WoW Forever Beta Development Notes – Updated Sep 24 PDT

A new build went live after the September 24 beta maintenance. Below are Blizzard's development notes in their original order and indentation, followed by the new known issues. Italic lines are the developer notes that came with them.

Bug fixes

Fixed casters not playing their precast animations and sometimes standing while casting
The water-jump sound is more aesthetically pleasing
Adjusted Human death sounds
Fixed crafting or casting making players stand up while waiting for their Campfire buff
- You can now buff each other, cast and craft while waiting for Campfire buffs
- You can now get the Campfire buff while sitting, sitting in a chair, sleeping, lying down or using the kneel emote
Resolved Huey Sunnydale's legs failing to render properly
Fixed a Season of Discovery rune ability being visible
Fixed pet happiness not decreasing once your pet was at max loyalty
Fixed the Undercity canal ooze being much brighter than intended
Removed a setting that could disable fog in an unintended manner
Resolved a water display issue and various other display artifacts on Mac
Fixed a memory leak causing gradual performance degradation for some players
Fixed in-game mail ignoring surnames

All classes

If you haven't recently changed your talents, respeccing costs 1 silver (beta only). After your first reset the next one costs much more, dropping back to 1 silver after an hour

Druid

can now land critical hits
can now land critical hits
base damage increased ~50%
now updates its values based on the caster's spell power
- If the caster can't be found or is too far away, it reverts to its base values
Feral
- Mangle is renamed . Its signature debuff was removed, so the old name no longer fit the ability
  - All talents that referenced Mangle now reference Primal Bite
- The Primal Fury talent goes back to its original name and icon
- Fixed (Cat) being castable on allies
Restoration
- can now land critical hits

Hunter

Pets
- Furious Howl Attack Power bonus reduced 40%
- Sonic Blast is now properly available to Bat pets
- no longer works on beasts higher than the Hunter's level
Marksmanship
- Talenting out of no longer leaves you with -4% damage while your pet is active
Survival
- can now land critical hits
- now increases movement speed by 30% for 3 seconds

Mage

no longer checks line of sight on each missile, just once at the start of the channel, so targets moving out of sight mid-channel won't stop the missiles
Fire
- Wake of Fire buff duration increased to 30 seconds (was 20)
  - Developers: Wake of Fire was hard to use well while leveling because mages need to restore mana between fights. The longer duration should smooth that out
- Hot Streak buff duration increased to 20 seconds (was 15)
- no longer double dips on % damage increase modifiers

Paladin

now updates its values based on the caster's spell power
Fixed the cast animation not playing at the end of the cast
Fixed various issues with
- Its increased damage effect failing to apply to some targets
- Its Z axis not functioning consistently
- It pulling targets vertically above or below the caster
's % of weapon damage per rank changed to 25/29/32/36/39/43/46/50% (was 25/25/30/30/35/35/40/40%)
- Developers: This increases Holy Strike's damage at all points while leveling and how much it contributes to your rotation. Early ranks didn't always feel like an upgrade when you bought a new rank
Fixed a bug with Echo of Justice causing it to have a higher than intended chance to activate
: Holy threat increase changed to 60% (was 90%)
Holy
- 's cooldown lowered to 10 seconds (was 12)
- Improved Holy Strike removed from the talent tree
  - Developers: Some talents always feel 'required', like Relentless Strikes for Rogues, but one that reduces a core ability's cooldown this early in a healing tree felt required. So we removed it and made its behavior baseline
- 's tooltip is reorganized to make it clear only the damage component refunds some of the Mana cost
- now increases Holy Strike's critical strike chance by 15% and keeps all of its old effects
Retribution
- now activates off non-periodic critical strikes
- Vengeance's maximum stacks lowered to 3 (was 5)
- 's damage increase reduced to 2/4/6% (was 3/6/9%)
- now increases Holy Strike's damage by 20% (was 10%)
- Twist of Light now also reduces the Mana cost of your Seal spells by 20%

