History ThatOneLevel / MMORPG

* Most of the areas in original version were not popular, due to being huge, mostly barren, and being full of CutAndPasteEnvironments, but at least they are open and not that hard to navigate. Black Shroud, on the other hand, was a massive eldrich abomination of a forest that is basically a maze of small passages, where it is ''incredibly'' easy to find yourself lost simply due to the fact that everything looks the same due to those same CutAndPasteEnvironments, and that everyone hated with passion. It's a small wonder that "A Realm Reborn" managed to actually make Black Shroud into an area that is not just bearable, but enjoyable.
* The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak tends to be this for a lot of people. Not that it's particularly hard, but that it's boring (the second boss, even down to the arena you fight it in, is an exact copy and paste of the first, and while the last boss is more unique, if you like watching mid-dungeon cutscenes you'll be spending five minutes waiting for Lahabrea to stop [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment saying the same two things over and over again]] and just sic the boss on you), has a needlessly slow last third due to the dungeon being covered in sticky goo that slows you down, and its level cap is under 30, just before where your class advances into a job and your skills start getting more interesting and varied.
** This has now been mitigated as of 6.1 with the slowing effect being removed, making runs much faster.

** You must pick up certain items and use them to tip scales in order to proceed in the last leg of the dungeon, and the puzzles themselves [[GuideDangIt give absolutely no hints]].

** Another reason the dungeon is so difficult is because of pure bad timing, as it comes right around the point where White Mage players learn their famed Holy spell, which hits multiple enemies and stuns them for a few seconds. If they've only played Conjurer and White Mage, this is probably their first time having an ability that stuns enemies, and after only testing it on low-level enemies it kills in one hit, they're likely to come to the conclusion it's perfectly possible to spam Holy to add on damage while preventing the tank from getting hit - very quickly leading to wipes in the first area of the dungeon as the game makes it clear [[GuideDangIt all too late]] that enemies gradually resist being stunned more and more as they're repeatedly hit by stun skills.

* While only a city, Dazar'alor earns an impressive amount of hatred due to both it's sheer size and layout. Half of the city is a {{Mayincatec}} pyramid with most commodities spread out across the various levels and the only way to ascend is to take winding staircases that take forever to ascend. The other half of the city is so far away that it requires a flight point to reach in a decent amount of time and once again, everything is spread out across different levels. While Boralus is equally large, everything players are likely to use regularly[[note]]Scrapper, profession trainers, flight point, harbormaster, and the ship to Zandalar[[/note]] are all kept close together rather than requiring several minutes of running up and down stairs to get from A to B.

* The Torgash Feature in shadowlands expansion has been subject to this, but it even generated a large [[TheScrappy hatedom]] for being LuckBasedMission UpToEleven. Corridors and bosses are completely random each time you start a run, and some bosses can be unwinnable if you are in the wrong class or spec suited for it. As if that wasn't enough, Twisted Corridors takes it to a whole new level by virtue of relying on the player to obtain a large amount of Health Power-ups as well as self heal and damage ones. Got too few Health power ups? Final boss is going to destroy you in a single strike. Not enough damage? Boss will keep getting stronger until you cannot handle the damage anymore. [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Got the wrong boss for your class toolkit and wrong anima powers?]]same deal. And if you lose(deplete your death count)? Thats 2 hours or more of your time wasted for nothing.
* Season 4 of Shadowlands introduced the addition of legacy dungeons for Mythic plus rotation. Unfortunately, it seems as if Blizzard did not rework any of them to actually account for Mythic plus, affixes and all. The end result is both Grimrail Depot and Lower Karazhan quickly becoming the most loathed dungeons out of the rotation, and the ones with the less amount of successful runs, according to Mythic plus stats. It got so bad that Grimrail was eventually given massive nerfs some time after release.

