Cataclysm suffered A LOT not from the things it added, but from the things it removed. It took Blizzard at least until Shadowlands to figure out that people generally do not like having things they already had in the past taken away.
To elaborate: aside from revamped gameplay mechanics and many "fluff" abilities pruned away (although Warlords was even worse in that regard), the biggest mistake in my eyes was to make the old Classic version of Azeroth inaccessible. It doesn't matter if the new Cata zones would be better in every regard. The old ones are gone. *And,* the Warcraft universe already has the Bronze Dragonflight to serve as an excuse for stuff that doesn't make sense timeline-wise, and add events of the past into the current game. Come on Blizzard, it's not that hard to add Classic to Chromie Time or something. Especially when WotLK Classic will come to an end. And if they just move on to Cataclysm "Classic", that defeats the purpose Classic was for in my eyes. The same goes for time-gating content. Please, tell me one reason that benefits the game, on why the legendary questlines of Mists and WoD had to be removed at the end of their respective expansion? It does nothing but punish collectors who did not play during those expansions. And yes, some people like me are weird and like to collect legacy stuff that is utterly useless in the current content. (Although Mists/WoD timewalking may want a word on this) People want to 100% a game. Making stuff deliberately unobtainable makes 100%ing it impossible for everyone who started after the removal. Some may argue that it puts pride onto the few players who got now unobtainable items in their time, but I'd say the number of completionist players far outnumbers these.
@@frtzkng also, Cata was the expansion that introduced LFR and started to make every class capable of doing everything. Rogues can heal themselves, same for warriors, mages can heroism, hunters stopped using ammo/mana (my god, there were broken af at launch)... it was the shift from "wow is an mmo rpg" towards "wow is an online rpg with mmo aspects". Sure, heroics were "difficult" at launch (asuming wow was somewhat dificult back then - to me it wasn't-), but introducing easier versions of raids? Lol, no thanks. You can go afk and die in a boss and the team will kill it anyway. Also, talents. I remember people being hyped about 5 new talent points to spend (remember, wotlk came with crazy and relatively viable hybrid specs) but Blizz said nope. You now have less talent points and a restriction on usage of them (you couldn't spend talent points on another tree til' you reached 80, if i remember correctly). Did i mention DKs? Blood was a dps spec til' the playerbase started using it as tank and frost as dps, while in Cata they killed that fun of experimenting with builds. It had good lore questlines, fun endgame raids but that's it for me. Since there it feels like Blizzard started thinking about us as kids that need someone to take our hand and guide us. At least in Dragonflight we can try different things with the split talent system...
Cata had 2 problems,no raid in 4.1 and no equivalent of WotLK 10 man Normal raid difficulty, LFR isn't it. Everything else about Cata was a much better WotLK.
@@badass6300 Cata was too ambitious for its own good. Things needed updated, including old zones. They did it but they also tried to give too much to late game and dropped the ball half way through then at the end yet again. If they had a more low key experience similar to vanilla it would have gone over better. More focus on factions and how the world has changed rather than an epic Dragons and old gods tale they gave us. Focus on the bigger scale in the next expansion and let people have time to soak it all in. Also didn't help that there was a difficulty spike going from Wrath to Cata in end game content. Mechanics needed to be followed and knowledge of the game had. Wrath was tank and spank heroics. Cata wasn't.
@@randomasgray I think all those things are what elevated Cata over WotLK and TBC. And for lower difficulty, they just needed to add a Raid difficulty, like WotLK's 10 man normal, that was straight after Normal Dungeons and it would drop Heroic dungeon ilvl gear, you wouldn't even have to do Heroic dungeons. (LFR wasn't it and dropped gear better than heroic dungeons for some reason). That and add a raid in 4.1 and it's the best expansion ever.
“One second your miles under water in Vash’jir, the next you’re climbing Mount Hyjal summit.” As opposed to being in rocky orange hell to rainy mushroom swamp? WoW zones have always taken you to random spots. And the story of Cataclysm was miles more understandable and clear than TBC.
In defense of Battle for Azeroth, I loved the dungeons and I committed myselft the most to raids and mythic+ back on it’s time. I believe that the one thing that was not fun was the endless reputation grind, tough leveling and island expeditions. But for some reason, visions was fun and the Zandalar and Kul’tiras zone was a formidable job did by the Art Team, and the leveling quests from both was fantastic.
All expansions of and after Legion had fun parts that were made not fun based on too much grind or too many micro rewards making each reward not feel impactful.
Cata is one of my favorite expansions, I was really disappointed when they nerfed the difficulty of heroics because of all the people complaining on the forums.
I agree, it was my first WOW expansion and the one that convinced me to play the game. The Panda release started well but I remember hitting a zone in the South where it was straight out of VLDL, getting quests like "Help adventurer, my sheep (or something) are missing please go round them up".
@@networknomad5600 I loved Mists of Pandaria, I have the collectors edition for that one. I think it added a lot of flavor to the game. New PvP modes and maps, great storylines. Most people seem to only remember Kung Fu pandas but there was so much to explore and see in Pandaria. Thematically it had flavors for both players that wanted the faction war and didn't. Lots of naturalism but I remember playing Horde and getting onto Pandaria after being shot down and crash landing. My top 3 expansions are really WOTLK, Cata, MoP
I started WoW during Cataclysm so it was very fun for me. I immediately fell in love with the world and the lore. Also yes Drakonids playable as warriors, rogues, warlocks, mages, etc would have been so much better than what we got with Dracthyrs/Evokers !
Instead of giving them access to more classes they should have made the evoker class a hybrid triple role class instead. Similar to the Paladin. Except they could have made it so it had 2 dps specs and 1 tank spec. The game doesn't really need more healers. It will if they release 2 more classes, which is unlikely. DPS 1 is the caster evoker we got. DPS 2 could be a real polearm class. Dragoons are common dragon themed warriors that literally fight dragons. They would make more sense than hunters or monks as the polearm users. Dragon Knights were units in WC3. Completely random and made no sense at the time, but they were around. They were tanky as hell though. Rework the passives so that it gives temporary flight or a good glide in non flight zones, but just lets you outright fly with a unique animation in flying zones. The glide angle better than the demon hunter. Lose less air than they do.
@@YuyuHakurei I agree a Dragoon/Dragon Knight class would be cool. Still, I don't like Dracthyr/Evoker and would have prefered a more DnD aproach like a Dragonborn race who has access to the base classes.
@@purpledragonofdoom It might be time to redo all the racials in the game and make them interesting. They all kinda lazy and not as impactful as every races original racials. It might be cool if they made a pool of racials instead and let you pick from that pool for your character. That way you can not have like 75% of your racials be useless with whatever class you make. As long as it follows the same rules that Racials usually do. Like they often do a major ability, a minor ability, and a profession enhancement of some kind. They should all be as interesting as Dragon peeps.
@@YuyuHakurei yes I'd love more interesting racials too. It also makes me think of vanilla priests having a unique spell depending of the race. Imagine classes with differences based on your race, this would be awesome. But Blizzard made the racials irrelevent because it was "unbalanced" (although the differences where only felt by min-maxers). Edit: also, the Zandalari trolls have a racials which you can customize if I recall correctly. This could be expanded to other races and fit with your idea of a racials pool.
I had the most fun in Cataclysm actually, challenging dungeons felt so refreshing. Class design was really good imo and zones were cool. Just the feel of the world coming to an end set a really cool atmosphere, where you saw so many zones infested with evil cultists, who ran everywhere.
Yeah same. I remember being so excited to see the changes to old zones. Was always fine with it as private servers were around and figured Blizz would eventually open old servers so sorta figured we would see the old world again. I remember watching totalbiscuit on every zone and it’s changes, man rip TB. Cheers yall
Cata gets a lot of undue hate for how it ended with such a dissapointing raid. The first 3 raids were great. Molten Front was fine. The zones were all gorgeous. Not needing to grind rep at all was so nice QOL wise. Class homogenization was shitty but workable. And if you ever leveled an alt in Cata you probably got to level 60 without blinking and then suddenly stopped for some reason.
@@LrdZanny I actually had a ton of alts in cataclysm, I just loved how retri played or fire mage combustion was so satisfying to pull off and I do still miss the 0.5 GCD dual wield frost or just 0.5 GCD Unholy DK.. that was soooo much fun to play. Nowadays DK feels extremely slow.
In my personal opinion… I don’t know how you can say Cata was not fun but MoP was. Cata raids were awesome (Firelands!!), PvP was great, transmog and reforging were awesome features, mount journal, ZA and ZG as heroic dungeons, archeology was a cool new addition, new class combos, worgen and goblins. MoP had it’s good sides like PvP but everything felt so goofy during MoP.
