Classes & races

Every class in Forever, and what changed from Classic

Looking for which race can play which class? That is a table of its own: every race and class combination in Forever, with the twelve new ones marked. Not sure what to roll at all? The class picker narrows it to a handful in five questions.

Forever ships the nine Classic classes and adds no tenth at launch. The four you will not find are Death Knight, Demon Hunter, Evoker, Monk: they belong to expansions this game does not include.

The useful comparison is against Classic, not retail, because Forever is built on Classic’s combat model. Below is what is actually different, per class. Be warned that Blizzard has published a full kit for 9 of the nine, so most of these lists are short on purpose. Where a tree has not been revealed, this page says so instead of guessing.

What changed for everyone

These land on all nine, and between them they undo several of Classic’s most-complained-about constraints.

A new 16-point talent milestone

Talent trees keep Classic’s structure and row count, and the one-point milestones at 11, 21 and 31 points stay. Forever adds a fourth at 16 points in every tree, which gives shallow off-tree dips a real payoff for the first time.

Party buffs are baseline, not talents

Divine Spirit, Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Might and Improved Mark of the Wild no longer cost talent points. In Classic these were the tax that locked a raid slot into a fixed build; in Forever those points are yours to spend.

One Hit stat and one Crit stat

Spell, melee and ranged hit chance consolidate into a single stat, and the three critical strike chances do the same. This quietly fixes hybrid gearing, where a Classic Enhancement Shaman or Feral Druid had to stack two separate versions of the same stat.

Bonus healing carries damage with it

Bonus healing now also grants one third as much bonus damage, so healing gear is no longer dead weight the moment you need to kill something. Weapon skill required per item is also reduced.

Caster weapons and dungeon loot rebuilt

Every dungeon drop was re-examined, with hundreds of new or adjusted items, spell damage and healing arriving earlier in progression, and real spell damage on caster weapons. New stat options include parry and dodge reduction.

Slower, more deliberate combat

Blizzard is targeting roughly 10 to 15 seconds for a solo player to kill an ordinary creature, which is closer to original vanilla pacing than to anything since.

Class by class

Druid

Tank / Healer / Melee / RangedFull kit published

The one class that can fill every role, at the cost of gearing for each. Forms do the heavy lifting.

Changed from Classic

• Improved Mark of the Wild is baseline, so the Druid tax on the Balance tree is gone.
• Skyborne can be Druids on either faction, with their own forms. Druid stops being a four-race class.
• One Hit and one Crit stat matters more here than anywhere: a Feral Druid no longer gears twice.system-wide
• Bonus healing granting damage helps hybrid Druids who swap roles mid-dungeon.system-wide

Talents named: Named at the new milestones: Feral Charge at 11 points, Shifting Power and Primal Bite at 16, Berserk at 31; Nature’s Splendor at 11, Insect Swarm at 16, plus Eclipse and a redesigned Moonkin Form in Balance; Gift of the Earthmother at 11, Swiftmend at 16 and Wild Growth at 31 in Restoration. Published as prose rather than a grid, so the full trees are still unknown.

Hunter

RangedFull kit published

A pet, a bow, and the most forgiving solo levelling in the game.

Changed from Classic

• Aimed Shot is baseline at level 20, and it no longer shares a cooldown with Arcane Shot. Multi-Shot takes that shared cooldown instead, so the rotation is built around a different pair.
• Traps work in combat. The cooldown goes up to 30 seconds in exchange, and Frost-based and Fire-based traps run on separate cooldowns.
• Pets scale off your gear and no longer take your raid buffs. Every family can learn Bite or Claw and Dive or Dash, and each one gains a unique ability on top.
• Foxes are a new pet family, with an ability called Trickster’s Dance.
• Scorpid Sting reduces the target’s hit chance by 2% rather than draining Strength and Agility, and Disengage sheds twice as much threat.
• Humans can be Hunters. The Alliance’s most popular race gains the class it never had.
• Skyborne can be Hunters on either faction.
• Unified Hit improves Trap reliability, since traps no longer key off a separate hit table.
• Reduced weapon skill requirements ease the ranged weapon grind.system-wide

Talents named: Named at the new milestones: Summon Hawk on Beast Mastery’s 16-point row, Lone Wolf at 11 points and Sniper Shot at 31 in Marksmanship, and Predator’s Edge and Lacerating Strikes at 31 in Survival. Blizzard published these as prose, not as a grid, so the rest of each tree is still unknown.

