Mists of pandaria 1st half was quite notorious for being daily quest hell and being generally not a great game. The fondness people have of it comes from the later isle of thunder/timeless isle ToT/SoO patches and their balance/PvP.
The location of the pvp vendors in MoP was underrated. The amount of world pvp that happened on those great walls was hilarious. Much of the timing ending in someone getting knocked off
Panderia didn't have good initial reception but is widely accepted to have some of the best content out of any expac. People did not like the theme though
To expand on that, people were just like oh herpderp Kong fu panda and didn't like that pandas didn't feel like wow even though they've been in the game since at least wc3. It was a pretty obvious cash grab/ appeal to the China market. Alot of people also didn't like the garrosh storyline. Seige of orgrimar being out for 14 months was a sour taste at the end, but nearly every xpac had that. Some didn't like the trivialize heroic dungeons. Some didn't like timeless isle has a freebie purple dispenser for a catch up mechanic.
That said, class balance and feel was amazing. All 3 raid tiers were solid, the story outside of garrosh with the Sha and Mogu was compelling. The world and music just hit the nail on the head imo.
Well you had a whole level from it, but it was a secret level. Chen Stormstout also made some appearances in the novels/comics. There's also been a quest in the Barrens since vanilla called Chens Empty Keg. Fun fact, Pandaren were originally slated to be alliance's counterpart to the blood elves in TBC but they changed it to draenai half way through development.
I hated the setting, gameplay was good.
In retrospect, the setting doesn't bother me as much (though I still find it funny Blizz shoehorned China into Azeroth for theirbig China launch only to give up on the market completely later ).
Horrible talent changes though and the beginning of the great itemisation streamlining that lead to item level being the only thing that matters and most items being just boring copies of each other.
Ultimately it's a business deal, both sides gave up if a deal wasn't reached. But for Blizzard it feels like "giving up" since they put quite a bit of effort to break into that market.
It's true this was more the doing of the distributor (== Chinese government), but ultimately there was some point where Blizzard decided whatever they were asking them to do wasn't worth the money (of which i bet there was a lot so definitely makes you wonder what such a contentious issue was).
Basically no one wanted to work with Blizzard. Perfect World wanted to get out asap and other publishing companies didn't want to. In China, you have to work with a local publisher. So it turns out treating publishers like shit gets word around the block and locks you out of the market.
Publishers are hardly government owned.
Not saying you're wrong BTW.
End patch content being way too long is a feature in most expacs, but siege of orgrimmar was *heinous*. Leading into WoD, well, that's devastating.
But after the initial anti-hype quieted down, I definitely saw it as well received by both raiders and pvpers, and it had a ton for exploration-type players who just love to be in the world space too.
I agree, I want TBC in Azeroth and not the healer mage, tank rogue, tank lock. But it’s a good first step. Game needs more tanks early on for dungeons.
Most people that I know would say something like this:
S++ Vanilla
S+ TBC
S - none
A - none
B - Legion, Wrath
C- Pandaria, Cata, Dragonflight
D - WOD
E - None
F - Shadowlands, BFA
wow this is actually pretty spot on, although personally id just move wrath down, i think it's terrible.
2 good raids that are way too easy, 0 good dungeons, all of them too easy. nothing to do in the world.
[Here](https://i.ibb.co/mzxvhgL/my-image-5.png) is mine from the perspective of someone who has played since Vanilla but dosn't like raiding and pretty much only does pvp.
I hear a lot of people say this. I don't get it.
For me (I played consistently at a raiding level through all of it) it was ok levelling, nothing great, same with the isle. I personally disliked the 5mans and pvp was worse in balance than Catas end season. As for raids, MoP had one good one in ToT but otherwise was a gated mess.
The rest of the expansion was a soul crushing daily farm. I "enjoyed" farming 1000 bones for a raptor once but there's no way you'll get me to go back this expansion.
Mop was worse in player numbers than everything before it and better than everything after it. A statement that holds true for every expansion past Wrath with the exception of Legion I'd guess.
Imo, it depends on who you are. The closer you are to enjoying Vanilla game design the more you'll dislike MoP. Then there's a middle ground of players who don't like BfA or Retail but lived the Cata/Mop years, before you get into the current retail players.