Cata took class design to its peak until Shadowlands and Dragonflight, it also took the dungeon and raid boss mechanics and design to a whole new level. The revamped leveling zones were great. All the systems from WotLK were improved upon. The Heroic Dungeons were awesome, it had some of the best raids to this day. PVP was at its best before Shadowlands and Dragonflight, if not still. Cata was a better WotLK in every way, except in two things. Cata didn't have a raid in 4.1, making it the first expansion with only 3 raid tiers and it didn't have an equivalent to 10 Man Normal Raid difficulty in WotLK, LFR was not it. If it had those two, it would be the best expansion ever. MoP has 2x amazing raids, ToT and SoO, two of my favorite raids. It added the monk, amazing class. It had some very good leveling zones, it added the brawler's guild, it added the scenarios and it added Flex Raid difficulty, which was the missing WotLK 10 man Normal difficulty. And that's where the good things end. MoP was the expansion where the leveling became brain dead and it lasted until Shadowlands. The Dailies were awful, the timeless isle got boring really fast. It actually had many bad dungeons, which was a first since Vanilla. The first tier of raids were very mediocre, worse than Dragon Soul for sure. There was so much scripting in the isntances. It removed talent trees, it started showering you with items, it was just a mess. The class design was awful, it had bad spell scaling too like in TBC, which reduced rotations as patches went along, and it had so much CC and utility it was absolute hell.
@@Shamanierrro No, I disliked MoP for tons of other reasons. Most of the dungeons were bad and boring, and way too easy, I mean vanilla level easy, even Heroics.Then the dailies were absolute chore. The isle of thunder was alright, but the timeless isle, well it wan't timeless, got old and boring really fast. The initial raids were worse than dragon soul, which is a solid raid, Tier14 were just alright. The removal of talents(Cata had the best talents), was annoying. The PVP was CC and Untility/Mobility hell. The leveling became absolutely trivial, yes in cata if you had a pet and/or heirlooms it was easy too, but for the most part it was still threatening and you didn't 1-2 shot everything after level 15. The power creep was insane in MoP, both from just 85-90, but also due to the ilvl creep. They started showering you with gear and the systems for gearing got too out of hand. MoP like Cata had a lot of content draught and only 3 raid tiers, but it also did NOT have new dungeons every tier, thus no dungeon tiers. There were scaling issues with some specs, wich reduced their rotations, below Cata level. Too many spells were off the GCD. Now there are positives to MoP. First the Monk class is awesome, second the pandaren are great and really cool that we got a shared/neutral race. Throne of Thunder and Siege of Orgrimmar are two of the best raids of all time. Scenarios were ok in execution, but a good concept. The brawler's guild was great. Flex was a great addition, it brought back the WotLK 10 man raid difficulty to the game that Cata was sorely missing(LFR was absolutely not it), but it also added to the inflation to the ilvl and power creep, which could have been handled better. Also in MoP all the old content became basically irrelevant and it was the first expansion where the game became entirely patch based. Vanilla and TBC were linear, WotLK and Cata you did 2 raid tiers at a time and before MoP, if you wanted to go to older raids, you still needed a group of people.
For me BFA was fun, well I did start playing it in 8.1, so I didn't experience the hate behind azerite gear and having to grind necklace to lvl 50, but I loved mechagon and nazjatar, the only expansion where I actually put in the time to grind for pathfinder.
BFA was fun for me too, it was Legion minus, it was slightly worse than legion in every way, but Legion was a top notch expansion, except for PVP. And I never grinded AP in BFA, I got it sure, but I didn't care for getting too much of it and still I did Heroic raids and +10 mythic keys. Plus they made it really easy to gain in 8.1 and especially 8.1.5
If you were like progress raiding at endgame, I can tell you it was not fun. Endless chores and RNG grinds across all its mad systems, I just couldn't tolerate it. Even now I've not come back, it left that much of a sour taste.
@@FuuuckOffff I did Heroic Raiding in BFA and my necklace wasn't up to the power level of the week ever, I didn't have the best corruptions, I just did a few mythic+ and then just raided, that's the most WotLK thing ever if you ask me. And I did Horrific visions in 8.3, because they were awesome.
The best things about Shadowlands were the aesthetic and absolutely gorgeous zones… but they were badly hampered by the fact they were all just small islands, broken up from being one open zone. But damn are all the zones and vistas and backgrounds beautiful and fantastical.
It's part of the whole tragedy and highlights how bad SL was. Ardenweald and Revendreth were two of the best looking zones in WoW ever, and somehow... it was still lifeless, joyless, sterile and depressing.
@@19Szabolcs91 well that is the game in general lifeless it pretty much been that way for ever. but i guess the expansion it the mark since death is supposed to be lifeless joyless and sterile and depressing and since the expansion was based off of death it makes since you got those feelings lol.
@@userunknown1030 Yes, it makes sense for it to be bad, but it just proves that it was a bad idea to base an expansion on the afterlife, especially with just a nihilistic story where you keep suffering, losing, you are powerless to affect anything and are always many steps behind the villains.
@@19Szabolcs91 well that is how all mmo are built you always got to be one step behind the villains or their wouldn't need to be a story line are an advancement in the story your ahead of the bad guy they wont be able to do much lol.
I know the Legion theme of being a leader of your class was somewhat divisive, but I will just say... my main and the class... we have an emotional connection so to speak. And being recognized by other NPC´s of that class as one of their own, felt so strangely wholesome. Like "these weirdos are my family" type of feeling. Losing that later felt like being dropped from a friend group :D
Cata was FUN until Dragon Soul dragged for 1 year because Mists had long development cycle. In other words, my boy Cata suffered so that Mists could be expansion we know it is.
Just started playing WoW a few days ago for the first time ever, and questing through BFA has been an amazing introduction so far. I absolutely LOVED the entire section of the siren shipwreck and Freehold, and Fallhaven has been INCREDIBLY fun.
BFA added a few cool things, but the lack of content was the reason I didn't really enjoy it. I loved Warfronts, those were amazing as hell, stromgarde was great fun, but then there was Darkshore and that was all. Zones were gorgeous, and the allied races were cool, but other than everything I said, there wasn't much. Overall, it was a boring expansion, as I said, bc of the lack of content. I respect ur opinion, bur I thought I'd say what I'd say. If u enjoyed it, hey, keep doing what u do.
@@warriorsworld4638 i dunno, i loved BFA because it felt like I never had to stop doing anything. In fact, most people complained that there was too much stuff to do, but it just felt like most were meaningless (pet battles had massive changes that were great, heritage sets, allied races, corruption events, etc) but it was never a lack of content, it was more of a "theres thousands upon thousands of things you can do which are really good systems, but none of them make you stronger, they're all cosmetic or character flavor stuff, and if you want power you have to do the raiding and mythic+ from legion"
Cata was a better WotLK in every single way, except 2 things. It didn't have a raid in 4.1 and it didn't have an equivalent difficulty of 10 Man Normal WotLK, and LFR was NOT it. On the other hand WotLK has Trial of the Crusader, the single worst raid in WoW's history, so there is that too, along with Eye of Eternity and Ruby Sanctum... Some people don't like Wrath Naxx, but I think it's great.
I was really looking forward to Warlord. It had the potential to being one of the best expansion ever, with player housing version of garrison, and all the content that was cut.
i was one of those who didnt look up any videos or install any addons during classic's release and had an amazing time. its my favorite memories of all of wow
I thought Cata was fun. Except the huge time gaps between patches. And Dragon Soul being overall meh and way overstaying its welcome. Hopefully if we get Cata Classic it'll be a better experience, as there's a lot of strengths in the core content - classes felt balanced, most of the raids and dungeons were excellent, PvP was tolerable (for me, as a non-PvP'er) and I quite like the revamped old world (though I wish it was toggleable).
Am I the only one who enjoyed classic TBC? Minus the lvl 60 boost and the rampart botting since blizzard being Indie ofc. I'm in love with the vibe Outland offered and how badass the instances were. Shattrath was really chill to afk/hang out at. Most of the raids were fun & epic (I say most cause hyjal). On top of that, arena was pretty fun imo compared to how it evovled post wrath, because it was rather simple to understand and more of a chess game, which made it more accessible and enjoyable for new players/casuals.
I began playing WoW in Legion and I enjoyed BfA very much. The Alliance vs. Horde Story feels like the real Warcraft and I enjoyed the World Building around it in Azeroth. I mean we got more events on Azeroth like Teldrassil and Loerderon and were not on any alien planet far far away. As a Nightelf Main I was sad because of Teldrassil but this event catched me simultanously and I wanted revenge at the Darkshore Warfront. For example Dragonflight is gameplay wise very much fun but the Story around Dragons and Dracthyr is quite boring for me personally
My favorit all time was Wrath. Loved warcraft 3 lore, and beeing able to partake in the conclusion of such story was all that i wanted, and death knights. =P
Shadowlands lore had taken a lot of lore… Arthas, the orcs ancestors, the dreadlords ie and Just made it all feel pointless and Lackluster. Now playing back Wrath and Warcraft 3 , I just can’t get shadowlands out of my head and just feel the entire story as a disappointment. Best I can do is mark that expansion as a N’zoth trick
I think it’s worth noting that Cataclysm fixed WOTLK’s issue with tank and spank mechanics. Heroics we’re actually difficult in the opening patch and required hard CC to complete. Definitely something that should have been addressed.
Regarding the "healthy" community in WotLK classic, I find it very upsetting that all big realms are now 99% one faction dominated. I wish I saw players from the enemy faction too in the world running around.
Cata was enjoyable, especially in hindsight. People forget, but they made dungeons very challenging at launch and it was a fun challenge to undertake. The story was also pretty straightforward, so not sure how anyone was confused: Deathwing wants to bring about the hour of twilight; he enlists various old gods-affiliated forces to help him to do it. I actually really liked that we got to hop around the world to the different zones. It was dynamic and you got to experience a new, reshaped world.
