Welcome to another POE 3.23 builds guide. Each week I’ll choose a theme and show you my three favorite builds.

Today’s topic is for those players who like to stay and call the shots. I’m talking about Minion Builds. if you want to try any of them, then don’t miss this guide. Without further ado, let’s get started!

Let’s start with this classic minion build, like there are fireworks on the screen, Mage Skeletons Guardian with Templar class.

I’m sure you’ll remember that to turn regular skeletons into Mage Skeletons, you once needed a unique Jewel called Dead Reckoning. This all changes thanks to the introduction of the new Transfigured Gems.

Now we have Summon Skeletons of Mage Gem, which naturally summons Mage Skeletons without any mandatory unique items, and for a much lower price. This means Mage Skeletons become a better starter than before.

To list the pros of this build, I’ll start with its survivability. With Guardian Ascendancy, you have nearly a 75% chance of blocking attacks and spells, and massive life regeneration and the new Sentinel of Radiance can take 20% of damage for you.

Best of all, this is a very safe minion build to play. Because you stay behind your minions, they can kill enemies from a long distance. With the new Elemental Relic, you and your minions can gain 3 damage auras completely for free, allowing for massive boss damage.

Now to list the cons, the first thing I’d say is that Mage Skeletons don’t move. They feel more like totems in the build. Therefore, you need to keep re-summoning them as you clear the map.

Guardian Ascendancy also doesn’t get the speed boost from Flesh Offering like Necromancer does. So it’s a little slow.

On top of that, this build also doesn’t give you and your minions an exceptional 30% resistance to all elements compared to Necromancer. If you don’t look for minion resistance on your rare gear, this could result in your Zombies and Specters dying from elemental damage.

This build was fairly low budget. You only need about 50 Chaos Orbs to destroy the early EndGame map. To easily advance to Yellow Map, I recommend investing around 120 Chaos Orbs. If you want to complete your atlas easily, I recommend investing in 4 Divine Orbs.

For clear speed, I would give it an 8 out of 10. You have many skeletons firing many projectiles at a high cast rate. The two points I deducted are because Mage Skeletons don’t move and you need to keep re-summoning them, and also because Guardian doesn’t get Flesh Offering speed buff like Necromancer does.

Its boss damage is also amazing and deserves a score of 9 out of 10. With the new Returning Projectiles Support Gem, 100% of projectiles will hit the enemy twice. But since it’s not as powerful as the nerfed Anomalous Faster Projectiles, I removed a bit.

For this survivability, I would give it a 10 out of 10. This version has tons of defensive layers, like high armor, a 75% chance to block attacks and spells, and a minion that can take 20% off the damage for you. And since it’s a minion build, you’re always out of danger.

Now let’s take the previous build to another level and use Archer Skeletons Guardian with Templar class.

I’m pretty sure by now you all know that the very popular Mage Skeletons build nicely with the new Transfigured Gems. We also have Summon Skeletons of Archers now, so I spent the weekend trying it out and got this super fun build. So I hope you all enjoy it.

To list the pros of this build, I’d start with its balance. Unlike Mage Skeletons, this build has a smoother clearing speed and can deal more damage to bosses.

And this one isn’t complicated to build either, we just need a very cheap mandatory unique item. On top of that, as a Guardian, we still have three damage auras for free and a minion that takes 20% of the damage for us.

Now to list the cons, I’ll start by saying that while this build is still very tanky and safe, it’s not quite as tanky as Mage Skeletons staff build because it has less chance to block. But don’t worry, if you keep an eye on your position in time, you’ll have a hard time dying.

As for budget, this build is pretty cheap. You only need about 80 Chaos Orbs to destroy early endgame maps. To easily advance to Yellow Map, I recommend investing around 150 Chaos Orbs. To easily complete your atlas, I recommend investing in 4 Divine Orbs. But you can definitely do it for less money.

For this build, you only need one mandatory unique item, which is Lioneye’s Vision Armor, which already provides Pierce Support and allows us to give our skeleton one more Support Gem.