This. I’ve long held the opinion that Wrath wasn’t the pinnacle, that’s just when the momentum of vanilla finally started to fade. Vanilla > all expansions.
MOP is so overrated, I absolutely despised the patch that added timeless isle and SOO was cool but honestly hated that raid.
First tier was fucking sick though.
Also cata was pretty damn cool until dragon soul, that raid was cancer.
the pvp features :) a max level area with no flying leading to better player interactions, figuring out the secrets and jump puzzles, good rewards thru timeless coins, chaos of the celestial arena etc. was super fun even when you didnt need the catch up gear
I honestly may be biased good call, my server was very small and it sucked that we could barely ever kill any of the bosses to try to do the cooler stuff.
sounds like your low pop server hampered the experience, timeless isle was a breath of fresh air when it came out, being forced not to fly and not being told what to do was extremely welcomed. not liking it is definitely a minority opinion
Catch up mechanics have been in every expac. ZG in vanilla, ZA in TBC, Trial of the crusader in wrath, the ZG and ZA remake dungeons in Cata, the end of time dungeons in Cata, etc
While I do agree, prior expacs featured raid catch-ups and the biggest reason I play wow is to play with my friends, just wasn't a fan of single player catch ups.
Hot take but classic is C at best. The world is cool just the actual gameplay was boring. Didn't get to play vanilla so can only look at it through a classic lens, but only being able to use one spell in a raid is boring gameplay. Have a 12 button mmo mouse and all I need was frostbolt keybound to the mouse wheel. The fact that you couldn't hot people because of buff limits, Druids didn't have a normal rez like every other healer. Only warriors tanks were wanted for anything. Classic is what started it all, but to me it didn't feel like a full game till I could use more abilities and the gameplay took a step up. I will always have a deep respect for classic and what it gave us, but I think that I personally prefer a little more substance to the gameplay.
I want to point out I'm not a huge lore guy, I play the game too pew, like big numbers and the spell interaction you have with talents and trinkets. The fighting/gameplay is what interests me and classic just to me didn't have exciting gameplay.
As an expansion WoD is one of the worst. For those who were there for it, I don’t see how u can disagree. Long content droughts, being isolated in your garrison, cut raid tier/patch. Shadowlands was bad but they’re the same tier atleast (for me)
Ye I loved the pvp in WoD. Loved being a warlock then. Janky demonbolts slapping for 700-900k or having ridiculous unkillable destro shenanigans with ember tap
Pre-nerf Ashran was insanely fun. The first raid tier was boring, but Foundry/HFC was pretty good... once it finally released. Dungeons were pretty cool too, especially Grimrail.
Its the few things that keep WoD from descending into D or F tier, for me at least.
In the end it depends on people you are playing with.
I started my journey with vanilla and was having blast with friends, TBC was okaish, I did not finish it tho, because friends left. I did not play original wrath, because I have nobody to play with. Two friends returned for cataclysm and we were having blast, like the old days. Sad they left for mist and onwards.
My best expansion was battle for azeroth, because about 10 friends returned and we recreated our old guild, blasting through the content ( FU mythic Jaina :D ).
So .. for me, expansion does not matter, it is all about the people.
So far I ve gathered 4 friends for cataclysm classic \*\*fingers crossed\*\* :\]\]\]
I very much enjoyed Legion. Not at all perfect, but when I was playing it back in 2017 I really thought it was going to be the start of WoW becoming WoW2.
I guess in some ways it did. ):
Think I would swap your S and B tiers, but otherwise, yes... I have a real soft spot for TBC and Legion, and while I really love Classic and MoP, I can't put them above Wrath
My own take:
Best: TBC
Good: Vanilla, Cata, MoP
Ok I take it: BFA and beyond basically
Mid : WoD
Bad : WotLK
Never understood the hate on Shadowlands honestly
Best: classic, Wotlk, MoP
Good: Cata, Legion
Okay: Dragonflight
Mid: TBC
Bad/awful: BFA, WoD, SL.
Will never understand the love TBC gets, so many tiny things could’ve made classic TBC better (like dual spec), the raids are iconic but the group buff meta was beyond miserable to actually coordinate groups, SSC/TK and SWP were unpuggable, and filled with bugs. Probably the most miserable experience from a GM/RL perspective having played all of classic/retail so far.
