Best WoW expansion of THIS decade? (2010-2019)

[Lime]

MoP's class design was too good.

[Pakheth]

No because people said there was so much to do yet no one gave reasonable list. At least one that has more stuff than recent 2 expansions.

Okay, maybe not exactly what you want, since this is copy pasted from a list I made some time ago, but here are things and features that I enjoyed in MoP that was either added or revisions of things and features from earlier expansions and the similar list over WoD stuff:

Keep in mind this is a mixed bag of content that I enjoyed(and remember) in the respective expansions. For a lot of the Pandaria stuff I cannot remember any equivalent in WoD.

What I liked:
-Rares: Regular, Warbringers, Thunder Isle and Timeless Isle
-Thunder Isle dailies, rares, treasure chests, the Chamberlain questline, Treasure Trove scenario, the opening of the gates
-Timeless Isles chests, mobs, bosses and events. Gotta chase the whaleshark! I did not farm frogs btw
-4 world bosses that offered relevant loot(mounts) that are still farmed to this day
-Legendary cape questline with cool characters like Wrathion giving you an awesome looking cape with cool effects(4 different kinds), wish they didn't remove it
-Pet battles both collecting, fighting, dailies and scenarios(Timeless Isle scenario thingy)
-Brawls, didn't get to do all, was very long brawl queues on my server
-3 new battlegrounds, I love Silvershard Mines
-Challenge Mode dungeons with 3 cool mounts and lots of cool armor sets
-The Farm, cosy and a nice little pasttime with a little story with each upgrade
-The Tillers reputation grind, finding items hidden in dirt mounds all over the world making you explore
-Fishing dailies and the Waterstrider mount
-The Krazarang invasion and the dailies there and the story updates every rep tier
-Secrets, nice for gold, xp and weapons for leveling alts. Was fun finding them while exploring.
-Reforging
-Shaohao rep grind
-Dino isle grind
-Limited thunderforging(it hadn't gone rampant yet)
-Reforging, even if I used an addon to do it easily
-Awesome tier sets
-Awesome PvP sets
-The music
-Lorewalker faction and ofc Lorewalker Cho
-Finding small areas the devs made just for fun
-The special pets Hunters could track down and tame
-Flex raiding
-Completing my archeology collection in the Lorewalker's hideout
-The mostly non-linear leveling
-The Wandering Isle
-The Klaxxi storyline
-Leveling gear vendors added
-The story
-Garrosh as a villain
-LFR was better structured than Cata with better gear distribution, it was also quite the challenge at times
-Most of the classes were a joy to play with fast paced movement and interesting abilities. You felt powerful and it was fun
-Cooking overhaul and the cooking dailies(except the fatty goat steaks one, fuck that one)
-Mogushan Vaults being both a difficult first raid(due to first boss) but also a very memorable one with Lorewalker Cho, Elegon and later returning characters
-Monks added
-Pandaren added
-Proving Grounds added
-Mount Journal added
-Void Storage added
-New arena added(currently unavailable I think?)
-Wide variety of strikingly different and colorful mounts

What I didn't like:
-Golden Lotus and August Celestials dailies
-Some of the Shado-Pan NPC's AI was dumb as bricks
-PvP items were really boring and samey
-The destruction of the Vale
-The Hozen
-The latter half of SoO
-Townlong Steppes and Dread Wastes
-Klaxxi dailies
-The Black Market Auctionhouse
-The Barrens invasions dailies and event, felt very rushed
-Was there even a pre-expansion event? I guess the scenarios count


What I did enjoy in WoD:
-Talador and its music
-The secrets, even if some of them were impossible to find without a guide or addon
-The Arakkoa
-Collecting followers
-Some parts of Tanaan but the large distances made it hard to enjoy like Timeless Isle
-Ashran was sometimes fun
-Some of the new player character models were nice, others not so much
-Fast leveling using pots and grind areas
-Challenge mode weapons, but no armor sets or mounts
-Some of the raids were okay but I didn't like the colors and layouts. Blackhand and the train boss was cool
-The Arakkoa transformation toy
-Pre-expansion event was short but ok
-Proving Grounds needed to enter dungeons, even if the healing one could be a bit too brutal imo
-Toy Journal added
-The purple wolf you could tame in Shadowmoon Valley

