WoW Forever Beta Development Notes: November 2 Class Overhaul, Gamepad Support & Launch Prep

he Royal Chronicle Press transcribes the final major development notes released by Blizzard Entertainment ahead of the November 4 global launch of World of Warcraft: Forever. Posted by Community Manager Kaivax, this extensive update encompasses two and a half weeks of development since October 15, addressing class power headroom, talent redesigns across all nine original classes, threat compensation for the removal of Salvation, full gamepad integration, and dynamic spawn rate adjustments for launch day.

Developer Overview / Scribe Notes

Community Manager Kaivax:

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"Since the last full update to the Beta on October 15, we’ve continued to work to solve issues, refine classes, improve gameplay in all areas, and address feedback we received from Beta testers. What follows are the updates and changes that have been developed over those last 2.5 weeks.

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We’ve included the previously-posted updates to racial talents and abilities for completeness here.

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And once again, thank you so much to everyone who tested the Beta with us and provided so much feedback. Your efforts are greatly appreciated, and we can’t wait to see you on November 4!"

Developer's Notes on Class Design & Headroom:

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"Over the course of Beta, we came to the realization that trying to hold ourselves roughly to Classic power budgets for each class meant that every new element we added needed to come at the expense of something else. Those reductions left some iconic abilities feeling lackluster, and closed the door to other potentially exciting design options. So over the last two weeks, we’ve raised damage on classes across the game, and have increased the health of higher level creatures to compensate. This additional 'headroom' has allowed us to tune things to a place that we hope feels better overall. Beyond that, some of this round of changes reflects areas where we were likely hasty in turning to Burning Crusade- or Wrath-era solutions rather than carving out new ones that better fit into the Forever combat model. Our aim in class design is not perfect numerical equality, but rather for every class to feel valuable to the groups they join, with powerful, unforgettable moments brought on by mastering them. In Forever this is accomplished by doubling down on the strengths and differences that make each class unique, rather than overly unifying them."

Developer's Notes on Tuning Schedule:

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"We’ve used the data and feedback gathered during Beta testing to get everything tuned to a reasonable place. However, the only true test of that tuning is the game itself. With the exception of bugs and serious outliers, we don’t plan on making big tuning changes between now and the opening of the raids next month. Once we have sufficient data from players leveling past 30 and engaging in a wide range of content, we expect that we will do a large tuning pass based on our data. And this is all merely a starting point for the classes in Forever, which will continue to evolve over the course of the months and years ahead just as they did following the original launch in 2004."

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Bug Fixes

• Throw: Will now correctly use the 0.5 second windup timer (was incorrectly using the throwing weapon’s attack speed).
• Legacy Reward - Replica Ironforge Air Rifle: Can now correctly be used on allies that also have one equipped.
• Quitter Debuff: Duration of the quitter debuff reduced to 40 seconds (was 5 minutes).
• Stun Duration: Duration of the stun reduced to 2.5 seconds (was 3 seconds).
• Base Stats by Race: All Races now have the correct amount of base stats. For example, Tauren Warriors now start with the correct +5 strength relative to Human Warriors (was incorrectly +2). This fix was also applied to High Order and Windshaper Skyborne base stats.
• Proc Roots & Diminishing Returns: Roots that occur from Procs now correctly have Diminishing Returns. Includes Frostbite, Entrapment, Improved Wing Clip, Counterattack, and Improved Hamstring.

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General Class Systems

• Low-Rank Spell Penalty: Various talents no longer have a penalty to their chance to trigger when casting spells of a low rank. This penalty does still apply to Blizzard. Blizzard continues to have a reduced chance to trigger Arcane Concentration, Frostbite, and Fingers of Frost when casting a rank learned more than 12 levels lower than the caster’s current level.
• Action Bars: Learning new spells will no longer cause them to be automatically added to your action bars.
• Training Costs: Training costs have been adjusted for all classes:
• Most abilities learned at the same level have the same cost to train, with the exception of Priest race-specific abilities.
• Total cost to train class abilities from 1-60 is now between 206 and 207 gold for all classes.
• Warlocks costs are reduced by the expected costs of buying Grimoires for their pets.

