What would you say is the most enjoyable of the 3: BFA, SL, or WoD?

[Yossh]

Everyone has their opinion, but man...

Imagine calling SL for "no content" and puting WoD above it.
Imagine calling SL for "no class changes" in expac that added 52 new spells + bring back a lot of old spells above WoD (taking away shit ton of spells) and BfA (taking away most artifact spells and giving nothing in exchange).
Imagine calling SL for "unplayable bugs" and puting it above WoD (REAL unplayable launch) and BfA (massive amount of bugs during first season).
Imagine calling SL for "insane amount of grinding" in expac where weekly chore takes 1-2 hour at most and puting it above BfA. Not to mention whining about no content and insane amount of grinding on same breath.
Imagine callin SL for "worst expac for alts" (I remind that whole leveling from level 1 takes max 20 hours, then you click a button and land in Korthia where gear is falling from the sky) and puting it above BfA (member essences?). Not to mention next patch make life even easier for alts and we judge rest expac from their complete state.

I get some people can have actual arguments why they like SL less than both WoD and BfA (I give some to you: Sylvanas centric story, lore detached from old Warcraft, disjointed zones, waiting 7 month for second raid, etc.) but your post is just nonsense.

"Imagine" lol

[Depakote]

Legion....

Was horrible.

[Sondrelk]

Was horrible.

I find it fascinating how players just suddenly one day switched on a dime from Legion being a horrible bug-ridden expansion filled with grind and pointless busywork to declaring it truly great.

Legiondaries were a plague on the game, and it took most of its lifespan until it got even close to being fixed. Alts were probably about as bad as they were ever going to be, only held up by the promise of 12 different campaigns and a unique mount.
The grind was immense, and was further something which hamstrung not just alts, but off-specs. The only reason we don't say it is what truly killed off-specs as a concept in Legion is that the issue of Legiondaries was infinitely worse.
Spreading content out on every single individual class meant that most of the campaigns ended up being filler, and not to mention heavily reliant on mission table timegates.
7.2 was probably one of the most pitiful excuses for a patch we have had other than 6.1. The epic questline leading up to killing Kil'jaeden was comprised of a grand total of 2 unique quests per class, and a whole bunch of weekly quests amounting to busywork like finding 10 chests or killing 100 demons.

You wouldnt believe how full of vitriol the playerbase was towards Legion while it was current. It's saving grace was really only it's patch cadence being pretty close to perfect, as well as the story leaning heavily into just being cool rather than being deep, and even that led to some awful grinding of gears when you got to stuff like Illidan never meeting with Malfurion of Tyrande despite being literally on the same island fighting the same enemies.


Legion is the example I will always give of why an expansion will never be judged fairly while it is current. Because noone seemed interested in considering how Suramar was a wonder of a zone, all they wanted to discuss was how shit the experience was to play.

No expansion will ever be given a fair shake while it is current. It takes at least being able to judge it in its entirety to compare and contrast it to other expansions.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

For those saying that WOD wasn't grindy don't forget...

LFR was useless
Appexis Crystal dailies
The legendary ring questline
Garrison building upgrades
Tanaan Jungle rare item grindfest for alts
You were nearly forced to do Ashran if you wanted to gear quickly for Hellfire and BRF

Compare it to SL's base patch where you can get a legendary in a week, anima upgrades are entirely optional, you can do mythic 0's to 7's with ease, you do torghast for about 1.5 half and you're done for the week with it. You have 4 choices on how to gear: World Quests, PvP, Raiding, or Mythic +.

Take the rose tinted glasses off now.

- - - Updated - - -

SL - > WoD - - - - - - - - > BfA.

This. BFA had the most content yet failed tremendously. They flopped in so many areas it's almost like it was on purpose. It's definitely the worst expansion.

[Depakote]

For those saying that WOD wasn't grindy don't forget...

LFR was useless
Appexis Crystal dailies
The legendary ring questline
Garrison building upgrades
Tanaan Jungle rare item grindfest for alts
You were nearly forced to do Ashran if you wanted to gear quickly for Hellfire and BRF

Compare it to SL's base patch where you can get a legendary in a week, anima upgrades are entirely optional, you can do mythic 0's to 7's with ease, you do torghast for about 1.5 half and you're done for the week with it. You have 4 choices on how to gear: World Quests, PvP, Raiding, or Mythic +.

Take the rose tinted glasses off now.