Mage

RangedFull kit published

Burst damage, crowd control and portals.

Changed from Classic

• Frostfire Bolt is a new level 40 spell that counts as both Fire and Frost. It takes 3 seconds to cast, and it uses the higher of your Fire or Frost spell damage bonus against the lower of the target’s two resistances, so a hybrid build stops being punished for splitting.
• Ignite no longer stacks into one shared debuff: every Mage gets their own. Improved Scorch and Winter’s Chill went the same way, which ends the Classic raid pattern of one Mage maintaining a debuff for everyone else.
• Arcane Blast is a new 11-point talent, a 2.5 second cast that stacks up to 4 times for 8 seconds, raising both its own mana cost and the damage of your other spells. It breaks the moment you cast anything else.
• Ice Lance arrives as an 11-point talent: instant, weak on its own, and 300% harder on a Frozen target. Fingers of Frost, new on Frost’s row 5, is what keeps targets counting as Frozen.
• Frost lost some control in exchange. Cold Snap’s cooldown doubles from 5 to 10 minutes, Improved Blizzard’s slow caps at 40% rather than 65%, and Cone of Cold’s duration is cut, all aimed at kiting.
• Orcs can be Mages, which breaks one of the oldest Horde restrictions, and Alliance Skyborne can be Mages as their faction-locked option.
• No Mage talents were removed. Blizzard says "None" for both Fire and Frost, which makes Mage the lightest-touch rework of the four October classes.

Talents named: Named at the new milestones: Arcane Blast at 11 points and Missile Barrage at 16 in Arcane; Ice Lance at 11, Ice Block moved onto the 16 and Cold Snap onto the 21 in Frost. Fire gained Heating Up on row 4, where crits cut Pyroblast’s cast by 25% a stack to a floor of 1.5 seconds at three. Also new: Comprehension, a minor tradeskill for reading scrolls that creatures drop. Published as prose rather than a grid, so the full trees are still unknown.

Paladin

Tank / Healer / MeleeFull kit published

The most reworked class in the game, and the first whose kit Blizzard published in full.

Changed from Classic

• Seals are no longer consumed by Judgment. The single biggest change to any class: in Classic, judging burned your Seal and you re-applied it constantly.
• Holy Strike at level 6, an instant Holy weapon strike on a 12 second cooldown. Paladins finally have something to press while levelling.
• Consecration is baseline at level 20, with high damage and threat on the first four targets. Paladin tanking no longer needs a talent investment to hold a pull.
• Seal of Fury, a Protection seal with absorb shields, makes Judgment taunt. A real single-target taunt on a class that never had one.
• Holy Shock is on a 10 second cooldown, alongside new Holy talents Infusion of Light, Voice of Truth, Reverence, Consecrated Ground and Light’s Vigil.
• Retribution gains Vindication, Sacred Arbiter, Champion of the Light, Instrument of the Law and Twist of Light. Protection gains Shield Specialization, Swift Judgment, Templar’s Bulwark, Iron Creed and a redesigned Reckoning.
• Undead can be Paladins, so the Horde gets the class for the first time outside of Blood Elves.
• Deliberately still no traditional interrupt and no real slow. Blizzard says that is intentional, not an oversight to be patched.

Voice of Truth, Swift Judgment, Vindication are confirmed to be in the trees. The full grid has not been published, so we are not going to draw you one.

Priest

Healer / RangedFull kit published

The default healer, with a shadow side that solos well.

