Since the release of Wrath of the Lich King in WoW Classic, fans have been arguing about a dungeon in the game: the Oculus. Some players dislike the endgame dungeon so much that they want to avoid it at all costs. Others cannot understand this at all, as you can complete the dungeon in 15 minutes. There is another one that is much worse.
What kind of dungeon is this? The Oculus is a dungeon in the Boreal Tundra in the same instance complex as the Nexus and the Eye of Eternity, one of the first 3 raids in WotLK Classic.
You can enter the Oculus starting at level 75. It is designed for players from levels 78 to 80, making it one of the endgame dungeons of the game. You will encounter 4 bosses in the dungeon.
What makes the Oculus so bad? The main feature of the Oculus is that the dungeon relies heavily on verticality and movement in three-dimensional space. You do not just walk through a “linear level”, but you have to coordinate constantly.
To do this, you can ride dragons that are specially provided for this dungeon and that fulfill different roles with unique abilities:
- Red Dragon: Tank
- Bronze Dragon: DPS
- Green Dragon: Healer
The difficulty is that some players do not know or ignore this division. This makes the dungeon significantly more difficult. Additionally, you have to find your way around different platforms. It is easy to lose orientation here.
On Reddit, there are ongoing threads about how much some players hate the Oculus. It was not helpful that the daily heroic quest could be completed in the Oculus for several days in a row. One player even shows that he did not achieve the achievement “Champion of the Frozen Wastes” because he refuses to enter the Oculus (via reddit).
Thousands of players are diving into WotLK Classic – including surely some newcomers who simply do not know the mechanics. Here’s what the crowd looked like at release:
“Crazy how much people avoid the dungeon”
In the same thread, other players wonder where this aversion actually comes from. The dungeon is easy if you just coordinate a little or help other players. One user states that you can breeze through even in heroic mode in 15-20 minutes and easily earn 4 badges and nice loot.
A major problem, according to others, is that there is a lot of misunderstanding. If everyone knows what to do, it goes quickly. However, since many impatient and greedy players are out in Classic, there often seem to be a lack of coordination or the patience for a quick explanation.
In one of the largest threads in the WoW Classic subreddit, a player jokingly asks: “Which dungeon do you dislike the most and why is it the Oculus?” The thread has over 1,100 upvotes and 510 comments, many of which criticize a completely different dungeon.
There, players especially complain about the Halls of Stone. The dungeon in Ulduar is not hard, but long and mostly boring. There are many role-play scenes with the Dwarven researcher Brann Bronzebeard that cannot be skipped.
As a new player, this might be interesting, but if you have to go through the dungeon multiple times, it just becomes annoying. One player even quips: “The real battle is to stay awake.” Especially bad are wipes due to lack of concentration and the repetition of some of the lengthy events.
MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus believes that it is worth taking at least some time to enjoy WotLK. WotLK is his “Feel Good” WoW:
For 12 years, WoW has been dying out, but now Blizzard is getting (almost) everything right again
