World of Warcraft has numerous bosses, but only a few could withstand the players for a long time. We show you the hardest bosses that protected their throne for months.
With its over 18 years, World of Warcraft has an extremely extensive game world and numerous raids. Some bosses are defeated on the day of their release, while others live for many weeks or even months. But which bosses have lasted the longest in WoW’s history? Which enemies withstood the onslaught of players for the longest? We present to you the 7 hardest bosses in WoW’s history – at least regarding their lifespan.
Note: The article originally dates back to August 2020. We have updated it in March 2023.
Rank 7: Nefarian
Duration: 77 days (11 raid IDs)
Raid: Blackwing Lair (Vanilla)
As WoW players know, completing BWL is not a Bachelor’s thesis, but the black dragon Nefarian. He kept raiders busy during Vanilla times for a proud 11 weeks and was considered invincible for a long time. This was not only due to the fact that the entire raid before him was quite hard, but also because of a special requirement.
Anyone who wanted to succeed against Nefarian needed an Onyxia Scale Cloak. Only with this item was it possible to survive the devastating Shadow Flame, which would otherwise kill players with one attack. However, since the cloak requires scales from Onyxia, who is also a raid boss, it took a long time to farm the cloaks accordingly.
In addition, Nefarian required quite good coordination and still possesses one of the most famous abilities of all time, namely the so-called “Class Calls” – a mechanic that even returns in Dragonflight. Every class was forced by Nefarian to use special abilities against allies or to help Nefarian. Mages, for example, transformed their friends into animals, leading to a lot of chaos.
Rank 6: Archimonde
Duration: 79 days (12 raid IDs)
Raid: Battle of Mount Hyjal (The Burning Crusade)
Archimonde was the final boss of the Battle of Mount Hyjal and belonged to the expansion “The Burning Crusade”.
The Battle of Mount Hyjal is considered one of the longest raid instances due to its structure. The battle resembles the map from Warcraft III. Here too, you had to defeat waves of enemies to withstand the onslaught of the Legion and the Scourge. If you fail at individual bosses or waves, the whole process has to be repeated. So a lot of time could pass between individual boss attempts.
Accordingly, Archimonde could make himself cozy at the very end of this raid. When players finally reached him, he had numerous devastating effects. Deadly debuffs with high damage, massive knockback effects that could cause players to die from fall damage, and a well that silenced everyone for a long time if they fell into it.
Note: Strictly speaking, Archimonde survived a bit longer because you had to complete the previous raids to access this raid. However, we consider the point at which it would have been technically possible to visit Archimonde.
Rank 5: Yogg-Saron
Duration: 85 days (13 raid IDs)
Raid: Ulduar (Wrath of the Lich King)
With its 14 bosses, Ulduar is one of the largest raids of all time in World of Warcraft. Especially the final battle was particularly tough – at least in the hardest available variant.
As with almost all bosses in Ulduar, there were different hard modes that made bosses harder, added new abilities, and improved potential loot.
With Yogg-Saron, players had the option to forego the help of the Titan constructs. Each of these guardians provided relief in the fight, such as a way to restore the character’s mental health.
Exactly this mental health was also the crux of the fight. Many abilities robbed players of their sanity, and anyone who lost all their mental health would end up as a servant of the Old God and turn against their allies. It’s not surprising, then, that Yogg-Saron held out for a full 85 days with the challenging “+0” variant.
Rank 4: Kel’thuzad
Duration: 90 days (13 raid IDs)
Raid: Naxxramas (Vanilla)
Kel’thuzad was not only an important character in Warcraft III but also the last major antagonist of the Vanilla version of World of Warcraft. He ruled over the necropolis Naxxramas and was the final boss before it went into The Burning Crusade with the first expansion.
Naxxramas is known for several things. On the one hand, access to Naxxramas was quite expensive, as players had to buy the passage – depending on how much reputation they had farmed beforehand, this cost more or less. However, the much greater challenges were the tough boss mechanics.
At least by Vanilla WoW standards, Naxxramas raised the bar and offered interesting but also deadly mechanics. Just think of the famous “Heigan Dance” or the four horsemen that required four tanks. Frost resistances and other tricks were also expected here.
At the end of all these difficulties stood Kel’thuzad with an extremely long fight, in which particularly many adds had to be killed. Thanks to the groundwork of the other bosses, it was unsurprising that Kel’thuzad managed to maintain his honor for a full 3 months before the first group succeeded in killing the top servant of the Lich King.
On the next page, you will find ranks 3 to 1.
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