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Season of Discovery Phase 2 has arrived. Adventurers can level from 25 to 40, earn up to 31 additional talent points, take on the challenge of Gnomeregan as a new raid dungeon, discover new runes and abilities, and more!
Enter the Gnomeregan Raid Dungeon
Gnomeregan is a 10-player raid dungeon consisting of six bosses–which includes one additional new boss. Each of the previous five bosses have been redesigned to present new challenges within the raid dungeon. This dungeon will also introduce a new world buff.
For the start of the new phase, there are two lockouts on the normal weekly lockout timer. The first reset will occur on February 13 with the second occurring on February 20 during regularly scheduled maintenance.
Location: Dun Morogh
Level: 40
Raid Size: 10
Bosses: 6
There are a wide variety of new items and rewards with even more epic rewards from additional sources beyond the last two bosses of the dungeon. Players can also gain new class sets, undertake new quests, and earn rewards adjusted for level 40.
Players will also be able to undertake a new profession quest chain leading to new materials players can use to craft more powerful items.
Boss Updates
You will find some changes to the boss areas within the dungeon affording for new challenges for players to overcome. Here are some examples of what you may find within:
- Grubbis: New radiation vents may just come into play in this encounter.
- Crowd Pummeler 9-60: This boss has moved to a new part of the dungeon where your encounter will occur on a raised platform before a crowd.
- Mekgineer Thermaplugg: Now has new mechanical suits as a part of his arsenal.
New Loot
We have placed a few nods to older items that were previously staples in this dungeon. Items such as the Automatic Crowd Pummeler will allow players to pick up just one of these items to reuse over and over as a quality-of-life improvement. We have also tucked in some fun items as well into the raid dungeon.
Item Sets
To help players get access to additional pieces that they are having difficulty collecting, there are also armor piece token drops allowing any player to use them to pick up additional set pieces they may be missing. For example, if your boots have been eluding you, you can use a boot armor token to purchase them from the vendor.
Dungeon Updates
Season of Discovery Phase 2 has new skill books as a part of 5-player dungeon drops from various creatures. These quality-of-life improvements will not take a rune slot and help to address things such as short Aura durations for Paladin Blessings, totem control for Shaman, or even as a part of manipulating combo points for Rogues and the target these are on— and more.
Rune Ability Updates
There are plenty of new runes available to discover as you continue to level up to 40. Here are just some examples of what you might find.
Druid RunesEclipse is a player favorite ability from future expansions that we've brought back for Season of Discovery. Eclipse increases the critical strike chance of your next two Wrath abilities by 30% and Wrath increases the critical strike chance of your next Starfire by 30% with each effect stacking up to 4 times.
King of the Jungle fundamentally changes your Tiger's Fury by increasing all physical damage you deal by 15%, as well as instantly granting you 60 energy. As a trade-off for this, Tiger's Fury now has a 30 second cooldown.
Hunter RunesMelee Specialist is a passive ability which will reduce the cooldown on Raptor Strike, cause it to trigger instantly, and each usage of Raptor Strike has a chance not to trigger its cooldown. Melee Specialist will also remove the cooldown of Mongoose Bite.
Trap Launcher allows you to place traps at any location within 40 yards and allows you to place your traps while in combat. Additionally, your fire-based and frost-based traps have separate shared cooldowns.
Mage RunesMissile Barrage gives your Arcane Blast, Fireball, and Frostbolt spells a chance to reduce the channeled duration of your next Arcane Missiles spell by half, reduce its mana cost to 0, and cause missiles to fire every .5 seconds.
Chronostatic Preservation is a great new spell that allows you to store some of your arcane, fire and frost energy for later use. You can only hold this energy for a short time before it combusts and expires, but you can use this energy to heal a friendly target.
Paladin RunesSheath of Light will cause damage dealt with your melee weapon to also increase your spell power. It will also cause your critical heals to apply an additional heal over time on the target.
Guarded by the Light will cause your melee weapon hits to restore mana over time, however; the amount healed by Flash of Light, Holy Light, and Holy Shock will be reduced by half.
Priest RunesCast Mind Spike to blast your target with Shadowfrost damage and apply a debuff which increases the critical strike chance of your next Mind Blast on that target. This debuff can stack up to 3 times.
As a favorite from later expansions, Pain Suppression can be cast on a friendly target to significantly reduce their damage taken and increase their resistance to Dispel mechanics for a short time.
Rogue RunesUse Shuriken Toss to throw a shuriken at your enemy, dealing damage to your target and up to 4 additional nearby.
Master of Subtlety causes attacks made while stealthed—and for a short time after exiting stealth— to cause additional damage.
