Blue post · Kaivax

Forever beta notes: level cap 30

A reply in Blizzard's thread WoW Forever Beta Development Notes – Updated October 26

1 October 2026, 22:56 UTC

Kaivax

Summary

The beta's level cap rises to 30, Razorfen Downs and Uldaman open, and a new dungeon, Excavation Site: Wetlands, is added. Warrior and Druid talents change widely, PvP honor costs go up, and many quests and respawns are fixed.

Highlights

Level cap 30
New dungeon Excavation Site: Wetlands for levels 26-31; Razorfen Downs opens from level 25 and Uldaman from 30
Most PvP gear and upgrade token costs up about 50%; honor cap 25,000 (was 15,000)
Cooldown Manager adds racial abilities and the Rogue class

What this means for players

With the cap at 30, Excavation Site: Wetlands (levels 26 to 31), Razorfen Downs from 25 and Uldaman from 30 are the dungeons to plan around. Warriors and Druids should recheck their talents, and PvP players should expect most gear to cost about 50% more honor. These are beta notes and may change.

The 1 October 2026 build

A broad beta build: the level cap rises to 30 with two more dungeons opened and a new one added, plus many Warrior Fury, Druid and other class talent changes, lower dungeon quest experience, higher PvP honor costs, and many quest and respawn fixes. The known issues it lists mostly concern class and combat mechanics bugs, visual or sound glitches and a few quest or interface problems.

Druid

Druid
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Bear Form	Bear Form and Dire Bear Form give extra Rage when you land a Critical Strike.	Buff	Our Balance Druid guide
Swipe	Fixes Swipe not scaling with Attack Power; it now adds 3% of the Druid's attack power. The tooltip will not show this until a later update.	Fixed	Our Druid guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Shapeshift Forms	All forms are now immune to Disarm effects, matching how it felt in the original game.	Changed	Our Druid guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Faerie Fire	Using it no longer resets your swing timer.	Changed	Our Druid guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Power Over Poison	Players of the High Order Skyborne can now do this quest to learn the Cure Poison spell.	Changed	Our Druid guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Druid: Feral

Druid: Feral
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Tiger's Fury	The ability is removed.	Removed	Our Druid guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Primal Bite	The threat it generates is roughly doubled.	Buff	Our Druid guide, changes of 2026-10-01
King of the Jungle	The talent is removed.	Removed	Our Druid guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Shifting Power	New talent connected to Shredding Attacks in the 4th row. Cat Form only; it converts 55% of base mana into 40 Energy, with a 16 second cooldown and a mana cost of 55% of base mana, the same as Cat Form. Effects that reduce shapeshifting cost reduce its cost too.	New	Our Feral Bear Druid guide
Improved Shifting Power	New talent connected to Shifting Power in the 5th row. It shortens the cooldown of Shifting Power by 4/8 seconds.	New	Our Balance Druid guide

Hunter: Marksmanship

Hunter: Marksmanship
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Improved Stings	The icon is changed to feel more like Vanilla.	Changed	Our Hunter guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Sniper Shot	The 31st talent now has a 45-yard range and adds 10 yards of range to your next 3 shots made within 10 seconds.	Changed	Our Hunter guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Hunter: Pets

Hunter: Pets
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Aggressive Mode	Aggressive Mode is back, found under the pet tab of the spell book.	New	Our Hunter guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Tameable beasts	Some beasts had pet ability ranks above their own level; all are corrected. Blizzard says this could make a pet seem to lose an ability, which should stop now.	Fixed	Our Hunter guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Hunter: Survival

Hunter: Survival
Change	What changed	Was	Now	Kind	Our guide
Predator's Edge	The icon is changed to feel more like Vanilla.			Changed	Our Hunter guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Deflection	Lowers the Parry increase the talent gives.	2/4/6/8/10%	1/2/3/4/5%	Nerf	Our Hunter guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Mage

Mage
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Mage scrolls	Scrolls learned from comprehension get another balance pass and cannot be cast while moving.	Changed	Our Mage guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Mage: Fire

Mage: Fire
Change	What changed	Was	Now	Kind	Our guide
Heating Up	Hot Streak is renamed Heating Up because it no longer depends on a streak.			Changed	Our Mage guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Combustion	The number of charges goes back down.	4	3	Changed	Our Mage guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Improved Scorch	Its Fire Vulnerability no longer rolls a second time to see whether it is resisted.			Changed	Our Mage guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Mage: Frost

