WoW Forever development notes of 2 November: more damage for every class, Rogue rebuilt, Lava Burst gone

On 3 November 2026 at 03:20 UTC (still 2 November on the US west coast, hence the title "Updated November 2"), Kaivax, Community Manager at Blizzard, published the longest round so far of the official WoW Forever development notes. It gathers what changed in the two and a half weeks after the last full beta update, on 15 October, the racial pass of 26 and 27 October included, and it sets the class tuning Blizzard launched the game with on 4 November. On 4 November a short follow-up added a section on the interface. Our talent builder has used the new trees since 5 November: the data comes from talentsforever.com, which generated it on 4 November from build 1.60.1.70755 of the game client. Talent and ability names stay in English, as in the game.

Every class: more damage, then a pause

The first developer note explains the change of course. During the beta Blizzard tried to keep each class roughly within its Classic power budget, so every new element had to come at the expense of something else, and some iconic abilities ended up feeling weak. Over the last two weeks it has therefore raised damage for classes across the game and given higher-level creatures more health to compensate. The goal, Blizzard writes, is not perfect numerical equality but every class feeling valuable to the group it joins.

The second note matters to anyone planning a build: apart from bugs and serious outliers, Blizzard does not plan big tuning changes before the raids open, on 9 December. A large tuning pass based on the data will follow once enough players have levelled past 30.

For everyone, too:

• talents no longer have a lower chance to trigger from low-rank spells, except Blizzard cast at a rank learned more than 12 levels below yours;
• new spells are no longer placed on your action bars automatically;
• training every class ability from 1 to 60 costs between 206 and 207 gold for every class; for Warlocks, the expected cost of their pets' Grimoires is subtracted.

Rogue: three trees rebuilt

The Rogue changes the most in this round, and none of it was in the late-October hotfixes.

• New ability Shank at level 24: 5 Energy, 10-second cooldown, an off-hand strike for 50% weapon damage that cannot miss and generates 15 Energy (25 with rank 2, at level 44).
• New passive Poised at level 18 (Druids get it at 32): out of combat and at full Energy, your next Energy ability costs 10 less. Deadly Poison and Instant Poison have their attack power coefficient doubled.
• Assassination: Murder is gone and Blood Splatter arrives (longer Rupture and Garrote). Relentless Strikes moves down to row 5 with 5 ranks, Lethality drops to 2 ranks and Seal Fate to 3. Venom moves up to row 5 and becomes a passive that boosts your poisons after a Shank, and Mutilate moves down to row 7, at 90% weapon damage.
• Combat: Improved Eviscerate becomes Coup de Grace, which also boosts Death Mark, and Improved Sinister Strike becomes Efficient Strikes. New Composure (Poised saves more Energy) and Flash of Steel (more Energy and a shorter cooldown for Shank). Dual Wield Specialization drops to 2 ranks (25/50% off-hand damage).
• Subtlety: Improved Distract, Quietus, Cutthroat and Thousand Cuts are gone. New Quick Getaway (one more Sap target, and speed after a Sap), Boot Knife (up to a 100% chance for Shank to add 2 combo points) and Death Mark, the new 31-point talent: a 25-Energy finishing move that stores part of your attacks' damage per combo point, twice as fast for Garrote and Rupture, and releases it after 6 seconds. Opportunity grows to 5 ranks, Camouflage drops to 3.

Warrior

• Defensive Stance's threat bonus goes from 30% to 80%; Slam's cooldown drops to 15 seconds (was 18).
• Arms: Improved Tactical Mastery drops to 3 ranks (up to 15 Rage kept when you change stance) and Bloodthrill to 2; Two-Handed Weapon Specialization doubles (up to 6%).
• Fury: new Reckless Swings (row 4: for 25% of your base health, your next 4 melee attacks generate 5 more Rage) and Improved Whirlwind (row 6: a shorter cooldown and up to 30% more damage to the closest enemy). Flurry drops to 3 ranks (10/20/30% attack speed) and no longer needs Death Wish, which Bloodthirst now requires.
• Protection: Defiance rises to 7/13/20% threat.
• In our builder's new data Raging Blows also leaves the Fury tree, from row 4, where Reckless Swings arrives. The notes do not mention it.

