Rank Each Expansion From Best to Worst!

Community General Discussion
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We all know that Vanilla Wow, the base game was pretty epic. That’s why Blizzard are developing dedicated Classic servers! :smiley: But which expansions are the best & why? Here’s me list…

I’ve still not got round to buying or playing Battle for Azeroth (BfA), so I can’t really comment on the expansion, which is why I have not included it in my list.

#1 - The Burning Crusade (TBC)
^^ This expansion got almost everything right. Basically it just built & improved upon what had already been tried & tested in Vanilla. Great lore & atmosphere throughout. Loads of excellent 5 man dungeons, 15 at launch if I am not mistaken & well as introducing heroic versions of 5 mans.

#2 - Cataclysm (Cata)
^^ This expansion is a unique beast. It did some things fantastically well & then other things really badly. If I just take into account the end game content, I had an absolute blast playing. I’m a Dungeoneer & would consider the Cataclysm 5 man dungeons/heroics the best Blizzard have ever produced… Raid style, challenging content in 5 mans. :heart_eyes: This expansions contains some of my favourite zones & questing experiences with Uldum, Deepholm & Mount Hyjal. If it wasn’t for the horrific changes that Cataclysm did to the old world (1 to 60 content) as well the crappy ending with the Dragon Soul patch, Cataclysm expansion would take #1 spot.

#3 - Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK)
^^ The expansion started off quite nicely, though tad on the easy side & somewhat under-tuned. Then came Ulduar which was epic, I still consider it one of the best raids ever. Sadly Blizzard would follow up 5 months later by releasing one of the worst raids ever as well as some pretty bad sweeping changes. :stuck_out_tongue:

#4 - Mists of Pandaria (MoP)
^^ As previously stated, I’m a dungeoneer, so I love my 5 man dungeons. Mist of Pandaria dungeons were awful! Some of the worst, nay, the worst dungeons in the game in my opinion. :face_vomiting: The lore & story was pretty good though & I did like Throne of Thunder patch.

#5 - Legion
^^ Pretty much on par with Mists of Pandaria, though I preferred MoP slightly mroe. Over all Legion was a good expansion. Middle of the road for me. I liked the questing experience & the way I could choose which order to complete each zone in.

#6 - Warlords of Draenor (WoD)
^^ Huge disappointment! Lack-luster content, zones delayed like Tanaan Jungle or scrapped entirely like Farahlon as well as mysterious island in south west of beta map. Also some of the most mind numbing questing in the whole game to date. :stuck_out_tongue:

Edit: typos & put list in correct order - originally listed from worst to best :stuck_out_tongue:
*** After seeing other people’s lists & reading what they had to say about MoP, I feel as though I may have been a bit harsh. I’ve decided to shift MoP up a rank & Legion down one. The more I thought about it, I realised I had an active subscription for the best part of 9 or 10 months of MoP… Where as with Legion I only had an active subscription for 3 maybe 4 months. ***

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yesssss :heart_eyes:

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1 - Legion:
A good continued story from TBC, the closing for years of storylines all culminating in a good ending raid.
Varied zones with interesting and ‘mostly’ engaging storylines.
The grind for AP did ruin a lot of things however, add Tomb of Soakgarass to that, it was unfun and punishing.
Surviving Nighthold burnout only to be killed by Tomb wasn’t nice.

2 - MoP:
I went into it with low expectations because Pandas, fell in love with the zones, each with their own unique aesthetics and feels. The tone darkened to fitting the changing stories.
So… Many… Dailies…

3 - Wrath:
It took all the lessons Blizzard had learnt from previous expacs and patches and made a generally good upgrade. The story was solid, the dungeons and raids were plentiful.
I never got to see Vault because the Horde always had Wintergrasp.
Occulus can go die in a fire, alongside Violet Hold.

4 - Cata:
The biggest change of the old world, it took the most gambles in it’s works and not all paid off.
The raids were alright, the dungeons were very punishing, a shocking departure to the Wraths HCs.
So… Much… Dragonsoul…

5 - WoD:
I liked WoD, when there was actually something to do.
Didn’t PVP and PVE was few and far between, got bored and played intermittently.
Great story until they butchered it at the end with “Draenor is free!”. I liked Yrel’s character and am a tad upset she’s now just going to be another villain.

6 - TBC:
I would go to a friend’s house every day after school and play TBC for an hour or two on his account which he never used.
Needless to say I never got much done as everything required too much commitment, more than I could give.
But returning to it later down the line, questing was quite punishing and unfun, especially that one quest in Shadowmoon with the boars and vegs and how they kept dying to the flayers.
Character assassinations and lore retcons left and right.

