Guide to Trial of the Champion Dungeon in WotLK Phase 3

Blizzard has not yet announced the release date of Wrath of the Lich King Classic's Phase 3, and we estimate it will come in May. Now you can start by investing in items that are low in demand and high in supply. Some items are quite expensive, so you need to spend large amounts of WotLK Classic gold on them. 

 

What's going to happen with Trial of the Champion in Phase 3? Don't confuse this with Trial of the Crusader. Here we will talk about the 5-man dungeon in the Crusaders' Coliseum.

 

 

It would be pretty weird to have Heroic Plus options for all dungeons, but not this one, and it's a perfect one to scale up to Heroic Plus. Because with all the ways we can get geared up to jump straight into current content with things like Naxx10, where you can get 25-man gear; the Heroic Plus dungeons, where you can get Naxx10 gear, just doing heroic 5-man and getting the 200 item level 10 man sort of next gear, that's good enough to jump straight into all the Naxx10. On top of that, we get to ridiculous amounts of emblems every week. Of course, the sheer amount of crafted loot that you can just simply buy from the Auction House now.

 

It's quite easy to get to something like 4K gear score without even stepping foot in a heroic 5-man, but all of that leaves Trial of the Champion a little bit lackluster.

 

If Blizzard adds Heroic Plus, you should drop all the gear and follow what they've done at the start of phase 2. Still, with phase 3 instead, I really feel like they just don't need to do that. Getting full phase 1 gear from knacks or heroic 5-man will be enough to jump straight into the 10-man Trail the Crusader, which would be current content. Aside from the attempt to keep 5-man relevant past the first week of Wrath of the Lich King, the goal was to get gear to jump straight into the current content. Mission accomplished, leave it alone, but there is one that you should consider: trying to the champion.

 

The normal version drops 200 item level gear, which already can be obtained by doing your normal Heroic Plus, and the heroic version drops to 19, which granted is a step up from the vast majority of loot from Naxx10, but it's still a little bit on the low side. Now while it matches non-hard mode, Ulduar gear was back in the original Wrath of the Lich King, so with the increased item level we got with Phase 2 for Ulduar, increasing the item level by 6 non-hard mode gear. These 19 items from Trial of the Champion Heroic could follow the same suit and go up to 225 to match the normal Ulduar gear. This alone would keep this dungeon a lot more relevant for the phase of content that it sits in.

 

 

This dungeon matches all the others and should have a Heroic Plus version. This is where Blizzard can have some fun. This version of the dungeon could be exceptionally hard compared to other 5-man Heroic Plus; whatever the affix that this gets tied to, it could be extremely punishing.

 

The main reason it would need to be extra challenging is where you go gear-wise from the heroic mode being scaled up to 225 to match the normal order. When you go for a Heroic Plus version, it can drop the hard way, which is essential. 

 

There is a relatively large pool of 10-man hard mode items, which could be split among the bosses, and each boss in Trial of the Champion on Heroic Plus drops one each, along with one of the regular heroic items. It gives another way to try and get the only items, by now you probably even want from older Naxx10, and it takes the pressure off people to run 25-man, 10-man, and both raid sizes throughout the phase.

 

 

Instead, you can jump into Trial of the Champion Heroic Plus each day and have a chance at getting that last hard mode 10-man item you need, such as Runestone or even Freya's wand; you could even Chuck in a random tier token like the gloves, legs or shoulders from the last boss as well, just to make it extra enticing to run each day, even if it was for your off specs because they're normally the tokens that are contested head and chest. You should buy them with all the emblems you get but the gloves, shoulders, and legs. Those three are dropping from the top 5-man, even if it is just a 10-man version from the Heroic Plus version.

 

On top of that, don't forget the standard currency you'll also get, which is your  Champion's Seals, and you can spend these on things that might interest you, such as heirlooms and other catch-up items. I would also scale up in item level because they are pretty pathetic, but you can also get mounts, pets, and cosmetics.

 

For Champion's Seals, you can get pretty much every different type of weapon, whether it's tank healing two and one and whatever you need, made their 200 item level, and we've got so many ways to it to even get better than that.

 

 

Let's face it. You can go into a heroic 5-man like Heroic Plus and get deaths by two-round video 213 weapon or all the 213 weapons from KT, so having 200 item level weapons coming from Champion's Seals, which they're not that quick to obtain even if you're doing all your dailies and top 5-man every day, it seems a little bit hard.

 

If we can already get better weapons just from doing a five-man heroic, you should absolutely be able to grind out Champion Seals to get something even more rewarding.

 

Actually, Trial of the Champion is a really good dungeon. It does have some cool mechanics, like having someone spell Hammer of Justice off of someone in your party, and then they can throw a beast Hammer back at the boss or a good old quick face away from the boss mechanic before it finishes, and then the last boss be in the Black Knight, which is a two-phase fight with lots of Explode Ghouls, which is always fun to watch people that just turned into a really comprehensive dungeon guide.

 

Thanks for Scottejaye's sharing.