Blizzard Reworks WoW: Forever Racial Abilities Again a Week Before Launch

Blizzard has released another wave of racial ability changes for World of Warcraft: Forever. It’s the second major rework in the past two weeks, and this time the developers partially rolled back their own earlier decisions. The changes landed on October 26, just a week before the game’s November 4 launch.

The first wave of changes arrived in the October 15 beta patch. Back then, Blizzard removed weapon specializations and replaced them with broader combat bonuses. For example, Humans lost Sword Specialization and got a new ability, Ruthless, which increased critical strike chance by 2%. The idea was for players to pick a race for its fantasy and appearance rather than because it’s the best fit for their class.

But player reaction wasn’t very positive, and after beta tester feedback, Blizzard revisited the racial abilities once more. Here are the main changes:

• Humans – Ruthless now increases critical strike chance by only 1% instead of 2%, while the Human Spirit bonus rises from 5% to 10%.
• Dwarves – Earth Fury, which increased critical damage and healing, has been removed. In its place, Dwarves get Artisan’s Precision, which increases hit chance with spells and attacks by 1%.
• Tauren – Plainsrunning now grants 2% movement speed per stack instead of 1%, and the cap rises from 30% to 60%. However, it no longer works while mounted. Endurance now only adds 5% Health, without any hit chance or critical damage bonuses.
• Orcs – Savage, which increased critical strike chance by 1%, has been removed. Command returns instead, increasing Hunter and Warlock pet damage by 5%.
• Skyborne Elves – the speed bonus from Wind-Blessed drops from 3% to 2%, and Read Leyline now restores 50% of mana and health instead of 100%. However, using it near a Ley Line grants the Attuned effect for an hour, bringing the regeneration back up to 100%. Skysight works on a similar principle: near an elemental convergence, it grants the Charged effect, raising its speed bonus to 30%.

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According to Blizzard, the studio prioritized racial identity in its final pass. The developers explained that weapon specializations were removed because in the long run they would hurt the balance of raid and dungeon loot tables. At the same time, some of the generic bonuses that had replaced class-focused racial abilities have been rolled back. The reason was feedback from beta testers, who complained that some abilities felt too generic while others were objectively stronger than the rest.

World of Warcraft: Forever is a permanent Classic Plus version of the game that will run alongside modern WoW and Classic, with the level cap staying at 60 for good. The game adds three new zones, over 1,000 quests, nine dungeons, two raids, new professions, a new battleground, and a new race, the Skyborne Elves. It launches on November 4.