Which expansion was the absolute worst?

[Cien]

without a doubt, BfA. absolute car crash. i'd legit much rather WoD again :/

[Tyrannica]

Ok, i finally rated BfA as the worst expansion.

BfA has of course much more content to do, and better art than WoD.

But, lets be fair. WoD should not be in the list. WoD is not an expansion, its more a patch, or half an expansion, huge content of WoD was cut, just google it up there are some indepth youtube videos about that issue.

I'd suggest before you vote WoD by defeault due to lack of pve content, watch this video that had a lot of traffic:






Now to the main issue i had with BfA, i think, the issue with BfA is severe by just make very bad game design decisions that were never needed or called for, and BfA had no "yearly schedule expansion" excuse that WoD had.

1. The class design wasn't refined and improved, but only got worser coming from legion, worst offender the GCD change.It disrupts gameplay to this very day on all classes no matter what content you prefere to play the gameflow just isn't there by that simple, but huge change.

2. Azerite gear was a failure - and its the first expansion without raid class sets, legion started the bad class design, but at least covered it with several features and techs, like artifact weapons, legendaries(the class specific utility ones are the most interesting here) and non-gear requirement in instanced pvp - that was hurting the rpg aspects of the game, but at least made logical sense as trinkets and legendaris were quite op when used proper in wpvp, especially compared to the other extreme that is BfA 8.3, i'd say at least blizz tried something new in legion and provided some logical structured system to balance it out, while BfA was bad from the start and its system just resulted in the pure essences and corruption chaos we have right now, when corruptions and essences can do more dmg than your class abilties.

3. Personally, warfronts were the feature that really disappointed me most. Many people at the start of BfA were so confused that warfronts were not ready at launch and even more confused that it was pve only, people expected warfronts to be more in line with bgs like ashran and av. I expected a story driven pvp expierence with some pve elements, but ultimately we got less gameplay than in isles, isles had mulitple modes and a pvp mode, i would not compare both features to each other, the one is fail the other successful.(for a small feature that it is)

In my book, if you cannot get an expansion right in its pve aspects, at least try to get pvp right, but BfA did bad in both aspects, even though i like the raid design, prolly the only game feature wow never dissappoints, but on the other side i am against mythic+ as it takes away from raiding and pvp gearing progress and is the most boring content i can imagine to do, we are talking about all the same dungeons from start to finish and keep it artifical relevant by just scaling it. Better scrap that and improve pvp systems and gearing progression, as it worked quite well in the past.

We got Thorgast that seems a spiritual successor of horrific visions, something you can do for gear progress solo and entirely pve.

Both horrific visions and thorgast needs pvp eqivalents and a warmode campaign with objectives and gear progression will provide that and give back that pvp interest.

4. And thats my final point, BfA did absolutely nothing with its new warmode feature. There was no progression system around it at all. Bounties are a joke and look very cosmetic and pointless how its implemented. Whats needed is class specific war campaigns with goals and objectives and weekly rewards on par with visions and how you perform.
Looks like SL won't improve on warmode either and it will just remain a switch that you pull to see a different shard to just kill more rares for mounts & pets.

[Zequill]

Those pools are always so bias toward the current expansion.

We are talking about Cataclysm, the expansion that first bastardized the talent tree by making you choose a spec and lock you into that spec until you put 31 points in tree and only giving you 1 points each 2 levels. Most of the men power want to over revamping the Vanilla zone, destroying some of the most iconic zone and erasing 1.x from the world. Some raid were not that bad, but Dragon Soul was mostly asset reuse, having no unique maps, which should be the bare minimum for a raid.

Mist of Pandaria finished what Cataclysm started, completely erased the talents tree to be replace by 6 talents BY CLASSES, not spec like they did later. Heavy use of the daily quests like it was never seen before, having at launch more then 7 factions with multiples daily, even having some daily hubs being lock by reputation from an other daily hubs. Log in every days and do your chore or fall behind everyone else. Also, the first expansion with the faction war as the main theme, meh.