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Classes & Specializations

Druid

• Lacerate: Now a Feral talent and not learned by all Druids.
• Ferocious Bite: Has a new Rank 1 at level 24. All existing ranks were re-labeled one rank higher. Base points and attack power scaling increased by about 25%.
• Bear Form and Dire Bear Form: Threat bonus increased from 50% to 115%. This is to compensate for Blessing of Salvation being removed.
• Poised: New passive ability learned at level 32. "When you are not in combat and have your maximum Energy, you will gain Poised. Poised reduces the Energy cost of your next Energy ability by 10."
• Shred: Weapon damage percent increased to 200% from 155%.
• Claw: Weapon damage percent increased to 140% from 110%.
• Ravage: Weapon damage percent increased from 350% to 435%.
• Rip: Base points and attack power scaling increased by about 25%.
• Rake: Base points and attack power scaling increased by about 25%.
• Pounce: Base points and attack power scaling increased by about 25%.
• Starfire: Base damage points increased by about 40%.

Balance

• Genesis: Now increases periodic damage and healing by 2/4/6/8/10%, up from 1/2/3/4/5%.
• Moonkin Form: The critical strike bonus from this talent is again an increase to all types of critical strikes and is again exclusive with Leader of the Pack.

Feral

• Heart of the Wild: Moved to the Restoration tree, swapping with Furor.
• Lacerate: Now a 1-point talent on row 4, replacing Primal Bite. Lacerate has two new ranks added to accommodate being learned earlier.
• Predatory Discipline: New 1-point talent on row 4 in column 3, replacing Shifting Power. "Your Ferocious Bite ability no longer converts extra Energy into damage but still deals extra damage based on your excess Energy." It has no pre-requisite talents.
• Predatory Strikes: Moved to column 1 (was column 3).
• Leader of the Pack: The critical strike bonus from this talent is again an increase to all types of critical strikes and is again exclusive with Moonkin Aura.
• Natural Instinct: Moved to column 4 (was column 1).
• Rend and Tear: Moved to column 1 (was column 3). Damage bonus increased to 3/6/9/12/15% (was 2/4/6/8/10%).
• Berserk: Talent removed.
• Primal Bite: Replaces Berserk as a 1-point talent on row 7, column 2, with Leader of the Pack as a pre-requisite. Number of ranks reduced to 3.
• Shifting Power: Now a 1-point talent on row 7, with Predatory Discipline as a pre-requisite. Like row 4, we now have two different 31-point talents for Feral – one focused on Bear gameplay and one focused on Cat gameplay.

Restoration

• Furor: Moved to the Feral tree, swapping with Heart of the Wild.
• Naturalist: Now increases all damage by 2/4/6/8/10%, up from 1/2/3/4/5%. Now also reduces the cast time of Wild Growth by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 seconds.
• Reflection: Moved to row 2 from row 3, swapping with Subtlety.
• Subtlety: Moved to row 3 from row 2, swapping with Reflection.
• Gift of the Earthmother: Talent removed.
• Bloom: New 1-point talent in 3rd row, replacing Gift of the Earthmother. "When your Rejuvenation or Regrowth spell expires due to its duration, the target is instantly healed for an amount equal to 100% of your Spirit. If either spell expires due to being dispelled, the target is healed for 50% of your Spirit instead."
• Swiftmend: Now requires the Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on the target to be one placed by the casting Druid.
• Wild Growth: Now has a base casting time of 3 seconds.

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Hunter

• Hunter’s Mark:
• Can no longer be applied to a target multiple times by using different ranks of the spell.
• Fixed an issue where Rank 4 Hunter’s Mark was providing less Ranged Attack Power than Rank 3.
• Explosive Trap: Fixed an issue with the wording of the Explosive Trap debuff.
• Trap Cooldowns: All types of Hunter traps now have the same shared 30 second cooldown, instead of separate cooldowns for Fire-based and Frost-based traps.
• Aimed Shot: Bonus damage on all ranks increased by ~110%.
• Arcane Shot: Base damage on all ranks increased by ~30% and Attack Power coefficient raised from 0.1 to 0.15.
• Serpent Sting: Attack Power coefficient per tick increased to 5% from 3%. Base damage on all ranks increased ~20%.
• Aspect of the Hawk: Ranged Attack Power bonus increased on all ranks. New values: 20, 35, 50, 70, 90, 110 for ranks 1-6.
• Pet Passives: Hunter pets should no longer lose their innate Attack Speed passives when untraining them.

Beast Mastery

• Pathfinding: Moved from row 2 to row 3.

Marksmanship

• Barrage: Damage increase raised to 5/10/15% from 3/7/10%.
• Sniper Shot: Bonus damage on all ranks increased by 100%.
• Trueshot Aura: Ranged Attack Power bonus increased on all ranks. New values: 20, 35, 50, 75, 100.

