Do you prefer Online or Offline?

Hi there!

Personally, I much prefer online for actual gameplay.
Even for solo play, I'd rather be online because that constant option of "could just make a backup and keep rerolling everything much as I want" offline inherently somewhat devalues when things do go right in my mind. Even if you don't actively (ab)use it. Probably more of a mentality thing than anything else.

Beyond that, despite being mostly solo (as that's kind of the nature of the game), I still enjoy having the option of playing with/helping people when I feel like it. Along with trading in the pursuit of actual top-tier endgame setups that just wouldn't be realistic to ever achieve offline/SSF in any legit way. Especially not for more than 1 character.

That said, I do remain quite jealous of offline /p8..lvling and active farming are definitely way easier offline than they are online because of it. Plus you get to have at least a little more of a challenge.

But yeah, at the end of the day, real game play for me is online and offline is merely a tool for planning, experimenting and playtesting various builds along the way.
It is however limited to mainly just my local region as cross-ocean pings tend to be pretty bad these days. Only dealing with that for trading purposes. But since you have the game anyways, you can just log in once and see what your connection is really like before committing to anything.

If you're waiting for blizzard to "finish/fix" the game/RotW, you could be waiting for a LONG time. Quite possibly for Eternity. And it is perfectly playable right now. Merely comes with some FotM OP choices that will still be there after the next patch but will likely be different builds offering the same (or higher..) performance. That isn't going away by any means but you can simply actively choose not to roll with that build.

Also, online or not, ladder seasons remain entirely optional.
Let's be realistic: you won't stand a chance in the ladder race playing "like a normal person". Ever. Even if you take a week off work for it, you simply will not be able to compete with the streamers/dedicated groups who have an entire support network of peons doing their trading for them and instantly filling their games so they effectively get online /p8. Unless blizz at some point decides to finally even the playing field and give us said online /p8, noone but those people will realistically ever even come close to competing in a ladder race. So just ignore that. If they ever do..you could at least keep up with some decent drop luck (to make up for their trading support network).
Ladder does have the advantage that a new season is new for everyone so you get to start in a "healthy" trading economy. Non-ladder, as someone coming in Brand new, you'll need a fair bit of luck or will simply have a fairly hard time to catch up to the point of affording endgame pieces. On the flip-side, non-ladder, you can get entire low to mid gear setups for free so there is that as well. Plus you do get access to crafting the handful of ladder-only items on ladder.
Either way, whether you start with the next season or the one after that or 5 more down the road, doesn't change anything about that really. You're never "missing out" in any sense other than "you're not doing something that might be fun for you".