Everything you need to know about the Blood Moon, WoW Classic Season of Discovery’s Phase 2 PVP event

The second phase of World of Warcraft Classic‘s Season of Discovery introduced a brand new PVP event in Stranglethorn Vale, the Blood Moon. It functions differently than the Battle for Ashenvale, giving players a bit more variety between PVP activities with more rewards to earn. In Phase 4, the Blood Moon event remained mostly unchanged though some modifications were made to the currencies you can earn and the levels you can get them at.

Here’s how the Blood Moon event works in Phase 4, how you can participate, and what you can earn.

When and where is the Blood Moon event?

The Blood Moon is a zone-wide PVP event that takes place throughout the entirety of the Stranglethorn Vale zone. As of Phase 4, it remains on consistent 3-hour timer and once active, the event will last 30 minutes. Like the Battle for Ashenvale, the Blood Moon doesn’t require you to load or queue up anywhere to participate — if you’re in Stranglethorn Vale when the event is active, you can join in.

You’ll know the event is active when a red haze blankets the entire zone, a notification appears in the your chat box, and you get the Blood Moon buff.

How to participate in the Blood Moon event

Once the Blood Moon is active, the entire zone becomes a free-for-all PVP arena where you have one objective: kill other players in the zone, regardless of faction. This is the only objective players need to worry about and there will not be any PVP-based objectives in Stranglethorn Vale like there are in Battle for Ashenvale. In a set of coming hotfixs, Blizzard intends to increase each player’s stamina by 30% while the Blood Moon is active.

When players kill enemy NPCs or other players, they’ll gain stacks of Blood for the Blood Loa, with player kills being more rewarding. Players need to turn these stacks into coins at blood altars before they’re killed by someone or something else. The current Blood Moon coin you earn in Phase 4 are Slaughter Coins, replacing the Massacre Coins from Phase 3. If a player is killed, they’ll lose some stacks of Blood for the Blood Loa and gain the Drained of Blood debuff for 20 seconds which grants an invisibility and pacify effect but also prevents them from gaining more Blood for the Blood Loa.

Enemy players aren’t the only thing you need to worry about because a new elite enemy, Kha’damu, Chosen of the Blood Loa, will roam the zone during the Blood Moon and kill everything in its path. This enemy was compared to the Fel Reaver in Hellfire Peninsula, so it packs a huge punch and is difficult to kill outside of a group. Speaking of, you can group up with other players but it seems they’ll be limited to dungeon-sized groups as raid groups participating in the Blood Moon will be punished. There aren’t any specifics yet as to what this punishment is but it’s probably a combination of reduced XP gains, less currency, and a stats debuff.

Keep in mind that if you try to get out of Stranglethorn during the Blood Moon, you’ll need to do it on foot because the Flight Master’s become “hostile” and wont do you any favors during the event. If PVP isn’t your thing, you aren’t forced to participate and you can opt out this event-specific PVP rules by speaking to the Zandalarian Emissary in one of four locations — Booty Bay, Grom’gol, Rebel Camp (Northern Stranglethorn Vale), and Yojimba Isle — for the Zandalari Ward effect. You won’t get any currency or rewards and the general PVP rules of your realm will still apply!

Earn new rewards and rep from the Blood Moon vendors

The Blood Moon gear vendor is Mai’zin, who has set up shop next to the Gurubashi Arena in Stranglethorn Vale. They sell you new class-specific level 40 items for Blood Coins and classic-specific Level 50 items for Massacre Coins. Phase 4 introduces the Slaughter Coin, which becomes the main currency for the event, it’ll probably have the same currency conversion as the previous phases: 100 Copper Salughter Coins creates 1 Silver Coin and 100 Silver Slaughter Coins creates 1 Gold Slaughter Coin.

Mai’zin will likely continue to offer conversions of Slaughter Coins to Massacre Coins, and Massacre Coins to Blood Coins, so players can continue to buy all versions of their gear. Right now, Mai’zin will also upgrade the 60% speed version of the faction-agnostic mounts, the Golden Sabercat and the Mottled Blood Raptor, into the 100% speed version mount for 800 gold plus 1 Gold Blood coin.

Mai’zin also has an item you need, A Shipment of Stranglethorn Lumber, that is needed to complete a repeatable quest called Stranglethorn Lumber for both Alliance and Horde. This quest awards 200 Arathi Basin reputation and Alliance players can turn it in to Sergeant Maclear at Refuge Point while Horde players turn it in to Deathstalker Mortis in Hammerfell.

Originally published on January 30, 2024. Updated on July 10, 2024.