Now that we know that Azshara will be a major boss early in Battle for Azeroth - the equivalent of Gul'dan in Legion - there area lot of questions to be asked regarding what will come next.
We've moved pretty far past it as a model, but the Burning Crusade had an interesting system for dungeons and raids - Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh, and Netherstorm each had dungeon hubs with three dungeons a piece that then had an attached raid that would conclude the story of the dungeons and the zone. BC of course was pretty ambitious in terms of how many dungeons they had at launch (15,) which was made easier by having similar aesthetics and enemy types in the connected ones. As of Cataclysm, we've tended to get more distinct, but fewer dungeons, and it's actually fairly rare to see dungeons firmly attached to raids the way they were in BC and Wrath (and of course in Vanilla, many of its biggest raids actually required you to clear your way through a dungeon to even get to the entrance - Naxxramas was originally going to require you to go through the dead side of Stratholme.)
Nowadays, however, Blizzard is pretty happy to conclude certain stories within dungeons - I think a really great example of this is Skyreach, which finished off the story of Spires of Arak, even though I bet a lot of people wouldn't have minded an Arrakoa-themed raid.
Now Legion actually returned a bit to the BC model - we had Darkheart Thicket thematically connected to the Emerald Nightmare, we had Court of Stars and the Arcway leading into the Nighthold, Halls of Valor and Maw of Souls leading into the Trial of Valor, and then of course new dungeons added with Tomb of Sargeras and Antorus (though Seat of the Triumvirate was very different thematically from Antorus, and set on a different fragment of Argus. Can I just take a brief aside to mention how impressive 7.3 was? I mean, three legit-sized zones, each with a different feel? More like a mini-expansion than a patch.)
At this point, we only have two raids confirmed for Battle for Azeroth, and one of those we really only know who the final boss is (though if we don't get to see Nazjatar before we kill Azshara I'll be pretty disappointed. I'm thinking it ought to be a new zone somewhere between Kul Tiras and Zandalar.)
While historically, plenty of final raids have come in zones that were added (or in the case of Warlords, made accessible) later in the expansion, one could probably expect that we'll get at least a couple more within the continents around which this expansion revolves. So let's go zone-to-zone and think about what we might find there!
Nazmir:
This seems like the obvious place to start because it's the one zone we already know contains a raid. The plot of Nazmir, and indeed a lot of Zandalar in general, revolves around the Blood God G'huun, who was created in this Titan facility in an ill-advised attempt to reverse-engineer the Old Gods. Given that we have both a dungeon (The Underrot) and a raid (Uldir) in this zone, I don't think there will be much story that remains to be told, so we can probably move on.
Drustvar:
Drustvar has one dungeon in it (every BFA zone has at least one dungeon,) called Waycrest Manor, which seems likely to be the expansion's haunted-house dungeon (we got the gothic/vampire look in Blackrook Hold in Legion - maybe this will have more of a Victorian ghostly feel?) As this dungeon looks to be tying up both the story of the Waycrests and that of Gorak Tul, the ancient Drust leader, I suspect that there's not going to be much story left to tie up in Drustvar, unless they decide that we're going to learn a lot more about the Drust later on.
Zuldazar:
Zuldazar has two dungeons in it already (King's Rest and Atal'dazar, the latter of which I've actually run at this point,) but as the oldest city on Azeroth, there's probably a lot of potential for story hooks here. The question is really how much of Zandalar's story will be wrapped up in Uldir. I'd hope it isn't completely, as we're going to have a lot more time to spend there. But given that Zul is a boss in Uldir, I'm tempted to suspect that new stuff will have to happen after Uldir for there to be a big climactic thing to do in Zuldazar.
Tiragarde Sound:
Tiragarde Sound has three dungeons (Tol Dagor, Siege of Boralus, and Freehold,) but what's interesting about them is that none feature Lady Ashvane, who is the main villain of the zone, as a boss. I believe that Siege of Boralus covers her main attempt at a coup against Katherine Proudmoore, but it seems like she might come back as a raid boss later on, not unlike Zul. Would that raid be here? It's a big zone, but the primary interesting features are covered pretty well by the Freehold dungeon and Siege of Boralus.
Vol'dun:
The plot of Vol'dun (I haven't finished it) mostly revolves around a group of Setherak (the cobra-people) who have turned on the Trolls and each other. There is certainly a plot against the Snake Loa, Sethrallis, but there are also a lot of stories about how this was an area where the minions of the Old Gods caused havoc, creating the desert from an area that was jungle. I could imagine an Old God-themed raid here, but only if it doesn't step on Uldir's toes too much.
Stormsong Valley:
There is a dungeon here called Shrine of the Storms that absolutely has some big Old God stuff going on. Apart from the Naga attacking in the west and the Horde attacking in the north, the Shrine seems like the main place you'd find raid-worthy stuff going on. The Shrine dungeon could simply have us exploring the well-known parts of the massive island on which it stands, and a raid could have us delve deep into the island's interior to find something worth fighting.
It remains to be seen what other raids we'll come across. I suspect we might be seeing a lot popping up on other islands later in the expansion, but I'd also like to see them use the massive zones that they've created.
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