What I didn't like:
-Apexis dailies
-Legendary questline that was even more grindy than the MoP one that gave a ring that only gave you a boring bubble effect and was linked to everyone else's
-No new battlegrounds
-Being stuck in my garrison playing mission table
-Boat mission table
-Orcs, orcs and more orcs. And some fel.
-The music
-Boring kill-only-once rares
-Mounts being recolored forever (wolves, boars, hippos, talbuks, elekks, gronns, clefthoofs + fire bird and infernal mounts) and the colors were brown, grey, greige, maybe some fire. Thing is they weren't very interesting and very samey
-Lore relevant mounts on the Blizzard store instead on reputation vendors(that just got recolored wolves)
-The dungeons were also grey and brown with some fire, just like most Cata dungeons
-That grindy reputations were you just kill mobs and apexis dailies, no creative storytelling
-Ear grating voice acting from the female orcs that could rival Sindragosa's lines from Wotlk
-Tauren female models looking like horses rather than cows
-Dadgar getting way too much attention which sadly spilled over into Legion
-The world felt small and not as alive as Pandaria did
-Steamwheedle Preservation Society was done way too quickly and then forgotten
-Watered down archeology which was painful without flying
-On-rails leveling aking to that of Cata
-Being locked into Frostfire Ridge during the bottleneck at launch and being teleported back into the zone if you tried to leave
-Phased areas due to linear leveling
-Tier sets were mostly brown and grey with small patches of color
-Shattrath not being a raid
-The prune and changes to my favorite classes
-Fishing for lunkers for the Waterstrider. Still haven't finished it
-The terrain in some zones was awful
-Gorgrond should have been two zones like Krazarang and Valley of the Four Winds
-Saberon were wasted as a regular enemy
-LFR was a joke
-Removed reforging
-Crafted leveling gear limitations
-The different warlords being wasted as interesting characters
-No focus on cooking the same way as in Pandaria
-Smaller zones
-Gearing through mission table making dungeons obsolete
-Leveling gear vendors not present in Draenor
-Randomised stats on gear. This is one of my worst gripes with WoD and started my disinterest in gear that has lasted to this day
-Only 2 world bosses, of which only one is farmed nowadays(due to its mount)
-No questing for Horde in Shadowmoon and vic versa with the Alliance and Frostfire
-No new class
-No new race(s)
-No Arakkoa raid
-No new battlegrounds
-No new arenas
-Vol'jin kinda forgotten
-Cut content in general
-All reputations working the same way doing bland apexis dailies and grinding mobs

Number of raids/dungeons doesn't matter to me as long as the ones we get are good. I enjoyed the Pandaria ones, not so fond of the remade Scarlet Monastary ones though.
The game is so much more than just the number of dungeons/raids, but if your enjoyment is solely based of group content I can see why a low count of these can make you unhappy.

Also yes, BfA has more stuff now, but MoP also had more stuff to do than Cata, because it was new when it came out, same as Legion having more stuff than WoD did that was also new. And while BfA might have a lot of stuff to do doesn't mean everyone enjoys the stuff added. Quantity and quality are two different things and what quality the stuff has is also widely differing between people. In my case I don't like most of the stuff in BfA as it does not appeal to my interests. Stuff in MoP and Legion did however.

I can list what I liked/disliked about additions and revisions to Cata, Legion and BfA too if you want more data.

You see the problem? It was your "salvation" that is why you remember it as being best. It has nothing to do with cold hard facts aka rose-tinted glasses.

Then why didn't I have the same experience with Cata or WoD? I had a 12 month sub(for the mount) in Cata and was bored as heck most of the time, I was mostly doing Archeology to pass time and goddamn it was boring, only bright points being Firelands. Glad I had other games at hand during that time. And WoD didn't have any of the things I enjoyed. You know how brilliant rares were in MoP? Rares dropping cool toys, weapons, pets and other items like the Treasure Trove keys on the Thunder Isle. Rares were an important part of MoP and made it fun to look everywhere in case one spawned. Zandalari Warbringers caused quite the ruckus with PvP groups, Timeless Isle rare callouts were a huge thing on my server and the chat was always full of people calling out. A lot of times I would just log on to just fly through the beautiful zones looking for rares. They removed this aspect in WoD until Tanaan where the distances made the callouts rather useless. It killed a small but important part of why I loved the game

I have all classes at max level since MoP. I usually play 3-4 each expansion but I upkeep all of them because I am author of MaxDps addon so I need them at least for tests. Oh and I did 36 mage towers in legion, all specs. Right now I have 14 at 120, double hunter, double druid.

I had all classes except Rogue at max in MoP. In Legion I only did the mage tower designs I liked like the Druid ones, Arms Warrior, Shaman, MM Hunter and WW and BM Monk. And a few others I don't remember right now. Mage Tower was great content that sadly went away.

It actually doesn't say a thing. WoD and MoP had comparable amount of content MINUS one patch, it was cut in half expansion.

They are NOT comparable simply because the content was so different. MoP had tons of unique dailies that rotated and gave a different story depending on faction. Remember Cloud Serpent dailies? Play with your little buddy, fetch him food, do races, kill spiders, rescue trapped serpents. Heck you could even collect eggs for a rep boost. Compare that to the Garrison stables where you just kill the same boss again and again for each beast. And how about the Shado-Pan where you could bring along an unique NPC to be your buddy for the quests. Rather buggy but still fun. Now compare that to WoD dailies which was travel to an area and just click on samey items on the ground or grind mobs until the bar fills. That was it. And they were practically the same every day. Dailies in WoD didn't get exciting for me before the Tanaan patch and even then it wasn't as fun as Timeless Isle in my opinion.
And that is just scraping the surface as you can see in the list I made above.

You had pretty much the same things except scenarios (which were boring anyways) and farm. Tell me, what content did MoP had while WoD didnt (except farm and scenarios).

Se above. Most of the things I liked(and disliked) were new in MoP and was either not present in WoD or changed too much.

No, I just know there wasn't much to do on MoP, you just don't remember how people complained by content droughts back then.