Shaman RunesMaelstrom Weapon causes damage dealt with melee attacks to have a chance to reduce the cast time of your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lesser Healing Wave, Healing Wave, Chain Heal, or Lava Burst spell by 20%. The cast time reduction can stack up to five times.
Spirit of the Alpha is almost the opposite of Blessing of Salvation and casts a 30-minute buff on a friendly target to increase the threat generated by that target.
While some Shaman choose to battle with one weapon in each hand, others prefer to hand out devastating blows with a 2-handed weapon. If dealing damage with a two-handed weapon is your playstyle, then you will want to pick up Two-Handed Mastery. Each time you strike an enemy with a two-handed weapon, you gain 30% attack speed with this weapon for 10 seconds.
Warlock RunesWith Invocation, when you refresh some of your damage over time effects while they have less than 6 seconds remaining, instant damage will be dealt to your target equal to one tick of that spell’s periodic damage. So, you no longer have to worry about refreshing your damage over time (DoT) spells at the perfect moment.
Dance of the Wicked will trigger a buff which increases you and your pets’ dodge chance any time either of you deal a critical strike to an enemy. You will also gain 2% of your maximum mana when this occurs.
Warrior RunesRallying Cry is a defensive ability which can be activated to increase the health of all party and raid members within 40 yards.
Blood Surge gives some of your abilities a chance to make your next Slam instant and cost no Rage.
PvP Updates: Beware The Blood Moon
Dive into the new PvP event—“The Blood Moon.” This new event brings with it a bit of mayhem to Stranglethorn Vale and the Blood Moon will shine above the zone casting an eerie red fog on the area.
Event: The Blood Moon
When: Every 3 Hours
Duration: 30 minutes
Where: Stranglethorn Vale
During this event, killing players will allow you to earn currency which can be traded for various rewards. While you can still group-up with your allies for the event, the Blood Moon is a harsh mistress and will punish those in raid groups.
For those who would rather live in peace and harmony with the land, you can opt out of the event by speaking with the Zandalari Emissary. You will not be able to earn any rewards from the event if you opt out and general realm PvP rules will still apply.
Unlike in the Ashenvale PvP event, there will not be any PvP objectives in Stranglethorn Vale’s event. You will also need to keep a sharp eye out for the Chosen of the Blood Loa who is more than a force to be reckoned with and will kill all in their path.
PvP Rewards
Spend your currency on new rewards and seek out the merchant just outside the Gurubashi Arena. Players can earn new class-specific item rewards.
Two New Mounts
Collect two new faction agnostic mounts by participating in the event. These level 40 mounts also have new appearances.
Undertake new quests to earn Arathi Basin reputation.
PvP Updates
Additional adjustments have been made to matchmaking. Players in groups of five or fewer will have a higher chance to match against groups of five or fewer. Likewise, if you are in a group of six or more, you will have a higher chance to match with groups of six or more. To account for the potential to create longer queues with this updated matching system, the system will ignore these rules after a period of time should queues be impacted. This will then match you with the first available so you can get in and play without waiting too much longer.
Ashenvale Updates
Ashenvale has moved to a 3-hour timer and the weekly quest world buff will not apply to players after level 39.
Profession Updates
Phase 2 builds and expands on professions from Season of Discovery Phase 1. Players can discover approximately twenty new recipes across all non-gathering professions. This includes recipes for Alchemy, Enchanting, and Engineering along with Leatherworking, Tailoring, and Blacksmithing. Professions cap at 225 in Phase 2 with profession specializations opening later in Season of Discovery Phase 3.
Players can also undertake an epic quest chain to unlock access.
Recipes include some new materials that players can find throughout Azeroth and trade with others to get the items they need most to craft their wares. Here are just some of the recipes you will find:
Alchemists and Enchanters will find a couple of new recipes which can bring more utility and throughput into their own gameplay rather than simply creating things that they can use and sell to make a little extra gold.
Here are just a couple of examples:
No More GDKP Runs
We are experimenting with a new policy which will no longer allow GDKP runs in Season of Discovery. Given the experimental nature of Season of Discovery, we want to try things without this type of transaction taking place in this game mode. With the launch we are restricting this activity. Learn more in our previously published forum post. We will be monitoring feedback closely.
It is Not too Late to Join in Season of Discovery
For players looking to catch up with their friends above level 25, we will be implementing a 50% experience buff for players between level 1 and 25. Players will also see an increase in experience gained within the Blackfathom Deeps raid dungeon when it is cleared. The raid dungeon will still continue to run with the current lockout timer, and players will no longer gain the world buff beyond level 39, however.
Waylaid Supplies have been adjusted with a significant increase in experience gained from them on turn-in.
For a complete overview with additional developer insights, visit our previously published article.
What are you waiting for? Season of Discovery Phase 2 is waiting for you.