For clear speed, it deserves 9 points. We have a lot of Archer Skeletons, which fire a lot of arrows and have a high attack speed. Unlike Mage Skeletons version that uses Spell Echo Support, we can easily cast 4 skeletons at once in different locations and greatly increase their damage angle.

Its boss damage is amazing and deserves a full 10 points. It can even destroy those endgame bosses in seconds, and that’s just using Determination Aura. But if you’re playing in Affliction League, you can use Specter of the Guardian Turtle to get free Determination Aura, and Pride to deal more damage.

I would give it a 9 out of 10 for this survivability. As a minion build, you can stay out of harm’s way while they tank for you and kill everything. This is a very safe style of play.

And this build also has over 90,000 effective HP because of its high armor, block chance, and minions that take 20% of the damage for you. I’ll just point out that because we don’t use this staff like Mage Skeletons version, we end up with less chance of blocking in terms of effective HP.

Finally, we have a surprising endgame build, Poison Raging Spirits Guardian with Templar class.

This build takes advantage of the large number of Raging Spirits we can summon to stack massive amounts of poison on our enemies. Initially, I tried to make it a Necromancer. But with Guardian, we only lose a little of damage, but nearly triple the survivability.

To list the pros of this build, I’ll start with its boss damage. Once the build is complete, we’ll kill the biggest boss in just a few seconds. Survivability is also amazing, as we can have all of Guardian’s layers of defense on top of an already very safe minion build.

Now to list the cons, I’ll start by saying that this version isn’t for everyone. You’ll need plenty of POE Currency to assemble this build. Another problem is that Raging Spirits have a short duration and you have to stop frequently to re-summon them.

As for budget, this build will require at least 10 Divine Orbs to put together. Like I said, this is an expensive build.

Also, this build requires four required unique items.

The first is United in Dream Sword, which gives us Envy Aura, which deals with massive chaos damage to our minions. It also gives them a 60% chance of being poisoned on hit.

We also need a Darkness Enthroned Belt with two Abyssal Jewel Sockets so that we have a 100% chance of poisoning our minions.

Next we need a piece of Covenant Armor to provide level 29 Added Chaos Damage Support to our Raging Spirits. This means we have more chaos damage.

Finally, we need Ancient Skull, which gives our minions a massive damage and attack on speed boost.

For clear speed, I would give this a 9 out of 10. Even though we have a lot of fast minions that can destroy everything in seconds, their duration is short and they need to be re-summoned all the time, which is why I removed one point.

Its boss damage is totally worth a 10 out of 10. You can easily get over 30 million DPS, which is enough to take out every boss in the game.

This is definitely a 10 out of 10 in terms of survivability. As a minion build, you’re already out of danger. On top of that, you have a number of layers of defense from Guardian Ascendancy, which gives this build a staggering 250,000 effective HP.

That’s it for today, guys, what do you think of these minion builds? Please take a moment to tell me what you think. Have a great day and don’t forget to keep building.

In Phase 2 of WoW Season of Discovery, every Warrior will be wanting to get their Whirlwind Axe as fast as they can. Warriors will really struggle to farm this axe, but Level 25 Hunters will have no problem killing the Elementals by kiting and farming these charms. Here’s how you can farm them to stockpile the charms for Phase 2 for the Whirlwind Axe Quest.

Warriors need to collect 3 different types of charms, and they need 8 of each of them, giving these charms a lot of value. These charms are farmed exclusively in Arathi Highlands, and they’re at 3 different locations:

Each of these Elementals has about a 33% chance to drop each charm, providing a really consistent farm.

For talents, you will want to dump all of your points into Marksmanship, picking up Aim Shot, 3 points into Hawk Eye, and 2 points into Improved Hunter’s Mark. I find that Improved Aspect of the Hawk doesn’t get a lot of value in this farm, and Hawk Eye is particularly important for the Wind Elemental farm, which we’ll get to a bit later.