- - - Updated - - -



This. BFA had the most content yet failed tremendously. They flopped in so many areas it's almost like it was on purpose. It's definitely the worst expansion.

Don't lie.

[Cosmic Janitor]

True but WOD was already well underway at that point. Legion was the first expansion that was 100% "his"

That is also wrong, as someone said before, Ion took over after legion launch (and large parts of 7.1.x were already done by then). Ion's first 100% thing was 7.2 with the rather mediocre Boring Chore, the ending of seperate class storylines which culminated into the mounts and the asinine "one single mistake of any one person of 20 equals wipe" Tomb raid. Followed by the spectacular netherlight crucible and it's roulette like gambling for perfect relics.

[Palapop]

To your 4th point, I get the 2 renown in about half an hour, 1 wing of flawless torghast for the weekly adamant vault (25-30 mins) and one speed run wing done in about 15.

So yes under 1.5 hours a week to progress my character, instead of literally islands or maw of souls FOREVER.

Also i love how people say "i have to grind in shadowlands but in bfa i could just wait a 4 weeks and catch it up".

You can... do that... with.... renown...

Essences you couldn't wait and catch up, corruptions you couldn't wait and catch up, azerite pieces you couldn't wait and catch up.

literally the only thing you have to do weekly is 30-45 mins of torghast IF you don't have a 262 leggo

Edit- also mop and wod were was worse for alt friendliness as you stuck behind an endless gated quest chain for your leggo, imagine trying to compete without the ring or cloak proc compared to the 200 dps between and 190 and 260 lego

Erm... are we talking about MAIN CHAR grind now (which assumes you played all the content since SL day 1) or ALT grind content?


If you ding char now, you have to grind renown, conduits, soulbinds, choreghast, gold-sink legendary + legendary recipe.


You twisted my previous post to your own doing.
As I said- BFA PRE-ESSENCE was 100000000000% more alt-friendly than SL is right now.

And about the MOP/WOD legendary quest line- they had catch-up mechanics too. Tho you must have forgot about them. Or you want to twist post again

In mop I played a monk but dropped it in the org drought.

In Wod I tried ret pally but got board in a couple of heroics with how awful holy power was. Tried to lvl a Druid/dk/hunter but they were boring so never got to 90. Got an enh shaman to 90 and did some pvp was ok not great.

The only class I’d say was all that fun was my rouge.

I likely put more time screwing around with things like pick pocketing and fishing then any thing else with the lack luster classes and lack of content.

Now, please, log into ANY private server, or just take a look at talent trees and spell books from 5.4.

Check:

paladins, mages, HUNTERS, SHAMANS (elemental especially), WARLOCKS, priests..... EVERYTHING I played back in MOP felt 100000000% better than anything post-legion where 90% dps classes turned into "gainer> spender" trash specs. But I guess that fits the best with "e-sport".....

[Doffen]

I find it fascinating how players just suddenly one day switched on a dime from Legion being a horrible bug-ridden expansion filled with grind and pointless busywork to declaring it truly great.

Legiondaries were a plague on the game, and it took most of its lifespan until it got even close to being fixed. Alts were probably about as bad as they were ever going to be, only held up by the promise of 12 different campaigns and a unique mount.
The grind was immense, and was further something which hamstrung not just alts, but off-specs. The only reason we don't say it is what truly killed off-specs as a concept in Legion is that the issue of Legiondaries was infinitely worse.
Spreading content out on every single individual class meant that most of the campaigns ended up being filler, and not to mention heavily reliant on mission table timegates.
7.2 was probably one of the most pitiful excuses for a patch we have had other than 6.1. The epic questline leading up to killing Kil'jaeden was comprised of a grand total of 2 unique quests per class, and a whole bunch of weekly quests amounting to busywork like finding 10 chests or killing 100 demons.

You wouldnt believe how full of vitriol the playerbase was towards Legion while it was current. It's saving grace was really only it's patch cadence being pretty close to perfect, as well as the story leaning heavily into just being cool rather than being deep, and even that led to some awful grinding of gears when you got to stuff like Illidan never meeting with Malfurion of Tyrande despite being literally on the same island fighting the same enemies.


Legion is the example I will always give of why an expansion will never be judged fairly while it is current. Because noone seemed interested in considering how Suramar was a wonder of a zone, all they wanted to discuss was how shit the experience was to play.