The questing of Cata was excellent. The overarching plot was unimportant meh, but the *local* quest lines and stories of almost every zone were amazing, in vanilla Azeroth you never really cared about what's going on in any particular zone, just go gather 10 bear assholes and that's it, but Cata perfected phasing, so your actions actually affected the world around you, it was brilliant.
BFA was real fun in the very beginning, i was with multiple raid groups raiding Zuldazar as the alliance, piling horde bodies everywhere, hella fun. And not just ganking, there were real fighting going on. In drustvar i remember, fghting for 6 hours during a warfront, with horde and alliance NPCs fighting in the background, aswell as many many horde and alliance players, pushing back and forth between that wall in drustvar, and the bridge if you know the place. Really cool and enjoyable... then it all just stopped. And without the world pvp and big battles, the expo sucked and was just really empty.
Classic was fun for the first month or 2 until the min max culture took over where you had to have the most optimal gear talents class composition possible to get into most guilds or groups even though the content was easier then the easiest LFR raid lol
Tbh since Legion, i feel a strange burnout from Wow. i did love it and liked to lvl 70 in dragonflight, but idk what it is, but i can't play it anymore without the feeling coming back
I think the most striking thing about Shadowlands is that it isn't your bog standard bad expansion. What Cata, WoD, and BfA all have in common is that yeah they were big let downs but that's partially because they were really overhyped. With Shadowlands people went in with extremely low expectations and still got massively disappointed.
As a Real PvP Main (Open World and BG) and Shammy I loved BC the most out of all. But you are right, they should have never let both factions get palas and shammys, it definitely took away the uniqueness of the factions and was the FIRST STEP of making WoW normie casual bs 👌🏻
Cataclysm was by no means unfun... To me, it was when I really started enjoying the game. I started in TBC and while I loved the game back then and then loved it even more in Wotlk, I have to say, Cataclysm is the expansion where I seriously fell for WoW. The classes had an outstanding gameplay, the dungeons were absolutely amazing, the raids were amazing as well, the PvP. Actually, for me, the best expansions are MoP, Legion, Cataclysm and the most recent Dragonflight.
I personally loved Cataclysm. The Firelands is one of my favorite raids and fighting Ragnaros again was really fun. Dragon Soul was a definitely bit lackluster, but I had a blast in all the other raids in the expansion.
I disagree with the Cata being Not Fun. Awesome talent and class revamps, interesting gameplay and rotations, especially healers. Great first and second tier of raids, Dragon Soul was Good as a raid, but the last two fights, I agree, are really badly designed for sure. There were a lot of flaws, as for any expansion, but it was a great expansion overall. My favorite PvP expansion for sure, during Ruthless and Cataclysmic tiers, it seemed to be really well balanced for most.
TBH Cata was peak oldschool WoW, it was quite literally a better WotLK in every way, just like TBC was a better Vanilla in every way, and it was the last old-school WoW expansion(though more of a bridge between eras). It just had 2 problems, it had no raid tier in 4.1 and it had no equivalent raid difficulty to WotLK's 10 man normal, LFR was NOT it.
The thing is that every bad expansion also has some good qualities. The changes Cata made fixed the vanilla leveling experience and added the transmog system, which are still used a decade later. Shadowlands was bad, but it also brought chromie time, squished the max level, got rid of needing heirlooms to power level, added the valor system, and added the renown system. Very likely, if WoW is still around in 10 years, they'll still be using the renown and valor system.
Absolutely, BFA was just a slightly worse Legion in every way, but Legion is top notch(apart from PVP), so BFA is almost top notch. I enjoyed it very much. Especially because I didn't grind AP in either of them. XD
I started in BfA, and I thought it was amazing. I couldn't care less about what the majority of the playerbase said: I loved it. Seeing new lore come for this massively popular game out felt unreal to me. It was also the only expansion so far where I grinded the f out of it. Finally getting pathfinder 2 and all reps to exalted was so satisfying. I didn't play WoW as much as at the end of patch 8.3. Even the goldgrind I remember fondly.
Yup, BFA was a slightly worse Legion, and Legion was top notch(apart from PVP), so BFA was almost top notch. I really enjoyed both, especially because I didn't grind AP in either.
Yeah, i'm always confused when people say they didn't like BFA because to me it was near perfect. Sure azerite power was an issue, but the zones, the landscapes, the storylines, the world pvp, the actual PVP, the allied races, the pet battle changes, the island expeditions, they were all MASSIVE improvements to the game and were endlessly enjoyable
The only thing I enjoyed In shadowlands, was the art. The Art team always carries WOW. The armor sets in season 1, 2, was pretty good in my opinion. Other than that, Shadowlands never happened. I'm going to forget that it ever happened.
I really enjoyed BFA. Genuinely in my opinion one of the best story telling expansions. However, it really started falling flat when they suddenly introduced the Naga and N'zoth as the "main baddies" of the expansion. They should have kept it to the faction war and expanding /decreasing borders of each faction and finished it with an "Siege of Orgrimmar"-ish. Raid where we unalived Sylvanas and just avoided the Shadowlands all together... THEN they could have come in with the Naga and N'zoth expansion giving that more and better deserved screentime.
I guess I'm the odd one out... I actually enjoyed Cata quite a lot; and I stared back when the pre-wrath event was a thing. I really liked the idea of having an entire quest zone be underwater, and was shocked to see familiar zones completely changed because of Deathwing.
I gotta be honest, after the absolute nuking that shadowlands did to the lore of the game, I have had no desire to play Dragonflight. It just feels very synthetic to me. I just kinda quietly wish into the void that shadowlands gets revealed as some old god dream and none of it really happened. It's like, all the different racial afterlife lore is gone, no mystery or culture there, the greatest WoW storyline was undercut, RIP Wrath lore, etc etc etc. Side note, on an environment basis, WOD is probably my favorite and boy does a content drought look good compared to a total annihilation of the soul of the game. Oh, and the blood troll area was awesome in BFA, that was probably the best part of that expansion lol.
WoD is the second best expansion in my opinion. The only fault of Warlords is lack of content, but said content is amazing... and its not like you dont raid log in other expansions.
The problem with BFA is that they fixed everything right at the end. When the Island Expeditions and the corruption equipement rng got fixed and balanced, that was actually cool to me. BfA had a lot of world pvp events that were super cool. The only really disappointing thing was the warfronts. Not as good as Legion, but much better than Shadowlands.
Of all the expansion, the one I hade must fun with, was with old good WotLK, for variety of reasons! Experience Northrend first hand was fantastic, I still remeber the day it was announced, I was stunned, I never thought we would go the Northrend and fight LICH KING himself! Questiong throughout all the zones and areas, learning of new lore and see old references to WC3, it was amazing. It's there were made new friends and togather manage to get the Red Protodrake through difficult dungeons for each of us, were I got all the mats needed for my Mechanohog. Were I spent hours in Wintergrasp and using Siege Engine to topple the walls so much fun. Were I travel through Grizzly Hill, Zul'drak and Stormpeak for dailies. Visiting Borean Thundra, Sholazar Basin and Howling Fjord, lvling several characters through them over and over. And together with my guild on a RP server, we RP that we steadily made out way towards the Lich King and his citadel, along with -other- guilds as well, it was just awesome. And the list goes on! I wish I could go back to my silly 18 years old and live through it all again. I am so glad, happy and thankful that Blizzard made this expansion, they are some of my best memories I ever had.
I have to say, I do agree that Dragonflight is a fun expansion. The only thing that I'm missing is that "badass" feeling which we had in, for example, WOTLK. I think the reason why this is missing is because there isn't a cool villain to fight. The primalists are okay but they just aren't that intimidating in my mind. However, this is of course also due to dragonflight being a bit more of a exploration expansion.
I never understood the hype over BC. For me it was dull and boring when it came to questing and looks, making two important characters villains just for the sake of it, I just didn't play after hitting 70 until Wrath.
I didn't play Classic TBC because it was a grind. I already did that grind. Heroic dungeons were mandatory to do raids, which I never liked. They were supposed to be an alternative to raids back in the day. Yes, Classic can be a grind, but it mostly never felt like one. TBC was the first expansion where you had to fill Rep bars to advance and I wasn't going to do all that again. Great video!
Back when TBC was live originally, the general consensus was that it was a boring expansion with disappointing raids and dungeons. People were talking mad shit about it all the time. Fast forward however many years, and everyone pretends like it was one of their favourite expansions. Nostalgia messes with people's memory.
I actually really hope that at some point, we see Warlords reworked and released with full content that was allegedly scrapped back in the day, cause the raids were awesome, cinematics even more awesome, questing was awesome.. So much potential and ended up as being the ultimate worst (2nd worst). Vanilla (let's be honest, nothing can top that feeling we had in 2004 so it has to be #1) > Pandaria > WotLK > Legion > TBC > Dragonflight > Cata > BfA > Warlords > Shadowlands
Dang, Nixxiom psyched me out. I thought my favorite expansion, WoD, was gonna finally have its day in the Fun category. Maybe one day.... And don't get me wrong, I do agree that the lack of content absolutely hobbled it, and that they absolutely seemed to abandon it to go work on Legion; but to me, that just means WoD's biggest sin was that there wasn't more WoD! Class design was at its absolute peak, what content was in was a blast... and yes, I was one of the weirdoes who actually liked Garrisons a whole lot. I still go back and build up my Garrisons on alts!