Mage: Frost
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Winter's Chill	Applying it no longer rolls for resistance, since the original spell had to hit.	Changed	Our Mage guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Paladin: Protection

Paladin: Protection
Change	What changed	Was	Now	Kind	Our guide
Redoubt	Lowers the chance to Block the talent gives.	6/12/18/24/30%	4/8/12/16/20%	Nerf	Our Paladin guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Holy Shield	Raises the chance to Block.	20%	30%	Buff	Our Paladin guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Paladin: Retribution

Paladin: Retribution
Change	What changed	Was	Now	Kind	Our guide
Champion of the Light	Lowers the Intellect to Spell Damage ratio. The tooltip wrongly mentioned healing, which it never increased, so that text is removed.	33/66/100%	20/40/60%	Nerf	Our Paladin guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Priest

Priest
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Devouring Plague	It can now correctly score Critical Strikes.	Fixed	Our Priest guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Shadow Word: Death	Fixes it always getting the Early Demise bonus regardless of the target's health percentage.	Fixed	Our Discipline Priest guide

Priest: Discipline

Priest: Discipline
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Inner Focus	Its Critical Strike increase no longer applies to periodic effects.	Nerf	Our Priest guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Priest: Shadow

Priest: Shadow
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Shadow Weaving	It can no longer fail to apply.	Fixed	Our Priest guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Rogue

Rogue
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Expose Armor	Combo points are no longer all wiped out when the ability misses.	Fixed	Our Rogue guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Rogue: Subtlety

Rogue: Subtlety
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Setup	A spell you dodged or resisted from a target now gives combo points only if that target is the one you currently have selected.	Changed	Our Rogue guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Shaman

Shaman
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Ghost Wolf	It should be more visible in well-lit areas.	Changed	Our Shaman guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Disease Cleansing Totem	Fixes the totem not lasting the intended 5 minutes.	Fixed	Our Shaman guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Totemic Recall	Fixes it not restoring Mana.	Fixed	Our Shaman guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Warlock

Warlock
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Drain Soul	It is now correctly interrupted if the Warlock starts casting another spell.	Fixed	Our Warlock guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Incubus pet model	The model is swapped for a lower-resolution one.	Changed	Our Warlock guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Hellfire	It can now score Critical Strikes.	Buff	Our Warlock guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Warlock: Affliction

Warlock: Affliction
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Soul Harvest	Soul Harvesting is renamed Soul Harvest and now correctly gives its 50/100% increase to Mana regeneration.	Fixed	Our Warlock guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Warlock: Pets

Warlock: Pets
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Aggressive Mode	Aggressive Mode is back, found under the pet tab of the spell book.	New	Our Warlock guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Warrior

Warrior
Change	What changed	Was	Now	Kind	Our guide
Critical Strike Rage	Landing a critical strike with a basic attack gives extra Rage, and that bonus is raised.	75% more Rage	100% more Rage	Buff	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Rend and Sunder Armor	Both now instantly tap enemies for the Warrior.			Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Heroic Strike	Queueing it no longer raises off-hand hit chance.			Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Dual Wield Specialization	Fixes the talent's hit chance bonus applying to both weapons instead of only the off-hand.			Fixed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Berserker Rage	The ability is learned earlier.	level 32	level 30	Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02

Warrior: Arms

Warrior: Arms
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Spearing Strike	It no longer needs a two-handed weapon, but now requires Battle Stance.	Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-01