No expansion will ever be given a fair shake while it is current. It takes at least being able to judge it in its entirety to compare and contrast it to other expansions.

Legion was largely regarded as a great expansion when it was current to. What you describe is how some people felt the same as you.

Forum topics =/= Actual player opinions.

The current expansion thing is just a myth. You perceive it like you do because there are very few that is going to make topics about something that was bad 4 years ago. How a current expansion actually fares is how it plays out with the people who is not roaming the forums, which is the big majority.

Legion was great then, its great now. BfA was bad then, its bad now. Opinions are fine like that, but I find very few people that actually change it about something like an expansion when its current/after.

A bad expansion will forever be bad if its perceived that way with the actual player base. A forum where discussions is about current will NEVER reflect the exact reality when it comes to which expansions are bad or good. Like my example, I think BfA delivered poorly with its expansion feature, but the actual player base might have a different opinion than me.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

That would constitute bad.

If what makes SL bad is bad systems then that is still a net positive over nothing.

I'd rather have nothing, than a pile of garbage that someone claims is cake when it quite clearly is not.

[baseballfan]

This is probably the opposite of my take but I think it's interesting as it depends on what you play. As someone who went into WoD with Priest as main and Warrior as alt and I absolutely hated how Shadow Priest was gutted to be a dotless spec (removing the most fun aspect of it) and as Warrior I found myself using whirlwind as a filler spell in my single target rotation.

Maybe it's just luck but I haven't felt any negative feelings near that level towards the specs I've played in BFA or SL.

i usually like to play as many specs as i can, so i guess overall id say it was better

[Selah]

Going to say BfA out of all of them. For me it was the one I played the most and had the most available content outside of raiding. Plus, Mechagon was genuinely good.

Problem with WoD was all it had was raids and a little bit of narrative content. I want to do more than run a gear treadmill.

SL could still pull a rabbit out of it's hat but that's hard to say right now. Problem with SL is the extra features (torghast, the Maw, Korthia) are all pretty... boring. Sure, I can go clear another wing of Torghast, but I'd rather not. Or things like the Mage Tower that I already cleared when it was released, I don't want to do that again.

[Necomis]

WoD made me quit in under 2 months from launch until pre-launch of Legion (which I enjoyed)

I guess of the three. BFA, there I least managed to want to level all my alts. I can't say the same for SL so far.

[muto]

WoD was by far the worst. I can sum up WoD in four words.

Garrisons, Trashran, and Raiding.

That was WoD. So much fun!!

Let’s also not forget the bugged tower quest in Frostfire Ridge, that blocked people from leveling on release day.

[Aedruid]

Warlords of Draenor was so much fun, there was just a content draught. The raids were amazing, Highmaul (Imperator Mythic) + the hidden boss were epic. I didn't get mythic Imperator down, but just watching the kill vids pumped me up to raid. Blackrock Foundry was loads of fun too. The expansion had some good ideas, Blizz just needed to build those ideas out more / maybe delay the release to finish some of the cut content.

Shadowlands is alright, after a lot of the cool talents abilities were taken out of the game, WoW hasnt really been as fun IMO. I was hoping the "great unpruning" would have brought a lot more back into the game, and I really hoped that we'd at least get a new talent row / tier sets back. Additionally, the story isn't as enjoyable, cool ideas, but the lack of quests exploring the deepest darkest secrets of the Shadowlands is missing. It would be epic to be able to fly to smaller zones in the ether in the shadowlands, and maybe seeing the other less prominent covenants. It just doesnt feel like a "death" themed expansion, just a couple hints here and there.

BFA was just awful. After hitting the level cap, I got really bored, and the lack of azerite traits was also boring. There wasnt really any cool cusomization options for Azerite, so it was hard to justify the farm of it. Islands were kinda cool, but the Azerite rewards were way too minimal and it really felt like an extreme grind. Warfronts were pretty epic, but would have been way better if it was actually PVP. The expansion just didnt make sense, a PVP expansion with lackluster PVP.

[Sondrelk]

Legion was largely regarded as a great expansion when it was current to. What you describe is how some people felt the same as you.

Forum topics =/= Actual player opinions.

The current expansion thing is just a myth. You perceive it like you do because there are very few that is going to make topics about something that was bad 4 years ago. How a current expansion actually fares is how it plays out with the people who is not roaming the forums, which is the big majority.