Legion, best expansion After or at least as fun asa wtk Loved bfa for Kul Tiras, Zandalar and horde vs aliance fight + warfronts. Shadowlands bad, lack of quest and they did dirty arthas. In case you don t see it. I am a warcraft 3 guy :)) Quest and lore are bread and butter for me in wow.
@@FabschOblivion669 I agree I liked it the wpvp was fun and they had those dungeons you can 3 man that was fun isles were badass and mist lands are my favorite other than outlands
My only gripe with Dragonflight is the story at launch was not bad it just wasn't exciting and lacked an exciting villain although it's clear in the background there is a slow and sometimes hidden build up to something far more dangerous. Aside from that though it's arguably the best expansion we have gotten and has continued to pump out updates so it's certainly a shame BFA+SL did so much damage that players just don't trust blizz anymore. Hopefully they can keep it up and rebuild that trust then go in to the next expansion with players talking about how well Blizzard handled DF and top it off with a new Xpac that has characters and a story that will generate hype for old players.
I have to admit, I never ever played Shadowlands. During this expansion, I switched from playing my main character to playing a hell lot of twinks. And I did not reach max level with any character. But since I had no interest in the Shadowlands endgame, it was OK for me. And compared to WotLK Classic, I still do enjoy WoW Classic more. I got my warlock to level 80, but I definitely had more fun with WoW Classic. And in the end, I stopped playing WotLK Classic and got back to WoW Classic. And now Classic Hardcore.
My favorite xpac will always be WoD. WoD was the xpac that got me back into WoW, the questing, the music, the dungeons/raids, the class design and lore pre 6.2 was fantastic! I'm sick of the hate train WoD gets, over half of these hate trainers never even played WoD when it was current
Shadowlqnds had a great start, but i think its development qfter launch was REALLY hit on two fronts by both COVID and all of the blizzard scandals. Nathria is one of my favorite raids.
i dislike Dragonflight ALOT mostly because you are forced to use specific mounts to fly etc... which ruins alot for me since i love using my mounts and also the story in my eyes is waaaaay too long for first leveling char... it was such a boring grind getting the story done and being ablr to play with my friends again.. it feels like world of warcraft trying to be a final fantasy online...
I don't get the cata hate so much. Maybe cuz it was my first xpac is why I loved it so much. Being a wotlk classic player cata just had so much more going for it. The things that people said ruining the game just doesn't make any sense i.e. transmog, lfr. It doesn't really seem to affect anyone except the casuals and gave doing old content a good reason to farm.
I think WOD was decent, a lot better than people say it is. Then again, I was 9 years old when it came out so nothing could ever bore me. Nowadays I find it a fun nostalgic look back but a huge missed opportunity
The only people who didn’t like MoP quit because pandas. Every patch brought something new for every type of content, the story was good and flowed really well. Monk class was and still is really fun. I wonder how people would like Mists of Pandaria Classic… if they toned down on the dailies of course.
Nope I never hated Pandaren as they were in WC3 and I like Pandas in general. To me MoP was NOT FUN, why? Well let's start with the good. MoP has 2x amazing raids, ToT and SoO, two of my favorite raids. It added the monk, amazing class and a neutral/shared race Pandaren. It had some very good leveling zones, it added the brawler's guild, it added the scenarios and it added Flex Raid difficulty, which was the missing WotLK 10 man Normal difficulty. And that's where the good things end. MoP was the expansion where the leveling became brain dead and it lasted until Shadowlands. The Dailies were awful, the timeless isle got boring really fast. It actually had many bad dungeons, which was a first since Vanilla. The first tier of raids were very mediocre, worse than Dragon Soul for sure, which is an underrated and solid raid. There was so much scripting in the isntances. It removed talent trees, it started showering you with items, it was just a mess. The class design was awful, it had bad spell scaling too like in TBC, which reduced rotations as patches went along, and it had so much CC and utility it was absolute hell, the list goes on and on.
Shadowlands on release was really fun to a point. Covenants were not the greatest but it had some of the sickest transmog and mounts for that "evil" look. But, by the time Korthia came around it was garbage.
I don't really get why so much hate is given to Cata. Sure Vashj'ir was a little whacky, Thrall stole our kill and LFR was introduced. But the classes were fun, we had our old talent trees so classes would be personalized still, the world was revamped making leveling alts feel fresh and new, zones (except vashjir) were pretty, and raids looked awesome. Ik people didn't like stabbing death wings toes, but fighting on his back ripping his plates off and then pushing this behemoth of a dragon into his watery grave was pretty fucking awesome.
My unpopular opinion: I liked WoD. There i said it. I started during WoD and worked myself up to the mythic content on my server. It was an expansion that to me, retrospectively, did not feel overwhelming due to its slow pacing, of course looking back it could have been better, but for the time that i spent playing it, i did enjoy most of its assets, raids and class gameplay.
All the content WoD had was the best or almost the best until that time, best expansion leveling(only dragonflight beat it), best dungeons and raids(even to this day it has top tier dungeons and raids), class design was almost as good as Cata, PVP was great, Garissons were a new interesting feature, the brawler's guild was updated, they story and storytelling peaked, with ingame cinematics being awesome... so why is it NOT fun? Two words: CONTENT DRAUGHT, it had only 2 Raid Tiers and 3x raids total. Garrisons weren't updated at all, so they became stale. WoD was max Quality, minimum Quantity, which in return meant mediocre time spent.
I liked shadowlands , but honestly its because i started playing 3 months before it ended , i didnt have to wait for Zones i just got to play a full campaign then get into raids and mythics for the very first time ever , found a social guild to learn with and it made it a very enjoyable experience to me
Cataclysm suffered A LOT not from the things it added, but from the things it removed. It took Blizzard at least until Shadowlands to figure out that people generally do not like having things they already had in the past taken away.
To elaborate: aside from revamped gameplay mechanics and many "fluff" abilities pruned away (although Warlords was even worse in that regard), the biggest mistake in my eyes was to make the old Classic version of Azeroth inaccessible. It doesn't matter if the new Cata zones would be better in every regard. The old ones are gone. *And,* the Warcraft universe already has the Bronze Dragonflight to serve as an excuse for stuff that doesn't make sense timeline-wise, and add events of the past into the current game. Come on Blizzard, it's not that hard to add Classic to Chromie Time or something.
Especially when WotLK Classic will come to an end. And if they just move on to Cataclysm "Classic", that defeats the purpose Classic was for in my eyes.
The same goes for time-gating content. Please, tell me one reason that benefits the game, on why the legendary questlines of Mists and WoD had to be removed at the end of their respective expansion? It does nothing but punish collectors who did not play during those expansions. And yes, some people like me are weird and like to collect legacy stuff that is utterly useless in the current content. (Although Mists/WoD timewalking may want a word on this)
People want to 100% a game. Making stuff deliberately unobtainable makes 100%ing it impossible for everyone who started after the removal. Some may argue that it puts pride onto the few players who got now unobtainable items in their time, but I'd say the number of completionist players far outnumbers these.
@@frtzkng also, Cata was the expansion that introduced LFR and started to make every class capable of doing everything.
Rogues can heal themselves, same for warriors, mages can heroism, hunters stopped using ammo/mana (my god, there were broken af at launch)... it was the shift from "wow is an mmo rpg" towards "wow is an online rpg with mmo aspects". Sure, heroics were "difficult" at launch (asuming wow was somewhat dificult back then - to me it wasn't-), but introducing easier versions of raids? Lol, no thanks. You can go afk and die in a boss and the team will kill it anyway.
Also, talents.
I remember people being hyped about 5 new talent points to spend (remember, wotlk came with crazy and relatively viable hybrid specs) but Blizz said nope. You now have less talent points and a restriction on usage of them (you couldn't spend talent points on another tree til' you reached 80, if i remember correctly). Did i mention DKs? Blood was a dps spec til' the playerbase started using it as tank and frost as dps, while in Cata they killed that fun of experimenting with builds.
It had good lore questlines, fun endgame raids but that's it for me.
Since there it feels like Blizzard started thinking about us as kids that need someone to take our hand and guide us.
At least in Dragonflight we can try different things with the split talent system...
Cata had 2 problems,no raid in 4.1 and no equivalent of WotLK 10 man Normal raid difficulty, LFR isn't it. Everything else about Cata was a much better WotLK.
@@badass6300 Cata was too ambitious for its own good. Things needed updated, including old zones. They did it but they also tried to give too much to late game and dropped the ball half way through then at the end yet again. If they had a more low key experience similar to vanilla it would have gone over better. More focus on factions and how the world has changed rather than an epic Dragons and old gods tale they gave us. Focus on the bigger scale in the next expansion and let people have time to soak it all in.
Also didn't help that there was a difficulty spike going from Wrath to Cata in end game content. Mechanics needed to be followed and knowledge of the game had. Wrath was tank and spank heroics. Cata wasn't.
