Razorgore the Untamed: World of Warcraft's Worst Raid Boss

Boss battles in World of Warcraft vary in terms of complexity, from simple tank-and-spank encounters that serve as gear checks, to longer encounters with more complex mechanics. Most battles are won by reducing the boss's health to 0, but sometimes, the objective may be different. Even back in pre-expansion World of Warcraft, Blackwing Lair, one of the first raids added, had an unusual boss battle with Razorgore the Untamed at the very start of the raid, but unfortunately, it wasn't a very easy or enjoyable fight. 

Fight Overview

Razorgore's fight is nontraditional. The goal of the fight is to destroy all of Razorgore's eggs, then defeat him by reducing his health to 0. If the latter happens before the former, he will instantly kill the entire raid and reset the encounter.

The reason why you're not allowed to kill Razorgore is because you need his help to destroy the eggs. At the start of the fight, the raid must kill the orc using a magical orb to control Razorgore, then use him to destroy the eggs. Since vehicle mechanics were first introduced in Wrath, you control Razorgore with a pet action bar, using abilities the game doesn't tell you about in advance. In older versions of the game, raid members would have to take turns mind-controlling Razorgore, with a Mind Exhaustion debuff being applied after the orb's duration expires to prevent people from using it again.

While the raid is using Razorgore to destroy the eggs, adds are flowing in to kill the players and Razorgore, and must be dealt with. These adds come in three varieties- Dragonkin, Legionaires and Blackrock Mages, and will be the focus of your raid's efforts while the player controlling Razorgore is destroying the eggs.

Once the eggs are destroyed, Razorgore heals to full and becomes uncontrollable. At this point, the raid must finish him off, which is a relatively simple task. The hard part is actually getting to that point.

The Problems

Now let's go over the various problems with the fight.

The first problem is that it's the very first encounter in Blackwing Lair- not just the first boss but present before any trash mobs. Basically, you'll have to get past him if you want to get at the rest of the dungeon, and he's the first encounter every week. It doesn't help that if you can't defeat him, you can't get gear off of the bosses you have on farm, or kill trash mobs for the small chance at BoEs.

The second problem is that Razorgore was not only very difficult back in Classic, but he is also tedious. The fight amounts to holding off adds while Razorgore is manipulated into destroying the eggs. Higher DPS can keep the adds at bay, but it doesn't make him much easier.

The third problem is that he's especially difficult to solo, since one player must manipulate the orb and force him to destroy eggs. Even after all the changes that made him easier, he's still a remarkably tedious boss compared to the others, which can be one-shotted.

The last problem is his wiping the raid if you kill him before destroying the eggs. Other bosses have failure conditions, but in many of those cases(e.g. one of the NPCs dying in the Galakras encounter), the encounter will simply reset. It seems almost unfair to have players incur a repair bill every time they die this way.

In short, the problem is that Razorgore is always a difficult encounter, but never becomes easy. Compare the similarly difficult Vaelastrasz, which is an intense DPS race; well-geared raids could take him down with trivial ease, and players who outlevel the zone can kill him almost instantly. In Razorgore's case, however, all players, no matter how well-geared, must successfully navigate the egg destruction phase in order to get past Razorgore, which is at best tedious and at worst frustrating.

Conclusion

The Razorgore encounter is a good example of a decent idea in theory that becomes rather infuriating in practice. It's also an example of an encounter that hasn't aged well, with one of the comparable examples being Chess in Karazhan(which barely qualifies as a boss). It seems as though Blizzard learned from their mistakes here, as most boss encounters, even the less than typical ones, don't repeat the mistakes Blizzard made with Razorgore.