Which expansion was the absolute worst?

[Steelangel]

You can't have the current expansion in these polls, because people will always choose the current expansion.

WoD may have been a terrible expansion with so much cut out, but leveling was really well done and the raids were a blast. That saved it for me upon reflection. I chose Cataclysm, because although Firelands was an awesome raid and I had a lot of fun in the first few weeks of un-nerfed dungeons...

1) The other raids were absolutely forgettable.

2) Grim Batol has a "gated path" down near the final boss that looks like it could have been a raid entrance, except lol it's not. Just a tease.

3) Uldum was a major missed opportunity. The zone is gorgeous and really well done, and I didn't notice that until BfA when I went there for dailies. In Cata, it was wasted on an poorly done endless Indiana Jones reference.

4) Twilight Highlands should have brought Wildhammer customizations for Dwarves and Orc customizations too. Missed opportunity.

5) Vash'jir could have been awesome, but "oh, we're not going to finish the story of Neptulon... ever, kthnxbye here's a fake raid entrance" is probably the worst in-game storyline offense in WoW history and this includes putting Kargath as a throwaway boss in WoD. It's literally too late to do anything about it now. Missed opportunity. Also, there are GIANT ANCIENT SHELL CREATURES IN THE OCEAN. Why are they never referenced again? Who are they? What are they? We'll never know because we helped one die and the other one was just like "thanks, heroes, I'm going to sit here and be mysterious forever".

6) Deepholm required flying, and because of that became some crazy disjointed mess of "quest here now quest there oh look twilight cult, and earthen? and..." WHO CARES this place is a mess.

7) Green Jesus. They built up Thrall to be someone important, he did his thing, promoted Green Hitler to take his job, and when it came down to it, violated the whole concept of the Mak'gora like a little bitch. I know that the latter part happened in WoD, but it all follows from the disaster that was Cata.

8) And my final point, though there's probably a lot more points that matter: Murozond's defeat is way too final for the way that the bronze dragonflight was all "timey-wimey". Fuck, even Chromie makes fun of the fact that she doesn't know if every time she meets you is the first time she's ever met you. Murozond's death was time-travel bullshit on the level of the entirety of WoD.

- - - Updated - - -

BfA made it Canon that not only there is no honor in the horde (killing children and civilians), they also revel in gore and bloodshet (see e.g. Brennendam where they impaled civilians and made their children watch). Loyalty is also not worth anything, because Sylvanas gas bombed their own troups and while yes, a few individuals were upset about that, she still kept the overwhelming majority of the horde on her side.
This also includes druids and shamans as well as characters like Rexxar and Voss.. BfA made it clear: the horde is evil to its core. It never was Garrosh or Sylvanas, it was its people.

As it has always been so. Orcs were already savages before they drank the Blood of Mannoroth. Trolls are actual-factual cannibals who only stopped cannibalizing each other because they wanted the Horde to protect them. The Forsaken are plague-creating "death to the living" types. Blood Elves are power junkies whose connection to the Horde was always tenuously explained. The only "honorable" race is the Tauren, but they are herd animals and just go about doing what everyone else does so they get eaten last.

"Honor" in the Horde died finally when Thrall showed that a Mak'gora meant nothing at all. They were always the bad guys who hid behind a few nice words.

[Oswen]

Still WoD with BfA as a close second.

[phattsao]

All in all, Cata for me. That was the only one that I just straight quit after the first couple months. I at least stuck with WoD and BFA on/off for most of the xpac.

Didn't like much about Cata at all. It was the first expansion to start removing things, a trend that has unfortunately continued. The old world was what made WORLD of Warcraft great, and suddenly it was radically altered.

The new leveling experience was interesting at first, but it became far too linear with alts. In general, every character you leveled had to do the same quests in the same order when they hit 80. The Uldum questline in particular I just couldn't take anymore. Go here, watch a cutscene, go here, watch a cutscene, etc.

Didn't really like any of the new zones. Uldum had the quest horror-show, Hyjal was a pain in the ass to get around in, Deepholm was boring, Twilight Highlands was another one with tedious intro questlines that you couldn't skip, and it existed just to finish those last bars in level 84 for me. Vashir, ironically, was the only zone I kind of liked. At least they tried something new there. Still the most unique zone in the game.