Survival

• Lacerating Strikes: This effect will always overwrite an existing one from the same Hunter, even if the new effect is weaker damage per second.
• Lightning Reflexes: Agility bonus increased to 3/6/9/12/15% from 2/4/6/8/10%.

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Mage

• Imbue Iceknife: Visual has been changed to better convey that it is a Root and not a Stun.
• Frost Blast: This spell has been removed.

Arcane

• Missile Barrage:
• Now correctly consumed at the start of the Mage’s Arcane Missiles channel (was consumed at the end).
• Moved to row 2 from row 1.
• Arcane Resilience: Moved to row 1 from row 2. It now allows up to 3 talent points to be spent for a maximum armor increase of 75% of Intellect.
• Clearcasting:
• No longer consumed on Arcane Missiles if Missile Barrage is active at the same time.
• Fixed an issue where Arcane Missiles did not proc Clearcasting.
• Arcane Focus: Talent removed, as it is now combined into the talent Precision in the Frost tree.
• Arcane Blast: Mana cost increase per stack reduced to 100% from 175%. Percent of Intellect as Spell Damage reduced from 15% to 12% per stack. Duration increased to 18 seconds.

Fire

• Ignite: Fixed an issue where Ignite was not applying to Flamestrike damage past the initial instance.
• Incineration: Now allows spending up to 5 talent points for 10% critical chance on affected spells, up from 3 talent points for 6%.
• Improved Fireball: Renamed Accelerant. Now also reduces the cast time of Arcane Wrath by up to 0.5 seconds.
• Critical Mass: Reverted to a maximum of 3 talent points (down from 5) for a total of 6% critical strike chance increase (down from 10%).
• Improved Fire Blast: Moved to row 3 from row 1.

Frost

• Piercing Ice: Talent removed.
• Ice Barrier: Now increases your Frost Damage dealt by 15% for 1 minute when activated and grants an additional 5% Frost Damage while the barrier holds.

> Developer Notes: Removing Piercing Ice gives the player a few more talents to play around with early on in the tree, and empowering Ice Barrier gives the Mage a reason to go all the way down the tree for PvE.

• Frost Warding:
• Increases the amount of damage your Ice Barrier and Frost Wards can absorb.
• No longer has a chance to Reflect spells; instead has a chance to fully negate the damage of the spell without depleting the Frost Ward.
• Precision: Elemental Precision has been renamed Precision and is back to being a 3-point talent, granting 2/4/6% chance to hit with all spells (was 1/2/3/4/5%).
• Ice Lance: Now has an 8 second cooldown shared with Fire Blast. Bonus damage to Frozen targets increased back to 300%.
• Winter’s Chill: Bonus to Cone of Cold damage increased to 20% per stack.

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Paladin

• Righteous Fury:
• Available to train at level 10 (was 16). Mirrors the level that other tanks gain access to their tanking stance.
• Now grants a 33% increase to all threat generated, and an additional 90% threat from Holy damage.
• Properly made free by the Legacy Talent, The Quick and the Dead.
• Salvation, Mass Salvation, and Revoke: Removed.
• Blessing of Light: Removed.
• Judgement of Fury: Duration reduced to 3 seconds (was 4 seconds).

Holy

• Spiritual Focus: Moved to Row 1 (was Row 2). Changed to a 5-point talent (was 2 points). Max rank unchanged.
• Improved Seals: Changed to a 5-point talent (was 3 points). Max rank unchanged.
• Reverence: Moved to Row 2 (was Row 3). Changed to a 2-point talent (was 3 points). Max rank unchanged.
• Unyielding Faith: Moved to the Retribution tree.
• Purifying Power: Moved to Row 2 (was Row 3).
• Voice of Truth: Removed.
• Divine Favor: Moved to Row 3 (was Row 4).
• Illumination: Moved to Row 3 (was Row 4).
• Holy Conduit: Moved to Row 3 of Holy (was Row 2 of Retribution).
• Divine Precision: Moved to Row 4 (was Row 5). Changed to a 2-point talent granting 4/8% chance to hit with Holy spells (was 6/12/18%). Additionally reduces the duration of Silence effects on you by 10/20%.
• Oath of Light: New talent in Row 4. 40-yard range, 8% of Base Mana cost. No cooldown. Swear an Oath to protect target ally for 5 min, increasing the healing of your Holy Light, Flash of Light, and Holy Shock spells. Only one Oath of Light may be sworn by the Paladin at any one time. The amount of bonus healing increases with the player’s level.
• Boundless Light: New talent in Row 5. Passive - Increases the critical strike chance of your Holy Shock spell by 15/30% when cast on allies not affected by your Oath of Light.
• Holy Power: Changed to increase the critical strike healing bonus of your Holy Spells by 10/20/30/40/50% (was increases critical strike chance of Holy Shock and Holy Strike by 3/6/9/12/15%, and all other spells by 1/2/3/4/5%).
• Light’s Vigil: Now only usable on friendly targets and has had its offensive capabilities removed. Tooltip reworded to reflect this.

