Worse to best expansion

[Zaramorus]

So what are your worse to best expansions? Mine is probably:
TBC<Cata<Vanilla<WotLK<WoD<Mop
I really didnt like TBC it just felt boring and wasnt really that interesting.
Cata well i mean its like fifty-fifty expansion. It wasnt bad, but it wasnt good. I really hated that they turned Barrens into two. Southern Barrens is like one of the shittiest leveling zones ive ever seen. Also the other Cata zones are pretty terrible too. Cata pretty much only suceeded with music, trailers and lore.
Vanilla was pretty interesting. It felt so much better than TBC and i dont really know why. It just felt more special.
WotLK was pretty good. Mana was a pain in the ass if playing Warlock, but otherwise it was a pretty nice expansion. And it didnt have the crappy half Barrens.
WoD was first my favorite expansion, but overtime i started to get bored. Playing WoD feels like playing Hunter no matter what class you play. All classes are so strong at PvE and the time traveling lore thing isnt very good too.
MoP is my favorite expansions. And no its not, because of pandas it just had good gameplay. Didnt have any mana problems. I think the mana regen was abit too high and classes too unbalanced, but i still enjoyed it the most.

 

[Razosh]

1. Wrath of the Lich King
2. Warlords of Draenor
3. Mists of Pandaria
4. The Burning Crusade
5. Cataclysm

I'm leaving Vanilla out of this because I wasn't max leveled at the time. As for the rest I really hated Cataclysm from almost every end game perspective it was inferior to Wrath of the Lich King in every point, fewer zones, shorter raids and also ended up having a really disappointing lore on many fronts. And the PvP copy-pasting old BG's and just hoping everyone would be fine with it. F no. There's only one thing I can say they did truly great and that was Mount Hyjal.

As for the Burning Crusade I know this is the love baby of most people but it just ended up being a big disappointment for me. First of all the reason I bought WoW was because the final raid of Vanilla was Naxxramas so I assumed that built up for Northrend which I was really hyped about and instead we got to visit Outland. The zones were awful, in fact Zangarmarsh is my least favorite zone of all time, I've leveled through every zone and the only one I liked all the way through was Shadowmoon Valley. Not to mention the PvP I hate Eye of the Storm so f-ing much! The raids however was pretty descent and while they were not impressive mechanically I thought they had a fun diversity. One thing I will give them that they did flawless was the blood elves, the starting zone was next to perfect and I loved the lore of the race.

Mists of Pandaria was fun on many accounts but by far what I liked most was the Timeless Isle which was exactly what WoW needed in every aspect. World bosses, promoting exploration and so many rares that all gave rewards. The one big downside though to MoP is that prior to Siege of Orgrimmar I didn't really care about any of the bosses but what a way to end it of with, battling Y'Shaarj. One letdown however was the PvP they had such a great idea for the Temple of Kotomogo and they only made it 10 man, I would have loved to see it be a 40 man. I saved this for last since I don't think anyone else here is affected by it but those BASTARDS over at Blizzard made achievements account bound and crushed the dreams of my beloved level one twink.

As for Warlord of Draenor I really loved the lore and how they turned the lore of Outland a continent I couldn't be bothered to give a shit about into something I truly appreciated. The zones were great, I really care about the raid bosses and the dungeon bosses. Ashran was a descent idea but did not live up to the expectation I had after Wintergrasp. They've promoted exploration even further which I am very glad for. There's not a lot to say of this expansion as it's still not finished.

Now to my jewel, the expansion I think every other should aspire to be, Wrath of the Lich King. The expansion that introduced my favorite class of all time, the one that revived WoW for me, Death Knights. Wrath of the Lich King had almost only fascinating zones including Dragonblight my favorite zone Dragonblight. Other than the zones the music was also at its peak in WotLK. PvE was truly great they introduced the dungeon finder and not to mention that in WotLK we saw for the first time ever a raid with two difficulties and later on they ended up having four. If you do not include Raid Finder that is the most raid difficulties Blizzard has ever had. The raid bosses were fun and outstanding with Yogg-Saron and the Lich King being unbelievebly amazing. You also had the possibility to go every raid two times a week which always allowed you to have something to do in the game. WotLK also had my favorite 5 man dungeon ever made, the Oculus. Then there was the PvP, Isle of Conquest, Wintergrasp and STRAND OF THE ANCIENTS! I've never seen such an amazing selection of battlegrounds in my life they outshine even AB, AV and WG. We also had Malygos who got me interested in the lore to begin with (and those bastards killed him.). Speaking of the lore is there any end raid boss who didn't have an interesting lore? Kel'Thuzad, Malygos, Sartharion, Yogg-Saron, Onyxia, Anub-Arrak, the Lich King and Halion. I loved them all Halion did such a good work building up hype for Cataclysm. Then we had achievements which were introduced and holy crap have I spent a lot of time farming those. And then the topping upon the topping of the perfection that is Wrath of the Lich King in patch 3.1 you could turn of your experience bar finally allowing twinks to enjoy everything there was to World of WarCraft.