** Grimrail was this way originally as it cleary never meant to be used in a setting with affixes that requires room to work around them(Sanguine,Storming,Quaking,Necrotic,Spiteful) and, as a result, clearing trash often boils down to a lot of [[LuckBasedMission RNG]], with some weeks borderline on [[UnwinnableByMistake impossible to finish]]. This coupled with [[BossInMookClothing overtuned]] trash mobs, coupled with bosses that range from [[FakeDifficulty ridiculously overtuned]] and poorly telegraphed to [[GameBreakingBug bug prone]], not many were eager to do Grimrail Depot.It took a few waves of massive nerfs to make this place more reasonable and in line with the other dungeons. The nerfs reduced the difficulty of the trash, the damage values of some bosses, redesigned the visuals of the mechanics to be better telegraphed and they fixed most of the bugs. While a lot better as a result, Grimrail can still be this trope in weeks with affixes that exacerbates the lack of room and narrow corridors, as mentioned above.

** [[BlatantLies "One Small Favor."]] A FetchQuest and a ChainOfDeals, rolled together and taken UpToEleven. The player character lampshade it themselves.

** A huge part of "Sliske's Endgame" has you go through not one, but ''two'', series of [[TheMaze massive and overly cryptic mazes]] as you make your way over to the Stone of Jas. There's no obvious indication as to which path you need to take to progress, and it's very easy to get lost (even with the minimap maximized as much as possible), costing you a lot of unnecessary wasted time in the process. Even if you're [[GuideDangIt relying on a guide]] just to go through the mazes alone while skipping random encounters with the other participants of Sliske's sadistic games, it can still take an excrutiatingly long time before you finally call the mazes done and dusted.

** In May 2013, a new level was added to the Clockworks: Compounds. These aggravating levels have the widest variety of enemies in the entire game -- combinations of [[ElementalRockPaperScissors Slimes, Constructs, and Fiends]] are not uncommon, for example. Also, you're going to get mobbed by new mini-monsters (Dust Bunnies in the Ravenous Warrens, Scarabs in the Chittering Burrows, and Glop Drops in the Creeping Colonies) that rarely drop anything of value. As if that wasn't bad enough, near the end of every compound is a large room where the mini-monsters respawn infinitely and the only way out is by pressing a bunch of hidden buttons that, when activated, release enemies into the room. [[UpToEleven THEN]] you can finally leave this monster-infested hellhole... ''and take the elevator straight to another compound.''
* Mabinogi's G2 Paladin storyline. In a game were rushing into a dungeon alone pretty much means suicide, they make an entire chain of quests with 90% solo dungeons. Cue ragequits from pure mages and archers after reaching a certain dungeon with a monster that can't be knocked back.
** Dungeons at least give you the benefit of reviving at the last statue - Generation 11 brings in Shadow Missions, in which enemies get their stats doubled for about every hundred EmptyLevels you earn, you have to restart completely if you die, and everything is chock full of gimmick pain missions like TimedLevel and EscortMission. Pain all of the way through.
** As tricky as G2 can be, it's comparatively little trouble if you managed to clear G1's final stretch alone. As stated about Shadow Missions, dungeons normally give you the benefit of reviving at the last statue... except for Albey Dungeon, which has three missions in G1- the first two of which must be completed back to back without fail or you'll have to start over, and the third of which has FIVE FLOORS- and kicks you out if you die. And unlike Shadow Missions, you can't even use a Nao Soul Stone to revive if you have them! To make matters worse, Albey Dungeon is rife with [[DemonicSpiders Gargoyles,]] who will attack you when alerted (as opposed to only attacking when they aggro) and a look at the wiki shows they have the same attack damage as G1's final boss. And that's the Light Gargoyles. There are Heavy Gargoyles too, with enough bulk to survive anything but the likes of critical Magnum Shot, [[UpToEleven and their minimum attack damage is equal to the G1 endboss's maximum attack damage.]]