Warlord of Draenor really get the cake with the most rushed raids release ever. They had 3 raids, which is already meh, but they really outdone themselves by releasing them so fast that first two raid overlapped, making Highmaul obsolete way too quickly. Blackrock Foundry was not make obsolete as quickly, but the damage was already done, leaving us with nothing to do way too quickly and Talaan jungle was one of the sandbox zone, big, plenty of stuff but nothing tangible

And then we have Legion and BFA, where the biggest complain seem to be "Playing my character make it stronger, boooo AP"

[Argorwal]

Still lacking that comprehension thing. As stated some people are at their peak of “git gud.” Not everyone has the skill level to play at the same levels. If they did then everyone would be playing in tournaments across the globe, or better yet, we wouldn’t have tournaments because no one would stand out as everyone would be equal skill level.
So yes, some people do feel forced to stay in game to do everything they can to stay up to date and play better.
I even pointed out that the best players tend to grind more than other players at the start of a tier and the taper off.
I’ve also stated personal opinion of liking “raid or die,” as people call it, in WoD because it gives you time to do other things. There’s plenty of examples of lots of other people, on this site no less, that state why they don’t like things in game and how they don’t want to do them but have to.
Guess what, “raid or die” has existed since before WoD. Most xpacs you would log in, maybe do some dailies or PvP, and then raid. You did these things because you wanted to, or maybe there was an item that was good for you, but you never had to do them to stay relevant. You didn’t have to do multiple dungeons or dailies just to get access to another feature that you then had to do to upgrade the main item of the xpac to stay relevant. This wasn’t just a WoD issue. WoD might have had the most emphasis on it, but as Blizzard has tried to give everyone more reasons to stay logged in they have also created systems that become mandatory instead of optional.
So, you can say “git gud” as much as you want without ever realizing not everyone can achieve those abilities like others; or, you can actually develop some intelligence and realize that not everyone will ever have the same skill levels as everyone else and that the content Blizzard has created has become mandatory instead of optional.
As I said, I would rather play a game with content I want to do for fun instead of have to do out of necessity. If Blizzard made things truly optional and still allowed people to raid lot if they chose then we wouldn’t have this conversation, would we?

The “raid or die” system though is the epitome of “git good.”

There is no gradual slow power increase. You either are good enough to do it with the gear you have from the raid or you aren’t. If your skill doesn’t allow you to progress, you are done.

Go look at WCL for parse data “pre-nerf” vs now and see the absolutely massive jumps in dps.

Not having any gains is saying make your kills with much less power. You don’t have to do “chores” but you are way less powerful and your progression will fizzle out much sooner.

Nothing that affects player power will ever be viewed as “optional” by the try hards.

[rarhyx]

tie between cata, wod and bfa

[scooter509]

From worst to best
Wod
bfa
cata
legion
mop

cant talk about wotlk and tbc as i didn't really play them
started in wotlk but didn't really play till cata

[Good ol Stroggylos]

WOD.
Busy reset day and then raid logging. Only expansion I had to lvl 3 alts to keep myself busy.
BFA a close second as design was hectic AF

[Axeros]

WotLK
LFD created ( hate system which make you port into dung by clicking one button anywhere you are)
multiple difficulty of same raid
Naxx ..jesus christ copy paste older raid in easier mode and serve it as new tier raid content.
ToC tier raid placed in one room...

and no, not even perfect Ulduar cant carry this expansion out of toilet for me

[MrLachyG]

wod>bfA

pvp, raids and lore were way better in wod, i could literally spend a day doing random bgs and getting fun, today i do a random bg for the azerite and want to kill myself with pencil.

........... are you secretly John Wick?

[Autoriot]

Cata and WoD are so close, hard to say, so I voted Cata to balance it out a little more.

BfA I need more time to pass, so that I can reflect and see how it stacked up, definitely down there though in the running for worst expansion.

[MrLachyG]

Wod closely followed by bfa. Wod cut a whole raid plus the land mass i was most curious about faralon. Bfa i hated the story i stayed clear from the gear slot machine, i only cared about how gear looked. My 3rd worst is cata, if you want the reason i play alliance that should say enouth.

I am hoping that if we ever get a "Us vs Light" expansion that we go back to AU Draenor and hunt down a special artefact or something on Farahlon

[Easyclassictopkeklel]

This guy gets it. Even if there wasn't much to do other than raid in WoD, classes were still fun and I could play alts when I was done on my main.

BFA is the worst expansion hands down.

