Greeting gamers, here are 4 advanced tips you need to be taking advantage of in the WoW Classic Season of Discovery.

Tip 1: Battleground (BG) Teleports

With players frequently having to travel between cities and continents, it can cause a bit of a headache with how to min-max your travel time and where to put your Heartstone.

Thankfully, there's an easy trick you can take advantage of to quickly teleport across zones by simply asking a guildy or friend to cue you into a Battleground.

Whenever you're queued into a BG, if you leave the Battleground, you will appear wherever the person that quequed for you was standing.

This means, for example, if you're in Stormwind and want to go to Darnassus, you can have someone queue you up at the Darnassus Battleground Master. Join the BG. Type '/AFK' to quickly leave, and the game will place you in Darnassus where your friend was standing, saving you a ton of travel time.

There are also Battlemasters in Ashenvale for both Horde and Alliance if you want a quick teleport to the battle for Ashenvale event, saving you some travel time.

Tip 2: Hearthstone Batching

In a similar vein to the last tip, since travel is a big pain in WoW Season of Discovery, here's another easy way to maximize your travel efficiency.

If you have to hearth and know that you need to be back where you are in an hour or later, you can perform a Hearthstone batch. This is done by using your Hearthstone and then asking to set your hearth to an inn but not clicking the confirmation window until the moment before your Hearthstone is about to finish casting.

If performed correctly, you will hearth to where your Hearthstone's currently set and then set your Hearthstone to the new location at the same time, allowing you to hearth back 1 hour later. The timing for this technique will vary depending on your ping.

However, I found pressing the confirmation window within 2 seconds of the cast finishing works best for me. My ping's around 80. When in doubt, it's always better to be too late than too early because if you're too early, you will set your Hearthstone to your current location and end up hearthing in place, wasting your Hearthstone, whereas if you're too late, you would simply run back like normal, anyway.

Tip 3: Mistletoe And Snowballs

This is a time-sensitive tip during the Winter's Veil events, but it is an important one.

Players will not have access to these items again for an entire year, which is basically the entire lifespan of Classic WoW Season of Discovery. So, it's valuable to stock up now while you can. The event ends on January 2nd, 2024.

Mistletoes are an item you can get from using '/kiss' on the Winter Revelers in any inn. The item, when used on other players, grants them plus 20 spirit. That is a lot of spirit regardless of your level and is greatly appreciated by your healers and casters.

Each time you kiss a Reveler, you get 5 mistletoes and receive a debuff preventing you from getting further mistletoes for 1 hour. This can be ever so slightly circumvented by making a '/kiss' macro and kissing both of the Revelers in the inn at the same time, giving you 10 mistletoes.

I have gone as far as to make alts that are logged off in inns, and I log in occasionally to soak up Mistletoes. People will thank you for stocking up once they are no longer available.

On the other hand, snowballs are an Alliance-centric tip during this event. Paladins gain access to a spell called Judgment of Wisdom around level 40, which allows any attack on the judged target to have a chance to restore Mana.

For some reason, throwing a snowball counts as an attack on that target and is off the GCD (Global Cooldown), which means you can macro snowballs with your spells to double up on Mana Regeneration chances.

This trick is often used by speedrunning guilds or players that love parsing and will pay a premium for Snowballs during the summer season when they're unavailable. Stock up now to use yourself or sell them later for a profit. You may earn a large amount of WoW SoD Gold for this. So act quickly!

Tip 4: The Blackfathom Deeps (BFD) Logout Skip

Getting into BFD is annoying, especially on a PvP server where you're likely to encounter an array group of the opposite faction.

So, from the BFD entrance, you can swim over to the left side of the cavern entrance and hug the wall.

Make sure you're at the very top of the water level and log out. When you log back in, you'll be at the dungeon entrance. This is a logout skip.

That’s all for this guide, I hope it helps!

The New Life festival has begun in ESO, bringing with it a 100% XP boost to celebrate the holidays!

The event was originally set to end January 3rd. But ZOS has heard the complaints on the forums and extended the event to January 9th, giving you ample time to catch up with this year’s ticket items.

Introductory Quest & How To Join The Event?

To join the event, pick up the New Life Festival quest from the Crown Store and use it to locate the New Life Herald Breda, found south of the city of Windhelm in Eastmarch close to the Kynesgrove Wayshrine.

There is also a portal at all impresario tents that will teleport you directly to the New Life festival tent. The intro quest simply tasks you with talking to Breda.

Breda’s Bottomless Mead Mug

Once complete, you will unlock the Breda’s Bottomless Mead Mug collectible, which used to provide a 100% XP boost, but this has changed!

100% XP Boost!

You can enjoy the XP boost automatically every time you sign in throughout the entire event period. And its benefits stack with other XP bonuses!

How To Get Rewards?

There are a total of 10 daily quests. And when you complete 1, you’ll be rewarded with a New Life Festival Box.

Reward Box Contents

Within them, you will have a chance to receive the following goodies.

You can complete the dailies and collect these boxes on each of your characters.

New Life Daily Quests & Achievements Information

The New Life Festival Quests will send you all over Tamriel.

There’s a quest for each playable race in the game. For example, the Khajiit themed quest will send you to Reapers March.

There are achievements tied to each quest that you pick up from Breda, a few of which are straightforward.

Fish Boon Feast Achievement

In Shadowfen at the fish boon feast, catch 5 of each fish to get Fish Boon Angler.

You can do this over the time of the event or across multiple characters. This one will probably take the longest since RNG plays a part.

You can use any bait as long as you are at a New Life fishing hole, even the junk bait.

Lava Foot Stomp & Castle Charm Challenge Achievements

For the Lava Foot Shuffle and Castle Charm Challenges, it’s as simple as waiting for a second player to come along and performing your actions at the same time.

Snow Bare Plunge Achievement

The Snow Bare Plunge achievement says all you need to know.

Drop down to your knickers and jump in the water. Just one time is needed.

Stonetooth Bash Achievement

At the Stonetooth Bash, have some of the event recipe Betnikh Twice Spiked Ale ready to drink after you eat your meal.

The recipe comes from the reward crates, but you could ask other players as well.

War Orphan’s Sojourn Achievement

The War Orphans Benefactor achievement requires you to make a ESO Gold donation, and then complete the optional objective to kill the encroaching wildlife also in one trip.

The last couple can be a little more challenging, but you can remedy it by working in a team!

Signal Fire Sprint Achievement

Signal Fire Sprint requires you to light all of the braziers within 35 seconds.

You’ll want to start at the Brazier next to the Skyshard in town, then work your way around to the others.

You can use spells to run faster, like Rapid Maneuvers in the PvP skill line. Or, you can just work with someone else and they can light some of the Braziers.

Also Read: Elder Scrolls Online: A Complete Guide To Endless Archive Portals To The Unknown! - Puzzles, Quests & Upgrades

The Trial Of The Five-Clawed Guile Achievement

And the Trial of Five-Clawed Guile in Reapers March challenges you with unlocking 3 chests in 35 seconds or fewer.

Again, work with someone else, if they have the ability to force lockpicks even better.

Mud Ball Miscreant Achievement

The final achievement is Mudball Miscreant.

Throwing a Mud Ball is easy. When the quest is active, you simply need to have the leader in-front of you to use a Mud Ball on them. You could also use the collectible Mud Ball Pouch reward from the event drops when the quest isn’t active.

The challenge here can be finding the Alliance leaders. The locations listed here are in order based on quest progress in the base game.

New Life Celebrant Achievement

Completing all of Breda’s quests once will award the New Life Cerulean dye.

Magnanimous Title

And completing all of these quests, plus learning all 9 New Life crafting recipes and the full Skinchanger motif that drop from reward chests, will unlock the Magnanimous title.

Crystalfrost Skin

And finally, there’s one more achievement, Newly Charitable. This achievement rewards the Crystalfrost skin.

To unlock it, complete 12 of the New Life, Deep Winter, or Imperial Charity Writs that drop from reward crates.

Completing one of these holiday writs awards you with a Refugee Gift box. These contain a tradeable page of the Rkindaleft Dwarven weapon style.