Protection

• Reckoning: Will now correctly perform its number of attacks based on stacks, and will no longer gain stacks while sitting.
• Divine Intellect: Moved to Row 1 of Protection (was Row 1 of Holy).
• Sacred Duty:
• Moved to Row 2 (was Row 3).
• No longer grants % increase to Stamina. In addition to cooldown reduction on Divine Shield, Divine Protection, and Templar’s Bulwark by 30sec/1min, it now also reduces the duration of your Forbearance effect by 5/10 seconds.
• Improved Seal of Fury: Removed.
• Templar’s Bulwark: Moved to Row 3 (was Row 5). Now a Magic effect and dispellable.
• Improved Righteous Fury: Damage reduction changed to 3/6/9% (was 2/4/6%).
• Shield Specialization: Changed to a 2-point talent granting 15/30% increased shield block value, and a 50/100% chance to grant 4% of your Maximum Mana (unchanged at max rank).
• Toughness: Moved to Row 3 (was Row 1).
• Anticipation: Moved to Row 4 (was Row 2).
• Swift Judgement: Changed to instantly unleash your active Seal. Does not share a cooldown with Judgement (was resets the cooldown of your Judgement ability).
• One-Handed Weapon Specialization: Removed.
• Stoicism: New talent added to Row 5. Reduces the duration of Stun and Charm effects on you by 10/20%.
• Holy Shield: Moved to Row 5 (was Row 7).
• Iron Creed: Changed to a 3-point talent (was 5 points). Increases threat generated by Holy Strike by 10/20/30%, and grants 2/4/6% damage reduction for 6 seconds (was 5/10/15/20/25% threat, and 2/4/6/8/10% damage reduction).
• Shieldsworn: New 31-point talent in Row 7. Reduces the cooldown of your Holy Strike ability by 4 seconds. Additionally, Holy Strike now strikes with your shield, triggering all talents that activate when you block without consuming their charges or triggering their cooldowns, and allowing you to Block spells for 6 seconds.

Retribution

• Sanctified Judgement: Moved to Row 2 (was Row 3).
• Conviction: Moved to Row 2 (was Row 3). Changed to grant 2/4/6% critical strike chance to all spells and attacks (was 1/2/3/4/5% to just melee attacks).
• Vindication: No longer grants an increase to Attack Power (was 1/2/3%).
• Unyielding Faith: Moved to Row 3 of Retribution (was Row 2 of Holy).
• Two-Handed Weapon Specialization:
• Moved to Row 4 (was Row 5).
• Changed to increase both Holy and Physical damage by 2/4/6% (was just Physical damage).
• Now also reduces threat generated by the Paladin by 7/14/20% while wearing a two-handed melee weapon.
• Instrument of Law: Removed.
• Champion of the Light: Increases spell damage by 12/24/36/48/60% of Intellect and reduces cast time of Hammer of Wrath by 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8/1.0 seconds.
• Vengeance: Now stacks up to 5 times (was 3 times). Requires Seal of Command (was requiring Sanctified Judgement).
• Turn Evil: New talent in Row 5. Reduces cast time of Turn Undead by 0.5/1.0 sec, its cooldown by 5/10 sec, and allows it to affect Demons.
• Twist of Light: Removed.
• Unsealed Wrath: New 31-point talent in Row 7. Melee attacks store a copy of your active Seal for 15 sec, stacking up to 3 times. Landing an attack with a different Seal consumes all stacks, giving the stored Seal its normal chance to activate once per stack. Requires Repentance.

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Priest

• Power Word: Shield: Can now correctly be replaced by a Power Word: Shield of equal or greater rank.
• Shadow Word: Death: Causes 30% of maximum Health damage to the Priest if it fails to kill the target, up from 10%. Will no longer damage the Priest when the spell misses.
• Dark Sacrifice: Fixed an issue causing Undead Priest’s Dark Sacrifice to still break crowd control effects.