@@randomasgray I think all those things are what elevated Cata over WotLK and TBC.
And for lower difficulty, they just needed to add a Raid difficulty, like WotLK's 10 man normal, that was straight after Normal Dungeons and it would drop Heroic dungeon ilvl gear, you wouldn't even have to do Heroic dungeons. (LFR wasn't it and dropped gear better than heroic dungeons for some reason).
That and add a raid in 4.1 and it's the best expansion ever.
Legion and Re Released Classic will always be my favorite expansions, such a great time for the game and I’ll always love it
i am rooting for re released classic as well
“One second your miles under water in Vash’jir, the next you’re climbing Mount Hyjal summit.” As opposed to being in rocky orange hell to rainy mushroom swamp? WoW zones have always taken you to random spots. And the story of Cataclysm was miles more understandable and clear than TBC.
In defense of Battle for Azeroth, I loved the dungeons and I committed myselft the most to raids and mythic+ back on it’s time. I believe that the one thing that was not fun was the endless reputation grind, tough leveling and island expeditions. But for some reason, visions was fun and the Zandalar and Kul’tiras zone was a formidable job did by the Art Team, and the leveling quests from both was fantastic.
All expansions of and after Legion had fun parts that were made not fun based on too much grind or too many micro rewards making each reward not feel impactful.
I kind of see BFA like Cata. Not well received, but not hated like WoD or SL.
Personally I liked Cata, always loved the lore behind it, deathwing is an all time favorite of mine
Leveling in cata was relatively fun. Being able to redo all the zones felt fresh.
i started playing in cata so its a nostalgia for me
@@Okabim yeah I thought the new thousand needles was interesting and personally I like hyjal a lot
@@Colonies_Dev yeah, cata is when I first got into it seriously, played a bit of wrath beforehand. The nostalgia is def there
@@arktoast The new thousand needles is the only zone I dislike in Cata. XD
Cata is one of my favorite expansions, I was really disappointed when they nerfed the difficulty of heroics because of all the people complaining on the forums.
I agree, it was my first WOW expansion and the one that convinced me to play the game. The Panda release started well but I remember hitting a zone in the South where it was straight out of VLDL, getting quests like "Help adventurer, my sheep (or something) are missing please go round them up".
@@chrisaustin9949 but that's... that's wow classic in a nutshell
Same. Pandaria was garbage compared to Cata, Pandaria just didn’t feel like Warcraft aesthetically and thematically.
Same. Pandaria was garbage compared to Cata, Pandaria just didn’t feel like Warcraft aesthetically and thematically.
@@networknomad5600 I loved Mists of Pandaria, I have the collectors edition for that one. I think it added a lot of flavor to the game. New PvP modes and maps, great storylines. Most people seem to only remember Kung Fu pandas but there was so much to explore and see in Pandaria. Thematically it had flavors for both players that wanted the faction war and didn't. Lots of naturalism but I remember playing Horde and getting onto Pandaria after being shot down and crash landing. My top 3 expansions are really WOTLK, Cata, MoP
I started WoW during Cataclysm so it was very fun for me. I immediately fell in love with the world and the lore.
Also yes Drakonids playable as warriors, rogues, warlocks, mages, etc would have been so much better than what we got with Dracthyrs/Evokers !
Yessss, drakonids with wings maybe would have been better
Instead of giving them access to more classes they should have made the evoker class a hybrid triple role class instead. Similar to the Paladin. Except they could have made it so it had 2 dps specs and 1 tank spec. The game doesn't really need more healers. It will if they release 2 more classes, which is unlikely.
DPS 1 is the caster evoker we got. DPS 2 could be a real polearm class. Dragoons are common dragon themed warriors that literally fight dragons. They would make more sense than hunters or monks as the polearm users. Dragon Knights were units in WC3. Completely random and made no sense at the time, but they were around. They were tanky as hell though.
Rework the passives so that it gives temporary flight or a good glide in non flight zones, but just lets you outright fly with a unique animation in flying zones. The glide angle better than the demon hunter. Lose less air than they do.
@@YuyuHakurei I agree a Dragoon/Dragon Knight class would be cool. Still, I don't like Dracthyr/Evoker and would have prefered a more DnD aproach like a Dragonborn race who has access to the base classes.
@@purpledragonofdoom It might be time to redo all the racials in the game and make them interesting. They all kinda lazy and not as impactful as every races original racials.
It might be cool if they made a pool of racials instead and let you pick from that pool for your character. That way you can not have like 75% of your racials be useless with whatever class you make.
As long as it follows the same rules that Racials usually do. Like they often do a major ability, a minor ability, and a profession enhancement of some kind. They should all be as interesting as Dragon peeps.
@@YuyuHakurei yes I'd love more interesting racials too. It also makes me think of vanilla priests having a unique spell depending of the race. Imagine classes with differences based on your race, this would be awesome. But Blizzard made the racials irrelevent because it was "unbalanced" (although the differences where only felt by min-maxers).
Edit: also, the Zandalari trolls have a racials which you can customize if I recall correctly. This could be expanded to other races and fit with your idea of a racials pool.
I had the most fun in Cataclysm actually, challenging dungeons felt so refreshing. Class design was really good imo and zones were cool. Just the feel of the world coming to an end set a really cool atmosphere, where you saw so many zones infested with evil cultists, who ran everywhere.
i loved cata
Yeah same. I remember being so excited to see the changes to old zones. Was always fine with it as private servers were around and figured Blizz would eventually open old servers so sorta figured we would see the old world again. I remember watching totalbiscuit on every zone and it’s changes, man rip TB. Cheers yall
Cata gets a lot of undue hate for how it ended with such a dissapointing raid.
The first 3 raids were great. Molten Front was fine. The zones were all gorgeous. Not needing to grind rep at all was so nice QOL wise. Class homogenization was shitty but workable.
And if you ever leveled an alt in Cata you probably got to level 60 without blinking and then suddenly stopped for some reason.
@@LrdZanny I actually had a ton of alts in cataclysm, I just loved how retri played or fire mage combustion was so satisfying to pull off and I do still miss the 0.5 GCD dual wield frost or just 0.5 GCD Unholy DK.. that was soooo much fun to play. Nowadays DK feels extremely slow.
In my personal opinion… I don’t know how you can say Cata was not fun but MoP was. Cata raids were awesome (Firelands!!), PvP was great, transmog and reforging were awesome features, mount journal, ZA and ZG as heroic dungeons, archeology was a cool new addition, new class combos, worgen and goblins. MoP had it’s good sides like PvP but everything felt so goofy during MoP.
? so you didn't see the flowers right like lei shen or even the pandarens themselves
Cata took class design to its peak until Shadowlands and Dragonflight, it also took the dungeon and raid boss mechanics and design to a whole new level. The revamped leveling zones were great. All the systems from WotLK were improved upon. The Heroic Dungeons were awesome, it had some of the best raids to this day. PVP was at its best before Shadowlands and Dragonflight, if not still. Cata was a better WotLK in every way, except in two things. Cata didn't have a raid in 4.1, making it the first expansion with only 3 raid tiers and it didn't have an equivalent to 10 Man Normal Raid difficulty in WotLK, LFR was not it. If it had those two, it would be the best expansion ever.
MoP has 2x amazing raids, ToT and SoO, two of my favorite raids. It added the monk, amazing class. It had some very good leveling zones, it added the brawler's guild, it added the scenarios and it added Flex Raid difficulty, which was the missing WotLK 10 man Normal difficulty. And that's where the good things end. MoP was the expansion where the leveling became brain dead and it lasted until Shadowlands. The Dailies were awful, the timeless isle got boring really fast. It actually had many bad dungeons, which was a first since Vanilla. The first tier of raids were very mediocre, worse than Dragon Soul for sure. There was so much scripting in the isntances. It removed talent trees, it started showering you with items, it was just a mess. The class design was awful, it had bad spell scaling too like in TBC, which reduced rotations as patches went along, and it had so much CC and utility it was absolute hell.
MoP was objectively a good expansion. Iit was mostly disliked for the theme, which personally I loved, because it was fresh and original for WoW.
@@Shamanierrro No, I disliked MoP for tons of other reasons. Most of the dungeons were bad and boring, and way too easy, I mean vanilla level easy, even Heroics.Then the dailies were absolute chore.
The isle of thunder was alright, but the timeless isle, well it wan't timeless, got old and boring really fast.
The initial raids were worse than dragon soul, which is a solid raid, Tier14 were just alright. The removal of talents(Cata had the best talents), was annoying. The PVP was CC and Untility/Mobility hell.
The leveling became absolutely trivial, yes in cata if you had a pet and/or heirlooms it was easy too, but for the most part it was still threatening and you didn't 1-2 shot everything after level 15.
The power creep was insane in MoP, both from just 85-90, but also due to the ilvl creep. They started showering you with gear and the systems for gearing got too out of hand.
MoP like Cata had a lot of content draught and only 3 raid tiers, but it also did NOT have new dungeons every tier, thus no dungeon tiers.
There were scaling issues with some specs, wich reduced their rotations, below Cata level. Too many spells were off the GCD.