For runes, you should always use Heart of the Lion and Kill Command for this farm, but you’ll need to flex your hand rune depending on which Elemental you’re fighting.

Let’s start with the Fire Elemental, where you’ll want to be using Chimera Shot. For your opener, cast Aim Shot and Multi-Shot to start the kite. Send your pet in, cast Kill Command, and kite the Elemental down the road, casting Chimera Shot and Multi-Shot on cooldown. Do your best to get off as many autos as you can and utilize Concussive Shot to help slow down the Elemental to get off additional auto attacks.

While this path is definitely the most convenient, there are a few things you need to keep in mind when you’re running down the road. Raptors can wander close to the road and aggro you. There is a Horde patrol of undead that will just mess you up. If you’re on a PvP server, you need to be careful because you could absolutely run into a player of the opposing faction who may or may not mess you up as well.

If you find that you need an alternate route for the kite due to PvP being troublesome or maybe the patrol is in your way, you can opt to kite along Thoradin's Wall. Simply pull the mob to the west and head north, hugging the wall, as no mobs will spawn anywhere near the wall, and your path should have plenty of room for the kite. This is just textbook kiting, running using your cooldowns as you go and making sure you don’t let the Elemental ever hit you as you have Aspect of the Cheetah up the whole time.

For Alliance players, the Wind Elemental Farm is extremely simple, as they spawn just outside of Refuge Pointe. Make your way just out of town and head over this hill where you’ll find a cluster of Elementals at another point. For these pulls, the one major difference is your opener is the same, but when you’re kiting, you basically want to shoot Multi-Shot or Explosive Shot and then run away immediately. You’ll see the cast bar at the top of the Elemental.

Where you want to walk away, back up, shoot, immediately walk away when you start casting, back up, use your ability, rinse and repeat. You want to continue to kite the Wind Elemental down into town and slowly just whittle them down, getting your kill. If you get hit by a few of the Elemental attacks, it’s not a big deal. You can definitely survive.

Honestly, if you had better gear, you could probably face half the fight if you wanted to. The additional 6 yards of range that you get from Hawk Eye talents with 3 points in it makes this just trivial, and I can’t recommend it enough if you’re going to do this farm.

Last but not least, we have the Water Elemental, and these are going to be going back to Chimera Shot, same opener with the Aim Shot, Multi-Shot, and we just want to basically kite them from this location down the hill, kind of staying close to the ledge where that rock is, and bring them down to this open area where there're no mobs that spawn, and it’s perfectly safe to just kite around, and you can do circles or do whatever you want, as it’s a big open area with really nothing to worry about.

The only thing to know with the Water Elementals is they do have a close-range Frost Nova spell, so your pets will be more or less useless as it will consistently be getting rooted to the ground. Serpents suffer from the same problem. Their ranged attack won’t quite reach these Elementals, so your pet won’t be doing too much here.

That’s pretty much it for the stockpile your charms! You can stockpile these charms in the weeks leading up to the launch of Season of Discovery Phase 2, as it should make for a really strong payout. Hope this guide helps you.

Did you know that Magic Find is arguably the most popular attribute in Diablo game? Did you know that Magic Find is still present in Diablo 4 even after it’s fully released? Are you interested in learning how this innovative and interesting property became completely useless in Diablo 3 and was eventually removed entirely in Diablo 4?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then hang on. This guide outlines the rise and fall of Magic Find during the evolution of Diablo game.

Magic Find was first introduced in 2000 with the release of Diablo 2, and it remains one of the most important statistics for players, especially after the launch of Diablo 2: Resurrected.

Magic Find is the stat that everyone wants: it increases the drop rate of Magic, Rare, Unique and Set items by a percentage of the original drop rate. So if your character has 50% Magic Find, and a mob or boss has a 1% chance of dropping a Magic item, you actually have a 1.5% chance of getting that item.