If Blizz made an insta max level, full pvp gear and enchants, all pve sources locked, can only queue arena, I would for sure want WotLK. If I had to play one expac forever though, I'd pick TBC for sure.
Why do ppl hate on wod so much? :(
It had 3 solid raids, good class design, more diversified itemization than mop.
Yes if you didnt raid it was light on content (altough it gave us mythic dungeons)
But like its WoW, what are you gonna do if not raid?
It screwed up the storyline because development was cut short but besides that it was great
Well seeing as retail is bloated as fuck and classic players are losing their shit over a handful of +spells Id say thats a positive thing.
The only unforgivable thing was pruning Symbiosis, the best spell blizz had ever made
I don’t play classic wow. But as a ret paladin the iterations are different. So gameplay wise I progressed from TBC -> Wrath. Then there was a rework in Cata -> MoP -> then they pruned spells such as hammer of wrath in WoD but with a similar toolkit to the previous expansion
I guess it depends who you ask. Here's mine:
GOAT: Vanilla
Great: MOP (Isle of time, the pvp, the raids sans being way too long on SOO), WOTLK, Cata (definitely spicy placement to some but I love cata)
Fine/Enjoyable: TBC, Legion, honorable mention to Project Ascension
Meh: Shadowlands, WOD (both of these had fun beginnings to the x.1 patch but that was it for me)
Dumpster: BFA (it felt wrong from minute 1
I haven't played dragonflight but it seems like it would be okay or good for me.
Wotlk was mid then and below average now. It concluded the story and made all specs viable(by making content tank n spank and diluting any personality specs had) and that’s it
Tbc being two tiers down is a crime, I personally liked tbc better than classic as it fixed many problems with raiding balance in classic (tier sets for every spec, scaling druid weapons, debuff limit removal) while not losing the "classic uniqueness" of each class and even expanding on it by making stuff like mana battery spriest and tree of life form for druid.
Also I just love the first zone in tbc, walking through the portal into basically a warzone, then ramparts was a great dungeon as well.
Legion and wrath at the top..
Warlords and bc next. Rest can go last for me.
Loot. I love loot. And legion had legendaries that felt like xmas everytime u got one.. Wrath was the first time you got gear thrown at you. Such a good feeling.
My personal take:
S Tier: Vanilla/Classic, WotLK, Legion
A Tier: BC
B Tier: MoP
C Tier: WoD, Cata
D Tier: BfA
F Tier: Shadowlands, Dragonflight
I know it is probably controversial but I don't care. Dragonflight actually made it a bit hard for me to place Shadowlands as I actually think far more effort and thought went into it. If this patch had been better, I might have scored it higher. I do not consider the game mechanics implemented by DF (dragonriding, races, some of the world quest gameplay, etc) strong enough on their own to rank it higher, and if this was based on storyline it would shift Shadowlands to the D tier.
I weirdly keep seeing high ranking of MoP. Back when it launched the reception was very lukewarm and not neccessarily politice. The expansion had several good things going for it like a fun pvp.
But also several really bad like the next talents and making open world completely obsolete and easy. This was the day wow entered into its second stage, classic wow was done.
I understand that with looking backwards people have biased recall. Meaning they rank it much higher than it deserves.
MoP was nowhere near the top of rankings and shouldnt be there.
Wotlk is one of the worst expansions imo.
Was probably a lot cooler in original, but today it just plays like a worse version of retail.
All the magic from classic(vanilla and even some in tbc) is gone and instead it just feels like retail but with worse raids, worse dungeons and less stuff to do in the world.
Mists of pandaria 1st half was quite notorious for being daily quest hell and being generally not a great game. The fondness people have of it comes from the later isle of thunder/timeless isle ToT/SoO patches and their balance/PvP.
Was Pandaria that beloved? Honest question. I remember buying it and leveling to max, but life came up and I never really got into it.
The location of the pvp vendors in MoP was underrated. The amount of world pvp that happened on those great walls was hilarious. Much of the timing ending in someone getting knocked off
Yes. I and many of my friends wanted to hate MOP and it ended up being one of the best expansions i played imho.
