BfA vs Shadowlands

Community General Discussion
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Ok so since Shadowlands is almost over, I want to pop the big question:

BfA or Shadowlands? Which expansion was better? What are your thoughts on pros and cons of each expansion?

Imo, BfA was better because of the essence addition to the Heart of Azeroth, and also the Azerite Armor concept felt unique. Also the end boss was cooler, albeit with a rather anticlimactic ending(though I kinda suspect we haven’t seen the last of Old Gods yet). If I were to rate each expansion out of 10, I’d give BfA an 8 and Shadowlands 6, maybe.

Edit: Oh and also, another thing that made BfA actually so cool for me: Azshara’s Font of Power!!! Like, isn’t it amazing that mages were using this trinket from a boss in previous tier also in Nyalotha? I think things like that should occur more often in the game. It adds a different, non-linear flavour.

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BfA’s main problem was… it was after Legion
We just literally kicked Space Satan’s behind and saved the universe from the Legion (tho’ not really defeated it, just demolished the central comand, wich in the long run would/could cause more trouble than good… a demonic army without a leader… every Demon lord for himself. With armies. And legion-tech. Intead a dragon we have now a hydra. Good work hero, you broke it), our planet got stabbed in the heart…
Not the best time to start a story about local troubles, politics and such
BfA would have been ideal around the time of the Burning Crusade… but not after Legion
Nazjatar and N’yalotha should have been own expanison, huge maps, Azshara’s seat of power and after ten millenium ruling the seas, her Naga Empire… was dissapointing.
N’Zoth was horribly rushed (not to mention the logical inconsistency, chained under the Well of Eternity? Really? Under a Wound that went deep down to the Worldsoul itself? Yeah… not buyng it
But overall… would have been a nice expansion
Shadowlands on the other hand poked something that should be forever avoided in an RPG… the Afterlife
And ruined/retconned a decade of more or less working lore.
The only saving grace was Denathrious and Castle Nathria but thats all… glad Big Daddy D. is got away at the end, while we saved, you guessed it, the Multiverse this time and all of realites…
Oy vey…
So for me?
BfA
Totally BfA

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Not sure…both had their plus points and downsides… collection wise I like SL better though…

But callings and wqs wise I prefered bfa… also the zones were nicer to level in.

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BFA.

Both their systems were bad, and in many cases boring, however i feel in BFA we reached the point we could ignore the content we didnt want to do alot easier.

However in SL. Your kinda forced to do the content for legendaries covenant trees etc etc.

Also i feel like BFAa dungeons were simply better, not to mention its raiding was alot better.

They both got alot wrong and were terrible in many ways, but yeah SL takes the cake, id consider SL WoWs first truely bad expansion.

As WoD wasnt bad, it just had no content realistically.

And BFA still hsd great dungeons, barring nzoth quality raids and largely by mid expansion you didnt do much, and the gearing was so much better.

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BFA. in the end of BFA i didnt hate level alts there. levelling last levels in SL for me isnt a nightmare. Dunno. probably for the theme.

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When we were still in BFA i thought the next expansion could never go worse , like never… Few months later (now it’s been 2 years already) i told to myself i’d never say never again. SL is easily the worst expansion i’ve ever played. Mostly talking about PvP but PvE is also extremely boring and stupid. Both the dungeons and raids are just lame. I was spamming M+ so much in bfa when i had no friends to play PvP with and didn’t get bored of it. SL dungeons i got bored with them after no more than 1-2 months into the expansion.

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I honestly don’t want to say that either was “better”, since neither was on the right side of OK.

But fer damsure Shadowlands was much worse.

I just started to write why, but I can see I’d be here for hours. So I’ll skip it.

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I don’t want to go too deep into this, but BFA was better. I thought I’d never say this… but yeah, even for the zones alone.

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Zones

Beside ardenweald -BFA way better zones

Dungeons- goes to SL

Raids: equal

Prefered the grind in BFA

Pvp- both terible

Music- BFA

Story- i think SL

I”d rate BFA a 7

I”d rate Sl a 6

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BfA:

  • Took place on Azeroth, often with additional older zones included for quests.
  • Faction wars and the Old God/Azshara theme towards the end was really neat.
  • Bigger level and higher dps numbers were personally appealing to me.
  • Certain corruptions were so fun and powerful they felt like cheating.
  • Systems weren’t so reliant on server economy and gold. No overpriced legendary bases you need to advance your power.