Legion was great then, its great now. BfA was bad then, its bad now. Opinions are fine like that, but I find very few people that actually change it about something like an expansion when its current/after.

A bad expansion will forever be bad if its perceived that way with the actual player base. A forum where discussions is about current will NEVER reflect the exact reality when it comes to which expansions are bad or good. Like my example, I think BfA delivered poorly with its expansion feature, but the actual player base might have a different opinion than me.

It's a question of memory.
Can you after all with certainty state that you remember what it was like playing 8.1 or 7.1 when that was current compared to now?
Are you able to mentally remove the knowledge of what got changed in Legion over time and consider how it felt running around Val'sharah hoping for a legiondary drop that you needed to do your full damage?

Most humans can't really do that. When you remember something you start mentally sorting it by highlights. Your first run of Bighthold might be remembered, or the first time you defeat Kil'jaeden. But you have almost certainly forgotten reclear number 15, when you were bored and waiting for the new patch.

Comparatively you likely very easily remember the last raid night, or even the many times you have gotten frustrated with something specific recently.


And of course this is the crux of the issue of decrying SL irredeemable now compared to WoD. Players are actively frustrated now, not only is their frustration with WoD just a memory, it's also likely only a faint memory mentally compartmentalized as a vague sense that WoD didn't have much content.

[subsidalos]

WoD by far and it isn't even close

[Al Gorefiend]

Shadowlands. WoD was a mess but I at least can remember WoD as the expansion I finally got in-game rich during thanks to multiple alts and garrisons running.

BfA I couldn't. Its the only place in the game I can't fly in so I never go there, which sucks because as long as I can remember I always loved the idea of a Zandalar/South Seas expansion and the few zones of BfA did look nice.

Shadowlands I personally think classes feel the strongest they have in a while, my classes Priest and Rogue do anyway.
Covenant abilities I like
The armor sets are nice
PvP feels rewarding
PvE feels challenging

Torghast felt better at launch


Only thing I don't like about Shadowlands is the bad storytelling, probably the worst. Like they aren't even trying.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Now, please, log into ANY private server, or just take a look at talent trees and spell books from 5.4.

Check:

paladins, mages, HUNTERS, SHAMANS (elemental especially), WARLOCKS, priests..... EVERYTHING I played back in MOP felt 100000000% better than anything post-legion where 90% dps classes turned into "gainer> spender" trash specs. But I guess that fits the best with "e-sport".....

In mop lock felt good though I ended up dropping both going into wod.

Pally's felt like trash from cata-wod Only getting better in legion with the removal of holy power and then only improving from there in Bfa and holy got better in shadowlands though holy powers returning to prot was a step back.

Elemental was at it's best in legion with gust of wind and icefury. Enh is at it's best right now.

Hunters were in a similar boat to pally's and got worse from Cata-Wod but were/are a mixed bag going into legion unlike the pally's flat out improvement.

and I've never played mages/priest so got no comment.

[Ekis]

So I raided mythic in WoD up to Uldir in BFA then quit (because I hated the RNG on top of RNG with Azerite Gear compounded by actually having to do specific M+ for gear that was in many cases better than raid gear). Came back to see if Shadowlands would be different/better, only to see they doubled down on unnecessary systems of borrowed power that I couldn't even make use of me purchasing the upgraded version of Shadowlands.

WoD->BFA->SL

WoD lacked a lot of content, sure, but the floor of getting into raiding was so low that by the end of it I had 2 other alts raiding Mythic HFC. Maybe because I actually like raiding to the point of doing Mythic-level raids on 3 different characters I enjoyed WoD better.

I don't mind grinds, as they're somewhat integral to the MMORPG genre, but when grinds become synonymous to "mouse on the wheel" just to keep people playing, it's a problem. That's why I liked even vanilla-to-WoD grinding, I could easily pick up grinding for preparation or gold or stop for a little bit without feeling like I'm putting myself and the other guildies at a disadvantage because I didn't farm enough "borrowed power" last week or heaven forbid had to take time away from the game.

[Kithelle]

A lot of people are apparently willing to overlook these things because they ultimately matter less to them than the fundamental design shift that occured around Legion i.e. the Diablofication of WoW.

Or maybe they just want to hate on the latest expansion because it has always been a popular thing to do...people hated on Legion but now it's considered the best expansion in the "modern" era of wow

WoD failed on pretty much everything...a few enjoyable raids just doesn't logically make up for everything that was awful