Old Life Observance - No Achievement

There are no achievements tied to the Old Life Observance daily.

Simply go to the shrine on the map, write a message and burn it for a reward box.

How Many And How To Get Tickets?

In addition to the event boxes, you get 3 tickets per day of the event for completing 1 of the New Life daily, equaling out to a total of 60 tickets!

Remember that you can only hold 12 at one time.

Impressario

During New Life, the Impresario offers all fragments of the Passion Dancer Blossom, and all of the fragments for each morph of it released this year.

So, if you’re missing things that you wanted, you can use this event to catch up!

You can also pick up bound style pages for the new Morningstar Frostwear set, or a New Life Festival Brab Bag.

New Life Grab Bag - What’s In The Bag?

The New Life Festival Grab Bag can contain these items if you don’t already have them in your collection.

If you already have everything in the grab bag, you won’t be able to buy one.

Other Ticket Merchant Inventory

And you have some other options for spending your tickets, so use the large amount of them that this event provides wisely!

Snowglobe House Is For Sale!

This event is also the only time to pick up the Snow Globe House.

It is a Crown Store exclusive, but it is a great value. And it will provide you with an instant, free fast-travel to Breda throughout the entire event period.

As you journey across Azeroth in Season of Discovery, you may have found these uncommon items that you’ve looted across different mobs. These are called the Waylaid Supply Crates.

As of time now, so far, you’ve only been able to carry one in your bags at a time. But there’s going to be a hotfix going out later, which is going to allow you to carry multiple of these crates in your inventory.

But what are these things? How do they work? In this guide, I’ll be breaking down what these things exactly are, what they’re used for, and why you should be completing them when you find them.

What Are Waylaid Supply Crates?

Let’s first begin with what they are.

The Waylaid Supply Crates are a part of an entirely new system, and it’s all part of this new reputation grind called the Azeroth Commerce Authority.

This new reputation comes with a bunch of new rewards that I highly recommend you grind out because not only can you get some XP, but you can also get some runes for every single class. For example, if you play a Rogue and you’d like to tank as a Rogue, that rune comes from being Honored with this faction.

Also Read: WOW Classic SOD: Top 10 Things You Need To Do At Level 25

How Do Waylaid Supply Crates Work?

Next, let’s talk about how the system works.

First, you will go out and, as you’re journeying through Azeroth, you’ll kill mobs and you’ll loot one of these supply crates off said mob. And it’s completely random, whichever ones you guys find when you’re looting mobs.

As an example, let’s say that you looted the supply crate that is for Copper Bars, which means you would have to either craft 20 Copper Bars or you just buy them off the Auction House.

Once you get them, you click on the item to combine them, and it turns into a supply crate, aka a Supply Shipment.

Once you’ve got your Supply Shipment, you’re going to head over to one of the NPCs to turn it in. There are six NPCs in the game to turn these into, 3 for each faction.

Alliance NPCs:

1. Elaine Compton is in Stormwind.
2. Tamelyn Aldridge is in Ironforge.
3. Marcy Baker is in Darnassus.

Horde NPCs:

1. Jornah is in Orgrimmar
2. Dokimi is in Thunder Bluff
3. Gishah is in Undercity

And it’s really just as simple as that. You go out, complete your quests and kill mobs, and then you loot these off the mobs, and then you just complete whatever it is required and turn it in.

Rewards

So, now let’s actually take a look and see what the rewards are.

For reaching Friendly with the faction, it will unlock the purchasing options of:

• The Small Courier Satchel, which is a 10-slot bag
• The Provisioner Gloves. These are cloth gloves that are 3 stamina and 3 spirit.
• The Courier Threads, some leather boots with 4+ agility
• The mail waist is called the Hoist Strap, which is a 2 strength and 2 stamina mail belt.

And then for reaching Honored is where you get the really good stuff - the runes:

• For Mage, you’ve got Arcane Surge.
• For Paladin, you’ve got Rune of Beckoning Light.
• For Warlock, you’ve got Everlasting Affliction.
• For Shaman, you’ve got Rune of Healing Rain.
• For Hunter, you’ve got Rune of Serpent Spread.
• For Warrior, you’ve got Rune of Single-Minded Fury.
• For Druid, you’ve got Rune of Skull Bash.
• For Rogue, you’ve got Rune of Teasing.
• For Priest, you’ve got Tenebrous Epiphany.

And then there’s also two patterns here for professions. You’ve got the Phoenix Bindings and the Mantle of the Second War.

Just keep in mind that currently, the two patterns are actually bugged. So apparently, what happens is when you purchase them and then you learn them, they actually don’t show up as learned under your professions tab. So, I don’t think they’re worth getting right now, but I’m sure this will be hotfixed at a later time.

Tips

Now, let’s talk about a couple of tips for using this system.

Apparently, there are reports going out that when it comes to the amount of reputation you get for turning these in, you actually get more rep for turning in ones that require crafted items over gathering items.

So, for example, if you get a shipment and you turn it in that requires an item that you get from gathering, you get about 300 rep. However, if you turn in a shipment that calls for an item that is something that’s crafted, you actually get 450 rep.

Just be mindful that when you are turning these in, the crafted items are definitely going to be more expensive if you’re not actually crafting them.

And if you are trying to get these done while you’re leveling, you’re probably not going to have a lot of SoD Gold for buying your spells. So, I would say definitely try to focus on these once you hit Level 25, the level cap for this first phase, instead of doing it while you’re leveling.

Another important tip to remember here is that, again, there’s the level 10 items and then the level 25 ones. So, once you actually get to Friendly reputation, the level 10 Supply Crates will no longer give you reputation. So, once you get to Friendly, you’re going to have to just grind the level 25 Supply Crates.

Update 7.4, “Chains in the Dark,” is now out in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

In this guide, I’m going to give you some spoiler-free steps on how to take a look at all the new content in the game. If you want to have a better gaming experience in this new content, it is very necessary to prepare sufficient SWTOR Credits!

New Story Continuation: Chains In The Dark

The biggest addition to the game in this update is a continuation of the main storyline.

You can start the “Chains in the Dark” storyline once you have completed all previous storylines, including Ruhnuk and Voss Interpreter’s Retreat.

New Story Area: Kessan’s Landing On Ord Mantell

Once you have, you’ll automatically get a quest called “Road to Nowhere” in your quest tracker.

You can launch it, which will eventually lead you to the new area on Ord Mantell called Kessan’s Landing. This is the main story, but there are some other stories and quests to pick up.

The first is Lane Vizla and Basilisk Droid story continuation. To get it, start the “Road to Nowhere” quest. The next time you log off your character and log back in, you’ll automatically be granted a quest called “Eyes on the Prize” that you can start by answering your holocom.

The second is the Ord Mantell dailies. You can pick these up after you’ve completed the main quest from the terminal in Kessan’s Landing, near where you load in. These are the repeatable quests tied to the Kessan’s Landing reputation track and rewards.

Lastly, there’s a secret quest nicknamed the “Geothermal Shielding” questline. This quest, properly called “Schematic Aspirations,” has a bunch of different quests, is well-hidden, and is picked up at the very south of the Kessan’s Landing city from a large terminal in the Runoff Control building. You do not have to complete or even start the main quest to do the Geothermal Quest. It will eventually lead you to a super hidden “Lava Problems” quest, and you need to complete the Geothermal Shielding Quest before starting Lava Problems.

Once you’ve wrapped up the main story, you might want to explore Kessan’s Landing a little more. There’s a whole hidden questline related to the Geothermal Shielding, a new Datacron, a handful of hidden achievements, and so on. And working on the reputation track for Kessan’s Landing by doing the dailies will grant you access to the reputation vendor, which includes a new armor set, a new mount, a new Nexu pet, as well as a bunch of decorations.

New World Boss

Lastly, there’s a new world boss that has a chance to drop a rare mount walking around in the north.

If you’re a newer player and you don’t care at all about all this endgame stuff, if you already finished the story, there has been some cool new stuff added for you, too.

Cinematic Lighting

The biggest one that players have been talking about is the new cinematic lighting, which is across all of the game’s cutscenes.

