THE WOW FOREVER COLLECTION · DISPATCH · RESEARCH CHECKED OCTOBER 21, 2026
Short answer: WoW Forever opens three raids on December 9, all at level 60. The Barrow Deeps is a 10-player raid with 8 bosses, Hyjal Summit is a 20-player raid with 13 bosses, and Onyxia's Lair is still 40 players. Only Onyxia needs an attunement: every raider has to carry the Drakefire Amulet, earned through the same long Blackrock quest chain as in 2004. You can walk straight into the two new raids. All three reset weekly. Blizzard published the details in a raid overview on October 20, and within a day the forums had turned it into an argument about why one new raid is 10 players and the other is 20.
The three raids at a glance
| Raid | Size | Bosses | Where it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Barrow Deeps | 10 | 8 | Under Mount Hyjal, with entrances from Hyjal, Winterspring and Blackmaw Hold |
| Hyjal Summit | 20 | 13 | The peak of Mount Hyjal, near Nordrassil |
| Onyxia's Lair | 40 | 1 | Dustwallow Marsh |
The Barrow Deeps is the prison where Illidan Stormrage was held for 10,000 years. Blizzard describes it as "a maximum-level raid for 10 players" hidden beneath Kalimdor. The multiple entrances are the interesting part. One of them runs through Blackmaw Hold, the new 55 to 60 dungeon, so a 10-player group heading in for the night may end up crossing paths with dungeon groups on the way. The boss count matches what Tim Jones guessed at the September 17 Q&A ("eight or so bosses in our first raid").
Hyjal Summit is the bigger of the two. It opens with a fight against an ancient guardian, and after that your group picks between several routes across the mountain, through ruins above and below ground, before the final encounters. Thirteen bosses is a lot for a first tier. For comparison, Classic's Molten Core had ten.
Onyxia's Lair is the familiar three-phase fire fight. Blizzard's only prep advice is to build fire resistance first. Onyxia sits outside the 10 and 20 player ecosystems: at the Q&A, Jones called her an extra "for launch," and he did not promise a 40-player raid in every tier.
If you want the full roadmap for later tiers, including the spring 2027 raids and the unnamed "revamped iconic vanilla raid," our zones, dungeons and raids guide has it.
The Onyxia attunement, step by step
The amulet only needs to be in your bags to get through the door. Wowhead's Forever database lists it as a neck item with +10 Stamina and +15 Fire Resistance that requires level 50, so you can start the chain before 60 and wear the reward on the Onyxia pull itself. The chain is per character. A developer on the October 8 WoW Forever Podcast said it is "not accountwide, at least at launch," and called it "a ritual that you go through when you hit max level."
Alliance
- Pick up Dragonkin Menace from Helendis Riverhorn in the Burning Steppes.
- Work through the six parts of The True Masters, which take you to Lakeshire, Stormwind and finally Marshal Maxwell at Morgan's Vigil.
- Go into Blackrock Depths to find Marshal Windsor and break him out (Jail Break!).
- Escort Windsor through Stormwind in The Great Masquerade, then take The Dragon's Eye from Highlord Bolvar Fordragon.
- Finish with Drakefire Amulet: kill General Drakkisath in Upper Blackrock Spire for the Blood of the Black Dragon Champion.
Horde
- Start with "Blood and Thunder" from Warlord Goretooth in Kargath, Badlands.
- Clear Lower Blackrock Spire for Warlord's Command, then report to Eitrigg and Thrall in Orgrimmar.
- Bring back the head of Warchief Rend Blackhand from Lower Blackrock Spire (For The Horde!).
- Find Rexxar in Desolace, carry his testament to Myranda the Hag in the Western Plaguelands, and collect 20 Black Dragonspawn Eyes in Blackrock Spire for Oculus Illusions.
- Use the Amulet of Draconic Subversion in Dustwallow Marsh to meet Emberstrife, then do the four Test of Skulls quests: Scryer, Somnus, Chronalis and Axtroz.
- Take the Dull Drakefire Amulet back to Rexxar, kill General Drakkisath in Upper Blackrock Spire for Blood of the Black Dragon Champion, and hand it in to Rexxar for the amulet.
The Horde side is still the longer trip. The four drake champions are elites spread across Winterspring, Swamp of Sorrows, Tanaris and Wetlands, and Blizzard's own advice is to bring friends for the elite quests and budget several high-level dungeon runs.
Why the new raids have no attunement
On Episode 3 of the WoW Forever Podcast, a developer said the team does not want to "overload you with a ton of attunements" early on. For the Barrow Deeps and Hyjal Summit, "there's not something that's going to stop you from walking into them." Then came the tease: there are parts of the new raids where "you might have to do a little digging and figure stuff out as you go to sort of like get the full experience." Nobody has explained that line since. Read it as a hidden boss or questline inside the raids, the way Classic had optional pieces in Molten Core, but that is our reading and Blizzard hasn't confirmed anything.
The 10-man fight on the forums
The overview restarted a thread that was already busy. "10-Man Versions of Every 20 Man Raid," started on October 19, had 340 posts and 535 likes by the morning of October 21. Its opening post quotes Jones at the September 17 Q&A: "Every single tier that we will ever do will have both a 10-player raid and a 20-player raid." The poster's argument is that a 10-player version of every raid would cost the 20-player crowd nothing. Several replies point at Season of Discovery, where they say participation dropped when raids moved from 10 to 20 players.
The pushback is just as loud. One reply sums it up: Forever is built on Classic, so raids should be "10, 20, and 40 player sizes. Each one unique." A second thread, "Why are the raids different player sizes?", opened on October 20 by a player who assumed every raid would come in both sizes, and it hit 132 posts in a day. Most replies there explain that fixed, mixed raid sizes are how Classic worked, from 20-player Zul'Gurub to 40-player Molten Core.
For what it's worth, Blizzard's plan already answers part of the complaint. Jones said at the Q&A that "you can get tier pieces across those experiences," so a guild that only ever runs the Barrow Deeps still has a path to tier gear. What Blizzard has not said is whether the 10-player tier pieces match the 20-player ones, or whether Hyjal Summit's 13 bosses will make it the better source. As of October 21, no Blizzard staff had posted in either thread.
What to do before December 9
You have five weeks between launch and raids. If you plan to raid Onyxia, start the attunement as soon as you hit the level 50s, because both chains need Blackrock Depths and Blackrock Spire groups and those will be busiest in the first fortnight. Start collecting fire resistance gear for the same reason.
If your guild is small, the Barrow Deeps is the raid built for you, and you can run it the first week it opens with no quest chain. Dual spec opens at level 40 (how it works), so a healer or tank spec for raid nights won't cost you your leveling build. You can plan both specs in the talent calculator, and the Forever tier list is a sensible place to start if you're still choosing a class with raids in mind.
Sources: Blizzard, World of Warcraft: Forever Raid Overview: Locations, Raid Sizes, and Attunement (October 20, 2026); MMO-Champion, World of Warcraft: Forever Raid Overview (October 20, 2026); Blizzard, WoW Forever Developer Q&A, September 17 (September 17, 2026, raid segment from 1:23:57); Blizzard, The WoW: Forever Podcast, Episode 3: Dive Into Dungeons With Devs (October 8, 2026, attunement segment from 53:28); Warcraft Tavern, Onyxia's Lair Raid Will Still Require Attunement in WoW Forever (October 8, 2026); Blizzard forums, 10-Man Versions of Every 20 Man Raid (started October 19, 2026, checked October 21) and Why are the raids different player sizes? (started October 20, 2026, checked October 21); Wowhead Forever tooltips for the Drakefire Amulet and the quests above (checked October 21, 2026).