Priest

can now land critical hits
can now always overwrite an existing shield on a target without Weakened Soul
Gnome
- can now land critical hits
- now has a cast visual, more Holy than Arcane, with sounds updated to match
Night Elf
- now correctly gains spell pushback resistance from the talent
Undead
- no longer breaks crowd control that breaks on damage
- Its tooltip now correctly shows that the Mana gained scales with Spirit

Rogue

now correctly flags the Rogue for PvP when used on a PvP-flagged target

Shaman

ranks 3 and 4 deal more damage so they're always upgrades over previous ranks, despite the changed cast times
: its buff now displays as Windfury Totem instead of 'Windfury Totem Passive'
: its buff now displays as Flametongue Totem instead of 'Flametongue Totem Effect'
no longer has a duration and is instantly replaced when you place another totem
Flametongue Totem can no longer be stacked by recasting it
Flametongue Totem no longer stacks with Flametongue Weapon
Flametongue Totem no longer stacks with Windfury Totem
, Windfury Totem and no longer stack together, even from different Shamans in the same group
Elemental
- Swapped the positions of (row 3) and (row 6)
  - Developers: Crit damage talents early in a tree are exciting for other specs, but leveling Elemental lacks the crit chance to appreciate them. Moving a better Elemental talent earlier gives it important progression moments it lacked. We know this affects Enhancement's spell crit damage and will use the room created to add more to Enhancement in the future
- ranks 1 and 2 now deal about 10% more base damage than the Lightning Bolt rank learned around the same level
Enhancement
- (row 7) no longer increases spell casting speed
  - Developers: The spell casting speed wasn't necessary for the ability's core function, so we removed it
Restoration
- can now land critical hits

Warlock

's tooltip now correctly shows the Life converted and only states that it scales with Spirit
Voidwalker Sacrifice now correctly scales with 10% of the Warlock's spell healing

Warrior

: corrected threat values on all ranks, including a small increase to threat from Attack Power
Protection
- Swapped the positions of (row 5) and (row 6)
  - Developers: We wanted to give Focused Rage sooner instead of more damage from Bastion, to smooth out progression while leveling as Protection before Shield Slam
Arms
- 's chance to activate increased to 4/8/12/16/20% (was 2/4/6/8/10%)
- Bloodthrill only activates off main-hand melee attacks, including Cleave and Heroic Strike
- 's cooldown increased to 18 seconds (was 15)
- now reduces Slam's cooldown by 1.5/3 seconds

Races

Gnome
- is now a 10% discount on Mana, Rage or Energy abilities for every class
Human
- 's visual now matches Dispel Magic instead of Will of the Forsaken
Tauren
- now has a player-level requirement for every herb, equal to the Herbalism skill needed to pick it divided by 5. Herbs that need more than 300 skill can be cultivated at level 60
Undead
- no longer breaks CC or activates from spells and abilities that have no damage component
  - Developers: Shadow Word: Pain activates it on cast but not on periodic damage. Distract won't activate it, so you can't pull Rogues and Druids out of Stealth with Distract, and Pick Pocket won't activate it either. Polymorph already wasn't broken by Touch of the Grave, but it can no longer activate it

Cooldown Manager

Pulls critical information from the buff bar and action bars into a fully customizable spot. It's off by default and can be enabled under Gameplay Enhancements in Options
- Druid, Mage, Priest, Warrior and Warlock are available for testing
Additional classes will become testable in future updates
The most wanted feedback right now: spells you wish were tracked by default
Spell ranks aren't supported yet; this will be resolved in a future beta update

Gamepad

Class-specific flyouts are added to some classes' action bars
- Druids: shapeshift flyout
- Hunters and Warlocks: pet control and pet spell flyouts
- Paladins: aura flyout
- Warriors: stance flyout
The pet bar no longer replaces the bottom gamepad action bar for Hunters and Warlocks
New options are added to the Gamepad (Alpha) section of the game options
- Use Compact Action Bar: shows only the currently active action bar
- Fixed Party Targeting: in a non-raid party, each directional-pad button is assigned to a specific party member
- Swap Target Modifier Sides: puts friendly targeting on the right and hostile on the left
- Swap Friendly Target Action Sides: swaps the directional pad and face button actions with the friendly targeting modifier
- Swap Hostile Target Action Sides: swaps the directional pad and face button actions with the hostile targeting modifier
Fixed Edit Mode layouts not applying while the gamepad UI is enabled
Updated Map and Quest Log bindings
- New hover functionality for POI pins
Updated support for the Compact Raid Frame Manager and Role Poll frames