The heroics were tedious, but after the faceroll Wrath dungeons they were a welcome change. The first couple weeks of doing those heroics when they were challenging are my best memories of the xpac.

[Holdodlig]

WoD is to me the worst expansion of all. A lot of people hate BFA because it's the last to date expansion, but at least there is content to be flawed here.

Wod removed professions perks, half the class abilities, was timegated by garrison ressources/building time/missions, had only one major patch, brought the "20 people only hardest difficulty"

[Dejavuproned]

All in all, Cata for me. That was the only one that I just straight quit after the first couple months. I at least stuck with WoD and BFA on/off for most of the xpac.

Didn't like much about Cata at all. It was the first expansion to start removing things, a trend that has unfortunately continued. The old world was what made WORLD of Warcraft great, and suddenly it was radically altered.

The new leveling experience was interesting at first, but it became far too linear with alts. In general, every character you leveled had to do the same quests in the same order when they hit 80. The Uldum questline in particular I just couldn't take anymore. Go here, watch a cutscene, go here, watch a cutscene, etc.

Didn't really like any of the new zones. Uldum had the quest horror-show, Hyjal was a pain in the ass to get around in, Deepholm was boring, Twilight Highlands was another one with tedious intro questlines that you couldn't skip, and it existed just to finish those last bars in level 84 for me. Vashir, ironically, was the only zone I kind of liked. At least they tried something new there. Still the most unique zone in the game.

The heroics were tedious, but after the faceroll Wrath dungeons they were a welcome change. The first couple weeks of doing those heroics when they were challenging are my best memories of the xpac.

Vash'jir is ironically the zone that I think aged the best of the zones. I didn't like it at all when Cata was current but now its actually a joy to level through. Not sure I can say that about fiiiireeee.. I mean mt. Hyjal or Twilight highlands. Still have a soft spot for deepholm though.

I gotta add my +1 to Cata being the worst. The level revamp had less replayability almost immediately then the old world it replaced. Ugly lava and fire everywhere and all the zones stayed static after you completed them which I think is the biggest sin that the revamp committed with those zones. Too many zones lost identity or became an over the top pop culture reference. Poor execution all around, I only recently have come to terms with the revamp and still wish shadowlands included the old world as a leveling option.

New zones were pretty meh all around too. Only vash'jir as previously mentioned still holds up IMO. Mostly because of the larger then life ambience and the openess of the zone.

Dungeons were ok, but dungeon finder early on was bloody soul destroying.

End game was raid or die. Until firelands I don't think there was really anything to do aside from raid.

I quit before the rest of the end game issues presented themselves. Still the longest I've been gone from the game.

Wod is next in line for obvious reasons but was at least forgettable.

Bfa is still better then those dark days.

Sent from my SM-G981W using Tapatalk

[ro9ue]

WoD worst - BFA 2nd worst.

But... why is Shadowlands in the poll? lol

[Lex Icon]

this whole unfun content vs no content pretty much feels like the same to me.. if i don't enjoy it then i simply won't do it and it might as well not exist.
and honestly during WoD the so called no content expansion i was doing pretty much the same things i've been doing every other expansion(and that's how i like it).
no clue what this mythical other content that all the others ones that came before it supposedly had.

during BFA i couldn't really enjoy the usual stuff and so right now it's my least played expansion.

[guisadop]

I loved the concept of WoD, and the regions were pretty and interesting. The garrison was also interesting in some sense, it was nice to have your own custom place for the first time in WoW. Too bad there were waaaaaay too many disappointments

[Zantos]

WoD. The sheer lack of content was bad. The new world PvP zone went from bad to worse. Their attempt at the first ever 4th new spec went horribly. Garrisons were not fun. There wasn't a single fun thing about it. It was the first expansion that caused me to stop playing. There was so little to do that I just couldn't bother.

[Neforpubl]

For raiders - BfA, for others - WoD. MoP was the worst for childs who thought pandas were not cool enough for them, while in reality MoP was one of the best expansions with golden era of class design.

No truer fact hath been spoken sir.

[Roar-Powah]

WoD is when WoW went down hill and each expansion that has followed has added even more to it. SL will be the first expansion i will not buy since i started in vanilla. Just sick of cross realm everything as it kills the rpg aspect of WoW. I also hate all these temp powers and going into SL Blizzard hasn't learned a damn thing, but that is what happens when you have a lawyer at the helm and not a gamer. Not going to waste my time and money on a game that is still to this day made to keep shareholders happy.