In Diablo 2, Magic Find can be obtained not only through equipment but also through runes. It can be used to enhance your gear, gems, can be embedded into items, as well as charms of different sizes, and can be added to your inventory to add stats to your character.

In an interesting twist, you need to give up Magic Find for different character powers: inventory space for Charms, and actual combat stats for Runes, Gems and Items.

Part of Diablo 2’s endgame is balancing the amount of Magic Find you have while maintaining a strong enough character to kill monsters and bosses effectively. Best of all, Magic Find has no upper limit. The roll limits the amount of Magic Find you have only on the item, with a theoretical maximum of just over 1,100%.

As you might imagine, finding more and more Magic Find was, and still is, a big part of Diablo 2. Because it’s really fun to have a stat that actually changes the drop rate in your favor.

The developers have further improved this system by adding new Magic Find sources in the expansion Lord of Destruction.

It’s clear that Magic Find, combined with Rune and Runeword systems, has contributed greatly to Diablo 2’s playability and success so far. As a result, there are still many players playing Diablo 2: Resurrected, especially with the game being updated semi-regularly.

With Diablo 3, the developers took a more conservative approach. But they seem to view balancing the game around Magic Find as more of a hurdle.

Their reasoning is that if players can increase the drop rate so much, then the base drop rate without any Magic Find will be very low, similar to Diablo 2.

We all know where these decisions lead: each Rift Guardian drops a ton of Legendary and Set items, but 99.9% of the loot is worthless and players have a full set of gear after half a day of playing.

Overall, Diablo is becoming a game for casual players.

When looking through several pieces of loot I’ve picked up on exits in D2 in the past, I found that the game gives you so many Legendary and Set items that checking them all one by one feels cumbersome and a waste of time.

This has even forced developers to introduce new rare items, such as Ancient and Primal Ancient Legendaries, that have better or higher rolling stats than the original items.

While I believe Reaper of Souls expansion and subsequent released seasons did improve the overall quality of the base game, it certainly pushed the series further toward casual players and away from the original two games.

The changes to Magic Find are just part of the bigger picture. Magic Find in the original Diablo 3 is very similar to the effect in Diablo 2. However, after many changes, its importance slowly but steadily waned.

Originally, Magic Find percentage was a stat that could be rolled randomly on items, with a hard cap of 300% on Magic Find coming from gear. This hard cap immediately eliminates the exciting balance between Magic Find and character abilities we discussed in Diablo 2.

With the introduction of the original Paragon system, you’ll gain 3% of Magic Find per Paragon level. Unfortunately, this and the vast majority of Magic Find you could get from gear were removed with Reaper of Souls expansion, save for a few special perks on legendary items that are considered largely useless today.

Also, the expansion also imposes a heavy penalty on your existing Magic Find for increasing the drop chance of Rare and Legendary items: only 20% of Magic Find is added to the drop chance of Rare items. For Legendary and Set items, this number is even only 5%.

This means that a hard cap of 300% Magic Find will increase your Rare item drop rate by 60%, while Legendary item drop rates will only increase by 15%. These numbers are obviously a far cry from Diablo 2’s numbers. This makes the incentive to equip the few remaining items with this property essentially non-existent.

In fact, players don’t need to balance their character’s power with the amount of Magic Find they carry. This resulted in Diablo 3 having to introduce several difficulty levels: 16 Torment levels and several Greater Rift levels.

But all levels have increasing chances of dropping more and better loot. This gives players access to hundreds of different game modes with varying difficulties, rather than just a few difficulty levels, and makes it harder for those who choose to carry more Magic Find by making them give up character powers.

As for Diablo 4, not many players know that Magic Find did exist in the game for a short period. Because its impact is even smaller than Diablo 3.

You can’t even get it by installing Magic Find on your gear or through Paragon Board.

The only appearance of Magic Find in Diablo 4 is as an affix on Nightmare Dungeon Sigils.

Nightmare Dungeon is an endgame activity in which players open dungeons using Sigils, who determine the dungeon’s difficulty and certain attributes. These attributes are called affixes, one of which is Magic Find.