This changes the way that cutscenes look compared to before the update, with improved lighting. So, if things look a little different, you know why.

They also kind of overhauled the way some of the starter planets work. The most noticeable is on Korriban.

Gearing Changes

Circling back to those level 80 players, let’s talk about gear in this update.

The way that you gear up has changed quite a bit, or rather, new easier options have been introduced, whether you’re a solo player or a group player. But the treadmill to gear up has gotten longer as now item rating for almost all items goes all the way up to 344.

So, the good news for gearing is that all players, including solo or casual players, now have the ability to earn gear going all the way up to item rating 344, which is way overkill for any type of content they’re going to play. This is because you can now exchange currencies you get from different types of content for the currency you can use to purchase Rakata gear, which is the best in the game.

The downside is that is a long set of steps to take. Good luck out there to everyone trying to get their endgame gear to 344.

However, one nice little update that will make you stronger without making you go crazy is that Hyde and Zeek, the vendors that sell modifications, now go all the way up to 340.

So, if you’re already familiar with how Hyde and Zeek works, go ahead and upgrade what enhancements and mods they have available to you. And don’t forget, you can now upgrade your legendary implants to item rating 340.

GTN Overhaul

Another big change that affects all players, new and old, is the GTN overhaul.

The GTN is the player-run market where players can sell and buy items from other players. The most obvious change is that the way you search for items has changed. You’ll notice instead of seeing a whole bunch of different listings for one item, they’ll all be condensed into a singular listing. And you can see how many are for sale total, and you don’t know who’s selling them. So there, you just kind of see the lowest price there.

When you buy an item, you can also claim it straight from the GTN. Behind the scenes, when you’re selling, there is a new fee just to list an item that is non-refundable, as well as the way taxes are applied to items is a bit different. These changes are part of the economic initiative that developers started about a year or so ago to combat inflation.

This GTN overhaul seems to kind of still be a work in progress, so feel free to give feedback to the developers on the forums.

Events

Now let’s talk about what’s coming up in the future. There’s a bunch of events that are going to be tied to update 7.4 that are coming up.

First off is the limited time Life Day Event that only comes once a year. That’ll be starting on December 12th and running until January 9th next year. Life Day this year will have a new reward in the form of an armor set.

Some of the normal events will be running, for example, Swoop Event starts December 12th, Rakghoul Event starts December 26th, PvP Season 4 is running until January 29th, and Galactic Season 5 is running to February 24th.

The event that players were most excited about and looking forward to being announced is the Double XP Event, and that will be taking place near the end of the year, starting on December 24th, lasting 2 weeks until January 4th.

So, if you want to level up super fast, that’ll be the time to do it. Not to mention, it gives you bonus Valor for those of you PVPing.

Cartel Market

In addition to all of those, they also added some new Cartel Market items to the game.

They were very proudly showing off the new color, Specularity Tech and new Metallic & Pearlescent Dyes when they announced this update. However, we only recently learned how they were going to be selling them and what they would cost.

First off, all dyes included are single-use and they’re not available in collections. The developers decided to use a fear of missing out tactic to sell these dyes and said they will only be listing them for direct sale for a limited time and will be rotating them out weekly.

As of the time now, the Metallic Black and Matte Black and its reverse dyes are each for sale for 1,750 Cartel Coins, making them the most expensive dye on the Cartel Market. The Chrome White and Metallic Gold and its reverse are also available in a bundle for 2,500 CC.

Not only are they incredibly expensive, they also have this kind of timer on them. So, you have to decide whether you want to buy them or not because the only way to get them later, they said, would be from Cartel Packs, the ultimate packs, or from the GTN at really, really high prices as it seems they’ll be in very high demand.

In addition, they’ve also been showing off and will be releasing some other more normal Cartel Market items. For example, the new Suppression Trooper’s armor set, which I think is 2,200 Cartel Coins, and the new starm toy that’s 800 Cartel Coins. So, if you’re waiting for the Sabine Wren-style armor set and the Defiant Maverick armor set, just keep your eyes open for the Cartel Market.

They also announced a whole bunch of daily sales rotating each day, and most importantly, a collections-wide unlock sale starting on December 20th.

Season of Discovery ends phase 4 with Karazhan Crypt. But what about what comes before that? And then there is the fun question of what comes after.

Intro

We all know that Season of Discovery has 4 phases. Phase 1 is Blackfathom Deeps at level 25, as well as the Ashenvale PVP zone for its PVP event.

It’s our introduction to level up raids and new PVP event zones, letting Blizzard test the waters, dipping their toes into seeing just what the classic player base enjoys and what it hates. And I think they’ve hit the nail on the head on how to properly release content and make changes to the Season of Discovery, because of the phase system.

4 to 12 weeks between each phase is a sweet spot for letting people enjoy content without getting bored. This system lets everyone share how they feel about a new experience because every person you ask will have a widely different answer to what is Classic Plus. So, this is far more useful to Blizzard than a thousand voices yelling different things.

So, Blackfathom Deeps and the Ashenvale PVP event zone are testing ground to player reactions. When you keep that information in mind, it makes the remaining phases and schedule make a lot more sense.

Phase 2 - Gnomeregan

Phase 2 is Gnomeregan at level 40, and it’s a dungeon that’s massive, full of flavor, and still abandoned in retail, leaving the Gnomes as homeless refugees for almost 2 decades.

Just like Blackfathom Deeps, it’s a large dungeon that can essentially be broken into different wings and be filled with bosses, events, and quests that just feel natural.

And just how Phase 1 had a massive PVP event zone, Phase 2 will have 1 as well. It should, so long as the player base doesn’t lose their collective minds and tear Ashenvale down so hard that Blizzard cancels their plans.

And while BFD is in the veil, so is Warsong Gulch. So, you’d think that Phase 2’s PVP zone event should be in the Arathi Highlands to tie it into Arathi Basin. But you’d be wrong because Phase 2’s PVP event zone is the Stranglethorn Vale.

Honestly, it would be funny if they kept PVP zone events in the zone of the dungeon. But how could they turn an Alliance leveling zone into a PVP event zone? Are all Dwarves and Gnomes just being exiled to Elwynn Forest? No, that won’t happen, but Stranglethorn Vale itself makes perfect sense—a highly contested PVP zone and one that should have had a battleground from the get-go.

We can likely expect a new reputation, a new Quartermaster for some PVP loot down there, but we’ll find out more in the coming weeks.

Phase 3 - Scarlet Monastery

Now, Phase 3 is where it gets spicy but also still makes perfect sense since we have Scarlet Monastery, which comes with the level cap of 50. But it’s also just north of a very conflicted and iconic battleground, Alterac Valley in Alterac Mountains.

With Scarlet Monastery being one of the most iconic dungeons because of Sally Whitemane, and Alterac Valley being one of the most recognizable Battlegrounds in World of Warcraft, it’s a perfect combination to throw out for Phase 3.

Regardless between the level cap of 50 and Scarlet Monastery being turned into a massive level-up raid with new bosses, remastered bosses, new events, quests, and perhaps even a brand new reputation, Phase 3 is looking to be incredibly exciting.

Also Read: WOW Classic SOD: Top 10 Things You Need To Do At Level 25

Phase 4 - Karazhan Crypts

The PVP is just icing on that beautiful, delicious cake. And then that brings us to Phase 4 and the first new dungeon in Classic: Karazhan Crypts, a dungeon that was designed back in 2002 or 2003 and then abandoned because they ran out of time before becoming the raid known as Karazhan in The Burning Crusade.

We know nothing about Karazhan Crypts, and people will be making pure conjecture until it comes out. But I expect us to perhaps see original questlines and ideas make it back into the game. It could be the start of an alternate timeline with ideas from Vanilla making a frontline return. We will probably get a new reputation to grind, new quests, new items, and perhaps even instead of being a 10-man level-up raid, we’re looking at the first new 20-man or 40-man raid in Classic.