 

[Zaramorus]

But the problem with WoD still is that its so easy. The game is so boring now. Some classes are so op im not even suprised if people could solo Blackhand or any other WoD raids. Hell i remember playing Ret Pala and i instantkilled mobs like 3 levels lower than me. Oh and with garrisons WoD feels more like a singleplayer game rather than multiplayer game. And alot of PvP-ers are quitting since there are soooo many bots in PvP. TBC raids were fine, but gameplay itself sucked hard and Outland zones are so bad. Mostly Zangarmarsh, but Shadowmoon Valley sucked too. WotLK had good gameplay, but STV. That fuckin STV where you got ganked every second and warlock was impossible to play with infinite mana potions/foods, but otherwise it was fine. Cata i havent really played that much, but it just was boring overall since the zones sucked and of course ruining some zones. MoP biggest problem is the high chance of getting ganked in Pandaria and the class unbalancment, but still had the best gameplay.

 

[PurgeandFire]

It is pretty hard for me to rank these xpacs now that I think about it. I guess I'll split it up.

PvE/Lore:

MoP < WoD < Cata < Vanilla < TBC < WotLK

As Razosh mentioned, I really didn't feel anything killing any of the bosses until SoO. Some cool stuff happened in MoP, e.g. Jaina's arc/Garrosh's demise, but I feel like MoP took the reputation of the game down several notches. I can't take pandas seriously at all, and rep. grinds were tedious.

As for WoD, I had high hopes in the beginning. I still like the lore of it, to a good extent. But PvE content was released slowly, and I don't like the legendary quest grind. The dungeons/PvE content is actually pretty cool overall! If only I enjoyed playing my classes. With Cata, I loved so many of the questing zones (e.g. Uldum/Vash'jir) and the lore related to that, but I really wasn't too interested in hearing so much about dragons again. It was still pretty good overall, definitely not too bad leveling wise.

I will always love Vanilla and BC content. While there really wasn't many "skillful" things to do in Vanilla, the actual PvE encounters and just the way dungeons/raids were organized was fun. I liked forming groups, meeting people, coordinating cc, and taking things one step at a time. There is a lot of BC content that I didn't really like too much (e.g. the way Illidan ended up being portrayed), but I loved everything about blood elves and draenei. Plus it had Karazhan. That instantly takes it up several notches.

As for WotLK, it had its fair share of problems. DK's were so stupidly implemented in the first patches (this is why they have PTR tests!), a lot of people complained PvE was way too easy, and things began to shift towards AoE fests. Still, I was most invested in this xpac lore-wise, and it really rounded itself out by the end. The first patches may have been rough, but the following patches were amazing.

PvP:

Vanilla < WoD < BC < Cata < MoP < WotLK

Vanilla PvP should be self-explanatory. Even though they had memorable things (e.g. AV), it was terrible. There was no counter-play. Even those Vurtne videos that everyone knows and loves was just him being carried by engineering and the fact that mages were the strongest class in PvP by far. 30 second polies and a 30 second untrinketable helm incap meant that all those 2v1's and 3v1's were just a series of 1v1's, where the mage is favored to win anyway.

WoD PvP is at a low point. The PvP is actually decently balanced, but the skill cap and skill floor have been reduced--and very few classes are enjoyable. The homogenization is real. Ashran was okay at first, but let's face it--it was a flop.

BC PvP, not too much to say. They progressed heavily, but there were still gimmicky things. RMP was god. I loved that they added arenas, but there were still problems from Vanilla that carried over. As for Cata, that is where the homogenization began. The first patches were pretty awful with clearly OP things (e.g. taste for blood) that took forever to fix, but by the end of it, it was actually pretty good. But you'd quite often just have MLS mirrors which would just be a slow mana war. RShams were gods--that was probably one of the most annoying aspects.

MoP was fun. It started off rough (especially with demo locks), but it had cool representation towards 5.4. The arena ladder was active, the Blizzcon tourney was great, monks were an awesome addition to the meta, and we had a lot of abilities to switch up our gameplay. And it is probably one of the funnest xpacs for mages almost entirely due to the way alter time could be used.

Finally, WotLK--the pinnacle. Again, it started off terrible--dk's were insanely dumb in every way possible, but they picked up the pieces towards the later patches. There were plenty of abilities to extend the skill cap, and things went at a good pace. WotLK was an xpac where you really felt like you were playing your class (it was before the homogenization), and you felt rewarded for playing well. I enjoyed both arenas and casual bg's--everything was fun. I was still a newb, but I enjoyed it.