We’re barely a day and a half away from World of Warcraft: Forever‘s launch, and Blizzard released one last round of patches before our characters re-enter Azeroth for the first time. It’s no bad news, though – everyone is getting a power-up.
This batch of fixes came after some older patches that made the Forever beta feel a bit dull to some players. Blizzard devs admitted that limiting for the sake of balancing was them turning to old habits.
“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,” Community Manager Kaivax said in the patch notes.
Read on below for the biggest changes ahead of WoW: Forever‘s launch day.
Table of contents
WoW Forever will launch with even more powerful classes
Naturally, the newest patch affected WoW Forever classes across the board. But surprisingly, this round of updates weren’t nerfs that kept everyone at the same power levels. That’s old-era stuff, which would defeat the ethos of Forever.
“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,” Kaivax said in the post. “Those reductions left some iconic abilities feeling lackluster, and closed the door to other potentially exciting design options.”
Across the board
“Our aim in class design is not perfect numerical equality, but rather for every class to feel valuable to the groups they join,” Kaivax added, highlighting the team’s desire to reward players for mastering their class. “In Forever, this is accomplished by doubling down on the strengths and differences that make each class unique, rather than overly unifying them.”
- Everyone got increased damage, but creatures have more health
- New spells you learn don’t get auto-added to your action bar
- Training costs now adjusted for all classes across the board
- Talents no longer have a penalty on their chance to trigger when casting spells of a low rank (Blizzard is still affected)
Druid
- Cat damage up across the board
- Bear loses Salvation, but threat now raised to 115%
- Starfire base damage up 40%
- Feral gets Primal Bite (bear talent) and Shifting Power (cat talent)
- Feral loses Berserk
- Restoration adds Bloom
- Poised is a new passive ability
Hunter
- All traps now share one 30-second cooldown
- Aimed Shot, Arcane Shot, Barrage, Lightning Reflexes, Serpent Sting, and Sniper Shot buffed
- Aspect of the Hawk and Trueshot Aura grant more Ranged Attack Power
Mage
- Arcane Focus merged into Precision
- Frost Blast and Piercing Ice removed
- Arcane Blast stacks are now cheaper and last for 18 seconds
- Fire gets Incineration (5 points), Critical Mass now 3 points
- Ice Barrier now grants Frost damage
- Ice Lance and Fire Blast have an 8-second cooldown
- Frost Warding now negates instead of reflects
Paladin
- Righteous Fury now obtainable at Level 10 (to match other tanks that often get their tanking stance at that level)
- Salvation, Mass Salvation, Revoke, and Blessing of Light removed
- Holy now has Oath of Light and Boundless Light, and Holy Power now boosts crit healing
- Protection now has Stoicism and Shieldsworn
- Retribution now has Turn Evil and Unsealed Wrath, while Conviction adds crit to all attacks and spells
Priest
- Shadow Word Death backlash is now 30% max health, but only if it doesn’t kill (none if you miss)
- Holy Binding replaces Binding Heal
- Flash Heal on others now heals you for 50% as well
Rogue
- Shank added as a new spell with appropriate talents (Venom, Flash of Steel, Boot Knife)
- Blood Splatter, Composure, and Quick Getaway added as new talents
- Deadly and Instant Poison Attack Power now have double scaling
- Subtlety capstone is now Death Mark
- Subtlety no longer has Murder, Quietus, Cutthroat, Thousand Cuts, and Improved Distract
Shaman
- Call of Thunder no longer has Lava Burst
- Lightning Bolt gets a huge buff
- Chain Lightning now takes 2.5 seconds to cast
- Shocks now use Classic values (much higher than Forever Beta)
- Lightning Overload, Stormstrike, Flurry and Maelstrom Weapon also buffed
- Riptide is now purely healing over time
Warlock
- Pet health per point of Stamina cut from 7.5 to 2
- Drain Soul now has less chance of giving a Soul Shard on damage (instead of kill)
- Shadow and Flame bonus doubled
- Wrack coefficient doubled, so Level 60 base DPS is now 86 (from 36)
Warrior
- Defensive Stance threat bonus is now up to 80%, while Defiance is now up to 20%
- Slam cooldown is now 15 seconds
- Fury gets Reckless Swings and Improved Whirlwind
- Arms boosts 2H Spec up to 6%, and Improved Tactical Mastery is now a 3-point talent
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Controller fans rejoice
Blizzard has finally done it – WoW: Forever is fully controller-compatible. You can use the Edit Mode and the Options menu to customize movement, spells, interactions, and a whole host of other options.
The devs also fixed bugs related to keyboard and mouse vis-a-vis gamepad functionality. Expect smoother progress when using the gamepad with action bars, add-ons, inventory, combat, navigation, and the like.
Races should feel unique, but not unbalanced
Racial abilities seem to have cut crit bonuses and added buffs to weaker ones.
- Dwarves get Artisan’s Precision but lose Earth Fury
- Humans get twice the bonuses from Ruthless and Human Spirit
- Orcs get Command in exchange for Savage, and Blood Fury has a lesser cooldown
- Tauren get more movement speed from Plainsrunning, but not when mounted
- Trolls get more time to Berserk
- Undead can Cannibalize while having Physical Damage immunity, and Touch of the Grave got a shorter cooldown
- Skyborne get less Haste bonus with Wind-Blessed, get Charged with Skysight, and get Attuned when using Read Leyline (Attuned is lost only when entering a raid, persists after death)
Quests, items, and Azeroth at large
Everyone’s going to level up during launch, and respawn rates are adjusted to accommodate this. Expect faster respawn rates in starting zones and lowered slowly as you level up. This will be lowered eventually, once the surge settles.
Bags also don’t auto-equip anymore. You have to manually equip them to your chosen slot. And if you dropped the flag in Darkspear Islands, you no longer get a debuff.
- Adjusted level settings, prerequisites, and quest XP
- Missing map markers and objective toolkits now restored
- Ruins of Lordaeron quests now start at Level 15 (instead of sometimes 16)
- Fewer spiders in The Cleft (thank god)
Bug Fixes
- All races now share the right base stats
- Roots (like Counterattack, Entrapment, Frostbite, Improved Hamstring, Improved Wing Clip) via Procs are now corrected to get Diminishing Returns
- Throw is now corrected to use its 0.5-second windup timer instead of the throwing weapon’s attack speed
- Replica Ironforge Air Rifle (Legacy Reward) is now properly usable on allies who equipped the same weapon
See the full list of patch notes in the Blizzard forums.
