The Most Terrifying Raid Bosses Ever Conceived

Raid bosses are supposed to be epic and terrifying. You?re supposed to genuinely feel as though you and your group are confronting a greater being- a creature which views your characters as little more than pests. It?s something a lot of people have claimed to be missing in modern MMOs ? long, difficult battles which absolutely necessitated top-tier skill, the best gear available, perfect timing, and total co-ordination.

Here?s a look back at some of the nastiest, toughest, and most terrifying bosses in the history of the MMO ? a look back at a time when only the best of the best could even hope to take one down. These are the guys who laugh at the other bosses, who kick sand in the face of other raid mobs at the beach. Back then, if you ever planned to fight them, all anyone could say was ?good luck.?

Because you?d need it.
[heading]C?thun(Pre Nerf)[/heading]


C?thun was the penultimate boss of Ahn?Qiraj, a 40-man raid which required weeks upon weeks of server-wide grinding simply to enter in vanilla World of Warcraft. He was called The Guildbreaker, and with very good reason- before Blizzard nerfed him, he was completely undefeated. No one could take him down, no matter how hard they tried, and up to that point, he put every other boss that Blizzard had ever designed to shame.

A raid of forty players had to be absolutely perfect to even have a glimmer of hope against C?thun. One player out of place would kill five others. Each of those five would probably kill five. And to make matters worse, C?thun would randomly strike out with his tentacles, knocking people out of position. One mistake, and death awaited. Did I mention he also devoured players every now and then, trapping them in his stomach.

To date, he?s one of the only bosses Blizzard has ever nerfed on account of being unbeatable.
[heading]M?uru/Entropius[/heading]


M?uru has been mentioned time and time again as another of WoW?s hardest bosses- and another of the bosses Blizzard had to nerf. He?s a corrupted Naru- a being of pure energy whose race has been doing battle with the Burning Legion for centuries. And he?s downright terrifying- just as such a being should be. Wanna know just how nasty he was? Have a look.
[heading]Antharas the Earth Dragon[/heading]


From Lineage II, Antharas has the distinction of wiping out entire servers when they attempted to kill him. That?s right- this guy required all the best players of a server to band together and wage a desperate, hours-long battle to defeat him. With mass stuns, mass fears, a whole boatload of HP and AI better than any other monster in the game (this guy was the pride and joy of the developers, and probably the hardest boss fight in the MMO), he was no laughing matter- never mind the fact that players had to fight their way through a whole seven layer dungeon just to reach him.
[heading]Cuuldurach[/heading]


We?re adding one more dragon to the list. Hailing from Dark Age of Camelot, Cuuldurach was a right nasty piece of work before they fixed him (word is, his breath weapon was bugged, and did a metric ton more damage than it was supposed to). Even then, he required 3-4 full groups to take down. But hey, it?d be disappointing if a dragon was easy pickings, right?
[heading]The Pandemonium Warden[/heading]


Chances are, you?ve heard all about this one. It?s the Final Fantasy XI boss that a 36-man raid party fought for 18 hours before eventually suffering defeat. That?s right- they spent almost a full day trying to take this thing down, and still ended up failing, never mind that they spent several weeks preparing for the fight beforehand). Even worse, the gear it dropped?wasn?t all that good to begin with. Truth be told, one gets the feeling it was never meant to be defeated in the first place.

Understandably, Square Enix nerfed the boss fight considerably after the fiasco surrounding their failed attempt. It?s actually beatable now.

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