** Lower Karazhan meanwhile suffers from a lot of extremely punishing mechanics in both trash[[note]]How bad it is? The strat used to time a lower karazhan is to ''intentionally wipe'' after first boss in order to avoid doing the following trash thats too difficult and time-consuming to be worth the effort.Some trash packs are also ''skipped as much as possible between bosses'' because of how [[BossInMookClothing difficult]] and not worth the time it is to kill them.[[/note]] and bosses, and poor telegraphing as well in some cases. Of all the bosses, two in particular has been deemed the [[ThatOneBoss run killers]] for a reason:
*** Maiden of Virtue is possibly the one that roadblocks groups the most. Her shield is noted for requiring a extremely high amount of burst dps done in a 10 seconds window or else [[TotalPartyKill you wipe]], and its a mechanic you are guaranteed to see at least 2 or 3 times per fight, meaning completing a Lower Kara often boils down to having a comp with proper burst dps to burn her shield, so much it has been nerfed by 20% and she's '''STILL''' roadblocking groups and forcing burst dps comps for higher keys regardless.
*** Moroes is another prime offender. He applies a permanent [[DamageOverTime DoT]] that makes healing a complete pain, even more so on Grievous and/or Tyrannical weeks. His adds, meanwhile, needs to be cc'd and killed one by one before he reaches 50% HP or else they will destroy your group. While his add rotation varies per week, some are notorious for having obnoxious mechanics, like a whirlwind that forces melees to stay away and be unable to dps him, another with a huge frontal cone aoe to dodge as well as another that can heal other adds and Moroes or drain your healer's mana and stun him. It reached a point where Blizzard had to step in and nerf some mechanics, by making adds sighly weaker and removing the permanent aspect of Moroes' garrote debuff(it now lasts only 1 minute instead).

** Grimrail was this way originally as it cleary never meant to be used in a setting with affixes that requires room to work around them(Sanguine,Storming,Quaking,Necrotic,Spiteful) and, as a result, clearing trash often boils down to a lot of [[LuckBasedMission RNG]], with some weeks borderline on [[UnwinnableByMistake impossible to finish]]. This coupled with [[BossInMookClothing overtuned]] trash mobs, coupled with bosses that range from [[FakeDifficulty ridiculously overtuned]] and poorly telegraphed to [[GameBreakingBug bug prone]], not many were eager to do Grimrail Depot.It took a few waves of [[Nerf massive nerfs]] to make this place more reasonable and in line with the other dungeons. The nerfs reduced the difficulty of the trash, the damage values of some bosses, redesigned the visuals of the mechanics to be better telegraphed and they fixed most of the bugs. While a lot better as a result, Grimrail can still be this trope in weeks with affixes that exacerbates the lack of room and narrow corridors, as mentioned above.

* Season 4 of Shadowlands introduced the addition of legacy dungeons for Mythic plus rotation. Unfortunately, it seems as if Blizzard did not rework any of them to actually account for Mythic plus, affixes and all. The end result is both Grimrail Depot and Lower Karazhan quickly becoming the most loathed dungeons out of the rotation, and the ones with the less amount of successful runs, according to Mythic plus stats.

** The former was cleary never meant to be used in a setting with affixes that requires room to work around them(Sanguine,Storming,Quaking,Necrotic,Spiteful) and, as a result, clearing trash often boils down to a lot of [[LuckBasedMission RNG]], with some weeks borderline on [[UnwinnableByMistake impossible to finish]]. That's not even getting into the bosses themselves, one of which suffers from poor telegraphing of her attacks that makes dodging a pain, another being [[FakeDifficulty ridiculously overtuned]] in damage values and other prone to a [[GameBreakingBug nasty bug]] that forces you to reset the fight and potentially lose 2-3 mins ''in a mode where you are racing against the clock to finish in time''. The [[BossInMookClothing rather harsh]] nature of the trash doesn't help either.

** Lower Karazhan meanwhile suffers from a lot of extremely punishing mechanics in both trash and bosses, and poor telegraphing as well in some cases. Of all the bosses, two in particular has been deemed the [[ThatOneBoss run killers]] for a reason:

*** Moroes is another prime offender. He applies a permanent [[DamageOverTime DoT]] that makes healing a complete pain, even more so on Grievous and/or Tyrannical weeks. His adds, meanwhile, needs to be cc'd and killed one by one before he reaches 50% HP or else they will destroy your grup. While his add rotation varies per week, some are notorious for having obnoxious mechanics, like a whirlwind that forces melees to stay away and be unable to dps him, another with a huge frontal cone aoe to dodge as well as another that can heal other adds and Moroes or drain your healer's mana and stun him. It reached a point where Blizzard had to step in and nerf some mechanics, by making adds sighly weaker and removing the permanent aspect of Moroes' garrote debuff(it now lasts only 1 minute instead).

