Dungeons & Dragons & Datamining: Sunken Temple Could Be the Next Raid in Season of Discovery

• Author: Luxrah
• Date: February 28, 2024
• Updated: February 28, 2024
• Expansion: WoW Classic

We noticed something interesting in the most recent Classic Era datamining: the Temple of Atal’Hakkar dungeon, also known as the Sunken Temple, now has a 3-day lockout. It also has a lock ID consistent with being the next raid in the game: Blackfathom Deeps has a lock ID of 21, Gnomeregan is 22, and Sunken Temple is 23. This is a strong clue that the instance is being made into the level-up raid for Phase 3 when we reach level 50.

The dungeon’s maximum player count has also been changed from five to 10, but it was revealed today that future raids in Season of Discovery will be 20-player size. Sunken Temple is a large instance with lots of trash and boss encounters. It’s also involved in a unique level 50 quest for every class, so it will be interesting to see how the developers decide to work those class quests into the raid.

Lore-wise, this raid is an interesting choice following The Blood Moon event in Stranglethorn Vale in Phase 2. Hakkar is the Zandalari blood god, and the Sunken Temple was believed to be the place where he would be brought back to Azeroth (it was actually Zul’Gurub, which we’ll see at level 60). The dungeon is full of Zandalari trolls and their minions as well as members of the Green Dragonflight, who seek to stop them (and anyone who enters the instance) from succeeding in summoning Hakkar.

The Temple of Atal’Hakkar

The entrance to the Sunken Temple is in Swamp of Sorrows, which is a contested zone. You’ll have to climb down through the ruins in the middle of the large lake in the east of the zone and make your way through a maze of hallways to the instance portal. Horde have a flight path nearby at Stonard, but Alliance will have to run through Deadwind Pass from Duskwood unless a portal is added.

The lower level of the instance, the Pit of Refuse, is home to the first boss, Atal’alarion, who must be unlocked by completing a puzzle of sorts. The long, circular hallway leads to six balconies that overlook the central pit, and each balcony has a snake statue. These statues must be clicked in the correct order to spawn the boss. To access them, you must fight your way through plenty of trash.

The upper level of the Sunken Temple is another large circlular hallway leading to six more balconies, but these balconies house a set of undead Troll Mini-Bosses which must be killed to proceed deeper into the dungeon: Loro, Gasher, Mijan, Zolo, Zul’lor, and Hukku.

Killing the mini-bosses unlocks Jammal’an the Prophet, who can be reached by entering the Pit of Sacrifice in the middle of the instance. This area is full of large packs of green dragonkin. You may remember Jammal’an the Prophet as the boss with the ghosts that randomly chase a player around the room, a source of much frustration in the old days of vanilla and Classic WoW.

Killing Jammal’an will cause two green dragons to spawn back in the main room in the Pit of Sacrifice. These dragons are Weaver and Dreamscythe, and their knockback abilities are virtually guaranteed to cause at least one on your hapless teammates to fall through the hole in the center of the room. It will happen, sooner or later!

Killing the two dragons will spawn two more of them, Hazzas and Morphaz, in a nearby hallway. All four of these bosses share the exact same abilities in the original dungeon, so we’ll see if Blizzard decides to change things up to make it more interesting or challenging.

Defeating all four green dragons brings you to Shade of Eranikus, who will pull every green dragon in the dungeon if they have not been cleared. In vanilla, this is a challenging fight in which the boss will put the party member with the highest threat to sleep for 15 seconds at a time. That sounds like the perfect opportunity for a tank swap in a raid. This boss drops an epic sword, Dragon’s Call, and we look forward to seeing what a raid version of this item may look like.

The final boss in the dungeon is Avatar of Hakkar, who can only be summoned by a player who has completed the appropriate quests. The original dungeon version of this fight is difficult, with the boss afflicting players with a number of debuffs that slow attack speed, movement, and casting speed. Adds must be looted over the course of the fight in order to extinguish the four braziers around the room. The rewards include some powerful items for the level range, which are likely to be even more powerful in the new raid:

• Bloodshot Greaves
• Embrace of the Wind Serpent
• Featherskin Cape
• Might of Hakkar
• Spire of Hakkar
• Warrior’s Embrace
• Windscale Sarong

The Sunken Temple in Season of Discovery

Assuming the Temple of Atal’Hakkar is the next raid for Season of Discovery, we can probably expect another epic crafting quest line as well as another item to turn in for a world buff. Perhaps Essence of Eranikus will be used for this, offering an upgraded version of Chained Essence of Eranikus as a reward.