WoW Forever Beta Development Notes – Updated September 24

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

• Rejuvenation can now land critical hits
• Tranquility can now land critical hits
• Wrath base damage increased ~50%
• Thorns 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 Primal Bite. 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 Blood Frenzy name and icon
  • Fixed Feral Charge (Cat) being castable on allies
• Restoration
  • Wild Growth can now land critical hits

Hunter

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

Mage

• Arcane Missiles 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)
  • Ignite no longer double dips on % damage increase modifiers

Paladin

• Retribution Aura now updates its values based on the caster's spell power
• Fixed the Flash of Light cast animation not playing at the end of the cast
• Fixed various issues with Consecration
  • 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
• Holy Strike'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
• Righteous Fury: Holy threat increase changed to 60% (was 90%)
• Holy
  • Holy Strike'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
  • Light's Vigil's tooltip is reorganized to make it clear only the damage component refunds some of the Mana cost
  • Holy Power now increases Holy Strike's critical strike chance by 15% and keeps all of its old effects
• Retribution
  • Vengeance now activates off non-periodic critical strikes
  • Vengeance's maximum stacks lowered to 3 (was 5)
  • Two-Handed Weapon Specialization's damage increase reduced to 2/4/6% (was 3/6/9%)
  • Sacred Arbiter 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

• Renew can now land critical hits
• Power Word: Shield can now always overwrite an existing shield on a target without Weakened Soul
• Gnome
  • Contingency Plan can now land critical hits
  • Confounding Flash now has a cast visual, more Holy than Arcane, with sounds updated to match
• Night Elf
  • Starshards now correctly gains spell pushback resistance from the Twilight Focus talent
• Undead
  • Dark Sacrifice no longer breaks crowd control that breaks on damage
  • Its tooltip now correctly shows that the Mana gained scales with Spirit

Rogue

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

Shaman

• Lightning Bolt ranks 3 and 4 deal more damage so they're always upgrades over previous ranks, despite the changed cast times
• Windfury Totem: its buff now displays as Windfury Totem instead of 'Windfury Totem Passive'
• Flametongue Totem: its buff now displays as Flametongue Totem instead of 'Flametongue Totem Effect'
• Flametongue Totem 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
• Tranquil Air Totem, Windfury Totem and Grace of Air Totem no longer stack together, even from different Shamans in the same group
• Elemental
  • Swapped the positions of Elemental Fury (row 3) and Elemental Alacrity (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
  • Lava Burst ranks 1 and 2 now deal about 10% more base damage than the Lightning Bolt rank learned around the same level
• Enhancement
  • Rage of the Farseer (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
  • Riptide can now land critical hits

Warlock

• Life Tap'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

• Sunder Armor: corrected threat values on all ranks, including a small increase to threat from Attack Power
• Protection
  • Swapped the positions of Bastion (row 5) and Focused Rage (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
  • Bloodthrill'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
  • Slam's cooldown increased to 18 seconds (was 15)
  • Improved Slam now reduces Slam's cooldown by 1.5/3 seconds

Races

• Gnome
  • Eureka! is now a 10% discount on Mana, Rage or Energy abilities for every class
• Human
  • Will to Survive's visual now matches Dispel Magic instead of Will of the Forsaken
• Tauren
  • Cultivation 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
  • Touch of the Grave 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
• Wizard Oil: 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