X - BfA:
Only once the story concludes and the expact ends, then I will say my thoughts.

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really tight on time so cant elaborate but.

Best to worst:
Wotlk
Vanilla
TBC
Legion
Pandaria
BfA
WoD
Cata

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Wrath
Mop
Legion
BC
BFA
Vanilla

Cata

WoD

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I wasn’t here for most of those expansions.

so i’m going to rate them based on how much i liked their story.

1- Wrath of the lich king. I liked it a lot. And even more liked it when yogg saron suddenly popped up in the middle of a war and made people realize that he’s a bigger threat that needs to be dealt with immediately. Old gods are interesting.

2- Legion. From the wound that azeroth received to the story of guldan and everything. quite enjoyable.

3- Cata: solely for the sake of old gods.

4- WOD: storywise, it was a good one. Gameplay wise? Terrible.

5- BFA: I actually like the way it’s going. But still incomplete, so it’s a wait and see situation.

6- BC: Wasn’t really a big fan of illidan being the villain of the story.

7- Pandaria: Pandas? Did they seriously rip off Kung Fu panda for an expansion?

8- Vanilla: I don’t know much about it to rate it.

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For me it would probably be something like this:-

  1. Wrath of the Lich King
  2. Mists of Pandaria/Legion
  3. The Burning Crusade
  4. Warlords of Draenor/Battle for Azeroth
  5. Cataclysm
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  1. TBC

  2. Vanilla

  3. Wrath

  4. Legion

  5. Mop

  6. Cata

  7. Bfa

  8. Wod People who say bfa is worse than wod are liars. There is stuff to do in bfa , there was nothing to do in wod except raiding and Ashran.

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  1. Mop
  2. Legion
  3. wrath
  4. cata
  5. tbc
  6. wod
  7. bfa
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Wrath - first expansion I stayed on top of things, vaguely knew what I was doing so I got to do some of the current raids before they were turned into a 1 boss weekly raid quest, also got a battered hilt on my first pit of saron run

Mop - Put my holy priest on the shelf after playing it since late tbc and made a destro lock so obvious #2 on the list

TBC - I don’t really have any great memories from tbc, no one wanted to do the shadowmoon valley quest helm with me, spent an hour or so pugging a dungeon I was the only one who couldnt enter because I didnt have a flying mount and I had the reaction time of a grandma somehow on one of the kara bosses I was assigned as a kicker so I got yelled at a lot, mainly on my #3 because the game still felt fresh and new

WOD - Worse version of MoP gameplay wise but still pretty fun, got my 83-0 HK record in strand of the ancients, bit of a dud otherwise

Cata - I quite enjoyed cata, sadly I played on alliance kazzak at the time so as my guild was approaching deathwing on heroic, diablo 3 rolled around and killed the whole server. I was also stuck with that one gross 2h sword from heroic stonecore for about a year on my warrior alt

BFA - I love just about everything about BfA apart from the gameplay, drustvar is maybe the coolest zone they have ever made.

Legion - I cant say legion left much of an impression aside from the mage tower, all the zones were kinda bland, the artifact weapon was a cool idea and collecting skins was pretty fun but other than that I didnt feel like they were really creating any magic *(the kara dungeon was pretty nice actually), good pacing tho

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I started to play in Cata, so I can’t say anything about WotLk and TBC

  1. MoP
    I really liked the story. From zone to zone you learned about the Pandaren, and their enemies. I loved reading through every single text I found. Also it had a lot of good features like the CM dungeons, brawler’s guild, green fire quest. Also the raids were pretty good (and had a lot of interesting trinkets). And PvP was extremely enjoyable back then.
  2. Legion
    The Artifact weapons were a system you could put a lot of time and effort into (collecting skins, farming AP, getting good relics). The class campaigns were mostly enjoyable, and M+ dungeons were great fun. As a not mythic raider I also didn’t mind the Legendaries so much. Especially because I hated how you obtained them in MoP and WoD and how they became something necessary instead of something special.The raids were also mostly good except a few bosses. But the last raid and argus felt rushed and underwhelming.
  3. Cata
    Well, it was my first expansion I played so of course I had a lot to do and everything was new. Professions were interesting to skill up because I could really use the craftable items, and with the old talent trees it felt really fun to experiment with it as a noob.
  4. BfA
    Worse version of Legion, but still okay
  5. WoD
    The only expansion where I took longer breaks because there was nothing really to do. I hated the garisson
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  1. Mists of Pandaria

Call it personal preference but Mists is when I really got into the game. The story was brilliant, the zones and music were beautiful and some of the raids/dungeons, hooh boy. I’ll miss hanging out in Shrine greatly or prancing around in the Timeless Isle.

