The World of Warcraft: Forever beta has had two weekly builds since it opened on September 17: the September 24 update and the October 1 build that raised the level cap to 30, to which Blizzard added a Warrior pass the same day. Hotfixes and realm restarts followed, the latest on October 5. Here is every change Blizzard has posted, newest first, from its development notes and forum posts as of October 6; the beta's last full day of testing is October 21.
Beta updates at a glance
| Date (Pacific time) |
What Blizzard changed or announced |
| October 5–6 |
Stitches hostile again in Duskwood; a level 30 quest for 25 Library Books, reported by players |
| October 5 |
Realm restarts to apply fixes, then client build 70235: the game program only, no game data changed |
| October 3 |
Gnomeregan fixed; a wrong social-features warning for Australian testers fixed |
| October 1 |
Level 30 build: Excavation Site: Wetlands, Razorfen Downs and Uldaman, changes for all nine classes, then a Warrior pass; a login issue that evening |
| October 1 |
16 Legacy points promised to every tester; a warning against gold from strangers coming to the game |
| September 28 |
Gold buyers warned: illicit gold removed, accounts can be closed |
| September 25 |
Realm restarts for stability |
| September 24 |
Weekly build: racials, Cooldown Manager, gamepad, items, all nine classes |
| September 22 |
Client build 69977: Mac and gamepad fixes |
| September 17 |
The beta opens, capped at level 20 |
Our patch notes page gathers Blizzard's notes, hotfixes and known issues as they are posted, checked every four hours.
October 5: realm restarts and build 70235
On the evening of October 5 (Pacific time), Blizzard restarted the beta realms "to apply some fixes that should improve the quality of the game service", and the launcher installed a new client, build 1.60.1.70235. We compared it with the previous build, 70205, file by file: only the game's program files changed. Every data table of the game, from items and spells to talents, quests and maps, and every interface file are identical, so our talent planner, spells, item database and BiS lists, built on build 70205, stay exact. Blizzard has published no development notes for it.
Two changes came from the servers, which the client's files don't carry:
- Stitches is hostile again in Duskwood, as Blizzard's Johnny Cash announced on X on October 5 (reported by Wowhead).
- Library Books: at level 30, a new quest takes 25 Library Books for new rewards, according to Wowhead, which notes that only one of them may be usable in the beta.
The October 1 build: level 30
Blizzard took the beta offline on the morning of October 1 (in the evening in Europe, where it came back early on October 2) and reopened it at level 30. The new Excavation Site: Wetlands dungeon (levels 26–31) opened, along with Razorfen Downs from level 25 and Uldaman from 30; dungeon quests now give 50% less bonus experience; most PvP gear and upgrade tokens cost about 50% more Honor, with the Honor cap raised from 15,000 to 25,000; and all nine classes changed. Our level 30 patch notes go through the classes and the new content with the client's data. Other changes in the same notes:
- Towns: barbershops in Darnassus and Thunder Bluff, a barber in every barbershop, and city guards who give directions to them.
- Camping: campfires no longer damage players below level 5, and hurt players below 90% health less.
- Items: selling a bind-on-equip item whose appearance you haven't collected now makes it soulbound (it was bound to account).
- Gathering: creatures can again be skinned only once, and starting areas have fewer Poor Copper Vein nodes.
- Cooldown Manager: it now supports racial abilities and Rogues.
- Racials: the Gnome's Eureka! no longer benefits periodic effects.
- Fire Mage: Hot Streak is renamed Heating Up, and Combustion goes back to 3 charges.
- Quests: Kyle's quest returns to Mulgore, and creatures respawn faster in Hillsbrad Foothills, Ashenvale, the Wetlands, Duskwood and Thousand Needles.
- Graphics: the Ray Traced Shadows option is removed until it works.
Warrior changes, added the same day
Later on October 1 (October 2 in Europe), Blizzard added a Warrior pass to the notes. Basic attacks that land a critical strike now generate 100% more Rage (it was 75%), and a bug that gave Dual Wield Specialization's hit bonus to both weapons is fixed.
- Fury: new talents Lingering Rage, Furious Precision and Gore Drinker; Improved Cleave and Boundless Rage are gone; Death Wish, not Enrage, now leads to Flurry; Whirlwind always strikes with both weapons; Bloodthirst's attack power ratio rises to 45% (was 35%); Berserker Rage comes at level 30 (was 32).
- Protection: Toughness is removed, Iron Will joins the first row, and Improved Bloodrage, Improved Revenge, Improved Disarm and Improved Shield Bash each move up a row, giving Warriors without a shield a path to the middle of the tree.
Our Warrior guide covers the class, and our Warrior talent planner draws its trees from the client files.
16 Legacy points for testers
On October 1, Blizzard said that in a coming week of the beta it will give every tester 16 Legacy points, so the system can be tested without first leveling several classes and clearing dungeons, and that the grant will stay until the beta ends. As of October 6, it hasn't said which week. Plan where the 16 points go in our Legacy planner, and see what each challenge asks in our Legacy challenges guide.
Gold sellers and buyers
Blizzard keeps closing beta accounts caught botting for gold, along with those of players who bought or knowingly received illicit gold (October 1). It had warned on September 28 that it would act more and more against buyers: the gold is removed, and accounts can be closed. A warning will soon appear in the game whenever you trade with strangers, and the same rules apply after launch.
Fixes and restarts since October 1
- October 1, evening: an issue kept testers from logging in; Blizzard worked on it that night.