But PvE without PvP just isn’t World of Warcraft, and thus the new PVP zone event for Phase 4 is also likely to be new content. Since Karazhan Crypts, an abandoned and forgotten concept and idea, is being brought back to life, so will, in my opinion, Azshara Crater, a complete new battleground, dreamed back to life for Classic as well as turning Azshara into a massive level 60 zone-wide PVP event zone.

New reputations, questlines, and much more are going to be given to us. And our dream is the limit or, in this case, the amount of risk Blizzard is willing to take.

And thus, I conclude with what I call the Season of Discovery introduction phases, which are amazing and incredible. While we don’t know exactly what we’ll be getting, it’s only the beginning of Season of Discovery because Blizzard has already said we’re getting more content at level 60.

Phase 5 - Molten Core & Onyxia

And thus, let me introduce you all to the Season of Discovery endgame phases, which is Phase 5 to 8.

You might think that 8 phases is a lot, but Classic, when it came out in 2019, had 6 phases, and that was just re-releasing the original 6 raids.

Now, this is what we call the educated guessing phase, where we have ideas and we know what they’re going to do nominally. But despite knowing we’re getting content, new and old changes, and more, we don’t know what that is. So, this is more of a wishlist for content.

So, Phase 5 is, of course, none other than Molten Core, and the top 5 most iconic raids in World of Warcraft, after Black Temple, Ulduar, ICC and Siege of Orgrimmar. Don’t crucify me for that top 5 in the comments.

While Molten Core might not be the most iconic raid, Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker, is the single most iconic in-game weapon from World of Warcraft. If you don’t count Frostmourne or the Warglaives, we’re looking at a remastered Molten Core, new bosses, mobs, quests, items, and perhaps even legendaries and reputations.

A legendary that’s already in the game but only 1 singular person got is the necklace (Talisman of Binding Shard) back from Vanilla, which got removed because it wasn’t meant to be in the game. Now that necklace might not come back, but they already have a legendary they designed back then, which they could reincorporate into Season of Discovery.

I’m not sure exactly how much they’ll change Molten Core and, with it, Onyxia. But there will be changes. As for PVP, Black Rock Mountain is the single most dangerous PVP zone in the game. If you played on a PVP server, then you’ll be having Vietnam flashbacks.

So, we know that Molten Core and Onyxia are coming, but what about new content? Allow me to introduce the new and improved Dire Maul or Blackrock Depths.

These two dungeons are massive, so massive in fact that in Cataclysm, they got cut down and reshaped into multiple separate wings. And in BRD’s case, they just scrapped well over half of it.

Either of these 2 dungeons makes the most sense as being a new 20-man-raid or 10-man raid. Logically, it makes sense because Blizzard stated that they wanted new players to be able to catch up easily from phase to phase.

Introducing more level 60 level-up raids, making gearing a lot easier and allowing a transition into raids more easily, albeit I’m not sure if they’ll focus all the effort into making the already existing raids better and more fun to interact with.

Keeping the phases between 4 and 12 weeks long, so we get a lot of hyper-focused content and then new phases before we get bored. Or maybe Phases 5 to 8 will be 6 months long, each with a storm of content to keep us all content.

Phase 6 - Blackwing Lair & Zul’Gurub

Nonetheless, Phase 6 is Blackwing Lair and Zul’Gurub, two fun and interesting raids which will definitely get more quests, reputations, mechanics changes, and loot.

The dungeons most likely to get changed with this phase are the Temple of Atal’Hakkar for ZG and Blackrock Spire for Blackwing Lair, correlating nicely with each other.

Also, Blackrock Mountain being a horrible war zone probably continues into Phase 6, maybe Stranglethorn Vale as well at this point.

But then again, perhaps this is an overload of content and I’m overestimating Blizzard’s zeal, desire, and SOD Gold when it comes to Classic Season of Discovery. There is a lot that they could do here, so much in fact that this could easily be a six-month content stretch between the 10-mans, 20-mans, and 40-mans.

Phase 7 - Ahn’Qiraj 40 & Ahn’Qiraj 20

Let’s move on to Phase 7, which is where I think we’re going to see the most new content in the game.

Scarab Lord is a very coveted title and the Black Qiraji Battle Tank is one of the rarest mounts in the entire game. The opening of Ahn’Qiraj and the Scepter of the Shifting Sands questline is a long, awesome, and genuinely a wild experience.

So, imagine the things they could do here, the things they could add. Imagine a massive zone-wide PVP event in Silithus where the Horde and Alliance battle it out for new PVP reputations and items.

AQ40 and AQ20 are incredible raids full of awesome bosses, lore mechanics, and loot, and I can’t wait to see what Blizzard does here.

Now, we aren’t theorycrafting if we don’t think about new content, and with that, allow me to introduce Uldaman, the new 10-man dungeon and another location to gear with level 60 gear, so you can delve into the raids faster.

Phase 8 - Naxxramas

Last but not least, Phase 8 and The Dread Citadel - Naxxramas, the so-called guild killer in vanilla and definitely a guild killer in Classic, as everything devolved into GDKP and triggered hyperinflation.

Naxxramas will probably get more loot, new quests, new bosses, new mechanics, and more. That’s to be expected. But what else will change in Phase 8? Let me introduce you all to the new 20-man or 10-man raid Stratholme, one of the most iconic places in World of Warcraft and the beginning of the fall for our beloved prince Arthas.

Now, this is me wishing, but it could make sense as once Eastern Plaguelands into a massive PVP zone event, which is already supported by the tower situated across the zone. It would make a lot of sense to have more than just Naxxramas for the entirety of Phase 8, and the size of Stratholme already correlates to being a miniature raid, anyway.

Even if they only include a fraction of what I’ve spoken of and even if they go on absolutely a completely different path, the amount of content that Blizzard seems to be planning to add to Classic Plus Season of Discovery is staggering. And whilst all of this might not be in Season of Discovery, it will definitely be in Classic Plus.

So, whether Season of Discovery is Classic Plus or leads into Classic Plus, expect an obscene amount of content just from the endgame phases.

Diablo 4 Abattoir of Zir Dungeon is an end game pinnacle content that players can only access once they've beaten all of the Season Journey and is incredibly hard.

The starting difficulty for the Abattoir of Zir is 20% harder than the highest tier of Nightmare Dungeons. So, this content is extremely challenging.

So, in this guide, we're going to be talking about some of the best tips and tricks to conquer the Abattoir of Zir in Diablo 4 Season 2. Of course, if you have enough Diablo 4 Gold, you'd better equip your character well, so that it will be easier for you to challenge Abattoir of Zir!

How To Start Abattoir Of Zir?

If you open up your season tab and then go to your season journey in order to start this content, all of the seasonal chapters will need to have check marks.

You need to complete the last tier. You don't need to complete every single challenge. You just need to complete enough that you get the chapter rewards. Once you do that, you will be rewarded with the Abattoir of Zir glyph known as the Tears of Blood.

In order to start using this, you're going to need to be leveling it up in the Abattoir of Zir. To access this content, you're going to want to come over to Ked Bardu. Ked Bardu is located in the Dry Steppes, and once you get here, you're going to want to come over to the glyph crafting Occultist.

When you come to the Occultist, you're going to look for the Bloodforged Sigils and craft a Tier 1. Now, there are 25 tiers of the Abattoir of Zir, each one increasing in difficulty and the amount of Sigil Powder that is required to craft it. You're going to earn them when you complete a Tier 1. You unlock the ability to do a Tier 2 and so on and so forth.

And if you're looking for Sigil Powder, you get it by breaking down sigils. So, if you have a sigil from a nightmare 100 dungeon or a nightmare 20 dungeon, anytime that you break them down, you'll earn yourself sigil powder.

If you successfully complete Abattoir of Zir, you will earn Sigil Powder. So, as long as you're not failing these, you can keep running them. But once you start failing, you can run out of Sigil Powder.

Tips & Tricks - Some Basics

The next thing to note before you jump into your first Abattoir Of Zir is your defenses.

Now, Abattoir of Zir is very different from a nightmare 100 dungeon or nightmare dungeons in general because you only have one life. That means if you die at any point, you're kicked out of the run. If you're playing with teammates or if any of your teammates die at any point, all of you are kicked out of the run. And it costs a ton of Sigil Powder to make another sigil. So, going in prepared is very important.

