Is Mists of Pandaria the greatest PvE expansion ever created?

[l33t]

No, it certainly isn't.
1. Boss mechanics (in heroic raids ofc) is way too much unforgiving. Random oneshots (farming 13/13, yet still sometimes we wipe at Jin'rokh for hour because RNG spawned crap sucks).
2. Linear raid progression with awful balanced bosses difficulties.
3. Thrash packs are too big and dull.
4. Itemisation is freaking HORRIBLE BEYOND ALL LIMITS. Yes, yes, even in comparison with BC itemisation it is horrible indeed.
5. Absurd unneeded timesinks everywhere. You wanna get to raid's summoning stone - please, waste 10 minutes for travel. You want to redeem tier token? Waste 10 minutes for flying to vendor. You want to buy valor item? Waste 10 minutes. You wanna buy pvp item? Waste 5 minutes.
6. Complete lack of group content outside of raids. Heroic scenarios? Meh. Challenge "zerg" modes? Even more meh.
7. +500 legendary gemstones that go up into player's asshole, since Blizzard can't fit them into actual weapons.
8. Awful, horrible beyond all limits legendary questline, based over pure RNG.
9. Awful healer balance (absorb-based prevalation). Awful tank balance (prot pala prevalation). Awful dps balance (rdd over mdd prevalation, warlock/rogue/mage prevalation).
10. Awful RPPM mechanics. Again playing stupid las vegas casino instead of mmo game - and, as we all know, casino always win, lol.
11. Awful tier sets design.
12. Awful alliance lore (as always).
So, no. PvE-wise MoP sucks. BC/Wrath for the win, as always.

[Shiny212]

No it isn't. The raids are boring, their design ugly and the lore uninteresting. Not to mention it's fucking easy. Cataclysm was harder even. And let's not forget the fact that the whole loot system and philosophy has gone down the drain. Generally playing any class has gotten tedious compared to previous expansions; well this was true in cata too, just got worse with MoP.

[Nyteyes]

No it isn't, at least in my opinion it isn't. BC and Wrath expansion were both so much better than MoP. I am so bored with the game right now it isn't even funny. When BC and Wrath were around I couldn't stay logged off for very long.

[Sumatran]

This xpac has lost more subs than any other. How can you even come close to calling it good, let alone the best ever?

[Bladesyphon]

To me it is. It's taken the place of Wrath as my favorite expansion thus far. Admittedly, Heart of Fear was kind of a meh raid, and did feel like it was added on at the last minute, but I did enjoy MSV and Terrace, and while Throne of Thunder is painfully linear, the fights are some of the more unique ones in the game, and the actual dungeon design it's self is pretty damn impressive from an aesthetic point of view.

I still can't help but feel though that the people that say BC was the best expansion in terms of raiding and dungeon content are still seeing it through nostalgia glasses. I played through BC, and before Cata, it was my least favorite expansion by a large margin. Even today I'd still only rank it slightly above Cataclysm in terms of enjoyment and quality. To me, everything from the mangled lore and questing to the boring as hell, over trash-filled dungeons in BC just made the expansion a chore to play through.

[Pum]

No it isn't, at least in my opinion it isn't. BC and Wrath expansion were both so much better than MoP. I am so bored with the game right now it isn't even funny. When BC and Wrath were around I couldn't stay logged off for very long.

PvE wise this opinion is so wrong. I had the time of my fucking life during BC and some of the greatest times in my WoW life were had during them. But I know in hindsight, and compared to Mists, it was pretty awful. There is so much more dynamics in the game now then there was then with a huge degree of increased complexity to every aspect of the game.

What were you doing outside of raid times during BC/WotLK? I know I was AFKing in Ironforge wasting away on that bloody cart (RIP bandwagon).

[Raugnaut]

Quality of the raids - Sure. Overall PvE and alt accesability, reward for raiding and so on - far from it.

What would you consider to be alt-accesability? 2 toons able to enter raid easily? 3? All of them?

I personally have 2 toons that are capable of clearing H Throne bosses atm. Only 2 raiders in my GUILD (Which fields 3 10 man groups) do NOT have a second alt that can enter Throne and preform decently.

