Clickbait title much?! It seems every time a new World of Warcraft expansion comes out, reviewers and players are eager to name it the “best one yet”. Which kind of makes sense when you think about it, as by that point we’ve been waiting so long for new content that we are happy with pretty much anything that’s thrown at us. For Legion, however, I’m ready to dust off the title, as I truly believe that this is the best expansion Blizzard has made for World of Warcraft. Here’s why.
Even after taking off the nostalgia glasses, Burning Crusade was my favorite expansion for WoW. The story, the raids, the dungeons, the progression, everything was compelling and fun. Not only that, but you always felt the need to login because there was always something to do. Legion brings back this feeling in force with world quests. For those familiar with World of Warcraft or MMO’s in general, you’ll understand what I mean when I say “Dailies can suck… the fun out of playing an MMO”. That’s the saying right? ANYWAY, Legion introduces a twist in the daily quests meta with world quests. Yes, they are quests that reset every day and yes, they can be “repetitive”, but the kicker is that they actually offer good rewards! You can open up the world map, check what the rewards for each quest are, and decide to do them or ignore them, whichever you prefer. Which is a genius way of enticing you to log back in every day. The rewards can vary from gear, resources, artifact upgrades and many more things.
Speaking of artifacts, Blizzard has decided that getting a weapon in the game was no fun, no fun at all. They introduced something that is, so far, my favorite part of the expansion: artifact weapons. One of the first things you do when you log into Legion for the first time is to get your class quests going. After a few awesome lore oriented missions, you get to decide which weapon and specialization you’ll be using throughout the expansion. That opens up a whole new level of customization and optimization for your class, with an artifact talent tree and upgrades. BUT SIMON, I hear you cry out in despair, WHAT IF I WANT TO CHANGE MY SPECIALIZATION?! No fear fellow nerds, upon hitting level 103 and advancing in your class quest, you’ll unlock the option of switching your artifact weapon to the specialization of your choice.
Along with your class artifact, you’ll unlock your class hall. For those who played the last expansion, Warlords of Draenor, think of it like garrisons, albeit actually fun this time. Everything you do is related to your class and helps you deepen your knowledge of the artifact you’re wielding. Of course, there still are missions and followers that you send to do said missions, but you are limited to 5 followers and only a few amount of missions at a time, making it less “annoying” to deal with. The rewards are also actually useful this time around, giving you gold, items to enhance your artifact and many other useful things. Class halls in general are also awesome to be in, as you’re surrounded by every other player that is using the same class, and you can interact with them and talk about what makes you tick. I’ve only seen the Death Knight, Shaman and Warlock class halls so far, but each of them offered something interesting and they set the tone incredibly well for what’s to come.
WoW will always be about the numbers, like it or not. You’re always working to make your numbers bigger, to go get even bigger numbers so that you have the biggest number of all the other numbers. But that’s actually where the fun begins for me and a lot of people. When you finally reach max level and start gearing up, that’s where the game truly opens up. There is such a nice progression this time around, you slowly start your way with normal dungeons and world quests rewards, which will eventually lead you to Heroic dungeons, which then leads you to Mythic dungeons (same dungeons, just higher difficulty) then finally raids. Everything feels organic, there’s no huge gaps in difficulty like in the normal vs heroic dungeons back in WoD and you never feel like you’re under-geared for the content you are exploring.
I could honestly go on and on about why this is the best expansion so far. The lore is fantastic, the items look amazing, the new class talents are fun, and actually make you want to try different things. I personally cannot wait to start raiding and see the progression happening there. Leveling is absolutely fantastic with zone scaling, something that I wish they could introduce to all of WoW eventually. No mob tagging, phased resource nodes, better transmog interface, etc. DEMON HUNTERS! A WHOLE NEW CLASS! Overall, this makes it the best World of Warcraft expansion so far, without a doubt. Now the only thing that remains to be seen is, can they keep it up? With the next content patch already being developed and around the corner (KARAZHAN HYPE), here’s hoping they’ve learned from the very harsh lesson that was Warlords.
Simon plays an Orc Warlock on the Zul’Jin server. Feel free to comment to join him on his adventures! All screenshots were taken by the author.