WoW Season of Discovery Phase 4 is coming on July 11th and will launch worldwide at 1:00 PM PDT. I thought it would be a good time to talk about some of the key content and changes to help you get a head start as the new phase begins.

In this guide, we’ll start with the new level cap of 60, then cover raid information, move on to some important item updates, then dive into World Event updates, some system updates, and more.

Level Cap Increased To 60

First things first, whether you’re already familiar with SoD content, are experiencing it for the first time through Season of Discovery, or you just want a refresher, increasing the level cap to 60 brings a ton of new content and new things to do. Not only will you gain access to all of WoW Classic zones, such as Burning Steppes, Eastern and Western Plaguelands, Silithus, and Winterspring, but you’ll also be able to maximize your character talents.

Additionally, a new Battleground, Alterac Valley, will be unlocked, and there are also some new Epic Mounts for players to collect.

More importantly, all Classic Dungeons are now available, including Scholomance, Stratholme, Dire Maul (3 wings), and Blackrock Spire.

New Runes

Onward to a brief note about Runes. Since PTR has been around for the past few weeks, few of Runes are completely secret, so we won’t spend a lot of time talking about them in this guide.

As always, with each phase, all classes will get brand new Runes for you to try. While some Runes don’t add much talent or power to their respective classes, at least players can try different play styles. So, whether you want to heal as a Mage or tank as a Rogue or Warlock, Season of Discovery is sure to spice up your game with new items and abilities.

Raid Rework

The raiding continues. As the developers announced previously, Molten Core Raid will be scaled down to 20 players, and the boss encounters will be adjusted for 11 bosses.

Molten Core

It’s worth noting that we’ll have a scalable difficulty system in Molten Core, allowing players to increase the heat inside and face more and more challenges. Please note that increasing the heat level will not affect the quality of the rewards. The quality of the rewards will remain consistent as the difficulty increases. Instead, it will increase the number of rewards, making some of the more valuable drops in the raid appear more frequently.

The developers said that they didn’t want to limit the best gear to after the hard content in Season of Discovery, because it wouldn’t make sense. But if you really want to challenge yourself, you’ll find additional challenges and may be able to equip good gear faster.

Onyxia’s Lair

Besides this, Onyxia’s Lair has also undergone some major loot overhauls, and there will be a lot of rich WOW SOD Gold and loot for you to chase.

The developers have also made adjustments to the raid size with Onyxia. She will eventually be adjusted to 20 players to complete, but the maximum allowed raid size is 40 players.

So if you are doing a casual group and want to ensure a quick success, you can bring 40 players. However, if you’re going with a guild, 20 players might make more sense to maximize your rewards.

Loot

Next, let’s take a look at some of the cool new loot we’ll find in SoD Phase 4.

Dungeon Loot

First up is some of the new dungeon loot for Phase 4.

We have Ironfoe, which has been bumped up to level 58 and now grants +18 attack damage when equipped.

Next, we have Idol of Exsanguination, which grants you 5 rage on your Lacerate ticks.

Totem of the Plains reduces the cast time of your Healing Rain spell by 100%.

Burst of Knowledge has been bumped up to item level 58, with a spell power increase and an active cooldown reduced from 15 minutes to 5 minutes.

Finally, we have Libram of Holy Alacrity, which reduces the cast time of your next two Holy Lights by 0.2 seconds.

Raid Loot

But what about raid loot? Let’s take a quick look at a few items in Molten Core.

First up, we have an awesome-looking Elemental Shaman shield called Earth and Fire. This looks similar to the level 14 PVP shield, but with a unique new color variation.

We also have Magmadar’s Right and Left Claw, which allows you to summon Core Hounds to aid you in combat.

Finally, there’s Obsidian Edged Blade, which increases the damage of Two-Handed Swords from +8 to +3. And, the developers have also added 1% crit chance to these stats, and made them slightly slower.

World Event

Next up, why don’t we take a few minutes to talk about World Events?

Blood Moon

Blood Moon won’t have any major changes in Phase 4, and won’t be the carrier of new items or player powers, but it will continue to occur on a normal timer. Excitingly, since we’re about to hit level 60, it means players will soon be able to get the highest level PVP rewards.

To help with Honor-gain process, the developers will be introducing a new Blood Moon currency in Phase 4. When the new currency is introduced, the price of Bloodstained Commendations will be reduced from 1 silver coin to 25 copper coins. You and your team can venture into Stranglethorn Vale during Blood Moon and replenish your Honor farm.

Nightmare Incursion

Going forward, Nightmare Incursions will also be getting some major adjustments that will help make them feel like optional additions to normal leveling, rather than the ultimate leveling activity for all new characters.

In addition, the developers have stated that they will be reducing the difficulty of some creatures in Nightmare Incursion to make these quests more suitable for solo completion. XP earned from these activities will also be capped at level 53. But if you want to gain reputation, these quests will be available all the way up to level 60.

Blackrock Eruption

For Phase 4’s World Event, the developers took some lessons from previous events and applied them to a new, easier outdoor event, Blackrock Eruption.

This event will occur every two hours and will feature additional spawns, daily quest content, opportunities for reputation gain, and more Honor rewards from World PVP.

System Updates

Finally, let’s talk about some of the big system updates coming to Phase 4.

First, the developers have taken a lot of lessons learned from Wild Offerings currency and expanded that system to introduce a new deterministic currency called Tarnished Undermine Reals.

You can start earning these coins from most non-rare dungeon bosses above level 55, and each boss will drop one currency per day for each player in your group. This currency can be used to acquire a variety of things, such as rare crafting recipes, crafting materials, powerful gear, and a variety of other valuable items.

We’re also particularly excited about a brand new feature for WoW Classic, the twice-weekly raid lockout system. We’ve had a lot of feedback from players that it was difficult for guild leaders to manage the three-day raid lockout because of inconsistent reset dates.

As a result, the developers have been looking for solutions to see if there is a way to provide the faster pace and content availability that the three-day lockout brings, but at the same time add a little stability and predictability to help better plan raids. The twice-weekly raid lockout system is perfect for this goal.

World Buffs

With the arrival of Phase 4 and the level increase to 60, players will begin to gain the effects of the highest-level World Buffs.

In Season of Discovery, the developers also plan to add an Alliance equivalent to Warchief’s Blessing, Might of Stormwind. This buff will increase health by 300 points, speed up melee attacks by 15%, and restore 10 mana every 5 seconds.

As with previous phases, Discoverer’s Delight will continue to work during levels 50-59, providing a 50% XP boost in that level range. And characters from levels 1 to 49 will still enjoy a 150% experience increase, so it should be very easy to get these younger characters caught up.

It’s worth noting that, like previous leveling raids, Sunken Temple will give a ton of XP, so running it as you level up can also give you an enormous boost.

So that’s all we know about some of the key updates and changes you need to know about SOD Phase 4. With the new phase coming up soon, I hope I’ll see you in the game. Good luck!