* Vashj'ir in ''Cataclysm''. Many claim the zone is an example of AtlantisIsBoring, but the zone is actually quite diverse, with seaweed forests, massive palaces, deep ravines, underwater caves, and enormous sea creatures. Its status as a ScrappyLevel seems to come mostly from the fact that people just don't like underwater levels. Also when first released it was incredibly buggy, preventing some people from even progressing through it (you can still get screwed on the final quest if you're unlucky), and secondly, the whole theme of the zone was a build-up to a confrontation with underwater [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch abominations]] which [[AbortedArc never happened,]] making the whole thing feel pointless.

*** Moroes is another prime offender. He applies a permanent [[DamageOverTime DoT]] that makes healing a complete pain, even more so on Grievous and/or Tyrannical weeks. His adds, meanwhile, needs to be cc'd and killed one by one before he reaches 50% HP or else they will destroy your grup. While his add rotation varies per week, some are notorious for having obnoxious mechanics, like a whirlwind that forces melees to stay away and be unable to dps him, another with a huge frontal cone aoe to dodge as well as another that can heal other adds and Moroes or drain your healer's mana and stun him. It reached a point where Blizzard had to step in and nerf some mechanics, by making adds sighly weaker and removing the permanent aspect of Moroes' buff(it now lasts only 1 minute instead).

** The former was cleary never meant to be used in a setting with affixes that requires room to work around them(Sanguine,Storming,Quaking,Necrotic,Spiteful) and, as a result, clearing trash often boils down to a lot of [[LuckBasedMission RNG]], with some weeks borderline on [[UnwinnableByMistake impossible to finish]]. That's not even getting into the bosses themselves, one of which suffers from poor telegraphing of her attacks that makes dodging a pain, another being [[FakeDifficulty ridiculously overtuned]] in damage values and other prone to a [[GameBreakingBug nasty bug]] that forces you to reset the fight and potentially lose 2-3 mins ''in a mode where you are racing against the clock to finish in time''. The [[MookInBossClothes rather harsh]] nature of the trash doesn't help either.

** The former was cleary never meant to be used in a setting with affixes that requires room to work around them(Sanguine,Storming,Quaking,Necrotic,Spiteful) and, as a result, clearing trash often boils down to a lot of [[LuckBasedMission RNG]], with some weeks borderline on [[UnwinnableByMistake impossible to finish]]. That's not even getting into the bosses themselves, one of which suffers from poor telegraphing of her attacks that makes dodging a pain, another being [[FakeDifficulty ridiculously overtuned]] in damage values and other prone to a [[GameBreakingBug nasty bug]] that forces you to reset the fight and potentially lose 2-3 mins ''in a mode where you are racing against the clock to finish in time''.

** Lower Karazhan meanwhile suffers from a lot of extremely punishing mechanics in both trash and bosses, and poor telegraphing as well in some cases. Of all the bosses, [[ThatOneBoss Maiden of Virtue]] is possibly the one that roadblocks groups the most. Her shield is noted for requiring a extremely high amount of burst dps done in a 10 seconds window or else [[TotalPartyKill you wipe]], and its a mechanic you are guaranteed to see at least 2 or 3 times per fight, meaning completing a Lower Kara often boils down to having a comp with proper burst dps to burn her shield, so much it has been nerfed by 20% and she's '''STILL''' roadblocking groups and forcing burst dps comps for higher keys regardless.

** Lower Karazhan meanwhile suffers from a lot of extremely punishing mechanics in both trash and bosses, and poor telegraphing as well in some cases. Of all the bosses, [[ThatOneBoss Maiden of Virtue]] is possibly the one that roadblocks groups the most. Her shield is noted for requiring a extremely high amount of burst dps done in a 10 seconds window or else you wipe, and its a mechanic you are guaranteed to see at least 2 or 3 times per fight, meaning completing a Lower Kara often boils down to having a comp with proper burst dps to burn her shield, so much it has been nerfed by 20% and she's '''STILL''' roadblocking groups and forcing burst dps comps for higher keys regardless.