Dragon Soul was really the only raid that was "alt accessable". The main reason for this was that DS was a poor, POOR quality raid- extremely easy fights, proggresive nerfs over time, and, of course, the 5 mans with thier full 378 sets (Normal Firelands level), and LFR with the full 384 sets (Above Normal Firelands and barely below Normal DS gear level).

Really, ALL of MoP has been fairly alt accessable- you can do really easy 5 mans to get 463 pieces. Upon reaching 460 ilvl, you can do really easy LFRs to get 470 ilvl. After that, MORE really easy LFRs until you hit 480 ilvl. Now, you get 516 epics from H Scenarios (Take no more then 15 minutes to do, depending on the scenario can be done in 5), as well as 502 epics from the LFR. If all this wasnt enough, there are 3 EXTREMELY easy world bosses to do, and 1 moderately hard world boss.

If anything, its easier then EVER to get multiple alts geared up quickly and into normal raiding. Of course, theres the legendary quest- but its not 100% mandatory, and you can be caught up to current levels within a month. (32 potential chances at sigils per week, Valor takes only 3 weeks, the boss is soloable, and its simple to get a win in the 2 BGs- 50% win/loss ratio means that most people will be done within 10 ques, if not less. At least 12 shots at secrets, if not 24. Runestones are the most RNG part, but you will at least get it within 3 months, if not within 2 weeks.)

[Pum]

I still can't help but feel though that the people that say BC was the best expansion in terms of raiding and dungeon content are still seeing it through nostalgia glasses.

This is probably the biggest problem in an expansion argument, people can't seem to take them off or simply refuse to, or even worse, they've read so much of BC > all they've formed their own opinion off of others and start arguing its case.

I raided BT when it was current and got Illidan/Arch down once the 30% nerfs rolled in (don't want to come off as one of those guys). BC was incredible, and everything seemed to have so much depth. But the only reason there was any depth was because there was solid lore to back it up, and there wasn't much need for creative storytelling as it was already there. MoP has been great in the fact that not only has Blizzard delivered quality raids (and yeah I'll agree HoF was a little lacklustre), they have written some quality pieces of work.

They did a really good job of Outland and all the zones, and some of the best raids they have made even without the rose-tinted glasses (Kara/BT/SWP) I'll even throw Gruul's Lair and Maggy in there because I absolutely loved them. But really in comparison, MoP is on par if not better, mechanically and aesthetically

[Sills]

For me, SoO will either make or break the PvE content this expansion. If Mists wants to take the title of best PvE content (which, for me, is held by Wrath thanks to Ulduar and the story of ICC and pwning the Lich King) SoO will have to deliver engaging fights and great story. T14 was good. Fun, varied fights with a decent little story line (Heart of Fear is one of my most hated raids but that is a personal thing between me and the buggy eyed, creepy bugs) and T15 has been quite enjoyable with also very varied fight styles.

My one fear is that after coming off of one really long, linear tier, I may get tired of raiding another really long, linear tier. If SoO is just another 13 boss slog then I might not stay subbed just because I can feel myself getting burned out. Ive seen snippets of the storyline from SoO so I hope that will be enough to keep me engaged for 6-9 months.

[Pum]

No it isn't. The raids are boring, their design ugly and the lore uninteresting. Not to mention it's fucking easy. Cataclysm was harder even. And let's not forget the fact that the whole loot system and philosophy has gone down the drain. Generally playing any class has gotten tedious compared to previous expansions; well this was true in cata too, just got worse with MoP.

What precisely disinterests you on certain parts of of the lore? The Mantid? The Mogu? What?

How is it easy when MoP has had some of the most difficult raid bosses in all of WoW?

Your post seems pretty geared towards the LFR side of PvE instead of it all as a whole. The loot system being fucked is a subjective matter and most view it in completely the wrong manner, and that loot system you're referring to only applies to LFR, as it is exactly the same as it has been through every expansion.

Tedious compared to which expansions?

[tripleh]

Mop imo isnt that great. Seriously glad its almost over with . I can't wait for the next expansion with the legion! The whole panda thing is kinda stupid. Not to mention the fact this whole time nearing the end of mop we still don't get a book to send to alts for flying in mop at a lower level. Hoping they won't re visit any more of pandaria in future content. The island needs to be shrouded in mists again and forgotten. BC was fun , wotlk was alot better . Cata sucked monkey b*lls at the beginning no thanks to ghostcrawler. Hopefully the legion expansion won't disappoint . Sub numbers are already going down and the expansion isn't over yet so thats just a sign of how bad mop sucks.

