I gotta say, I really do think Legion was the high-point for WoW in terms of coolness

[Claymore]

Me and a couple of friends have really started jumping back into WoW preparing for the prepatch and the inevitable expansion. One of the things we're spending a lot of time on is going back and collecting tons of transmog items, as my friends are all planning to play new classes in Shadowlands (me, I'm totally stoked about playing 2hand Frost again), as well as all sorts of mount runs.

It winds up also being a good time to reflect on the game, and different parts of different expansions. Warlords of Draenor, as much as I despised the STORY (and also Garrisons, which I'll reiterate ARE NOT "Housing"), actually has a lot of cool-looking zones. Maybe not Tanaan Jungle, but I enjoyed visiting every zone again. I also have kind of a new appreciation for High Maul; it's kind of a shame we didn't get to lean even more into the Roman culture of the Ogres.

Something I was honestly a bit surprised by was just how much I REALLY love pretty much all of Legion, though. And no doubt, a lot of it is because it really FEELS like the climax of the game's story; all these different stories just kind of escalated into a crescendo where Legion honestly felt like "the final battle". And there was clearly SO MUCH LOVE put into most of the Class Halls and their stories, it's also the first expansion that really felt "immersive".

Really, the only negative I can hold against it is that Argus fell flat for me. I'd much preferred to have saved Argus for its own expansion, maybe taking the "Argus" we got, and just having made it "the nameless husk of a world already destroyed by the Legion", where we are looking for some way to open a portal to Argus itself (obviously some other story-beats would've needed changing, like Kil'jaeden not dying).

By contrast, while no one ever really appreciates whatever content happens to be current, I really don't see myself ever wanting to revisit BFA's content. Kul Tiras I think is a cool looking zone (although it does all kind of feel like "one sprawling zone" instead of being disconnected), but I never really connected with the story or what I was doing.

In a world, it feels like "filler". I was sick of "Horde vs. Alliance" before BFA anyways, and BFA didn't even seem to go all-in on that theme anyways, getting distracted by... well, other stuff. Admittedly I never cared that much about seeing Azshara, or seeing the Black Empire (I'm pretty sick of "Old Gods", too), but it all still felt kind of underwhelming to me.

I'll say, I've heard some people talk about how cool a "Black Empire expansion" could've been, and while those aren't necessarily themes I'm personally interested in, those ideas did seem a lot more interesting. Credit where credit's due, the last raid of this expansion does LOOK very cool, and it's one I actually do kind of look forward to steamrolling one day in a future expansion .

Which... maybe, BFA really fucked up on cosmetic rewards. This is the first and only expansion in the game where there isn't even a SINGLE cool-looking armor set or even weapon. Abandoning the notion of Class Armor -- even if it was made purely cosmetic unlocks -- was foolish, and I think we'll see BFA as the one expansion nobody ever runs anything from.

In any case... I've definitely gotten a better appreciation of past content over this past week (including the realization that as much as I loved it AT THE TIME, WotLK really wasn't all that when you revisit it), but Legion really felt like "everything I ever wanted from WoW", at least for the most part.

Honestly, whoever handled the overall story direction, and all of the Class Hall stuff, those folks should really be put in charge again for whatever comes next.

Anyways, that's my take on things.

[Beastiel]

argus was garbage but the return to real class fantasy was great. class halls were great and i wish were a static thing. artifacts and pseudo talent trees were amazing. World quests were still new enough to be interesting. There was room to believe the Sylvanas as warchief angle could actually go somewhere interesting.

It was a great expansion, and not just in retrospect as some others are. I remember actively playing it and thinking to myself, "wow, this is great, i actually feel invested in the game for the first time in a while"

[Jessicka]

Artifacts and the endless grind of AP spoiled the game so hard I quit. I wouldn't call that a high point.

[Claymore]

argus was garbage but the return to real class fantasy was great. class halls were great and i wish were a static thing. artifacts and pseudo talent trees were amazing. World quests were still new enough to be interesting. There was room to believe the Sylvanas as warchief angle could actually go somewhere interesting.