Nah. Perhaps if you played 3-4 hours a week. In WOD there LITERALLY was months over months of NOTHING to do. Ashran was as big of a failure as islands and warfronts. At least BFA has m+ which keeps it a bit interesting. So both expansions are very close...for people not raiding WOD should have been worse by far tho.

[Autoriot]

At least BFA has m+ which keeps it a bit interesting. So both expansions are very close...for people not raiding WOD should have been worse by far tho.

True, but somehow M+ took a step back in BfA compared to Legion, where it actually emerged. In BfA, the seasonal affix was very hit and miss. Season 2 and 4, great, but 1 and 3 were terrible. Making Fortified and Tyranical baseline was also a terrible decision and most who m+ a bit would be happy to see it go, due to scaling issues. There is also too much trash in most BfA dungeons with too many abilities, which often requires tons of interrupts and CC.

Also as a side note, WoD had challenge mode dungeons which were an early iteration of M+. Timed, but a fixed difficulty and you couldn't outgear them (gear scaled down), and rewarded cosmetic rewards instead of being a loot pinata that replaced negated most raid loot. I liked Challenge Modes, just like Mage Tower. A challenge that you overcome and collect something cosmetic, instead of an endless grind for gear or imaginary RaiderIO points.

[Zantera]

I feel like the "classes were more fun in X" is highly subjective. I mained Shadow Priest in WoD and it was completely ruined with the dotless Mind Spike spec being the best for a large chunk of it, and my main alt was warrior which was all of a sudden using Whirlwing as a filler in the single target rotation because there was only like 3 other abilities to press. Absolutely terrible. On the flip side of that, I haven't really had any issues in BFA to that extent. Though I've only played WW monk, Fury war, Prot pala, Fire mage, BM hunter, Enhancement shaman and Blood DK at a higher level. Only one out of those I found iffy was BM mostly because of the GCD change and having 2 major cooldowns to press. But I guess I might have been lucky not playing the truly gutted specs?

[Tyrannica]

I feel like the "classes were more fun in X" is highly subjective. I mained Shadow Priest in WoD and it was completely ruined with the dotless Mind Spike spec being the best for a large chunk of it

I mained shadow priest in WoD, too and had a blast.

The general consensus is, that legion ruined shadow priest class design by adding voidform and a bar to build up for it. Gameplay went from fluid to clunky in a heartbeat.

I rather have those 3 orbs than insanity + voidform.

[Florena]

Story wise, BFA for me probably. Gameplay wise it's hard to say because I didn't raid pre Wrath except for Kharazhan and a couple of ZA bosses, and at the end of MOP I got burned out and barely dipped my toes into raids after that.

The leveling experiences in all expansions have been good. But I've only consistently raided enough in three expansions to really judge them in terms of raids. And because I wasn't playing actively really from WOD onward I don't have much perspective on their non raiding level cap content either.

Of the three where I had a more complete picture of the game as a whole (Wrath, Cata, MOP) I'd say Cata was the worst, but not mostly because of dragon soul being a bit of a let down.

[Amsden]

WoD. The raids were fantastic but that was it. Garrisons were boring and picking your garrison location was scrapped so you were stuck in the snow the whole expansion. Apexis grind sucked, pathfinder bull shit started here. Yeah WoD is the lowest point for me.

[callipygoustp]

I will vote Cata, everytime Cata, for one sole reason: This was the first and only time in the 14 years I have been playing this game that a mass number of my friends quit the game, with in a short time frame, of each other. Large numbers of people, towards the end of FL, just started falling off. THAT is a huge statement.

WoD sucked for one reasons: there is was little to do outside of raids. Which is sad, cause, the raids, imho, were quite good. But outside of raids...... selfie cam!

I like and enjoy BfA.

[Relapses]

I don't think that's true at all. People tend to overly exaggerate how they feel about stuff, that's one thing, but from the looks of it most people here on mmo-champ do speak their mind, just that some have an issue to keep it to their opinion, without trashing other's opinion. Which seems to be the thing you have been a target of when it comes to this particular topic in various threads.

Legion for many was great because it had many good redeeming factors in it, and it was a direction the game needed. They have never had any expansion perfect, Legion was no exception. But what you do here, again, is to say that peoples opinion about Legion is not 100% valid. I don't think that's the right approach. I have no problem seeing why some people like WoD, or MoP even though I personally think they were not fun enough for me. I don't have to point out that they are mistaken just to validate my opinion. Legion had one flaw to me, Legendaries. Rest was perfect. But I can see that AP and all that shit is not everyones cup of tea. You also seem to like BfA a lot more(or am I mistaken) than Legion, yet it inherit the same flaws and even more of them when it comes to both corruption and several end game system. Why is it that you think BfA did that alright, when it had more rng(corruption) and more issues with their systems than Legion?

