Season of Discovery Phase 3 Content Update Notes

Mark your calendar for 4 April when Season of Discovery Phase 3 goes live at 21:00 BST worldwide. Adventurers can level from 41 to 50, earn up to 10 additional talent points, brave new encounters in the Sunken Temple (Temple of Atal’Hakkar) as a new 20-player raid dungeon, discover new runes and abilities, and more!

New Runes

  • New runes are available to discover. Each class has access to at least 6 new runes in Phase 3.

Nightmare Incursions

  • A new activity called Nightmare Incursions has been added. Enter missions to face off against the new demon creatures that have taken up residence just outside the dream portals in each zone. Click here for more information on Nightmare Incursions.
  • Players who wish to participate in these activities should seek out the Field Captain NPCs a short distance away from each of the Dream Portals in Duskwood, Ashenvale, Feralas, and Hinterlands to begin their adventures.
  • Near each Field Captain NPC there is also an Emerald Wardens quartermaster that will sell players special Nightmare-Only consumables to help you prepare for the dangers that will await you. As you complete more missions and gain reputation with the Emerald Wardens, you’ll also gain access to other powerful rewards.
  • This content is level banded with Duskwood being the level 25 incursion area, Ashenvale being level 40, and Feralas and Hinterlands being level 50 content.
  • The mission quests related to this content are considered elite quests, so going into the nightmare with a 3-5 player group is recommended.

The Temple of Atal’Hakkar

  • A new level 50 level-up raid is available in Phase 3; the Temple of Atal’Hakkar (aka, The Sunken Temple).
  • This is a newly revamped 20-player raid version of the classic Temple of Atal’Hakkar dungeon with all new encounters and mechanics, and of course, new loot!

Classes

  • Developer’s note: Below are a few of the class adjustments coming to WoW Classic Season of Discovery with patch 1.15.2. Please note that this list is not comprehensive and there are other minor adjustments coming not documented here, but these represent the most impactful changes coming this patch.

  • Hunter

    • Sniper Training (Rune) – No longer grants 10% Critical Strike after not moving for 6 seconds. Sniper Training now grants a stacking 2% increased Critical Strike chance every 2 seconds when not moving and when the hunter moves, they lose one stack of Sniper Training per second.
    • Trueshot Aura (Talent) – Trueshot Aura now grants an additional attack power benefit to the hunter that is providing the aura buff.
  • Shaman

    • Spirit of the Alpha (Rune) – The “Loyal Beta” effect that the shaman would gain upon casting Spirit of the Alpha on another friendly target now grants a flat 5% damage bonus to the Shaman who cast it (was attack power), as well as granting that shaman a 30% reduction in threat generated.
    • Lava Lash (Rune) has been adjusted – Now deals 100 off-hand weapon damage on hit. This damage bonus is now increased to 125% if your off-hand weapon is enchanted with Flametongue.
      • Developer’s note: The damage of Lava Lash should essentially be the same, but we’ve instead shifted more of the damage of this ability to the bonus gained when using Flametongue weapon on the off-hand.
    • Way of the Earth (Rune) – Now requires a shield in the off-hand to gain this ability’s beneficial effects.
    • Rockbiter Weapon (Spell) – The attack power bonus has been reduced.
    • Developer’s note: Most of the adjustments to Rockbiter weapon, Lava Lash, and Loyal Beta have been made to further incentivize the usage of Windfury Weapon and Flametongue Weapon when dealing damage. Shaman were able to reach very high attack power numbers by utilizing double Rockbiter Weapon and multiple stacking percentage buffs to attack power. This incentivized the use of the “tanking” imbue for DPS which led to a variety of issues. With the addition of Mental Dexterity this phase, we felt the need to tone down shaman attack power numbers and further incentivize using weapon imbues that are more geared towards damage-dealing.
  • Warlock

    • Lake of Fire (Rune) – The Lake of Fire rune now requires the warlock to channel the full duration of Rain of Fire to gain the increased fire damage benefit.
    • Metamorphosis (Rune) – Warlocks may no longer gain the benefit of Soul Link while in Metamorphosis form.
  • Warrior

    • Shield Slam (Talent) bonus threat calculation has been redesigned for Season of Discovery – Shield Slam now gains a % bonus to threat generated that will allow it to scale as tank damage and block value increases. Additionally, Shield Slam now gains double benefit from block value, meaning that a single point of block value now increases Shield Slam damage by 2 rather than 1.

Gnomeregan Professions

  • The recipes sold by Ziri “The Wrench” Littlesprocket after players complete the quest “Salvaging the Salvagematic” have been significantly reduced in price.
  • An additional teleporter has been added to the base of the pillar where Wirdal Wondergear resides in Feralas to allow players who fall off (or are evicted by Wirdal’s security team) to get back up without needing to travel all the way to Booty Bay to be teleported by Scooty.

The Blood Moon

  • The existing Bloodstained Commendation items have been removed from Mai’zin’s vendor list. These commendations have been replaced with a new version of the Bloodstained Commendation that is now purchasable with a new “Massacre Coin” currency that will be available from player levels 48 and above. Please note that any existing Bloodstained Commendations players have in their inventory when patch 1.15.2 is released will now have a 2 week real-world duration and will expire after that time and disappear from your inventory. Please use these coins before Tuesday, April 16th.
  • Additional rewards have been added to Mai’zin available at level 50 using the new Massacre Coin currency.

The Battle for Ashenvale

  • The quests “Repelling Invaders” and “Clear the Forest” may now be completed daily (was weekly).