  1. Legion

A fantastic recovery from the faults of the last Expansion, and whilst the timegates were disappointing and somewhat not worth the wait, the fact that they wrapped up some story lines here was brilliant. The fights against major lore characters were intense and awesome and the story really proved that we could hold off minor grudges to save the world. At least for a single expansion anyway.

  1. Cataclysm

Cataclysm was interesting and unique. Sure, it had slightly less content levelling wise, but the fact that they revamped the old zones, and gave interesting things to them, was super cool. It was fun to re-explore all of the old world again, like it had been given a fresh coat of paint. And Vashj’ir is probably the most beautiful zone in the game. Period. Maybe not so much fun though.

  1. Wrath of the Lich King

I liked Wrath of the Lich King. This was my first full expansion, having joined mid TBC. The zones were lovely, and I loved the wintery feel of it all. Death Knights were a cool and interesting idea (No pun intended). However I feel that things were a little complicated at times, and hard to follow. They were ambitious and it paid off, sure but as a relatively new player, I found myself constantly confused and having to ask for help.

  1. Warlords of Draenor

Wait what? This isn’t last? Yeah, the whole thing about WoD being a terrible expansion is a heap of bull. They’re only looking at the giant lack of content that we had. Yeah, I agree that really hindered the expansion. But barring the terrible launch and constant bugs, there was HUGE potential in WoD. It started out amazingly, the questing and the story were some of the best things about the expansion. The new models were very much welcome and the dungeons were fun and sometimes unique (Grimrail).

But the highlight for the expansion for me was the raids. Blackrock Foundry is probably THE best raid in the game, hands down. The fights were exciting, and epic, and just down right awesome. Hellfire Citadel had some cool fights too, and Highmaul was a good start despite being slightly lacking.

  1. The Burning Crusade

Yeah, not gonna sugarcoat it here, bring on the hatred. Burning Crusade was FAR too confusing for a newbie like me at the time. Sure, Wrath was similar but they had improved on it. The zones, whilst cool and interesting, were lackluster at times, annoying to navigate, and I could not follow the story at all.

Honestly, the only thing TBC has anything going for it is the nostalgia filter. Sorry if you disagree.

Vanilla:
Not including it properly on the list since it wasn’t an expansion and I never really played it properly.

BfA: It’s not complete yet so I can’t give a full judgement, but it’s not looking good so far.

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Best to worst.

  1. Cata - by a large fkin margin. And the only reason why is that the most of my friends played back then.
  2. Wotlk - theme and best raid ever added to the game(ulduar)

3.Mop- Only reason why is this piece of crap lorewise so high in my mind its class design - the best its ever been imho…nothing comes even close to it
4. Legion- there were always something to do and it was the time i rolled new class (sp) …and if u change a main class for the first time in a long time …the game feels kinda new again.
5. BFA - i had a fun for coulle of weeks at the begining. Nownits boring shallow nothingness of a crap filled with problems and too much randomness. It is bad.
6. TBC - didnt played too much of bc so my opinion here is with a reserve.
7. WoD - suprise…the worst for the last… wod was just a mistake and also the first time a left the game in middle of brf progress.

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1 - TBC
2 - WOTLK
3 - MOP
4 - BFA
5 - Legion
6 - Vanilla
7 - WOD
8 - CATA

people hyped for Classic and eyes covered with glits and glams… but Vanilla was a fine game, probably good because back then it was pretty amazing, but if we really have to compare the expansions Vanilla had pretty much nothing but grind and questing and RBGs. Raids were ok, but tedious, long and 40 players for 2 items loot. If it wasn’t for TBC I wouldn’t have continued playing WoW.

And my list covers pretty much my thoughts regarding content, side things to do, structure of the game, and End Game, even though BFA is not completed yet, So far it’s good, I rarely sit on my desk without nothing to do even if it’s just a crappy warfront or a worthless WQ. And with premades they’re at least trying to restore what it used to be our beloved LFG chat in 2007. It’s not anymore ‘random’ people, but you can choose who to bring with you, and sometimes there is even communication :scream::scream: whaaaat?

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1:TBC
2:wotlk
3:pandaria
4:WoD
5:Bfa
6:Cataclysm
7:Legion

Legion is hands down easily the least enjoyable expansion

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vanilla isnt an expansion however so it doesnt belong on the list

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Started in Cata so I’ll avoid Wrath/TBC.

