WoW Classic Season of Discovery Phase 4 begins July 11, with raids launching July 18

WoW Classic Season of Discovery Phase 4 officially launches on July 11, 2024 at 1PM pacific time, with World Bosses on July 18 and raids on July 25, both at 1PM pacific time. That means the extended duration Phase 3 and the Phase 4 PTR are coming to a close and players will soon be able to experience Phase 4 live and finally hit level 60 in Season of Discovery.

Though some features were teased during the Phase 3 preview, thanks to Phase 4 PTR testing and development notes, and finally the latest Phase 4 preview, we have a more comprehensive idea of all the new features coming in Phase 4, so let’s take a look!

What’s in Season of Discovery Phase 4?

• Level 51-60
• New and updated PVE and PVP endgame activities
  • Instanced raid bosses, Lord Kazzak and Azuregos, go live July 18, 2024 at 1PM pacific time
  • Molten Core and Onyxia go live July 25, 2024 at 1PM pacific time
• New Cloak and Ring runes

Phase 4 opens the final level range from 51-60, enabling players to finally reach max level in Season of Discovery. To help players along, the Discoverer’s Delight buff will be offer 150% boosted XP buff for players between level 1-49, while players level 50-59 will only receive a 50% XP buff.

As for endgame activities there’s some significant changes for both PVE and PVP:

• Instanced raid bosses Lord Kazzak and Azuregos will be tuned as 20-player encounters but can be done in groups of 40 and will go live July 18, one week after launch. Molten Core and Onyxia’s Lair have also been tuned as 20-player encounters and can be completed in groups of 40 if players wish beginning July 25th, 2025. Molten Core will be on a seven day lockout while Onyxia, Lord Kazzak, and Azuregos will be on a new “twice weekly” lockout schedule, meaning they’ll have set reset days during the week:
  • North America reset days: Tuesday and Saturdays
  • Europe and Asia reset days: Wednesdays and Sundays
• 5 dungeons will be open for players to tackle at Level 60: the second half of Blackrock Depths, Blackrock Spire, three wings of Dire Maul, Scholomance, and Stratholme.
• New Blackrock Eruption event, an event that happens every two hours at Blackrock Mountain that has it’s own quests and rewards honor, reputation, and XP.
• Alterac Valley Battleground will be unlocked at level 60.
• Blood Moon item rewards wont scale to level 60 but will receive some light reworks around currency and honor to remain a fun activity.
• Nightmare Incursions missions will become daily quests and grant XP up to level 60 but the XP from the event itself caps at level 53.
• PVP class sets available at Rank 10.

In Phase 4 there will also be some class and items updates. Specifically, Priests will be able to unlock other races passive abilities. There’s also going to be a way to unlock passive weapon skill bonuses that give you a +5 to two skills of your choice with the option to swap them easily, but they won’t stack with your character’s racial bonus. Players will be able to discover Runes for their Cloaks as well have accessing a new type of class-agnostic Runes called Utility Runes for Rings. We don’t know how many Utility Runes there will be but they’re designed to give additional bonuses to certain stats like weapon skill, spell hit, among others.

A lot of the Phase 4 features are still in active development and undergoing PTR testing, so they may change by the time it goes live, we’re still a long way off as we’re just now moving into Phase 3 but that doesn’t mean we can’t eagerly wait for what’s coming in the future so be sure to check back here to stay informed about what else is coming in Season of Discovery Phase 4!

Originally published on March 27, 2024. Updated on June 28, 2024.