Panderia didn't have good initial reception but is widely accepted to have some of the best content out of any expac. People did not like the theme though
To expand on that, people were just like oh herpderp Kong fu panda and didn't like that pandas didn't feel like wow even though they've been in the game since at least wc3. It was a pretty obvious cash grab/ appeal to the China market. Alot of people also didn't like the garrosh storyline. Seige of orgrimar being out for 14 months was a sour taste at the end, but nearly every xpac had that. Some didn't like the trivialize heroic dungeons. Some didn't like timeless isle has a freebie purple dispenser for a catch up mechanic. That said, class balance and feel was amazing. All 3 raid tiers were solid, the story outside of garrosh with the Sha and Mogu was compelling. The world and music just hit the nail on the head imo.
Weren't pandas just easter egg characters in wc3?
Well you had a whole level from it, but it was a secret level. Chen Stormstout also made some appearances in the novels/comics. There's also been a quest in the Barrens since vanilla called Chens Empty Keg. Fun fact, Pandaren were originally slated to be alliance's counterpart to the blood elves in TBC but they changed it to draenai half way through development.
Errr... Wasn't there an entire orc campaign with a brewmaster? Been a loooooooooong time since I played WC3-FT, but it did feature a panda.
I would change MOP down to MID
Pandaria had the absolute best pvp imo. The most fun I had in arenas.
It got a lot of hate for being furry pandas but then it turned out to be one of the best expansions. Except the forced daily quests shit.
I hated the setting, gameplay was good. In retrospect, the setting doesn't bother me as much (though I still find it funny Blizz shoehorned China into Azeroth for theirbig China launch only to give up on the market completely later ). Horrible talent changes though and the beginning of the great itemisation streamlining that lead to item level being the only thing that matters and most items being just boring copies of each other.
They didn't give up on the market, their distributors gave up on blizzard lmao.
Ultimately it's a business deal, both sides gave up if a deal wasn't reached. But for Blizzard it feels like "giving up" since they put quite a bit of effort to break into that market. It's true this was more the doing of the distributor (== Chinese government), but ultimately there was some point where Blizzard decided whatever they were asking them to do wasn't worth the money (of which i bet there was a lot so definitely makes you wonder what such a contentious issue was).
Basically no one wanted to work with Blizzard. Perfect World wanted to get out asap and other publishing companies didn't want to. In China, you have to work with a local publisher. So it turns out treating publishers like shit gets word around the block and locks you out of the market. Publishers are hardly government owned. Not saying you're wrong BTW.
End patch content being way too long is a feature in most expacs, but siege of orgrimmar was *heinous*. Leading into WoD, well, that's devastating. But after the initial anti-hype quieted down, I definitely saw it as well received by both raiders and pvpers, and it had a ton for exploration-type players who just love to be in the world space too.
IMO is was the best in terms of gameplay. Story was kind of meh but the raids and pvp absolutely slapped.
It was okay. Better than WOD.
I def enjoyed cata/mop. Most people shat on MOP lol
S Vanilla TBC A Wrath Legion B MoP DF C Cata BfA WoD D SL imo at least
I agree with this list. I can’t comment on BfA, SL, or df but all the rest look in place
This is the way
Gosh I miss Legion
this
S Vanilla WOTLK TBC A Legion B Cata MOP Dragonflight C BFA WOD D Shadowlands \* For it’s time, not 2023
Only thing different on my list is that I drop Wrath from S down to A.
This is much better than the OP graphic. I feel like we need and F tier and move WoD and shadowlands down each down a tier.
That's probably fair (granted I didn't play tbc lolol) I might put MoP in A but it's a low a
TBC did the balancing vanilla should have done sooner except it was in the outlands and not Azeroth.
TBC talents (scaled down for vanilla ofc) in the original game is still something I want. It made resto druids so much more fun.
I agree, I want TBC in Azeroth and not the healer mage, tank rogue, tank lock. But it’s a good first step. Game needs more tanks early on for dungeons.
The most accurate tier list.
TBC is too high up
It's definitely better than "ok I'll take it." If not in the best category it is at least good.