[Pum]

Mop imo isnt that great. Seriously glad its almost over with . I can't wait for the next expansion with the legion! The whole panda thing is kinda stupid. Not to mention the fact this whole time nearing the end of mop we still don't get a book to send to alts for flying in mop at a lower level. Hoping they won't re visit any more of pandaria in future content. The island needs to be shrouded in mists again and forgotten. BC was fun , wotlk was alot better . Cata sucked monkey b*lls at the beginning no thanks to ghostcrawler. Hopefully the legion expansion won't disappoint . Sub numbers are already going down and the expansion isn't over yet so thats just a sign of how bad mop sucks.

Very valid points, please continue.

[l33t]

This is probably the biggest problem in an expansion argument, people can't seem to take them off or simply refuse to, or even worse, they've read so much of BC > all they've formed their own opinion off of others and start arguing its case.

Lol no, you just seem to not read other people's arguments, shifting everything towards nostalgia. Lookie-lookie:
In BC we had strong lore tied to raids. In MoP we have none.
In BC we had half specs unplayable. But in exchange every spec was unique in terms of abilities, and we had four roles. If we start bringing parallels to MoP, FOTMs which are now equal to specs that rocked in BC, are even less in numbers then there were in BC. Oh, sweet irony.
In BC we could lose 2/3 of raid and still kill boss. In MoP death of one person equals to unescapable wipe.
In BC raids were easy, yes. That is exactly a situation when hard =/= enjoyable. I hate unforgiving random based on agility oneshotting boss crap. If I wanted a slasher dynamics to play, I'd go and play Darksiders2. Or GW2. Or whatever.
In BC we had hard 5-man dungeons, do I really need to explain difference here?
In BC a person in t4 was still good in t6 raids. Even more. A person in crafted prof set still was good. Even more. A person could farm pvp items, then come in raid and still be good.
In BC there was a constant competition between guilds. In MoP I don't even know 99% of the server.
Of course, it is all a rose-tinted glasses. Cool story.

[xixixviixiiii]

Not even close. MoP is very alt-unfriendly, leveling is largely uninteresting (outside of Jade Forest, I had no interest in any of the zones or lore) and most of the content is artificially padded with unbelievable amounts of grinding. Every player for each class basically now has a payload of abilities and the only meaningful measurement of character advancement is numbers-- while always true to some extent, it has never been as blatant as it is now in MoP.

Furthermore, the 5-man content is some of the most insipid ever (many dungeons exist without any lead-up or apparent reason for existing). Scenarios kind of suck (I swear, 3/4th of the time, my "group" goes AFK and I end up soloing the stupid things). Challenge Modes have A LOT of problems but can be fun, though I'd still prefer something that didn't completely break immersion or pigeon-hole players into very specific play-styles. The raid content has been okay. Tier 14 content was very oddly tuned (especially HoF). ToT has been mediocre, through and though and I wish 5.4 would just come out already so it can die. A very obvious, by the numbers, raid... Sewer entrance? Check. Trolls? Check. Council boss? Check. C'Thun eye-beam? Check. Twins boss? Check. Titan stuff? Check. Super secret Algalon-style boss? Check.

Too bad the monstrous loot tables, still broken (unskippable cutscene), extreme linearity and lack of an excuse for existing (the main villain in ToT has about 2 minutes of build-up-- seriously?)... Honestly, MoP is just Blizzard going through the motions and still somehow not getting it quite right. Maybe I'd care more if the PvE content wasn't more of what we've seen a thousand times before and MoP didn't have such a forced, throw away plot.