Warrior: Fury

Warrior: Fury
Change	What changed	Was	Now	Kind	Our guide
Dual Wield Specialization	The 20/40/60/80/100% boost to the off-hand weapon's Rage generation is gone; the post doesn't say whether a smaller boost replaces it.			Changed	Our Arms Warrior guide
Dual Wield Specialization	The talent stops adding hit chance to off-hand attacks.			Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Unbridled Rage	Fixes it having a lower proc chance than intended.			Fixed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-01
Booming Voice	The talent now gives a 10/20/30/40/50% larger area of effect to Shouts and a 5/10/15/20/25% cut to their Rage costs.			Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Unbridled Wrath	It no longer gives twice as much Rage to two-handed weapons.			Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Lingering Rage	New row 2 talent that delays the point at which Rage starts to decay after leaving combat by 2/4/6/8/10 seconds.			New	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Blood Craze	It no longer triggers from Bloodthirst casts.			Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Improved Cleave	The talent is removed.			Removed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Boundless Rage	The talent is removed.			Removed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Furious Precision	New row 3 talent: off-hand attacks land more often, by 4/7/10%.			New	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Raging Blows	It now lowers the Rage cost of Cleave and Whirlwind by 3.			Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Whirlwind	Whirlwind always hits with both weapons without a talent point, and Raging Blows no longer controls this.			Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Flurry	Enrage is no longer needed to reach the talent; Death Wish is needed instead.			Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Gore Drinker	New row 6 talent that requires Enrage. Enrage, Berserker Rage, Bloodrage, Death Wish and Bloodthirst make your next 3 melee attacks restore 0.5/1% of maximum Health.			New	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Improved Berserker Rage	The talent moves up a row.	Row 6	Row 5	Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Bloodthirst	Raises its Attack Power ratio.	35%	45%	Buff	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02

Warrior: Protection

Warrior: Protection
Change	What changed	Was	Now	Kind	Our guide
Iron Will	The talent moves into the first Protection row.	Row 2 of Fury	Row 1 of Protection	Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Anticipation	The talent moves down a row.	Row 1	Row 2	Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Toughness	The talent is removed.			Removed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Improved Bloodrage	The talent moves up a row.	Row 2	Row 1	Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Improved Revenge	The talent moves up a row.	Row 3	Row 2	Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Improved Disarm	The talent moves up a row.	Row 4	Row 3	Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02
Improved Shield Bash	The talent moves up a row.	Row 5	Row 4	Changed	Our Warrior guide, changes of 2026-10-02

Races: Gnome

Races: Gnome
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Eureka!	It no longer benefits periodic effects at all, and channeled spells do not count as periodic.	Changed	Our Gnome guide

Races: Skyborne

Races: Skyborne
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Shenthul	Shenthul in Orgrimmar now trains Windshaper Skyborne.	New	Our Skyborne (Windshaper) guide

Races: Undead

Races: Undead
Change	What changed	Kind	Our guide
Cannibalize	It cannot be used while the caster is immune to Physical damage.	Changed	Our Undead guide

Dungeons and raids

Dungeons and raids
Change	What changed	Kind
Excavation Site: Wetlands	A new dungeon for levels 26-31.	New
Razorfen Downs	The dungeon is now open to players, from level 25.	New
Uldaman	The dungeon is now open to players, from level 30.	New

World and quests

World and quests
Change	What changed	Kind
Level cap	Characters can now level up to level 30.	Changed
Barbershops	Darnassus and Thunder Bluff gain barbershops, every barbershop now has a barber, and city guards can point the way to one.	New
Boosted Rest debuff	The camping debuff has a new icon and a reworded tooltip to make its effect clearer.	Changed
Camping wording	Camping text now says "mutually exclusive" rather than "exclusive" to reduce confusion about how the features work.	Fixed
Campfire damage	Campfires no longer hurt players under level 5, and they hurt players below 90% health less.	Buff
World instances	Blizzard lists unspecified adjustments to world instances.	Changed
Dungeon quest experience	Dungeon quests give 50% less extra experience beyond normal quest values, in response to leveling-speed feedback.	Changed
Escort quests	Fixes being unable to start escort quests with 25 or more quests in the log.	Fixed
Multi-drop quest items	Fixes certain quest items dropping more than once.	Fixed
Quests that give items on start	Fixes some of these quests being shareable.	Fixed
Quests that start from items	Fixes some of these quests being shareable.	Fixed
Creature and object respawns	Respawn rates are raised for many creatures and objects in Hillsbrad Foothills, Ashenvale, Wetlands, Duskwood and Thousand Needles.	Changed
Plagued Lands	Fixes a problem with the Tharnariun's Hope item during this Darkshore quest.	Fixed
Destruction in Deadmines	The quest now sorts correctly under the dungeon in the quest log.	Fixed
The Great Cat Spirit quests	Fixes unreliable loot during The Great Cat Spirit and The Great Windborne Cat Spirit.	Fixed
Shimmer Ridge trolls	They respawn more evenly, and faster where they were slow.	Changed
In Defense of the King's Lands	Troggs in Loch Modan respawn slightly more slowly for this quest.	Changed
Kyle's Gone Missing!	The quest is added in Mulgore.	New
Rocks to Rests	Smooth Boulder is much more plentiful in Orgrimmar for this quest.	Changed
Blackrock Blockade	The Redridge Mountains quest is updated and its spawn rates adjusted.	Changed
A Frightened Request	The quest now sorts correctly under Ruins of Lordaeron in the quest log.	Fixed
Bloodied Insignia	Fixes players receiving several copies of the quest item.	Fixed
Serpentbloom Snakes	They now despawn after a couple of minutes.	Changed
The Forgotten Heirloom	The pocket watch in Furlbrow's Wardrobe respawns much more slowly.	Changed
Collecting Memories and Oh Brother...	The undead for Collecting Memories and Foreman Thistlenettle for Oh Brother... respawn faster.	Changed
Party leader	Creating or editing a party should no longer hand leadership to someone else.	Fixed