No one knows exactly what this affix does, other than a brief description of “You find more items from enemies.” The exact percentage of this bonus and the items it affects were never actually revealed. But some players have reported significant increases in loot, especially when running Nightmare Dungeon with this affix.

Despite this, players have found a way to abuse Magic Find affix by using a trick to keep resetting the same Nightmare Dungeon repeatedly, thus keeping the bonus permanently active.

You may have noticed that I used the past tense when talking about Magic Find in Diablo 4. Because the developer’s response to this abuse was to remove Magic Find affix from any newly dropped Nightmare Sigils. They also later fixed a bug that allowed players to endlessly reset Nightmare Dungeon with the same affix.

So today, despite probably spamming the same Nightmare Dungeon endlessly, Magic Find simply doesn’t exist in the game. All we can do is wonder if it will be added again.

This is the story of the rise and fall of Magic Find in Diablo: from the core game mechanics to the barely noticeable affixes that were removed from the game to prevent misuse. Which implementation of Magic Find is your favorite? See you next time!

EA FC 24’s Career Mode provides players with an exciting football gaming experience. Whether you manage an existing club or create a new one from scratch, finding the right players to strengthen your team is crucial to success. While chasing top talent is exciting, sometimes the best deals are found in Free Agent Market.

These players can strengthen your squad without affecting your transfer budget, as you don’t have to worry about release clauses or additional transfer fees. In this guide, we will list the five best Free Agents in EA FC 24 Career Mode that are worth signing, all of whom have a combination of experience, versatility, and skills.

Miguel Angelo Da Silva Rocha, also known as Xeka, is a skilled Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a midfielder.

His football career mainly started in France. He showcased his talent in Ligue 1 with famous clubs such as Lille, Dijon, and Rennes, making an impressive 145 appearances in total.

Xeka played a key role in Lille’s 2020-2021 league victory, achieving the highest level of achievement. However, injuries hampered his run and ultimately made his return uncertain.

After five years, Rennes released him this summer, leaving him currently without a club. Nonetheless, Xeka will definitely strengthen your midfield significantly in EA FC 24.

Santiago “Santi” Mina Lorenzo is a talented Spanish professional player who is well-known in the football world for his outstanding performance as a forward on the field.

While the majority of his career was spent at Celta Vigo, where he made 163 appearances and scored 42 goals, Santi Mina also left his mark in La Liga. However, in August 2023, his contract with the club was terminated.

He spent four seasons in Valencia jersey before rejoining Celta in 2019 for a transfer fee of €10 million. Meanwhile, he played a crucial role in the club’s 2019 Copa del Rey victory.

Therefore, Santi Mina is definitely a strong contender as a potential goal threat in your EA FC 24 lineup.

Jesse Ellis Lingard is a versatile English professional footballer known for his abilities as an attacking midfielder or winger.

Lingard holds many famous championship titles, such as UEFA Europa League, FA Cup, FA Community Shield, and EFL Cup. What makes him even more special is his remarkable feat of scoring in the finals of all three domestic competitions, which is very impressive.

When he played for Manchester United for more than ten years, he was often loaned out to different clubs. He enjoyed a stunning loan spell at West Ham, where he scored a career-best nine goals in a single season. Moreover, he accomplished this feat in just 14 appearances.

However, his future at Manchester United still looks bleak. As a result, he was offered the opportunity to move to Nottingham Forest at the time. Unlike his time at West Ham, his performances during this period were disappointing, and the club released him at the end of the season.

Nonetheless, Lingard is also currently a coveted free agent who could provide a wealth of talent and experience to any future team. The English midfielder will definitely expand your attacking opportunities in EA FC 24.

Eden Michael Walter Hazard is a talented Belgian professional footballer known for his versatility as a winger or attacking midfielder. He has already risen to the top ranks of football.