The content drought was after the final patch, which almost every expansion to this date has had. I unsubbed for parts of it due to lack of funds but I did use it to get my Challenge Modes done. You know what I remember people complaining about? Having too much to do. Too many dailies, even in the later patches. And that was like the number 1 complaint. And you know what we got instead in WoD? Apexis dailies and less things to do.
Also complaints of how Mages changed every patch and how Locks were kinda OP at times. Also about flying ruining WPvP but people have whined about that since TBC.

Just like you I played MoP extensively, even the beta, but unlike you I had a very different experience.
And that's the thing about all of this, it's your opinion that there was little to do or it was done too fast. And if lots of others think differently then that is their opinion. Don't devalue other people's experiences and opinions just because you had a different experience, and make sure not to state that as a fact. It doesn't change that they enjoyed it and you didn't. Learn to differ between opinions and facts.

To me you just sound bitter that other people enjoyed the expansion and you didn't, and to be honest I find that rather sad. I hope you had a different expansion you enjoyed more.

[kaminaris]

No I'm not. Every expac after MoP was live Beta quality at every fukking stage - bugged to the boot, not balanced.

Fact 1: BfA and Legion is way better balanced than MoP ever was. Difference between best and worst spec was almost 100%.
Fact 2: MoP had TONS of bugs:
A. Blinking in SoO (and older raids) could drop you to below textures
B. Invisible walls were blinkable, you could skip entire trash before siegecrafter blackfuse
C. You could disengage out of map

And you can not be serious with complaining about GRIND in MoP. Grinding in MoP was a joke compared to the weirdo AP grind now and in Legion, grinding Legendaries in Legion, like what the actual fuck are you talking about?

Im not talking about Legion, legion was worst in terms of grind. BfA ? No need to grind AP.
Also you forgot about farming valor points needed to upgrade gear.

World quests are nothing but glorified dailies, islands are glorified Scenarios, give me a break. Class design was at its peak in MoP. At least compared to everything that came afterwards.

This is where you are wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.
1. World quest, while being shit, are still miles better simply because the pool of quests is much larger, meaning it will get boring a lot slower than dailies.
2. Scenarios are static content, that has no randomness and most important, have no special items like NUKE or rabbit charms, PLUS IT HAS A FUKKEN PVP mode which makes it vastly different from scenarios.
3. Class design at MoP was G.A.R.B.A.G.E because tanks were best DPSes. Affli warlocks tripled the damage of anyone else in multi target scenarios. Specs such as marksmanshit were just that = shit, had minus 100% of DPS and were not allowed in raids. BM hunters removing people from arena. Cluttered action bars full of unused spells. Disci priest doing best healing by simply dpsing.

The big difference from MoP to especially Legion and BfA: you didn't have these mandatory endless grinds like AP and Legendaries that burned you out, you were done hardcore grinding at some point, and that was a good thing. AND it had well thought through systems and features. Something that WoD, Legion and BfA all lack.

MoP didnt have a single well thought system because reforging was crap. Glyphs were badly designed (although idea was good, execution was poor). Upgrade system was just gear tax - you got new item? time to farm scenarios.

And once again:


In legion, farming AP was mandatory because artifact was overpowered compared to rest of gear, it also gave you tons of stamina.
Each level was estimated +0.5% dps.

In BfA you get almost nothing (aside from unlocking stuff) from each level of neck
Each level estimated for 0.05% dps.


So you need to learn the difference and why in BfA grind is not mandatory.

- - - Updated - - -

Okay, maybe not exactly what you want, since this is copy pasted from a list I made some time ago, but here are things and features that I enjoyed in MoP that was either added or revisions of things and features from earlier expansions and the similar list over WoD stuff:

Keep in mind this is a mixed bag of content that I enjoyed(and remember) in the respective expansions. For a lot of the Pandaria stuff I cannot remember any equivalent in WoD.

OK LETS GO!

