WoW Season of Discovery Phase 2 will open up with Gnomeregan for its level up raid and Stranglethorn Vale for its PVP event zone. But how has Phase 1 gone, and how have people reacted to it?

In the case of Phase 1 on Blackfathom Deeps and Ashenvale, people have loved the experience. Myself included.

Phase 1 - Breakdown

There has been a rush of people spamming Ragefire Chasm for Horde, Stockades for Alliance and Wailing Caverns & Deadmines for both to get geared up for Blackfathom Deeps.

The bosses were tougher than some people expected, with many wiping and struggling on later bosses. However, the loot experience and freshness of the content made it a genuinely pleasant experience.

Regarding the PVP event zone, people seem to be enjoying it. It’s an overall okay experience. Blizzard has been fine-tuning and monitoring player reception and feedback to the event, both raid and PVP. Overall, it’s good but could be better and not as good as people expected.

This doesn’t even account for the rush to get runes. The world feeling alive and active, seeing thousands upon thousands of players spamming these low-level dungeons because we’re stuck here for a few more weeks, and almost no one is bored yet.

Leveling has been fun. People are gearing up alts since the level cap is 25, and it’s not difficult to do. SoD Gold itself is now a valuable commodity, with people proud of their 50g. However, buying gold with real money trading is $1 per gold, which is exorbitant. But then again, if people are selling, that means some are buying.

Overall, Phase 1 is incredible and leaves people excited about what’s coming next.

PvE - Gnomeregan: Level-Up Raid

And that is Gnomeregan and Stranglethorn Vale (STV) in Phase 2.

Gnomeregan isn’t an iconic dungeon or place, aside from the fact that the Gnomes still do not have their homeland restored after 20 years.

But what are the bosses of Gnomeregan, and what kind of changes can we expect from this dungeon?

Bosses

When you go into Gnomeregan, you open up with Grubbis, a trogg that is rather brutish, but overall, a simple fight. Since this is the opening boss, I don’t think the difficulty of Grubbis will increase by much, but his loot table will definitely change.

Grubbis spawns after a short roleplay event in which you clear waves of mobs, avoiding the dynamite explosion before he comes out hollering. I wonder if they’ll keep this event or if they’ll remove it. It makes sense either way.

The second boss is Viscous Fallout, another simple boss. You simply have to clear the trash mobs around it so you can pull it without pulling extra packs, which will wipe your party. As far as being changed for a raid boss, I assume they’ll make it, so you have to fight some of these trash mobs with it. So, I expect it’ll start with some ads that pull regardless of clearing the ads around the Viscous Fallout.

Then, we move on to the third boss, Electrocutioner 6000, which is a simple boss. Most of the bosses are simple and, for the most part, spank and tank. But that’s just for Gnomeregan, the dungeon. Once it becomes a level-up raid, this will definitely change. I can assume that this mob will have a new deadly mechanic, as with most of the other bosses.

The fourth boss is also the most hated boss for Feral Druids in Classic due to the need to farm Manual Crowd Pummelers. With Season of Discovery, that is no longer the case, as we get a new and improved version of Manual Crowd Pummeler called the Automatic Crowd Pummeler. This new item is a permanent item with a 3-minute cooldown that you can use infinitely. I don’t know if they plan to remove the original version, but they likely will. As for the boss itself, the changes that’ll be implemented are likely going to involve giving it actual mechanics and things you have to keep an eye out for.

The fifth boss of Gnomeregan is the Dark Iron Ambassador, who is a rare that isn’t guaranteed to spawn. This mob will probably get turned into a named mob and given an expanded nature within the raid.

Finally, we have Mekgineer Thermaplugg, the big bad end boss of the dungeon and soon-to-be raid. This kind of boss was very likely going to be as brutal as Aku’mai has been in BFD. In the classic dungeon, like the rest of Gnomeregan, he is a spank-and-tank boss. However, for the level-up raid, expect him to have some new brutal abilities that’ll test your ability to clear this level-up raid. I don’t know what those abilities will be, but with how difficult Aku’mai has been for some people, this boss will also likely be very difficult to clear.

What Will Be Added Or Changed?

Now that we’ve covered the six bosses of the dungeon, let’s talk about what more they will add or change in the raid.

Gnomeregan is a level 30 to 35 dungeon for the most part. So, with it being turned into the endgame raid of Phase 2, that means the dungeon mobs and bosses will be pushed to level 40.

