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The Burning Crusade Anniversary Phase 3: The Complete Guide
10 min read
Illidan Stormrage and Archimonde are both killable now. The Warglaives of Azzinoth are back in the loot pool, the Netherwing Ledge is open for its drake mounts, and Tier 6 is the deepest gear you can chase before Sunwell. Phase 3 landed on August 27, after that fake August 13 date from Blizzard support sent half the community into a panic for nothing.
This is the whole phase as it stands right now: both raids, the three new reputations and their rewards, the resistance sets the fights actually demand and the consumables worth carrying in. For boss-by-boss loot, the deep-dive guides are linked in each section.
What Phase 3 adds to the game
Phase 3 is a raid tier, not an expansion, so the level cap stays at 70 and there are no new dungeons. Blizzard left the Heroic lineup untouched. What it does add is a stack of endgame systems layered on top of the two raids:
- Black Temple and the Battle for Mount Hyjal, the two Tier 6 raids
- Netherwing, a new daily faction on the Netherwing Ledge with six drake mounts at Exalted
- Epic gems, a full tier of gems above the rare ones you have been socketing
- Two new raid reputations, Ashtongue Deathsworn and Scale of the Sands
- Arena Season 3, which starts September 1, a few days after the raids
- Warglaives of Azzinoth, the two legendary blades off Illidan
If you are gearing an alt or coming back to the game, attunements are account-wide now, so a fresh raider walks straight into Tier 5 and the Phase 3 chains without redoing old keys.
The two raids
Black Temple is the nine-boss flagship, running from High Warlord Naj'entus to Illidan Stormrage. It holds three of your five Tier 6 slots, the Ashtongue Deathsworn class trinkets and the Warglaives. Full walkthrough and loot in our Black Temple guide.
Battle for Mount Hyjal is five bosses inside the Caverns of Time, but the first four each sit behind eight waves of trash, so a wipe mid-waves resets the whole sequence. It ends on Archimonde and carries the other two Tier 6 slots plus the Scale of the Sands rings. Full wave and boss breakdown in our Mount Hyjal guide.
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Attunements
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Both raids are gated, and attunements are account-bound in Anniversary, so you clear each chain once and every character on the account benefits. One exception matters, and it is covered below.
Mount Hyjal is the short one. Be Revered with the Keepers of Time, pick up The Vials of Eternity from Soridormi in the Caverns of Time, then kill Lady Vashj in Serpentshrine Cavern and Kael'thas in Tempest Keep and loot a vial from each. Turn them in and you are attuned.
Black Temple is longer but not hard, just tedious. It starts in Shadowmoon Valley at your Aldor or Scryer hub with the Tablets of Baa'ri. A couple of steps need a group: clearing the Arcatraz, which you can do on Normal rather than Heroic, and a group quest back in Shadowmoon Valley. Later you put on the Ashtongue disguise to kill Al'ar in Tempest Keep, and skipping the disguise wastes the lockout. The chain then sends you to kill Rage Winterchill, the first boss of Mount Hyjal, before a few talking quests finish it off and hand you the Medallion of Karabor.
That Medallion is the exception to the account-bound rule. It gives 40 Shadow Resistance, you need it for Mother Shahraz and it does not carry across your characters the way the attunement does. Every character you plan to raid on wants to run the chain for that neck.
Tier 6
Five slots, split across the two raids. Black Temple drops the Shoulder token from Mother Shahraz, the Legs from the Illidari Council and the Chest from Illidan. Mount Hyjal drops the Head from Archimonde and the Hands from Azgalor. Tokens come as Forgotten Conqueror for Paladin, Priest and Warlock, Forgotten Protector for Warrior, Hunter and Shaman and Forgotten Vanquisher for Rogue, Mage and Druid. You hand them to Tydormu at the Hyjal Summit entrance for the finished piece.
The three new reputations
Ashtongue Deathsworn comes from Black Temple. You reach Friendly from the attunement and grind to Exalted off Temple trash, which unlocks a best-in-slot trinket for your class from the quartermaster. There is also new Shadow Resistance gear here, though it needs the Heart of Darkness, a rare material with a low drop rate in both raids. The full trinket list is in the Black Temple guide.
The Scale of the Sands comes from Mount Hyjal, and reputation only ticks up from kills inside the raid. Trash gives 12, Frost Wyrms give 60, each boss gives 375 and Archimonde alone gives 1,500. At Friendly you pick one upgradeable ring for your role, and it gets stronger as your standing climbs:
- Band of the Eternal Sage for caster DPS
- Band of the Eternal Champion for physical DPS
- Band of the Eternal Restorer for healers
- Band of the Eternal Defender for tanks
The faction also sells the epic gem designs, the Crimson Spinel, Lionseye, Empyrean Sapphire, Pyrestone, Seaspray Emerald and Shadowsong Amethyst cuts, which is the other reason Jewelcrafters camp this reputation.
