Wich Expansion have the best Dungeons?

[Nymrohd]

Yeah vanilla for sure.

Its a shame Maraudon wasn't higher level. So much of it was ignored and never seen.

BRD is still the single best dungeon I think Blizzard has ever made, especially the first half.

I'll add this. BRD and Maraudon could have easily been underground zones.

[shise]

It has to be TBC and Cata´s first week, before the uncalled for nerfs.

All the others are meaningless when you can just aoe it all for the most part :/

[melzas]

Running pre-nerf cata dungeons on beta, when nobody had any idea of boss mechanics and we had to figure out everything on our own as there weren't any guides or videos out yet was the most fun I had in 5 man content.

Dungeon design was very good too, Vortex Pinnacle was pretty, Halls of Origination felt massive (later most of dungeon would be skipped but it has a lot of bosses with cool mechanics), Grim Batol was fun and challenging. Really good 5 man content.

It lost a lot of its charm with nerfs but they are still my favourite dungeons. I really liked ICC 5man trio from wotlk too (especially the brutal halls of reflection).

[Ezyah]

Just because of Tol Dagor / Sanguine depths i couldnt vote for SL or BFA..

I hope we re not getting another small corridor , "lol your camera is on your nose and you casted that aoe on the roof", dungeon like this in DF

[Strawberry]

I voted TBC but classic is right there as well.
Both expansions were hard, especially for tanks. I remember the hard rule to wait on 5 sunders before going batshit crazy with dps. You'd see 4 sunder stacks and already mage and warlock spells flying towards the boss lol. That was very sensitive back in Onyxia raid. It ruined friendships.

[ZazuuPriest]

Vanilla is the only expansion with dungeons that actually feel like... you know, dungeons. So from a fantasy standpoint no dungeon can compare to the Blackrock mountain complex of raids+dungeons. From a gameplay standpoint I guess my favorite would be Legion or, dare i say it, BfA based on boss and map design/philosophy.

[Gasparde]

Don't think you can compare m+ era dungeons with those that came before.

Like, Shadowfang Keep after its overhaul was a neat dungeon... but how do you compare that to Cathedral of Eternal Night?

Out of the m+ era, I don't think that either BFA or SL can hold a candle to Legion. We've had some hits in both, but I fondly think back to just about every single Legion dungeon - even shit like HoV or BRH. I don't think I'll ever want to see any BFA dungeon other than maybe Freehold and Junkyard ever again. Shadowlands dungeons can pretty much all gtfo - HoA and Tazavesh being the only bearable ones.

Before that... WoD had some neat dungeons, yet also some real stinkers (and I'm so glad we've got the latter ones for m+ now!). Didn't enjoy any of the MoP dungeons except for the old remakes tbf. Cataclysm was probably the best allround - lots of cool new and unique dungeons, for the first time ever with proper mechanics. The remakes were also great and the 3 later added dungeons were also sweet.

Anything before that was at best visually compelling... or from a lore standpoint... but yea, shit's too old nowadays. So yea, Legion & Cata.

[Jujudrood]

Vanilla the first few times.
Having large, expansive, "choose your own direction" types of dungeons, while they can be interesting at first, tend to wear thin pretty quickly given the amount of time it takes to finish.
After that, tedious, and I'm thankful they don't design dungeons like BRD or Strat anymore... far too big and takes far too long.

In terms of size, difficulty, pacing, probably either WoD or Legion for dungeons.
The art, design, even some of them had good music, but overall none of them were *too* irritating/frustrating.
Sure, they were a "start here, go there" type, but in reality, Dungeons are more or less throw away content that you use to either level or, in terms of Legion, run M+.
Sad reality, but it's true; dungeons are no longer "endgame lite" like in Classic. Just an M+ race to the finish.

[saixilein]

Cata hands down. It separated the wheat from the chaff pre nerf. Everyone couldnt just facetank mechanics like they do now.

I really had fun on release with that dungeons, and i was joking to my friend "We are going into voice now for that heroic dungeon!" that was something unique and he was a LOTRO player, where it was common to go voice for dungeons...

[hulkgor]

Vanilla, and it's not even close.

Massive, non-linear, immersive, with huge variety.

Blackrock Depths is the best one, the prime example of what dungeons should be.

[Somic]

Vanilla, and it's not even close.

Massive, non-linear, immersive, with huge variety.

Blackrock Depths is the best one, the prime example of what dungeons should be.

I agree to an extent. If I’m judging specifically off of just playing the dungeon once and see how I feel or if I’m judging by the atmosphere it would for sure be classic.

The issue I have with classic dungeons though are the replayability, to me, sort of becomes torturous. BRD full run the first time? Magical. BRD full run the 3rd time, life draining.

[hulkgor]

The issue I have with classic dungeons though are the replayability, to me, sort of becomes torturous. BRD full run the first time? Magical. BRD full run the 3rd time, life draining.

