One Of The Classic Pre-BC Raids Gets A Big Overhaul

For those of you who have been around since way before the Burning Crusade expansion, this will come as good news – even if it isn’t new news (unless you haven’t heard about it yet).  For the rest of us who never really quite made it into the level 60 raid content, it’s going to be a way to experience for the first time just what a big deal the Onyxia encounter was way back when.

I like nostalgia.  It’s always fun to remember things that used to be so freakin’ hard.  I wasn’t around for Ony, Strat, Scholo, AQ, ZG, and Mag but I do remember doing the lower level instances from the same time period.  That’s why it was pretty exciting for just about anyone to hear that Blizz was going to ramp up Deadmines and SFK to level 85 for Cataclysm.  I’ve always thought that it would be cool if there was actually a good reason other than power leveling alts to do the low level dungeon runs – and having a top level heroic version is just the ticket.

Apparently Blizz eventually figured that out as well, and the very first of these upgraded dungeon versions is the Onyxia encounter.  While I never did it at 60, I’ve been in there a few times at 70 and 80 and can’t imagine what a pain organizing and pulling off a 40 man raid was in the place.  They are even going to leave some of the old flavor about the it since some of the new loot drops will have the same look as the T2 set pieces you used to get in there.  The regular level 60 raid won’t exist any more, unlike the SFK and VC heroics which will retain a low level version – so if you want to see it how it was you need to get in there now.

But the new gear isn’t even the best part of the raid.  We don’t have much information regarding this one yet – but it seems that Ony is also going to have a very small chance of dropping a 310% speed flying mount named Onyxia Broodling.  Talk about a raid people will farm until forever.  Super fast flyers are painfully rare, and this one is going to be a full sized dragon – probably even bigger than the proto-drake you have now.  That’s something to get a little excited about.

Blizz states they want everyone to “experience the frightening horror of deep breaths once again.”  Onyxia was a real challenge back in the day and there is no reason to believe that it won’t be an incredibly difficult encounter with great loot once again.  The loot will be on par with other current 10 man raids, and you will probably be farming for the mount well into the Cataclysm expansion when the raid will get slightly easier after you’ve hit 85 and upgraded your gear even more.  But until then, this addition to patch 3.2.2 look pretty Dominating!