That also doesn’t account for the fact that BFD only had six bosses, and one of those bosses was just a named rare with no abilities. In contrast, BFD, the level-up raid, had seven full-named bosses with a whole loot table and abilities.

So for Gnomeregan, we can expect 1 to 3 new bosses, new events, new quests, and a massively changed loot table.

As BFD has shown us, the loot table of the dungeon versus the raid is staggeringly different.

The loot table of the level-up raid is significantly larger than the loot in the BFD dungeon. So, we can expect similar loot changes to happen to Gnomeregan, whose current loot table is rather pitiable.

I won’t guess as to what items they’ll add to the loot table. But considering the amount of insane and awesome loot that BFD got, expect a few new purple items, fantastic new gear, crafting recipes, elixir crafting recipes, a new world buff, more quests, and perhaps even more than what I’ve listed.

A great note for players is that getting to Gnomeregan for Horde will be much easier than it was in Classic. Players will be able to essentially teleport to Gnomeregan and not have to do the long and arduous trek that Horde players had to do to get to Deadmines in Phase 1.

PvP - Stranglethorn Vale

Now, moving on to the PVP content - Stranglethorn Vale, the PVP event zone.

This is an iconic zone, and one that I would wager money that most people have had a terrible PVP experience on. Either you got griefed or you were the griefer.

For anyone that played on a PVP server, it’s an absolute core in experience for not just Vanilla players but Classic players to be ganked or murdered in Stranglethorn Vale. People have been ganking and abusing low levels in this zone for a long time, and I expect this to only get worse in Phase 2 of Season of Discovery.

Between the Gurubashi Arena for the trinket, the fishing event, and the whole zone being turned into a massive PVP event zone, some of the most iconic questing in where one of the go-to zones to level up...... All of these facets coming together is going to make this place absolutely wild come Phase 2.

If you aren’t one of the first people to get to level 40 early on in Phase 2, I would highly recommend leveling up in another zone to avoid experiencing the hard ganking that will probably happen. This advice is only for people that play on a PVP server. If you play on a PVE server, have fun! It’s going to be a great experience.

I personally don’t know if there’s going to be a reputation involved with the STV PVP event similar to how you get Warsong Gold reputation for doing the Ashenvale event zone, but I would guess that even if we don’t get a reputation, there’ll be more events and things happening at the Gurubashi Arena and fishing event. Additionally, even if we don’t get a new reputation, a Wrathty based reputation will likely get earned through the PVP event zone.

Whether it makes sense or not, law wise doesn’t hold much weight. The experience is what truly matters here. Having a Trollbane murdering trolls is a beautiful concept, and I say that as a Horde and Troll main.

Blizzard’s Handling Of SoD

Now, shifting focus from PvP & PvE to Blizzard’s handling of Season of Discovery.

Buffs and nerfs have been coming out pretty quickly. Changes in the quality of life are being implemented almost instantly. They’ve been monitoring feedback and reception in Phase 1. And so far, despite Hunters being nerfed twice, the game is still balanced. Yes, Hunters remain the strongest DPS even after the 2 nerfs.

Regarding Runes and how they feel, Blizzard has done a phenomenal job. Runes feel great, especially as a Druid player. Being able to spam Wrath infinitely at no Mana cost has made leveling up and playing the game much easier and enjoyable.

However, I’m personally not fond of how quickly all the runes were discovered. Given the huge player base in Season of Discovery, it’s not surprising that all the runes were found so rapidly.

I hope that the next set of 12 runes for each class introduced in Phase 2 takes longer to discover and involve more interaction and unlocking. Considering the numerous new zones and places to uncover these new runes in Phase 2, I believe it will indeed take longer to find all the runes.

To give Blizzard credit, the decision to place the Warlock Metamorphosis rune inside BFD wasn’t the smartest, but they’ve acknowledged this mistake and stated they won’t repeat it in the future. They’ve made adjustments, allowing players to acquire said rune both inside and outside BFD.

Overall, with phases lasting 4 to 12 weeks at most, the content being enjoyable and well-positioned makes the game feel like a much-improved version of Classic.

I can honestly say that Season of Discovery is my favorite version of World of Warcraft to date. Hopefully, when they finish Season of Discovery and fully unveil WoW Classic Plus, they’ll incorporate all they’ve learned to provide us with an outstanding and long-term future for Classic Plus.