Holy

• Binding Heal: Removed.
• Holy Binding: New talent in Binding Heal’s slot. When the Priest heals a target other than themselves with Flash Heal, 50% of the healing done by the Flash Heal is also done to the Priest. This healing generates no threat.

Shadow

• Devouring Contagion: No longer spreads Devouring Plague if it is spreading from a critter.
• Vampiric Embrace: Healing can no longer roll a critical effect.
• Shadowform Interaction: Fixed an issue where Cure Disease and Abolish Disease would take the Priest out of Shadowform.

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Rogue

• Slice and Dice: Casting Slice and Dice no longer causes the target to stand up if sitting.
• Poised: New passive ability learned at level 18. "When you are not in combat and have your maximum Energy, you will gain Poised. Poised reduces the Energy cost of your next Energy ability by 10."
• Shank: New ability learned at level 24. 5 Energy cost. 10 second cooldown. Melee range. Instantly strike with your off-hand weapon, dealing 50% weapon damage and generating 15 Energy. Shank cannot Miss. Rank 2 learned at level 44 and generates 25 Energy.
• Poisons:
• Deadly Poison: Attack Power coefficient increased to 0.009 (was 0.0045).
• Instant Poison: Attack Power coefficient increased to 0.01 (was 0.005).

Assassination

• Ruthlessness: Activating Ruthlessness no longer causes the target to stand up if sitting.
• Improved Expose Armor: Moved to Row 2 (was Row 3).
• Murder: Removed.
• Lethality: Changed to a 2-point talent granting 10/20% increased Critical Strike damage to listed abilities (was 5 points granting 4/8/12/16/20%).
• Vigor: Moved to Row 3 (was Row 5).
• Blood Splatter: New 1-point passive talent in Row 3. Increases the duration of your Rupture ability by 6 seconds and your Garrote ability by 9 seconds.
• Relentless Strikes: Moved to Row 5 (was Row 3). Changed to a 5-point talent granting a 4/8/12/16/20% chance per Combo Point to restore 25 Energy (was 1 point granting 20% per combo point).
• Venom: Moved to Row 5 (was Row 7). Now a passive that causes your Shank ability to increase your Poison damage by 30% and your chance to apply Poisons by 20% for 6 seconds.
• Seal Fate: Changed to a 3-point talent granting your critical strikes from abilities that add Combo Points a 33/66/100% chance to add an additional Combo Point.
• Mutilate: Moved to Row 7 (was Row 9). Damage increased to 90% of weapon damage plus an additional amount that was also increased (was 75% weapon damage and a lower amount).

Combat

• Coup de Grace: Improved Eviscerate renamed to Coup de Grace. Increases damage done by Eviscerate by 7/13/20%, and the damage and storage rate of your Death Mark ability by 7/13/20%.
• Efficient Strikes: Improved Sinister Strike renamed to Efficient Strikes. Now reduces Energy costs of Sinister Strike and Hemorrhage by 3/5 (was just Sinister Strike discounted).
• Improved Sprint: Moved to Row 2 (was Row 3).
• Composure: New 2-point passive talent in Row 3. Increases the Energy cost reduction of your Poised ability by 5/10.
• Flawless Execution: Energy cost reduction increased to 15 (was 10).
• Weapon Expertise: Moved to Row 4 (was Row 6).
• Aggression: Moved to Row 4 (was Row 6). Changed to increasing damage of Sinister Strike and Eviscerate by 5/10/15% (was Sinister Strike, Eviscerate, and Backstab by 2/4/6%).
• Dual Wield Specialization: Moved to Row 5 (was Row 4). Changed to a 2-point talent granting 25/50% increased off-hand weapon damage (was 5 points granting 5/10/15/20/25%).
• Flash of Steel: New 5-point passive talent in Row 6. Increases energy generated by Shank by 3/6/9/12/15 and reduces its cooldown by 0.4/0.8/1.2/1.6/2.0 seconds.