It was a great expansion, and not just in retrospect as some others are. I remember actively playing it and thinking to myself, "wow, this is great, i actually feel invested in the game for the first time in a while"

Yeah, Artifacts get a lot of flak (and I can see, the eventual AP grind wasn't great, and got wildly out of hand), but early on I actually really enjoyed making choices on how to invest in their trees. Class Halls felt like they connected completely seamlessly into the experience, and felt like a surprisingly natural extension of Dalaran. It was cool mingling with players of your class, regardless of faction, even if it was just seeing how "the other side" would do all their transmogs and mount choices.

[Jessicka]

Yeah, Artifacts get a lot of flak (and I can see, the eventual AP grind wasn't great, and got wildly out of hand), but early on I actually really enjoyed making choices on how to invest in their trees. Class Halls felt like they connected completely seamlessly into the experience, and felt like a surprisingly natural extension of Dalaran. It was cool mingling with players of your class, regardless of faction, even if it was just seeing how "the other side" would do all their transmogs and mount choices.

I never once felt like Artifacts were choices, sorry. Just mistakes waiting to happen. As per my Frost Mage and Affliction Warlock, which wouldn't have been Affliction had they not fucking deleted Demonology. It was only having levelled my SPriest I felt settled with anything, but by that point, far far too late to do anything with her.

AP made the same mistakes that Garrisons did, they made you forget there was a game outside of it. Class Halls, which started off nice ended up being Garrison 2.0 with their only purpose really being to serve your Artifact. They let that whole system of a "mini game" become the game. The Artifact Trees weren't even that interesting, with a whole lot of +1% talents they realised way back in Cataclysm were boring as fuck time gates on getting what were mostly a bunch of regurgitated talents and abilities they'd previously taken away - and worst of all, abilities you needed to make baseline spells worth casting at all.

Don't get me wrong, the quests and stories that went with them were great, but the execution of their input to "get people invested" by forcing it into being the most meaningful part of the game was horrible. I really hope Shadowlands has finally learned from that in ways BfA sort of seemed to accept by the end.

Dalaran didn't feel relevant, as it was way too far from the action, be that your class hall or the world, it could have been anywhere, it just felt about as relevant as the portal room in Stormwind's Mage Tower because that's as much purpose as it served.

[Swnem]

The only good thing about Legion were the artifact skins (as in collecting weapon skins and not the power system) and the class hall campaigns.

But, it was more destructive to the game than any other expansion before it, including WoD. Cause WoD was actually decent. It just lacked content cause it was cut short for other reasons. Legion and the borrowed power system, the AP grind and the class simplification nearly killed the game long term. We are still suffering the effects of it.

[Varodoc]

After the garbage that was WoD, they pretty much had to go all in with Legion. It is therefore not a surprise that Legion's storyline was so grand and climactic, involving major villains like Gul'dan, Kil'jaeden, and Sargeras himself, as well as a Titan of Death, and important lore revelations like the true power of the Void (which you saw in Mac'aree). In comparison, BfA is much more toned down and grounded, except for N'Zoth (who was indeed a universal threat).

Regardless, I suspect 10.0 will be another expansion similar to Legion. It will be a grand cosmic expansion involving the conflict between Light and Void. It is only fitting that patch 10.0, such a milestone in the game, would be massive in size and climactic.

[Queen of Hamsters]

It sure as hell had solid Quarterly reports throughout.
But so did BfA.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I’d say it was one of the low points likely only behind wod.

Space ships warping in and beaming down troops as if it was Star Trek.

Ruining iconic weapons by reforming some
Like frostmourn into stupid duel wielding swords or giving something like the ashbringer to cows.

Just throwing those iconic wepons in the trash with no rhyme or reason.

Characters like Sargeras just being space clouds.

Idiotic story lines like odyn being willing to give a pillar of creation to the legion if the god king beats you.

Class halls watering down race/class combos that should be hugely different from each other in the lore .

The alliance and horde taking a back seat to said stupid class order halls.

While legion was a bad expan like wod and had some highs it was defiantly on the lower end.

[Pakheth]

I have to agree, because I really enjoyed Legion. It really catered to my interests regarding story, characters, visuals and cool looking stuff to collect. Only downside was how a lot of classes got gutted and reworked and how the Legiondaries were a bitch to get.

It was cool questing through Suramar meeting all the interesting characters there, it was fun seeing Illidan all badass, and it felt rewarding doing all the stuff we were served(except for Broken Shore).