What do you need to be prepared? The very first thing is your resistances. You're going to want all of your resistances to 70% or as close to 70% as possible.

The next thing that you're going to want to look for is armor. Now, the armor cap of Abattoir of Zir is around 14,000 armor for fighting the hardest enemies. When you're walking into it, you're going to want around 13.3k armor. The reason you're going to want that much armor is because armor affects your physical damage negation, meaning that the more armor that you have, the more damage reduction that you take from enemies. This caps out at 85%, but it changes for the level of enemies.

For example, I have more than enough armor to fight enemies that are my level at 10,000 armor because I'm getting max physical damage negation, which is 85%. However, if I start fighting enemies that are 156 levels or level 156, then I'm going to need more armor because their damage is going to go up as their level is going up.

Also Read: Diablo 4: Best Druid Paragon Board With Tears Of Blood - Abattoir Of Zir Unique Glyph

So, walking into Abattoir of Zir, it’s really important to note that you want really high resistances. You’re shooting for around, I would say, 10,000 base armor. Then, you can use an Aspect of Disobedience to increase your armor even more so that you’re taking the least amount of damage possible via your armor.

If you’re low on your resistances or damage for the Abattoir of Zir, you can come over to the Elixir crafter and craft some Elixir to increase your defenses, increase your resistances, increase your damage.

You can also craft Incenses, which can give you more dodge chance, more thorns, more max life and so on. You can have both a potion and an incense active at the same time to increase your rate of success in Abattoir of Zir.

There are also Helltides every hour, and opening the Helltide chest can give you potions that can increase your armor, for example. This is another thing to stack up on before you go into the Abattoir of Zir.

Abattoir Of Zir Actual Run

Now that we’ve gone over some of the basics, let’s walk through an Abattoir of Zir actual run.

One of the big things that you’re going to notice about Abattoir of Zir is enemies are going to be beefy. In fact, enemies get 20% more HP per level, so their health scales exponentially. The higher you go, the more HP that they get. And if you’re playing with team members, they get even more HP.

You’ll also note that there is a time limit. You have 10 minutes to clear a run, and once you get into the later tiers, that can become a genuine issue. Right now, the big struggle with Abattoir of Zir is having enough survivability so that you don’t die in the run, but also having enough damage that you can complete the run in under 10 minutes. And this is kind of a bit of a struggle.

This struggle becomes a little easier with the new Tears of the Blood glyph. Once you complete a run, you’re going to get experience that you can socket into your Tears of Blood glyph.

Now, for leveling up this glyph, the experience required is massive and only realistically achievable in the Abattoir of Zir. The reason for this is the Tears of Blood glyph goes up to level 200, whereas all other glyphs in the game only go up to level 21. And normal nightmare dungeons just don’t reward enough experience to make meaningful level gains on this glyph.

As of the hotfix that happened on December 8th, they’ve massively buffed the amount of experience that you get from completing Abattoir of Zir runs so that you can actually earn meaningful progression on this thing. Prior to that hotfix, it was basically theoretically impossible to level up this thing to level 200 given the timeframe of the season. So now experience gains are a bit better, but it’s still going to be a lot of grinding to really level this thing up.

In terms of socketing this glyph, it’s really important to socket it in somewhere that’s going to give you more survivability for the Abattoir of Zir and hopefully more damage. There’s a lot of places in a lot of Paragon Boards that you could socket in multiple characters.

For example, the reason I’ve socketed in the Heightened Malice board for the Druid is mainly because it’s going to boost up my damage reduction from poison enemies. Damage reduction is super important in the higher tiers, and it’s also going to give me increased damage to poisoned enemies.

The reason for this is that the Tears of Blood glyph not only gives me the percent increased in damage, but it also gives me a boost to all of my rare nodes that are in radius. Rare nodes are these yellow nodes. And putting it somewhere smart that to give you more survivability is really important.

Once you complete your first two runs of Abattoir of Zir, you’ll have enough experience to level up your Tears of Blood glyph to level 1. Now, socketing this thing can be very important and critical to your success. You’re going to want to socket in it in a glyph socket that has a ton of core stats nearby as well as beneficial rare notes.

The Tears of the Blood glyph is going to give you for every 5 core stats purchased within range. You're going to get 2% increased multiplicative damage and a 50% bonus to all rare nodes within range. Bonus increases by 10% every 10 levels.

That is going to do it for our guide on the Abattoir of Zir. This is hard challenging pinnacle end game content that will push your build to the test. And if you've already gotten a character to max level and done all the content in Diablo 4 and want to try something even harder and push your build to the limit, Abattoir of Zir is the place to do it.

However, this content is brutally crushing. The enemies are incredibly strong and even on the best builds, you will most likely die. So, be careful.

When thinking about each new class in Path of Exile 2, we really try to think about what can make combat feel different from all the others. For the Mercenary, that difference is the crossbow.

A crossbow is fundamentally different from a regular bow because it fires instantly instead of needing to be drawn back. This means that you need immediate feedback. Clicking the fire button should make the character shoot instantly. Just like in a shooter.

As soon as we experienced that, we realised that there are a lot of design lessons to learn from shooters, and so we fully embraced them. No matter what kind of weapon you want to choose, as long as you have enough POE Currency, you don’t have to worry!

Different Features Of Mercenary’s Crossbow

In Path of Exile 2, we have crossbows that look like sniper rifles, shotguns, and assault rifles.

But in order to really get shooter-like gameplay, we wanted to go further. In Path of Exile 2, we now support WASD movement. You can now walk around in any direction, independent of aiming.

In fact, if this is your preferred method of gameplay, you can use it on any class regardless of what weapon type you are using. You can change between Click to Move or WASD at any time.

You can only hold two crossbows at a time, but Path of Exile 2 is all about interesting combinations of abilities. And this is where Ammo skills come in. This is a Burst Shot crossbow and right now, I have Armour Piercing Ammo equipped, which makes it very effective when facing a group of enemies, since it pierces right through them.

But there are other ammos, too. For a bigger single target, it might be a good idea to switch to Incendiary. The more projectiles hit the target, the stronger the ignite, so you will want to get up nice close and personal with this one.

If you have a bunch of targets running at you, you might want to slow them down. In this case, you could switch to Permafrost Burst Shot. Shooting a bunch of smaller enemies at range will chill them, and potentially even freeze them in place.

Also Read: Gameplay & Walkthrough Guide For Druid In Path Of Exile 2

Once you have some frozen enemies, though, you can switch back to Armour Piercing. Shooting a frozen enemy with Armour Piercing Burst Shot will explode the ice, doing a huge amount of damage to all nearby enemies.

Another feature crossbows have is attachments. This is a grenade launcher. When I equip it, it appears on the underside of the crossbow. These attachments are just like skill gems, so you effectively get extra skill slots, and you can augment these with support gems just like regular skills.

These grenades take a while to explode, so it’s a good idea to pair them with some kind of crowd control, like Permafrost Burst Shot. We have other grenades too, though. This attachment is a Flash Grenade. It does barely any damage, but it does do a huge amount of stun. It can be a great opener before you run into combat.

Oil Grenade is another one of the attachments. Firing one of these grenades coats the ground and nearby enemies in oil. Oil slows enemies down, so it’s another useful crowd control mechanic.

Another useful thing oil can do is to be set on fire. Any burning enemy or explosion will ignite the oil, causing extra burning damage. One of the problems with Burst Shot crossbows is that each pellet doesn’t do much damage individually. This means that if enemies have Armour, then it will be very effective preventing that damage.

But thankfully, you can equip an additional crossbow in your second weapon set to deal with the weaknesses of your primary weapon. This is a Rapid Shot crossbow. Rapid Shot is great for closing on enemies because you can shoot while running.

In Path of Exile 2, you now have the ability to use some skills while moving. Being able to create skills like this opens up a lot of new design space and allows you to really increase the pace of combat.

The Armour Piercing version of Rapid Shot slowly erodes a monster’s armour. Once the armour is fully broken, you can easily switch back to Burst shot to deal much more damage.

