Best expansion for raiding

[Reinholder]

Voted MoP as I'd put it just slightly ahead of Wrath. I loved the lore of Wrath and the number of options raid wise (I actually liked multiple lockouts 10/25). MoP I loved the raids from a mechanics point of view, a lot of interesting stuff going on. Throne of Thunder and Siege both felt 'epic' and a lot of the encounters on heroic (considered mythic now) were substantially different to the lower level difficulties that they almost felt like new fights.

[Shelly]

Group Finder Launched with ICC in Patch 3.3, Prior to that you still had to either form a guild group or spam trade with "LFM" and run your asses there. the dungeons themselves weren't hard but finding a group that needed a DPS on a shit pop server was an issue if you didn't have a set group or if your set group wasn't on.

As for the Teir tokens you couldn't get them unless you raided the content they came from until later in the expansion when they made the 5mans drop the previous raid's tokens from completing a LFD each day.

Edit: I forgot about the Daily Heroic which awarded Badges for the Current raid.

I don't really know why everyone remembers gearing at the end of the expansion and not the first few weeks that expansion launched

The group finder I refer to is LFD which was available at launch.

It was one of the best things added to the game that had the harshest unintended consequence of pretty much killing the social interaction of a server since you no longer had a "server rep."

Tier tokens WERE available for all but head and shoulders - which you'd have noticed I said had you actually read what I wrote. This was the case for both Naxx and Ulduar, for ToC and ICC you could gain full tier from badges. This was normal tier by the way, with heroic tier only being available from upgrade tokens that required a piece of the previous tier along with an upgrade token from the heroic raid.

Really I liked that system a lot and wish that's what they'd bring back for LFR - a loot currency that would then be used for gear. Nothing else dropping except for crafting mats to upgrade/create the non-tier items. Give back a good strong mode of progression that then opens up more traditional raiding for larger amounts of the player base.

[FuxieDK]

WoD? Where do you get your drugs?

Same place as you, obviously..

WotLK's only good raid was Ulduar..
Naxx/Onyxia was shameless rehashes.
Sarth/Maly/Helion was boring one-boss instances.
ToC was the biggest disgrace in the game to date.
ICC was mediocre.. By far, the worst end-expansion raid to date.

ICC25 was used, pretty much, solely for GoldDKP runs, where 10man was the harder raid, due to lower iLevel gear.

For raiding, WotLK was a failure..
TBC and Cata was epic raiding experience...

[l33t]

I mean, c'mon man. your name is L33T, you are practically the definition of what I've been saying here. You obviously started playing at a low level of maturity, did stupid shit that was fun at the time, then you grew up, and there was a void of fun that couldn't be filled. My theory on this is probably your very reason for having a problem with the game now, seems it to me atleast.

I won't argue with you about your essays. Its your opinion and you're entitled to it. Just wanted to add clarification regarding noname: are you a member of world first guilds? Because if you're not, you're noname, and no amount of your kewl healing logs can change this, sorry. Also: I don't have any problems with the game, thank you for asking.

[Akta]

Wod for boss mechanics wotlk for lore ulduar alone was everything, mop was very good too

[huth]

I'm gonna go with MoP followed by WoD.

WotLK raids were way to simplistic compared to what we have now. Too much Ulduar nostalgia going around.

[hulkgor]

TBC, miles ahead from everything else.

After TBC, i'd say MoP > WotLK > Vanilla > Cata > WoD

[Xirrohon]

WoD has had the best raids. As much as most everything else about the expac was meh, they nailed it with the Mythic raids. I did like MoP/WotLK raiding as well.

The different loot for 10/25m raids in WotLK was stupid. People say there was lots of pugging in WotLK but that was mainly because LFR didnt exist back then, plus it was at the height of WoW with a bunch of players looking to raid.

[judgementofantonidas]

As I sit here reading multiple threads about LFR, mythic raiding, raiding difficulties etc, a thought popped into my head, which expansion + vanilla do you feel was the most fun raiding environment? RAIDING ENVIRONMENT, not expansion.

There are many things you could say, such as "well is this before or after LFR, is this including mythic" etc. So I want to say this encompasses a multitude of things all factored into one, such as:

- The actual raid instances
- Raid difficulties
- Lore
- LFR
- Boss mechanics

It would be interesting to see your reasoning.

This is hard to manage but please only vote if you have raided for multiple expansions, if you raided WoTLK and quit, obviously you are choosing WoLTK.

I am voting WoTLK, as much as I wanted to vote WoD or BC, my reasons:
-Ulduar
-hard modes - not reclearing the same thing on a harder difficulty. (Ex - mimiron)
-Community was still alive for pugs, GDKP runs, it was not cross server and you knew who was actually good.

(Disclaimer - Couldn't find a thread for this and if there is I apologize)

WotLK. Before Blizz got this tremendously big bug up their ass to make healing "more challenging".

