Burning Crusade Raids

With the release of Burning Crusade, I was able to step into raiding for the first time. I wasn't playing early enough to experience 60 raiding but I can bet you that those were great times had by many.

Burning Crusade kicked off with Tier 4 raid dungeons and ended at Tier 6, with additional raid dungeons adding extra item levels in between.

Karazhan, the first raid dungeon level 70 players would encounter, featured eleven bosses, and the tokens to the Tier 4 gloves and helm could be found here. Initially, the dungeon was fairly difficult as many players had not yet grasped the concept of heroic mode dungeons and therefore found themselves up a creek without a paddle. Eventually raid coordination and class mastery would prove to overcome many of the raid's dangerous bosses. My favorite encounters in this dungeon would have to be The Curator, Shade of Aran, Netherspite and Opera Event. For a 10-man raid dungeon it proved to be among the most memorable instances ever created.

Gruul's Lair, located in Blade's Edge Mountains of Outland, was the first 25-man raid dungeon players would encounter after Karazhan. Its two bosses, High King Maulgar and Gruul, were two pretty tough cookies. The dungeon would later receive minor re-tuning in the form of damage reductions to help beginner guilds down the content more effectively. Defeating the bosses here would yield players the tokens to the Tier 4 shoulders and leg pieces.


Magtheridon's Lair, the last of the Tier 4 raid dungeons, only featured one boss and fairly annoying trash packs. It's located in the Hellfire Peninsula at the very bottom of Hellfire Citadel. This boss was once a requirement towards the Tempest Key, an item needed to access the Tier 5 raid dungeon Tempest Keep. Magtheridon was the final obstacle in obtaining the final piece to the Tier 4 raid set, the chestpiece. After the Tier 5 attunement quests were done away with, many guilds would skip this raid dungeon as it required a fair amount of raid coordination to complete.

Serpentshrine Cavern was one of the two Tier 5 raids, the next step up from Tier 4. Located in the Coilfang Reservoir of Zangarmarsh. Beating Nightbane in Karazhan and Gruul were key to entering this dungeon after a chain quest found within one of the Coilfang heroics. It was advisable to use Nature/Frost Resistance gear in this dungeon in order to get past the dungeon's first boss, Hydross the Unstable.  The final boss of this instance was Lady Vashj. In total, this dungeon featured six bosses, but only the Tier 5 glove, leg, and head piece tokens could be found here.

Tempest Keep: The Eye is actually the raid wing of Tempest Keep, a series of floating ships surrounding one big floating structure with massive pipes absorbing energy from the various manaforges in Netherstorm. Four bosses protected the interior, along with seemingly countless waves of trash mobs. Many guilds would find themselves challenging the Void Reaver after the attunments were done away with for an easy shot at the Tier 5 shoulder tokens, but Kael'thas Sunstrider proved to be a truly formidable opponent and was one of the stepping stones to the Tier 6 dungeons, something many guilds found themselves stuck at until the attunement quests to the Tier 6 raids were ultimately lifted. Many surely didn't get their Tier 5 chest pieces from this guy.

The Caverns of Time: The Battle For Mount Hyjal in Tanaris, was the raid portion of the Caverns of Time in the Burning Crusade. Taking place during one of Warcraft's earlier and most well-known events in its history, players were required to take on oncoming waves of enemies before facing the next boss. This dungeon was the first of the Tier 6 raids, and defeating the last two bosses yielded the Tier 6 gloves and helm. The last boss of the instance, Archimonde, was very unique in that a single player death could potentially wipe the entire raid if they are not careful enough, as the fight threw many curveballs to force players to their deaths.

Black Temple, originally supposed to be the final raid to the Burning Crusade expansion, was the end-all to the game's main plot. The nine bosses would prove to be among the most challenging ever faced in any raid. Being able to enter the Black Citadel required completing a very lengthy quest chain that would tax the most hardened of players, but players were rewarded with an epic quality necklace that would later allow players to teleport to the Black Temple upon fully completing it for the first time. Players would find the Tier 6 shoulders, leg and chest tokens from the final three bosses of the instance.

As far as the Tier raids go, two more raid dungeons would be introduced:

Zul'Aman, which was added sometime after Black Temple, was a 10-man troll-themed dungeon with rewards and loot somewhat on par with Tier 5 items. Featuring six bosses, defeating the first four in a timely manner would yield the raid a unique war bear mount which would later be removed with the release of the second expansion. The dungeon would later be revamped for the game's third expansion with a newly designed bear mount.

Sunwell Plateau, the official last raid of Burning Crusade, was thrown in after players found themselves without any fresh content to work on after almost a year of Black Temple. The dungeon's six bosses were among the hardest ever conceived but the rewards were among the most powerful one could hope to find. Not many got to experience this raid, although an attunement wasn't really required. The Tier 6 armor set was also expanded by three slots to include the belt, boots and bracers, so players would not lose their set bonuses. I never really got to see much of that instance.