[trystero]

No, it certainly isn't.
1. Boss mechanics (in heroic raids ofc) is way too much unforgiving. Random oneshots (farming 13/13, yet still sometimes we wipe at Jin'rokh for hour because RNG spawned crap sucks).
2. Linear raid progression with awful balanced bosses difficulties.
3. Thrash packs are too big and dull.
4. Itemisation is freaking HORRIBLE BEYOND ALL LIMITS. Yes, yes, even in comparison with BC itemisation it is horrible indeed.
5. Absurd unneeded timesinks everywhere. You wanna get to raid's summoning stone - please, waste 10 minutes for travel. You want to redeem tier token? Waste 10 minutes for flying to vendor. You want to buy valor item? Waste 10 minutes. You wanna buy pvp item? Waste 5 minutes.
6. Complete lack of group content outside of raids. Heroic scenarios? Meh. Challenge "zerg" modes? Even more meh.
7. +500 legendary gemstones that go up into player's asshole, since Blizzard can't fit them into actual weapons.
8. Awful, horrible beyond all limits legendary questline, based over pure RNG.
9. Awful healer balance (absorb-based prevalation). Awful tank balance (prot pala prevalation). Awful dps balance (rdd over mdd prevalation, warlock/rogue/mage prevalation).
10. Awful RPPM mechanics. Again playing stupid las vegas casino instead of mmo game - and, as we all know, casino always win, lol.
11. Awful tier sets design.
12. Awful alliance lore (as always).
So, no. PvE-wise MoP sucks. BC/Wrath for the win, as always.

You're 13/13H but capable of wiping on Jin'rokh for an hour?

[Shampro]

People wont ever accept that the current expac has exellent things, not everyone, but a lot of vocal people have acted this way. For Wrath and BC without beeing an exeption. People whined about the gateing of ICC people whined that ToC was terrible visual wise (both true), Naxx lolsreshash, etc etc. People whine and whine during the expacs lifespan its how things are, they want to be heard, then later on, an expac or so later, they completely forget the bad things and only put thier personal glory momments on top, without remembering the awful and badly designed class balance.

A lot of people wont accept that Mists has had very challengeing and engaging encounters simply because a lot of people nowdays dont even step into ''guild raiding''. Others, will simply say that omfgfuckingpandas without even steping into the Raid, others will say that they have no lore without even reading one quest or paying attention to one cutscene, then later down the road some of the same people remember fondly of how Lorewalker Cho talked you through the events of the Vaults.

Vocal WoW community in a nutshell

I personaly think the encounters have been really good and the quantity exeptional every Tier has been 12+ bosses. Compare this to Cata, while haveing really cool eviorments, some of which I wasnt a fan of (HoF, though I like the mantid).

[Deleted]

Tier 11 (Blackwing Decent, Bastion of Twilight & Throne of the Four Winds) was actually the best raiding Tier I've ever experienced, and in my view makes Ulduar look like shit. Sure, killing Onixya for the 76th time was annoying, but it was an epic expansion at the start!

It went down hill during late Firelands, but it certainly wasn't the worst until we hit Dragon Soul.

agree, tier 11 was great, mop MSV/Hof and Terrace is horrible raids, most of the encounters are very easy, Tot is alright could be harder though, raaden is easy as hell, most of the bosses is very easy aswell.

[Xargoth6634]

Wrath and BC raiding were far better than MoP, and that's not to say I haven't enjoyed MoP, the others were just way better. Just my opinion, but since most people in here seem to be stating their opinions as fact...=)

[Tojara]

PvE encompasses a lot of things.

Raid wise from the looks of 5.4 it will undoubtedly be the best, in my opinion anyways.

TBC had so much to chew on from launch. You had a lot of heroics (which were difficult), a massive 10 man in Karazhan, two 'Onyxia' style raid dungeons, and two very different raid dungeons thematically in Tempest Keep and SSC. There was a lot of problems at launch concerning reward, consumables, trash and game breaking bugs but there was still a lot to do. Very shortly after release we then get Mount Hyjal and Black Temple.

TBC like WoTLK despite having a very lack luster in game story made you care a lot, because these were characters and events that you followed from previous games.

The only 'falling' out from TBC in my eyes was the massive gap in content from BT/MH to Sunwell. I like having a lot of content but they released Black Temple and Mount Hyjal far too quickly. Zul'Aman was amazing, and of course Sunwell was really good too.

