Which expansion had the best, and which had the worst dungeons?

Best has to be Cata, I thoroughly enjoyed Blackrock, Halls, Grim Batol, Throne, ZA/ZG

Worst has to be WoTLK, so many dungeons and many bad ones - Oculus, Violet Hold, Pit, Halls of Stone, Azjol, Trial…

What’s yours?

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I think Légion had the best dungeons of all time. The worst ? I’d say BFA

Think Im in the same boat as you tbh.

Cata dungeons were hard, unique and punishing. Favourite boss was Ozruk… so many deaths haha

WOTLK was pretty steam roll tbh, and the fair few annoying mechanics and dungeons you stated above.

Although my favorite dungeon recently has to be waycrest manor, I love the aesthetics and mood it sets

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I loved MoP dungeons, they were so fun (especially Stormstout Brewery!)

My least favourite is probably WoD with the exception of the Everbloom.

Favourite overall dungeon is definitely Waycrest Manor though, absolutely loved that one

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None.

SL’s worst dungeon: Sanguine depths.
BFA’s worst dungeons: Junkyard because season 4 affix was horrible. Tol Dagor because the instance was bugged beyond belief.
Legion’s worst dungeon: Seat of the triumvirate. That instance just plain sucked.
WoD: Grimrail depot. Who even thought this would be a good idea?
MoP: Shado-pan monastery. Just plain boring.
Cataclysm: None.
Wotlk: The Oculus.
TBC: Black Morass, because I played a gnome back then. Who thought it would be a good idea to put water so high that gnomes have to swim in there?
Vanilla: Stratholme, RFK after the changes, gnomeregan, uldaman.

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They ruined two very good raids in my view and destroyed very good dungeons in SFK/DM and others in the revamp.

So in my view Cata had worse dungeons.

Best dungeons i would say is TBC or Legion.

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Legion best, wrath worst

Best: TBC
Worst: WoD

Aesthetic/theme wise MoP dungeons are my favorite.

I’m not a big dungeon person.
I just want them to be over fast and easy.

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You must hate the Oculus then :joy:

Also basically any encounter where you don’t play your own character but use some vehicle or other thingamajig that gives you new buttons and whatnot. Hate that. So that’s double hate for Oculus.

This a very hard to quantify because dungeons have served different purposes over the years.

Without M+ in mind I would have to say Vanilla, its the only era where dungeons actually felt like a dungeon, few of them like BRD were giant labyrinths and you could take different paths to explore them, and were essentially 5 man raids due to their size. Imo opinion this design should be revisited in future expansions.

With that said, bosses are also a big part of the dungeon experience and while the zones themselves were superior imo the bosses were lacking (even back then). For me Legion had the best dungeon bosses and was the expansion where dungeons worked best with M+, however BfA introduced the season affixes which as an idea are good but as an implementation are hit and miss. For me they are mostly misses atm but still the idea is good and brings a bit of flavor each season.

Conclusion: I would like to have the best of both worlds regarding the future of the game and it’s dungeons. I would like them to keep their M+ model with smaller (3-5 boss) dungeons intended for M+, but for the sake of variety they should also design bigger mega dungeons that players could explore and get lost in, make use of their professions (alchemists making acidic potions to burn plants that block hidden areas etc), but with current day more complex Boss mechanics, also these mega dungeons will not be separated into 2 or more parts to fit the M+ model, yes their longevity will be compromised but it’s the player experience that would be their selling point.

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Oculus was the worst experience I’ve had in dungeons in WoW and among the worst I’ve had in any game at all and I hope they never repeat it again. Playing all this time as my own character and then… VEHICLE COMBAT.

I usually skipped out on the start of Ulduar and let someone bring an alt instead of me being there for flame leviathan. I sincerely hate vehicles.

The only experience that rivals oculus and flame leviathan is the ending of dying light. That’s how bad it was.

Vanilla had the best dngs, worst yea wrath .

TBC had the best overall - not all but most.

MOP was the worst for me, all too easy, but that was a given at that stage, but just generally soulless.

Pandaria has easily some of the worst dungeons in the entire game.

Fighting giant rabbit monsters that throw carrots ? Helping pandas make beer and fighting beer monsters ? Not to mention Lorewalker Cho’s terrible stories.

What the hell were they thinking…

WOTLK doesn’t totally deserve the bad rep generally. Sure, some of the dungeons weren’t great but it also had one of the best they’ve ever done, in Utgarde Pinacle.

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Cataclysm were my favs that includes Za and ZG .

Vortex Pinnacle is still gorgeous today and the music is belisima !

I liked the 2 revamped classic dungeons.

I do hope in 10.0 if we go back to Azeroth they do something with Dire maul all 3 sections. Let’s just say it’s lacking they could spruce it up make it more interesting.

Halls of origination felt like a proper dungeon , it was long but rewarding. It’s very sad now how everyone just skips everything and goes to Rahj.

then we had the three catchup dungeons , something we never saw again. Something they could have done for 9.2. Nice lore , nice dialogue , feel some flavour of the zone. It could have even been 3 caverns of time dungeons , seeing what the first one’s looked like. How did it go so wrong etc.

They put alot of love in the cata dungeons , sadly players just want to rush rush rush. So the idea of hard bosses , using CC on mobs brought an uproar on the forums. Blizz nerfed everything to the ground. Destroyed the meaning of dungeoneering.

Sadly we will never something like that again as everything has to be designed around mythic+ Which is also the reason we have so few dungeons each expac.

Best: Vanilla, because there was actual variety, some were short and linear (Deadmines), some were a classic DnD like maze (Sunken Temple), some had 2 entrances leading in the same path (Maraudon), some were an open town square leading towards 2 end goals (Stratholme) and some were an epic intrecate interconnected underground town (BRD). Also the atmosphere in many of them was top notch.

Best modern dungeons: Legion

Worst: MoP, probably. Really generic boring ones, and there were only like 6, and also 2 redesigns, one of which was a huge downgrade (Scholomance).

Wrath had the best dungeons. BFA had the worst. I dont know about Shadowlands dungeons because dont care to do them. They are probably something between WoD and Legion bad.