Kaivax posted the changes in Blizzard's development notes on 26 October at 20:35 UTC and added three missing lines on 27 October. The reasoning: some players found the new racials too generic, others found some of them too strong. Blizzard now puts racial identity first, "which means that some races will naturally be slightly more effective than others at certain combat roles". Where role- or class-focused racials had been replaced with generic ones, some of that is being rolled back.
One exception stays: weapon specializations such as the human Sword Specialization do not come back. It is not healthy in the long run, Blizzard says, for loot tables to be read through the lens of "required" weapon types.
The changes
| Race | Ability | New | Before |
|---|---|---|---|
| Human | Ruthless | 1% critical strike chance | 2% |
| Human | The Human Spirit | 10% more Spirit | 5% |
| Dwarf | Earth Fury | removed | 2% more critical damage and healing |
| Dwarf | Artisan's Precision (new) | 1% hit chance with spells and attacks | - |
| Tauren | Plainsrunning | 2% speed per stack, up to 60%, no longer mounted | 1% per stack, up to 30% |
| Tauren | Endurance | only 5% more health | plus a crit bonus |
| Orc | Savage | removed | 1% critical strike chance |
| Orc | Command (back) | 5% more damage for Hunter and Warlock pets | - |
| Orc | Blood Fury | 2 minute cooldown | 3 minutes |
| Troll | Berserking | 15 second duration | 10 seconds |
| Undead | Touch of the Grave | 15 second internal cooldown | 25 seconds |
| Skyborne | Wind Blessed | 2% haste | 3% |
| Skyborne | Read Leyline | 50% more regeneration for 15 seconds | 100% |
| Skyborne | Skysight | 15% more movement speed for 15 seconds | 10% |
The Skyborne: stronger in the right place
Both Skyborne actives gain a second tier:
- Read Leyline used at a ley line grants Attuned for one hour. While it lasts, the bonus rises to 100% regeneration. Read Leyline cannot be used while Innervate is active and is replaced by Innervate as the stronger effect.
- Skysight used at an elemental convergence grants Charged for one hour. Then the bonus rises to 30% movement speed.
Attuned and Charged persist through death and are removed on entering a raid.
Not found in the client
The name Artisan's Precision does not appear in the spell name table of client 1.60.1.70707 from 30 October. The change is probably server-side or comes by hotfix. It is confirmed by Blizzard's note, not by the client.
What this changes here
The racial abilities page was on the state of 17 October and has been brought up to date: new values, Command and Artisan's Precision instead of Savage and Earth Fury, Attuned and Charged for the Skyborne. Earth Fury had an icon of its own; Artisan's Precision shows none for now, because Blizzard has not named one.