When it comes to the best expansions of World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King are often mentioned. However, for MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz, there is another contender for the throne.
Although I had more fun again with Dragonflight and The War Within after the rather disappointing Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands, it has been quite a long time since Blizzard was able to truly excite me with a WoW expansion for the long term. More than eight years, to be precise.
When WoW: Legion was released on August 29, 2016, I had no idea that the developers would actually manage to deliver an addon after the content-poor Warlords of Draenor that competes with The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King for the title of “the best WoW expansion of all time.” Why Legion was incredibly good, I will rave about in the following.
His playtime for WoW has long been measured not in hours, but in years. Many of the most beautiful, memorable, and intense moments of his “gaming career” he was able to experience in Azeroth.
Nostalgia pure! The fantastic cinematic trailer for WoW Legion:
Strong Finale of the First WoW Saga
Similar to how the World Soul Saga is supposed to do now, the story of Legion continued the events of the two previous expansions Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor. The first exclamation point occurred in the cinematic trailer, with Varian’s sacrifice. With Gul’dan and Illidan, two characters who had been built up over many years were already in focus early on in the story.
Something comparable had previously made Arthas “Lich King” Menethil one of the best villains in gaming history. And also the finale of Legion impressed with Illidan’s ultimate sacrifice. The story arc surrounding the Burning Legion and Sargeras was just enjoyable and felt wonderfully like Warcraft.
The MeinMMO community has chosen the best WoW expansions:
Fun Foundation for All Player Types
While the first WoW expansions were still very much directed at raid and PvP fans, Mists of Pandaria noticeably broadened the range of content – with the challenge mode for dungeons, pet battles, as much daily content as never before, scenarios, combat guilds, and more.
WoW: Legion not only benefited from this but also turned the challenge mode into the Mythic Plus dungeons that we know today and through which Blizzard was able to strengthen the esports sector. Later, the Mage Tower followed, offering a challenging solo experience that promised great rewards.
Class Content = Great Content
Even more importantly, the main key features of Legion – the new class halls and artifact weapons – turned out to be wonderfully great. There was not only a headquarters for each class as well as a few (in many cases well-designed) weapon skins, but also elaborate, class-specific quest chains, as well as a progression system that was directly tied to the artifacts.
The latter worked much better for me than, for example, the Azerite gear from Battle for Azeroth, because the weapons and their skills brought the fantasies of the respective class to the forefront and many of the specializations were fun and varied to play.
In addition, I was suddenly motivated to bring multiple classes to the maximum level to experience all the quest chains of the class halls, earn the weapons, and ultimately reward myself with the different class mounts. My rogue still flies on his raven through Azeroth today.
A Feast for Warglaive Users
Speaking of classes, demons, and Illidan. For me personally, the introduction of the demon hunter class was also a highlight. I have been known to favor agile melee fighters and have been playing a rogue as my main character since 2005. A rogue, mind you, who is particularly proud of his warglaives of Azzinoth.
Since the release of Legion, my demon hunter has, unsurprisingly, surged to second place in terms of playtime. He is wonderfully agile, highly mobile, and wields two warglaives. Additionally, he walks in Illidan’s footsteps, who, by the way, is one of my favorite bosses against whom I have had the chance to fight over the years.
No Chance of Boredom
We’ve often seen Blizzard jump from one extreme to another. A particularly striking example is when comparing the patches from Warlords of Draenor and Legion.
- Warlords of Draenor had only one real content patch in 21 months, namely 6.2. With highlights like Twitter integration and selfie camera, 6.1 surely earned its reputation as the worst X.X update in WoW history.
- WoW Legion, on the other hand, ran for almost 24 months, but received three packed content updates and three intermediary patches during this time. Such a rapid update cadence had never been seen before. And in the subsequent expansions, Blizzard has only been able to maintain this pace temporarily.
It was noticeable that Blizzard had “given up” on the disappointing Warlords of Draenor early on to allocate as many development resources as possible to the next expansion. The result was a cohesive, rounded package in which everything fit together. It’s a pity that this did not succeed at all with Battle for Azeroth. WoW Battle for Azeroth is unpopular – More than 40% find it really bad
