Well the title says it all
Normal difficulty
1- Icecrown
2- Blackrock Mountain
3- League of Explorers
4- Naxxramas
5- Kobolds and Catacombs
6- Dalaran Heist
7- Tombs of Terror
8- Galakrond’s Awakening
Everything else is trash. Played WW and RR for daily quests and on launch day only. I wish we could disenchant adventures too…
Icecrown imo was the best due to the fact that it had everything i like and didnt have everything i hate. 1 difficulty, pack/card rewards, and the final boss exclusive reward that you earn when you meet a certain criteria. Your deck, not mandatory and most of all: FREE!
Heroic difficulty
1- Galakrond’s Awakening
The availability to play our own decks is a way to go imo. Dont like getting f…d over by rng. Also the bosses are not ridiculously difficult so it adds to the fun side of the experience
2- Naxxramas
Again, our own decks and the difficulty is somewhat managable. Naxx heroic should be the benchmark of heroic content in terms of difficulty.
3- Blackrock Mountain
The only reason why it is not my number 1 is because of the difficulty. More difficult than Naxx and so much easier than number 4.
4- League of explorers
This would have been amazing if they optimized it correctly. Too bad it sucked on heroic difficulty. Especially that one boss that changes the costs of spells and minions each turn. I only managed to kill it last year due to Odd/Even mechanics.
5- Dalaran Heist
Apart from the last chapter it was mostly enjoyable. Last chapter requires a custom deck, otherwise its a case of “rngesus take the wheel!” scenario.
Every other heroic content was garbage.
What if I’m a hardcore type person who likes a game that just wants to break me over and over again until I learn to love it. like Dark Souls.
Heroic LoE, Lich King and Heroic Karazhan my all time favorite. Heroic Galakrond’s Awakening is too soft.
Normal modes
- BrM Was able to create really long epic encounters that I was able to engage with and conquer as a pure f2p player with a measely collection.
- Naxx Naxx normal was when I first joined hearthstone, and I joined the game in order to do Naxx. Killing the bosses with bolderfist ogres was no easy task. Those were the days. Nostalgia bias… but this is my list.
- Boom labs Removing the draw RNG from the hearthstone game for a while. A very fresh and skill intensive format. I wish they did more content like this.
- Dalaran Heist Dalaran Heist did the most world building and included the most boss encounters and customizable hero options and cards. A great experience if not for a few out of balance bosses, and constantly restarting got sickening.
- Tombs of Terror Honestly, 1 shotting the 300 hp boss mega-fights was extremely enjoyable. This was a great feature to me, and added some extra challenges even after a clear. However, with less classes, bosses, and available choices, it seems like a regression from Dalaran Heist in every other way.
- Kobolds Kobolds was the introduction of the dungeon run format. It gets bonus points for the innovation. That said, some classes have very poor choices in their pools, boss tuning is all over the place, and I prefer story and setting development over the mixed menagerie that was present in the Dungeon run.
- League LoE is an outstanding adventure in its own right, but at this stage of the game, my collection was strong enough to easy clear.
- Icecrown Icecrown’s bosses had some unique mechanics, so it is a pity we never got to try a heroic fight against them. The Lich King challenge was great on some classes, but very frustrating on others. (Mage).
- Kara. Even more undertuned than LoE. Normal Kara was the textbook case of mediocrity. The Disneyification didn’t settle well with me either
- Witchwood Less options than Dungeon run, frustrating impossible encounters were bucket/deck RNG was more important than anything else.
- Galakkrond Even more undertuned than kara. Some bosses are so simple you have to try to loose. I know that new players are important to support, but as the hearthstone playerbase gets better and better (on average), Blizzard shouldn’t make it easier and easier. They seemed to be aiming for normal naxx difficulty, but with super OP prebuilt decks, I don’t understand what makes auto-winning very compelling. At least the Voice-acting is nice.
- Rumblerun You can argue that rumble-run had a lot of compelling features that make it worthy of a higher spot on this list. I find the shrine gimmick of having to clear the opponents 0/8 over and over boring. Every fight is a win more snowball fight. The fights are extremely repetitive, using the same shrine gimmicks. I found no reason to go back to this after I won, unless I got the rumble run quest in which I begrudgingly returned.
Heroics (where applicable)
Naxx, BrM, League, Kara, Dalaran, ToT, Galakkrond
- Naxx The golden standard for heroic modes? I remember being quite proud that I didn’t use any netdecks, but this does mean I struggled on bosses that others didn’t. Also, banning gimmick cards like Alexstraza against Loatheb, or Equality against 4 horsemen so that the enounters weren’t easy cheese was a good idea. (Not a concept that was retained, unfortunately)
- Tombs of Terror. All lot of people found Tombs to be very frustrating. I actually rather enjoyed the challenge. Also the mechanic of allowing you to slowly chip away at the final bosses makes it much more clearable, and thus less frustrating.
- LoE League bosses, I felt were challenging, but not overly so. It wasn’t too memorable, but the encounters were sleekly designed.
- Dalaran. At this point I was craving quite the challenge. Dalaran Heist did so. Heroic mode requires many many restarts, and at some point I would’ve preferred if the game had some shortcut straight to Jepetto and Khadgar. Also, the Jepetto encounter is one of the most annoying fights the game has to offer. Some of the encounters are way harder than others. Haro Setting-sun was an auto-wipe before the nerfs. Archivist Oshi playing a busted version of big priest on level 4 is harder than bosses 5-10 in wing 5.
- Karazahn Karazahn is a bit of a mess. Some encounters offer interesting twists. (Opera Hall, Chess fight.) Most of them were the exact same fight as normal mode but with +30 health. The only fight that really makes up for it is heroic malchezaar at the end, which players still echo sentiments towards today.
- Galakkrond’s. Repeating the same problemas kara, Galakkrond’s bosses are usually the same encounter on normal but with +30 hp and no god-mode deck. I still enjoyed myself (and the jury is still out), but so far this one is a bit of a let down.
- BrM. Heroic Meloriak is awful. Didn’t draw the perfect hand, and the boss draws 2 mana 9/9 with change (split over 3 bodies) GG! I had to netdeck and just restart over and over to get this one. Some of the encounters had a similar frustration factor. (Emp Thaur, Garr, Drakkisath, Vaelestraz Chromaggus). The fun encounters are few and far between. (Heroic Grim guzzler, Omnitron, and the final showdown I enjoyed). Heroic BrM is a beast, and not one I enjoyed slogging through.