Not talking about you in this particular case, but how can someone rightfully say that Legion was trash because of its systems, when BfA's systems were as bad, or even worse? Corruption was worse as it had no Bad Luck Protection compared to Legiondairies, but still you say Legiondairies was so bad when the acquisition of corruption is as bad, or worse? BfA also got 4 systems, compared to Legion's 2. BfAs only "redeeming" factor(not my idea of redeeming, but from the looks of it here on mmo-champ) that it got vendors. Which I personally stinks as a way of progressing your character.

Couple of things to unpack here:

1.) I apologize if it seems like I'm invalidating anybody's opinion -- I really do try to steer clear of that. I'm not saying that anybody who genuinely likes Legion is somehow being dishonest; simply that I've noticed a lot of people on this forum question the mere possibility that Legion isn't universally adored in the same fashion that they question anybody who can enjoy a universally reviled expansion like WoD.

2.) My distaste for Legion stems mostly from the early stages of the expansion when I was in a Mythic guild progressing through Nighthold. Going into Legion, I had 6 toons at near-BiS HFC raid gear so it was difficult for me to choose a main. I ultimately settled on a Shadow Priest. Right off the bat, I realized that in order to keep up with the AP grind I'd need to commit myself to a lot of daily quests. I strongly dislike dailies. (Despite having 6 raid-geared toons from HFC, I never got WoD flying because I never bothered to do the dailies.) Due to RL issues, I wasn't able to play much in EN and missed out completely on ToC. This was when SPriest was OP due to Surrender to Madness. When I came back, the meta had shifted away from S2M and Shadow was significantly less potent. I was also months behind on the AP grind but I didn't let that deter me. I went hard on the AP grind, sometimes playing 10 to 12 hours a day just completing WQs and doing dungeons. (After coming back, I initially wanted to main swap but doing so would have put me even further behind because of the way Legiondaries worked.) By the time we were pulling Gul'dizzle I had exhausted myself of the game and it felt so much like a chore just logging in that I ended up hanging up my hat and unsubbed for the rest of the expansion. (It also didn't help that my guild had made a meme out of fucking me over when I tried to play S2M for farm.)

3.) My slightly more positive opinion of BfA is that even though it carried over the systems from Legion, Blizzard iterated on them to make them easier to handle. AP in BfA is handled much better. The raids are enjoyable. Each of the classes I play are fun to me. I was never a fan of TFing but I don't hate Corruption (though I do believe it was rolled out poorly). People like to complain about BfA's "systems on systems" approach but I generally did not have nearly as many issues with BfA as I did in Legion. (Much like WoD, I also do not have flying in BfA because I could be arsed to do Mechagon dailies.) BfA's other central criticism -- its plot -- is something that I really never understood because WoW is a game that you play for hundreds of hours and the story elements usually occupy a fraction of the total time you play the game. Like yeah -- story is important to an extent but I feel like a lot of people bandwagon hating on BfA's story without considering how little impact it has on the (imo) more important aspects of the game. (One of the reasons I try to stay away from the Lore section of this forum... LOL.) I've also had a ton of fun just playing M+ with my two or three friends.

All that said, I get that it's a bit paradoxical that a game with the same systems managed to not only burn me out but also bring me back but that's just my personal take. I don't expect many people to agree with me here and I'm not trying to invalidate anybody's opinion if it's different from my own -- I would just prefer if people actually took a few minutes of introspection and actually exercised a bit of critical thinking when forming their opinions about the expansions. I much prefer takes like yours which -- while we disagree -- I can at least understand why you feel the way you do. That's a lot more engaging than, "Hey guys, look at this idiot who liked a bad expansion!"

[Icoblablubb]

Their pretty equal in terms of badness. Legendaries: it was seriously faster and more effective to create alts to hunt that bis legendary, good shit. People walked almost a year with shit legendaries making their class feel incomplete,

and in BfA your class feels incomplete no matter what u equip so where was Legion worse in that regard?