Summary
World of WarcraftSeason of Discovery Phase 3’s new Sunken Temple raid is extremely challenging, having walled players with its difficulty far longer than any other inClassichistory. For the first time inWorld of Warcraft, aClassicraid hasn’t been conquered in a matter of hours, making the Sunken Temple one of the hardest raids in it to date.
Races to world first clears of raids are an MMO tradition, andWorld of Warcraftis no stranger to these sorts of contests. That said, raids inClassic WoWusually don’t have long races: Molten Core was toppled in mere days of its original release – with most of that time taken up by leveling – and even the mighty Lich King fell within two hours of the raid opening inWrath of the Lich King Classic.
However, the raid fromWorld of Warcraft ClassicSeason of Discovery Phase 3 may have just broken that streak in a big way. The Sunken Temple, also called the Temple of Atal’Hakkar, is a 20-player version of the eponymous dungeon from vanillaWoW. World first racers quickly leveled to the new Season of Discovery level cap of 50 once the update went live, but many of the top guilds are struggling to complete the raid.According to Warcraft Logsat press time, of the 80 guilds that have reported progress in the raid, a whopping 26 have only cleared six of the eight bosses, with the Shade of Eranikus gating them for nearly 24 hours.
WoW Classic Season of Discovery Sunken Temple Bosses
The major reason whyClassicraids don’t have long races to world first is because the strategies to defeat them have been honed to perfection over a decade or two. Season of Discovery throws a wrench into that with new raid versions of iconic dungeons, such as the Blackfathom Deeps andGnomeregan in priorWoW ClassicSeason of Discoveryphases. However, even the new mechanics of these raids haven’t gated players as hard as the Sunken Temple has so far.
World of Warcraftsenior game producer Josh “Aggrend” Greenfield even commented on the difficulty of the instance, saying it was refreshing to see araid inWoW Classicchallenge playersfor a change. That said, he also confirmed fans can expect them to nerf the raid’s difficulty in the future, especially once more casual players begin to challenge it.
In the meantime, Season of Discovery Phase 3 is live now, bringing with itdual spec forWorld of Warcraft Classiccharacters, new Rune engravings, and the Nightmare Incursions PvE event. Players have plenty of ways to level and gear up their characters so they can prepare to challenge the Sunken Temple themselves.
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World of Warcraft is an incredibly successful MMORPG that has been going strong for almost two decades. It’s one of the highest-grossing franchises in history and is widely considered the most popular MMORPG ever made.