Subtlety

• Dagger Bug Fix: Fixed an issue where Hemorrhage and Ghostly Strike were dealing much more damage than intended when using a Dagger.
• Setup: Moved to Row 1 (was Row 2). Changed to a 15/30/45% chance to add a Combo Point to your target after Dodging an attack or fully resisting a spell (was 33/66/100%).
• Opportunity: Changed to a 5-point talent granting 4/8/12/16/20% increased damage to Backstab, Garrote, Ambush, and Mutilate (was 2 points granting 5/10%).
• Dirty Deeds: Moved to Row 2 (was Row 5).
• Camouflage: Moved to Row 2 (was Row 1). Changed to a 3-point talent granting 5/10/15% increased movement speed in stealth and reduces stealth’s cooldown by 2/4/6 seconds (was 5 points granting 3/6/9/12/15% and 2/3/4/5/6).
• Premeditation: Moved to Row 3 (was Row 4).
• Serrated Blades: Moved to Row 3 (was Row 4).
• Elusiveness: Moved to Row 4 (was Row 2).
• Ghostly Strike: Moved to Row 4 (was Row 3). Now also causes your next Ambush or Garrote cast within 7 seconds to not require Stealth.
• Improved Distract: Removed.
• Quick Getaway: New 2-point passive talent in Row 4. Increases the maximum number of targets you may have Sapped by 1/1 and increases your movement speed by 15/30% for 3 seconds after sapping a target.
• Heightened Senses: Moved to Row 5 (was Row 4).
• Hemorrhage: Now increases damage of the caster’s Rupture and Garrote abilities by 15% (was only increasing Rupture by 15%).
• Talents Removed: Quietus, Cutthroat, and Thousand Cuts removed.
• Boot Knife: New 5-point passive talent in Row 6. Gives your Shank ability a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to add 2 Combo Points to the target.
• Death Mark: New 31-point active talent in Row 7. 25 Energy cost. 20-yard range. 10 second cooldown. Curse. Finishing move that marks the target, storing a portion of the damage dealt by your attacks per Combo Point. Garrote and Rupture damage is stored at twice the rate. After 6 sec, the stored damage is dealt up to a maximum increased by Attack Power and Critical Strike chance.

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Shaman

• Windfury Weapon & Totem: Now cause the Shaman or player to animate an additional weapon swing attack.
• Totemic Call: Totemic Projection renamed Totemic Call. Teleports the Shaman’s totems to the Shaman’s own location, and cooldown is reduced to 30 seconds.
• Lightning Bolt: Base damage of all ranks increased, with larger percentage increases on higher ranks. Max rank was increased by 80%. Each rank’s new base damage is roughly 78% of the Classic Era version (with lower cast time than Classic Era).
• Chain Lightning: Cast time increased to 2.5 seconds. Primary target base damage increased to approximately 145% of comparable rank Lightning Bolt base damage. Mana cost increased to approximately 225% of comparable rank Lightning Bolt Mana cost.
• Shocks: All shock base damage reverted to match Classic Era values (higher than previous Forever Beta values).

Elemental

• Lightning Overload: Now grants a 10/20/30% chance to trigger a duplicate spell, up from 3/7/10%.
• Lava Burst: Removed. Replaced with Call of Thunder, which increases critical strike chance of Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning by 5%. All references to Lava Burst removed.
• Lightning Mastery: Elemental Mastery renamed Lightning Mastery. Icon changed.
• Elemental Reach: No longer reduces the cooldown of Totemic Projection.

Enhancement

• Improved Ghost Wolf: Moved from Row 2 to Row 4.
• Maelstrom Weapon: Chance to trigger doubled.
• Stormstrike: Deals 150% normalized weapon damage, up from 100%. Cooldown reduced to 6 seconds from 8 seconds.
• Mental Dexterity: Increases Shaman’s Attack Power by 50/100/150% of Intellect, up from 33/67/100%.
• Flurry: Increases attack speed by 6/12/18/24/30%, up from 5/10/15/20/25%.

Restoration

• Riptide: Mana cost reduced by about 40%. Cooldown increased to 12 seconds from 6 seconds. Riptide no longer deals any initial healing, just healing over time.

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Warlock

• Spellstones: Now correctly only increase Shadow damage (was increasing Shadow and Fire damage).
• Pets: Now gain 2 Health per point of Master’s Stamina (was 7.5 Health per point).
• Bane of Agony: Now correctly dynamically updates its damage.
• Drain Soul: Chance for this spell to grant a Soul Shard on dealing damage (not a kill) has been reduced significantly.

Affliction

• Amplify Curse: Now correctly affects Curse of Exhaustion and Bane of Agony.
• Improved Drains: Increases Drain Mana’s amount of Mana drained but no longer increases Wrack damage.
• Wrack: Spell damage coefficient doubled, to match the expected coefficient per cast time of 0.286 per second. Base damage per second now increases with each level by 2.5. Base damage per second at level 60 effectively increased from 36 to 86.

