Ever since Mists of Pandaria, I haven’t enjoyed the end-game grinds. So most of what I do in WoW nowadays is level alts; usually healers through dungeon finder. Healing has been my bread-and-butter since I started raiding in TBC. I feel more confident in my abilities as a healer than a DPS or tank, and it’s a fairly short dungeon queue.
I decided to start anew on a new server in Shadowlands and see what the leveling experience was after the squish. I’ve found that not all expansions are created equal. There are three topics I want to cover:
- Rewards
- Difficulty
- Availability
Rewards: Cata, TBC, WotLK, and MoP offer quests at the start of the dungeon, and a loot box upon completing the dungeon. WoD, Legion, and BFA do not offer either of these things. This means you get less XP from not having quests, less gold, and less loot. It takes a lot longer in the later expansions to get a full set of transmogrifiable gear. The quest rewards and loot boxes make it significantly faster. Plus, they keep upgrades coming your way if you don’t get the right drops.
Difficulty: I didn’t spend too much time leveling so far, but some expansions seem way easier than others. Cataclysm, MoP, and WoD have proven incredibly easy. It’s basically impossible to fail. WotLK you have to try to fail at, but otherwise is easy, too. Legion and BFA have been a lot harder.
I think part of the problem with the difficulty is that many of these dungeons were designed around players who have leveled up to 100+ in previous expansions. The mechanics were designed around players who already have 99% of their toolkit available, and tons of experience with the game. Going through a Legion dungeon at Level 12 is a much taller ask, when you lack cooldowns and spell variety.
It was incredibly difficult doing Violet Hold (Legion) on a Resto Shaman when all I have is Healing Surge, Riptide, and Unleash Life. No Chain Heal, no Healing Wave, no Water Shield, no Earth Shield, no Tidal Waves. The damage is tuned very high compared to something like Deadmines (Cataclysm).
Availability: Some expansions have higher availability of the dungeons than others. For example, at level 10, I can do:
- 11 Cata Dungeons
- 4 TBC Dungeons
- 2 WotLK Dungeons
- 1 MoP Dungeon
- 2 WoD Dungeons
- 8 Legion Dungeons
- 2 BFA Dungeons
Cataclysm and Legion offer the most at level 10 (by far), with only TBC offering some semblance of a variety. MoP is the worst (but at least it has quests). In addition, if the level ranges listed on WoWhead are to be trusted, many expansions have the dungeon ranges end well before level 50.
Cata goes to 35, TBC to 30, WotLK to 30, MoP to 35, WoD to 40, Legion to 45, and BFA to 50. I will see if these caps hold true.
It also doesn’t help that some expansions have many more dungeons than others, although this is largely a product of those times and not the fault of Shadowlands. However, having Classic + Cataclysm dungeons rolled into one really pushes the amount of content in favor of Cata.
There are 32 Cataclysm dungeons. Second is a tie between WotLK and TBC with 16 (half of Cata). On down to 13 (BFA), 12 (Legion), and then 8 and 6 for WoD and MoP (respectively).
Legion is the only expansion in which all of the dungeons are available at level 10. Around 1/3 of the dungeons for Cata are available at 10. It’s a lot less with MoP (1/6) and WotLK (1/8).
Proposed Solutions:
- Add quests to the start of the WoD, Legion, and BFA dungeons; and add loot boxes upon completing a random WoD, Legion, or BFA dungeon. This will bring the rewards in line with the previous expansions.
- Re-tune the difficulty so all dungeons are in-line with each other. Remember, this is random-group leveling-content, not end-game content with a dedicated group. (Some groups can’t even communicate because of language barriers).
- Release more dungeons earlier for expansions that only have 1-2 dungeons available at level 10. I have no advice for the overall lack of dungeon content in MoP or WoD, but this would at least fix one of the availability problems.
