When it comes to the next step YOU take after battling through vanilla Azeroth, where do you like to go? Do you prefer to journey to the Shattered Realm to deal with Illidan? Or do you prefer to sail to Northrend to face off against the Lich King? What makes you choose one over the other?
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Neither zone has aged well, and in both zones you’re going to have quests that didn’t scale well with the stat squish. So dungeon until you’re in cataclysm.
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I love TBC zones. All of them.
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I still need Loremaster for both. I have three toons sitting in Northrend right now. The two zones I need for Outland are both of the endgame zones which I will definitely have to out-level to complete thanks to all the 3 and 5 man quests that absolutely no one is doing anymore, along with the dungeon quests that are part of Loremaster and nobody is queuing for either.
Honestly I just flip a coin at this point, but next toon is definitely going to Outland.
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Northrend wins easily for me, primarily because I just love the lore surrounding the Lich King. Just got my KT Druid to 60 last night and I’m looking forward to questing through Northrend again.
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I like the TBC gear more than the Northrend gear, BUT Northrend is easier quest wise.
I did TBC, but some of the quests were hard to figure out without looking it up.
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Northrend because it feels faster than TBC.
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Northrend. Because it just looks better and isn’t boring and stale to look at.
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BC is now the most similar to classic questing as you can get. It stands to reason that it will feel more tedious. That being said, the design really is an improvement over classic quest design. There were some good attempts made by the crew. I loved the old group quest philosophy and they really embraced that in BC. Pity to see those get effectively tossed by the wayside.
BC was all about grouping up and beating the harder content with friends/acquaintances. It wasn’t about soloing through as rapidly as possible.
Wrath was the beginning of that slant toward a much more solo friendly environment. Therefore, it stands to reason that for strictly solo leveling people will find Wrath a better place to level. More linear quest hubs, flight in mind for 77-80 and a general avoidance of group quests except for specific “Wanted” quests.
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Yesterday I decided to give another try to outland because I was sick of dragonblind (I hate that zone), it is pretty slow compared NR.
Quest hubs are very disperse, quest items usually drop once every 5 mobs and “bosses” have a longer respawn time.
It is slower, but I am not in a hurry. I kind of like outland a bit more.
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This is the hardest hurdle for me whenever I level a new character. Questing doesn’t feel good until Cataclysm, and I have many 60s that were just deleted because going to BC (And now Wrath) makes me dread logging back into them. Even the dungeons I generally find insufferable until Cataclysm.
The sad thing is, BC is one of my favorite expansions because it’s when I was super involved with WoW. But it definitely has not aged well, and I find both it and Wrath tedious and mind numbing.
I personally just try to do zones I haven’t done for LM and transmog while levelling, so it depends.
I’m levelling a Warrior atm, and my last plate toon went thru Outland, so this time I might do Northrend.
Both still suck though, and need revamps.
Hellfire Peninsula has some great quest clusters, same for Shadowmoon Valley and Zangarmarsh.
The gear is probably better optimized in Northrend.
Those are the only major differences. Oh can’t forget Sunwell Plateau.
Absolutely northrend. It’s far less terrible than outland. And with the new xp requirements you can just knock out all of borean tundra, and a few questlines for dragonblight and you’re done. Easy.
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I did outland just so I could do the quests and rep to get 6 netherdrakes. Then I left afterwards to go to pandaland. No point in doing the rest of the zones and quests unless I find something I need.
This. i feel like the hubs let you knock out more quests more efficiently. Some areas I avoid because of too much travel (Dragonblight) , but for the most part quests are centralized better IMO.
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100% Northrend. The lore was my favorite in the game, with TBC a close second. I always quest through Northrend doing minimal dungeons. May take longer, but whatevs, you get gear so fast these days and with heirlooms it always scales.
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I played through BC recently and at one point shut my exp off so I wouldn’t out level the area. I simply enjoyed taking my time and doing everything. I personally had no issue with scaling on my elemental shaman. I did have to call on help from a friend for group quests, though. Oh, and be prepared to look up quests online because Blizz hadn’t gotten quest info down pat at that point.
Personally if you want to pick between the two instead of doing both I’d go with Northrend. I really love Howling Fjord and Grizzly Hills. Some really fun and memorable quest chains throughout Northrend.
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Northrend 100%. Some of the quests in Dragonblight really drag (looking at you flying villagers back and forth on the griffon quest) but the rest is great as long as you just skip Zuldrak.
Outland doesn’t flow well. Northrend was the best middle ground between large, old world feeling and newer pathing that didn’t leave you lost or wondering exactly where to go.
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Oh yeah, I forgot about Zul… those quests back and forth to Voltarus were brutal.