What I liked:
-Rares: Regular, Warbringers, Thunder Isle and Timeless Isle - So Nazjatar Mechagon style rares - cause its the same system
-Thunder Isle dailies, rares, treasure chests, the Chamberlain questline, Treasure Trove scenario, the opening of the gates - Same as above
-Timeless Isles chests, mobs, bosses and events. Gotta chase the whaleshark! I did not farm frogs btw - Same as above
-4 world bosses that offered relevant loot(mounts) that are still farmed to this day - That is well, grinding, might as well farm anything else
-Legendary cape questline with cool characters like Wrathion giving you an awesome looking cape with cool effects(4 different kinds), wish they didn't remove it - Oh please, it was just a questline + grind, not to mention it was one-time thing
-Pet battles both collecting, fighting, dailies and scenarios(Timeless Isle scenario thingy) - Now we also have 4 new dungeons, tons of more pets
-Brawls, didn't get to do all, was very long brawl queues on my server
-3 new battlegrounds, I love Silvershard Mines - I give you this one, Blizz forgot about making pvp maps, tho we did get new ones + skirmshes + some weird pvp modes + warmode
-Challenge Mode dungeons with 3 cool mounts and lots of cool armor sets - We are getting this from M+ season 4th, mount and title
-The Farm, cosy and a nice little pasttime with a little story with each upgrade - it was just grind, and didn't last long
-The Tillers reputation grind, finding items hidden in dirt mounds all over the world making you explore - if you like grind, bee mount
-Fishing dailies and the Waterstrider mount - BfA doesnt have one but legion had fishing artifact, BfA has fishing in mechagon + some cool achievement for finding secret fish all over the world
-The Krazarang invasion and the dailies there and the story updates every rep tier - Didn't last long, plus now you have incursions
-Secrets, nice for gold, xp and weapons for leveling alts. Was fun finding them while exploring. - Secrets? Please, legion and BfA secrets were amazing
-Reforging Gear tax, made bad items into mediocre items, bad design, bad itemization
-Shaohao rep grind rep grind lilke everywhere else
-Dino isle grind grind
-Limited thunderforging(it hadn't gone rampant yet) If you look at overall aspect, it was worse than it is now simply because ilvl now equalizes around max ilvl, previously, thunderforging created gaps in players
-Reforging, even if I used an addon to do it easily This is the wrost stuff from MoP
-Awesome tier sets Azerite gear is mile better
-Awesome PvP sets Azerite gear is mile better
-The music You have music in legion and bfA too
-Lorewalker faction and ofc Lorewalker Cho grind
-Finding small areas the devs made just for fun Secrets
-The special pets Hunters could track down and tame We have this now too
-Flex raiding Now everything is flex except mythic
-Completing my archeology collection in the Lorewalker's hideout Archeology collection in BfA and Legion
-The mostly non-linear leveling You have to be shitting me, first non-linear experience was in Legion
-The Wandering Isle Starting zone for Demon Hunter
-The Klaxxi storyline what? Is this a joke? We have new storylines too
-Leveling gear vendors added Benthic
-The story Story in MoP was mediocre like whole WoW
-Garrosh as a villain Was that suppose to be a expansion feature?
-LFR was better structured than Cata with better gear distribution, it was also quite the challenge at times Still is good
-Most of the classes were a joy to play with fast paced movement and interesting abilities. You felt powerful and it was fun No, that is a lie, powerful were only couple of classes, while rest sucked
-Cooking overhaul and the cooking dailies(except the fatty goat steaks one, fuck that one) We had another overhaul
-Mogushan Vaults being both a difficult first raid(due to first boss) but also a very memorable one with Lorewalker Cho, Elegon and later returning characters Raid quality is roughly the same
-Monks added DH added
-Pandaren added tons of allied races
-Proving Grounds added mage tower
-Mount Journal added Appearaces tab
-Void Storage added what? is that suppose to be a content?
-New arena added(currently unavailable I think?)
-Wide variety of strikingly different and colorful mounts Tons of new mounts

[Sharein]

Legion definetly was the best expansion for me.
I'd go as far as name it the best expansion wow had overall.

Saying the same, Legion is probably the only expansion in which I didn't run out of content.

[Doffen]

again. What is class homogenization? That's a buzzword followed by the explanation "everyone could do everything". Which is obviously bs. And same tools?
1. class buffs were a thing. and every buff was provided by at most 4 out of the 11 classes. 4/11 is not everyone.
2. target debuffs. same as 1.
3. there were TONS of class specific tools for very unique situations: wl gate, priest leap, many shaman totems, dk grip, paladin hand of protection (et al.), and so on... So many specific tools, way more than we have now and had in Legion.

and pinnacle of repeatable content???
have you played m+? world quests (which are even worse than daylies for some, because they are just quests you did while leveling brought to max level)? repeatable raid themes? how about ToS and Arugs raid? looked pretty repeated to me... and scenarios? Island expeditions *cough*.
So yeah. I would strongly disagree with the statement that MoP was the "pinnacle" of anything you stated.

Class homogenization is when you have the same kind of toolkit on any class/spec. That there are no niche. The spec itself might feel great, but for some it doesn't feel so great when the rest feels just the same. When everyone is special, nothing is special. It's not a buzzword, it's to describe the lack of depth in class design as a whole.

When I say repeatable content I mean content like daily quests and so on. Which was needed to upgrade your character. When you have to do that instead of just doing dungeons or raids(like mythic+) the progression feels doesn't feel a lot more like an actual progression. It's one of the flaws with BfA, you get gear from every content now, so it stops feeling special. Doing dailies is something everyone can do, over and over, just like gearing up in BfA. If you think dailies are super fun then you disagree, I can understand that.

Islands got the same issues as scenarios. No coughing needed, it's just as bad. Don't mistake me for saying BfA is so great even if I say MoP had severe flaws. BfA got a few more most likely. We have warlock gate now, we have leap now, grip and so on, how was it different in MoP? ToS and Antorus sure. But we had Emerald Nightmare, ToV and Nighthold as well, so 4 different themes. In MoP it was...2?

[kaminaris]

Islands got the same issues as scenarios. No coughing needed, it's just as bad. Don't mistake me for saying BfA is so great even if I say MoP had severe flaws. BfA got a few more most likely. We have warlock gate now, we have leap now, grip and so on, how was it different in MoP? ToS and Antorus sure. But we had Emerald Nightmare, ToV and Nighthold as well, so 4 different themes. In MoP it was...2?