[alucardx]

The neverending thread

TBC and Wotlk were both the absolute best, cata and mop decently playable, and after that everything a pile of trash

[Marrilaife]

For me definitely BFA, they kill my playstyle of having many alts by piling excessive grinds which most of them have to be 100% repeated on every additional character, and vast majority of them are not fun to do (contrary to the ye olde participating in dungeons and raids to gear up alts that was actually fun for me). They slowly but surely killed my motivation to play, usually last patch of any expansion was the best for me because I could focus on alts, not anymore.

Let me think:
- unlock nazjatar
- unlock cloak
- upgrade cloak to 15
- upgrade cloak to current cap of corruption resistance
- get essences
- get neck level (probably easiest of it all)
- farm corruptions
- farm sockets
- get azerite with correct combo of traits
- get specific trinkets some not even from current content like font (that was a problem in other expacs too I admit)
But the list is way, way longer than anything in the past. And it doesn't feel like "yay so much content to do" it feels like a godawful bucket of chores you have to tick off the list before you can fully enjoy a class.

Also any reason to maintain my alts was also crippled, professions are shit and make no gold, mission tables devolved from interesting novelty that yielded not only gold but also other cool stuff from cache of gear to a random mount, to becoming a complete waste of time to bother, there's no class transmog to farm, not even mentioning lack of specific content like mage tower or class mounts in legion that motivated me to get 1 of every class.

Allied races also fell flat to me as a concept, they seemed like a ploy to lure people to redo levelling for the n-th time and all that for transmog that is unusable on any other race, races that often are pure recolours but with fewer hairstyles and customization options than the original and often much more gimnicky racials that look good on paper but are less useful than the parent counterpart, fewer classes available to them, they won't get new customization in shadowlands unlike parent races, and most importantly, were put in an expansion where it's pointless to have max level alts...

I don't know how the game I always had something to do in even in worst content droughts in the last 13+ years managed to push me to the point I have to force myself to log in just to not let my guild down.

[Rovsnegl]

And before that? You had to get your cloak to 15, do visions for chance at 470 corruption, farm for corruptions, pray you get the right ones.

WoD you could legitimately raid log well before the tier was done

Sooo you're complaining that you can raidlog until you've finished the things to do outside of the raid? Is it also a problem if you have to get alchemy mats?
And why the hell is it even a positive that you only log in twice wouldn't it be better if the game made you have fun every day so you get fun for the money you spend?

[Celarent]

By implication, Wrath is #1! I love it. Pinnacle of this game.

[Kaeth]

Warlords, with Vanilla a close second.

[Cæli]

cataclysm, but likely more and more people weren't around to know. it basically killed azeroth and just kept going downhill after.

[Incarnia]

I never thought anything would beat WoD as the worst expansion, but well, apparently they went "hold our beer" on all our asses. At least I could compel myself to play through WoD's entirety and quite enjoyed leveling alts and gearing them up. The classes played way better in that expansion too. The content that was there, although not much, were in my opinion quite solid. BfA has sadly only felt like a big cluster fuck on so many levels it's not even funny anymore.
I've spent 90% of this expansion unsubbed, while at the same time wishing things were different, different enough for me to want to play.

[Echocho]

Does classic count? God damn that game is awful. There's nothing to do outside of raiding, the raids themselves are laughably easy and so are the so called rotations.

[Dravec]

Legion was the first expansion that made me unsub. I even stuck through WoD because HM and especially BRF were outstanding.

All the problems BfA has originated from Legion. It’s weird how everyone has some kind of Stockholm Syndrome and thinks Legion was good. Well it wasn’t sweet cheeks.

Titanforging, endless grind, RNG on RNG on RNG, useless professions, awful PvP, badly tuned raids, etc.
That’s not even bringing up having to level every single artifact weapon from 1, there was never a catch up mechanic added. Then there were the Legiondaries, which were total RNG to get. It was even worse because some specs *cough* BM Hunter *cough* were unplayable without specific legendaries, and you had a legendary pool of around 8 or more, so you could literally get every other useless legendary before the good one.

BfA was bad, but you can’t blame it for carrying on the systems that it’s parent expansion brought in.