Reviewing WOTLK heroic dungeon bosses

Yesterday I took a look at Burning Crusade's heroic dungeon bosses, today I would like to do the same for Wrath of the Lich King's big bads. Then we can make some comparisons.

Utgarde Keep

Utgarde Keep

First boss: Prince Keleseth
Wipe factor: low to medium
The summoned skeletons can pose a problem if they aren't picked up properly, and dps suffering from tunnel vision can let people die to frost tombs.

Second boss: Skarvald & Dalronn
Wipe factor: low
The randomness of the attacks has the potential to cause minor issues, otherwise the fight a straightforward tank and spank.

Third boss: Ingvar the Plunderer
Wipe factor: low to medium
Tanks need to learn to avoid his smash, people mustn't stand near spinning axes and your healer has to be careful not to get locked out of his healing spell school. Since the boss's overall damage output is fairly low however, there is a bit of room for error.

Utgarde Pinnacle

First boss: Svala Sorrowgrave
Wipe factor: low
The only real danger consists of people not killing the channelers quickly enough, but this part of the fight isn't on a very tight timer.

Second boss: Gortok Palehoof
Wipe factor: low
The sheer length of the event with the four sub-bosses can put a strain on your healer's mana if they aren't very well geared, otherwise there isn't much to be worried about.

Third boss: Skadi the Ruthless
Wipe factor: medium
The gauntlet is reasonably challenging since you have to keep fighting for quite a while to acquire the necessary amount of harpoons. Skadi's whirlwinds can also be deadly.

Fourth boss: King Ymiron
Wipe factor: medium
Most of the fight isn't too troublesome, but a badly timed combination of a spirit fountain spawn in the wrong place and a stun can quickly wipe the whole party.

The Nexus

The Nexus

First boss: Ormorok the Tree-Shaper
Wipe factor: low to medium
People have to remember to not stand on the spikes. Little adds can molest the healer. He also hits quite hard once he enrages.

Second boss: Anomalus
Wipe factor: low to medium
The aoe damage is considerable and the frequent target changing something that some parties struggle with.

Third boss: Grand Magus Telestra
Wipe factor: medium to high
This fight is very chaotic, and if your dps doesn't have the focus to quickly take down her split personalities, all the random effects can quickly overwhelm people.

Fourth boss: Commander Stoutbeard / Commander Kolurg
Wipe factor: medium
His whirlwinds are devastating and the fear can easily cause line of sight issues or pull adds.

Fifth boss: Keristrasza
Wipe factor: low to medium
This one basically comes down to whether people remember to keep moving or not.

The Oculus

First boss: Drakos the Interrogator
Wipe factor: low
Keep an eye on the bombs. That's it.

Second boss: Varos Cloudstrider
Wipe factor: medium
The conical lightning strikes can be hard to predict correctly for some people.

Third boss: Mage-Lord Urom
Wipe factor: medium to high
The final bit of the fight where you have to kite him around the ring is quite tough, as it's all too easy to get caught in a frost bomb and then be too slow to move out of his aoe.

Fourth boss: Ley-Guardian Eregos
Wipe factor: high
People are forced to use vehicles that they don't really necessarily "get". A recipe for disaster.

Azjol-Nerub

Azjol-Nerub

First boss: Krik'thir the Gate Watcher
Wipe factor: medium to high
If you make it to the boss himself you're golden, but the packs of mobs linked to him are quite tough, especially the skirmishers with their random aggro table.

Second boss: Hadronox
Wipe factor: low to medium
As long as people don't stand in the poison for too long and do decent dps, this fight is very straightforward.

Third boss: Anub'Arak
Wipe factor: medium
People need to be quick at taking out the adds and avoid being pounded at all costs. The latter has zero margin for error if you're not the tank.

Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom

First boss: Elder Nakox
Wipe factor: low to medium
Switching between dpsing the elder and his guardian add shouldn't be too hard, but the small bugs can easily kill your healer if not taken care of.

Second boss: Prince Taldaram
Wipe factor: low to medium
You need sufficient dps to get him to let go of whoever's blood he's trying to drink and the victim can't be healed. The aoe damage from the floating orbs of fire can be a nuisance as well.

Third boss: Jedoga Shadowseeker
Wipe factor: medium
A dps check similar to the previous fight, not killing the worshippers will likely result in tank death unless you vastly overgear the instance.

Fourth boss: Amanitar
Wipe factor: low to medium
The deal with the mushrooms can be a bit confusing and cause issues for people who use aoe attacks by default.

Fifth boss: Herald Volazj
Wipe factor: medium
The difficulty of the insanity phase differs considerably depending on the classes in your party. Some dps classes are likely to die, but as long as your tank and healer survive they will find the rest of the fight all the easier for it and should still be able to finish him off.

Zul'Drak

Drak'Tharon Keep

First boss: Trollgore
Wipe factor: low
Tank and spank with a bit of aoe damage.

Second boss: Novos the Summoner
Wipe factor: nil
I'm not sure how one could wipe on this fight unless your tank or healer was afk.