I understand the sentiment, but i actually feel BRD is properly designed whereas you can do 'segmented' runs, as in, you can go straight to Emperor, you can do Arena, you can do the lower prison part and take something out of it. Like the place is built around various areas and you can do those, smaller segments, as regular runs. You can even tailor a 'path' for the bits you want. That said, i do agree that repeating full run of it can be a slog, and a chore (besides the huge time commitment).

[Somic]

I understand the sentiment, but i actually feel BRD is properly designed whereas you can do 'segmented' runs, as in, you can go straight to Emperor, you can do Arena, you can do the lower prison part and take something out of it. Like the place is built around various areas and you can do those, smaller segments, as regular runs. You can even tailor a 'path' for the bits you want. That said, i do agree that repeating full run of it can be a slog, and a chore (besides the huge time commitment).

I completely understand the segmented runs for sure, I mean I did a million of them and I am in the camp of brd being the best dungeon ever made in this game ever. It was just an example though because classic dungeons can be seriously insanely long which is kinda the short of it.

Like sunken temple is insanely long. Mara is long. Wailing Caverns is insanely long. And I’m not saying this is a bad thing because running it a couple times like I said is insanely fun, best experience I have had in my time in this game. But like I said, today, if I had to made a choice between running wailing caverns or let’s say Halls of reflection. I will for sure choose halls

[BobJohn]

Nostalgia pick is TBC.

But I selected Classic due to them feeling like true dungeons, without being on rails.

[Relapses]

Blackrock Depths is the best one, the prime example of what dungeons should be.

People getting lost then chain vote kicked because they haven't spent the last quarter century hand-mapping every crevice in the place?

To each their own but the hardest of hard disagrees on this one.

[hulkgor]

People getting lost then chain vote kicked because they haven't spent the last quarter century hand-mapping every crevice in the place?

To each their own but the hardest of hard disagrees on this one.

People also got lost in Orgrimmar the first couple of times they went in there. Go figure. At least they wouldn't get kicked off, i guess

[AcidicSyn]

I liked WOD dungeons. The train was the first time you got to see your character in a little cutscene within the dungeon (doing more than just standing) and I thought that was neat.

[Myradin]

I'd say Wrath or BFA.

Classic has some great dungeon ideas, but they dont age terribly well. The ideas are good, but execution lacking.

TBC dungeons are woefully copy-paste. CoT ones are solid.

Wrath has some really diverse and fun dungeons. Yes they were easy, but where they fell in the 'instance/gear hierarchy' made sense.

Cata's I found very uninspired. Either rehashes of old dungeons, or just babbling cultists with really ugly appearances. Was made too difficult for your average dungeon finder group. Raiding felt easier than doing a heroic dungeon. They weren't even fun once nerfed either.

MoP's were kind of bland. I like the expansion over all, but its small group content felt really off.

WoD's were kind of cool but still felt off. Not sure what.

I didn't play Legion so I can't judge it.

I joined late BFA but its dungeons were quite something. Shrine of the Storms, despite being babling cultists ala Cataclysm, was bloody fantastic. A lot of variety and fun ideas, combo'd with great art.

Shadowlands dungeons are abysmal. Lifeless shells that just kind of exist because they need more dungeons.

[Khaza-R]

I would say vanilla just because the concept was so radically different than what we have now. A lot of the larger ones were effectively instanced zones.

Of the more modern era I would say BfA followed very closely by Legion. MoP I think has the biggest mixed bag. There's some good ones and some genuinely torturous ones I have no desire to ever touch again.

[Wondercrab]

The vanilla dungeons have a special place in my heart for feeling like real classic fantasy dungeons. Large, interconnected, organically laid out, and full of neat little secrets and eccentricities.

You can't really compare them to anything that's come since, though, because ever since TBC the dungeon design philosophy has been completely different. Out of all the post-vanilla dungeons I'd say that WoD was actually the peak for me. They were very tight and focused, with fun, varied bosses, good pacing, and a few neat gimmicks along the way. Shadowmoon Burial Grounds in particular is pretty much my favourite example of a how I like WoW dungeons to be done. It's also notable that for the most part WoD didn't have the emphasis on trash-filled routes that began in Legion and got way worse in BfA and Shadowlands. I strongly dislike the focus on skipping packs, dodging patrols, and meticulous routing that's taken hold with the M+ system. Outside of the actual route planning itself, which is a minimal part of the experience, I think it hurts the overall experience more than it helps. Mob-dodging, invisibility potion chugging, and waiting out patrols is some of my least favourite dungeon gameplay, and it really bums me out that it's become a staple of dungeon design now. I think it's a large part of why the endgame dungeon experience can be so stressful and unwelcoming, and I much preferred it when the focus was learning how to handle each specific encounter rather than working out how to optimally avoid half of them.