Netherwing runs out on the Netherwing Ledge in the southeast of Shadowmoon Valley, and it is the grind for the Netherwing Drake mounts. You can reach Neutral on a normal flying mount, but everything past Neutral needs epic flying, since the dailies and the egg hunt want speed. Reaching Exalted buys you a drake. Full daily rotation and every egg location in our Netherwing guide.
The resistance walls
Two fights in Black Temple hard-gate you on resistances, and this is where unprepared raids stall for a week. These are raid requirements, not optional min-maxing.
Shadow Resistance for Mother Shahraz
Her Fatal Attraction teleports three non-tank players and ticks Shadow damage on them until they spread 25 yards apart. You want 244 Shadow Resistance with buffs to guarantee a partial resist on every tick, since 244 is the cap for guaranteed partial resistance. A Shadow Protection priest buff covers 70 of that, the Medallion of Karabor covers another 40, so you only supply 134 yourself. Each level 70 green Bind on Equip piece of Shadow Protection gives 21.
The clean way to build the set is to take spare copies of your Phase 1 and 2 gear and gem and enchant them for Shadow Resistance, then fill the rest with pure Shadow Protection pieces, all while keeping your hit or spell hit cap so your damage does not fall off a cliff. The fastest way to farm the green pieces is opening cells in Netherstorm with Ethereal Prison Keys, since hostile spawns drop random level 70 gear, and the of Shadow Protection suffix rolls on the greens. Experienced groups can swap the set for the engineering Nigh Invulnerability Belt and Rocket Boots, but if you have not killed her before, wear the resistance.
Fire Resistance and the Shear set for Illidan
Tanks on the Flames of Azzinoth want 244 Fire Resistance with buffs, and running three tanks in the early weeks, one boss tank and two fire tanks, is the safer call. The Badge of Justice vendor sells Fire Resistance boots, legs, chest and hands for 100 badges total, and your Tempest Keep attunement already handed you a Fire Resistance ring and neck. The Petrified Scarab from AQ40 gives 100 resistance to any school, and having it on both tanks is what lets a confident group two-tank the fight.
The boss tank also wants a Shear set. Shear strips 60% of the tank's health for seven seconds and cannot miss, but it can be dodged, parried or blocked, so you gear for 101.8% combined dodge, parry and block rather than the usual avoidance cap. The mitigation pieces out of Serpentshrine and Tempest Keep, the Wristguards of Determination, Girdle of the Immovable, Boots of the Resilient, Ring of Sundered Souls and the Seventh Ring of the Tirisfalen, get you there.
There is a smaller optional set worth a mention: a stamina set for Naj'entus if you sit below 10,000 health, since popping his shield deals 8,500 to the whole raid and the impale ticks hard on low-health players.
Consumables that matter this phase
Elixir of Demon Slaying gives 265 attack power against demons, and there are seven demon bosses across the two raids, so it is the best physical DPS elixir on those fights. It lasts five minutes and drops on death, but the mats are cheap: one Grom's Blood from Dire Maul East and one Ghost Mushroom, farmable in the Hinterlands, Un'Goro, Zangarmarsh and Maraudon. Farm it yourself rather than paying the inflated price.
Stratholme Holy Water works like a mini-sapper on undead, which covers most of the Mount Hyjal trash plus Rage Winterchill and Teron Gorefiend. The boxes no longer sparkle in Stratholme, so you hunt them blind unless you are a Dwarf with Find Treasure.
Scourgebane consumes, Horde only, come from turn-ins to Magistrix Ammen'gol in the Ghostlands. Ten Spinal Dust gives a Scourgebane Infusion for 15 spell damage against undead, ten Rotting Hearts gives a Scourgebane Draught for 30 attack power against undead, both for 30 minutes and both stacking with your flask and elixir. The mats drop off the low-level mobs in the Dead Scar and are Bind on Equip, so farm them on a strong character and mail them over.
Mark of the Illidari flasks are the cheaper flask option this phase. Get Exalted with The Sha'tar, Cenarion Expedition and your Aldor or Scryer faction, and the Shattrath vendor sells discounted flask versions for Marks of the Illidari that drop off Phase 3 raid trash. Farm the reps in the Botanica, the Steamvault and through your faction turn-ins.
Professions and the epic gem economy
Epic gems are the headline profession change, and they reshuffle which trades are worth having. They socket the same stats as your current rare gems but at higher values, and the first supply is locked behind the raids, so they run scarce and expensive for a while.