Quests

  • The repeatable Wastewander Water Pouches turn-in quest in Gadgetzan no longer grants experience in Season of Discovery.
  • The repeatable Troll Necklaces turn-in quest in Aerie Peak no longer grants experience in Season of Discovery.
  • The repeatable Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin Marks of Honor quests in the 30-59 level ranges no longer grant experience in Season of Discovery.
  • Any extra Warsong Gulch Marks of Honor gained past 20 will now once again mail the player the extra marks. However, marks cannot be restored via the self-service mail recovery system on the battle.net support site, so you will need to claim and use these marks within 24 hours.
  • The level 50 class quests from the Temple of Atal’Hakkar now grant players all of their loot options, rather than a choice of options.
    • Developer’s note: One common issue with these quests is that some of the rewards could be a bit of a “trap” to newer or less experienced original wow players. There are a few trinkets in particular that may not look appealing at first glance but have a lot of ongoing power or utility. Less experienced players would often pass on those rewards in favor of a more immediate armor upgrade, only to find out later that they made a mistake. Because these quests are now raid quests that often times take the player deep within the new raid, we felt it was appropriate to be a bit generous here to allow players to gain all three rewards for their class quest. Please note we did not adjust these rewards at all for Season of Discovery as most of them are already quite powerful.

Dungeon Loot Updates

  • Many items found in Zul’Farrak, Uldaman, Maraudon, and Blackrock Depths have been revamped with new and updated stats.

PvP Honor System

  • With the release of Season of Discovery Phase 3 players will again gain the ability to rank up in the PvP Honor system with the rank cap being increased to rank 7.
  • A new set of Level 50 PvP gear has been added to the PvP vendors in Stormwind and Orgrimmar. Boots and Gloves are available at rank 5, Shoulders and Legs are available at rank 6, and Chest and Helm are available at rank 7.

Dual Talent Specialization

  • Players will be able to seek out the dashing dwarven explorer Grendag Brightbeard who can teach them to learn a second talent specialization.
  • Players can find Grendag in Ironforge in the Forlorn Cavern and in Orgrimmar in the Valley of Strength.
  • Players need to be level 40 to purchase a second talent specialization.
9 Likes

The demo tree has very low damage output so anyone speccing soul link just wants survivability rather than threat.
It’s time for PvP changes that are split from PvE.

2 Likes

This would be massive frustrating for people who grinded exalted on several chars! In my opinion you shouldnt be able to get pvp items while pveing an event. Blizzard you dont need to give everyone everything for no effort. Specially if people ivesteted a lot of time and grinded this item already. Feels very bad if ppl get the same item basicly 4 free

4 Likes

Metaform+ soullink form is tooo strong vs melee in pvp, thats why
Cuz soul link alome gives lock 30% dmg resist from all sources , now imagine it with void walker +metaform. Yea, melees just cant kill u , u can eat even full rogue stunlock and dont die

Hate to be that guy but here we go:
Horde are going to have for another phase the most convenient traveling for the new content?
-p1 ashen was next to Org and TB while alliance had to either change continent or fly longer from Darn and had only 1 fp choice (horde had 2 fps too)
-p2 alliance had no fp at north STV like horde (still won’t have for p3 since STV will still be relevant) and had/have to run from duskwood
-p3 new pve event has only 1 portal near a major city and that’s going to be a lvl25 area, so for most mains and prob alts (talking about the maxed ones) it’s going to be useless. So we’ll have to run on the other 3 as alliance

4 Likes

Very annoying we can’t have balance changes that are split from pvp.

1 Like

totally true.

2 Likes

But they can easily fix that with modification like “works only on damage from non-player sources”

2 Likes

horde best

Not even a comment explaining why?

You have just decided that warlock is going to be F tier in PvE and unplayable in pvp?

Cool story. I canceled my sub the moment I read this. Good luck with your season of trash.

Can any developer confirm what the level Requirement for rank 7 PvP in SoD is?

1 Like

Well that’s one way to kill the Demonology tree all together.

Where are the paladin nerfs though? You know the melee class that ignores armor with all its abilities and plays as ranged with its ranged auto attacks and abilities? And now they’re getting access to a magic dispell as well, so what are you plans for balancing that one between factions?

I’m fully expecting the Diamond flask to be changed so it’s not affected by spell power like in Classic

Hey, do we know what the actual level requirement is for Rank 7 in PvP? Is it 44?

i still am a beast tank even without soul link, stop cryin

Dual Talent Specialization

  • Players will be able to seek out the dashing dwarven explorer Grendag Brightbeard who can teach them to learn a second talent specialization.
  • Players can find Grendag in Ironforge in the Forlorn Cavern and in Orgrimmar in the Valley of Strength.
  • Players need to be level 40 to purchase a second talent specialization.

Is it correct that the action bars and runes are not separate for each specialization?
At the moment you have to adjust the runes and the complete action bar afterwards

If you need soul link + meta to play the game then it’s a good thing you quit right now.

2 Likes

Looking forward to! I just want to comment one thing:

Warlock

  • Lake of Fire (Rune) – The Lake of Fire rune now requires the warlock to channel the full duration of Rain of Fire to gain the increased fire damage benefit.

I would like to hear comment on this. What is the purpose is this change? Because now Lake of Fire will not be used in raids. Lake of Fire was disliked from the begin but forced to use because of the massive damage boost. Now it is not useful anymore. Is intended way to use Lake of Fire in warlock solo AOE farming or what?

Also what if you get hit during the cast? Will it still count as “full duration” or do you need to cast without interuptions? If full duration means without interuptions, then it will be totally huge risk to cast this.

Nah just tired of this clown dev team never giving warlocks anything.

We get nothing but nerfs when we are basically unplayable in pvp if we don’t run meta.

We get the worst Runes every phase.

Meanwhile c*nt classes like priest get buffed to the moon and showered with insanely overpowered runes.

Sod is a joke. I’m done with this amateur dev team

Still Warlocks are the best dps class in sod