@Rompuche: Cataclysm. Biggest expansion specific baseline player losses, new areas were too disconnected, large part of player base did not like the underwater stuff, etc. In short, Cataclysm not only shattered Azeroth, it also broke the player base. 
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Some expansions work like a state of anarchy.
Itâs fun at first when the rules are thrown out, but when the dust settles you see the damage its done and itâs usually the sister expansion after that suffers it.
While Legion was fun, the expansion after (BfA) we noticed the damage of AP Grind and Mythic+, like we partied so hard using those systems but now the town ran out of food and water.
So much WoW now lives on Mythic+ hooked to it like a drug addict to try and live off that high when really it needs to be away from it and build back up again.
Legion. The class design of post-Legion is a direct consequence. Borrowed power grind systems, loot casino, forcing players into activities they donât want to do, those are also legionesque things.
It wasnât the worse expansion, because bfa was worse, but it did the most lomg term damage imo.
Some people donât know what are they talking about.
Biggest damage done was WoD simply because of fixed 20 raid. Consequence of that was not only in raiding scene but also for pretty much entire playerbase. This simply drove away players that played in tight groups of friends. And that triggered a chain reaction of massive shift to overall community structure.
Another thing was printing free money so it also destroyed economy for almost 3 expansions.
Lack of content or boring open world is not long-term damage. Expansion sucked overall but it was temporary.
Now what is absolute nonsense:
- class design - people played this game for 1-3 expansions where rotations were pretty much one button spam or one button macro. No class changes had any influence on âdamage to the gameâ whatsoever
- flying - flying has absolutely no influence on people willingness to play, we learned that from 4 expansions. In fact, we have learned people would rather quit than to play wow without flying at all (in WoD they tried to remove that forever)
- borrowed powers - absolute nonsense, people really donât care about that. We had 3 expansions with borrowed power, legion had most borrowed power and somehow is rated high by players
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Cataclysm was definitely the turning point.
The world changed massively, LFR was introduced, the dumping down of specs started, Holy Power was implemented for paladins 
and we had a MASSIVE lose of subscribers.
Also, at least for me, game lost itâs core FUN. I cannot exactly explain it but it lost that feeling that you would log after a long, hard day even without having anything to do and still enjoy your time.
After that I would say probably MoP cause of the new talent trees (more like talent bushesâŠ)
Narratively. Legion, BFA and now SL.
In both Legion and BFA we had most of WoWâs established villains killed off or defanged, and SL seems to be killing of some more while also bringing back dead characters.
They joy of losing the alpha worgen to anti-furry feedbackâŠ
âŠAnd they dropped very sharply in legion too. In fact, by the end of Legion (and indeed BFA), less people played than in WoD. In fact, according to some extrapolations from Raider IO data + pvp title handouts, the playerbase fluctuated very, very sharply in both expansions, we just donât have the data.
WoDâs cardinal sin was that it had no content. I agree with that. Thatâs a massive flaw.
However.
WoDâs gameplay systems were miles, miles and miles ahead better than those of Legion or BFA.
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WoD destroyed this game.
WOD
-Items droped random stats
-No more sockets (only when proc)
-New stats (multistrike/versa etc / no more hit,expertise,spirit,dodge,parry
-Changed socketing system (even when old was OK)
And many more things
WOD was basically Pre LEGION test
I like LEGION because it was fun to collect those AP weapons and lvl them
but the OLD wow died in WOD at least for me
For me it was WOD.
It was the first expansion which I didnât buy and the first one where I didnât pay for a month.
I had played solid up until Wotlk and dipped in an out of during Cata and Mists (both of which I enjoyed playing). But the return to Draenor? Fighting demons again⊠just wasnât really interested⊠then I tried a free weekend and it didnât do it for me.
Then I never looked at Wow again until I saw a Cinematic where the Sylvannas jumped off a Siege Tower in full Banshee mode screaming FOR THE HORDE!!! I was in. Wow was back to what is was supposed to be about. I loved BFA so much. Easily the best expansion the game had.
Wrath, at least in terms of introducing design parameters and ideas to WoW.
Virtually all the things that you could argue are now wrong with the game can trace themselves back to Wrath, in terms of class, world, pve encounter and QoL system design.
Personally I hated the shift from WoD to Legion the most though.
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Wrath of the Lich King probably, followed by Legion.
Unfortunately these are also the most popular expansions but itâs funny that, shortly after those expansions, continuing their ideas seem to do the game no favours.
I would rather say itâs peoples thirst for fanservice and waifus that ruined the game lol, as wow is more, rough on the edges.
I totally agree with this. I dispised Cata. Some of the zones were also horrible. it is the first time I quit the game for quite a while.
In the past Iâd say Cataclysm but if Shadowlands continues the way itâs going now it might just become Shadowlands. Plenty of time to fix it though so fingers crossed.
No expansion, them huge bonuses that come from firing people, do.
I feel like Cataclysm is often brought up by people who didnât even play back then. It has become the go-to meme response to say that Blizzard âf:edâ up Azeroth with Cata. But I thought the revamp was great.
The real problems started with WoD, because thatâs when WoW started changing for good. MoP had almost perfected WoWâs formula, but then they started with the âYou are a literal Godâ plotlines. The player character was suddenly âThe Chosen Oneâ wherever it went. On top of that, thatâs also when they started with the currency grind in the form of Apexis Shards, which turned into Artifact Power, Azerite, and now Anima.
I would say that I think Shadowlands will be considered the death knell for WoW years from now. But I still have hopes that theyâll fully revamp the world in the next expansion, at which point people will probably come back en masse.
However, if Iâm wrong and the next expansion isnât a big revamp, for example if itâs just yet another micro expansion with a focus on cosmic forces, turning the player into a God-like figure, and a very small narrative scope overall, then I think thatâs the end.
MoP. Easy. The god-awful talent âtreeâ system it introduced is nothing short of absolutely atrocious, and to this day probably the single worst change ever made to this game. It also ruined class design and brought with it the absolute worst class in the game.
MoP can die in a fire as far as Iâm concerned.
Iâm still super salty about WoD when they decided to introduce the socket system nobody asked for and the removal of stats like hit rating and expertise