The September 24 World of Warcraft: Forever beta build brought changes to classes, races, and the interface: Holy Strike for paladins was buffed and the healing tree simplified, shamans got a totem rework, and a cooldown manager arrived for five classes.

The September 24 beta build of World of Warcraft: Forever brought notable changes across classes, races, and the interface — from adjustments to Holy Strike and shaman totems to a new cooldown manager for five classes and a cheaper respec priced at one silver.

System Changes

The cost of resetting talents in beta has been temporarily reduced to 1 silver. After the first reset, the price climbs, but drops back to 1 silver after an hour. This makes build testing easier.

Cooldown Manager is a new feature that tracks key cooldowns through a customisable panel. It is off by default and can be turned on in the Gameplay Enhancement settings. For testing, it is available to druids, mages, priests, warriors, and warlocks; other classes will be added later. The manager does not yet support spell ranks — this will be fixed in future builds. The developers are specifically asking for feedback on which cooldowns should be tracked by default.

Gamepad support has been expanded: class flyouts and the campfire buff no longer get cancelled by crafting or by reading spells.

Class Tuning

Paladin. Holy Strike has been reworked: weapon damage per rank is now 25/29/32/36/39/43/46/50% (was 25/25/30/30/35/35/40/40%), the cooldown has been reduced from 12 to 10 seconds. The Improved Holy Strike talent has been removed from the tree — its effect became baseline. According to the team, a talent that was mandatory at the early stage of the healing tree created a sense of a "must-pick" choice. Vengeance in the Retribution tree now procs only from non-periodic critical strikes; the max stacks have been reduced from 5 to 3. Two-Handed Weapon Specialization has been weakened from 3/6/9% to 2/4/6%.

Shaman. The main change is the totem rework. Flametongue Totem no longer has a duration and is instantly replaced when a new one is placed; it no longer stacks with Flametongue Weapon and Windfury Totem. The Tranquil Air, Windfury, and Grace of Air totems do not stack even from different shamans in the same group. For Elemental, Elemental Fury and Elemental Alacrity have been swapped so that the progression feels smoother at early levels. Lava Burst at ranks 1 and 2 received roughly 10% more base damage than Lightning Bolt of the same level.

Mage. Wake of Fire: the effect duration has been increased from 20 to 30 seconds — the developers explain this by mana running out between fights while leveling. Hot Streak: the buff duration has been increased from 15 to 20 seconds. Ignite no longer double-counts percentage damage modifiers. Arcane Missiles now checks line of sight only at the start of the cast.

Druid. Base damage of Wrath has been increased by roughly 50%. The Mangle ability in the Feral tree has been renamed to Primal Bite — its signature debuff has been removed, and the old name no longer reflects what it does. Thorns now scales with Spell Power. For Restoration, Wild Growth can now crit.

Hunter. The attack power bonus from Furious Howl has been reduced by 40%. Tame Beast no longer works on creatures above the hunter's level. Sonic Blast is now correctly available to bat pets. Exiting Lone Wolf no longer leaves the hunter at -4% damage with an active pet.

Warrior. Slam: the cooldown has been increased from 15 to 18 seconds. Bloodthrill now triggers only on main-hand hits — Cleave and Heroic Strike count, but off-hand hits do not. For the Protection tree, Bastion and Focused Rage have been swapped so Focused Rage is reached earlier.

Priest. Renew can now crit. Power Word: Shield can now overwrite an existing shield on a target without the Weakened Soul debuff.

Race Tuning

Gnome. The Eureka ability on all classes now grants a 10% discount on abilities that cost mana, rage, or energy.

Human. The visual effect of Will to Survive has been replaced with the Dispel Magic visual — it previously matched the Forsaken ability, which looked odd on humans.

Tauren. The Cultivation racial now has a player level requirement — it equals the required herb level divided by 5. Herbs that require more than 300 Herbalism skill can now be cultivated from level 60.

In Practice

The developers are specifically asking for feedback on Cooldown Manager: which cooldowns should be shown by default.