Being able to run while shooting with Rapid Shot is also great for when you want to perform a fighting retreat.

Using Permafrost ammo with Rapid Shot is also useful if you need to retreat. When you shoot the ground, it creates ice crystals. If you draw monsters back over these crystals, they explode, chilling the monsters. It’s great if you want to set up a safe zone before pulling the next pack.

Slowing enemies down can come in handy if you want to use the Incendiary version of Rapid Shot. Using this skill requires that you charge up a little before it fires, but as it continues to heat up, it will do more and more damage.

It has a really large clip size, so you can just keep firing and firing with it. But the other really useful feature is that when the crossbow is heated up, it adds extra fire damage to any grenade that you launch.

Explosive grenades will work equally as well with Flash or Oil grenades, too. If you use it with Oil grenades, the oil will catch fire immediately.

Another crossbow type that you can find is Power Shot. This one works just like a classic sniper rifle. Use it with Armour Piercing ammo and it will penetrate armour on targets, so it’s a good idea to use when something is really tough.

Now this skill has another interesting interaction with Armour Break. If the enemy has its armour broken then your power shot hits a weak spot and does a huge amount of single target damage, with a bunch of extra stun for good measure.

Now, the Incendiary version of Power Shot is more like a rocket launcher. It does a big explosive blast at a distance.

One of the really useful features of this version is that you can explode any grenades that happen to be on the ground. This combo also works really well with Incendiary Rapid Shot. I’m going to charge up the heat on my crossbow, shoot out a bunch of grenades, and then start the fireworks with a Power Shot.

The Ice version of Power Shot creates frost walls at a distance. This is great for crowd controlling monsters in tight passages. The wall segments have other uses, too. If they get destroyed by monsters, then they will explode doing a small amount of damage.

Do you remember that Burst Shot combo with frozen enemies we did earlier? That works with ice walls, too. Let’s put Burst Shot back on. Now I can fill up this area with ice walls, then shoot them with Armour Piercing Burst Shot for a huge amount of damage.

Conclusion

And that’s the Mercenary. It feels totally different from anything we’ve seen before and shows you the range of what is possible in Path of Exile 2.

In Elden Ring, you’re going to find many different items. But the Deathroot item is something that you are going to need for not only a questline, but also to get some really great rewards in Elden Ring.

So, here, I will show you where all 9 of these Deathroots are located in Elden Ring. Also, I will take you through the questline that’s going to start here at the Bestial Sanctum.

If you want this process to go smoothly, you'd better use Elden Ring Runes to buy some good weapons and armor to improve yourself!

Undead Mariner 1

But before we get to the Bestial Sanctum, let’s go ahead and gather all of the Deathroots within Limgrave and Liurnia.

Your first Deathroot is going to be found in Summonwater Village. You can start at the Summonwater Village Outskirts Site of Grace, and you can run into the village. There’s going to be a Tibia Mariner there. You need to kill him and grab the first Deathroot.

Deathtouched Catacombs

Staying in Limgrave, you’re going to Deathtouched Catacombs.

Head to the Deathtouched Catacombs and you’re going to go through the entire dungeon in order to kill the end boss. You will fight a Black Knife Assassin for the boss of this dungeon.

But after you defeat the boss, there’s a chest there. Open it up and that’s going to be your second Deathroot.

Undead Mariner 2

At this point, we’re going to move into Liurnia of the Lakes.

Right on the east side on the map, there’s going to be another Mariner. All you need to do for the Deathroot is to kill him and grab his Deathroot from him.

Black Knife Catacombs

At this point, you’re going to continue north all the way up until the Black Knife Catacombs.

You want to make your way through that dungeon all the way until the boss room. At the end, you will fight a Cemetery Shade with a bunch of skeletons.

But after you kill him, you will have access to the chest in the middle of the room. Grab that chest and there is going to be your Deathroot.

Guraanq Questline Check In

At this point, we’re going to go visit Guraanq, possibly for a second time, depending on if you started this questline or not already. I will assume that you have. But if you have not, you need to head here to the Third Church of Marika.

Right behind it is going to be a portal that will drop you off right here in front of the Bestial Sanctum. Gurranq Beast Clergyman is going to be there and you need to give him all the Deathroots you have received so far.

You should have 4 at this point, and that will net you the Ash of War:Beast's Roar, Bestial Vitality, Bestial Sling, the Clawmark Seal, and the Beast Eye (which is going to allow you to detect when other Deathroots are in the area).

There is something to take note of here within Guraanq’s questline, because after you give him the 4 Deathroots, the next time you come back to him, he is going to try to attack you because he’s gone mad. You need to get him down to half health and then he will calm down. You need to rest at the Site of Grace and then give him the rest of your Deathroots in order to complete the questline.

Undead Mariner 3

The next area in the Lands Between you want to venture to is the Wyndham Ruins in Altus Plateau.

There’s going to be a Mariner there who you need to kill, and he is going to drop for you your next Deathroot.

However, in order to get to Altus Plateau, you need to get two separate pieces of a medallion - Dectus Medallion (Left) & Dectus Medallion (Right). The first of which is going to be located at Fort Height in Limgrave, and the second piece is going to be located all the way to the east in Fort Faroth in Caelid.

Once you have both of those medallions, you can go up to the lift and you can get right into Altus Plateau to find this Deathroot.

Gelmir Hero’s Grave

Next up, you’re going to be heading into the Gelmir Hero’s Grave, and you will be following the Chariot all the way down the lava path until you get to the point on the right where you can jump down a little hole that will take you directly to the boss door.

And after defeating the Red Wolf boss, there’s going to be a chest at the very end of the room, and that is going to hold your next Deathroot.

Also Read: Elden Ring: How To Find All 13 Ancient Dragon Smithing Stones?

Undead Mariner 4

Next up, we are going to head north to the Mountaintops of the Giants, where there is yet another Mariner who you need to kill in order to get the next Deathroot.

Take out the skulls rolling around, dispose of the Mariner, and that Deathroot will be yours.

Giants’ Mountaintop Catacombs

You’re now going to head to the Giant’s Mountaintop Catacombs, where you need to make your way through that entire dungeon to get to the end boss fight. It can be a little tricky to get through, but if you feel like you’re going insane, you’re going in the right direction.

Destroy the Ulcerated Tree Spirit at the end of this dungeon, and in a chest at the end of the Boss Arena is going to be your second to last Deathroot.

Hidden Haligtree Path

At this point, we’re going to need to pick up our very last Deathroot, which is located in the Hidden Path to the Haligtree.

Now, there is a very special way you need to get here. You’re going to need the entire Secret Medallion. The first half is going to be located in the Liurnia of the Lakes, given to you by Old Albus, and the second portion of the medallion is going to be located in Castle Sol, on the Mountaintops of the Giants.

After you defeat the boss, continue running through that area and take the lift up, and you will be able to grab this medallion at this location.

You’re then going to take it back to the Grand Lift of Rold, go up to the lift, and it will give you a second option to lift the Secret Medallion, and then you can access this area.

Now that you have access to the Hidden Path to the Haligtree, you’re going to see that your Beast Eye is going to quiver. So, I want you to follow the path (the invisible pathways) until you get to the portion where you can jump off and fight one of the very large Land Octopus.

Right behind that octopus is going to be a lever, which is going to open the boss door. Dispose of the octopus, pull the lever, turn around, and follow the path all the way until you see the golden boss fog. You will not miss it because it’s going to be directly in front of you.

But before you fight this boss, take off your weapons, because it’s going to be a Stray Mimic Tear, and whatever you have equipped, it will also have equipped. So, it can be either as easy or as hard as you want it to be.

After defeating the Stray Mimic Tear, there is a chest in the back of the room. Open that chest and you will receive your very last and ninth Deathroot.

Finish Guraanq Questline

At this point, we’re going to tie up loose ends with Guraanq, so you’re going to head back to the Bestial Sanctum in Caelid, and you’re going to approach him to give him your final remaining 5 Deathroots.

After you give him the 5 remaining Deathroots, you are going to get some really cool dialogue from Guraanq, and then you are also going to be rewarded with a few different Elden Ring Items.