** The former was cleary never meant to be used in a setting with affixes that requires room to work around them(Sanguine,Storming,Quaking,Necrotic,Spiteful) and, as a result, clearing trash often boils down to a lot of [[LuckBasedMission RNG]], with some weeks borderline on [[UnwinnableByMistake impossible to finish]]. That's not even getting into the bosses themselves, one of which suffers from poor telegraphing of her attacks, making dodging a pain, another being [[FakeDifficulty ridiculously overtuned]] in damage values and other prone to a [[GameBreakingBug nasty bug]] that forces you to reset the fight and potentially lose 2-3 mins ''in a mode where you are racing against the clock to finish in time''.

** The former was cleary never meant to be used in a setting with affixes that requires room to work around them(Sanguine,Storming,Quaking,Necrotic,Spiteful) and, as a result, clearing trash often boils down to a lot of [[LuckBasedMission RNG]], with some weeks borderline on [[UnwinnableByMistake impossible to finish]]. That's not even getting into the bosses themselves, one of which suffers from poor telegraphing of her attacks, making dodging a pain, another being [[FakeDifficulty ridiculously overtuned]] in damage values and other prone to a [[GameBreakBug nasty bug]] that forces you to reset the fight and potentially lose 2-3 mins ''in a mode where you are racing against the clock to finish in time''.

* Season 4 of Shadowlands introduced the addition of legacy dungeons for Mythic plus rotation. Unfortunately, it seems as if Blizzard did not rework any of them to actually account for Mythic plus, affixes and all. The end result is both Grimrail Depot and Lower Karazhan quickly becoming the most loathed dungeons out of the rotation, and the ones with the less amount of successful runs, according to Mythic plus stats. The former was cleary never meant to be used in a setting with affixes that requires room to work around them(Sanguine,Storming,Quaking,Necrotic,Spiteful) and, as a result, clearing trash often boils down to a lot of [[LuckBasedMission RNG]], with some weeks borderline on [[UnwinnableByMistake impossible to finish]]. That's not even getting into the bosses themselves, one of which suffers from poor telegraphing of her attacks, making dodging a pain, another being [[FakeDifficulty ridiculously overtuned]] in damage values and other prone to a [[GameBreakBug nasty bug]] that forces you to reset the fight and potentially lose 2-3 mins ''in a mode where you are racing against the clock to finish in time''.


Lower Karazhan meanwhile suffers from a lot of extremely punishing mechanics in both trash and bosses, and poor telegraphing as well in some cases. Of all the bosses, [[ThatOneBoss Maiden of Virtue]] is possibly the one that roadblocks groups the most. Her shield is noted for requiring a extremely high amount of burst dps done in a 10 seconds window or else you wipe, and its a mechanic you are guaranteed to see at least 2 or 3 times per fight, meaning completing a Lower Kara often boils down to having a comp with proper burst dps to burn her shield, so much it has been nerfed by 20% and she's '''STILL''' roadblocking groups and forcing burst dps comps for higher keys regardless.

* Some dungeons have simply become ThatOneLevel not because of difficulty, but frequency. The Crystal Tower 24-player raid, the Alexander 8-player raids, and the Antitower dungeon tend to show up all the time when doing rouletters. They are not seen as "bad" levels - players just get tired of them from how often they show up. Plus, these are all level 50 and 60 challenges, and players just want to use their level 70+ toolkits. This is especially true for {{Red Mage}}s, who don't get Vercure until level 54 and don't get Verraise until level 66, leaving them without two of their most crucial assist tools. This is mitigated slightly with the Limited Leveling Roulette option, which ensures the lowest level content you can get is whoever is the lowest level in the party. Too bad it only works in Leveling Roulette and with a complete 4-man party; if you want a high-level raid of any kind, it's all down to luck.