SL:

  • Thorgast. Many shun it, but I loved the power gains from the place, that you became an unchained destroyer with specific anima power builds. You also gained your power rapidly compared to endgame and had unique interactions on spells based on the best of class fantasy.
  • Systems weren’t that badly grindy as in BfA I believe, especially with the catchups BfA didn’t really have.
  • Covenants had some very good transmogs, mainly Necro and Venthyr.
  • Along with it, a TON of new mounts as well! Easier than ever to push the meta achievements.
  • Covenant spells and certain leggo passives cured/helped in a major way with some specs’ weaknesses, if they didn’t improve what was already strong.
  • Easier gearing with valor and honor systems, even in spite of less loot.

Overall, SL was slightly better imo.

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That’s exactly why SL as better.
I CANNOT express how much I HATED mechagon and Nazjatar. Oh my GOD.
And ofcourse my 2 BiS essences where there…

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BfA.
I didn’t really enjoy Horde v Alliance but I did enjoy us having separate zones that were lore rich and beautiful. It felt like proper exploration and befriending locals, I loved levelling and actually cared about the characters (though more Horde because I can’t stand Jaina any more).
The table missions were a bit meh but doable.
I liked Nazjatar but hated Rustbolt - I generally don’t like machine stuff, though.
I hated the block on flying with reps as with Legion.
I wished island expeditions were flexible from the start.
I wasn’t too fond of the dungeons.
I really enjoyed the old god stuff and even doing the corruption scenarios.

SL however? Story was fun -once-. I hated the Night Fae and my eyes bleed whenever I go there, I get migraines seriously it is TOO bright.
Having rep AND renown was just a pain, the world quest changes an even bigger pain.
Couldnt stand a lot of the characters, 2/4 covenant qlines boring, hated the Maw until Korthia but hated the qline.
I had great issue playing anything but my Prot Paladin until super geared.
Torghast was fun for a bit but became choreghast.
Professions were still borked and too expensive to use but at least there weren’t forced dungeon quests.
The latest place whose name escapes me was… okay. Good enough for gearing but then content drought unless you raid or M+ to death.
I still don’t understand table missions and never bother.

TLDR: BfA due to the story, zones and connection to the people. Replayability. And the most damning thing of all: after 2 weeks of SL I logged in and logged straight back out. This has NEVER happened to me before.

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BfA for me, only been around since Legion… SL made me take a break from the game for the first time. BfA had issues but I liked the open world more, the assaults worked nicely and corruption was fun (once you had it and they sorted out the issues - sort of.) SL CN raid aside is generally just poor IMVHO, yes it looks great but it is just not as fun or engaging.

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I guess Shadowlands is winning since BFA had so many systems and aquisition of items were so grindy and terrible that it was hurting the game a lot. Allthough covenants completely ducked up shadowlands. The dungeons in BFA were better (except siege) and we had more dungeons too.

Difficult to tell.

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Hmm let’s see. BFA has Sylvanas play karma Houdini most of the expansion, while me an alliance main has to watch her get away with all that nonsense. In SL we hunt her down, eventually defeat her and make her answer for her crimes.

Also you’re asking me to compare being surrounded by another flavor of humans or either blue Kyrian or Night Fae waifus.

I know which expansion I prefer, and it’s not the one with too much water in it.

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BFA didn’t make me unsub for nearly a year.

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I miss BfA, my fav expansion because WPvP and awesome zones. SL feels kinda like a nothing dream, boring zones and no WPvP. Hoping DF recaptures some of the BfA zone design style and WPvP.

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BFA for sure!
Better zones and storyline!

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BFA is 100 times better, i love the cities, i think the new zones were beautiful and the revamped zones (darkshore) the dungeons are much better the allied races were cool, and the lore was very good compared with the crap we got in shadowlands.
So Bfa.
I just hated shadowlands the night fae were boring as hell and Oribos was just awfull, the quests were not interesting the dungeons were meh and no new race…

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Let´s look at this objectively. From a 8.0-8.1 vs. 9.0-9.1 perspective.

