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World of Warcraft and Elder Scrolls Online both occupy a similar space in the world of MMOs. They offer their players a vast assortment of content in-game, with the freedom to travel the land and play the content they wish when they wish. While it wasn’t always this way, the modern iterations of both MMOs have undergone a vast array of changes, updates, expansions, and Quality of Life changes.
However, today we’re looking at the games from the lens of very specific criteria. While one game will certainly come out on top, this isn’t to say that World of Warcraft or Elder Scrolls Online are bad games. In fact, ESO is one of my most-played games on Steam, and I’ve actively played WoW since Vanilla.
I enjoy both games immensely, and think they both have strong merits that make them worthwhile. Both games can offer something that the other can’t, and that’s important. With The World at War coming and Gold Road already here, it’s time to look at both games. When looking at the following categories though, we will define which game is the better use of time and money.
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Note: This article is subjective and solely based on the author's opinion.
Which MMO is better for you to main: World of Warcraft or Elder Scrolls Online?
1) Which game has the better PVE experience?
Both World of Warcraft and Elder Scrolls Online have a quality PVE experience on tap. Both games allow you to venture into virtually any part of the game to explore and play at your leisure. The only real difference is the current expansion zone typically has a minimum level in WoW. Anywhere else is completely fair game, and will scale with you.
Elder Scrolls Online lets you play anywhere, anytime, provided you have access to the content as well. However, while both games have daily quests, plenty of story missions to go through, and zones to explore, I feel like World of Warcraft simply gives you more to do.
World of Warcraft has more large, multi-person raids, scattered across its nine expansions, but that’s the big focus of the end-game. Each expansion has two to three raids typically.
There are only a handful of raids (known as trials) in ESO. The two games have a starkly different late-game focus. ESO is for Housing, Veteran Dungeons, Trials, and Fashion. In WoW, it’s all about higher-level raids, Mythics, and pushing your gear score as far as it will go. I’ve always felt Blizzard offered more for players at the end of each expansion, compared to Zenimax, though.
Winner: World of Warcraft
2) Which game has the better PVP experience?
Frankly, I’m not big on PVP in either game, if I’m going to be perfectly honest. The general opinion of the playerbase in Elder Scrolls Online is that PVP is in a very sorry state at this time. There is hope that it will improve in time, but at this moment, you have Dueling, Alliance War, and Campaigns. I’m a bigger fan of faction-based battlegrounds, instead of the style of PVP ESO gives.
I think the initial idea was fine, but it never really met the expectations of the fanbase. World of Warcraft has duels as well, but also has Arena, a host of regular and epic battlegrounds, as well as competitive (rated) PVP as well. The only major downside to PVP in WoW is that most of those battlegrounds kind of feel like frustrating faceroll situations. Especially Alterac Valley. The strategy of many of those battlegrounds feels lost to time.
There have been teases and hints that improvements are coming to PVP in ESO, but until that happens, World of Warcraft’s glut of options is definitely the better pick.
Winner: World of Warcraft
3) Which game has the better class flexibility/experience?
With each expansion, and often with major updates, WoW does a balance patch that changes how classes feel. Sometimes, they get complete reworks as well. The majority of classes have a few specific power fantasies that they’re focused on though. A few of them, like Druid and Paladin, can do almost everything. That said, you’re still more or less pigeonholed into whatever your specialization is focused on.
This is where Elder Scrolls Online really shines though. Whether you’re playing a Necromancer, Templar, or the more recent Arcanist, you can do anything. All classes are capable of healing, tanking, or doing melee/ranged DPS. It’s based on your weapon equipped, weapon skills, and things of that nature.
Sure, some classes might be better at it than others, but you have the option and the ability to grow in whatever way you wish in ESO. It’s one of the best things about the game. Then you have the post-level grind skills, where you can flesh out your build in even greater ways. There isn’t an MMO that offers more flexibility in their builds than Elder Scrolls Online.
Winner: Elder Scrolls Online
4) Which game gives the better bang for your buck in a subscription?
This is a pretty hard one to judge, quite frankly. Elder Scrolls Doesn’t have a subscription, but it does have the optional ESO Plus. It’s about the same as the sub to World of Warcraft, but it comes with a wide assortment of benefits. It grants players free Crowns (real-money currency) every month, a crafting bag for infinite amount of space for your crafting materials, double your normal bag space, and that’s just the start.
It also gives you access to all of the paid DLC content that Elder Scrolls Online has come out with over ten years—and there’s a lot of that. That means all the extra dungeons, zones, and other content that wasn’t connected to an expansion, is also given out for free. It also comes with all the expansions up to the current one; that one you will still have to purchase.
What makes this difficult is that when you purchase WoW, you receive all the expansions up to the most recent one—you still have to buy that one. However, you can’t play the game without the sub. World of Warcraft doesn’t give you free currency or any extra perks, but it does offer some truly amazing extra game modes that it didn't have before. WoW Remix, WoW Classic, Classic Hardcore, as a few examples.
It's also worth noting that if an expansion's content has a new class (EG: Arcanist), you have to purchase that separately, even with ESO+. If you drop your ESO sub, you lose the extra perks, but can still play the game. If you drop your WoW sub, you lose access to everything. While I like both, I think Elder Scrolls Online barely edges it out.
Winner: Elder Scrolls Online
5) Which game has the better combat mechanics?
There’s a lot of good and bad to be had in both games if I can be perfectly honest. World of Warcraft suffers from something Final Fantasy 14 also does—ability bloat. Some classes simply have too many buttons. Final Fantasy 14 has at least made moves to quell that, with upcoming changes in Endwalker.
While there is a lot of bloat for many classes in WoW, you also have a ton of abilities that you can put on a ton of hotbars. You can have something like eight hotbars if you really want. I don’t run more than three for combat abilities/cooldowns. The great thing about this is that you have so many possibilities for setting up ability rotations.
You get five buttons (+Ultimate button, +Potion buttons) in Elder Scrolls Online, maybe ten if you use an addon. You really have to make do with what you have, and I think that’s neat, and it’s challenging in its own way. Finding the right set of abilities, and then having an alternate set for another weapon is a really cool idea.
However, some classes really only need to hit two buttons to grind through levels. With a few combat abilities and an ultimate, it can feel restrictive, but it’s also fun, depending on how you prefer to play. ESO is also better in that you have a sprint, and a dodge roll to get out of mechanics. That’s not common in WoW, unless you have a cooldown attached on a certain character. Combat in Elder Scrolls Online definitely has moments where it is far more exciting.
I’d rather have a nice, wide assortment of skills to choose from, so I prefer the World of Warcraft method of having two or three hotbars stacked with buttons. I do, however, hate how much of WoW is focused on spamming tons of buttons quickly. It’s not a perfect system, far from it.
Winner: World of Warcraft
Overall Winner: World of Warcraft
While World of Warcraft came out on top here, both of these MMOs excel in a wide assortment of ways. World of Warcraft and Elder Scrolls Online are excellent games and are both worth playing. There were other topics I didn’t really cover, admittedly, such as the active playerbase.
It’s no secret that World of Warcraft’s is much bigger, and Elder Scrolls Online's, while smaller, is still rabid and active. Nor did I cover communities, ESO is generally speaking, more positive, while WoW has been known to be incredibly toxic but not as much as say, League of Legends.
At the end of the day, it’s more important for you to play the game that you enjoy, or that fits your needs. All MMOs bring something unique and special to the table.
