Beta · Confirmed · reported · rumour

The week to 23 October

The notes for the build of 15 October are out, and they are the longest of the beta: new racials in place of the weapon specializations, wands and Auto Shot only after half a second of standing still, party auras for the whole raid, and new talent trees for mage, priest, shaman and warlock. On 20 October came the raid overview with boss counts and the Onyxia attunement, a dungeon overview, name reservation from 27 October - and an extension: after the stress test on the 21st the beta reopens once more and closes for good on 23 October.

Type
News

How this page labels things

As in the weeks before, every item carries one of three labels, and the label says where it comes from - not how likely we think it is. Confirmed comes from Blizzard itself or is read from the client, reported from Blizzard people via third parties or from many testers, a rumour from files or from single testers.

Confirmed

The notes for the build of 15 October. At 00:15 UTC on 16 October, the evening of the maintenance in Pacific time, Kaivax added a sixth post to the development notes and extended it at 20:50 UTC the same day. The matching client, 1.60.1.70425, was on Blizzard's CDN 35 minutes later; what the notes announce for the talent trees is in it exactly so (see below). The main points:

Races

  • No more weapon specializations. Humans get Ruthless (2% critical strike chance) instead of Sword Specialization, orcs Savage (1%) instead of Axe Specialization, dwarves Earth Fury (2% more critical strike bonus to damage and healing) instead of Mace Specialization. None of the three is tied to a weapon any more.
  • Tauren: Endurance gives 2% critical damage and healing instead of 1% hit chance. Plainsrunning makes you 3% faster mounted but wants real movement - "Stutter-stepping is no longer sufficient". Cultivation has a 15-minute cooldown instead of 60, War Stomp 90 seconds instead of two minutes.
  • Skyborne: Wind Blessed gives 3% haste instead of 1%. Skysight and Read Leyline can be cast while moving, Read Leyline lasts at least 30 seconds instead of 20, Walk on Air has a 90-second cooldown. Most zones in the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor have more spawn points for convergences and leylines.
  • Orc: Blood Fury has a three-minute cooldown instead of two. Shatter Curse dispels Curses and Banes instead of granting immunity and cuts magic damage by only 5% instead of 15%.
  • Undead: Touch of the Grave triggers 30% of the time for casters and 20% for paladins, rogues and warriors, with a 25-second internal cooldown. Will of the Forsaken no longer helps against Scatter Shot.
  • Gnome: Eureka! is an eight-second buff instead of three charges and now also covers Power Word: Shield.
  • Night elf and troll: Quickness stacks with other speed bonuses, troll Regeneration rises to 20%. And the dwarf's Find Treasure now has a chance to find an extra item in most chests.

The racial abilities page carries the new values.

For every class

  • Wands and Auto Shot only fire once you have stood still for half a second, "matching early versions of World of Warcraft". Auto Shot keeps firing while Aimed Shot or Sniper Shot is cast.
  • Auras for the whole raid. Moonkin Aura, Leader of the Pack, Trueshot Aura, Battle Shout and the Grace of Air, Strength of Earth, Windfury and Flametongue totems now reach the raid instead of only the party. Moonkin Aura only raises spell crit now, Leader of the Pack only melee and ranged crit; Grace of Air no longer excludes Windfury and Flametongue.
  • New: a tutorial for new players, and a setting that lets hunters switch between auto attack and Auto Shot on their own, on gamepad too.

Talents

Four trees are rebuilt. They are in the talent calculator already, and what each tree changes against the previous state is on the page for build 70425.

