What to Expect from WotlK Classic Phase 3?
The 2 Phase of WoW WotLK Classic is nearing its end. Heroes of Azeroth successfully fought the horrors of Ulduar and revealed its ancient mysteries. They completed dailies and questlines near the construction site of the Argent Tournament arena. In Phase 2, the Vault of Archavon received an update in the form of a new boss — Emalon the Storm Watcher. This boss is defeated too, and multiple times.
What new enemies to deal with and what other updates will the WotLK Classic Phase 3 bring? Will there be noticeable differences from the Vanilla WotLK release? We’ll answer these and other questions right now. There’s no doubt you can cope with new challenges on your own. But if not — don’t hesitate to buy a WotLK Phase 3 boost!
Raids and Dungeons
A major part of WotLK Classic content in Phase 3 awaits near the Argent Tournament Grounds in the Icecrown. This place in Northrend’s most dangerous location has already become restless in the previous phase. Some quests even involved players in the construction of the Coliseum and other foundations for the upcoming content. With the update, the aforementioned quests will disappear. What comes to replace them?
First of all, a new raid — the Trial of the Crusader. According to the lore, this raid is one big preparation for the future march to the gates of the Icecrown Citadel. That’s why its bosses will make both new players and veterans sweat. The Faction Champions encounter alone should leave many painful memories. Fighting the NPC champions of the opposite faction will hit harder than fighting living champions in PVP.
This raid’s Heroic mode is usually called a Trial of the Grand Crusader. Calling a harder instance version with a different name may seem unusual. What’s the reason for it? Is it one of the new WotLK Classic features in Phase 3?
No, it has been so since Vanilla. The Heroic Trial has one crucial difference from Normal apart from its bosses becoming more dangerous. There’s a limited number of wipes you can afford to make. You won’t be able to fight the remaining bosses if your raid is wiped 50 times. Bosses will just disappear until the end of the week.
However, the punishment for wiping 25 times hurts too. If you do so, the Argent Crusade Tribute Chest won’t spawn at the end of the raid. Besides, this Chest’s loot gets better depending on the number of trials left. The Chest becomes a source of Trial’s most valuable rewards with time. That’s why eventually the most well-equipped parties can drop the Trial’s farm midway after a certain number of wipes. They may consider Chest’s loot to be not satisfying.
There’s a good way to inspire yourself to prepare for WotLK Classic Phase 3 challenges like this. Just look at the Alliance and Horde mount rewards for the hardest Trial of the Grand Crusader achievement. Isn’t it worth it?
The heart of the Tournament becomes a place for a new dungeon too. It’s one more Trial — the Trial of the Champion. Here you’ll see the ending of the Black Knight questline that started in Phase 2. Besides, with this short dungeon, you can speed up your gearing-up process and get ready for the raid farm.
That farm won’t be limited to the Trial. Phase 3 adds one more boss to the Vault of Archavon — Koralon the Flame Watcher. Last but not least, one of WoW’s most important milestones gets an upgrade in the WotLK Classic Phase 3. A legendary boss Onyxia is remade to become a threat to the raid of full-equipped level 80 characters. Furthermore, Onyxia’s Lair receives two levels of difficulty — 10-player and 25-player. You have a little chance to loot the Reins of the Onyxian Drake in both.
What’s New-New?
The listed changes Phase 3 brings to WotLK Classic aren’t particularly new. The game’s veterans who played WotLK a decade ago have already seen all this. However, even the veterans will be surprised with a few essential updates.
One update pertains to the game’s currency system. As in the past, new content comes with a new Emblem to farm. It’s the Emblem of Triumph. You can get it as a reward for various activities. Among them are the relevant raid farm and completion of the quests in Heroic instances.
A completely new currency drops for a successful walkthrough of the Beta Titan Rune Dungeons and the Trial of the Champion. It’s called Sidereal Essence.
The Essence serves one main purpose: to make it easier for players to catch up with the ilvl and gear quality. The Animated Constellation NPC appears in both Horde and Alliance subzones of Dalaran. It’s ready to exchange pieces of equipment from the HeroicUlduar for that currency. You’ll be able to get even such mighty items as the Void Sabre or the Ice Layered Barrier. No one knows why Constellations need so much Essence. However, your profit from such bargains is undeniable.
We didn’t make a mistake talking about Beta Titan Rune Dungeons. The Titan Rune feature receives a new level of difficulty.
Firstly introduced in Phase 2, it gave players the ability to turn on Defense Protocol Alpha in Heroic dungeons. Activated Protocol made them even more Heroic, or “Heroic Plus”. Powerful Affixes strengthened your enemies in the dungeons and made some mechanics much deadlier. For instance, the Culling of Strathome mobs started to infect players with a disease that could turn them into Zombies.
No surprise the expectations of the WoW community are imposed on this feature of WotLK Classic Phase 3. Overcoming such difficulties was generously rewarded with better equipment and special achievements. New Titan Runes won’t be an exclusion. The best proof is that one of the rewards is the Sidereal Essence. However, it’s scary to imagine the buff an instance must receive if the reward is Ulduar equipment. Some Alpha affixes seemed not enough challenging to the truly hardcore players. The Defense Protocol Beta affixes are promised to turn Heroic dungeons into “Heroic++”.
Phase 3 will bring several class updates to WotLK Classic. Most of them are minor. For instance, the Death Knight’s Dancing Rune Weapon gets a few damage corrections. Besides, the Improved Icy Touch trait will correctly share its effect with that spell too.
But the most interesting update will be received by Warrior class. The Glyph of Shattering Throw is introduced into the game! In Retail, it was added only in the Warlords of Draenor expansion and had different effects depending on Warrior’s current spec.
In Classic, this glyph will make the empowered spell not dependent on a Stance. Furthermore, it’ll be cast instantly. The cost for both buffs is it becoming completely PvE — it can’t be cast on other players. Finally, it won’t deprive the target of any invulnerability effect.
Thus, the Shattering Throw spell should become much more convenient to use in raids. Most importantly, the cost of this empowerment is not a cost at all. If a Warrior needs the Shattering Throw’s PvP effect, the glyph can always be removed.
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