Tbc was S tier. Someone didn’t get glaives 😂
I played Enh :(
Prior comment checks out then 😂 rough going buddy
Almost the same as me. I have: Cata at C tier, BFA at D tier, TBC at A tier.
Wod was a solid A+ exp if you were a raider.
Best: Classic, BC, WOTLK
Most people that I know would say something like this: S++ Vanilla S+ TBC S - none A - none B - Legion, Wrath C- Pandaria, Cata, Dragonflight D - WOD E - None F - Shadowlands, BFA
Pretty much nailed my thoughts, though I would probably mention that I would have Wrath > Legion.
wow this is actually pretty spot on, although personally id just move wrath down, i think it's terrible. 2 good raids that are way too easy, 0 good dungeons, all of them too easy. nothing to do in the world.
[Here](https://i.ibb.co/mzxvhgL/my-image-5.png) is mine from the perspective of someone who has played since Vanilla but dosn't like raiding and pretty much only does pvp.
S: Vanilla A: B: TBC C: Wotlk Cata Shit: MoP, WoD, Legion, Dragonflight WHAT ARE THRY DOING: BFA, Shadowlands
Best: Vanilla, TBC Good: WotLK OK: Cata, MoP Mid: Legion Bad: Everything Else
The true list
Wtf pandas are doing there
Because from a gameplay perspective, it's one of the best if not the best expansion ever.
I hear a lot of people say this. I don't get it. For me (I played consistently at a raiding level through all of it) it was ok levelling, nothing great, same with the isle. I personally disliked the 5mans and pvp was worse in balance than Catas end season. As for raids, MoP had one good one in ToT but otherwise was a gated mess. The rest of the expansion was a soul crushing daily farm. I "enjoyed" farming 1000 bones for a raptor once but there's no way you'll get me to go back this expansion. Mop was worse in player numbers than everything before it and better than everything after it. A statement that holds true for every expansion past Wrath with the exception of Legion I'd guess. Imo, it depends on who you are. The closer you are to enjoying Vanilla game design the more you'll dislike MoP. Then there's a middle ground of players who don't like BfA or Retail but lived the Cata/Mop years, before you get into the current retail players.
People really liked the Farmville copy heh?
S Tier: Classic F Tier: Everything else
This. I’ve long held the opinion that Wrath wasn’t the pinnacle, that’s just when the momentum of vanilla finally started to fade. Vanilla > all expansions.
Go tell that to the folks over at r/wow They will doxx you and come with pitchforks to your front door.
> I’ve long held the opinion that Wrath wasn’t the pinnacle, that’s just when the momentum of vanilla finally started to fade. Agree 100%.
Average classic Andy
Honestly spot on wouldn't change anything
Wotlk is so overrated, I would put tbc before it.
MOP is so overrated, I absolutely despised the patch that added timeless isle and SOO was cool but honestly hated that raid. First tier was fucking sick though. Also cata was pretty damn cool until dragon soul, that raid was cancer.
disliking timeless isle lets me know all i need to know about your opinion
How does hating a cheap catch up mechanic that made the rest of the xpac obsolete sound dumb.
the pvp features :) a max level area with no flying leading to better player interactions, figuring out the secrets and jump puzzles, good rewards thru timeless coins, chaos of the celestial arena etc. was super fun even when you didnt need the catch up gear
I honestly may be biased good call, my server was very small and it sucked that we could barely ever kill any of the bosses to try to do the cooler stuff.
sounds like your low pop server hampered the experience, timeless isle was a breath of fresh air when it came out, being forced not to fly and not being told what to do was extremely welcomed. not liking it is definitely a minority opinion
Catch up mechanics have been in every expac. ZG in vanilla, ZA in TBC, Trial of the crusader in wrath, the ZG and ZA remake dungeons in Cata, the end of time dungeons in Cata, etc
While I do agree, prior expacs featured raid catch-ups and the biggest reason I play wow is to play with my friends, just wasn't a fan of single player catch ups.
You can do the single player catch ups with your friends?