If you really think islands are even remotely as bad as scenarios were then you never really played island to their full potential ex. Doing whole-map-nuke strategy, this is insanely fun. Like, people need to check what items there are in vendor and try them out before speaking this.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

For those who picked BFA or WoD, can you please elaborate it? Thank you.

[Doffen]

I'm gonna have to agree with your agreement then.

As for points raised: I donnu the specc numbers census, but I would assume most people play destruction and affliction in Eternal Palace, because they're just better built for most of the bosses. Many bosses in there have spread adds which you often have to kill quick which promotes ranged cleavers. Demo barely has any of that but destro and aff excel in it. To the best of my knowledge they also etch out better even in pure single target, so there's really no reason to take demo there beside personal flavor, and i enjoy all 3 speccs in raids so thats not a big issue for me.

However, the majority of my retail play i put into mythic+, which i do as demo, and the majority of fellow locks i met there do the same. You could make a case for destro being equally valuble due to having an interrupt and purge that doesn't gimp its dmg, but overall demo's aoe is more versatile and less cooldown dependant, which is a big plus. I saw virtually nobody going aff above +10, imo due to aff's abysmal burst and aoe.

So the only consistent reasoning i see for specc choices is how much it fit the content's damage profile. I don't see any evidence demo's relative complexity makes people wary of it when it would otherwise benefit them in m+ (though again, i didn't bother to check any specc census).

As for how i feel about BFA demo, i think its a working, fun specc with a decent theme, with a bit more nuance and decision making to its rotation then most BFA speccs, somewhat encumbered by pet ai (they really need to add an instant charge for felstalkers so target switching isnt so bad), but again, not unfun. I just find it lacking in comparison to what we had. A common theme of mop warlock was that you had a ton of choices, decision making, and different ways of spending your resources. Dest was the most "bland" in that department that could only use it to ress pet or heal (still a super fun specc though), but the other two had a veritable mountain of decision making moments, won't gush about it again.

Regarding your claim it was just Demonology that was choice-ridden (imho, all lock speccs), i can't refute it much because i didn't play many other classes back then, only monks. Locks' amazing design actually got me curious so i'm starting to read mop era class guides and comparing my memories to see if locks were an anomaly back there or it was just a time of fun design for all. I still don't have a conclusive impression, but things like Alter Time for mages or Shadow Priests being able to convert their shadow orbs to a long stun instead of their regular rotation heavy hitting dot makes me suspect something nice was afoot at the time with class design in general.

Don't get me wrong though, i don't think Legion/BFA design is entierly devoid of fun factors. I like it less and would see it reverted, but its not all bad. Void Form for shadowpriests, despite all the fire it drew, is a pretty fun original concept that has a cool fantasy, if nothing else. Fire Mages modern Ignite mastery is both cool and smooth-feeling. Outlaw rogues' buff management is original (and at my nub level of play, pretty fun), as well as their neverending energy regeneration.

It's just...i like decision making in combat, i like feeling i can do better if i put my mind to it. I fell in love with wow thanks to warcraft 3, an rts, which by design has decision making and multiple options built into it. WoW had some levels of that ever since vanilla, and for my lock at least the combat portion of it peaked during mop. Seeing it go in basically the opposite direction ever since has been somewhat of a gut punch, however fun other portions of the game stayed or even improved (looking at you m+).

Not gonna say only demo lock was the outlier, but as a whole it felt like that, for me. I do get that having the same toolkits, having the same options across the board can be fun, I am more saying it didn't go well with what I think is great class design. I played mostly Hunter, shaman, druid and mage in MoP, and I feel I could have played one of them and feel that I didn't miss out on anything. But that's me, what's bad in my eyes is good for many :>

I think you explained well why demo might not be so good for raids but better for mythic+, it's that way for quite a few specs. I do think demo is lacking in how it deals damage, so what you wrote is probably why it's spread like that. Destro is also a lot easier to play, it doesn't need that management while affliction, like the other multi dotters excel in mostly every raid. Two reasons for why less people play demo in raids I suppose.

You seem to have good knowledge of the Warlock while I lack some, so I am gonna go and agree with what you wrote ^^

I can see why people think that MoP was great when it comes to class design, so again, don't get me wrong. What I think is great and what others think is great is always going to be something we clash our heads against. But personally I think that's great. I think Legion nailed the spec identity, while BfA was a miss. There can be enough pruning, and I guess we hit the mark now in BfA. I just think about the artifact weapon and see what we lost. I got Legion nostalgia already.

I do think some specs are fun in BfA, I have all at max level, but there are some I just don't play anymore because they don't feel as good as in Legion. Like Marksman Hunter was the best ever in Legion, I have never had so much fun playing a spec before, I and have played Marksman since 2006 even when it was shit damage before(or well I had to go Beastmacro Hunter for Sunwell before the damage was just too good for progress. Great gameplay btw!) But going into BfA they reworked it completely. I barely touch it. It's like playing a proccercoaster, like a ranged ret paladin(god I hate that spec) with Aimed Shot being a shadow of it's former self. In Legion we procced vulnerability, which had depth, because you had choices with it, when to use it, when to hold it, though it came with some rng, but some rng can be healthy. Same with the AoE together with the legendaries, so well paced and so well done. I have barely seen anyone that agree with me with MM being so great in Legion, but I absolutely loved it.

