Rate: Best > Worst Expansion on Raid Quality

[Deleted]

What? How can you say that?

I'm in a world top 10 guild today and I was in a guild ranked somewhere in the thousands in TBC, and TBC is my favourite expansion, because it had great encounters and the best general game design, in my view. I loved the fact that raiding felt like the end product of the entire expansion, that just getting in was a challenge etc. Getting attuned for Hyjal is still one of my favourite experiences in the game - the thrill of your reward for killing a hard boss being a whole new tier of content is something that's never been repeated, and so on. The guild I was in during TBC was absolutely awful by comparison with the guild I raid with now, we were like 10th on our server, and our server was far from exceptional. That doesn't change the quality of the content.

I'd guess you probably started playing WoW during BC or late Vanilla. Usually people tend to get irrationally nostalgic about their first raids. My first ever raid was Molten Core. Looking back it's a pretty simple and rather shitty raid but I still love it because that's where I started. TBC got my frustrated because I wanted to reroll but all the attunements and shit got me pissed off like hell. During WotLK I was just plain old tired of all of it so I quit only to return close to the end of Cata.

[Gondlem]

I'd guess you probably started playing WoW during BC or late Vanilla. Usually people tend to get irrationally nostalgic about their first raids. My first ever raid was Molten Core. Looking back it's a pretty simple and rather shitty raid but I still love it because that's where I started. TBC got my frustrated because I wanted to reroll but all the attunements and shit got me pissed off like hell. During WotLK I was just plain old tired of all of it so I quit only to return close to the end of Cata.

Yeah, there's no possible explanation for liking something you don't like other than irrational nostalgia. My favourite expansion raiding-wise (and generally) is TBC and my second favourite at least so far is MoP, because they have qualities that I enjoy - strong connection between the levelling/question narrative and the raid zones, high quality, challenging raid content with plenty to do outside of raid if you like etc. My guild was much better and more successful in Cataclysm but the expansion sucked for raiding, personal success had nothing to do with it, and neither does nostalgia.

[Adoxe]

MoP > BC > WOTLK > Vanilla > Cata

[DechCJC]

out of enjoyment....

TBC > MoP > Vanilla = Wrath >>>>>> Cata

Cata raids were all too short and boring, I need interesting, explorable raids. Don't care much for how fun the fights are, on an individual level I don't really find anything even remotely difficult in WoW, it's the co-ordination aspect that's hard. So fights rarely actually get me interested to be honest; and it makes sense - they can't make mechanics so hard that every player in the raid has to get right, it'd just be too much - If they put in mechanics that were REALLY hard to deal with that you got in a single player game, say, 1 in every 100 attempts - Imagine how hard it would be for 10 people to get it simultaneously?

So yeah, I never judge a raid on the difficulty of it.

[shanattah]

BC > MoP > WotLK > Cata > Vanilla, I hardly remember much from the raiding and it was new (tho I came from a different MMO so I had done similiar things).

Something I do miss about vanilla and BC is the mp5 concept, felt skill mattered more back then. Brutallus with keeping similiar haste with the other tank healer so he always had a big heal incoming u don't see things like that anymore, now it's all about CD rotation and heal more!

[Nerfarien]

I only started raiding in TBC so Vanilla is out for me, so mine looks like this:
MoP > Wrath > Cata = TBC

Despite the fact how many of here say that TBC was the best I neer felt raiding so interesting like I did in the later expansions, and the thing was really based on how many players could have been stolen by one guild from the other so they can progress properly. Oh yeah and class stacking at M'uru was pretty f*king retarded, but as I said this was probably my own experience.

Wrath was cool because of Ulduar: the sensation and the feeling of that raid is on par with Tot now, and I could even forgive Naxx ( hell I hated the place) and ToC for that expansion. ICC was fun for a while, at least blizz put in an extra boss to deal with in RS ( tough the jokes were on them, in 10 mode the boss was utterly useless only the 25 man loots worthed the time).

Cataclysm was a huge disappointment for me, frankly the first tier was the most awesome aside from a few things ( warlocks: use a spell for setbonus that you would normally never put in your rotation or only as running filler, ohai Al'akir RNG-fest) Sinestra felt epic and rewarding to down as was Nefarian and Cho'Gall. Firelands was very awful in my eyes, but it was only because of the struggle for the legendary weapon (which became mandatory to apply in higher level guilds - so much about epicness...) but the worst was - as for the most here - DS. Tough there were some epic fights there ( Warmaster I salute you) the endboss and the wart-wrecking pre boss were just so damn awful, that they barely worthed the effort killing them.

So far MoP was excellent raid wise. MSV was good with Kings and Elegon, it started to ramp up in Hof ( lets forget about the loot pinata Meljarak, shall we?) and it culminated in Terrace. Sha was awful mechanic wise, ut overall a challenging fight. And now Tot is a truly epic instance, very well tuned, good bosses and an endboss, who is epic even in normal mode. So far it is great. SoO must be a great fail for me to change my opinion, but I hope blizz learned from DS.

[Deleted]

Wrath - MoP - TBC - Cata - Vanilla

Cata started great, I loved T11, but Firelands and Dragon Soul were abominations, Firelands in particular, the worst raid they ever did (yes, worse than ToC and DS).