Shaman: Lava Burst out

• Lightning Bolt hits harder at every rank, up to 80% more at the top rank; Chain Lightning now has a 2.5-second cast, with more damage and a higher mana cost. The Shocks go back to their Classic Era damage, and Totemic Projection becomes Totemic Call, which brings your totems to you.
• Elemental: Lava Burst is removed and replaced by Call of Thunder (5% critical chance for Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning); Elemental Mastery is renamed Lightning Mastery. Lightning Overload rises to 10/20/30% (was 3/7/10%).
• Enhancement: Stormstrike deals 150% normalized weapon damage on a 6-second cooldown (was 100% and 8 seconds), and Maelstrom Weapon triggers twice as often.
• Restoration: Riptide no longer heals up front, only over time; it costs about 40% less mana and its cooldown goes from 6 to 12 seconds.

Paladin, Druid, Mage and Priest

Many of these classes' talent changes are the ones we described from the hotfix data in our article of 30 October: the rebuilt Paladin trees with Oath of Light, Shieldsworn and Unsealed Wrath, Bloom and Predatory Discipline for Druids, Accelerant and Precision for Mages, Holy Binding for Priests. The notes now make them official, and add the following.

• Paladin: Salvation, Mass Salvation, Revoke and Blessing of Light are removed. Righteous Fury is learned at level 10 (was 16), like the other tanks' stances, and gives 33% more threat, plus 90% more from Holy damage. Templar's Bulwark becomes a magic effect that can be dispelled.
• Druid: bear threat goes from 50% to 115%, to make up for the loss of Salvation; Poised arrives at level 32 and Lacerate becomes a Feral talent. Shred, Claw and Ravage deal more weapon damage (200%, 140% and 435%), Rip, Rake, Ferocious Bite and Pounce about 25% more, Starfire about 40% more.
• Mage: the Frost Blast spell is removed, and so is the Piercing Ice talent, which was already missing from the trees our builder used. Ice Barrier gives 15% more Frost damage for a minute when you cast it, plus 5% while it holds; Ice Lance has an 8-second cooldown shared with Fire Blast.
• Priest: Shadow Word: Death deals 30% of your maximum health to you when it fails to kill (was 10%), but no longer hurts you when it misses.

Hunter and Warlock

• Hunter: all traps share one 30-second cooldown. Aimed Shot gains about 110% bonus damage, Arcane Shot about 30%, Serpent Sting about 20%, and Aspect of the Hawk and Trueshot Aura give more ranged attack power again (up to 110 and 100), after the cuts read in the hotfix data at the end of October.
• Warlock: pets get 2 health per point of your Stamina (was 7.5). Wrack's coefficient doubles (86 base damage per second at level 60, was 36), Shadow and Flame doubles (up to 20%), and Drain Soul grants Soul Shards much less often when it does not kill.

Races, fixes and PvP

• The racial changes of 26 and 27 October are repeated in the post, unchanged: they are in our article on the racials. The Undead also get fixes to Cannibalize and Touch of the Grave.
• Base stats: every race now starts with the correct ones. Blizzard's example is the Tauren Warrior, with 5 more Strength than a Human Warrior instead of 2; the fix covers both Skyborne too.
• Roots from procs, such as Frostbite, Entrapment and Improved Hamstring, now have diminishing returns, and Throw uses a fixed 0.5-second windup.
• The Legacy reward Replica Ironforge Air Rifle has a shorter quitter debuff (40 seconds, was 5 minutes) and stun (2.5 seconds, was 3).
• Bags no longer equip themselves into free bag slots: you have to equip them by hand.
• PvP: in the Darkspear Islands battleground, dropping the flag no longer gives you the "Recently Dropped Flag" debuff.