[Naiattavain]

For those who picked BFA or WoD, can you please elaborate it? Thank you.

im a wod voter. the garrison was really cool made like 900k gold that expac off of the garrison farming mats selling items on AH. asheran was really fun to do with pvp. mainly because the spellbooks were intact with the rest of the game before legion changed everything. i enjoyed questing on draenor. i enjoyed battlegrounds before the changes to spellbooks. the combat system for pvp was really good and polished. overall i had alot of fun playing wod expansion. thats why i voted for wod.

[Doffen]

If you really think islands are even remotely as bad as scenarios were then you never really played island to their full potential ex. Doing whole-map-nuke strategy, this is insanely fun. Like, people need to check what items there are in vendor and try them out before speaking this.

No I think Islands are more fun, but it's the same kind of content, though Islands are more important because of the Azerite they give. It's same way bad because to progress your character's in there isn't great. Doing Islands for fun nuke feast is something different.

I did more Islands than anyone in the guild the first 6 months of BfA, so much I got tired of it. I like the small nuke-fests, I leveled my first 6-7 chars through Islands from 110 to 120 and had fun doing that. But as far as progression go, it gets boring, but that's again just me.

The vendors are a good point, whenever the healing do damage vendor was up I was leveling my healers. It was fun, for sure. And the tank that just destroyed the Islands, that was great. I'll probably do more Islands when 8.3 comes though

[LordVargK]

Class homogenization is when you have the same kind of toolkit on any class/spec. That there are no niche. The spec itself might feel great, but for some it doesn't feel so great when the rest feels just the same. When everyone is special, nothing is special. It's not a buzzword, it's to describe the lack of depth in class design as a whole.

When I say repeatable content I mean content like daily quests and so on. Which was needed to upgrade your character. When you have to do that instead of just doing dungeons or raids(like mythic+) the progression feels doesn't feel a lot more like an actual progression. It's one of the flaws with BfA, you get gear from every content now, so it stops feeling special. Doing dailies is something everyone can do, over and over, just like gearing up in BfA. If you think dailies are super fun then you disagree, I can understand that.

Islands got the same issues as scenarios. No coughing needed, it's just as bad. Don't mistake me for saying BfA is so great even if I say MoP had severe flaws. BfA got a few more most likely. We have warlock gate now, we have leap now, grip and so on, how was it different in MoP? ToS and Antorus sure. But we had Emerald Nightmare, ToV and Nighthold as well, so 4 different themes. In MoP it was...2?

Are we in agreement, that mechanic wise MoP had more different playstyles than BfA has now?

Now, I mained WL then (thus my fondness of MoP) and I main WL now. Back then all 3 specs were great in terms of AoE (Affli less so, but only because everything died before affli did damage), destru and affli were great at cleave (and demo as well with UVoLS) and all of them did very good single target damage. I get it, that you mean that this (extended on all classes) means homogenization?
Well, compare that to now: AoE: all specs are trash (expect maybe Demo in specific circumstances), cleave: destru and affli are okay, but far from good and single target depends on the current buff/nerf status. All specs are designed for single target, the just don't excel at the moment. I would be fine I as a pure DPS class had a spec for every occasion (well, i would have to farm an entire new azerite set for each spec, so I would be not fine, but that's an azerite Problem), but that's not the case. I can play single target, that's it.
Not really appealing.
In Legion there was a similar problem: affliction was best at everything, destru only in some specific situations better and demo completely unusable.
My point being: I much prefer that everyone can do everything over some pure Dps classes can only do one thing. How can having a nieche be a positive thing? It just means that your class is useless for 50% of the PvE endgame progression.

My interpretation of nieche would be the old hybrid tax: your class can fill mire roles than just one, but you are not as good as a pure class.
But imo every pure dps class should have the potential to excel at every dps related aspect. Else you have what we see now in m+: rouges galore.
Homogenization while maintaining mechanical differences should be the goal of designing dps classes.

And no, dailys are trash. I did them all in MoP and i've never did them since. In fact, I avoid games like hearthstone, etc because they force me to play regularly to maximize my progression. Just because I feel still burned out from MoP daily grinds on multiple characters. But sadly this grind existed in legion and now in BfA even more, cause of the AP grinds that are also bound to daily sources or incredible amounts of repetition.

The last part kinda makes my point: utility wise nothing much had changed and today nobody complains about homogenization in that regard. Maybe just because there was not much else to complain about in MoP.

MoP had at least mogu, klaxxi and orcs as themes. One might count abberations, but that might be farfetched. So yeah, not that impressive but also not that bad.

[kaminaris]

Are we in agreement, that mechanic wise MoP had more different playstyles than BfA has now?