[Deleted]

TBC > Vanilla > MoP > Wrath > Cata

didnt raid much in cata as i quit cata early so i cant rate that really but i put it low. TBC and Vanilla felt a lot more epic than any of the later raids, never forget the first time you killed Vael, huhuran, twin emps or anub'rekhan in naxx, kael'thas, lady vashj, illidan or muru. MoP raiding so far feels more thought out than the previous tho. in wrath trial of the crusader and ICC really ruined the game for me, Trial of the (Grand) crusader was so freaking boring and the gating system of ICC caused you to raid the same dungeon for what felt like half an expansion.

[Zafire]

The ONLY time I was ever really into raiding was in WOTLK. I've tried it in other expansions and had absolutely no fun or enjoyment in it. I didn't play in Vanilla at all, and didn't get to see very much of BC, so my opinion is biased anyway.

[Marmot]

MoP >>> Cata >= Wotlk > Tbc > Vanilla

MoP has Throne of Thunder which is just amazing, and I can't honestly say Ulduar or ICC are better. Heart of Fear had bosses which were perfect for the type of society the Mantid have, and the setting was epic (imo). Terrace was interesting, and MSV was pretty cool for what it is.

Cataclysm had Dragon Soul, which sucked, but it also had Tier 11 which was a fun tier and had difficult bosses. Firelands was short, but was perfect visually for the setting, and Ragnaros got the fight he deserved.

Wotlk had ICC and Ulduar, which were two of the greatest raids to be made. Obsidian Sanctum was pretty cool mechanic-wise, as was Eye of Eternity. ToC, while short and lacking in difficulty for the most part, was still a fun little raid which introduced the build up to going to ICC. Naxx was a copy paste job, which is why I rate wotlk lower than Cataclysm.

Tbc I never raided in, but having played through the raids, I can see why people hold Karazhan so highly as a good raid. Same goes for most of the other raids, but I have to say that the Hyjal raid was just awful. Enduring endless waves of trash for so long is not fun.

Vanilla is hard to explain. 40 man raiding sounds great on paper, a giant army going to a huge raid for an epic battle. Of course, some people still see it that way, but all I can see is that having so many people meant the mechanics couldn't be too difficult. The difficulty came from organising the group, not completing the raids. Also, it encouraged backstabbing your guildies by getting geared up and being taken by a better guild on your server.

Overall, I can't honestly say any raids come close to the quality the MoP raids have so far, and for that reason I rated it highest. Realistically though, raids get better in quality every expansion, and I can't say there's any reason to not rate them in order of release.

[Lethora]

In terms of the mechanics and how the fights worked...
Vanilla = BC > Mists > Cata > Wrath

You must be kidding.
Vanilla bosses were simple and hardly had any mechanics apart from simple things like "don't stay in the fire / switch tank on debuff / dispel that stuff".

Anyway, my opinion on the whole raiding stuff:
Mop (enjoying everything so far) >Wrath (except for ToC, that one was horrible, t7 was undertuned) > BC (had good and bad points, above average overall, but Sunwell was really good) > Cata (t11 was good, I missed t12 so can't comment on it while it was current content, t13 was horrible) > Vanilla.

[Deleted]

BC>MoP>Wrath>Cata>Vanilla

[Arbs]

MoP > BC > Vanilla > Wrath > Cata - Content Wise

MoP > Wrath > Vanilla > BC > Cata - Story Wise

BC > Vanilla > MoP > Cata > Wrath - Difficulty Wise

[Deleted]

For me overall WOTLK > MoP > BC >Cata.

[ZZSmokey]

Because I did not raid in vanilla, I have to put it at the end of my rating unfortunately, but for everything else it goes like this:

BC > WotLK > MoP > Cata > Vanilla (for the above reason)

BC just felt right, that's the only way I can put it, the bosses were tuned perfectly, and the fights seemed to be far more enjoyable than anything else. For WotLK, ulduar is the sole reason I put it so highly, I absolutely loved that raid, so much that it outweighs two other expansions entirely. For MoP, I can only say I enjoyed the heroic fights, and ToT as it is right now, but MoP might be higher on my rating during the final tier. As for Cata.....completely disliked it, I cannot say a single good thing about it, other than MAYBE firelands being pretty good, but that's taken very lightly. The only fights I really liked in firelands were alysrazor and heroic ragnaros.

[bondgirl]

Vanilla (just for the sake of 40 man raids and the pure awesomeness of playing an mmo)>TBC=Wrath>MOP>Cata

[Totle]

WotLK > MoP > BC > Vanilla > Cata

[Shampro]

MoP > WoTlk (or should i say ulduar?lol) > BC > cata. Did not raid in vanilla.

[Yuyn]

TBC was a hot mess. There were some really enjoyable fights, and a lot of nostalgia goggles -- but everything was hideously broken half the time, with class stacking, consumable stacking, etc, etc. running rampant. Wrath was a lot more balanced, but also had one rehash tier and one really boring raid. Cataclysm's raids really weren't bad, but they had too little content for too long after T11. Mists has had a decent quality and quantity so far, without overstaying its welcome, but there's been a lot of odd tuning choices (Elegon, Garalon, Horridon).

Really, I can't rank them terribly well. I can more rank tiers than expansions -- in which case I'd consider T11 to be one of the finest, overall, to date. It's a shame that the rest of Cataclysm was much more underwhelming than just that first raid tier (especially the non-raid content).

[Natureseer]

my personal opinion:

BC > MoP = Wrath > Vanilla > Cata