Gamepad

Gamepad support is now a "functional Beta": all major gameplay and the core interface can be played with a controller, with settings in Edit Mode and in the Options. The fixes cover bags and inventory, ground-targeted items from the gamepad bar, ruleset selection and cinematics, the focus target (LB + RB + the bottom face button), friendly corpses and critters as targets, leaving a flight path early and the Pet Move command.

Quests and world

• Respawn rates change in many areas: faster in low-level zones, fastest in the starting zones, then slower as you level up and players spread out. Blizzard will bring the low-level zones back to more typical rates once the launch surge has settled.
• Experience changes on various quests ("Holy Diver" in Darkshore now gives some, Gloomrise Hatchlings in Mulgore give less), and all Ruins of Lordaeron dungeon quests start at level 15.
• Fixes in Alterac Mountains, the Barrens, Orgrimmar, Teldrassil and the Wetlands; some satyrs that counted as humanoids are demons again.

Interface and accessibility, added on 4 November

On 4 November at 19:35 UTC Blizzard added nine interface changes to the post. The swing timer no longer fades with distance; with the combined bag on, each slot shows which bag it belongs to; nameplates show Elite enemies again, and their debuff icons can be clicked through. The Spellbook and Talents frame opens at the same height as the other panels, with a smaller combat mode; the PvP scoreboard is updated; kills at the Honor cap no longer show honor gained; and in the keybinds menu, hovering a keybind highlights its button on the action bar.

What it means for your builds

Our builder reads every build code, the part after #FW1 in a builder link, with the new trees, and so do our build pages. For Druids, Hunters, Mages, Paladins, Priests and Warlocks the trees have the same shape as on 2 November, when we imported the October hotfixes: only numbers and texts change, so their builds stay as they were. Rogue, Warrior and Shaman builds can lose points:

1. Codes keep working. Each digit belongs to one talent, and a removed talent leaves an empty slot, so the other digits do not slide onto the wrong talent.
2. Points on removed talents come back as free points: Murder, Improved Distract, Quietus, Cutthroat and Thousand Cuts for Rogues, Raging Blows for Warriors, Lava Burst for Shamans. A renamed talent counts as new, so the points in Improved Eviscerate, Improved Sinister Strike and Elemental Mastery are freed as well, and Coup de Grace, Efficient Strikes and Lightning Mastery start at zero.
3. Ranks above the new maximum are cut: for Rogues Lethality and Dual Wield Specialization (from 5 to 2), Seal Fate and Camouflage (from 5 to 3); for Warriors Bloodthrill (from 5 to 2), Improved Tactical Mastery and Flurry (from 5 to 3).
4. The builder then checks the build row by row: a talent that moved to a row you no longer reach, or lost its prerequisite, is dropped together with whatever depended on it.

In our tests, a Combat build with its 5 first-row points in Improved Eviscerate and Improved Sinister Strike lost almost the whole Combat tree, because without them the second row no longer opens. A Mutilate build without Venom lost Mutilate, which moves from row 5 to row 7 and now needs Venom, and a point in Relentless Strikes taken with fewer than 20 points in Assassination is dropped too. An Elemental Shaman with Lava Burst and Elemental Mastery loses those 2 points, a Fury Warrior with Raging Blows and 5 ranks of Flurry loses 3. Builds published on our build pages keep the code and the game build they were published with; their author can open them in the builder, spend the freed points and update them.

What we don't know yet

• Whether the numbers match the game: the notes came out the day before launch and we have not checked these trees in game yet. For every class except the Priest, talentsforever.com writes that some numbers follow Blizzard's notes ahead of the game data, and that the trees include server hotfixes of 3 November read from the game's hotfix cache.
• Raging Blows: it is missing from the new data, but the notes never mention it; we will check in game whether it is really gone.
• Shank and Poised in the builder: they are class abilities, not talents, so the builder only shows them through the talents that improve them, such as Flash of Steel, Boot Knife and Composure.
• How long the faster respawns last: Blizzard gives no date for going back to normal rates.