Now, I mained WL then (thus my fondness of MoP) and I main WL now. Back then all 3 specs were great in terms of AoE (Affli less so, but only because everything died before affli did damage), destru and affli were great at cleave (and demo as well with UVoLS) and all of them did very good single target damage. I get it, that you mean that this (extended on all classes) means homogenization?
Well, compare that to now: AoE: all specs are trash (expect maybe Demo in specific circumstances), cleave: destru and affli are okay, but far from good and single target depends on the current buff/nerf status. All specs are designed for single target, the just don't excel at the moment. I would be fine I as a pure DPS class had a spec for every occasion (well, i would have to farm an entire new azerite set for each spec, so I would be not fine, but that's an azerite Problem), but that's not the case. I can play single target, that's it.
Not really appealing.
In Legion there was a similar problem: affliction was best at everything, destru only in some specific situations better and demo completely unusable.
My point being: I much prefer that everyone can do everything over some pure Dps classes can only do one thing. How can having a nieche be a positive thing? It just means that your class is useless for 50% of the PvE endgame progression.

My interpretation of nieche would be the old hybrid tax: your class can fill mire roles than just one, but you are not as good as a pure class.
But imo every pure dps class should have the potential to excel at every dps related aspect. Else you have what we see now in m+: rouges galore.
Homogenization while maintaining mechanical differences should be the goal of designing dps classes.

And no, dailys are trash. I did them all in MoP and i've never did them since. In fact, I avoid games like hearthstone, etc because they force me to play regularly to maximize my progression. Just because I feel still burned out from MoP daily grinds on multiple characters. But sadly this grind existed in legion and now in BfA even more, cause of the AP grinds that are also bound to daily sources or incredible amounts of repetition.

The last part kinda makes my point: utility wise nothing much had changed and today nobody complains about homogenization in that regard. Maybe just because there was not much else to complain about in MoP.

MoP had at least mogu, klaxxi and orcs as themes. One might count abberations, but that might be farfetched. So yeah, not that impressive but also not that bad.

You are only talking about balance issues not the actual playstyle. Completely invalidating your whole post.

[docterfreeze]

I value high skill PvP and fun classes over everything. That said, MoP>Cata>WoD>pee pee poo poo>bfa&legion

[roahn the warlock]

MoP had challenging content, rares could kill you, constant things to do, fun classes, and a stupid story and it still wins in my book. Legion close second. WoD and BFA sucked, primarily because classes were boring and there was nothing to do.

[Jamie081]

I really struggle picking between MoP and Legion. They both excelled in their own way. MoP took the cake for my class and spec being fun to play, Legion ran a mile ahead any other expansion we've ever had in terms of the amount of content we received and the number of changes and new features.

I LOVED the design of Mistweaver Monks during MoP. The baseline serpent statue, channeling mana tea to return mana, chi torpedoing through your raid 3 times to heal them, blanketing your raid with Renewing Mists and casting Uplift to cover the raid with green swirls of mist, baseline fistweaving, dotting the raid platform with healing spheres (people didn't run through them but it'd be great if they were brought back and were sucked to nearby players). It was crazy fun and every single thing I've listed has been removed. Mistweaver is just another bogstandard boring ass healer that has nothing interesting about it. I loved the content that came with the expansion also and CMs were a blast.

Legion was probably the best expansion in terms of overall gameplay (not just my favourite spec), content and fun factor for me. Although they watered down my favourite spec (MW) into a bogstandard braindead spec that lost everything unique to it from WoD and MoP, every other class became fun to play. New animations, artifact weapons, MAGE TOWER, SURAMAR, withered training, ToV unique armour sets, Karazhan, Argus being 3 zones, legendaries changing gameplay, MYTHIC +, WORLD QUESTS, emissaries. God that expansion spoiled us and I don't think we'll ever have a golden age of WoW like that again.

[Doffen]

Are we in agreement, that mechanic wise MoP had more different playstyles than BfA has now?

Now, I mained WL then (thus my fondness of MoP) and I main WL now. Back then all 3 specs were great in terms of AoE (Affli less so, but only because everything died before affli did damage), destru and affli were great at cleave (and demo as well with UVoLS) and all of them did very good single target damage. I get it, that you mean that this (extended on all classes) means homogenization?
Well, compare that to now: AoE: all specs are trash (expect maybe Demo in specific circumstances), cleave: destru and affli are okay, but far from good and single target depends on the current buff/nerf status. All specs are designed for single target, the just don't excel at the moment. I would be fine I as a pure DPS class had a spec for every occasion (well, i would have to farm an entire new azerite set for each spec, so I would be not fine, but that's an azerite Problem), but that's not the case. I can play single target, that's it.
Not really appealing.
In Legion there was a similar problem: affliction was best at everything, destru only in some specific situations better and demo completely unusable.
My point being: I much prefer that everyone can do everything over some pure Dps classes can only do one thing. How can having a nieche be a positive thing? It just means that your class is useless for 50% of the PvE endgame progression.

My interpretation of nieche would be the old hybrid tax: your class can fill mire roles than just one, but you are not as good as a pure class.
But imo every pure dps class should have the potential to excel at every dps related aspect. Else you have what we see now in m+: rouges galore.
Homogenization while maintaining mechanical differences should be the goal of designing dps classes.

