I tend to compare an expansion to the one preceding it, and I do think Shadowlands was better than Dragonflight. Not the pvp of course, just overall.
See, THIS is a reasonable response. It doesn’t make any sense to have nostalgia glasses trying to rank a current game vs episodes that came out 20, 18, 15, 10 years ago.
Myself however, I don’t really see the expansions separately. It’s all part of the whole. Especially once you get to the point where you are doing dailies and repeatable crap. At that point the “newness” is gone, and you there is a shift of opinions. And then after a certain amount of time you walk away to do other stuff until there is new things to do after a patch.
I personally never disliked any point in the game until I lost access to Single-Minded Fury as a Fury Warrior. And then I got it back. Then I lost it. Then I got it back and it was awful (but I refuse not to use it if available). So for me, it’s not about which expansion is better than the previous. It’s just my experience is going to be less at the moment when I can’t use my character as I’d created it in Vanilla.
1 Like
Dragonflight is my favorite expansion of all time. Before DF it was BC, but honestly a lot of that was nostalgia.
A lot of issues I had with WoW were corrected in DF. Different flying mode, more friendly WQs, most alt friendly expac to date, varied leveling experience, best talent trees to date, best crafting yet, no/few systems, diverse dungeons for M+ and there’s for sure more things I can put out. Like the posts mention above about only comparing to recent expacs, that’s also true. But I didn’t like Shadowlands and found it overly problematic. DF fixed most/all issues I had.
What in tarnations is this?!
SL>WoD>BC>Classic.
As bad as SL and WoD were, at least it wasn’t an auto attack simulator.
Anyone ranking bc and classic above anything are true masochists that do not like QOL xD
But seriously though, a true ranking is very hard. As bad as some xpacs were, they had great features within them. Like BFA and SL had some of the most fun m+. Especially S2/S3 SL.
Same with BFA. BFA had a pretty fun pvp scene for awhile until you got into corruption business.
It’s also pretty impossible to rank them like that too because of all the QOL changes.
Anything pre cata was a completely different game. But then again, anything pre legion also felt like a completely different game.
Thats why ranking is so hard, 9/10 it will be nostalgia over anything else.
1 Like
I played through BCC and classic, quit both BFA and SL
Mine is MoP>legion=df=wrath>cata>tbc>vanilla>wod>sl>bfa
Prolly in top 4 for me. Wrath>Mop>BC>DF>Legion>Cata>BFA>WoD>Shadowlands
I believe most of us “rank” expansions based on the memories we created rather than specific mechanics or storylines.
Kinda like when I heard about TBC Classic and thought, “man I loved TBC back then, let’s see what it has for me now”…but then when I started it up I didn’t even make it past the character selection screen, LOL. I had forgotten how dull character creation looked compared to now.
If I had to rank them.
Legion>ALL>Cata>MoP>DF>SL>BFA>WoD>Wrath>BC>Classic.
As much as I loved wrath. I do not miss any of the old mechanics. Replaying vanilla and bc classic servers made me realize how big of QOL changes have happened.
Like it’s fun to reminisce, but I also try not to let nostalgia sugarcoat it either.
The fact that i’ve been able to play the old ones has just cemented my placement of them, though i guess it has for you too, just in a different place
Legion, MOP, DF, BFA, TBC, Wrath, SL, Cata and WOD
Classic isn’t an expansion…
Mine was memories.
I loved wrath when it was current, but I can’t bring myself to play wrath classic at all. It’s just not fun like it was 14+ years ago.
I based my list off the systems primarily.
Like legion was when there was ALWAYS something to do. Artifacts to grind, crazy wpvp, world quests cemented themselves as a thing. Mage tower. Solid raids.
I can’t rank SL or BFA lower because of the content as well. Like sure we had disgusting content droughts, but what we DID get was pretty decent (if implemented bad).
Like S1 SL, the story and everything was great. Loads to do. Blizz just failed horribly to think about alts or the ‘what next’.
But still the raids were good. M+ was good. Pvp… eeeeeh. The maw also started off good, but then it was just left to exist.
So as much as I disliked how the xpacs turned out, I can’t ignore how good they were when they started.
I quit SL and BFA because of the systems honestly.
The initial implementations of the covenant system was a travesty, but i did stick around there longer as the abilities were at least interesting.
BFA though was by far the worst for me, the see-saw of gaining and losing in the first season (when it comes to azerite gear) made me quit halfway through that first season and not return til the final patch.
WoD wasn’t bad, it just had nothing to do in it lol, at least in tbc and wrath I had reason to run dungeons.
3 Likes
The story didn’t do anything awful
Yea… that’s one of the main reasons wod is ranked as the all time worst by most.
It wasn’t bad, but there was quite literally not much to do. And the garrisons completely isolated everyone.
I feel that. I just can’t get past the horrendous mana system or just standing there auto attacking and mashing 1 dps key.
But vanilla, bc, wrath have some of my favorite dungeons to this day. I keep hoping they add them to the m+ pool.
Especially vanilla dungeons.
Tough choice. DF gave me Dracthyr, but the expansion itself was middling. I can’t rank them.
Favorite: MoP
Good: Wrath, Cata, WoD, Legion, BFA, DF
Neutral: SL, Classic
1 Like
You didn’t even play the game, the most you did was boost your character and do battlegrounds
I like this take.
I don’t think I’ve really seen someone use “neutral”.
It’s a pizza argument. Cold pizza is better than no pizza, and it’s much better than staring at a wall.
I guess if I were to actually look at it like that
Best: MoP
Good: DF, Legion, Wrath
Neutral: Cata, TBC, Wrath, Classic, Even WoD
Bad: SL and Bfa
Like, I’ll take anything over bfa and SL again
1 Like
We call those ‘bg heros’ 
Complain about the game without stepping outside bgs heh.