WoW players can now test their abilities against a new boss, Gnarlroot, who is part of the new raid, Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope.
Will you fight as a hulking Tauren Warrior? Or maybe an inventive Gnome Warlock! The choice is yours, however, you first have to pick a side in this adventurous video game, World of Warcraft (WoW).
Blizzard recently announced that the third season, Guardians of the Dream, is currently in development and it is set to introduce a new boss to WoW called Gnarlroot.
Guardians of the Dream
On Tuesday, 7 September 2023, Blizzard announced that season three will be called the Guardians of Dream.
When it arrives, players will be tasked with protecting a new zone, The Emerald Dream. You will also be able to engage in new Public Events, Superbloom and Emerald Bounty.
Players can build Renown with the Dream Wardens to earn unique rewards and save the World Tree from the Fyrakk’s forces in a new raid, Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope.
At the time of writing this, it is unknown when this season will be implemented in WoW, but we recommend that you keep an eye on the official announcements for more details.
WoW: Gnarlroot
On the official WoW forums, a developer announced that the testing for Heroic Gnarlroot began on Thursday, 14 September 2023.
Gnarlroot is the new boss that players will be able to defeat on the normal WoW servers during the Amirdrassil raid.
Gnarlroot is a tree boss that contains 1 phase with a brief intermission. According to YouTuber, Zesty Guides, players must avoid ground effects during the phase.
He also mentioned that you have to gather minions and vanquish them with area-of-effect skills.
The boss will cast Flaming Pestilence, which radiates red swirls in four directions. Some of the swirls will spawn Lasher heads.
Gnarlroot will then cast Controlled Burn, which marks several players and plagues on the ground they walk on to inflict damage.
If you received the mark, you have to spread out and ensure that your circle overlaps with as many of the tanged lashers as possible. This will burn the lashers, which will cause them to stand up and become targetable.
Every Lasher will cast an AoE onto the ground and shoot out a Stacking Spine ability which spits thrones at a player.
Raid members must therefore use AoE abilities to vanquish the foes. The boss will then cast the Shadowflame Cleave, which deals Shadowflame damage to all enemies in front of the caster.
It is worth remembering that the team’s healers and tanks have to perform certain mechanics during the fight against Gnarlroot to ensure that the damage dealers stay alive.
Intermission
After 2 minutes of fighting Gnarlroot, the intermission will begin. The boss will activate all existing lashers, which will then perform an Activation Burst.
If you ignored the lashers up until this point, the entire raid team will die as it deals a lot of damage.
When he moves into the center of the area, he will summon tendrils, which block sight and movement. Players will be able to procure soak points, which are essentially debuffs that stacks. You can use this debuff to burn the tendrils.
Once all the tendrils are burning, the boss will enter a vulnerable state and he will take 100 percent increased damage. We recommend that you use Lust during the extra damage phase to decrease Gnarlroot’s health points.
If you are struggling with your ability cooldowns, you can gain additional time by burning the tendrils at a slower pace. However, players must ensure that they burn all the tendrils eventually to progress to the following stage of the fight.
Bug reports
Although Gnarlroot’s fight has only been available for testing for a few hours, players have already shared some bugs that appear during the fight.
WoW’s developer, Blizzard Entertainment, revealed that they have identified an issue with the trinket, Ashes of the Emboursoul, which is causing degraded server performance.
They are currently working on this issue, though gamers should refrain from using this trinket during testing.
On the official forum, WoW player, Meotosis mentioned that the intermission phase is not designed for smaller groups because of how much the group has to spread to soak and how difficult it is to heal a ground with few healers.
PTS
As previously mentioned, players can now test the new Heroic Gnarlroot boss, which is part of the new raid. This boss is only available on the PTS server and not on the normal WoW servers.
If you are interested in defeating the boss, you need to select a PTS server. It is unknown when the boss will be implemented to the normal servers, but it may take some time, as the developers have to resolve some issues regarding the fight.