And no, dailys are trash. I did them all in MoP and i've never did them since. In fact, I avoid games like hearthstone, etc because they force me to play regularly to maximize my progression. Just because I feel still burned out from MoP daily grinds on multiple characters. But sadly this grind existed in legion and now in BfA even more, cause of the AP grinds that are also bound to daily sources or incredible amounts of repetition.

The last part kinda makes my point: utility wise nothing much had changed and today nobody complains about homogenization in that regard. Maybe just because there was not much else to complain about in MoP.

MoP had at least mogu, klaxxi and orcs as themes. One might count abberations, but that might be farfetched. So yeah, not that impressive but also not that bad.

I think most expansions after WotLK had classes that were more complex than what we have in BfA, so I agree. There are some outliers now, but they are few. Like I can see that having all the good stuff do feel good, and that every class/spec on it's own felt better to play. I want classes and specs to be different, play a bit different so it feels like playing a another class when you log over on your other characters. I am not gonna argue that gameplay was so boring in MoP, that's my personal opinion. Though like every expansion, I find some classes that feel good to play. I can see you, like a lot others think Warlock was awesome in MoP. And that's the class I see get mention the most when it comes to classes in MoP. I think we can agree that a big portion of the players that played Warlock had most fun in MoP. Of course, it wasn't for everyone.

My point about niche is not about tuning, on how good or bad they are. But it's more about how they feel to play. I don't think balance was perfect in MoP either if we are to talk about that. But when I talk about homogenization and niches, I talk about classes/specs have different tool kits. For me most specs in MoP felt like the same thing. In Legion I think spec identity made specs feel special. I know that not everyone agrees with that, but that's how I felt. And that is one of the reason why I think Legion is such a good expansion. It's the first expansion I think both gameplay and content were equally good. So when I did the content, raids, m+, mage tower etc it felt good to do so. I found a spec within each class that played very well so logging an alt felt good and different.

And about that last point, that's part of my point too. We had lots of niche-abilities, but we have the same today. But these are mostly from earlier expansions, so there is barely anything new in BfA. Which makes having them as fresh abilities in MoP felt better, I don't know. I do also hear about people saying class design is very homogenized in BfA. And with lesser buttons, losing so much from Legion might have an effect for sure. This is something I think is a reason why they are unpruning in Shadowlands. But I think they are going towards it the wrong way. Couldn't they have just added new stuff for spec/classes so we had something new instead of just adding old spells? In Legion we got new stuff, so even if classes felt easier overall, it was new. And for many that's refreshing.

And about the themes, sure, I felt it was the same things all over, but I am equally tired of green. So in Legion it was nice with the other raids that had a part of the story, but felt different. I think that's more just a strong opinion on my side though, so I might be biased :P

[sam86]

Do you not remember TBC and patch 2.2?

u got me, i totally forgot it
it was the patch with the in-game chat that was total sh8t right?

- - - Updated - - -

MoP had challenging content, rares could kill you, constant things to do, fun classes, and a stupid story and it still wins in my book. Legion close second. WoD and BFA sucked, primarily because classes were boring and there was nothing to do.

i disagree on part of there is nothing to do in BFA, there is, a lot
i just can't do it when i hate to even just login on my main paladin, i main protadin but most world stuff i do as retardin, and retardin is the WORST spec i played ever in ages, even the far more boring vanilla retarding was more 'fun', at least i know i can survive far more than anyone
or u know what? he says it best (i know it is a joke but still fits)
joke aside, vanilla paladin was very relaxing class to play, also boring but u just right click judge and done, a style that only thing that can be similar is maybe bm hunter, the difference is u need to be lazy to right click hunter, while paladin u literally had no other choice, so just judge and relax

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I really struggle picking between MoP and Legion. They both excelled in their own way. MoP took the cake for my class and spec being fun to play, Legion ran a mile ahead any other expansion we've ever had in terms of the amount of content we received and the number of changes and new features.

i think ppl who hated Legion aren't altoholic, not sure
Legion is 1st and only exp i played every single class to max just to enjoy the very well campaign story for most classes
ppl who didn't enjoy legion have at most 3 classes max, and mostly one of them is priest

[Weatherwax]

For me it's a tie between MoP and Legion.

I absolutely loved the story in both Legion and MoP, but I liked the storytelling in Legion more.

Gameplay in MoP was very good from start to finish. In Legion it was shitty at the beginning but became good in 7.2. Legendaries made it great, though.

I liked the raids in MoP much more than the Legion raids with the exception of Tomb of Sargeras. Kil'jaeden was an awesome fight and even its AOTC was very special.

So for me it's a tie. The worst expansion of the same period on the other hand? DEFINITELY BFA, hands down. What a clusterfuck that was.

- - - Updated - - -

MoP had challenging content, rares could kill you, constant things to do, fun classes, and a stupid story and it still wins in my book. Legion close second. WoD and BFA sucked, primarily because classes were boring and there was nothing to do.

There is stuff to do in BfA, the problem is that it is shitty, boring stuff.

[Fallen of Lordaeron]

I hadn't realized Legion was so popular.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

u got me, i totally forgot it
it was the patch with the in-game chat that was total sh8t right?

Yep! And then in WoD was Voice chat 2.0 in terms on content.