With the most recent update of the WoW Forever beta, many players are reconsidering what to play at launch. That’s because every Race received changes.
Some of these changes allow for more freedom, with the removal of Weapon Specializations. However, some changes made players feel like they had to totally rethink their Race/Class combination before the game’s official release on November 4th. With that being said, let’s take a look at how each Race was impacted.
Undead Racial Changes
The most popular race in the beta, Undead, may have received one of the biggest nerfs, with the Touch of the Grave internal cooldown increasing from one second to 25 seconds. With a 1-second ICD, this passive used to provide Undead with a steady stream of life-steal. With this change, players are wondering if Undead will even be worth playing now.
Undead
- Touch of the Grave: Proc chance and cooldown adjusted to make benefit more consistent. Improvements made to visuals.
- Undead will no longer have Will of the Forsaken available to them while under the effects of Scatter Shot.
- Touch of the Dead now has a 30% chance to activate for casters and a 20% chance to activate for Paladins/Rogues/Warriors, as well as a 25 second internal cooldown.
- Touch of the Dead no longer scales with Shadow increases on the target or the caster.
- Touch of the Dead no longer suffers from a decreased multiplier when a lower ranked spell is used.
- Developers’ notes: This shouldn’t have been in place because it’s a racial, not a Class spell or ability.
Human Racial Changes
Humans already had one of the best Racial passives in the game with Sword Specialization. Now, this +2% Critical Strike Chance increase has become a baseline stat, regardless of what weapon the Human is using. This change will especially affect Human Priests, who were previously unable to benefit from the racial, as they could not wield swords.
Human
- Sword Specialization: Replaced with Ruthless: 2% increased critical strike chance.
Orc Racial Changes
Similar to Humans, Orcs had their Axe Specialization removed and replaced with a baseline +1% Critical Strike Chance increase. Again, this is especially beneficial to the new Class option of Mages, who are unable to equip Axes.
However, Orcs did not come out completely unscathed, as their Blood Fury cooldown increased from 2 minutes to 3 minutes. Shatter Curse was also nerfed, no longer providing immunity to Curses and Banes, and reducing the Magic resistance benefit from 15% to just 5%.
Orc
- Axe Specialization: Replaced with Savage: 1% increased critical strike chance.
- Blood Fury: Cooldown increased to 3 minutes (was 2 minutes).
- Shatter Curse: Now dispels Curses and Banes (was granting immunity). Magic damage taken reduced by 5% (was 15%).
Skyborne Racial Changes
The new race on the block, the Skyborne, actually received several buffs in this week’s update. Namely, the Haste provided by their Wind Blessed passive was increased from 1% to 3%. Additionally, their Walk on Air gliding ability had its cooldown reduced.
Finally, the number of Elemental Convergences and Leylines throughout the world was increased, allowing Skyborne to more easily benefit from their Read Leyline and Skysight buffs.
Skyborne
- Wind Blessed: Haste bonus increased to 3% (was 1%).
- Skysight: Now castable while moving.
- Read Leyline: Now castable while moving. Minimum duration increased to 30 seconds (was 20 seconds).
- Walk on Air: Cooldown reduced to 90 seconds (was 2 minutes).
- Increased the number of spawn locations of Elemental Convergences and Leylines in most Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor zones.
Night Elf Racial Changes
Night Elves remained mostly unchanged in this update, only receiving a minor buff to their movement speed from Quickness stacking and a visual bug fix.
Night Elf
- Quickness: Movement speed increase now stacks with other movement speed increases.
- Night Elves no longer display their shields while in Wisp Form.
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Dwarf Racial Changes
Similar to Orcs and Humans, Dwarves had their Weapon Specialization removed and replaced with a 2% increase to critical damage and healing.
Dwarf
- Mace Specialization: Replaced with Earth Fury: 2% increased critical damage and healing.
- Find Treasure: Now also grants a chance to find additional items in most chests.
Additionally, Dwarves receive a chance to find extra items in chests. This may give players who enjoy doing stealth runs in high-level dungeons a reason to roll Dwarf, or it could just lead to more trash filling up your bag space.
Tauren Racial Changes
Tauren actually received the highest number of racial changes. Most significantly, the buffs from their Endurance passive were changed from +1% Hit Chance to +2% increased critical damage and healing. Many players see this as a nerf, especially for Tank and DPS classes.
The Plainsrunning racial has been reworked to grant players an additional +3% mounted speed that stacks with other movement increases. Additionally, Tauren will no longer be able to maintain their stacks of Plainsrunning by stutter-stepping near NPCs. Now, players will be required to move a minimum distance in order to maintain their stacks.
Finally, Tauren received a couple of cooldown buffs to their racials. Cultivation was reduced from 1 hour to just 15 minutes, and War Stomp went from 2 minutes to 90 seconds.
Tauren
- Endurance: Now grants 2% increased critical damage and healing (was 1% hit chance).
- Plainsrunning: Also grants 3% increased mounted movement speed. This increase stacks with other mounted movement speed increases.
- Plainsrunning now requires the Tauren to move a minimum distance per second to keep the effect.
- Developers’ notes: Stutter-stepping is no longer sufficient to maintain the effect. This minimum does make some allowance for movement speed penalties.
- Cultivation: Cooldown reduced to 15 minutes (was 60 minutes).
- War Stomp: Cooldown reduced to 90 seconds (was 2 minutes).
Gnome Racial Changes
Gnomes received a buff to their Eureka! racial ability. Now, instead of only applying to three spells or abilities, this 10% damage bonus applies to everything within an 8-second window.
Gnome
- Eureka!: Now an 8 second buff with no charges. Same effect on damage and ability costs. Now also benefits Power Word: Shield.
Troll Racial Changes
Finally, the least-played race during the WoW Forever beta received an extremely minor change to their Regeneration bonus.
Funny enough, this regeneration increase appears to make Trolls invulnerable in some circumstances.