Where they come from:
- Mining inside Mount Hyjal, from gem deposits that need 375 Mining to gather
- Rare drops in Black Temple
- Jewelcrafting designs from Indormi, the vendor inside the Hyjal raid, who turns raw gems into cut epics
The raw gems trade freely, but the designs are Bind on Pickup and need 375 Jewelcrafting, so the cutters are the bottleneck rather than the gems. The new families are the Crimson Spinel, Empyrean Sapphire, Lionseye, Pyrestone, Shadowsong Amethyst and Seaspray Emerald. Do not rip every rare gem out of your gear on day one. Save the epics for the Tier 6 pieces you will keep longest, and clear your spell hit or defense requirements before chasing raw stat gems.
Two professions pull ahead. Jewelcrafting supplies the gems everyone needs, and Enchanting both finishes the upgrades and turns your replaced raid gear back into materials you can sell. The other reagent to know is the Heart of Darkness, a tradeable material that drops in both raids and feeds two things: the crafted Shadow Resistance gear for Mother Shahraz and the new performance recipes, which are item level 141 bracers and shoulders with haste for your role. It drops rarely, so most guilds control who the Hearts go to.
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How to gear in Phase 3
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Walking into Tier 6 undergeared is fine, because there are more paths in than the raids alone:
- Badge of Justice gear from the G'eras vendor in Shattrath, buyable with badges from any Heroic or raid
- Crafted gear, including the Phase 3 performance bracers and shoulders and the Shadow Resistance sets
- Arena Season 3 gear, with Season 2 gear dropping to a discount once Season 3 opens
- Reputation rewards, the Scale of the Sands rings and the Ashtongue Deathsworn trinkets
- The raids, Tier 6 tokens from both plus the item level 151 gear off Archimonde and Illidan's table
The smart order is to close your hit or defense requirements first, slot epic gems into the pieces you will keep longest and use the discounted Season 2 PvP gear to patch whatever slot the raid has not filled yet. If you want the gearing handled without the grind, our TBC gearing services cover badge runs, crafted sets and the raid clears.
Arena Season 3
Arena Season 3 starts September 1, a few days after the raids open, and it brings a new gear vendor and a more accessible PvP catch-up route. When it goes live, the Season 2 arena gear drops to a heavy discount, so if a piece of PvP gear is your best in slot and the raid version never dropped, grab it. You lose your Season 2 rating and points at the rollover, but the discounted gear stays available.
Skip the walls
The two places Phase 3 raids fall apart are the Mother Shahraz resistance check and the Illidari Council coordination, and building a full Shadow Resistance set from scratch eats a weekend of farming on every raiding character. If your group keeps breaking on those fights, or you would rather not grind resistance gear and attunements across four alts, our TBC raid carry teams run full Black Temple and Mount Hyjal clears, the attunement chains and the Warglaive farm.
FAQ
WHEN DID TBC PHASE 3 RELEASE?
August 27, 2026. It brought Black Temple, Battle for Mount Hyjal, the Netherwing dailies and Arena Season 3. The earlier August 13 date that circulated was a mistake from Blizzard support, not a real release date
HOW DO YOU GET ATTUNED FOR BLACK TEMPLE AND MOUNT HYJAL?
Mount Hyjal needs The Vials of Eternity, which requires killing Vashj and Kael'thas. Black Temple runs a longer chain from Shadowmoon Valley that includes killing Rage Winterchill in Hyjal and ends with the Medallion of Karabor. Attunements are account-bound, but the Medallion is not, so every raiding character wants the chain for that neck
HOW MUCH SHADOW RESISTANCE DO YOU NEED FOR MOTHER SHAHRAZ?
244 with buffs to guarantee a partial resist on every Fatal Attraction tick. A priest's Shadow Protection buff covers 70 and the Medallion of Karabor covers 40, so you provide 134 yourself from gear, gems and enchants
WHAT REPUTATIONS ARE NEW IN PHASE 3?
Ashtongue Deathsworn from Black Temple, which sells class trinkets at Exalted, The Scale of the Sands from Mount Hyjal, which gives the upgradeable Band rings and epic gem designs, plus Netherwing, which unlocks the drake mounts at Exalted
DO YOU NEED EPIC FLYING FOR THE NETHERWING DRAKES?
You can hit Neutral on a normal flying mount, but everything past Neutral to Exalted needs epic flying
ARE THERE NEW DUNGEONS IN PHASE 3?
No. Phase 3 is a raid tier, not an expansion, so the level cap stays at 70, there are no new dungeons and the Heroic lineup is unchanged. The new group content is the two raids and the Netherwing daily hub
WHERE DO EPIC GEMS COME FROM IN PHASE 3?
Three sources: gem deposits mined inside Mount Hyjal with 375 Mining, rare drops in Black Temple, and Jewelcrafting designs sold by Indormi inside the Hyjal raid. Raw gems are tradeable, but the cutting designs need 375 Jewelcrafting
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