- October 3: Gnomeregan, which testers reported broken, works again. "Who broke it? Gnomes, of course."
- October 3: Australian testers no longer get a dialog wrongly saying their social features are locked (fixed at 4:00 a.m. AEDT on October 4).
- October 5: brief realm restarts to apply fixes that "should improve the quality of the game service"; the beta reopened a few minutes later.
Known issues added on October 1
- Chaining spells doesn't play the next cast's precast effects and sounds until the first cast ends.
- Enemies can parry and block from behind if you stand very close to them.
- The WoW Forever installation is larger than intended; Blizzard is working to shrink it.
- Switching to or from the gamepad UI resets the edit mode layout.
- Debuffs such as Faerie Fire and Demoralizing Shout don't cause threat.
- Retribution Aura uses the target's spell power instead of the Paladin's.
- Anduin Wrynn and other children wear hats by mistake; removing them, Blizzard says, "is going to take a while".
The September 24 build
The September 24 update changed four racials and all nine classes, opened the Cooldown Manager to testing, added gamepad options and fixed items and quests. Here it is as Blizzard's notes described it, with one line per class; the October 1 build above revised a few of these points, such as Eureka!, the Cooldown Manager and Hot Streak.
Racials: Eureka!, Will to Survive, Cultivation, Touch of the Grave
- Gnome, Eureka!: every class gets the same 10% discount on its Mana, Rage or Energy abilities.
- Human, Will to Survive: its visual now matches Dispel Magic, not Will of the Forsaken.
- Tauren, Cultivation: each herb requires a character level equal to the Herbalism skill needed to pick it, divided by 5: level 30 for a 150-skill herb, level 60 for herbs above 300 skill.
- Undead, Touch of the Grave: it no longer breaks crowd control or triggers from abilities that deal no damage. Shadow Word: Pain triggers it on cast, not on its periodic damage; Distract, Pick Pocket and Polymorph no longer do, so Distract can't pull Rogues and Druids out of Stealth through it.
Full tooltips for every race are in our racials guide.
The Cooldown Manager
The Cooldown Manager moves key information from your buff bar or action bar into interface elements you can place and customize. It is off by default: tick Enable Cooldown Manager in Options, under Gameplay Enhancements. Druids, Mages, Priests, Warriors and Warlocks can test it now, other classes later, and Blizzard mainly wants to know which spells you'd like tracked by default.
For now it doesn't support spell ranks, which Blizzard will fix, and it can't track the Healthstone's cooldown, pet cooldowns, Arcane Blast or item enhancements such as Windfury and Rogue poisons. Priests track every spell by default.
Gamepad support
New flyouts put Druid shapeshift forms, Hunter and Warlock pet controls and pet spells, Paladin auras and Warrior stances on the gamepad action bar, and the Hunter and Warlock pet bar no longer takes over the bottom bar. The Gamepad (Alpha) options gain:
- Use Compact Action Bar: shows only the active action bar.
- Fixed Party Targeting: in a party, not a raid, each directional pad button targets one member.
- Swap Target Modifier Sides: friendly targeting on the right, hostile on the left.
- Swap Friendly Targeting Action Sides and Swap Hostile Targeting Action Sides: swap the directional pad and face button actions for that modifier.
Items and the 1-silver respec
- Wizard Oil is back to its Classic Era values: 8 spell power for Minor Wizard Oil, 16 for Lesser Wizard Oil, 24 for Wizard Oil. Brilliant Wizard Oil is unchanged.
- Wands no longer gain damage from your spell damage.
- A handful of guns and bows now consume ammunition correctly.
- Some quest rewards now have the right item level; compare them in our item database.
For the beta only, a respec costs 1 silver if you haven't changed your talents recently. After a reset the price climbs, then drops back to 1 silver an hour later. Try builds first in our talent planner.
Quests, fixes and known issues
Several dungeon quests can no longer be shared to hand out quest items. Snow Leopard Prowlers in Dun Morogh and the Crystal Lake murlocs in Elwynn Forest respawn faster, and the Gnarlpine furbolg bounty in Teldrassil asks for 15 instead of 20. A memory leak that slowly degraded performance is fixed.
New known issues: creating or changing a party can move players to another world instance, and the Stormwind minimap displays incorrectly. Blizzard's full list also warns of Lua errors if you open the Legacy pane with Y before level 25, and notes that guild charters can be turned in unsigned for now.
Class changes in brief
Our classes overview and its class guides cover these in depth:
- Druid: Wrath deals about 50% more base damage; Mangle becomes Primal Bite.
- Hunter: Furious Howl's Attack Power bonus drops 40%; beasts above your level can't be tamed.
- Mage: Wake of Fire lasts 30 seconds (was 20), Hot Streak 20 (was 15).
- Paladin: Holy Strike deals more weapon damage from rank 2 on, with a 10-second cooldown (was 12).
- Priest: Renew can crit; Power Word: Shield can overwrite an existing one on a target without Weakened Soul.
- Rogue: Sap flags you for PvP when used on a flagged target.
- Shaman: Flametongue Totem no longer stacks with Flametongue Weapon or Windfury Totem.
- Warlock: the Voidwalker's Sacrifice scales with 10% of your spell healing.
- Warrior: Slam's cooldown rises to 18 seconds (was 15); Bloodthrill triggers twice as often.
These are beta values, and Blizzard keeps adjusting them build by build until the test closes on October 21.