I would say Legion is up there with MoP and Wotlk for me in terms of entertainment value, and is one of my favourites.

[cozzri]

Artifacts and the endless grind of AP spoiled the game so hard I quit. I wouldn't call that a high point.

The best way to play WoW now is to sub 1-2 months towards the end of the expansions; play through the story do all the raids; then quit and repeat.

The borrowed power grind isn't worth it in terms of time investment.

The gear treadmill has become insane with no achievable end goal.

Play for the story after all the content is released and cut loose till next time.

I still love the game, just have to play it different now.

[kappas]

Legion was so bad especially mythic+

[doodle90]

Being an Altaholic, I hate a lot of legion zones, leveling wise I perfer WoD and BFA. I loved the artifact system of leigion though and a lot of the order halls, and I WISH SURAMAR was made a leveling zone. It is one of the best zones in the game, but its still level 45.

BFA though has some of my favorite zones. The war story is meh and the azerite system is meh, but its level process is one of my favorite

[Beloren]

Totally agreed. Whiles I think they dropped the ball more as it progressed. It was the highest point


I did think systems got better. It was amazing to have Argus. But also disappointed that is all there was to it.

Night elf stuff was shamefully relegated after the initial designs of the zones and Nighthold. Almost nothing that came after involved them or was to do with them.

Suramar and the Nightborne going horde was a massive kick in the teeth to avid night elf fans.

Quite welcome to elf horde fans, but I noticed there is zero interest in actual Nightborne lore and fantasy. Night elf fans seem far more interested in them.

It does seem far too much to have the horde have both the Kaldorei and Thalassian civilisations, in addition to the Zandalari empire too.

I know NElf fans point out it Is crazy bias while they burned down and seized the Kalimdor NElf lands and relegated them to forest elves grossly neglecting both the Highborne and arcane side as well as the Illidari demon hunter aides. And I can’t apologise for it with a straight face, they are right.

But I always thought elf involvement in the horde after 7.3.5 was far too much. Draenei, Lightforged would have been much better candidates to swap with void elves.

Expecting arcane NElf fans to go horde to partake of this. And they wonder why people keep switching to horde.

Except this time, I doubt they aregoing to swing alliance to fix it. Because they are horde established.

And it will stay this way till wow dies

[Jessicka]

Haha Legendaries, forgot about those. Probably because my Mage got two while my Warlock - my main since TBC - never saw one, and the dumb luck of that rendered my pursuit of SPriest sufficiently worthless to just give up.

If only I’d picked a better spec than Frost to dump AP in, that was an irretrievable waste.

Legion had a lot of great concepts, but don’t pretend it wasn’t brutally unforgiving with its gameplay systems. Alts and being late to the party were not even options until too late. Even playing a different spec wasn’t allowed for.

Shit I recall people literally rolling new characters to start fresh it was so bad. And that was only remotely viable if you could properly no-life to try to catch up.

[Koloss]

Idiotic story lines like odyn being willing to give a pillar of creation to the legion if the god king beats you.

B..but it was GOD-KING SKOVALD! He told it himself.

[Dracullus]

Well every expac launch is "high point" in WoW, usually hype last until world first of first raid. Legion is my favourite expansion, but still I had more fun on BfA or WoD launch than 7.2 or 7.3.

But of course we can't have launch every few months, it wouldnt be special anymore.

[Toby451]

All I remember from Legion was frustration over not be able to get the legendary items I needed. Boring Demons with green fire everywhere. And an AP (and leggo but I already mentioned that) grind that was infinitely worse than what we had to do in BfA. It wasn't all bad, we did get M+ which was one of the additions the game has ever had.



It certainly was not "the high-point for WoW" for me, neither in terms of fun nor design.

[Beloren]

Well every expac launch is "high point" in WoW, usually hype last until world first of first raid. Legion is my favourite expansion, but still I had more fun on BfA or WoD launch than 7.2 or 7.3.

But of course we can't have launch every few months, it wouldnt be special anymore.

BFA wasn’t. Of all the expansion launches I played. I was least pleased with that.

[Zapporius]

AP grind sucked covid ass, but otherwise it was great for the vibe