Fact (because I say so): TBC > Cata > Legion > ShaLa > MoP > DF > BfA > WoD = WotLK
My pet collection --> http://www.warcraftpets.com/collection/FuxieDK/
Catalysm was good, with a lack of content/things to do.
WoD was bad, with bad things to do, and not much of it to do
WOD was "over" in 8 months and is the only time BLIZ has officially declared they "didn't know what to do" and were giving up on it. I think that kinda says which was worse.
Cata lost far more subs, though, seeing the game go from it's record high to it's now consistent low, that all happened in Cata.
So which do you wanna go off to judge there?
I absolutely hated Cataclysm.
WoD makes me remember Cataclysm fondly.
Cataclysm. Had some low points but those were still far superior than Draenor's,
It had more features and at least it tried to shake things up, unlike Draenor which still followed Pandaria's footsteps (same talent tree, same raid structure introduced in Siege of Orgrimmar), but with even less features (the removal of scenarios, far less raids than ever before, for example).
Hell, we had only 3 raids during Draenor!
So, yeah, Draenor is worse.
Well Cata was quite OK.
But WoD was a mess. I am happy that we have Legion now which is 100x more better than WoD was.
Cata brought the most content with the complete revamp of 1-60 zones, in addition to the 80-85 ones. Plus all the dungeons and raids.
WoD had nowhere NEAR as much added to the game during its lifespan, but yet I somehow liked WoD more (and that's saying something because it was a joke of an expansion). Maybe becuase it was a completely separate continent, and I could finally leave Pandaria - an expansion which also was very well done objectively speaking, but the general theme of MoP never sat very well with me.
.............Wotlk
Cata had more content if you count the entire revamp of the world, What did WoD add? Exactly barely anything to remember.
Warlords was the one xpack that was truly terrible.
Flight and brutal gating as the playerbase woke up to raiding in TBC = not good, but IMO the best xpack the game had.
Wrath had highs and lows, Homoginization, LFD, lots of one room raids, TOGC, ugh. It was saved by a reused Naxx and IMO the best raid blizz made, Ulduar.
Cat= had good points, I would have appreciated more of throne, BWD was good. Twilight was ok, this brought us more screwed up phasing, and LFR, Firelands was "OK" but DS... ugh.
MOP, I was burned out after years, I should have played through it, was turned off by Pandaland theme. (didn't fit) and just plain old burnout, I regret skipping 3 years of MOP to return to God awful WOD.
and we come to now. Titanforged/Warforged sucks. Legendarys are kinda imbalanced, and AP + BS talent trees...
yet I play on. (please no underwater in 8.0, and ditch the forged crap)
Cata 387498237492374932 times better than WoD.
Hah, the only thing people think about when they think Cata is controversy of LFR and the garbage that was Dragon Soul. Compared to WoD, Cata was a masterpiece.
WoD was a travesty that tried to mix lazy player feedback that caused nearly all non-raid content to be irrelevant after like 2 weeks, with a solitary feature (Garrison) and the result was millions of subs lost.
Active WoW player Jan 2006 - Aug 2020
Occasional WoW Classic Andy since.
Nothing lasts forever, as they say.
But at least I can casually play Classic and remember when MMORPGs were good.
Cata < BC < WoD < Mop < LK < Legion
Challenge Mode : Play WoW like my disability has me play:
You will need two people, Brian MUST use the mouse for movement/looking and John MUST use the keyboard for casting, attacking, healing etc.
Briand and John share the same goal, same intentions - but they can't talk to each other, however they can react to each other's in game activities.
Now see how far Brian and John get in WoW.
Cataclysm wasn't bad. Only 4.1 and 4.3 have been bad, the first weeks were amazing and even Firelands and 4.2 was good. WoD was sh*t from the first day.
MAGA - Make Alliance Great Again
I think cata was many things. The raids were great. even normal modes were challenging for a bit. Although it did set the precedent of no flying areas as well as some of the worst flight paths.
segway...when are they going to make flight paths similar to the legion Fp whistle. where you click on your destination and your screen blurs/fades to back and then clears up and you're landing at the desired location. instead of having to afk for 15 minutes until my toon lands
50/50
4.0 was bad due to terrible difficulty tuning - after faceroll "noob-friendly" leveling players were hitting brick wall of overnerfed game mechanics and extreme difficulty of dungeons and raids, so therefore were forced to join hardcore guilds, i.e. into so called "social" interaction, not all players actually need (cuz not all players can handle such things, as elitism). 4.1 was just a rehash of ZA/ZG, i.e. lazy patch. 4.2 had no-flying daily zone, I had already been sick of, and hardcore raid again. 4.3 was actually good, but the sole fact, that Blizzard abandoned development of xpack at that point, made it too lazy and rehashed. And yeah... I hate cut scenes, that take control away from you and turn game into cartoon, too. Game is meant to be PLAYED, sorry.
WOD was bad due to attempt to entirely remove flying and to replace all casual content with Garrisons. Garrisons should have been an addition to other kinds of content - not their replacement. Also some other terrible design mistakes, like not making Garrisons (or at least some parts, like gold missions) account wide. 6.2 fixed problem with flying and release of Legion nerfed Garrisons enough to make them optional. Yeah, WOD still has some problems, like claustrophobic outdoor design, but now it's better, than Cata and even Legion.
I still do WOD content on characters on my 2nd server, despite of finally using sale for buying Legion for gold. Now I have best of both worlds. Casual friendly content of WOD with exp stopped for characters on 2nd server. New content of Legion for characters on 1st server, that have been collecting dust due to running out of WOD content anyway.
I don't care about Wow 11.0, if it's not solo-MMO. No half-measures - just perfect xpack.
Cataclysm because it didn't hand me thousands of gold a day while I ate my breakfast.
WoD is my third favourite expansion after WoLK and Panda.
Garrosh did nothing wrong.
#MakeTheHordeGreatAgain