Items

A handful of guns and bows weren't correctly consuming or using ammunition. They have been corrected
A number of quest rewards are updated to the correct item level
A small number of early caster rewards are adjusted
: Minor reverts to the Classic value of 8 spell power, Lesser to 16 and Wizard Oil to 24. Brilliant Wizard Oil is unchanged
Wands: no longer gain any additional damage from the user's spell damage

Quests

Resolved several dungeon quests being shareable, which granted the receiving player a quest item
Dalaran: faction adjustments; spawns are now present just outside the city entrance
Dun Morogh: Snow Leopard Prowler respawns much faster
Dun Morogh: resolved some players being unable to loot the rifle for 'Treacherous Cold'
Durotar: reduced the respawn time of the escort NPC for 'Lost in the Shadows'
Elwynn Forest: 'Book Return' now removes the extra Book Bag on completion
Elwynn Forest: increased the amount of crates for 'Stolen Enchanting Supplies'
Elwynn Forest: murloc camps around Crystal Lake respawn more quickly
Elwynn Forest: Mother Fang respawns a bit more slowly and doesn't always drop a green item
Elwynn Forest: Shinyfinder Narf respawns more quickly, and the quest item can be looted by all party members
Elwynn Forest: Nimsy respawns more quickly
Elwynn Forest: you can learn Skinning from Helene Peltskinner even while you have a quest with her
Elwynn Forest: increased the amount of supply spawns for 'Stolen Enchanting Supplies'
Elwynn Forest: Jasperlode Mine and Fargodeep Mine are a little more deadly than intended for solo players, so we're taking their candles away. We do not anticipate any fallout from this theft
Mulgore: Water Pitchers for 'A Humble Task' respawn faster
Silithus: Khonsu's arrival is removed from the beta phase and will return to Azeroth in the future
Silverpine Forest: Pyrewood Village worgen respawn more quickly
Teldrassil: the objective count for 'Bounty: Gnarlpine Furbolg' reduced to 15 (was 20)
Undercity: the Skyborne quest 'Exploring the Horde' now completes the objective to talk with Lady Sylvanas Windrunner
Westfall: increased the spawn rate of the Defias Messenger
Zephras Isle: the High Order Skyborne quest 'Catching Wind' is redesigned, with spawn adjustments at the Overlook Standing Stones in Shen'dar Highlands
Zephras Isle: the druids of Nightclaw Cavern now properly award credit for 'Wounds of Betrayal' when healed
Zephras Isle: 'A Firm Response' no longer fails to grant credit

User interface

Updated the nameplate selection display
Personal Resource Display textures are updated

Resolved issues

Teldrassil: during the quest 'Escaping Ban'ethil', Sentinel Lynessa Duskblossom runs a bit too fast and spams her Strike ability. Fixed in the next beta build
Loch Modan: 'Snowbound' gives more XP than intended. Adjusted in the next beta build

New known issues (September 24)

Banes and Curses do not properly track if you drop your target and re-acquire a target with an existing bane or curse
Healthstone cooldown cannot be tracked
Priest tracks all spells by default
Arcane Blast cannot be tracked
Mana gem requires an additional spell to be cast by the mage to properly begin tracking its cooldown
Creating or changing party composition may transfer players to a different world instance. Improvements are being worked on, with an update soon
Pet cooldowns cannot be tracked
Item enhancements (such as Windfury or rogue poisons) cannot be tracked
The minimap in Stormwind has display issues; fixed in a later build
Personal Resource Display doesn't show combo points

Sources