Now there are positives to MoP. First the Monk class is awesome, second the pandaren are great and really cool that we got a shared/neutral race. Throne of Thunder and Siege of Orgrimmar are two of the best raids of all time. Scenarios were ok in execution, but a good concept. The brawler's guild was great. Flex was a great addition, it brought back the WotLK 10 man raid difficulty to the game that Cata was sorely missing(LFR was absolutely not it), but it also added to the inflation to the ilvl and power creep, which could have been handled better.
Also in MoP all the old content became basically irrelevant and it was the first expansion where the game became entirely patch based. Vanilla and TBC were linear, WotLK and Cata you did 2 raid tiers at a time and before MoP, if you wanted to go to older raids, you still needed a group of people.
I liked cata. Redoing the whole classic world was neat. The quests from cata added alot more humor.
Too much humor. Redridge literally turned into an extended Rambo parody.
For me BFA was fun, well I did start playing it in 8.1, so I didn't experience the hate behind azerite gear and having to grind necklace to lvl 50, but I loved mechagon and nazjatar, the only expansion where I actually put in the time to grind for pathfinder.
BFA was fun for me too, it was Legion minus, it was slightly worse than legion in every way, but Legion was a top notch expansion, except for PVP. And I never grinded AP in BFA, I got it sure, but I didn't care for getting too much of it and still I did Heroic raids and +10 mythic keys. Plus they made it really easy to gain in 8.1 and especially 8.1.5
I thought it was fun too and thought the raids, dungeons, zones, etc outweighed the azerite system
For me it was OK at best overall, but 8.2 was the best patch added to the game... it even topped 5.2 which was my previous favourite patch.
If you were like progress raiding at endgame, I can tell you it was not fun. Endless chores and RNG grinds across all its mad systems, I just couldn't tolerate it. Even now I've not come back, it left that much of a sour taste.
@@FuuuckOffff I did Heroic Raiding in BFA and my necklace wasn't up to the power level of the week ever, I didn't have the best corruptions, I just did a few mythic+ and then just raided, that's the most WotLK thing ever if you ask me.
And I did Horrific visions in 8.3, because they were awesome.
The best things about Shadowlands were the aesthetic and absolutely gorgeous zones… but they were badly hampered by the fact they were all just small islands, broken up from being one open zone. But damn are all the zones and vistas and backgrounds beautiful and fantastical.
It's part of the whole tragedy and highlights how bad SL was. Ardenweald and Revendreth were two of the best looking zones in WoW ever, and somehow... it was still lifeless, joyless, sterile and depressing.
@@19Szabolcs91 Revendreth's score was neat though
@@19Szabolcs91 well that is the game in general lifeless it pretty much been that way for ever. but i guess the expansion it the mark since death is supposed to be lifeless joyless and sterile and depressing and since the expansion was based off of death it makes since you got those feelings lol.
@@userunknown1030 Yes, it makes sense for it to be bad, but it just proves that it was a bad idea to base an expansion on the afterlife, especially with just a nihilistic story where you keep suffering, losing, you are powerless to affect anything and are always many steps behind the villains.
@@19Szabolcs91 well that is how all mmo are built you always got to be one step behind the villains or their wouldn't need to be a story line are an advancement in the story your ahead of the bad guy they wont be able to do much lol.
I know the Legion theme of being a leader of your class was somewhat divisive, but I will just say... my main and the class... we have an emotional connection so to speak. And being recognized by other NPC´s of that class as one of their own, felt so strangely wholesome. Like "these weirdos are my family" type of feeling. Losing that later felt like being dropped from a friend group :D
I feel exactly like this! like the racial transmog, it was something I put a lot of worth into, and I use the mount everyday. I love it
Cata was FUN until Dragon Soul dragged for 1 year because Mists had long development cycle.
In other words, my boy Cata suffered so that Mists could be expansion we know it is.
I loved BFA. Kul'Tiras is still one of the best zones added.
Just started playing WoW a few days ago for the first time ever, and questing through BFA has been an amazing introduction so far. I absolutely LOVED the entire section of the siren shipwreck and Freehold, and Fallhaven has been INCREDIBLY fun.
BFA added a few cool things, but the lack of content was the reason I didn't really enjoy it. I loved Warfronts, those were amazing as hell, stromgarde was great fun, but then there was Darkshore and that was all. Zones were gorgeous, and the allied races were cool, but other than everything I said, there wasn't much. Overall, it was a boring expansion, as I said, bc of the lack of content. I respect ur opinion, bur I thought I'd say what I'd say. If u enjoyed it, hey, keep doing what u do.
@@warriorsworld4638 i dunno, i loved BFA because it felt like I never had to stop doing anything. In fact, most people complained that there was too much stuff to do, but it just felt like most were meaningless (pet battles had massive changes that were great, heritage sets, allied races, corruption events, etc) but it was never a lack of content, it was more of a "theres thousands upon thousands of things you can do which are really good systems, but none of them make you stronger, they're all cosmetic or character flavor stuff, and if you want power you have to do the raiding and mythic+ from legion"
Cataclysm was my personal peak of wow. I had so much fun during that expansion and looooved the lore.
fs bro
Cata was a better WotLK in every single way, except 2 things. It didn't have a raid in 4.1 and it didn't have an equivalent difficulty of 10 Man Normal WotLK, and LFR was NOT it.
On the other hand WotLK has Trial of the Crusader, the single worst raid in WoW's history, so there is that too, along with Eye of Eternity and Ruby Sanctum... Some people don't like Wrath Naxx, but I think it's great.
I was really looking forward to Warlord. It had the potential to being one of the best expansion ever, with player housing version of garrison, and all the content that was cut.
Fun thing; Warlords is possibly the only expansion that had more content cut compared to the content added in-game. Cata is a close second.
BFA was fun if you were into WPvP; my guild and other WPvP guilds had a golden age back then
I really liked Ashran too!
i was one of those who didnt look up any videos or install any addons during classic's release and had an amazing time. its my favorite memories of all of wow
I thought Cata was fun. Except the huge time gaps between patches. And Dragon Soul being overall meh and way overstaying its welcome. Hopefully if we get Cata Classic it'll be a better experience, as there's a lot of strengths in the core content - classes felt balanced, most of the raids and dungeons were excellent, PvP was tolerable (for me, as a non-PvP'er) and I quite like the revamped old world (though I wish it was toggleable).
Am I the only one who enjoyed classic TBC? Minus the lvl 60 boost and the rampart botting since blizzard being Indie ofc.
I'm in love with the vibe Outland offered and how badass the instances were. Shattrath was really chill to afk/hang out at. Most of the raids were fun & epic (I say most cause hyjal).
On top of that, arena was pretty fun imo compared to how it evovled post wrath, because it was rather simple to understand and more of a chess game, which made it more accessible and enjoyable for new players/casuals.
Your not alone. It is when I started playing and I loved going through it all again.
Tbc/wotlk was ruined because the level boost
Having just done it, the questing sucks and couldn't imagine doing it without flying. There's just too many quests with terrible drop rates
I began playing WoW in Legion and I enjoyed BfA very much. The Alliance vs. Horde Story feels like the real Warcraft and I enjoyed the World Building around it in Azeroth. I mean we got more events on Azeroth like Teldrassil and Loerderon and were not on any alien planet far far away. As a Nightelf Main I was sad because of Teldrassil but this event catched me simultanously and I wanted revenge at the Darkshore Warfront. For example Dragonflight is gameplay wise very much fun but the Story around Dragons and Dracthyr is quite boring for me personally
My favorit all time was Wrath. Loved warcraft 3 lore, and beeing able to partake in the conclusion of such story was all that i wanted, and death knights. =P
Shadowlands lore had taken a lot of lore… Arthas, the orcs ancestors, the dreadlords ie and
Just made it all feel pointless and
Lackluster. Now playing back Wrath and Warcraft 3 , I just can’t get shadowlands out of my head and just feel the entire story as a disappointment. Best I can do is mark that expansion as a N’zoth trick
Same dude. It leaves you with the "what's the point" feeling. Hope it was all an old god nightmare...
@@pman7154 EXACTLY THAT
My absolute favorite was MoP right next comes Cata !
I think it’s worth noting that Cataclysm fixed WOTLK’s issue with tank and spank mechanics. Heroics we’re actually difficult in the opening patch and required hard CC to complete. Definitely something that should have been addressed.
WOTLK heroics were difficult in opening patch also. But over gear them and they all become easy.
Vanilla > Classic > TBC > Legion > Wrath > Classic TBC > Classic Wrath > MoP > DF (so far) > Cataclysm > WoD> BFA > Shadowlands
Regarding the "healthy" community in WotLK classic, I find it very upsetting that all big realms are now 99% one faction dominated. I wish I saw players from the enemy faction too in the world running around.
Cata was enjoyable, especially in hindsight. People forget, but they made dungeons very challenging at launch and it was a fun challenge to undertake. The story was also pretty straightforward, so not sure how anyone was confused: Deathwing wants to bring about the hour of twilight; he enlists various old gods-affiliated forces to help him to do it. I actually really liked that we got to hop around the world to the different zones. It was dynamic and you got to experience a new, reshaped world.
The questing of Cata was excellent. The overarching plot was unimportant meh, but the *local* quest lines and stories of almost every zone were amazing, in vanilla Azeroth you never really cared about what's going on in any particular zone, just go gather 10 bear assholes and that's it, but Cata perfected phasing, so your actions actually affected the world around you, it was brilliant.
