After what feels like forever, we’re finally receiving some pretty massive news about Phase 4 in Season of Discovery. With the WoW team being focused on Mists of Pandaria, Cataclysm Classic, and the upcoming expansion for retail, it feels like SoD has just been left in the dust lately. It’s not really a secret that a lot of people have found Phase 3 the most lackluster. Many are frustrated with the game, and one of the major qualms players have is from the “L” in Sunken Temple. Another qualm is Class Tuning, as well as just feeling like there’s not enough to do right now.

Addressing Player Concerns: Blizzard’s Response

Blizzard has finally addressed quite a bit of this, but in a kind of roundabout way. For many, it’s huge news because of the implications, but it could seem like Blizzard’s saying a whole lot of nothing. Let’s break down what they said.

Phase 4 Release: No Date Yet

Essentially, the first thing they talk about is Phase 4 announcement. We do not get a new release of Phase 4; you are not getting a release date, not yet at least. Although Blizzard does say that they want to let Cataclysm breathe, essentially meaning it’s not going to be released within the next week, maybe not even the next two weeks of Cataclysm launch. This is because they also want to make sure that Phase 4 launches in the best state it possibly can be. The big reasoning there is that they are actually going to release a PTR for Phase 4.

Class Viability and Game Balance

If your class gets reworked, of course, I’ll cover that, but hopefully, there’s some completely new aspects that make these classes a lot more viable while not making them absolutely broken in one other respect of the game. That’s because, notoriously, if something is busted in PvP, it is usually kind of lackluster in PvE. Right now, that’s mostly looking at Shadow Priests and Boomkins, who really got the short end of the stick because they were so strong and dominant in PvP that they were kind of completely forgotten about in raid content.

Phase 4 PTR and Level 60 Content Preview

Now, I would expect this Phase 4 PTR to be relatively soon; they haven’t announced when it will be, but I would definitely expect to be creating your template character and testing new things out at level 60 hopefully very soon. Now, they did also talk about the level 60 content phases, and it kind of feels like leveling is going to be really quick. I kind of hoped it would all be different phases, and they did mention that all of the raids will come out like they did originally, like basically they did in classic.

So, the first tier will be Molten Core and Onyxia only, but then, only a few weeks after that, we will be seeing Blackwing Lair. Then, following that, of course, we get ZG, and they did mention that there will be some additional content and surprises added in between the major raid releases. So, the future raids, obviously, that we kind of got teased early on, like Kazan Crypts, Scarlet Monastery, or the Scarlet Crusade raid, and whatever else they have in store for us, you can just expect to see it during the level 60 phases, but again, not in the PTR. But one of the biggest issues almost every player has right now, mainly casters, is that the Sunken Temple raid loot feels a little bit lackluster. Well, maybe.

Gear Tuning and Player Expectations

That’s kind of an understatement. Things like getting the Epic ring, the new epic ring from the quest item from the raid that’s giving you 15 spell damage, or the new PvP epic ring for Mages that’s giving you 17 fire damage—only one fire damage more than what you got at level 40—was a huge issue for a lot of players.

You’re going into this new raid and spending all your time there, only getting loot that increases your damage by like 1 to 5. It makes sense when you think about the fact that they really didn’t know how much they were going to be tuning up level 60 gear because Season of Discovery is happening as we’re playing it. They’re literally developing it as we play, so they didn’t want to make the new gear too overpowered, which kind of meant they shot things a little short and made the gear a little bit too underpowered for casters.

Upcoming Gear Buffs for Casters

So, they have said now that they’ve built out the level 60 gear, at least the tier one item sets, they do know that they can buff all of the gear, or at least most of the gear, for Casters in Sunken Temple, and this should be coming very soon. So expect, in the next week or two weeks, to see your Sunken Temple loot be a lot better. This also means that there’s some pieces that drop that you might want to hold on to; ones that might not be your best in slot but could get buffed inadvertently in a way that makes them your best item. Just wait for that. But this is really exciting, hopefully, this will bring some people back.

Anticipating Phase 4

But on top of that, mostly right now, you’re waiting for Phase 4. So again, this is a post chocked full of a lot of information and a little information all at the same time, saying that a lot of things are coming but nothing specifically right now. I’m pretty excited about this; to be brutally honest, I think SoD is in this stagnant place right now, and we all know that. But it also feels like Cataclysm is more fun than I anticipated, and MoP remix has actually been a blast.

So there’s a lot of ways to enjoy WoW right now, but I’m really looking forward to Phase 4 and hopefully, we will have the PTR soon so we can test everything and get all of the new rework of all the classes out to you guys and see what works, what doesn’t work. I’m sure something’s going to be insanely busted somehow. Hunter is going to be too strong and need to get nerfed. So I’ll see you guys all in the next one.

Thank you for diving into our guide! Discover our exceptional WoW Classic Season of Discovery boosting services and elevate your gaming experience with our top-tier boosts.