Rate: Best > Worst Expansion on Raid Quality

[Takeada]

I started raiding in BC, and can understand why people who did as well favor it more, but it honestly surprises me how many people favor BC. I don't disagree that it had quite a few great bosses, but it also had a considerable amount of extremely dull bosses as well. For every Vashj, KJ and Illidan there's at least 3-4 other bosses that bring it down in terms of quality in my opinion. I mean it's like people completely forget all of the bosses in the raids besides the last boss, like in Hyjal or The Eye. Karazhan was really the only shining raid of BC in my opinion outside of Sunwell.

WotLK as well seemed very lackluster outside of Ulduar and 2 bosses in Icecrown. It's just odd to me, and is as though people only focus on the great bosses while overlooking the entirety of the expansion. As well, I also think tier 11 is completely underrated and is equal to Ulduar in terms of quality of bosses. Ulduar is more favored due to it being a single raid and having more of a story behind it, but in terms of quality before Throne of Thunder, tier 11 is the only one even close to Ulduar. Firelands and Dragon Soul also had some very interestingly designed bosses as well.

MoP I have to leave out for now, as the final tier will likely decide it's placement, but if it's better than tier 14 (which wouldn't take too much) I'd likely place it first just ahead of Cata. So currently:

Cata > BC >= WotLK (BC and WotLK are very close imo)

[Ihnasir]

WotLK>MoP>BC>Cata>Vanilla imo

I played the most in Wrath, ICC and Ulduar carrying huge weight in my decision. Mists has some great fights with interesting mechanics, but I've barely scratched the surface. BC introduced us to a lot of interesting mechanics and all the raids fit well with the entire story. Cataclysm T11 was really awesome and it's too bad I didn't experience it until after Firelands had been out for a bit. Vanilla had epic raids, but they were all long and boring; AQ40, Naxx, and BWL are the best here.

[Ankzu]

WotLK > MoP > Cata

I joined mid BC.

[fangless]

Hard to quantify each expansion as they all had their low points and highlights.

Wrath had some neat stuff, and then it had ICC for a year, ToC, etc. Cataclysm had Dragon Soul, but it also had BoT/BWD. BC had a ton of highlights, but it also had some of the worst tuning ever >_> Vanilla had some fun at the end of AQ, Nax40, and the jump from MC to BWL, but it also had MC :PPP

BC still gets my vote as best, with the rest all falling in line with highs and lows.

[Kebren]

Wrath > Cata > BC > MoP

Reading through this thread really makes me wonder I'm Blizzard targets demographic anymore. A lot of people are really loving MoP the most, which I would put towards the bottom. I'm really trying to like MoP, but the more the expansion goes on the less I seem to enjoy it.

I was thinking it was the content, but maybe its just me.

[Huntermyth]

Naxxramas 1.0 - Ulduar - Sunwell - Throne of Thunder - Bastion of Twilight

Best raids -in my opinion- of all expansions (though we didn't see SoO yet)

[Exac]

Wrath >= MoP > BC > Cataclysm > Vanilla

Vanilla took far too much effort to get 40 people together, and you had to have 50 raid-geared members ready because people would constantly DC or have to leave. Raids were usually about 20 people geared for the content, 10 people who weren't geared but seemed to know the fights, and 10 people who were being horribly carried, usually out-of-combat resserz... With that in mind, for it's time, it was the greatest thing ever, although personally AV was just as fun as raids in Vanilla because it seemed like you'd kill bosses for weeks before you'd actually get an item from a boss. If WoW came out now, with appropriate (It would have to have the graphics of a crysis mod pack) graphics, and less lag, modern boss mechanics, vanilla would have been awesome.

Cataclysm saw my main's class nerfed on launch, and it wasn't fun at all. The raids were more ICCesque than before; however, I couldn't run with my RL friends because of the time requirement to get 10-man geared for months, and that killed it for me (You're bound to the gear of the weakest link, if that link is a tank that can only play 2 days a week, you're not going to have a fun time). Deathwing wasn't as fun as LK.

BC was fairly hardcore, and the furthest I progressed was clearing Tempest keep. The raids were cool, but as a holy paladin, there was nothing to do on most fights. Karazan was pretty awesome, though I remember wiping on trash a lot when we first went in there. Unfortunately I spent most of my time in BC doing daily and sitting in 4/5 groups waiting to find a tank for heroics.

