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 arrives is now live, raising the level cap to 40 and introducing a brand new PVP event for players to tackle, the Blood Moon. The WoW Classic team gave us a preview on everything coming to Season of Discovery Phase 2 including how the Blood Moon event will work, how you can participate, and what you can earn. It’ll function differently than the Battle for Ashenvale, giving players a bit more variety between PVP activities.

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. In Phase 2, it will be on a 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 the event vendor or at blood altars to Blood Coins before they’re killed by someone or something else. If players a player is killed, they’ll lose some stacks of Blood for the Blood Loa and gain the Drained of Blood debuff for 1 minute which prevents them from gaining more Blood for the Blood Loa. As part of the upcoming hotfixes, Drained of Blood is being tweaked to last for 20 seconds and will grant respawning players an invisibility and pacify effect, allowing them an opportunity to respawn and prepare to get back into the fight.

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

There appears to be at least one Blood Moon gear vendor, 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 the Blood Coins you earn from killing other players but you can only wear or use one piece of gear at a time. You can also exchange Blood Coins if you need to: 100 Copper Blood Coins creates 1 Silver Blood Coin and 100 Silver Blood Coins creates 1 Gold Blood Coin. Right now, Mai’zin appears to sell gear for varying amounts of Silver Blood Coins and both of the new faction-agnostic mounts, the Golden Sabercat and the Mottled Blood Raptor, for 1 Gold Blood Coin each.

You’ll also be able to complete a quest that rewards reputation with the Arathi Basin. Based on the preview the quest is called Stranglethorn Lumber for both Alliance and Horde and Sergeant Maclear will be the turn-in point for this.

Now that Season of Discovery Phase 2 is underway, be sure to check back here to stay up-to-date on new secrets or developments that may be uncovered for the Blood Moon and everything else in this phase!

Originally published on January 30, 2024. Updated on February 12, 2024.