Gonna have to go with Ulduar. I will never forget how it handled hard modes as well. It was better than anything before and anything since.
It was fun, it was big, it was full of lore, the bosses were great, and it looked awesome. It also had this amazing challenge for the select few called Zero Lights in the Dark. It spanned the range as a single instance and it was all about discovery. Almost anyone could play through it, but if you just kept digging around you found more and more and more difficult ways to beat it and get better loot and there was a little bit of story behind all of it.
However, I also tremendously enjoy The Thunder King (5.2) simply due to its trailer… does that count?
Not only were they mechanically interesting, but I was actually excited about smashing some mean orcs while at it.
Both the gameplay and story were fun and honestly I enjoyed the vibe. Good times…
I have to give honorable mention to Karazhan though. Although very simple mechanically, the atmosphere was fun and this raid stayed relevant until the end of the expansion.
Every new Expansion raid was technically years ahead of the previous. But it was always the last raid of each expansion that was the stand out raid of that expansion. Unfortunately Ulduar was eclipsed by ICC.
Ulduar. It was, and still is, the best raid of all time. So much so that 3.1 has no additional content other than the raid, and no one at the time cared because of how great Ulduar was.
Subjectively?
That’s a tough one. I’d say for me it’s Nathria because most of the bosses were great and the music was sublime. I had great memories of that raid, especially during S4 of Shadowlands.
Ulduar without any doubts. The boss fights are original, the graphical design of the raid and its equipment that drops are breathtaking. All these years later tier 8 sets are still my number one favourite.