WoW Forever Class Changes: Every Class Change So Far

World of Warcraft: Forever keeps Classic’s nine classes and three talent trees, but almost every class has been reworked. This page collects every change that is confirmed so far, from Blizzard’s class deep dives, the official Class Highlight videos and the beta development notes.

Beta warning: Blizzard says class abilities and talents “may continue to evolve throughout the beta test.” We’ll update this page as patch notes land. Last checked 6 October 2026.

Changes for every class

• Talents start at level 10 and keep the familiar three-tree layout. Gold-medal milestone talents now sit at 11, 16 (new), 21 and 31 points. Talent guide →
• Dual Specialization at level 40. You change talents at your class trainer in a major city.
• Six new race/class combinations: Human Hunter, Gnome Priest, Dwarf Shaman, Orc Mage, Troll Warlock and Undead Paladin. Every class can now be played on both factions. Racials and combos →

Hunter

Hunter has the most detailed change list of any class so far. See our full Hunter guide for builds.

• Aimed Shot is baseline at level 20 for every Hunter, and it no longer disrupts Auto Shot.
• Arcane Shot no longer shares a cooldown with Aimed Shot. Multi-Shot now does.
• Traps can be used in combat, but have a 30-second cooldown. Frost and Fire traps have separate cooldowns.
• Pets scale with your gear, but no longer receive player buffs. A new Fox pet family has been added, and every family has a signature ability.
• New talents include Lone Wolf (+20% damage with no pet), Summon Hawk, Sniper Shot (45-yard range), Counterattack, Strider Kick and Lacerating Strikes. Wyvern Sting and Killer Instinct are removed.
• 1 Oct beta tuning: Deflection’s parry bonus halved to 1–5%, pets’ Aggressive mode restored, and Sniper Shot now also extends the range of your next 3 shots by 10 yards.

Warrior

• Rage reworked. Rage from damage taken ignores armor and absorbs, Rage from damage dealt is normalized to weapon speed, and critical strikes generate 100% more Rage (75% until the 2 October beta build). Blizzard has acknowledged Rage bugs in the beta.
• New baseline abilities: Tactical Mastery at level 14 and Victory Rush at level 20.
• Recklessness, Retaliation and Shield Wall no longer share a cooldown.
• Bloodthirst no longer heals. It now grants 10% movement speed instead.
• New talents:
  • Arms: Spearing Strike (16-point; dismounts and deals double damage to mounted targets, Dragons and Giants), Bloodthrill, and Weaponmaster, which replaces the four separate weapon specializations.
  • Fury: Boundless Rage, Raging Blows (16-point), Precision.
  • Protection: Master of Defense, Vanguard (16-point; Charge in Defensive Stance), Bastion, Focused Rage.
• 1 Oct beta tuning: Spearing Strike no longer needs a two-handed weapon, but does need Battle Stance. Fury’s Dual Wield Specialization lost its off-hand Rage bonus.
• 2 Oct beta build (Fury and Protection rework): Blizzard says the goal is to give Fury more utility early in the tree for leveling, and to give non-shield users a clear path into Protection’s middle rows as a PvP tech option.
  • General: critical strikes now generate 100% more Rage (was 75%). A bug that gave Dual Wield Specialization’s hit bonus to both weapons was fixed, and Berserker Rage now unlocks at level 30 (was 32).
  • Fury, new talents: Lingering Rage (Rage decays 2/4/6/8/10 seconds later after combat), Furious Precision (+4/7/10% off-hand hit chance) and Gore Drinker (Enrage, Berserker Rage, Bloodrage, Death Wish and Bloodthirst make your next 3 melee attacks restore 0.5/1% of max Health).
  • Fury, removed or changed: Improved Cleave and Boundless Rage are gone. Death Wish, not Enrage, is now required to reach Flurry. Raging Blows now cuts the Rage cost of Cleave and Whirlwind by 3, and Whirlwind always hits with both weapons. Bloodthirst’s Attack Power ratio rose to 45% (was 35%).
  • Protection: Toughness is removed. Iron Will, Improved Bloodrage, Improved Disarm and Improved Shield Bash all moved up the tree, and Anticipation and Improved Revenge moved down a row.

Priest

• Fear Ward and Devouring Plague are available to every Priest, whatever their race. Divine Spirit is baseline, and Shadow Word: Death is baseline at level 32.
• Racial priest spells redesigned. Gnome Priests (new) get Confounding Flash and Contingency Plan.
• New talents: Penance (21-point), Soul Warding (16-point), Binding Heal (16-point), Prayer of Mending (31-point), Twin Disciplines, Power in Light, Renewed Hope, Improved Mind Flay, Devouring Contagion and Early Demise.
• Lightwell removed. Shadowform redesigned.
• 1 Oct beta tuning: Devouring Plague can now crit, and Shadow Weaving can no longer fail to apply.