Eden Hazard’s reputation as a creative genius, coupled with his dribbling skills, precision passing, and remarkable vision, has cemented his status as one of the best players of this generation.

Hazard’s impressive career tally of 170 goals in 622 games is testament to his enduring excellence.

His talent is unparalleled, and his time at Chelsea is proof of that. However, things turned around when he realized his dream of moving to Real Madrid. Despite his obvious potential, injury ended his Real Madrid career. Fans only saw him 54 times during his four years at the club.

Ultimately, the club had to part ways with him, leaving him as one of the most talented Free Agents. Eden Hazard is bound to give an outstanding performance in EA FC 24 lineup.

David De Gea is a highly regarded Spanish professional goalkeeper who has left an unforgettable mark at the club and international level.

During his time at Manchester United, De Gea etched his name in the club’s history. He racked up over 500 appearances and collected a host of trophies. Despite his outstanding performance, the club decided not to renew his contract for the 2023/2024 season.

His outstanding performances earned him the prestigious Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year Award, a title he held for an unprecedented three consecutive seasons from 2013 to 2016. This makes him the first player in the club’s history to achieve this feat.

In addition, De Gea was selected to PFA Team of the Year four consecutive times from 2015 to 2018. In 2018, he also earned a spot in FIFA FIFPro World 11.

With his contract expiring in 2023, De Gea is now a Free Agent, ready to offer his incredible goalkeeping skills to any team lucky enough to secure his services. In EA FC 24, a goalkeeper with this potential will always be a solid defender in front of your goal.

The above are 5 Free Agents that I think are most worth signing in Career Mode. Obtaining them will definitely make your team better and have more chances to win the game!

There are many different things we can prepare for Season of Discovery Phase 2, for example, a full Quest Log, materials, and so on. 

Today, I've put together a guide with many different things you can farm that will begin a quest. This allows you to get even more experience so you can also get ahead of the competition and reach level 40 even quicker.

When you slay the final boss in the dungeon Wailing Caverns, located in Barrens, you can also loot the Glowing Shard. This can be looted by both factions. 

At the Phase 2 launch day, you then want to head to Ratchet and begin the quest. Next, you need to speak to the Goblin located close to the Flight Master and ask for more information about the Glowing Shard. After that, you will have to head back to Wailing Caverns.

On top of the dungeon, there will be a small building. In here, you will find a Tauren. Both factions can speak to the Tauren. When you hand in the quest, you will also get a follow-up that will either tell you to head to the Nexus as an Alliance player or Thunder Bluff as an Horde player. 

You should also head to Ashenvale and do the world PVP event. When you kill the different guards, you can also obtain the Warsong Outrider Mark, an item that will also begin a quest. This quest item you hand in at Ashenvale, and it will reward you with experience and also an item that will increase your damage and healing by 5% for 2 hours. This is pretty nice when you're also going to level up to 40.

When you slay the final encounter in BFD, you also have a chance to obtain this item. It begins a quest and will most likely not reward you with any experience. However, you will get a world buff that will last for 2 hours. So having this item in your inventory allows you to go to the Nexus or Thunder Bluff. Activate the item, and get a new world buff. But remember, you can only do it once, but it will provide a buff to anyone in those main cities.

In the southern part of Stranglethorn Vale, there are 3 pirate ships. On these ships, you can obtain a Cortello's Riddle, an item that begins a quest at level 35. But you can obtain this item no matter what level you are. 

You can solo this if you play a class with a pet; else, it's way more efficient to find someone else and do it together. Then, one player could, for example, be standing on top of objects and prevent the monsters from hitting them. At the same time, you can then loot the riddle.

The reason why you want to focus on doing this is that it starts a big quest chain that will reward a lot of experience. At the end, you can also get yourself a 14-slot bag.

Another way to loot the riddle is simply to use defensive cooldowns. As a Rogue, I, for example, use Evasion. As a paladin, you could use a Bubble. Meanwhile, the other player in your party is going to loot the riddle.

