To be honest, the original title was going to be "what did Heavensward do right and why?" but I thought that might be a little too subjective for the topic I had in mind. It came to me as I was running through some dailies, and realised as burnt out as I am on the current content cycle, I always feel a pang of nostalgia and relief when I run HW duties, which got me wondering why I still look back on it so fondly.

I can't speak for every player, but I think it's somewhat fair to say HW is possibly the most beloved expansion overall - ShB steals the spotlight as perhaps the most conventionally popular due to its bombastic ending, but HW is commonly cited as being the most consistently enjoyable throughout, and many vets even now miss those days in particular, through to early SB.

So what was it that made HW feel so much better? Was it the writing? The content? The battle design? Job identity? Going that extra mile implementing new features - a new, fully developed race, three new jobs, a shortened patch schedule, the addition of as of then never before seen content? The story? Or does it perhaps simply benefit from being the very first expansion and immune from the repetitive formula fatigue that plagues us now?

And if you disagree, which time in the game's history did you think was the best, and why?