There will never be a better 5-man than Magister's Terrace.
If we talking about dungeons so was it vanilla for me. Those 15m ubrs runs which took 1 hour+. I remember when that Valor chest dropped and i jumped off my chair of happiness becuse man did you spend time in those dungeons to never see a drop for you. I wonder what would make me jump off the chair in todays dungeons...lol.
Magisters Terrace was a great 5-man, but I loved all the other BC ones too. I was in a very small guild at the time. We weren't capable of raiding, but we had just enough people to run all the 5-man stuff pretty regularly (as a full guild/friend group without the need for random pugs), and we had a blast doing it.
Vanilla and BC Heroics for the challenge. Cata Heroics started off promising but were outpaced by gear scaling too quickly. I loved the story progression aspect of End Times, but unfortunately by the time they came out, a combination of design and gear scaling had again made them /faceroll on release.
Honestly I think the single thing hurting 5-mans the most right now is gear availability and scaling. In Vanilla and BC, there was a good chance those blues would be useful, and not just for the first month of the expansion but on an ongoing basis. You could be considered a well-geared player in half epics/half blues back then; someone in full epics was fairly rare. Now 5-man heroics exist to be run for 1-2 days until you're LFR ready, then after that they're for cheap valor and shards.
There are other problems as well, like only having four available while leveling through Mists when they have inherently become a stepping stone. Providing the full gamut while leveling would keep the ones we get from getting too stale and provide more options while leveling. But I think the change in gear mindset that set during WotLK is the main problem.
It's hard to tell.
Let's say Vanilla = BC > Early Cataclysm > dog shit > mop/wotlk/cataclysm ending
Granted I was just starting to learn the game back then, but 5 man heroics in Burning Crusade were the best school for raiding there ever was, and made it a fun way to spend time with guildees prior to Karazhan.
However I assume since people didn't have access to high end raiding gear so easily that for people in Sunwell gear, they were as faceroll as were WOTLK heroics at the end of the expansion (because they weren't that easy at the beginning when you had no gear)
I'd have to agree with BC Heroics, I vividly remember doing shadow labs and going into that room after the first boss and dying many times for people pulling too many mobs.
They were a challenge that was comparable to Cataclysm heroics(pre nerfs), but were more in line with the progression that people were used to from Vanilla.
I would never want to go back to those times where heroic Arcatraz could take 2 hours to complete etc, but they were definitely fun in retrospect.
Honestly, I can remember high-points in every tier of heroics.. except MOP. The reason: the other tiers all gave some form of challenge to overcome. BC had the freshness of the difficulty, combined with them being the hardest dungeons ever. WOTLK heroics weren't particularly difficult, but some of the achievements with them, along with the timed event in strat, gave some unique challenges that made me enjoy the tier. Cata returned to the difficult heroics, which was very refreshing after the timid years of wotlk. MOP heroics, however, provided nothing. The dungeons were fun, but no challenge. The achievements were boring/lack luster. Challenge modes were/are amazing, but heroics need more attention in MOP.
Why is Magisters Terrace seperated? Doesn't make sense. TBC as a whole.
The ICC Heroics that dropped the 232 gear. Mainly because they were not too tedious but not too easy, and the story was fun and the environments and bosses were great. I am biased mainly because WotLK was my fav expansion so meh.
It's BC heroics. This shouldn't even be a debate.
Vanilla / TBC heroics.
MoP 5 mans are the best. They are diverse and offer alot of fun for the majority of the playerbase. Blizzard are constantly making improvements to the game for the good of the playerbase and the integrity of the franchise. BTW...Blizzard have recently just added a new mount to the Blizzard online store? have you guys seen it? its awesome, I bet your friends all have them simply head over to the Blizzards website... quick quick!!! only £20/$25.
Wrath heroics. Nothing like a 5-10min lightning speed pull-fest with a dps tank.
Nakkiz of Memento <EU-Frostwhisper>
I liked Wrath 5 mans because they really meshed well with the expansion. TBC was fun especially MGT but there were some I really hated like the ones in caverns of time. I loved pretty much all of the Wrath 5 mans...yes even Oculus
Surprised there is no vanilla option :P I voted BC heroics thou.. thats the time I've had the most fun, tanking was hardcore (I was a warrior), I never did the pre-nerf heroics, but I still had a blast