* Some dungeons have simply become ThatOneLevel not because of difficulty, but the sheer ''frequency'' of which they show up in the Duty Finder, such as the Crystal Tower, Alexander raids, and the Antitower. They are not seen as "Bad" levels - players just get ''very'' tired of them simply because they are all level 50 and 60 raids and players just want to use their level 70+ toolkits. Especially for Red Mages. Red Mages do not learn one of their most important class features, Resurrection, until level 66. This is mitigated ''slightly'' with the Limited Leveling Roulette option, which ensures the lowest level content you can get is whoever is the lowest level in the party, except it only works in Leveling Roulette and with a complete 4-man party.

* The ''Endwalker'' quest "In From the Cold" is a lesson in how powerful your character is, and a test of patience. First off, you're ''not'' your character, having been shoved into the body of some mook-level Garlean soldier with none of the superhuman feats you have. Not only are you incredibly weak with limited moves, you lack self-regeneration, resorting to scavenging for medical kits to heal yourself. Second, you're on a 25-minute timer to get to Camp Broken Glass, making you race against the clock before you die and fail the duty. Third, there's enemies everywhere, requiring some level of stealthy maneuvering to avoid getting targeted, because fighting ''one'' enemy takes precious time and health. More than one will likely spell your end. Then at the end, you and several other citizens fight a greater threat that leads to a great explosion that knocks you out, which then leads to a difficult Action Time Maneuver to cling on your very thin mortal coil and crawl your way back. All this makes for a stressful experience that underlines how insanely strong your character is compared to a normal foot soldier.

* Two-thirds of the dungeon of Cutter's Cry is composed of drab brown rooms filled with the same enemies over and over, with randomly occurring (and irritatingly frequent) environmental ground [=AOEs=]. The first boss is a boring tank-and-spank with adds, while the second is a sandworm that repeatedly vanishes during the fight, returning with a bursting, untelegraphed column AOE, combined with damage-over-time effects from other attacks that will ''kill'' your healer if they're not optimally geared. The dungeon's sole saving grace is its Chimera final boss, but even she has ThatOneAttack: an AOE that either fries everyone in melee range or fries everyone who's ''not'' in melee range, the distinction given by a coded message (its eyes glow violet for the ranged attack or blue for the melee one). In any pick-up-group, there will always be ''someone'' who forgets the code under pressure and runs the wrong way, or runs back and forth on the spot unable to make up their mind. Other than that, the dungeon isn't hard -- it's just so damn ugly and boring.

** Castrum Meridianum in particular remains this way. In order to entice players to run them [[AntiFrustrationFeatures so any newbies won't spend forever in a queue]], the dungeons give some excellent tomestone and experence rewards. Unfortunately, Castrum gives way ''way'' less. It's not uncommon for people to just [[RageQuit eat the abandoned duty penaltly]] the second you get a Castrum. People are more forgiving if they get a message about it being somebody's first time (as a bonus is applied) but there are just as many times people get unlucky and get assigned Castrum or a {{Troll}} queues for it intentionally to annoy people looking to get Praetorium experience and tomestones.
** As of Patch 6.1, both Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium have been heavily reworked, to much acclaim from the fanbase. Castrum Meridianum was made significantly shorter and had many of the unskippable cutscenes removed, changing it from a slog that could easily take upwards of thirty minutes and changing it into a relatively breezy dungeon that can be completed in less than twenty. The End Boss was also reworked and made into something more in line with how modern Dungeon Bosses are designed. The Praetorium was also made shorter and had the cutscenes trimmed down. In addition, the final two fights against The Ultima Weapon and Lahabrea were both removed and made into separate pieces of content. The former was reworked into a four-man Trial and the latter into a Solo Instanced battle. Finally, all of this content was rebalanced and brought up to a level where it poses an actual challenge to properly-geared level 50 players, as opposed to the [[AntiClimaxBoss hysterically easy encounters]] that were a major part of why these levels were so [[ItsEasySoItSucks disliked]].