Next, I'll show you Alliance and Horde-specific quests you can also prepare. 

As an Alliance, you should head into Deadmines and slay the final boss. Here you can obtain a letter (called "An Unsent Letter") that will begin a quest. You hand in this quest in Stormwind City. There's also going to be a follow-up for the dungeon stargates.

In the southern part of Darkshore, there’s an area where you can loot a book (Book: The Powers Below). The drop chance is awful, and I would highly recommend you to do this with someone else. It took me more than 50 kills to obtain this. The good thing, however, is that it’s shared. So if it drops for someone in your party, then all of you will be able to loot it. Even though you loot this in Darkshore, then you hand it in in Ironforge. So the next time you go to Ironforge, you just hand it in.

An Old History Book is an item you can obtain from pretty much every single creature in Duskwood. It’s a low drop chance, but still something you should be farming and prioritize getting now.

As a Horde, you should head to Thousand Needles and look for the messenger. You will be able to obtain the Assassination Note that you also hand in in the very same zone.

It seems like Horde players have way more quests that can prepare like this, at least higher-level quests compared to the Alliance. An example could be in Ashenvale, where you accept The Ashenvale Hunt and complete this instantly. This allows you to pick up 3 items that begin the quest. One of these where you need to slay a bear. If you find it difficult to find the specific target, then you type “/tar” and the name of this NPC to make it even easier.

Then you could also add a mark to the target so you can see it even though it’s behind an object. Some of them can be a bit difficult to solo, so I would highly recommend you to form a party and look for other people who are also doing this quest. This is mainly because the final target you will also have to slay is level 31. 

These quests are so important to do also because all three you hand in at the exact same location. So you’re going to end up with a lot of additional experience. Then you could find more experience in dungeons or maybe even do yet another thing. 

This is to head to Desolace and kill these higher-level creatures. They’re going to be above level 30, so you should definitely form a party. It’s a low drop chance, but you can get this item that begins a quest, and it requires you to be level 25.

Hello fellow adventurers! Today, we’ll be taking a thorough analysis into Gnomeregan lore, history, mysteries, unanswered questions, and how they’ll finally be resolved in Season of Discovery.

As we approach February 8 launch, it’s crucial to understand the background, not just for curiosity’s sake but for strategy. After all, knowledge is power in WOW Classic.

Therefore, in this first part, I will discuss the controversial legend surrounding Gnomeregan.

The story of Gnomeregan is one of innovation, tragedy and unsolved mysteries. We need to explore the key events that shaped this iconic place.

It all started in the mountains, where Dwarves and Gnomes lived together in Dun Morogh. They were both smart and resourceful. Thus, after Dwarves and Gnomes worked together to create a magnificent city called Gnomeregan, the two races quickly developed a friendship.

It’s a fantastic and very tech-focused city, so for a while, everything was fine. Gnomes invented amazing machines and gadgets that more than made up for their small stature.

A high Council of Gnomes led them, eventually electing Mekkatorque as their leader. Also in this Council of Gnomes is Sicco Thermaplugg, one of the most genius Gnome inventors and the most ambitious of all Gnomes. He dreams of one day expanding Gnomeregan further into the lands of Dwarf.

Regardless, Gnomes lived here for many years until a Dwarven Expedition entered Azeroth.

After easily slaughtering Dwarven Expedition, all Troggs were awakened from their slumber, and Troggs tracked Dwarves back to Ironforge. Thus began a long and terrible war between Troggs and Gnomes. Their city is under siege. Troggs are slowly advancing, and Gnomes are desperate.

But Troggs are mainly at the bottom, which seems to be a blessing. So all they need is to move all Gnomes to the upper levels, and then Gnomes can release all the toxic radiation from the machines in the city to the lower levels. This will kill Troggs instantly. After the cleanup, Gnomes could move back, but that was how Gnomes’ downfall began.

