World of Warcraft Classic Season of Discovery isn’t just about new rune engravings and level caps. Blizzard also put a lot of effort into PvP. While we still have world PvP and Battlegrounds, there is a new, always ongoing PvP mode called Battle for Ashenvale.
PvP World Events haven’t seen a lot of activity in WoW recently, so Battle for Ashenvale is certainly a nice surprise. Anyone can come in, join, and earn some reputation and a few PvP kills along the way. I’ll tell you everything you need to know about Battle for Ashenvale in WoW Classic SoD.
What is Battle for Ashenvale in WoW Classic SoD?
Battle for Ashenvale is a new always ongoing world PvP in the Ashenvale zone. It consists of two phases.
- In phase one, players need to kill other players from the opposite faction. While this is going on, there will be two percentage markers in the top middle of your screen, one for the Horde and the other one for the Alliance. Whenever you get an honorable kill, it raises the percentage marker for your faction. When BOTH percentages are 100 percent, the event moves to phase two. However, this rarely happens, as usually one side is more active than the other. While I was participating in the event, the Alliance got 100 percent and had to wait for Horde players for about 20 minutes before they, too, reached 100 percent.
- Phase two, unlike phase one, can last for only one hour. During this phase, both Alliance and Horde players are racing to kill the opposing faction’s lieutenants and leader that spawn on specific locations on the map. Each faction has three lieutenants, each like a raid boss. Killing a lieutenant will slightly weaken the leader, so it’s recommended to kill all of them. However, players can also completely ignore the lieutenants and go directly for the leader, but that will make the fight harder. After one of the leaders is killed, the event resets back to phase one.
How to join the Battle for Ashenvale in WoW Classic SoD
If you want to join in on the fun, it’s pretty simple. First of all, you need to get to Ashenvale. Ashenvale is just north of the Barrens if you are a Horde player. For Alliance players, it’s just south of Darkshore.
Once you get to Ashenvale, you have a few choices. First, if the percentage bars are low, you can go out on your own and hunt other players of the opposite faction. However, the safer bet is to do this in a group. So, use the local chat and say how you are looking for a PvP raid group. You should get invited right away unless a battle just finished. I highly recommend you do this at a max level because otherwise, other players may not want to invite you. However, you might get lucky like me and join as a level 19 player and hope that nobody notices.
Once you are in a raiding group, you can go out and hunt down innocent players and raid the opposition’s outposts until you raise your faction’s percentage to 100.
Once the game enters phase two, your raiding party needs to decide whether they are going to attack lieutenants or go straight for the leader. You can use your map to see where each lieutenant and leader is. My raiding party killed one lieutenant and went for the leader, while a different raiding group got another lieutenant as we were heading towards the boss. Simply do what you can to assist your raiding group. Do damage, buff the party or heal the wounded. Once one of the leaders dies, the battle is over and you can enjoy the rewards.
The Rewards for Battle for Ashenvale
Your reward for participating in the Battle for Ashenvale is Warsong Gulch’s reputation. In other words, if you are an Alliance player, you get reputation with the Silverwing Sentinels, and if you are playing Horde, you get reputation with the Warsong Outriders.
Each lieutenant you kill gives you 100 reputation, and killing the leader gives you 500. This does not include all NPC grunts you kill along the way along with any players of the opposite factions you come across. In other words, there’s a lot of reputation to be gained from here. I managed to get about 700 reputation points for killing one of the lieutenants, the leader and a few players that my raiding group came across.
You also get commendations, which you can exchange for even more reputation and rewards.
When you reach a reputation status of friendly or higher, you can buy gear and other useful items from the reputation vendors. One item in particular that stands out is a special mount. You can only ride this mount around Ashenvale, but it’s as close as you are going to get to having a proper mount until phase two of Season of Discovery releases.
Overall, Battle for Ashenvale is a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to participating in it again, and I highly recommend you try it out yourself.