And just a side note here, you can also return every single Deathroot as you get it.

And after you do his entire questline, you will receive an Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone, Gurranq’s Beast Claw, the Beastclaw Greathammer, the Stone of Gurranq, and the Beast Claw Incantation.

That is going to be the entirety of Guraanq’s questline, as well as all 9 Deathroot locations.

In 1999, the St. Louis Rams transformed from a 4-12 underdog to Super Bowl champions, a story of unexpected heroes and incredible triumph. Like the Rams, we’re diving into the NFL’s mid-season, where every team has the potential for a legendary turnaround.

If you have enough Madden 24 Coins, you can choose one of the teams and improve the players so you can win more games!

Team 1: Philadelphia Eagles

After last year’s heartbreak in the Super Bowl, the Philadelphia Eagles are on a mission of redemption. With a stellar 8-1 record, they’re a force to be reckoned with.

Jaylen Hurts, their charismatic leader and quarterback, is at the forefront of this revenge story, backed by a blend of seasoned veterans and bright stars. This season is shaping up to be the Eagles’ year of glory.

Fun Factors

• Revenge Narrative: Capitalize on their drive to avenge last year’s Super Bowl loss.
• Jalen Hurts’ Leadership: Harness the skill and leadership of their star quarterback.
• Starpower Roster: Leverage the experience of veterans and the zeal of rising stars.

Challenges

• 2023 season: Stay on top in a highly competitive conference.
• 2024 season: Address potential retirements and maintain roster strength.
• 2025 season: Continue evolving the team’s strategy to stay ahead of the curve.

Team 2: Baltimore Ravens

Next up, the Team 2 Baltimore Ravens, with Lamar Jackson’s MVP-caliber performance, are in prime position to dominate their division, especially with key rivals facing setbacks.

Their defense, led by Roquan Smith, is formidable, echoing their championship-winning days. This season presents a golden opportunity for the Ravens to assert their dominance.

Fun Factors

• Lamar Jackson’s Magic: Utilize his exceptional abilities to outmaneuver opponents.
• Dominant Defense: Leverage their robust defense for strategic advantages.
• Super Bowl Hunger: Channel their intense desire to claim another championship.

Challenges

• 2023 season: Aim for a deep playoff run, capitalizing on current strengths.
• 2024 season: Reach the Super Bowl, building on this season’s momentum.
• 2025 season: Focus on retaining star players while nurturing young talent, aiming to become Super Bowl favorites once more.

Also Read: Top 5 Madden 24 Offensive Playbooks

Team 3: Detroit Lions

Let’s explore Team 3, the Detroit Lions’ surprising rise: The Dawn of a New Era.

Under Dan Campbell, the Detroit Lions have transformed into a formidable force.

Their newfound spirit, with Jared Goff delivering his best football and standout players like Amon-Ra St. Brown, David Montgomery, Jahmyr Gibbs, Sam LaPorta and Aidan Hutchinson, is electrifying.

The team’s stellar offensive line only adds to their strength. This isn’t just a team, it’s a movement, and everyone’s rooting for their success.

Fun Factors

• Dan Campbell’s Leadership: Embrace the team’s newfound confidence and aggressive style.
• Hunger for Success: Channel their long-standing desire to overcome years of setbacks.
• Talented Roster: Utilize their exceptional talent on both offense and defense.

Challenges

• 2023 season: Achieve the Lions’ first playoff win since 1991.
• 2024 season: Make a deep playoff run and plan for the future quarterback.
• 2025 season: Aim for the Super Bowl and start building a lasting dynasty.

Team 4: Cleveland Browns

Now, let’s turn to the Team 4 Cleveland Browns and their quest for glory: Defense Leading the Charge.

The Cleveland Browns stand out this season with the NFL’s best defense, a unit that’s been the backbone of the team.

Despite a mediocre performance from Deshaun Watson, who’s now out for the season, their defense has kept playoff hopes alive.

The Cleveland Browns face a unique challenge: a playoff-caliber roster hampered by a quarterback quandary and limited draft stock due to the Watson trade.

Fun Factors

• Dominant Defense: Capitalize on their league-leading defensive prowess.
• Quarterback Challenge: Navigate the season with a rookie quarterback stepping in.
• Building for Future: Embrace the challenge of strengthening the team without much draft capital.

Challenges

• 2023 season: Secure a playoff spot and honor the defense’s stellar performance.
• 2024 season: Address the quarterback situation by either finding a replacement or enhancing Watson’s play.
• 2025 season: With the quarterback issue resolved, keep the roster intact for a deep playoff run.

Team 5: Chicago Bears

Next, the Team 5 Chicago Bears' quest to rewrite their story: Unleashing Potential.

The Chicago Bears entered the season with high hopes, especially for quarterback Justin Fields. But things haven’t quite clicked yet. While Fields has shown flashes of brilliance, the team is still searching for the right formula to unlock its full potential. This season is critical in determining the future direction of both Fields and the team.

Fun Factors

• Justin Fields’ Growth: Harness his unique abilities and eagerness to improve.
• Historical Prestige: Revive the glory of a storied franchise.
• Draft Capital: Utilize their significant upcoming draft picks for a major team upgrade.

Challenges

• 2023 season: Evaluate Fields and the roster to make strategic decisions for the future.
• 2024 season: Execute a successful overhaul using draft capital, treating it as a foundational year.
• 2025 season: Aim for a playoff appearance and their first playoff win since 2011.

Which team’s journey captivated you the most?

BizzCon launched to exciting fanfare, moderate disappointment, some controversy, but overall satisfaction. And in that controversy, we have Season of Discovery.

Season of Discovery is Blizzard’s take on Classic Plus. It has completely changed how classic will be played, and what at its core is that it is still Classic WoW. The changes are staggering and amazing.

By the way, if you want to be far ahead of other players in WoW Classic SOD, having enough WoW Classic SOD Gold must be the key to your victory!

Quick Summary Of Content

The most exciting change of Season of Discovery is none other than the Rune Engraving system.

It’s a new class augmentation, where by exploring the world, doing quests, killing bosses, or whatnot, you are able to equip spells, abilities, some item effects, some abilities from other classes, some racial abilities, and some enchantment directly onto your armor, and acquire those passives or abilities.

When we start the game, the level cap is only 1 to 25, and we only have access to three armor slots: chest, legs, and hands. Whilst I will dive into runes for all classes later in this guide, some noticeable runes are Crusader Strike for Paladin and Wild Strikes for Druids.

Now, these two abilities are quite incredibly powerful whilst they alone don’t change the game. Considering that you can get three abilities like this at this power, at level 25 is staggering. This doesn’t even account for reaching max level and having the ability to unlock over 10 abilities, depending on if you can equip runes on weapons, shields, and trinkets.

But because discoveries are secret, and no one knows where they are. You’re probably saying it’ll be datamined. There’ll be 50 YouTube videos and 20 icyvein guides before Season of Discovery even launches. And whilst typically you’d be right, in this case, you’re wrong. Because one of the best decisions that Blizzard has ever made is the following chain: there is no public beta, alpha, or anything.

Every single person is going in blind. The only knowledge we have of the game is what they’ve said to us during BlizzCon, and the people that actually got to play the BlizzCon demo for the 10-man raid Blackfathom Deeps.

Another facet to the game is the following. There are now new tanks and healer combinations. The meta has been shifted, and many classes can do things that they couldn’t do before, like Shaman, Warlock, and Rogue tanking. Also, Paladin is fixed and can properly tank now......

Level Banded Content Phases

Now that you know what runes are, and you learn what the level cap at the start of Season of Discovery is, you’re probably asking, what does that mean?

It’s a new system that Blizzard has designed, called Level Banded Content Phases. And what this means is that Phase 1 of Season of Discovery is capped at level 25, and after a period of a few weeks, it will increase to level 40, the cap for Phase 2.

The phases are as follows, based on Blizzard purposefully leaking the next three 10-man raids, which are: Gnomeregan, Scarlet Monastery, and Karazhan Crypts after Blackfathom Deeps.

