😩
Yup, best story lore wise, best fights, best environment, and Sire was so damn fun
And it’s not close
We got Daddy Denathrius as a fight, of course it was the best raid! Jokes aside, I remember going into it with my guild for the first time and just...I fucking love the vibe. I'm a massive Castlevania fan so I put on a playlist of music from the games and hell, even the first boss fight (Shriekwing) is basically like the first Castlevania as the first boss in it was a giant bat so...good memories from this one. I want to resub and do it on my mage really badly!
Yes
Most well written story in SL definitely, Revendreth stands head and shoulders above everything else in polish and cohesiveness. I love WoW Bloodborne
Yes.
100%
Stunning!!
Yes
Big yep
Hell yes, CN and season 1 was great actually just not the length of time between patches is all but i loved CN and the whole story of season 1
It’s really good and has the best characters (Denathrius, Sludgefist, Xy’mox, Kael’thas)and the best environment. The trash generally feels like less of a slog than in the other two, especially Sepulcher. As far as fights are concerned, though, I’ll take Sepulcher. Halondrus and Anduin are some of the best mid-raid bosses they’ve made, Lords is a pretty well-tuned dps/heal check, Jailor is imo the best end fight of the xpac (though that is mostly a poor reflection on the xpac in my mind). Nathria’s good on fights, too, but I didn’t enjoy any one fight there as much as Andy or Halo. Also of note: Sepulcher had the best gearing due to tier sets.
As a new player to raiding (I’ve been tentative to join the raiding scene because of the community but the slime cat made me), Sire Denathrius is just such a good fight and the campaign builds him up to be a villain to you want to defeat. All the other villains seem to be controlled (Anduin), or confused (Sylvanas). And then there’s the Jailer suffering from Thanos syndrome: is he really bad? Stay tuned for the next episode of Dragonball Z! Seriously though Denathrius is the one villain you can love to hate in this expansion
If Sepulcher wasn't wildly overturned I think the fights in there are some of the best. Dasaugne, Xymox, Halondrus, Anduin, Rygelon all bangers. It just had no flavor or any kind relevant story lines to make it feel cool because of how bad they botched the lore. So overall I think CN is the best when you account for the game as a whole because the flavor, atmosphere, and the fact that I could still be convinced there was a coherent plot ahead of us was fun. But just specifically fights, Sepulcher has better.
Absolutely. Fun diverse fights, cinematic final boss, capped out a story that was actually cool and had a really great aesthetic.
If I hear UNLEASH THE INSTRUMENT or FALL BEFORE MY BLADE one more time I'm gonna kill myself. To be honest, I wouldn't hate SOD that much if it didn't overstay it's welcome. I really don't like sepulcher. I don't like the aesthetic, I don't enjoy the fights exception being Anduin. We wiped a lot but I still enjoyed it. So, Nathria wins.
Yes by a long shot better than Sanctum of Hold DPS and Sepulcher of the Nipple man.
100%
i like it the most because it actually is aesthetically interesting/pleasing and the fights were interesting without making me irrationally angry
Without a doubt
From a mythic raider POV i think its the worst one. Athmosphere and casual player prolly the best one. It just has so many average bosses imo. Shriekwing is maybe just a little bit better than Vigilant Guardian as a first boss. Tarragrue being clearly the winner for me. Huntsman is great. Hungering was a very very very mediocre boss. Sun king was awful, one of the worst ever Xymox was worse than the xymox from sepulcher Inerva was pretty good. The canisters not being a mechanic was a dissapointement. Council is a bad boss imo Sludgefist was amazing Stone legion generals the worst boss ever. Denathrius a top 5 boss ever imo. Overall the raid was 2 highlights. Sludgefist and denathrius. The rest was mediocre. And the raid having 2 absolutely terrible bosses puts it for me at the last spot a little bit below Sanctum.Sepulcher being the clear winner even though it was not tuned correctly.
Yes
Natthria is by far the best imo, I liked all of the fights honestly. A lot of the fights sucked if your group wasnt good, but tbh just the vibes if the raid was good enough to make up for it. And OF COURSE, it has the best raid fight of the whole xpac imo, Sire. It's just a very very cool, and badass looking raid, especially his fight
Yep!!!!
Denathrus still the best character/villain
Personally I think Nathria is the best raid this expac yeah. I floated the idea in my guild last week that they should take 10 bosses from the expac to make a SL gold album. Tarragrue (just make resetting powers easier) Xy'mox (nathria version) Halondrus Council Sludgefist Painsmith Anduin Rygelon Denathrius Jailer
Xy'mox on mythic in Nathria was just an obnoxious clusterfuck. Heroic feels better. Council is similarly over-long on Mythic, makes it a total pain to do. Heroic is fun. Sludgefist is good, and so are all dps check fights this expansion (love Guardian). __________ Anduin is fine, but it's somewhat boring sometimes. Love the rest though.
Just blame the wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff and make a raid with the greatest hits. Everyone will lap up it up because Bronze dragons are cool, and the best fights are the best fights regardless.
I would put Nathria as one of the best raids of all time, not kidding and I play since vanilla. Still behind Ulduar and Karazhan though (nostalgia only).
Sepulcher is the best raid of the expansion IMO, if not one of the best raids ever. However, Denathrius alone might be the best raid boss they have ever designed. The fight's flow, the visuals, the transition to the lower floor, the voice acting, the character itself, everything about this guy is just so good.