  • Mage: Missile Barrage moves to row 1, has two ranks and now also procs from Arcane Missiles hits. New at 16 is Arcane Wrath, a spell with a 3.5-second cast and a 6-second cooldown that also deals damage based on 5% of maximum mana. Arcane Blast is rebuilt: 1.5-second cast, each cast grants 15% of Intellect as spell damage, up to four times, for 15 seconds; in return 40% less damage. Wake of Fire is Improved Fire Blast again and extends the range of Fire Blast, Critical Mass has five ranks, Fire Power three - with 1 to 3% more Fire damage per own Fire effect on the target, 12% at most. Winter's Chill no longer adds crit chance but empowers the next Cone of Cold. Ice Lance hits frozen targets for +200% instead of +300%, and every mage learns Frost Blast at level 24, a slowing Frost spell that replaces the old Frostbolt rank 1.
  • Priest: Shadow Affinity and Improved Fade are removed. New in row 4 of Shadow is Dark Inspiration: Mind Blast and fully channelled Mind Flay raise the party's Spirit by up to 15%. Mental Strength now raises Intellect from row 2, Improved Mind Flay makes every tick hit 10 or 20% harder than the last, Devouring Contagion jumps to two targets. Devouring Plague has a 24-second cooldown instead of a minute, Shadow Word: Death 18 instead of 12, Vampiric Embrace 30 instead of 60 and can no longer be resisted.
  • Shaman: Elemental is rearranged. Lava Burst comes at 21 points instead of 31 and with a fourth rank, Elemental Mastery returns as the 31-point talent (Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst 0.5 seconds faster, no Chain Lightning cooldown for 15 seconds, three-minute cooldown). Call of Thunder is removed, Improved Fire Nova is called Trial by Fire. Chain Lightning costs about 35% less mana, Fire Nova hits much weaker, Stormstrike costs 8% of base mana, Mana Tide Totem gains a rank at level 38, and Water Shield triggers on any critical spell.
  • Warlock: Malediction is replaced by Grim Reach (10 or 20% more range for Affliction), Destructive Reach no longer reduces threat, Shadow Mastery gives 2 to 10% instead of 1 to 5%.
  • Paladin: Champion of the Light gives 10, 20 and 30% of Intellect as spell damage instead of 20, 40 and 60% - which settles the contradiction in the deep dive. Reckoning stores up to four charges for the next swing, as in Classic Era. Blessing of Salvation becomes Salvation and Mass Salvation, which can be worn next to a blessing; with Revoke the paladin takes them away again. Consecration's spell power coefficient per tick drops to 0.042 from 0.095, Righteous Fury generates more threat.
  • Hunter: a Fire and an Ice trap may be down at the same time. Three pet abilities get weaker: Dismember (crocolisk) cuts healing by only 25% for 6 seconds, Sonic Blast (bat) and Mine! (bird of prey) last shorter and have longer cooldowns.
  • Druid and warrior: druids learn Shred at level 20 instead of 22, Faerie Fire generates threat in Bear Form, and Furor keeps your energy when you switch to bear. The warrior: Battle Shout for the raid, Slam without spell pushback.

Items, quests, PvP, interface

  • Dalaran is hostile to the Horde. "Members of the Horde are no longer welcome in Dalaran under any circumstances and will be attacked on sight." The City of Dalaran dungeon stays accessible, but the Horde's sewer key no longer opens the city in the open world. Horde players no longer gain Kirin Tor reputation either.
  • Items: scrolls trigger the global cooldown, Draught of Predatory Senses is now a potion with a shorter duration, and many crafted items sell to vendors for less.
  • Legacy: Bartering no longer discounts training and repairs, The Quick and the Dead affects more priest spells.
  • Quests: "The Attack!" in Stormwind is no longer an escort and can be shared; in the Wetlands, Dragonmaw orcs, gnolls and Incendicite Ore respawn faster.
  • PvP: battleground Marks of Honor stack to 30 instead of 20.
  • Interface: new unit frames, an equippable-level column in the Auction House, level-up messages with stats and talent points are back, and /who understands subzones.

The stress test is on 21 October. On 15 October Blizzard announced it for the 19th, and at 22:39 UTC on the 16th moved it to 21 October. It starts at 2:00 p.m. PDT, 19:00 CEST in Europe, and on the morning of the 22nd in Korea and Taiwan. Anyone with a WoW account may take part, no subscription, game time or beta access needed; in the Battle.net launcher it is "World of Warcraft: Forever Stress Test" under "In Development". Shortly before, the beta goes offline, and WoW Forever runs for a few hours on the hardware it is meant to launch on. Afterwards everything is wiped - characters, names and guilds - and the beta reopens. According to Blizzard the wipe is with an eye to name reservation from 27 October.

Cat Form by hotfix. Druids could not loot the relics for the Cat Form quest; at 17:56 UTC on 16 October Kaivax reported a hotfix for it, without a new client.

Blizzard on the datamined files. At 22:05 UTC on 16 October Kaivax wrote about art assets read out of the latest beta build: "these assets are not intended for this version of World of Warcraft". He does not say which files he means; what is in the client follows below.

Confirmed on 19 and 20 October

The beta closes on 23 October - forever. At 20:30 UTC on 20 October Kaivax published the stress test times and moved the end of the beta with them. Until then 21 October counted as the last day. Now the beta reopens once more after the stress test and closes on Friday, 23 October, at 10:00 a.m. PDT, 19:00 CEST: "We plan to close the WoW Forever Beta … forever".

The stress test runs twice as long in Europe. According to Kaivax's table WoW Forever moves onto its regional hardware for it. In Europe it runs from 19:00 to 03:00 CEST, eight hours. In the Americas it runs from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. PDT, and in Oceania, Korea and Taiwan on the morning of the 22nd, four hours each. Everywhere it ends at the same minute, 01:00 UTC. In the launcher it is "World of Warcraft: Forever Stress Test" under "In Development". Afterwards all stress test characters, names included, are deleted.

Name reservation from 27 October. From 27 October to 3 November, buyers of the Skyborne Heroic Pack, the Skyborne Epic Pack or the Warcraft Forever Collection can secure names. North America opens on the 27th at 1:00 p.m. PDT, Europe at 18:00 CET, Korea and Taiwan on the 28th at 07:00 local time. The limit is three characters in total across all rulesets: create two on a PvP ruleset and you have only one left for Normal or Role-Play. The limit applies only during the reservation, and it is first come, first served.