BFA was real fun in the very beginning, i was with multiple raid groups raiding Zuldazar as the alliance, piling horde bodies everywhere, hella fun. And not just ganking, there were real fighting going on.
In drustvar i remember, fghting for 6 hours during a warfront, with horde and alliance NPCs fighting in the background, aswell as many many horde and alliance players, pushing back and forth between that wall in drustvar, and the bridge if you know the place. Really cool and enjoyable...
then it all just stopped. And without the world pvp and big battles, the expo sucked and was just really empty.
Ugh, I hated Pandaria so much...that was the turning point for me, not Cata surprisingly.
It was literally one of the best expansions
Yeah pandaria was nice asf to me
@@Murrayrigney For you and many others this is true, but I personally did not enjoy it.
It was a nice breath of fresh air, liked the astehtics, although pvp was miserable
@@alihorda Yeah I think that was why I didn't enjoy it, I was largely into PvP back then.
Classic was fun for the first month or 2 until the min max culture took over where you had to have the most optimal gear talents class composition possible to get into most guilds or groups even though the content was easier then the easiest LFR raid lol
Tbh since Legion, i feel a strange burnout from Wow. i did love it and liked to lvl 70 in dragonflight, but idk what it is, but i can't play it anymore without the feeling coming back
I think the most striking thing about Shadowlands is that it isn't your bog standard bad expansion. What Cata, WoD, and BfA all have in common is that yeah they were big let downs but that's partially because they were really overhyped. With Shadowlands people went in with extremely low expectations and still got massively disappointed.
As a Real PvP Main (Open World and BG) and Shammy I loved BC the most out of all. But you are right, they should have never let both factions get palas and shammys, it definitely took away the uniqueness of the factions and was the FIRST STEP of making WoW normie casual bs 👌🏻
Cataclysm was by no means unfun... To me, it was when I really started enjoying the game. I started in TBC and while I loved the game back then and then loved it even more in Wotlk, I have to say, Cataclysm is the expansion where I seriously fell for WoW. The classes had an outstanding gameplay, the dungeons were absolutely amazing, the raids were amazing as well, the PvP. Actually, for me, the best expansions are MoP, Legion, Cataclysm and the most recent Dragonflight.
Castle Nathria is the only good thing about Shadowlands, easily in the top 5 raids in wow
I personally loved Cataclysm. The Firelands is one of my favorite raids and fighting Ragnaros again was really fun. Dragon Soul was a definitely bit lackluster, but I had a blast in all the other raids in the expansion.
Torghast had so much potential. Hopefully they make it better and bring it back for more cosmetics in the future
Waiting for shadowlands clasic
I disagree with the Cata being Not Fun. Awesome talent and class revamps, interesting gameplay and rotations, especially healers. Great first and second tier of raids, Dragon Soul was Good as a raid, but the last two fights, I agree, are really badly designed for sure. There were a lot of flaws, as for any expansion, but it was a great expansion overall. My favorite PvP expansion for sure, during Ruthless and Cataclysmic tiers, it seemed to be really well balanced for most.
TBH Cata was peak oldschool WoW, it was quite literally a better WotLK in every way, just like TBC was a better Vanilla in every way, and it was the last old-school WoW expansion(though more of a bridge between eras). It just had 2 problems, it had no raid tier in 4.1 and it had no equivalent raid difficulty to WotLK's 10 man normal, LFR was NOT it.
Wild take: I LOVED Cata, disliked Mists. Although treasure finding was fun.
Cata is fantastic. The last raid tier is everyone's problem.
The thing is that every bad expansion also has some good qualities. The changes Cata made fixed the vanilla leveling experience and added the transmog system, which are still used a decade later. Shadowlands was bad, but it also brought chromie time, squished the max level, got rid of needing heirlooms to power level, added the valor system, and added the renown system. Very likely, if WoW is still around in 10 years, they'll still be using the renown and valor system.
I loved BFA. Lore wise it was bad but the gameplay was fun and i loved the zones, allied races, and Im ngl I loved corruptions.
Absolutely, BFA was just a slightly worse Legion in every way, but Legion is top notch(apart from PVP), so BFA is almost top notch. I enjoyed it very much. Especially because I didn't grind AP in either of them. XD
I started in BfA, and I thought it was amazing. I couldn't care less about what the majority of the playerbase said: I loved it. Seeing new lore come for this massively popular game out felt unreal to me. It was also the only expansion so far where I grinded the f out of it. Finally getting pathfinder 2 and all reps to exalted was so satisfying.
I didn't play WoW as much as at the end of patch 8.3. Even the goldgrind I remember fondly.
I liked BfA too until visions of znoth. Got some curse put on me and kept getting killed so easily.
Yup, BFA was a slightly worse Legion, and Legion was top notch(apart from PVP), so BFA was almost top notch. I really enjoyed both, especially because I didn't grind AP in either.
Yeah, i'm always confused when people say they didn't like BFA because to me it was near perfect. Sure azerite power was an issue, but the zones, the landscapes, the storylines, the world pvp, the actual PVP, the allied races, the pet battle changes, the island expeditions, they were all MASSIVE improvements to the game and were endlessly enjoyable
The only thing I enjoyed In shadowlands, was the art. The Art team always carries WOW. The armor sets in season 1, 2, was pretty good in my opinion. Other than that, Shadowlands never happened. I'm going to forget that it ever happened.
Mark my words. In a couple years time, the art direction in Shadowlands will start receiving high praise. Then the nostalgia starts!
I actually enjoyed Cata way more than Pandaria. The aesthetic and feel of MoP was just not Warcraft.
Goddamnit. You drop Argonian in there and now I want to play Skyrim for the 10th time.
I really enjoyed BFA. Genuinely in my opinion one of the best story telling expansions. However, it really started falling flat when they suddenly introduced the Naga and N'zoth as the "main baddies" of the expansion. They should have kept it to the faction war and expanding /decreasing borders of each faction and finished it with an "Siege of Orgrimmar"-ish. Raid where we unalived Sylvanas and just avoided the Shadowlands all together... THEN they could have come in with the Naga and N'zoth expansion giving that more and better deserved screentime.
I guess I'm the odd one out... I actually enjoyed Cata quite a lot; and I stared back when the pre-wrath event was a thing. I really liked the idea of having an entire quest zone be underwater, and was shocked to see familiar zones completely changed because of Deathwing.
Cata was awesome, raids were solid and the storyline was pretty good, XD
I gotta be honest, after the absolute nuking that shadowlands did to the lore of the game, I have had no desire to play Dragonflight. It just feels very synthetic to me. I just kinda quietly wish into the void that shadowlands gets revealed as some old god dream and none of it really happened. It's like, all the different racial afterlife lore is gone, no mystery or culture there, the greatest WoW storyline was undercut, RIP Wrath lore, etc etc etc. Side note, on an environment basis, WOD is probably my favorite and boy does a content drought look good compared to a total annihilation of the soul of the game. Oh, and the blood troll area was awesome in BFA, that was probably the best part of that expansion lol.
Cataclysm was the first time I was like ohhh wow isn’t perfect.
WoD is the second best expansion in my opinion.
The only fault of Warlords is lack of content, but said content is amazing... and its not like you dont raid log in other expansions.
The problem with BFA is that they fixed everything right at the end. When the Island Expeditions and the corruption equipement rng got fixed and balanced, that was actually cool to me. BfA had a lot of world pvp events that were super cool. The only really disappointing thing was the warfronts. Not as good as Legion, but much better than Shadowlands.
The reason people thought that garrisons would be more customisable than what they were was because that’s what they were told at blizzcon.....
I fucking hate Dragonflight.
Of all the expansion, the one I hade must fun with, was with old good WotLK, for variety of reasons!
Experience Northrend first hand was fantastic, I still remeber the day it was announced, I was stunned, I never thought we would go the Northrend and fight LICH KING himself! Questiong throughout all the zones and areas, learning of new lore and see old references to WC3, it was amazing.
It's there were made new friends and togather manage to get the Red Protodrake through difficult dungeons for each of us, were I got all the mats needed for my Mechanohog.
Were I spent hours in Wintergrasp and using Siege Engine to topple the walls so much fun. Were I travel through Grizzly Hill, Zul'drak and Stormpeak for dailies. Visiting Borean Thundra, Sholazar Basin and Howling Fjord, lvling several characters through them over and over.
And together with my guild on a RP server, we RP that we steadily made out way towards the Lich King and his citadel, along with -other- guilds as well, it was just awesome. And the list goes on!
I wish I could go back to my silly 18 years old and live through it all again. I am so glad, happy and thankful that Blizzard made this expansion, they are some of my best memories I ever had.
I have to say, I do agree that Dragonflight is a fun expansion. The only thing that I'm missing is that "badass" feeling which we had in, for example, WOTLK. I think the reason why this is missing is because there isn't a cool villain to fight. The primalists are okay but they just aren't that intimidating in my mind. However, this is of course also due to dragonflight being a bit more of a exploration expansion.
But... We finally be able to fly in the old world thanks to cata. The lore? Well it's start from wc2 right? And even fusion mention him during wc3.