Destruction

• Shadow and Flame: Damage bonuses now increase Fire or Shadow damage by 4/8/12/16/20%, up from 2/4/6/8/10%.

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Warrior

• Victory Rush: Fixed an issue with the tooltip incorrectly displaying the amount of damage it would deal.
• Defensive Stance: Threat bonus increased from 30% to 80%.
• Slam: Cooldown reduced to 15 seconds (was 18 seconds).

Arms

• Improved Tactical Mastery: Changed to a 3-point talent granting the ability to retain 5/10/15 additional Rage when changing stances (was 5 points granting 3/6/9/12/15 Rage retention).
• Two-Handed Weapon Specialization: Changed to grant 2/4/6% increased damage when using a two-handed melee weapon (was 1/2/3%).
• Bloodthrill: Changed to a 2-point talent granting Main Hand melee attacks against enemies afflicted by Rend a 10/20% chance to allow an activation of Overpower (was 5 points granting 4/8/12/16/20%).
• Improved Slam: Reduction to Slam’s cooldown changed to 2.5/5 seconds (was 3.0/3.0).

Fury

• Blood Craze & Gore Drinker: No longer generate threat when restoring Health to the Warrior.
• Blood Craze: Will no longer activate when sitting.
• Booming Voice: Now also reduces the Rage cost of Piercing Howl by 5/10/15/20/25%.
• Enrage: Moved to Row 3 (was Row 4).
• Reckless Swings: New 1-point talent in Row 4. 15 second cooldown. Costs 25% of base health. Your next 4 melee attacks generate 5 additional Rage. Lasts 8 seconds.
• Gore Drinker: Moved to Row 5 (was Row 6) and is connected to Blood Craze instead of Enrage.
• Flurry: Death Wish is no longer required for Flurry. Changed to a 3-point talent granting 10/20/30% increased attack speed for 3 swings after a critical strike (was 5 points granting 5/10/15/20/25%).
• Improved Whirlwind: New 2-point passive talent in Row 6. Reduces cooldown of Whirlwind by 1/2 seconds and increases damage it deals to the closest enemy by 15/30%.
• Bloodthirst: Now has Death Wish as a required talent.

Protection

• Defiance: Threat bonus increased to 7/13/20% from 5/10/15%.

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Player versus Player

• Darkspear Islands: In the Darkspear Islands battleground, dropping the flag no longer places the “Recently Dropped Flag” debuff on the player who dropped it.

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Races

Dwarf

• Earth Fury: Removed (was 2% increased critical strike damage and healing).
• Artisan’s Precision: Added. Increases hit chance with spells and attacks by 1%.

Human

• Ruthless: Now increases critical chance by 1% (was 2%).
• Human Spirit: Now increases Spirit by 10% (was 5%).

Orc

• Savage: Removed (was 1% increased critical strike chance).
• Command: Re-added, increasing Warlock and Hunter pet damage by 5%.
• Blood Fury: Cooldown reduced to 2 minutes (was 3 minutes).

Skyborne

• Wind-Blessed: Haste bonus reduced to 2% (was 3%).
• Read Leyline: Now increases Mana and Health regeneration by 50% (was 100%), with a 15-second duration. Cannot be used while Innervate is active, and will be replaced by Innervate as a more powerful effect.
• Using Read Leyline at a Ley Line now also grants “Attuned” for 1 hour. While Attuned, the benefit is increased to 100% regeneration increase. Attuned persists through death, and is removed upon entering a raid.
• Skysight: Now provides 15% increased movement speed (was 10%), with a 15-second duration.
• Using Skysight at an elemental convergence now also grants “Charged” for 1 hour. While Charged, the benefit of Skysight is a 30% movement speed increase. Charged persists through death, and is removed upon entering a raid.

Tauren

• Plainsrunning:
• Now grants 2% movement speed per stack (was 1%), for a total max increase of 60% (was 30%).
• No longer increases mounted movement speed.
• Endurance: No longer provides modifiers beyond 5% increased Health (no hit chance or critical damage modifiers).

Troll

• Berserking: Duration increased to 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).

Undead

• Cannibalize: Can once again be used while immune to Physical damage.
• Touch of the Grave:
• Fixed an issue where Touch of the Grave was not activating frequently enough.
• Fixed an issue where it was leaving a beam visual behind.
• Internal cooldown reduced to 15 seconds (was 25 seconds).