In fact, Troggs didn’t die when the radiation was released into the ground floor. They just get stronger. Meanwhile, a filtering system that was supposed to keep the upper Gnomes safe failed completely. A shocking 80% of the entire Gnome population either died or became irradiated Evil Gnomes.

At this point, the irradiated Gnomes and Troggs have completely disappeared, with their new leader, Thermaplugg.

But Thermaplugg has also been affected by the radiation, and is more crazy and ambitious than ever. Meanwhile, their city was completely destroyed, and the remaining healthy Gnomes had to flee to Ironforge, where they remain to this day.

Despite its rich history, Gnomeregan leaves many unanswered questions: why has it not been reclaimed, and what secrets does it hold? Let’s delve deeper into these mysteries.

The first question is why the city had not been recaptured during the initial attack.

At the time, the rest of Azeroth was busy dealing with Scourge, fighting Lich King, and messing with Defile mechanics. But after Third War, powerful forces combined with the remaining Gnome population could easily reclaim the city. In fact, the only attempts to retake the city occurred far away from Little Fanfare.

Another question surrounding Gnomeregan is why Troggs attacked in the first place.

The common answer is that factories are really noisy and Troggs is attracted to the noise. Although Troggs are barbaric in nature, they are also known for hoarding Titan Artifacts.

What do you think it is about Gnomeregan that is so attractive to Troggs that it warrants a multi-year siege? This is the beauty of Season of Discovery. Because we finally have a chance to get answers to these unanswered questions in Phase 2, we no longer have to think about how to change the story and what new chapters might be added.

We’ll hear back by February 8th. Because we knew we’d be revisiting Gnomeregan with a raid group and facing a new, more challenging Thermaplugg.

If we can defeat Thermaplugg once and for all, this could be the beginning of urban reclamation.

We expect Phase 2 will feature new quest chains with raid rewards. These quest chains may open up new lore and insights.

One possibility is to create a new staging center near Gnomeregan, which has vendors and NPCs and is the perfect place to organize attacks on new raids.

There is another key legend. We found that there is also a lot of speculation about Shadowy Figure helping you get epic craft in Phase 1. Many speculate that this is Xal’atath.

If that’s the case, she’ll likely be back to help us get more epic gear and new artifacts, with new raids coming soon. This is truly the perfect time to explore the engineering marvels and rare artifacts Gnomes have preserved in the city’s underbelly.

This means that countless machines and gadgets lost during the war will eventually be recovered in engineering-themed raids. There is a good chance that there will be unique and exciting items that have never been seen before.

So you might be wondering why Gnomeregan is such a perfect raid environment. Let’s look at the different aspects that make it ideal for raiding.

The first aspect that makes it so perfect is the verticality. As you enter from the top and take the elevator down, you descend into the dungeon, where it becomes more challenging. After all, this is the most vertical dungeon in Vanilla, located next to Sunken Temple.

So we could potentially see any mechanic, and we could even get some crazy stuff like launching players into the air to assist us.

As we get deeper into Gnomeregan, the elevators kill a lot of raiders. While Gnomeregan’s elevators don’t have buttons, we’ll probably find them all in one place.

There’s another marvel of engineering in the raid, and that’s the unique vendor system. Where you can exchange specific drops for rewards.

Imagine you don’t need the typical low value rewards from Vendor-Tron. You have a chance to earn epic crafting materials and loot in new raids.

There’s also Punch Card system, which is part of Data Rescue Quest for Alliance. You can have random cards that drop and unlock doors to new rewards and maybe even some secret boss encounters. This is probably my favorite part of Gnomeregan raid.

It’s a city full of secrets, locked bolts and mysterious buttons that may well lead to rare treasures and unseen artifacts. I really hope the developers incorporate the original spirit of invention, mystery, and curiosity that built this city so long ago in Gnome.

Understanding the legend of Gnomeregan is more than just a matter of satisfying our curiosity. It is also about adding depth and experience to the challenges we will face in the future. I’d really like to hear your thoughts on Gnomeregan lore and potential solutions to unanswered questions.