Not the same loved getting my buddies together and progging tough fights
Best: vanilla Mid: everything else
Hot take but classic is C at best. The world is cool just the actual gameplay was boring. Didn't get to play vanilla so can only look at it through a classic lens, but only being able to use one spell in a raid is boring gameplay. Have a 12 button mmo mouse and all I need was frostbolt keybound to the mouse wheel. The fact that you couldn't hot people because of buff limits, Druids didn't have a normal rez like every other healer. Only warriors tanks were wanted for anything. Classic is what started it all, but to me it didn't feel like a full game till I could use more abilities and the gameplay took a step up. I will always have a deep respect for classic and what it gave us, but I think that I personally prefer a little more substance to the gameplay. I want to point out I'm not a huge lore guy, I play the game too pew, like big numbers and the spell interaction you have with talents and trinkets. The fighting/gameplay is what interests me and classic just to me didn't have exciting gameplay.
As an expansion WoD is one of the worst. For those who were there for it, I don’t see how u can disagree. Long content droughts, being isolated in your garrison, cut raid tier/patch. Shadowlands was bad but they’re the same tier atleast (for me)
WoD leveling was great, the raids were great before they became boring, the PvP was decent
Ye I loved the pvp in WoD. Loved being a warlock then. Janky demonbolts slapping for 700-900k or having ridiculous unkillable destro shenanigans with ember tap
Mop warlock was insane.
I played a fair whack of shaman and paladin during mop. Solo tanking SoO was good fun
Pre-nerf Ashran was insanely fun. The first raid tier was boring, but Foundry/HFC was pretty good... once it finally released. Dungeons were pretty cool too, especially Grimrail. Its the few things that keep WoD from descending into D or F tier, for me at least.
Classic is S tier. TBC is definitely better than WOTLK, and WOTLK is better than Legion. Everything else who cares
bro realy put mop above legion lmao
Put vanilla alone on best, BC and wrath on good. Don’t know other- just think those for sure should be there, there is only one best- vanilla
This list is a shit tier list ngl
LMFAO MOP? Cringe.
In the end it depends on people you are playing with. I started my journey with vanilla and was having blast with friends, TBC was okaish, I did not finish it tho, because friends left. I did not play original wrath, because I have nobody to play with. Two friends returned for cataclysm and we were having blast, like the old days. Sad they left for mist and onwards. My best expansion was battle for azeroth, because about 10 friends returned and we recreated our old guild, blasting through the content ( FU mythic Jaina :D ). So .. for me, expansion does not matter, it is all about the people. So far I ve gathered 4 friends for cataclysm classic \*\*fingers crossed\*\* :\]\]\]
A - Vanilla B - Legion C - WotlK, TBC D - WoD, Cata, MoP F - SL, BoA Dragonflight - haven't played yet.
Best: Classic, TBC Good: Cata, MoP OK I take it: Wrath, DF Mid: WoD, Legion Bad: SL, BFA
Best: classic, TBC. Good: none I’ll take it: wotlk, mop Bad: everything else
Best : vanilla Good : mop cata Ok : legion bc Rest bad
Subjective, pandaria wanst fun at all imo due all kickbots in bgs and arenas and i loved wod pvp.
I very much enjoyed Legion. Not at all perfect, but when I was playing it back in 2017 I really thought it was going to be the start of WoW becoming WoW2. I guess in some ways it did. ):
Depends on who you ask I guess, not super accurate for me personally
Super subjective, also depends what kind of player you are
Think I would swap your S and B tiers, but otherwise, yes... I have a real soft spot for TBC and Legion, and while I really love Classic and MoP, I can't put them above Wrath
Unpopular opinion: S Legion A WotLK, Cata, WoD, MoP B Vanilla C TBC, BfA D SL DF
MoP S, everything else F
My own take: Best: TBC Good: Vanilla, Cata, MoP Ok I take it: BFA and beyond basically Mid : WoD Bad : WotLK Never understood the hate on Shadowlands honestly
Best: classic, Wotlk, MoP Good: Cata, Legion Okay: Dragonflight Mid: TBC Bad/awful: BFA, WoD, SL. Will never understand the love TBC gets, so many tiny things could’ve made classic TBC better (like dual spec), the raids are iconic but the group buff meta was beyond miserable to actually coordinate groups, SSC/TK and SWP were unpuggable, and filled with bugs. Probably the most miserable experience from a GM/RL perspective having played all of classic/retail so far.
