For the sake of discussion, I will absolutely be conflating the Artifact quest lines in with the class Campaign quests.
1. Druid - Druid's campaign basically breaks the curve by sheer scope. The campaign focuses on one major theme for this part of the expansion, and just expands on it beautifully. You are charged with protecting the Emerald Dreamway, rescuing Malorne, and eventually saving the Emerald Dream from the forces of both the Legion and the Emerald Nightmare. Between the beauty of the different zones, the massive gatherings of druids, exploration of Druid lore, and getting to relive the War of the Ancients at Mount Hyjal, none of the other class campaigns quite compare to sheer magnitude of history and lore that Druids get to explore. It also doesn’t hurt that Druid is an amazing class to play in its own right and each artifact quest is clever and interesting (except the Balance questline. That was pretty weak TBH). This campaign really made me feel the ‘class fantasy’.
2. Shaman - Close contender for being almost as epic as the druid campaign. The major theme of the Shaman questline is leading the Earthen Ring and uniting the Elemental Lords against the Legion, which is kinda like bargaining with a bunch of perpetually angry, murderous children to team up and fight Communism. Nonetheless, the shaman campaign has fun and interesting quests as well as insight to how the Elementals work (or don’t work) with each other, and they make good use of a variety of former instances and questing zones (including a finale in the Firelands that is beautiful and hectic).
3. Death Knight - Another top contender given THAT FINALE THO. GET WRECKT PALIDANS YEAH- oh, nevermind.
Really, my only complaint was that the very end of the finale fell short (should’ve just let us do it, Blizz), and that it wasn’t Dark Souls Hard the whole way. Everything else about the Death Knight campaign was fantastic - raising the new Four Horsemen, killing lots of people, causing mayhem, Lich King Bolvar. Superb stuff, all the way.
4. Warrior - The quest line that starts meh, gets good, gets great, then settles back into “good” again. Sadly, I think it was a missed opportunity to explore the warrior cultures of the Horde and Alliance, and instead focused entirely on the lore and history of the Titans / Vrykul. For what it is, though, I think Blizz did a great job, and I don’t see the quest line they built fitting into any of the other classes nearly as well. It wasn’t the story that we wanted or needed for Warriors, but it was the best damned way to tell the story they did. Also, lolz Ulduar quest zone~
5. Monk - This is a fine quest line that falls short by virtue of just not being as epic as the others. It’s also the questline that convinced me that the Vrykul story only really paired well with the Warrior class hall. It starts strong by basically trashing the set in at the Peak of Serenity in Pandaria, and takes you back to the Wandering Isle (remember there?). Then it proceeds to utterly destroy shit in Pandaria at literally every chance it gets, which is great fun. Then you make God Beer and defeat a winged commie space goat.
6. Mage - This is where the class hall quests start to get a bit underwhelming, TBH. The whole quest line revolves around Archmage Vargoth being weird, only to reveal that he was possessed by demons. Honestly, it’s not great on it’s own, and if it wasn’t presented as a ‘mystery’ that we all could solve within the first five seconds of stepping into the order hall, it probably would have been more interesting. However, throughout the quest line, you do get some cool lore, elves, stupid Khadgar tricks, more elves, vomiting deaders, gaggles of elves, a blue-haired dragon husband, too many elves, Milhouse Manastorm, and a free trip to your most hated (my favorite) dungeon from Wrath of the Lich King, THE OCULUS!
Also, so many elves... even though they are shit at magic.
7. Warlock - High School Drama: The Anime: The Quest Line. Seriously, you could probably make a decent anime out of just about anything that happens with Warlocks - the angst, the interpersonal drama, the cute/disgusting monsters they subjugate to serve them, the unlikely capture/escape scenarios, the pink hair. It manages to be clever and more interesting than some of the other quests, but it ultimately boils down to a whole lot meaningless drivel and a weird “choose your favorite girl to join your cool kids’ clique” decision at the end. And then you have the orc who keeps leaving butt-cinders *everywhere*.
8. Demon Hunter - Basically you finish what you started with the Demon Hunter starting zone. And then you fight twins in what is probably one of the better finales of all the quests. However, apart from a cool finale and the fact that you get your own space ship, there’s not really much about the Demon Hunter quest line that really excited me. Demon Hunters are insufferable characters in general, Korvas Bloodthorn doesn’t get to be your bodyguard, and if you picked Kayn Sunfury then you spend most of the time being just as terrible as Illidan was. I probably would have enjoyed this more if I didn’t pick Kayn, but I did and I regret my life choices, even if the Illidari CANNOT be STOGHPPPED!!!!
9. Rogue - Good: Tactical Espionage Action. Pirates. Mattias Shaw is a dreadlord. Garona, Vaneesa VanCleef, Taoshi, and Valeera Sanguinar’s thighs all become your girlfriends. Bad: Trolling the AH for mats while Noggenfogger sits on his ass and blackmails you. Amber Kearnan dies offscreen and zero fucks are given. Getting killed in Stormwind repeatedly by Fury warriors (okay, I lied about that last part, that was pretty lolzy). Worst: you have to play a Rogue in order to experience any of it. Also, exactly one of the artifact quests are fun to do and it’s not the one it should be.
10. Priest & Paladin (Tied) - I have to tie these because they’re basically the same flipping thing, with only the artifact quests and maybe half of the actual campaign quests to distinguish them. I wanted to praise Blizz by showing overlap / interaction between the different classes, but they basically went overboard here, by recycling plot points and even the finale, altogether. Also, Netherlight Temple is a dumb idea, akin to moving NORAD into a base in Afghanistan because Al-Qaeda would NEVER think to look there (....well, until they do). Priests arguably have it worse because they don’t even get to be the hero of their own class hall mission (that goes to the Paladins) - AND you have to play a Priest for the privilege of this nonsense, which is arguably the worst punishment one can experience. Paladins, on the other hand, get meaningless choices and suffer the indignity of watching every single champion of theirs make fools of themselves at the first opportunity.
Also, both sides visit each others halls, but nobody gets murdered in the process.
Also also, wtf is a Lothraxxion and why - I did this shit twice and I still don’t know, he just shows up like a shiny sparkle vampire.
Also also also - sigh - Night Elf Paladins when, Blizz? :/
12. Hunter - My beloved Main’s class campaign was also arguably the weakest and least interesting. The artifact quests are fine enough (though Marksman could have just dropped a bigger dime on Allleria than “she ain’t here, but she was”) but the main core of the hunter quest - while probably the most grounded and true to the Hunter’s ‘class fantasy’ - was a snooze fest compared to the other campaigns. The Unseen Path as a concept is cool but overall underwhelming to me - their super-clandestine nature means that they try to stay out of the way of cool things happening, but they don’t have the benefit of being a bunch of spies and thieves to have any intrigue to back it up. They swear an oath and then sit around a lodge and snack, occasionally plinking arrows at targets literally right in front of them. There are cool, all-too-brief detours when you go to recruit champions like Rexxar, Nesingwary, and Addie Fizzlebog, but even they aren’t enough to uplift an otherwise boring plot involving hunting down a felguard and his super felstalkers.
In terms of scope and grandeur: If the Druid campaign was ‘class fantasy’ being used to tell an epic tale of saving the planet and exploring history with an army of allies, the Hunter campaign was ‘class fantasy’ being used to tell a story about how you did a crossword puzzle while on vacation this one time. On the plus side, the Hunter quest line has you play with a dog, and the Druid quest line does not.
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...I take it back. Hunter quest line 12/10. Best quest line. Best ever. <3 <3 <3