Raid-quality wise, it's only fair to judge TotGC/ICC/Cataclysm/MoP bosses by their heroic modes. So far in MoP the heroic modes have been awesome as a healer. Quality wise, all the bosses are great, aside from Durumu and Sha of Fear. Elegon and Lei Shen are two of my favorite encounters of all time. This expansion has seen, IMO, some discrepancy between 10 and 25 man bosses in difficulty. Gara'Jal was sick to heal on 10-man heroic, and a joke on 25-heroic. Garalon, Empress, Sha, and Primordius are all harder on 10-heroic. Twin Consorts, Iron Qon and Imperial Vizier Zor'lok were harder on 25-man. Luckily we haven't had a Chess Event/Flame Leviathan/Malygos/Gunshit boss this expansion yet.

Wrath enabled me to play with my friends, and level any class and play it. The raids were awesome, and during TotGC we were still finishing up Ulduar's 1000 achievements. I never even zoned into Naxx in vanilla, but it was still a fun tier. There were more epic bosses in this expansion than any other. Satherion 3D, Holdir, Mimiron, General Vezax, Yogg-0, faction Champions, Marrowgar, Professor Putricide, Sindragosa, and Lich King. Lich King is the only boss to ever make me actually excited to do, though we only (finally) killed him on heroic the week before Cataclysm was released.

[Raur0s]

1: BC - Karazhan, BT, Sunwell, amazing raids, amazing lore, amazing challenge... It had everything and it is by far the best when it comes to PvE

2: WotLK - quite controversial since it had the the most amazing raid ever (Ulduar) and a very good one (ICC) but had a total meh tier at the start and had the absurdly shit Trial of the Stable. It also had the unfortunate timing with ICC leaving almost a year without content and they had to rush some bullshit raid called Halion just to ease the pain.

3: Vanilla - putting aside the rose-tinted glasses, MC and BWL were really dull mechanism-wise, only the lore saved them, AQ was quite OK and Nax were great, only no one could really experience it fully. By no one I mean a negligible percent did, but the wast majority of the raiders (not the players, but the raiders) never really got past 4-5 bosses. I raided from quite early on and MC was tank&spank with decurse thrown in every now and then, BWL was the same, simple and repetitive fights, only Vael, Chromagus and Nefarian worth mentioning.

4: Cata - meh starting tier, nothing really stands out, horrible Firelands and even worse DS. I really hated the PvE in Cata, only the guildies and the company made it somewhat tolerable. Aside from Alysrazor and Ragna HC I can't really mention any bosses that was above the OK teir, the majority of the bosses were simply shit.

Unranked: MoP - haven't started raiding yet, just got back to the game

[kerumilas]

MoP > Wotlk > BC > Cata = Vanilla

Vanilla had some amazing looking raids, but the mechanics were (for the most part) simple or stupid. Cata had some awesome fights, but an equal amount of shit fights. Despite all the hate for DS, I found everything before gunship (except hagara) fun. H-Yor'sahj is still one of my favourite fights in the game.

Never raided in BC, but from what I've seen from going back at a higher level it had some interesting raids, but I can't judge.

I started raiding in Wrath, so I didn't know all the controversy over Naxx 2.0. I found it fun, but in hindsight it was far too easy. ToC was only bad in the sense that it took place in 2 rooms with no trash. The bosses themselves were varied and fun to do. People like to hate on ICC because it wasn't "as epic as it could have been", but there's only 2 bosses in there that I can think of that I didn't enjoy fighting (deathwhisper and lootship).

Even though MoP isn't finished yet, it has so many fun fights and the environments are amazing. Hell, even Lei Shen LFR was fun.

[h3lladvocate]

BC > WotLK > MoP > Cata

Loved Cata T11, 12/13 sucked though. MoP both raids have been OK, but nothing spectacular. They over-hyped ToT I think. Raised my expectations too high, so when it didn't follow through, yea... Also hate troll themes. Actually disliked much of Wrath, but Ulduar was really good, and tanking Sarth3D was fun. ICC was kinda a let down IMO.

BC I loved. I'm sure some of it is nostalgia (though I still hate Archmonde to this day, so I dunno...) Kara was awesome, ZA, even though I hate troll raids, had a decent flavor to it. TK was incredibly fun, SCC, not as much, but still enjoyable. Didnt really care for MH too much, was really easy besides Archy, which was easy, bot people f-ed up a lot which meant insta-wipe almost. BT though, holy crap was awesome. Sad I didnt get to see Sunwell, but loved what I did get to do. Also, I LIKE the idea of attunements (seriously they weren't THAT hard, nothing extra compared to what you end up doing today...).

[Deleted]

Many favor BC too, because the community was different back then. It was not immaculate or of "Aryan" origin and certainly had its flaws and shortcomings as well, but it was a lot of more kind and innocent back then. The game was new.