PvP

PvP
Change	What changed	Was	Now	Kind
Honor costs	Most PvP gear and upgrade token costs rise by approximately 50%, to better fit gear acquisition targets.			Changed
Honor cap	The cap is raised to fit the higher costs.	15,000	25,000	Changed

Professions

Professions
Change	What changed	Kind
Dungeon recipes	A number of Blacksmithing and Leatherworking recipes meant as random dungeon drops are now available.	New
Crafted wands	Crafted common and uncommon wands sell to vendors for 1 copper.	Changed
Poor Copper Vein	Fewer nodes appear in starter areas.	Changed
Skinning	Creatures can again be skinned only once before they disappear.	Changed

Items

Items
Change	What changed	Was	Now	Kind
Night Watchman's Torch	Fixes lag the torch could cause in some situations, which also could not be canceled.			Fixed
Savory Whimsyfin Delight	The food now turns you into an orc version of the Ninja and Pirate outfits seen on Savory Deviate Delight. The earlier transformations were placeholders.			Changed
Selling BoE items	Selling a BoE item with an appearance you have not collected to a vendor now makes it soulbound.	Bound to Account	Soulbound	Changed

Cooldown Manager

Cooldown Manager
Change	What changed	Kind
Racial abilities	Racial abilities are now supported.	New
Rogue support	The Rogue class is now supported.	New
Duplicate spell ranks	Classes that were already supported should no longer show a duplicate entry for every spell rank.	Fixed

Gamepad

Gamepad
Change	What changed	Kind
Pet stable	The pet stable interface is updated to work with gamepads.	New
Gamepad UI bindings	Gamepad bindings are now fixed, and rebinding a gamepad only affects the keyboard and mouse interface.	Changed
Raid and party frames	The compact Raid and Party manager frames are updated for gamepad support.	New
Macros on action bar	Fixes macros placed on a gamepad action bar being impossible to move.	Fixed

User interface

User interface
Change	What changed	Kind
Spell Damage and Spell Healing tooltips	Mousing over them on the character sheet now explains that spells of much lower rank than your level get less benefit and are less likely to trigger class abilities and talents.	Changed
Character Creation icons	Matching icons now show when Standard Definition models are toggled.	Changed
Stables frame	The frame art is updated.	Changed
Combo point art	Combo points on the target frame and Personal Resource Display have new art.	Changed
Loot roll names	Fixes loot rolls in chat not showing a player's full name.	Fixed
Auction house suffixes	The auction house now correctly shows item suffixes.	Fixed

Audio and graphics

Audio and graphics
Change	What changed	Kind
Rain	Rain is easier to see.	Fixed
Ray Traced Shadows option	The setting is taken out for now and is planned to come back once it works properly.	Removed
Weapon size	Weapons held in hand or sheathed on the back are sized more consistently across every race.	Changed

Forever beta notes: racials reworked 16 October 2026, 00:15 UTC
Forever beta notes: Cooldown Manager test 24 September 2026, 22:23 UTC
Forever beta notes: City of Dalaran 8 October 2026, 21:32 UTC
World of Warcraft: Forever Class Deep Dives — Hunter and Druid 30 September 2026, 19:00 UTC
WoW Forever Beta Known Issues - October 8 17 September 2026, 21:47 UTC, updated 8 October 2026, 21:38 UTC

This is our own summary of what Blizzard posted, not Blizzard's text. The original is the authority.