[glowpipe]

Can't really ask this from fans. Most opinions are biased to personal experiences. I had the best team and the most fun in Wrath of the lich king. Guess what i will answer.
the only answer you will really get out of this thread is what was your personal best. Not what is actualy the best expac for raiding.

[Dysheki]

I started playing WoW in TBC. Here are my thoughts:

TBC: Rosy colored glasses. Everything was new and big. Etc etc. But looking back, I don't like class stacking or how incredibly difficult it was to put groups together for simple things.

WotLK: Lore-wise it's basically a loregasm for me. I loved the Arthas storyline and had waited to kill him for something like a decade after WC3. But there were still issues with raiding: bugs, lockout problems, etc. Though many people feel like Ulduar was the best designed raid, and Arthas himself was an epic encounter, I feel like this ties with MoP for me.

Cataclysm: Ugh. Just ugh.

MoP: I felt like this was just a clean expansion for raids. Very well thought out and though I didn't enjoy the lore as much I felt like it was a solid raid expansion. Ties with Wrath for my favorite.

WoD: Underwhelming, doppelganger-ish, lazy. At only two tiers, some of the lowest amount of raiding content ever.

[Video Games]

Bc because every instance was still relevant and ran up till wrath. It also didn't time gate us and launched with 2 tiers. BU-BUT BUGS! It was still something to do unlike now where you have to wait 6-8 months for the next tier which then becomes irrelevant and nobody needs to do it.

[Kazgrel]

Voted for Wrath; overall had the better structure, although looking back at it, having up to 4 different instances of the same raid each week during ToC was...ugh. The Ulduar hard mode set up still remains my favorite way of hard modes being done.

Gonna throw TBC a bone too; it's the last expansion where you would find people still working on older raid tiers in order to help their own progression. Later on that would end up watered down to a handful of trinkets (Share of Woe in Cata, and UVLS from ToT in MoP). For the most part now, though, the newest/current raid tier makes any others before it utterly obsolete.

Tossing one to Cata, too: It unified the loot tables, because I still remember the rivers of tears being shed over the superiority of 25m loot vs 10m in Wrath.

[Wries]

TBC, clear goals of what raiding rewarded you with: seeing more. And quite diverse raid themes as well. Id say it was the best.

Wotlk, although it had the greatest raid tier ever (Ulduar), it also had a period in which we were sent into a small arena battling five encounters on four difficulties, while at the same time invalidating most incentives to go into the previous two tiers. The first tier was lackluster as well. Didn't do Naxx in vanilla so it was completely new to me, although the fact that it was dated in encounter design and art detail was very obvious.

Cata, my attendance during this expansion was spotty. I don't recall loving any raid but that I think can be attributed somewhat to how they gutted my mains class. I am severely unimpressed with the open field part of firelands, though. Dragon Soul I didn't dislike as much as others do? I guess I just always imagined Deathwing battling us at Dragonblight anyway, since for sure we'd be battling him outdoors and not in a lair.

Mop didn't fit me thematically but it seems to me, running through the raids at lvl 100, that they were pretty good. Perhaps the first raid tier, in which I participated for real in, was a bit weak. The encounters there were a bit too over-engineered.

WoD had three great raid instances in my book. And the Blackhand encounter is probably my favorite. Was fun falling through floors, lol.

[Kohz]

I miss the realm first titles from Wrath.

Hypothetical question: What do you guys think of Blizzard implementing the limited number of attempts like they did on Algalon and Lich King HM?

[Deleted]

Hypothetical question: What do you guys think of Blizzard implementing the limited number of attempts like they did on Algalon and Lich King HM?

I personally can't stand timers/limited pulls, they get me too nervous and I don't have fun. It's similar with challenge modes with timers.

But, it's probably one of the fairest ways to have real competition on PvE. Guilds that raid for 3-4 days could beat Method.

[Mlz]

I miss the realm first titles from Wrath.

Hypothetical question: What do you guys think of Blizzard implementing the limited number of attempts like they did on Algalon and Lich King HM?

The 3days/week-on-wowprogress-but-actually-raiding-6days-on-progression guilds would likely be fucked.

[Deleted]

WoD - 100% Best raids and Bosses to date by a mile, as far as lore goes, care less about that, I play to kill stuff.

[Dsc]

If you are a raider.

TBC if you raided it. By 87 stars more.

If you didn't raid TBC, Wrath had the Excellent raid of Ulduar. (Ulduar and Kara are my favorite two raids) ICC wasn't terrible, but could have been better...

[Kohz]

I personally can't stand timers/limited pulls, they get me too nervous and I don't have fun. It's similar with challenge modes with timers.

But, it's probably one of the fairest ways to have real competition on PvE. Guilds that raid for 3-4 days could beat Method.

I agree with you 100%. I just don't like the fact that yeah, if you have no life or take vacation days in order to raid 15-16hours a day for first 2 weeks of launch to go for World 1st. I don't like this grind / wipe on boss 400-700 times in short amount of time to reach world 1st mentality. Don't get me wrong, those top guild players are all exceptional players.