MoP: Loved the expansion, it was nice to have something to every time I logged on and the story was engaging aside from the ending.

Cata: Terrible start. 4.3 redeemed it completely with viable catch-up and transmog which added years of life to the game.

BfA/WoD Both are equal. WoD was boring and there wasn’t much to do. BfA is mostly the same but 8.1 added some very nice world content with incursions and the revamp of post-Warfront questing as well as all the storylines. The only reason it doesn’t surpass WoD is because of Warmode splitting my server, the terrible story/lore and Allied Races giving the enemy faction access to one of the other’s models. That last part might seem small but it hurts one of the game’s core features: Faction identity and uniqueness. There’s a very uncomfortable disconnect when you look at the other faction and see a blue version of your own race getting ready to kill you.

Legion The only thing about this expansion that I liked (Aside from Account-wide transmog) was the Mage Tower. Purely because it gave me a reason to level and gear alts. If I’d only mained one or two characters I’d have been bored out of my mind. Much of Legion’s content was frustrating or just plain boring to do, especially early on. Legion was also my worst experience with the game thanks to what they did with the corrupted ashbringer appearance, having us camp a slime for 24-48 hours to create artificial rarity. And the time-gating was insane.

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(Not played vanilla or MoP) So that being said without futher a due:

  1. Tbc
  2. Wotlk
  3. Legion
    4.Wod
  4. Bfa
  5. Cata ( this expansion I quit and missed MoP because I was still salty over cata)
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#1 TBC - By far the best expansion ever produced. It was Vanilla with better class design and Arenas, tons of content, great atmosphere and lore, just loved everything and it’s my 10/10.

#2 Wrath - Not quite as good as TBC, many of the features I dislike in modern WoW had their beginnings in Wrath, but overall still nice class design, great (maybe best) story and lore, and it was overall fun. 8/10

#3 MoP - Can’t say it was anything as good as TBC or Wrath, but it was a step up from Cataclysm (which I totally hated). It had great class design especially in PvE (too much instant CC plagued MoP PvP in my opinion), the zones were pretty, CMs were fun, raids were fun after the first tier, overall a decent expansion with some nice memories to look back towards. It is the best expansion of modern WoW. 7.5/10

#4 WoD - While on the PvE side it was a letdown for me personally compared to MoP, and it suffered from too little content and being too Garrison centric, and while the first two seasons were bad, I had a good time in the last year of WoD playing Arena with my friends. Classes were still recognizable, despite the pruning going overboard (should have pruned only some instant CC and leave it at that), and still fun to play. Because I did have a decent time in it, I’ll give it a 7/10.

#5 BfA - at least so far, while I can’t take it any more and it’s boring me to death, at least they attempted to fix some of the crap from Legion. Sure, these attempts are not nearly enough, but they did try something at least. I like the artwork, zones, music, dungeon artwork, I’m ok with the story and even think the Alliance part is decent, but that’s about the extent of what I have to say that is good about BfA. Everything else is utterly bad, the expansion is plagued by extremely poor and boring class design, game destroying systems like titanforging, random sockets, welfare everywhere, scaling, AP system, Azerite gear, pvp lootboxes - all of which would have to go to return the game to something I like. I wouldn’t mind afkfronts and stupid islands if they wouldn’t make them mandatory with top notch rewards. 4/10

#6 Legion - Just like BfA, it had nice artwork, zone design, dungeon design, music. That part has always been good in WoW, except for Cataclysm. Suramar in particular is making me rate this expansion over Cataclysm, because it was absolutely beautiful. That, and mythic plus. Beyond these things, only garbage systems that made me not want to play the expansion a few months in: horrible class design, artifact power, titanforging & random sockets, RNG legendaries, pvp lootboxes - these are just a few of the things off the top of my head, but in all honesty I didn’t enjoy playing at all in this expansion. I’m even being nice giving it ,1 point because it’s the minimum on my scale, 1 point for Suramar and 1 point for mythic+, so 3/10.

#7 Cataclysm - I have nothing good to say about this expansion, except that the dungeons were fun for the first few weeks until they nerfed them. Aside for that, Cataclysm literally took the game from a very good point, and brought it to a very low point. It introduced some of the worst systems in the game to date, it didn’t even have at least the nice zone design every single other expansion had, it had absolutely nothing fun about it for me. Without a doubt, 1/10.

Edit: if Vanilla should be on the list, it would be second, before Wrath and after TBC.

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Recurring topic.

Most loved is usually WOTLK
Most disliked WoD.

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