This is actually pretty hard since you start looking back at things with rose-tinted glasses even though it might not have been that great at the time.
Everything up until wotlk was A tier. I’d still put mop up there. WoD is below mop and I actually really enjoyed the garrison aspect. Legion was very good but I don’t think it was better than the first three so below them, class halls were amazing. Everything after this is at the bottom, including TWW, hopefully this will change.
Here is a hot take on the popularity of Legion.
Your opinion of legion is better then sooner you got your specific Legendary you needed.
For people who got the legendary they needed so that their class actually played well, LOVED legion. If you hard to suffer and could not get the legendary you needed, you had mixed feelings about legion.
Idk what planet legion fans live on.
When everybody I know saw the trailer they all could tell blizzard was getting desperate.
Legion was the Rogue One of WoW expansions.
Mists
Legion
Wrath
BFA
TBC
Cata
WOD
Didn’t play enough of SL or DF to judge. Not judging TWW until its done but so far it’s better than Cata.
WotLK
BC
Vanilla
Legion
MoP
TWW
Cata
WoD
BfA
SL
Wrath
Legion
TBC
Mist
Cata
DF
BfA
WoD
Shadowlands.
Legion = TWW (so far) > BFA > MOP > WOD > Wrath = TBC > Cataclysm
Edit: I’m actually just removing Shadowlands from my list, because… it was one of WoW’s worst expansions to date, but I still had more fun in it as an expansion than what I had during TBC, Wrath, or Cataclysm… and probably WoD. But I really can’t say I would put it that highly anyway. But if I were to put it on my list, it’d take the weird spot of being somewhere above, on par, or below WoD.
There’s not such thing as a “proper” list, anyone claiming so is at best dishonest to the deepest parts of their bones.
You have a preference called “rose tinted glasses” judging by your list, and that’s all there is to it. But if you want to have a look at a real proper list, then mine is clearly it! Of course I’m making fun of it because folks, in general with only the odd exceptions of WoD and SL really, enjoy whatever is the current expansion.
Then afterwards people look back and go “How dare you think there were positives with that expansion?! How dare you not hate it unconditionally and completely?!” for most expansions have some aspects that people really quite like, and thus can easily say made those expansions good.
In your case, it seems like the thing is a very clear cut case of rose tinted glasses when you say “This is the only proper list” and then just go “Oldest to Newest.”
My main’s three first legendaries were in order of Sephuz’s Secret, Eye of the Twisting Nether, and Prydaz, Xavaric’s Magnum Opus. As a restoration raid healer. I can’t remember how I got the Eye of the Twisting Nether but I think I had changed my specialization by mistake when it dropped.
Legion was still an absolutely incredible expansion even when you had as rotten of a luck as I had, because every single legendary still did some incredible stuff. And then I swapped over to my US account and started playing around with monks and a few other characters and still had a blast even without sensible legendaries but I think I eventually managed to get Stormstout’s Last Gasp so tanking M+ dungeons became even more fun to do! ^^
Point is this still… you didn’t need “good” legendaries to enjoy Legion, because all legendaries were good. Some were flashier than others and when you had those Legion went from a good expansion to easily WoW’s BEST expansion to date. But you still enjoyed it as long as you got anything, and then later on we got more legendaries including the vendor that meant we could actually pick and choose which ones we wanted.
Bit torn between Wrath and TBC. Both places were amazing. Nothing like seeing that Outland sky for the first time when you were used to the crappy Azeroth sky boxes. But Wrath aside having great story it brought the game closer to Warcraft III.
Worst was Warlords of Draenor and the main reason for that was because it could have been among the best expansions this game had but they rushed it and cut it almost in half.
See i cant speak for your class but for example, for arms warriors, i literally could not enjoy my spec until i got the ring for it, and i did not get mine until trial of valor, so all the way up until then my DPS was gimped hard and it was not enjoyable.
The point I was making is this:
I didn’t have a legendary effectively at all throughout most of my time on the EU side, which meant all of Emerald Nightmare and half of Nighthold.
Legendaries weren’t necessary at all. They just made things go from “Good” to “Amazing!” if you got the right ones.
And this is probably why I have a blast in game no matter the expansion: I don’t tie my happiness to my performance, because if I did that, then I’d also have to recognize that I would have to change class and specialization every single patch.
If you derive happiness from your performance, which as valid as it is, then why didn’t you play on a non-warrior since it sounds like you didn’t get the “correct” legendary when yours did drop. So at that point, wouldn’t you have enjoyed the game more if you swapped over to another class that could perform better?
Oh no, it was not just a matter of performance, it was a matter of the class just did not flow well with out it, because it literally granted you the ability that was talent.
The ring for example made it so you had a chance to proc an execute outside of execute window, with out the ring you basically lost an ability that was meant to be part of your rotation.
Imagine if you as a warlock, could not use chaos bolt until 20% health, and there was an item that when you got it, you could use chaos bolt at any % health.
That was what a lot of classes/specs had to deal with.
Wrath
Mists
The rest
Legion
Legion is still an 8 out of 10.
TWW has been the best leveling for a while. End game remains to be seen.
Ehm… just to check up with you but, you do realize that was a 7.2.5 legendary … right?
This idea of “it didn’t flow correctly until they gave us a thing we didn’t know we needed” is… at best an ad hoc reasoning and explanation as to why you disliked or at least have changed your view of it since the end of Legion being the current expansion.
So… yeah, I can’t say anything other than … that’s not a valid line of reasoning for your argument to be sound. You can have this as an opinion but, do understand, that’s a revisionist line of thinking at best.
Another way to phrase it is that, if this argument is valid, then your argument is also invalidated by the fact that we did get a vendor in the 7.3.5 patch.
I answered the question from more of a “what expansion did you enjoy the most” stance, rather than an unobjective “what expansions were the best.”
I’ll hard agree that classic and BC weren’t the apex of WoW from a sheer design standpoint, but they are far and away the eras of the game of which I had the most fun, with no close second.
Haven’t 0played them all but from I remember and how fun I had when I played them hmm…
Wrath
Cata
BC
MOP
WOD
Legion
BFA
after that I kinda gave up, only log on recently to see how much the game has change and how different it plays.
Haven’t played or bought TWW cause hasn’t caught my interest yet
Well my list was a meme.
The joke is that everybody always says “this is the worst expansion ever. They ruined wow” so what if they were actually right?
Although I will saying comparing vanilla WoW to modern expansions is like comparing Mike Tyson to a boxing grandma. Gotta respect the GOAT.
Best: The Burning Crusade
Worst: Kung Fu Panda
Legion
Wrath of the Lich King
Burning Crusade
Dragonflight
Mists of Pandaria
Battle for Azeroth
Warlords of Dranor
Shadowlands
Cataclysm
The War Within (TBD, but currently above WoD)
Wrath of the Lich King
Mists of Pandaria
Warlords of Draenor
Cataclysm
Burning Crusade
Dragonflight
Battle for Azeroth
Shadowlands
Legion
Suramar absolutely killed any drive I had for Legion
Wrath
BC
Legion
TWW (So far)
WOD
Mists
Cata
SL
DF
BFA (didn’t play)