WoTLK only had one raid I really cared about, that being Ulduar. Launch PvE was downright awful and ToC was the worst 'raid' content patch they have ever released hands down. ICC was good, but I wonder how much of that is me internally thinking it's better than it was because of the story tied to it. I never played WC2 when it was current but I did play Wc3 and it's expansion, and I think half of me thinks ICC is better than what it was because it was the conclusion to years and years of playing.

Cataclysm at launch was a lot like TBC in almost every single way. Only difference being that lore wise you probably weren't as engaged as you were prior. Heroics were hard and there was a lot of content at launch, fairly difficult content. Again there was issues with difficulty (10 man in particular) but there was a lot to do. I find Cataclysm fell a part after launch though. Firelands was great but I didn't think it stood on it's own. It would be like if they released MoP with just MGV and didn't bother doing HoF or ToES. We get recycled 5 mans as a bridge patch (although they were nice) and a moderately sized raid with a lot of recycled assets and areas.

MoP was a mixture of both TBC/WoTLK. You have easy heroics but challenging heroics in the sense of challenge modes if that's your thing. You have a lot of challenging raid content and, well.. a lot of raids. The bridge patches to major raiding content have been amusing for the most part, but more importantly the content they have been releasing has been staggered fairly well up to this point. I personally think the story is pretty great considering for the first time most of it's fabricated within the confines of the game and isn't drawing on a massive amount of source material from older games.

ToT was probably the single largest patch they have ever released. It was like released a raid the size of Ulduar, combined with an area twice the size and having twice the content of Isle of Quel'Danas.. in a single patch. This looks like it's going to be roughly the same come 5.4 as well.

PvE is a lot of things though and MoP has a lot of features that qualify as PvE. Whether you like them or not doesn't mean they don't exist.

Personally I think that MoP is the best PvE expansion they have ever created assuming something disastrous doesn't happen with 5.4. We have just got a lot of content this expansion and we haven't had to wait nearly a year for it. TBC would have scored better (to me) if the content wasn't so broken at launch and everything wasn't thrown at you at once. TBC literally through you MoP + 5.2 within a couple months of TBC launch, then didn't release anything big for basically a year. Not a good model and while it was fine for me (I raided) a lot of my friends had nothing to do aside from run Karazhan over and over. And TBH, I didn't really enjoy running BT for 9-10 months either, just like I didn't like doing it with ICC either.

In 5k run track event it was kinda like this.

TBC - Way ahead of the field but has to stop at the 4k mark and puke everywhere, still ended up finishing second.
WoTLK - Was late to the track meet but ended up getting about half way through it.
Cataclysm - Started out of the gate just as fast as TBC but got leg cramps a little past half way and had to jog the rest.
MoP - Started out slightly slower than TBC and Cataclysm, but paced themselves and ended up winning.

[xixixviixiiii]

No, it certainly isn't.
1. Boss mechanics (in heroic raids ofc) is way too much unforgiving. Random oneshots (farming 13/13, yet still sometimes we wipe at Jin'rokh for hour because RNG spawned crap sucks).
2. Linear raid progression with awful balanced bosses difficulties.
3. Thrash packs are too big and dull.
4. Itemisation is freaking HORRIBLE BEYOND ALL LIMITS. Yes, yes, even in comparison with BC itemisation it is horrible indeed.
5. Absurd unneeded timesinks everywhere. You wanna get to raid's summoning stone - please, waste 10 minutes for travel. You want to redeem tier token? Waste 10 minutes for flying to vendor. You want to buy valor item? Waste 10 minutes. You wanna buy pvp item? Waste 5 minutes.
6. Complete lack of group content outside of raids. Heroic scenarios? Meh. Challenge "zerg" modes? Even more meh.
7. +500 legendary gemstones that go up into player's asshole, since Blizzard can't fit them into actual weapons.
8. Awful, horrible beyond all limits legendary questline, based over pure RNG.
9. Awful healer balance (absorb-based prevalation). Awful tank balance (prot pala prevalation). Awful dps balance (rdd over mdd prevalation, warlock/rogue/mage prevalation).
10. Awful RPPM mechanics. Again playing stupid las vegas casino instead of mmo game - and, as we all know, casino always win, lol.
11. Awful tier sets design.
12. Awful alliance lore (as always).
So, no. PvE-wise MoP sucks. BC/Wrath for the win, as always.

This is actually all pretty true, sadly.