Now, though, based on the dev interviews, here we have the following phase bands. Phase 1 being Blackfathom Deeps at a level cap of 25. Phase 2 being Gnomeregan at a level cap of 40. Phase 3 being Scarlet Monastery at a level cap of 50. And Phase 4 being Karazhan Crypts at a level cap of 60.

Whilst Blizzard didn’t announce a Phase 5, I wouldn’t be surprised if Phase 5 was 40-man raids being redone. There could be a Phase 5, which starts at level 60 with a completely new 40-man dungeon raid, perhaps Dire Maul. And then Phase 6 is Molten Core remastered and onwards.

So, with those phases explained, why did Blizzard choose Phase 1 being level 25? Blizzard said that the feedback during the classic betas back in 2019 was that people enjoyed it and it was a fun time rediscovering, exploring and doing things at the level 25 cap back then. So, they chose their cap based on that, especially since it allowed them to redo and reuse old content, especially low-level content that people wouldn’t visit again otherwise.

Another major reason is since phases last a few weeks, assume between 4 to 10 weeks per phase, it means you’ll never be too far behind as a new player or someone with IRL responsibilities. You can always jump back, jump back out, play other games, not feel pressured or compelled to grind to max level immediately. You’ll have plenty of time to do that.

And the final reason is that they add exciting, unique and new content with each level banded content phase: new items, new quests, new NPCs and mobs, new discoveries and world quest, new PVP and more. And they can do this over the course of a year or two.

The other main reason is that it allows them to treat each phase as a mini beta within itself, testing what works, is overpowered, is meta, isn’t meta and allowing them to give breathing room to make each consecutive phase better and better.

With level banded content phases covered, let’s talk about the last bonus of the system. That is a new mechanic. There will be a massive XP boost to previous phases, allowing you to catch up faster or level up alt faster with every new phase. I don’t know what this XP boost will be, but I assume it’s 2x experience, maybe even as high as 5x experience. We’ll have to wait and see on that front.

Also Read: WoW Classic SOD: How Forced Faction Balance Affects The Season Of Discovery In Hidden Ways?

Endgame Content

Now that we know we’re stock at level 25 for 4 weeks minimum, up to perhaps as long as 12 weeks, what is the endgame for such a low level?

As I said earlier, there are now new 10-man raids, taking all dungeons and remixing them into raid content. And the first of these level-up raids is Blackfathom Deeps. They’ll be taking familiar settings and characters, giving them new mechanics, changing the quest around these dungeons and making it feel like a legitimate raid. Blizzard’s goal here was to make the world feel more alive, tempered and past, allowing us to take an Azeroth for all its glory and prestige.

Since Blackfathom Deeps got a full-on redesign, let’s dive into this exciting and wildly new content. Blackfathom Deeps is an ancient elven ruin with evil stirring within, familiar but mysterious. Most of you probably don’t even remember the bosses there. But even if you do, they are now completely different.

With a 3-day lockout, much like Zul’Gurub, we’re going to have plenty of time to master this level-up raid and figure out everything there is in there and every little secret. And there are plenty of secrets in Blackfathom Deeps, for example, the secret of the Black Feather Artisan, which sounds like an incredible crafting recipe skill set, as well as the mysterious new world buff Boon of Black Fathom.

And now, let’s dive into the bosses. BFD has seven new bosses, all fully reimagined encounters, and all quests and loot for BFD have been completely remastered and remade. You now have level 25 loot being better than perhaps even level 40 classic loot. Don’t quote me on that, as I don’t have a full item list, but what we did see is pretty incredible, since this is essentially level 25 raid loot and not dungeon loot.

But onto our first boss, who is Baron Aquanis, who is no longer a quest NPC and is now the first raid boss. He’s empowered by Fathom Stones, which have to be disabled, as well as jumping puzzles and a very obnoxious knockback. This knockback throws you off the platform, during which you have to jump puzzle your way back up, only for the ability to be off cooldown, so he knocks you down again. Kind of annoying as far as combat mechanics go, but it’s very interesting, nonetheless.

Then, we have Ghamoo-ra, now the second boss of the raid instead of the first of the dungeon. And he’s protected by a magical barrier, which we have to break through to be able to burn down the giant turtle.

The third boss is Lady Sarevess, a Naga Sea Witch with a retinue of Blackfathom Elite, and we have to turn her own spells against her to stop her from overwhelming us with unending adds.

The next four bosses we have almost no information about, but here they are: Gahz’rilla, the Void Murloc, followed by Lorgus Jett, and then Twilight Lord Kelris, before finally we confront Aku’mai, the Voidscale Hydra.

And that summarizes Blackfathom Deeps. I’m beyond excited to dive into this new content and see just how fun and intuitive it really feels.

Rune Breakdown

Next, I would cover runes in more depth.

As I already said, they’re treating each phase almost as if it’s a beta in of itself, which means runes will only get progressively more wild and interesting, seeing how players lean into them and how the class balance turns out.

Since Rune Engravings can be found all over the world, from quests, dungeons, raids, bosses, PvP, and who knows what else, I can’t cover every rune at the moment, just those that we know of.

At level 25, we only have access to chest, legs, and hands. Runes are permanent essentially a new talent system, which can be applied and removed at will, with no limitations or costs. You simply have to be out of combat to apply and unapply runes. The greatest benefit that runes provide to the game, though, is the simple fact that formerly faction-unique bonuses, buffs, and racials are now available for certain classes, removing that faction buffer. They are also making talent respecs cost far less, but they didn’t tell us how much less as of now.

Every class has its own runes. There is an insane amount of new abilities for player to choose. But it’s going to be a great few weeks as everyone attempts to figure out the new meta, only for the next phase to come out and completely invalidate every single guide that people write. This is good for creativity, exploration and fun. It’s terrible for min-maxes and meta chases, since your meta will never be meta for more than a few weeks or months at best.

Class Design Goals

This all ties neatly into the fact that Blizzard wants to shake up the meta with Season of Discovery, changing the concept of metas and data mining.

Meta in Season of Discovery will never be consistent or stable and thus don’t chase metas. Otherwise, expect to level a new character in every phase and completely learn a new class every phase for the most OP and broken character of that phase. Some of you will do that, that’s for sure, though.

Nonetheless, Blizzard wants to give each class something to brag about. They want to stick with what’s popular in the sense of abilities, item effects and more. Rather than just give random or terrible runes to people, they want to let people let loose and have fun.

Some of the runes will be new and unique spells never seen before. Some will be from future expansions, but they did say that they want to stay true to classic overall and not introduce anything too modern. So don’t expect spells from beyond WOTLK Classic or maybe even Cataclysm. They want to focus on class fantasy and make sure every class feels true to its fantasy.

New PvP Content

Finally, we move on to PvP, the lifeblood of WoW for some people. And what they’ve done cooked up for PvP is phenomenal and amazing.

Allow me to introduce you to Ashenvale, which lore-wise is a hot spot of war between the Alliance and the Horde since the days of Warcraft 3. And now it truly is a war between the Alliance and the Horde, not just in quest or Warsong Gulch.

Welcome to the Ashenvale PvP Zone, a massive zone-wide PvP event that will completely change how Ashenvale operates and make it a bloodbath.

On the side of the Alliance, we have the Priestess of the Moon, the leader of the Alliance forces in Ashenvale. On the side of the Horde, we have The Farseer, the leader of the Horde forces in Ashenvale. These two bosses are empowered by numerous other clans, which buff each respective leader. And whichever side can figure out a bug and blitz through into the enemy boss and kill them will get the whole experience nerfed.

Jokes aside, like Alterac Valley, you will have to defeat the numerous camp bosses to make the Priestess or the Farseer a weak enough to be defeated.

And as a special unique feature at level 20, you’ll be able to acquire a mount solely for usage in Ashenvale as a PvP unique mount, so it’s not to make the massive Alterac Valley size battlefield and event take 7 hours to complete.

But unlike Alterac Valley, there is no player cap on an open world PvP event, meaning you and your teammates will be able to group together in a massive 5 FPS 400 MS experience, where you don’t know if your side is winning or losing because there are 800 people in Ashenvale pvping at the same time or layering.