Leveling:

BFA had six… SIIIXX leveling zones. You could also tackle the leveling zones in any order you pleased. Allowing you to skip parts you did not like.

Shadowlands only has four. Not only this, but the zones in Shadowlands are aesthetically poorer than the BFA zones, they are also a lot less fun. With players being forced to listen to exposition for 25 % of the leveling experience.

Winner: BFA

World Quests:

We don´t even have to debate this. WQ´s have never been worse than they are currently in Shadowlands. BFA already had worse WQ´s than legion, but there is no denying they are better than the WQ´s in Shadowlands.

Winner: BFA

Dungeons:

BFA had ten dungeons on release. Shadowlands only eight. I would also argue that dungeons like Freehold and Atal were superior to any of the Shadowlands dungeons. Running the same eight m+ dungeons a year into the release of the expansion feels awful.

Winner: BFA

Raiding:

Now this one is actually close. Castle Nathria is superior to Uldir, no questions asked, even with how buggy and unbalanced it was at release.

Battle for dazar’alor was one of the best raids Blizzard has ever released, and was actually decently balanced upon release. Gameplaywise, loot-wise and aesthetically superior to Sanctum.

Uldir does, however really pull down the raiding in BFA.

Winner: Very small win to Shadowlands

Systems introduced:

Ah yes, the ultimate battle. Azerite armor versus Covenants + The Maw + Boreghast? What system is worse. People are going to complain about grinding azerite, but the truth is this was only a problem and felt bad within the first 6 weeks of 8.0 and 8.1. With the catchup mechanisms in place every week, grinding azerite was a joke after this, and barely something you actively had to do on new alts created two months into the patch.

Azerite armor was awful, and didn´t get much better until 8.1 where they released the m+ vendor that allowed to buy pieces. Luckily, 8.1 was released pretty quick.

Covnenants however? Being forced to complete the story on every single character for an entire year after release is just insanity. Being locked out of all these cool class abilities, because of choices needing to matter or whatever. Unforgiveable.

Whilst azerite armor was awful, I would argue that covenants and the covenant leveling system are much worse. AP could be grinded casually very soon into patches, and you never had to step into a single island expedition if you weren´t a mythic raider.

Now if you compare Boreghast and Island expiditions? You actually never had to complete Island expiditions, whereas you have to do Boreghast to unlock legendaries. You also have to do Boreghast if you want to UPGRADE said legendaries.

Winner: There is no winner, both systems were awful and we are all losers here. Shadowlands infinitely worse, unless you were a mythic raider for the first weeks of release.

Alt friendlyness:

In BFA by the time 8.1 released all you had to do was level a character to max level, passively get AP from things that upgraded your gear, like WQs, warfronts and M+ and you were ready to raid, m+ and pvp. If you played 6 weeks after the release of 8.1 when AP catchup was strong, this might have been the most alt-friendly time to play WoW since the release of Legion. You could also get good gear really fast if you wanted by just grinding M+ and raid on your new alt (with bonus rolls). Whereas now with loot scarcity, you are forced to wait for your weekly vault to slowly upgrade your gear every week.

Shadowlands: Having to finish your covenant story + Having to do Boreghast + Having to grind your specific class legendary (I´m going to ignore the awful socket grind, since it is very min-max, it is however another awful Shadowlands system both in 9.0 in The Maw and 9.1 in Korthia).

There really is no competition here. BFA was in 8.1 at least, and 8.0 infinitely more alt friendly than Shadowlands.

Winner: BFA

Conclusion

BFA was on almost every objective metric, a superior expansion to Shadowlands. People who are talking about rose-tinted googles, about an expansion we didn´t even like, and that was out 2-3 years ago need to stop. Nostalgia isn´t why BFA was better, BFA was better because Shadowlands was simply worse.

(Note: I am only comparing the release and first patch of both).
9.2 was an atrocity, and makes BFA look even better!!! Shadowlands not even having a 9.3 does not help either.

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