Third boss: King Dred
Wipe factor: medium to high
His damage output is quite high even on a well-geared tank, which, combined with a fear, can quickly lead to a wipe.

Fourth boss: The Prophet Tharon'ja
Wipe factor: nil
I don't think anybody understands what this fight is really about, but considering that you spend a lot of time in the form of a self-healing skeleton there isn't much that could possibly go wrong.

Gundrak

First boss: Slad'ran
Wipe factor: medium to high
His poison aoe has to be avoided at all costs. Snake adds spawn quickly and can take down the healer quickly if not taken care of.

Second boss: Drakkari Colossus / Elemental
Wipe factor: low to medium
The constant need to keep moving can pose a challenge. Aggro resets are dangerous.

Third boss: Moorabi
Wipe factor: low
People only hate this guy because of the difficult achievement linked to him.

Fourth boss: Eck the Ferocious
Wipe factor: nil
This guy isn't ferocious at all.

Fifth boss: Gal'darah
Wipe factor: low to medium
He hits quite hard and his whirlwinds will often kill melee. The rest of the party shouldn't have much trouble though.

Dalaran

The Violet Hold

Random boss: Erekem
Wipe factor: low
Easy as long as your dps remembers not to kill the adds first.

Random boss: Ichoron
Wipe factor: low
Using the crystals to kill off the small elementals makes the fight completely trivial.

Random boss: Lavanthor
Wipe factor: nil
Tank and spank the doggie. Nothing more to it.

Random boss: Moragg
Wipe factor: nil
Another tank and spank with a small amount of random damage on the party.

Random boss: Xevozz
Wipe factor: medium to high
Everybody needs to be aware of the need to kite and avoid the spheres. Still there's a considerable chance of having line of sight issues.

Random boss: Zuramat the Obliterator
Wipe factor: medium to high
Early in the expansion people would just give up if they got this boss, due to the massive amounts of shadow damage he puts out as time goes by. With everybody being better geared and doing more dps it's not quite as bad anymore.

Third boss: Cyanigosa
Wipe factor: low
Unless someone pulls aggro after the reset or stands in a Blizzard, nobody should die on this fight.

Ulduar

Halls of Stone

First boss: Krystallus
Wipe factor: low
People standing too close to the tank might die, but even a tank and healer alone can finish him off quite easily.

Second boss: Maiden of Grief
Wipe factor: low to medium
Shock of sorrow can cause issues if the tank gets stunned.

Third boss: Tribunal of Ages
Wipe factor: medium to high
Towards the end the constant stream of adds becomes quite overwhelming, the random damage on the party doesn't help either.

Fourth boss: Sjonnir the Ironshaper
Wipe factor: medium
Tank and melee have to remember to run out of his aoe, adds will go for the healer.

Halls of Lightning

First boss: General Bjarngrim
Wipe factor: low to medium
He hits quite hard but doesn't have much in the way of annoying abilities. Pulling him with adds can cause trouble if your group isn't highly geared.

Second boss: Volkhan
Wipe factor: low to medium
People standing near to golems when they get shattered can lead to troublesome deaths.

Third boss: Ionar
Wipe factor: medium
Running from the boss when he disperses is usually manageable, but people also have to watch out for static overload.

Fourth boss: Loken
Wipe factor: high
Similar to the Murmur fight, running in and out of the lightning nova can pose considerable difficulties. There's also a lot of extra damage in addition to it.

Caverns of Time

The Culling of Stratholme

First boss: Meathook
Wipe factor: low
The person getting constricted by the chains needs healing up quickly, but otherwise there are no special abilites to watch out for.

Second boss: Salramm the Fleshcrafter
Wipe factor: low
The summoned ghouls can be a nuisance, especially if they explode.

Third boss: Chrono-Lord Epoch
Wipe factor: low
He does something not completely unlike Warchief Bladefist's blade dance, but it does a lot less damage.

Fourth boss: Infinite Corrupter
Wipe factor: nil
If you are fast enough to engage him, you can kill him easily.

Fifth boss: Mal'Ganis
Wipe factor: low
He has a few random spells that he casts on people, but they do very little.

Total number of Northrend heroic instances: 12
Total number of Northrend heroic bosses: 53
Average number of heroic bosses in a Northrend instance: 4

Total wipe ratings for bosses:
low: 14
low to medium: 14
medium: 9
medium to high: 8
high: 2

Compared to the BC heroics, there seems to have been a strong shift towards making the bosses easier, with only half as many bosses in the medium to high and high categories and only two rated as truly fearsome.

Looking at the BC list, most bosses that were rated as highly wipe-inducing were so because of massive damage output and sometimes the ability to summon multiple adds that couldn't be easily taken down with some aoe. For some reason these appear to be mechanics that Blizzard seems to want to move away from in five-mans. Whether that's a good thing or not is debateable - a challenge is nice, countless wipes due to the smallest mistake snowballing into something big are not.