I never understood the hype over BC. For me it was dull and boring when it came to questing and looks, making two important characters villains just for the sake of it, I just didn't play after hitting 70 until Wrath.
I didn't play Classic TBC because it was a grind. I already did that grind. Heroic dungeons were mandatory to do raids, which I never liked. They were supposed to be an alternative to raids back in the day. Yes, Classic can be a grind, but it mostly never felt like one. TBC was the first expansion where you had to fill Rep bars to advance and I wasn't going to do all that again.
Great video!
Back when TBC was live originally, the general consensus was that it was a boring expansion with disappointing raids and dungeons. People were talking mad shit about it all the time. Fast forward however many years, and everyone pretends like it was one of their favourite expansions. Nostalgia messes with people's memory.
I miss Legion..
personally as a casual player BfA was fun for me. Had a great time questing, doing dungeons and raids.
same, i loved island expeditions, and drustvar is still the best zone/story that WoW has had imo
I actually really hope that at some point, we see Warlords reworked and released with full content that was allegedly scrapped back in the day, cause the raids were awesome, cinematics even more awesome, questing was awesome.. So much potential and ended up as being the ultimate worst (2nd worst).
Vanilla (let's be honest, nothing can top that feeling we had in 2004 so it has to be #1) > Pandaria > WotLK > Legion > TBC > Dragonflight > Cata > BfA > Warlords > Shadowlands
Dang, Nixxiom psyched me out. I thought my favorite expansion, WoD, was gonna finally have its day in the Fun category. Maybe one day....
And don't get me wrong, I do agree that the lack of content absolutely hobbled it, and that they absolutely seemed to abandon it to go work on Legion; but to me, that just means WoD's biggest sin was that there wasn't more WoD! Class design was at its absolute peak, what content was in was a blast... and yes, I was one of the weirdoes who actually liked Garrisons a whole lot. I still go back and build up my Garrisons on alts!
WOTLK will forever be my favorite expansions, also because i started playing WoW when it released.
if only there was a vanilla plus server with custom content and items to keep things fresh
Legion, best expansion
After or at least as fun asa wtk
Loved bfa for Kul Tiras, Zandalar and horde vs aliance fight + warfronts.
Shadowlands bad, lack of quest and they did dirty arthas.
In case you don t see it. I am a warcraft 3 guy :))
Quest and lore are bread and butter for me in wow.
I actually hate dragon riding 😂
I really liked mist a lot didn't it wasn't bad I play wow accession now
MoP is underrated and overhated
@@FabschOblivion669 aye
@@FabschOblivion669 I agree I liked it the wpvp was fun and they had those dungeons you can 3 man that was fun isles were badass and mist lands are my favorite other than outlands
My only gripe with Dragonflight is the story at launch was not bad it just wasn't exciting and lacked an exciting villain although it's clear in the background there is a slow and sometimes hidden build up to something far more dangerous. Aside from that though it's arguably the best expansion we have gotten and has continued to pump out updates so it's certainly a shame BFA+SL did so much damage that players just don't trust blizz anymore. Hopefully they can keep it up and rebuild that trust then go in to the next expansion with players talking about how well Blizzard handled DF and top it off with a new Xpac that has characters and a story that will generate hype for old players.
I liked BFA. But you can't deny, we god some *godlike* HD quality cinematics with it. Short movies basically.
I have to admit, I never ever played Shadowlands. During this expansion, I switched from playing my main character to playing a hell lot of twinks. And I did not reach max level with any character. But since I had no interest in the Shadowlands endgame, it was OK for me.
And compared to WotLK Classic, I still do enjoy WoW Classic more. I got my warlock to level 80, but I definitely had more fun with WoW Classic. And in the end, I stopped playing WotLK Classic and got back to WoW Classic. And now Classic Hardcore.
The more screen time they gave to Sylvanas, the more I realized I'd prefer to never see her again.
My favorite xpac will always be WoD. WoD was the xpac that got me back into WoW, the questing, the music, the dungeons/raids, the class design and lore pre 6.2 was fantastic! I'm sick of the hate train WoD gets, over half of these hate trainers never even played WoD when it was current
yeh nice MMO experience all alone in your garrison
@@grog159 You didn't have to be in your Garrison 24/7 *shrug*
@@scarletcrusader5431 Large cope. It was suboptimal to not do your daily chores in the garrison every day and that's what burned ppl out of wod.
@@grog159 Coping? Nah just my thoughts dawg. I was able to experience WoD with other people because I actually grouped up with people and advertised.
I started playing in 2.4.3, and fully raiding in 3.3.5
Yet, I think Legion is the pinnacle of WoW's creation
Legion was the best ever
Shadowlands season 1 was amazing. The story was good with denathrius. The zones were cool and unique. Pvp was god tier. Castle nathria was really good
Shadowlqnds had a great start, but i think its development qfter launch was REALLY hit on two fronts by both COVID and all of the blizzard scandals. Nathria is one of my favorite raids.
i dislike Dragonflight ALOT mostly because you are forced to use specific mounts to fly etc... which ruins alot for me since i love using my mounts and also the story in my eyes is waaaaay too long for first leveling char... it was such a boring grind getting the story done and being ablr to play with my friends again.. it feels like world of warcraft trying to be a final fantasy online...
Mists has risen even further in my mind. My #1 spot.
I wonder if Torghast would've been better recieved if it was only 1 wing a week instead of 2
1:15 yes, I wish they never homogenized classes. Faction identity is what made Vanilla WoW so special.
Only thing I wasn't sure of was where you would put Legion
about to watch. i'm ready for the big debate /popcorn
I don't get the cata hate so much. Maybe cuz it was my first xpac is why I loved it so much. Being a wotlk classic player cata just had so much more going for it. The things that people said ruining the game just doesn't make any sense i.e. transmog, lfr. It doesn't really seem to affect anyone except the casuals and gave doing old content a good reason to farm.
I'll check back to see how this one ages in a bit. :b
I think WOD was decent, a lot better than people say it is.
Then again, I was 9 years old when it came out so nothing could ever bore me. Nowadays I find it a fun nostalgic look back but a huge missed opportunity
The only people who didn’t like MoP quit because pandas.
Every patch brought something new for every type of content, the story was good and flowed really well. Monk class was and still is really fun.
I wonder how people would like Mists of Pandaria Classic… if they toned down on the dailies of course.
Nope I never hated Pandaren as they were in WC3 and I like Pandas in general.
To me MoP was NOT FUN, why? Well let's start with the good. MoP has 2x amazing raids, ToT and SoO, two of my favorite raids. It added the monk, amazing class and a neutral/shared race Pandaren. It had some very good leveling zones, it added the brawler's guild, it added the scenarios and it added Flex Raid difficulty, which was the missing WotLK 10 man Normal difficulty.
And that's where the good things end. MoP was the expansion where the leveling became brain dead and it lasted until Shadowlands. The Dailies were awful, the timeless isle got boring really fast. It actually had many bad dungeons, which was a first since Vanilla. The first tier of raids were very mediocre, worse than Dragon Soul for sure, which is an underrated and solid raid. There was so much scripting in the isntances. It removed talent trees, it started showering you with items, it was just a mess. The class design was awful, it had bad spell scaling too like in TBC, which reduced rotations as patches went along, and it had so much CC and utility it was absolute hell, the list goes on and on.
Mop is heavily underrated even today, like that xpac was looooads of fun, the pvp the story the vibe. Good stuff.
Wrath is the end of the official story. Legion is the peak of expansions post-story.
Shadowlands on release was really fun to a point. Covenants were not the greatest but it had some of the sickest transmog and mounts for that "evil" look. But, by the time Korthia came around it was garbage.
I don't really get why so much hate is given to Cata. Sure Vashj'ir was a little whacky, Thrall stole our kill and LFR was introduced. But the classes were fun, we had our old talent trees so classes would be personalized still, the world was revamped making leveling alts feel fresh and new, zones (except vashjir) were pretty, and raids looked awesome. Ik people didn't like stabbing death wings toes, but fighting on his back ripping his plates off and then pushing this behemoth of a dragon into his watery grave was pretty fucking awesome.
My unpopular opinion: I liked WoD. There i said it. I started during WoD and worked myself up to the mythic content on my server. It was an expansion that to me, retrospectively, did not feel overwhelming due to its slow pacing, of course looking back it could have been better, but for the time that i spent playing it, i did enjoy most of its assets, raids and class gameplay.
All the content WoD had was the best or almost the best until that time, best expansion leveling(only dragonflight beat it), best dungeons and raids(even to this day it has top tier dungeons and raids), class design was almost as good as Cata, PVP was great, Garissons were a new interesting feature, the brawler's guild was updated, they story and storytelling peaked, with ingame cinematics being awesome... so why is it NOT fun? Two words: CONTENT DRAUGHT, it had only 2 Raid Tiers and 3x raids total. Garrisons weren't updated at all, so they became stale. WoD was max Quality, minimum Quantity, which in return meant mediocre time spent.
I liked shadowlands , but honestly its because i started playing 3 months before it ended , i didnt have to wait for Zones i just got to play a full campaign then get into raids and mythics for the very first time ever , found a social guild to learn with and it made it a very enjoyable experience to me