The raids in numbers. Blizzard's raid overview gives boss counts for the first time. The Barrow Deeps have eight bosses and three entrances: via Mount Hyjal, via Winterspring and via the Blackmaw Hold dungeon. The prison, Blizzard says, held Illidan Stormrage for ten thousand years. Hyjal Summit has 13 bosses and opens with an ancient guardian, after which the group chooses between several routes. Onyxia's Lair keeps the Classic attunement: every raid member needs the Drakefire Amulet in their bags, and the questline for each faction is on the raid page. All three unlock on 9 December and are currently planned to reset weekly.

The dungeons at a glance. Blizzard's dungeon overview sums up all nine and adds a few things:

  • Hall of Thanes lies beneath Ironforge, Ruins of Lordaeron above the Undercity. Their own faction reaches them easily from the capital; the other has to cross enemy territory.
  • The City of Dalaran needs an attunement: the Alliance starts in Southshore with Emissary Jacques and "An Alarming Request", the Horde in Tarren Mill with Magus Wordeen Voidglare and "Key to the City" and "Prison Break-In". The way in is through the sewers.
  • To reach the Drowned City west of Grom'gol you dive below the water. Inside, a storm builds towards the end.
  • In Shaper's Terrace you use power crystals from Un'Goro at consoles.
  • Blackmaw Hold leads "even farther below Azeroth" - into the Barrow Deeps, according to the raid overview.

On one dungeon the overview contradicts Blizzard's own notes: it prints the Excavation Site at 24-29, while the notes of 1 October said 26-31. The client sides with the notes. In build 1.60.1.70450 the dungeon's level tuning starts at 26, while Hall of Thanes, Ruins of Lordaeron and Dalaran start at 13, 15 and 28, matching their ranges. We stay with 26-31.

Riverglades and Hyjal on video. On 19 October Blizzard published "Your Leveling Journey Past 30", about the regions beyond the beta cap. In the Riverglades the Alliance meets the Brotherhood of the Horse, knights from Warcraft II who broke with Stormwind after the Second War and hold Farholde Keep. The Horde meets the Bolder'ok ogre clan, which broke away from the Twilight's Hammer. The Twilight's Hammer itself holds Twilight's Shroud and Krol'dok Stronghold. On Mount Hyjal the road is open for the first time since the Third War, after Malfurion and the druids kept it sealed for five years. The work there is done alongside the Druids of the Talon and the Cenarion Circle. We checked the names in the client (factions 2826 and 2782); the subtitles write "Farhold" and "Boulderock".

Read from the client: 1.60.1.70425 and 70450

  • 70425 was on Blizzard's CDN at 00:50 UTC on 16 October. With 2,780 changed rows in the tracker's tables it is the largest client since the beta opened. The talent trees match the notes, but for two details: Improved Mana Burn changes column in Discipline without the notes mentioning it, and the notes' removed "Shadow Infinity" is Shadow Affinity.
  • White drops turn green. Among the 318 changed items are plain drops from the starting zones that now have uncommon quality: Wispy Cloak, Ice-covered Bracers and Royal Frostmane Girdle carry quality 2 and a stat in the client. The notes do not say so; Wowhead noticed it first.
  • 70450 followed at 22:29 UTC on the 16th and only adds: 22 spells and 23 items, among them pets called Blossoming Ancient, Pinky and Gill'el, a Verdant Sea Turtle, a Stillwater Fisher outfit, a Gilded Blademaster set and a Rugged Totemic Backpack. It changes no talents or spells. These are the files of which Blizzard said the same evening that they are not meant for Forever.

Reported

  • A $100,000 tournament. According to Wowhead the PvP player Tips Out runs a tournament in the beta on 17 and 18 October, broadcast by Xaryu and Esfand. For the second day Blizzard provides the cut-off Hyjal Crater as a duelling map, which Blizzard had mentioned in episode 4 of the podcast; vendors there are to sell soul shards and reagents.

Rumours

  • More mounts. Among the datamined files Wowhead also names a Spectral Wolf Pack and a Crimson Rooster as mounts, from encrypted files. The same applies to them as to 70450: according to Blizzard the art is not meant for this version. Wowhead suspects they belong to another WoW version, such as the Chinese servers.

What comes next

The stress test on 21 October from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. PDT, after which the beta reopens until it closes for good on 23 October at 10:00 a.m. PDT. From 27 October at 1:00 p.m. PDT those who pre-purchased the Skyborne Heroic Pack, the Skyborne Epic Pack or the Warcraft Forever Collection can reserve names, until 3 November. On 4 November Forever launches, and on 9 December the three raids unlock.

Last checked October 21, 2026.