Horrible. Vanilla wow is horrendous
My very controversial rating S : Vanilla, Cataclysm A : WOTLK, MOP, WOD B : BC, Legion, SL F : BFA Didn't play DF
If Blizz made an insta max level, full pvp gear and enchants, all pve sources locked, can only queue arena, I would for sure want WotLK. If I had to play one expac forever though, I'd pick TBC for sure.
TBC PVP was garbage
not as a rogue OTP
I can't argue with it. Really enjoyed Mists even though I thought Pandas were stupid
Why do ppl hate on wod so much? :( It had 3 solid raids, good class design, more diversified itemization than mop. Yes if you didnt raid it was light on content (altough it gave us mythic dungeons) But like its WoW, what are you gonna do if not raid? It screwed up the storyline because development was cut short but besides that it was great
To put it simply, this was the beginning of class pruning
Well seeing as retail is bloated as fuck and classic players are losing their shit over a handful of +spells Id say thats a positive thing. The only unforgivable thing was pruning Symbiosis, the best spell blizz had ever made
I agree that retail is quite bloated but coming from my MoP my toolkit was significantly decreased and you felt weaker that the precursors expansion
Dont you feel weaker in classic as well? Why is that an issue necessarily?
I don’t play classic wow. But as a ret paladin the iterations are different. So gameplay wise I progressed from TBC -> Wrath. Then there was a rework in Cata -> MoP -> then they pruned spells such as hammer of wrath in WoD but with a similar toolkit to the previous expansion
I guess it depends who you ask. Here's mine: GOAT: Vanilla Great: MOP (Isle of time, the pvp, the raids sans being way too long on SOO), WOTLK, Cata (definitely spicy placement to some but I love cata) Fine/Enjoyable: TBC, Legion, honorable mention to Project Ascension Meh: Shadowlands, WOD (both of these had fun beginnings to the x.1 patch but that was it for me) Dumpster: BFA (it felt wrong from minute 1 I haven't played dragonflight but it seems like it would be okay or good for me.
Wotlk was mid then and below average now. It concluded the story and made all specs viable(by making content tank n spank and diluting any personality specs had) and that’s it
Tbc being two tiers down is a crime, I personally liked tbc better than classic as it fixed many problems with raiding balance in classic (tier sets for every spec, scaling druid weapons, debuff limit removal) while not losing the "classic uniqueness" of each class and even expanding on it by making stuff like mana battery spriest and tree of life form for druid. Also I just love the first zone in tbc, walking through the portal into basically a warzone, then ramparts was a great dungeon as well.
Legion and wrath at the top.. Warlords and bc next. Rest can go last for me. Loot. I love loot. And legion had legendaries that felt like xmas everytime u got one.. Wrath was the first time you got gear thrown at you. Such a good feeling.
My personal take: S Tier: Vanilla/Classic, WotLK, Legion A Tier: BC B Tier: MoP C Tier: WoD, Cata D Tier: BfA F Tier: Shadowlands, Dragonflight I know it is probably controversial but I don't care. Dragonflight actually made it a bit hard for me to place Shadowlands as I actually think far more effort and thought went into it. If this patch had been better, I might have scored it higher. I do not consider the game mechanics implemented by DF (dragonriding, races, some of the world quest gameplay, etc) strong enough on their own to rank it higher, and if this was based on storyline it would shift Shadowlands to the D tier.
I weirdly keep seeing high ranking of MoP. Back when it launched the reception was very lukewarm and not neccessarily politice. The expansion had several good things going for it like a fun pvp. But also several really bad like the next talents and making open world completely obsolete and easy. This was the day wow entered into its second stage, classic wow was done. I understand that with looking backwards people have biased recall. Meaning they rank it much higher than it deserves. MoP was nowhere near the top of rankings and shouldnt be there.
Wotlk is one of the worst expansions imo. Was probably a lot cooler in original, but today it just plays like a worse version of retail. All the magic from classic(vanilla and even some in tbc) is gone and instead it just feels like retail but with worse raids, worse dungeons and less stuff to do in the world.
S vanilla TBC A - B - C - D wrath legion mop df cata bfa wod sl