What 2 dungeons in every expansion best tell its story?

[Chromell]

TBC- Blood Furnace, MGT

Wrath- Halls of Thunder(the Loken one), Halls of Reflection

Cata- The names escape me so the one in Blackrock where they made DW, the one with the twilight dragon eggs

Mists- Jade Temple, Ox Temple assault

WoD- Iron Docks, Auchenai Tombs kr whatever

Legion- Wardens, Cathedral

I love how you picked your favorite dungeons but don't remember the name of most

[wanax]

I love how you picked your favorite dungeons but don't remember the name of most

The names overlap after a while. How many Black Rock x or y temple do you need to remember. Thematically they start to also. Cata with ogres and lava WoD with ogres and lava

[Chromell]

The names overlap after a while. How many Black Rock x or y temple do you need to remember. Thematically they start to also. Cata with ogres and lava WoD with ogres and lava

Yeah, I'm not nitpicking or anything. They do have a bunch of dungeons with similar if not equal themes.

[Soon-TM]

@Kyphael my personal list would be something like this:

• Vanilla (technically not an expansion, who cares): Stratholme, which was/is a nice throwback to WC3 and Blackfathom Deeps, that hinted for the first time towards the Old Gods.
• BC: Blood Furnace, where we had the first hint of Maghteridon, the ruler of Outland until Illidan overthrew him - and of course, about Illidan himself. Also MGT, where you saw how completely batshit crazy was poor Kael after smoking so much fel !@#$
• WotLK: Halls of Lightning, which shows how Yoggy was corrupting his jailors, and of course HoR, one of the best dungeons overall in the entire game imo.
• Cata: Grim Batol, with all its Old God presence, as well as being present (at least in the map) from Vanilla. End Time was also neat, with all that possible timelines shenanigans, but it was decently made.
• MoP: this one is hard. I really hate MoP dungeons, but if I had to name two, they would be Temple of the Jade Serpent and Shado-Pan Monastery, which depicted what could the Sha really do.
• WoD: Iron Docks, it captures really well the "Iron Horde" feeling; SBG is also cool, it shows aspects of the Orc culture that went beyond the RAWR SMASH or Thrall Sue's racial guilt.
• Legion: Vault of the Wardens, which neatly closes the story sub-arc about Cordana, and of course Kara 2.0, another of Blizzard's masterpieces.
• BfA: Freehold, this is what BfA should have been about imo. A not-so-serious tone, including pirates and minor scale ruffians like Harlan Sweete. Otherwise, Shrine of the Storm is decent at depicting the Old Gods theme - even if it frankly looks like a secondary subplot, even with a fully released Old God as last boss.

[plz delete account]

We all have favorite dungeons we love going through even 100 times to level alts because the story is so fun, and some we just groan when we get because the bosses are nobodies, there's too much trash and it's just boring. In your opinion, what two dungeons of every expansion best tell the story of said expansion?

BURNING CRUSADE:
The Botanica
Magisters' Terrace

Burning Crusade will likely be the hardest one since it had no linear story and the lore was just all over the place. You had Illidan creating Fel Orcs while bleeding Maghteridon dry, Kael'thas scheming behind his back, Lady Vashj trying to drown everything. I mean, sub-plots and side threats occur in every expansion, but Burning Crusade did the poorest job weaving its plots into a cohesive narrative, so I chose Kael'thas as perhaps the one focal point weaving all those plots together. His story is obviously told in Magisters' Terrace, which ties directly into Sunwell Plateau, the expansion's final raid, concluding his master plan. The Botanica I chose because it's fun, that last Druid Blood Elf boss is cool to fight and it does also portray Kael'thas' blood elves' plans.

WRATH OF THE LICH KING:
The Culling of Stratholme
Halls of Reflection

These were much easier to pick. Wrath had as many sub-plots and side stories if not more than BC, but I felt they were inter-woven so well through the overall narrative, and told through dungeon text and quests. Culling of Stratholme portrays Arthas' fall and Halls of Reflection his menace, tying in perfectly into ICC, the final showdown. You essentially have Arthas' beginning and near his end if you do these two dungeons.

