World of Warcraft Classic's “Season of Discovery,” Blizzard's way of shaking things up, is a sort of WoW Remix that offers something for everyone, but also a new challenge for avid players. The “Season of Discovery” progressed in phases, like a season of live service, entering phase 4 on July 12, with new elements released in waves: first a new level cap (60), new runes, and new dungeons, followed by a world boss on July 18, and then on July 25 The raids “Molten Core” and “Onyxia's Lair” will appear on July 25.

It is the latter that concerns me. These were the cornerstone of WoW, the only 40-person raids available at the game's launch, and perhaps the first activity in the game to have real bragging rights. Obviously, this world and community are 20 years old, and the reworking of the Molten Core raid in particular drew attention from serious guilds that would try to be the first in the world.

The Molten Core rework has some interesting changes, notably the “heat level 3” difficulty and the addition of a mysterious secret boss, the 11th in the raid. This boss will now be explained, so if you are planning to attack the raid and don't want to know what it is, stop now.

Molten Core is obviously a raid that most WoW players will be familiar with, but Heat Level 3 has proven to be a killer, ramping up weak bosses like Lucifron to levels that will wipe out your party and requiring fire-resistant layered equipment throughout. The largest guild in WoW took part in this, and interestingly, the winner was stylized as “None of the Above.”According to Wowhead, the winning team consisted mostly of casters (especially mages, priests, and warlocks), and the guild was used a weak aura that tracked the cooldown of the Duke's Domain trinket, providing an additional fire-resistant zone.

Most excitingly, the final challenge of the raid was a new secret boss on Heat Level 3; Blizzard got there, and the final boss of this raid on the highest difficulty level was a giant ball of lava from which Ragnaros himself emerged.

The Molten Core has a whopping 4 million strength, aided by a swarm of fire spells and primal flame elementals that the guild manipulates at will. None of the above failed on the first try, but on the second, its fire-resistant trinkets proved invaluable.

The Molten Core dropped a number of items available from other bosses. Perhaps to prevent average players like myself from being forced into the heat level 3 mine in search of the best items.

Perhaps the WoW community's expectations for this secret boss were a bit unrealistic. Some take a more phlegmatic view. Bodacious Ape says, “Just shoot in circles like in the good old days.” After all, this is WoW: it's classic.