WoW Training Grounds: What Replaced Comp Stomp in Midnight

What Training Grounds is

Training Grounds is World of Warcraft's permanent PvP mode against game-controlled opponents. You queue as normal, your team is made of real players, and the enemy team is run by the game. It arrived with Midnight in patch 12.0.0 as a battleground mode on three maps, Arathi Basin, Silvershard Mines and Battle for Gilneas, and patch 12.1 added a 3v3 arena version on Nagrand Arena, Tol'Viron Arena, Ruins of Lordaeron and Hook Point.

To join, open the Group Finder, choose the Player vs. Player tab and select Training Grounds. The arena version can be queued alone or with up to two friends. Blizzard's own description sets the expectation: the opponents are smarter than they used to be and "will not be pushovers", so skill and coordination still matter, but you should win more often than you lose.

Where Comp Stomp went

If you remember Comp Stomp, this is it. Comp Stomp was a PvP brawl, a battleground against bots that rotated in and out of the weekly brawl slot, so players used to check each week whether it was up. Its last run as a brawl was in patch 11.2.7, at the end of The War Within. In Midnight the idea became Training Grounds, a permanent mode with more maps, so there is no rotation to wait for any more: it is available every day.

Two things changed along the way, and both matter if you remember Comp Stomp as a free farm. The opponents are tougher, so a careless team can lose. And the rewards are front-loaded into the first win of each day rather than paid evenly on every match, which changes how you should use it.

What Training Grounds rewards

Training Grounds pays Honor, never Conquest, and it has no rating. The bonus sits on the first win:

The crate can contain a Mark of Honor and a piece of uncommon gear for your level. Because the bonus exists once per type, one battleground win and one arena win each day collect all of it. The mode also has its own set of achievements, which the old brawl never had.

The weekly training questline

Training Grounds also powers a short weekly questline for level 90 characters in Silvermoon City, and it is the most valuable thing the mode offers a new or returning player. In Season 2 the chain runs for three weeks, one quest per week:

Every step asks you to "Win Battlegrounds in Training Grounds or against players", so you can clear it entirely against bots or mix in real battlegrounds. The final quest is handed in to Captain Dawnrunner, the Honor quartermaster. The trinkets carry PvP scaling, which is why our PvP gearing guide recommends the chain as the way a fresh character completes its trinket pair before spending any Honor.

How to use it well

Treat Training Grounds as a daily stop, not a grind. Take the first battleground win and the first arena win for their bonus Honor and crates, work on the weekly quest, then move to real opponents. After the daily bonus, Training Grounds pays only its match Honor, so a long Honor session belongs in random battlegrounds and Blitz, especially during a battleground bonus event week, whose quest pays extra on top of the matches. Our Honor farming guide sets out where Honor comes fastest.

The other use is practice. A new specialization, a keybind change or a first attempt at healing costs nothing against bots, and the arena version teaches the pillar and line-of-sight habits of four real arena maps. When the bots stop feeling difficult, Solo Shuffle is the natural next step, because it needs no team. Its live activity shows how busy the bracket is in your region right now:

Our Solo Shuffle guide explains the format before your first lobby. If battlegrounds are more your game, Battleground Blitz is the rated 8v8 step up, covered in our Battleground Blitz guide.