The Middle Tier

As I've posted recently, there's a slight mystery on what the final tier of Warlords of Draenor will involve. Frankly, as much as I'd prefer Gul'dan as the final boss, I think that the expansion is clearly being set up for us to be taking on Grommash and the Iron Horde, most likely at Hellfire Citadel in Tanaan Jungle (or whatever the non-Fel Horde calls that place.)

But what of the middle tier?

Since Wrath, the middle tier of an expansion has typically been a way to go to a kind of secondary threat. It's often a big one, but not really the focus on the expansion. Now, Wrath had two middle tiers (it's the only expansion to have four official tiers, though BC and Vanilla had "in between" tiers) but clearly of the two, Ulduar was the grander and more important raid.

So Wrath had us fighting the Scourge, but going off to deal with Yogg-Saron and all the Titan-themed stuff in Ulduar. Cataclysm had us fighting the Black Dragonflight and Twilight's Hammer, but sent us off to the Firelands to deal with Ragnaros' reemergence. Mists had us largely dealing with the Sha, then sending us to finish off the Mogu before having a final confrontation with the last remnant of Y'shaarj, who spawned the Sha (obviously, Mists was a bit more complicated, what with Garrosh being the real villain, but it fits the pattern for my purposes.)

So, thus, Blackrock Foundry is kind of the Naxxramas to whatever Warlords' final tier's raid's ICC. But what will be its Ulduar?

Well, let's talk candidates:

So far, in the Beta, I've actually encountered a decent number of non-Iron Horde threats that could prove to be significant.

First and foremost: Gul'dan, the Shadow Council, and the Burning Legion. Now, I'm still holding out hope that these guys make it to the final raid, but if they don't, it would stand to reason that we'd have to fight these dudes off. They don't have the grip on Draenor that they had in our universe, but it's still the freaking Burning Legion.

The Ogre Empire: I suspect that we'll be done with the Ogres after Highmaul. While we wound up getting two Mogu-themed raids in Mists, the Ogres haven't felt like quite the omnipresent threat in Draenor. So while I won't rule it out, it's not really positioned in such a way that the Ogres will continue to be that significant.

The Arrakoa: This I will reserve judgment on until I've done Spires of Arrak. Currently, the only Arrakoa one encounters are in Talador. They're a foe that could easily wind up being dealt with purely in a dungeon, but that depends on what we find out about their foci of worship (I've always suspected Draenic Old Gods.)

The Genesaur and their Ilk: The plant-creatures of Draenor are pretty darn powerful and scary. They show up in multiple zones, and seem like the ultimate manifestation of Draenor as a death world, where even the plants will kill you and then plant seeds in your corpse to turn you into some kind of plant-zombie.

The Gronn and Variants: With Gruul as the first boss in Blackrock Foundry, I don't know if there's really enough charisma here to justify an entire raid tier. But I suspect we'll see plenty of Gronn/Ogron bosses, particularly in Ogre-heavy areas.

The Infinite Dragonflight: Much to my dismay, there has not been any sign of the Infinites in Draenor. I had hoped we'd see at least something of Kairoz (who I'm pretty sure is an Infinite, or at least will be one.) Then again, I haven't seen every zone, and it's possible that they'd be coming in in a later patch.

The Fel Alliance: Haha, ok. Totally not supported by any evidence whatsoever, and it wouldn't even make all that much sense, since the original Fel Horde (the Old Horde, not to be confused with Illidan's Fel Horde) was sent after Azeroth, and Draenor doesn't seem to have the special properties that Azeroth does. But man, it would really through us all for a loop if Azeroth-B hijacked the Dark Portal and invaded Draenor. Oddly enough, with perhaps the exception of Kanrethad Ebonlocke, we've never seen a Fel Human. Imagine facing down Death King Llane, or Lothar the Destroyer? With a final boss Medivh? Yeah, no way in hell is this going to happen, but it's fun to dream.