THE WOW FOREVER COLLECTION · FIELD GUIDE · RESEARCH CHECKED SEPTEMBER 17, 2026
Our talent breakdown covers the trees. This is the other half: the base spells and items Blizzard changed underneath them, the ones you feel at level 12 before a single talent matters. Most come from Icy Veins' class overviews of the BlizzCon build and dev interviews; all are demo numbers that the beta can move.
1. Bloodthirst: 45% of Attack Power to 35%
The Fury capstone hits for less per press and now also grants 10% movement speed for 10 seconds. Read alongside the new Raging Blows (Whirlwind hits with the off-hand) and Bloodthirst is being turned from the whole rotation into part of it.
2. Enrage: triggers on any damage taken, drops from 25% to 10%
Classic Enrage needed a crit against you and gave 25%. Forever's fires on any hit and gives 10%. More uptime, less peak, and a Fury Warrior who is no longer fishing for crits on the pull. Slam also gains a 15 second cooldown, which the new Improved Slam talent works around.
3. Warrior cooldowns unlinked
Recklessness, Retaliation and Shield Wall no longer share a cooldown. Victory Rush is in. Thunder Clap works in Defensive Stance. Vanguard makes Charge usable in Defensive Stance out of combat.
4. Stormstrike: 20 second cooldown to 8
The single biggest number on the list for anyone rolling the Shaman we recommended. Stormstrike also now buffs your Nature damage on the target by 20% for 12 seconds, and the Improved Stormstrike talent can reset it on a dodge or parry.
5. Lightning Bolt: 3.0 seconds to 2.5, Chain Lightning 2.5 to 2.0
Half a second off both baseline, read from tooltips on Guzu's stream. Deep Elemental's Elemental Alacrity then trims the same 0.5 it did in Classic, which is why the fully talented cast ends up where Classic did while the untalented one is much faster. Healing Way also goes from 18% to 25%.
6. Judgement no longer consumes your Seal
Paladins judge and keep the Seal up. Holy Strike is baseline at level 6 on a 12 second cooldown, Blessings last 60 minutes and come from the trainer, Consecration is baseline at 20. Twist of Light, the Retribution capstone, is seal twisting as a designed mechanic.
7. Arcane Blast stacks to four, Arcane Meditation 15% to 50%
Arcane Blast: each stack adds 10% to all your other spell damage and 175% to its own cost. Arcane Meditation, the regen-while-casting talent, goes from 15% in Classic to 50%. Arcane was a leveling tree in Classic; those two numbers make it a raid tree. Hot Streak in Fire stacks three times, taking Pyroblast from 4.5 seconds to 3 to 1.5.
8. Shadowform: 50% off Shadow mana costs, 100% Shadow crit damage
The reworked Shadowform is 10% Shadow damage, half-price Shadow spells, doubled Shadow crit damage, 15% less physical damage taken, and it now only blocks healing spells rather than all Holy. Shadow Word: Death and Devouring Plague are baseline for every Priest race, and so is Fear Ward.
9. Warlock and Druid DoTs can crit
Warlock DoTs crit, demons scale with the Warlock's stats, and Bane of Agony and Bane of Doom are no longer Curses so they stack with Curse of the Elements. Druid DoTs and HoTs crit too, and Omen of Clarity is baseline and procs from heals. Both are the kind of change that makes Pandemic and Genesis in the trees worth reading twice.
10. Tiger's Fury: 15% physical damage for 6 seconds, 30 second cooldown, no Energy cost
And Frenzied Regeneration heals 1% of maximum health per Rage. The other Feral change is a removal: Furor is reworked and no longer refunds Energy on shift, so powershifting is gone. The forum thread "They killed the Cat" has 255 replies about that one line.
11. Edgemaster's Handguards: +7 weapon skill to +1
Kris Zierhut: "Weapon skill was probably the strongest stat, especially for melee, in World of Warcraft Classic, but it was a little too easy to get and a little too strong." Weapon skill is spread thinly across items in Forever so no single weapon type is automatically right. Edgemaster's went from the best gloves in the game to a curiosity. Expect the same treatment for anything else that stacked weapon skill.
12. Dungeon mob XP "way down," dungeon quest XP "much, much, much higher"
Not a class number, but it changes how every class levels, and it is the angriest thread on the forum. No raw figures yet.
What is missing from this list
Numbers for the Hunter's Aimed Shot (baseline, 2 second cast, shared cooldown with Multi-Shot) and Lone Wolf (flat 20% damage without a pet) are in the talent article. The debuff limit is unannounced. Everything above was read from the BlizzCon build; the beta client became mineable on September 16 and Wowhead has said its data will be refreshed from it, which is when any of these could move.
Sources: Icy Veins' class overviews for the BlizzCon build (September 13 to 16); Kris Zierhut on weapon skill and dungeon XP via press interviews; talentsforever.com spellbook reads (CC BY 4.0) for the Shaman cast times; Blizzard's Deep Dive recap for Paladin baseline changes.