Which old raid boss do you still dread the most?

Everyone who spends time in World of Warcraft raids from past expansions has a least favorite encounter — one that you just shudder at the thought of getting through. We do it anyway, just to get a chance at that elusive rare mount, the perfect transmog piece, or an adorably fluffy pet.

Up towards the top of my list was the Spine of Deathwing encounter in Dragon Soul. It’s a long fight with mechanics that are simple enough and it’s definitely soloable, but my blood pressure would peak whenever I would parachute onto the back of the former Earthwarder. With new changes to several fights in the raid, ripping the elementium plates off of Deathwing’s back is now nine times quicker, greatly reducing the chance that a lapse in concentration gets you flung into the Maelstrom.

There are other bosses that are easier now than in the past. I used to despise running around Lady Vashj’s area searching for green elementals, but now she’s a one-shot. Yogg-Saron’s insanity mechanic is exponentially easier to deal with than it was a few expansions ago. There are a lot that have minor annoyances that we still can’t skip, like passionate monologues or boss transformations.

Other writers mentioned fights like Opulence in Battle for Daza’alor, where an encounter that required the raid to split into groups made some mechanics near-impossible to solo. Eonar in Antorus, the Burning Throne came up as well, where clearing the fight by yourself requires large helpings of speed, skill, and luck.

Number one on my list for the longest time has been the Chess Event in Karazhan. Having to run around and control individual pieces on the game board is super tedious, and despite many claiming a sure-fire strategy, no one approach always works. For every time that I cleared the fight on the first try, there’s another time that I waved the white flag on the whole transmog run after failing six times in a row. I’m going to celebrate when I finally complete all of my tier 4 armor sets — probably about a week before the encounter is completely changed to be easily soloable.

So which raid boss from the archives is at the top of your least favorite list? Do you avoid it altogether, or is there a particular reward that you want enough that you keep coming back week after week?