Druid

• Shapeshifting is much less painful. You can now use consumables, weapon enchants and racials in forms, and interact with most doors and objects. Forms deal damage based on your equipped weapon.
• New baseline abilities: Nature’s Grasp (10), Revive (12, out-of-combat resurrection), Omen of Clarity (20) and Lacerate (42).
• New talents: Eclipse, Overgrowth, Feral Charge, Primal Bite, Shifting Power, Berserk (31-point Feral), Wild Growth (31-point Restoration) and Gift of the Earthmother. Insect Swarm moves to Balance.
• Bear-weaving is gone. Energy is lost on entering Bear Form.
• 1 Oct beta tuning:
  • Tiger’s Fury removed.
  • All forms are immune to Disarm.
  • Bear Form critical strikes generate 75% more Rage.
  • King of the Jungle replaced by Shifting Power, which converts 55% of base mana into 40 Energy on a 16-second cooldown.

Paladin

Blizzard has now published its Paladin deep dive (15 Oct). The headline changes are below; the full Paladin guide covers every talent.

• Holy Strike (level 6) and Consecration (level 20) are baseline for every Paladin. Consecration hits up to 4 enemies in melee range.
• Blessings last 1 hour instead of 5 minutes.
• Judgement no longer consumes your Seal.
• New Seal of Fury (level 10) for tanking, Lay on Hands cooldown cut to 20 minutes, and a new Retribution form of Seal Twisting via Twist of Light.
• 1 Oct beta tuning: Redoubt reduced to 4–20% block, Holy Shield raised to 30% block, and Retribution’s Champion of the Light Intellect-to-spell-damage ratio reduced to 20/40/60%.

Mage

From the Class Highlights Part 2 video:

• Frostfire Bolt is available to every Mage.
• Ice Lance for Frost, Hot Streak for Fire, and Arcane Blast with escalating mana cost for Arcane.
• 1 Oct beta tuning: Combustion charges reduced from 4 to 3.

Shaman

From the Class Highlights Part 1 video:

• Drop all four totems with a single cast, and move them after placing.
• Riptide for Restoration and Lava Burst for Elemental.
• 1 Oct beta tuning: Totemic Recall now restores mana (the 1 Oct build notes list it as fixed).
• Weapon imbues last 60 minutes (up from 5): Frostbrand Weapon, Flametongue Weapon, Rockbiter Weapon and Windfury Weapon, and they can now run alongside temporary weapon enchantments such as Sharpening Stones, Weight Stones and Wizard Oil.
• Elemental Mastery is removed. Blizzard says it held Elemental back, because Elemental damage could not be raised to suitable PvE values with it in the game without it becoming too strong in PvP. Elemental gets new spells instead.
• Nature’s Guidance is removed from Restoration.
• Source for the last three: Blizzard’s written edits to the Mage and Shaman deep dive, 7-8 Oct.

Full guide: WoW Forever Shaman guide

Rogue

From the Class Highlights Part 1 video:

• Energy regenerates more smoothly and predictably.
• New poison finisher for Assassination.
• Combat Rogues can use any weapon type without changing build.
• 1 Oct beta tuning: missing Expose Armor no longer costs combo points.
• Puncturing Wounds (formerly Improved Backstab) now also raises Mutilate crit chance by a smaller amount, and gives Backstab a chance to grant an extra combo point (Blizzard’s Rogue and Warlock deep dive, as corrected 7 Oct).
• Blizzard describes Combat as hard-hitting direct damage with some Blade Flurry cleave, and Subtlety as combat tricks and bleeds. Both support all weapon types.

Warlock

Warlock has no official deep dive or highlight video yet. Fan sites list several new abilities, but we haven’t been able to confirm them, so we’re not listing them here. Confirmed beta tuning so far:

• Hellfire can now crit.
• Soul Harvesting has been renamed Soul Harvest, with corrected mana regeneration.
• Pets’ Aggressive mode has been restored.

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Related: Beta tier list · PvP tier list · Best leveling classes · Talent trees

Sources: Blizzard: Mage & Shaman deep dive thread, 7 Oct, Blizzard: Rogue & Warlock deep dive thread, 7 Oct, Blizzard: Priest & Warrior deep dive, Blizzard: Hunter & Druid deep dive, Class Highlights Part 1, Class Highlights Part 2, Blizzard: Warrior updates in the 2 Oct beta build, Beta development notes, 1 Oct.