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Gamepad Support

Gamepad Support has entered a complete functional state. In World of Warcraft: Forever, all major gameplay and core user interface experiences can be played with a controller, including movement, spells, interactions, UI navigation, and options customization via Edit Mode.

• Action Bars:
• AoE items bound to Gamepad Action Bar can now be placed at targeted locations (press Action Bar button again to confirm placement).
• Fixed keyboard/mouse Action Bar page switching offsetting Gamepad buttons.
• Fixed Edit Mode reflecting Gamepad settings immediately.
• Add-ons: Improved Gamepad UI compatibility with user-created add-ons to reduce Lua interface conflicts.
• Bags & Inventory:
• Fixed Gamepad focus loss after confirming/canceling item destruction.
• Fixed horizontal navigation across bag columns of varying heights.
• Fixed Lua errors during trades and when toggling keyboard/mouse bag windows.
• Added remaining bag space and ammo count indicators, updated bag visuals, clearer bag states, and improved Keyring navigation and inventory search layout.
• Character Select & Ruleset Selection: Full navigation support added for ruleset selection; new characters automatically selected on return.
• Cinematics: Added controller support for skipping or exiting cinematics.
• Combat & Targeting:
• Target Focus Target added via LB + RB + Face Down. Context menu displays Clear Focus when target matches Focus Target.
• Friendly corpses can now be targeted with Friendly Analog and Tab Targeting.
• Hostile Analog and Soft Targeting can target critters.
• Enemy players excluded from Friendly Analog Targeting, and selectable by Hostile Analog Targeting regardless of PvP flag status.
• Analog Targeting can select units behind the player when visible on screen.
• Feign Death units selectable only when reticle is positioned over them.
• Flight Paths: Added support for ending a flight path early using Back/Cancel to dismount at next available flight point.
• Navigation & Focus: Fixed focus loss after closing graphics confirmation dialogs; non-user popups no longer steal controller focus; navigation prompts updated to LT/RT indicators.
• Pets: Added Gamepad support for Pet Move command (confirm with Interact button or ability reactivate).
• Professions: Fixed Train action at Profession Trainers when skill upgrade was only option; added hold prompt for unlearning professions.
• Quests: Fixed cross-region quest detail Lua error.
• Swing Timers: Fixed Off-Hand Swing Timer appearing on dual-wield characters after login.
• Tooltips & UI: Added Color Picker opacity adjustment; fixed LB/RB equipment manager prompt bleed; controller tooltips remain visible consistently.

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Items & Inventory

• Bags: Bags will no longer automatically equip into available bag slots and must now be manually equipped by the player.

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Quests & World Tuning

Developer Notes on World Respawns:

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"Our goal with these adjustments is to properly support large player volumes at launch, so that players aren’t hitting hard bottlenecks and can continue to enjoy the game. Some contention for spawns is expected and part of the experience - it is not our goal to remove that. These adjusted rates are generally on the faster side in lower-level zones - with starting zones being the fastest - and gradually fall to slower rates as you level up, consistent with when players naturally spread out across the many zones available in WoW Forever. Once the initial launch surge of low-level characters has settled down, we will adjust the lower-level zones down to more typical rates."

• Quest Flow & Objectives:
• Adjusted experience values on various quests.
• Adjusted pre-requisites and level settings on quests to improve flow across the world.
• Added mouseover tooltips for quest objectives and fixed missing/incorrect point-of-interest map markers.
• Fixed incorrect zone sorting in quest logs.
• Fixed issues where destroying associated items did not abandon quests and vice-versa.
• Satyr classification fixed from humanoid to demon (now 100% more scared of Paladins).
• Alterac Mountains: Fixed Dalaran Summoners excessively spawning minions.
• The Barrens:
• Players can now speak to Rethgar Deathgate to manually trigger the "Counterattack!" event if inactive.
• Alliance Outrunners now spawn in randomized locations.
• Darkshore: The quest "Holy Diver" now grants experience rewards.
• Mulgore: Gloomrise Hatchlings experience reduced commensurate with lowered health values.
• Orgrimmar: Fixed Lieutenant’s Insignia remaining in inventory after completing "Hidden Enemies".
• Ruins of Lordaeron: Dungeon quests now consistently require level 15 to start (previously split between level 15 and 16).
• Teldrassil: Slightly reduced spider counts in The Cleft for the quest "Twisted Hatred".
• Wetlands: Fixed Carnage resetting near the end of the fight during "Carnage".
• Deadmines: Fixed Alba Fairmoon becoming unavailable for turn-in during "Destruction in Deadmines".