** Of particular note, a lot of people run this dungeon for the first time with some of their class's artifact armor, which is suitable for the start of the major version's end-game. Except if you run this as an any of the ''Heavensward'' classes before level 50, you're in for a world of hurt, since they don't get artifact armor by then and need a lot of grinding for tomestones to get comparable Ironworks {{magitek}} gear.

** Attempting to complete Fil Gashan's Challenge Mode requires a group to play carefully and stealthily, as you're allowed to kill no more than 2 sentries, and at least one of them is required. The care needed requires the fellowship to take a lot more time than simply mowing down everything, which is hard to do if you have a pick-up group that may not understand the strategy of the level. However, since the reward is currently only a few more medallions than normal (plus bragging rights), most players will not only never complete the level this way, but not even be aware of the correct way to accomplish this feat.

* The second dungeon of ''Shadowbringers'', Dohn Mheg, is widely seen as the hardest dungeon in the expansion as a result of incredibly bulky and hard-hitting trash mobs and frustrating boss mechanics. The trash pulls simply do too much damage to do the normal "wall to wall" pulls and yet have high enough HP that it can take several minutes just to kill one small group. The first boss has an annoying mechanic where you need to move between non-bubbling water puddles to avoid being knocked up, but the window of time is only a few seconds, while the second boss has a tether mechanic that can be a wipe if the boss gets more than one tether when they appear. Even the final boss, which is considerably easier, has unusual and difficult mechanics. Compared to the dungeon before and after, Dohn Mheg's DifficultySpike seems out of place and unusual, leaving it one of the hardest dungeons in the game.

* The ''Endwalker'' quest "In From the Cold" is a lesson in how powerful your character is, and a test of patience. First off, you're ''not'' your character, having been shoved into the body of an Unknown Imperial with none of the superhuman feats you have. Not only are you incredibly weak with limited moves, you lack self-regeneration, resorting to scavenging for medical kits to heal yourself. Second, you're on a 25-minute timer to get to Camp Broken Glass, making you race against the clock before you die and fail the duty. Third, there's enemies everywhere, requiring some level of stealthy maneuvering to avoid getting targeted, because fighting ''one'' enemy takes precious time and health. More than one will likely spell your end. Then at the end, you and several other citizens fight a greater threat that leads to a great explosion that knocks you out, which then leads to a difficult Action Time Maneuver to cling on your very thin mortal coil and crawl your way back. All this makes for a stressful experience that underlines how insanely strong your character is compared to a normal foot soldier.

* Pharos Sirius. Before Patch 2.2, you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who got this for their roulette and stayed. While the actual dungeon and bosses aren't so bad, it was the [[ThatOneBoss last boss]] that likely caused many players to rage quit the second they got it due to an annoying add that would immobilize a party member and Siren's constant spam of debuffs that either reduce the healer's healing potency or causes Confusion if the debuff isn't cured in time. The first boss also caused massive issues for many because the adds that spawn in are based on the boss's remaining HP. Since people were naturally attuned to putting the hurt on a boss as fast as possible, it wasn't unheard of to have parties being overwhelmed by the sheer number of adds alone and dying to them rather than the boss himself.

** Related, it's not uncommon for people to be [=AFK=] during Praetorium due to just how ''easy'' it is. This can be quite frustrating, especially if they happen to be a healer or one of the tanks.

* The Val'sharah Invasion in ''Legion'' is the most disliked among the mini-events. Where the other invasions have only one boss and standard enemies, this one has ''three'' bosses, three [[BossInMooksClothing mini-bosses]], and a high mob density with ''respawning'' mobs. That many of said mobs can see through stealth doesn't help. Many players have simply given up on fighting through the mobs and just suicide rush to objectives. The second boss is especially frustrating because he is fought on a narrow ledge and uses attacks that can one-shot many players if not quickly dodged.

* As of Patch 4.2, Castrum Meridianum and The Praetorium became this, at least past the first run, for making the cutscenes unskippable. This was due to complaints that new players were forced to skip them in order to keep up with other players, usually those just grinding the dungeon for the daily bonus and wanting to get through it as fast as possible. This means for either, the time spent in the dungeon practically doubled or tripled.