CATACLYSM
End Time
Hour of Twilight

Cataclysm gets a lot of flack for Dragon Soul sucking so hard, but End Time and Hour of Twilight perfectly encapsulated Deathwing's story leading up to said bad raid. I came close to choosing Deadmines (Heroic) though, because Cataclysm was about as much as re-making Azeroth as it was Deathwing's threat, and I just loved Vanessa VanCleef's story from Westfall. It was told perfectly from beginning to end, culminating in a fun re-done Vanilla dungeon that is still one of my favorites to this day.

MISTS OF PANDARIA
Shado-Pan Monastery
Mogu'shan Palace

Even though I loved the Mantid as a race and threat, their dungeons were a pain in the ass from a game play stand point, so much so any story told there, which is bare anyway, don't make the cut. With that said, the meat of the lore for the most part in Mists before they made it about Garrosh out of nowhere, was the threat of The Sha, and the menace of The Mogu. Shado-Pan Monastery explores the threat of The Sha, complete with putting down the Sha of Violence, and defeating Taran Zhu, a very important character in Pandaria lore.

WARLORDS OF DRAENOR
Shadowmoon Burial Grounds
Sky Reach

I'll be honest here, I skipped WoD. I only played the dungeons in their Timewalking iterations. I did gloss over the lore in WoD and like most, found it lacking, particularly in dungeons. I did however, play through the story in Shadowmaoon Valley, which concluded nicely in Shadowmoon Burian Grounds with Ner'zhul as the final boss. Sky Reach I chose just because I love the High Arakkoa.

LEGION
Assault on Violet Hold
Return to Karazhan

While Legion's game play and features were fun to me, the story and dungeons in particular were a little lacking as far as Legion presence goes. Everything seemed overshadowed by Nightborne presence. Wherever there were Legion forces, there were Nightborne around. So I just went with two old favorites re-done, Violet Hold and Karazhan. Both have Legion forces without the overbearing presence of Nightborne (who I love as an allied race, but got tired of pretty quickly with Suramar.) So many missed opportunities. Why didn't we have a dungeon with Lord Jaraxxus as the final boss?

We're not getting a new dungeon(s) in 8.3, so might as well include BfA too.

BATTLE FOR AZEROTH
...

Not gonna lie, I couldn't even choose a single dungeon I liked. I'm one of BfA's biggest advocates, but sure as hell not for its stories or dungeons. If not for allied races and the quest zones, I'd have bailed long ago. The story was bad. The dungeons were forgettable. The only dungeon I remotely remember enjoying a bit was the Zandalari dungeon where you fight the T-Rex in the beginning and then the spider boss towards the end, and that's it. While I loved Drustvar, Waycrest Manor and any other dungeons tied to the zone were just dreadful. Shrine of the Storm was fun in a challenging way with the boss with the octopus head-hopping, mind control thing, but no good lore to speak of. Felt like BC lore but with no likable one character (like Kael'thas.) Azshara, under-utilized, Sylvanas, not a single dungeon involving her (not that we needed one), dungeons were just unpleasant.

What were your two favorite dungeons that best represent each expansion?

No. not even close

Legion was best represented by Court of Stars and Cathedral of Night.

[Doffen]

Vanilla:
Stratholme, Scholomance

The Burning Crusade:
Auchindon Dungeons(yes, all in one) Magister's Terrace

Wrath of the Lich King:
Halls of Lightning
Halls of Reflection

Cataclysm:
Grim Batol
Hour of Twilight

Mists of Pandaria
Shado-Pan Monestary
The Stormstout Brewery LOL

Warlords of Draenor:
Auchindoun
Grimrail Depot

Legion:
Court of Stars
Cathedral of Eternal Night
Vault of the Wardens(just because I am a Demon Hunter!)

Battle for Azeroth:
Waycrest Manor(Ending of a great story and zone)
Shrine of the Storm

Don't mistake these for my favorite though! Court of Star is however my favorite dungeon of them all. Just to have mentioned that.