Changed from Classic

• Divine Spirit is baseline at level 30. In Classic it sat deep in Discipline and effectively dictated one raid Priest’s entire build.
• Fear Ward and Devouring Plague are available to every Priest at level 20. Both were race-locked in Classic, which is how Dwarf and Undead Priests ended up with jobs nobody else could do.
• Shadow Word: Death is baseline at level 32, so Shadow gets an execute two thirds of the way through levelling rather than at the end.
• Prayer of Healing hits the target’s whole party and their pets, and Renew can be active from more than one Priest on the same target. Two Priests healing the same tank no longer overwrite each other.
• Fade sheds twice as much threat.
• Gnomes can be Priests.
• Bonus healing granting a third as much damage makes Shadow levelling in healing gear far less punishing.

Talents named: Blizzard described the Priest deep dive in terms of wider access to tools plus new talent options across healing, utility and Shadow, and redesigned racial spells including new options for Gnomes, without publishing the grids. The named baseline changes above are the concrete half.

Rogue

MeleeFull kit published

Stealth, openers, and the best escape tools in the game.

Changed from Classic

• Sap no longer breaks Stealth, and that is baseline rather than a talent. Blizzard’s stated reason is that it should be usable when there are too many monsters to tank safely, which makes the Rogue a scouting class in dungeons rather than a one-shot opener.
• Mutilate arrives as a 21-point Assassination talent: 60 Energy, strikes with both hands for weapon damage from each, awards 2 Combo Points, and hits harder on a Poisoned target. Both weapons must be daggers, so it is a build commitment, not a free button.
• Rogues can learn one-handed axes, and the four weapon specialization talents (Dagger, Mace, Sword, Fist) are gone, folded into one new Combat talent called Hack and Slash. Axes inherit the Sword-style extra attack chance; Maces now ignore some target armor instead of stunning.
• Poison charges went up across the board, and poisons can now sit on a weapon at the same time as a Sharpening Stone or Weightstone. Improved Poisons adds a large chance not to consume a charge at all.
• Expose Armor was brought up to roughly five stacks of Sunder Armor at the same level, and it no longer locks Sunder Armor out, so a Rogue applying it stops costing the Warriors their rotation.
• Three new 31-point capstones give each tree an endgame: Venom in Assassination, a 25 Energy finisher adding 30% Poison damage, and Thousand Cuts in Subtlety, where Rupture ticks shave 3 Energy off your next Hemorrhage or Backstab up to five times.
• Skyborne can be Rogues on either faction.
• Removed outright: Sleight of Hand and Deadliness, plus the four weapon specializations that became Hack and Slash.

Talents named: Named at the new milestones: Cold Blood moved down from 21 to the 16 and Mutilate landed on the 21, with Venom at 31 in Assassination; Flawless Execution on the 16 in Combat, cutting Eviscerate’s Energy cost by 10; Premeditation moved from 31 to the 16 with its duration up to 20 seconds, and Thousand Cuts at 31 in Subtlety. New rows: Hack and Slash and Weapon Expertise in Combat, Improved Distract, Quietus and Cutthroat in Subtlety. Vigor dropped from a 31-point gold medal to a 2-point row 5 talent for the same total effect. Published as prose rather than a grid, so the full trees are still unknown.

Shaman

Healer / Melee / RangedFull kit published

Totems and elemental damage, and no longer Horde-only.

Changed from Classic

• Totems were rebuilt around the complaint everyone had. The global cooldown drops from 1.5 seconds to 1.0, persistent-buff totems last 5 minutes instead of 2, a new UI tracks what is active with its remaining duration, right-clicking unsummons instantly, and Resistance Totems now cover the whole raid rather than your party.
• Weapon imbues last 60 minutes rather than 5, and they can be active at the same time as Sharpening Stones, Weight Stones and Wizard Oil. Reapplying Rockbiter every five minutes stops being a tax on playing the class.
• Call of the Elements at 20, Call of the Spirits at 30 and Call of the Ancestors at 40 each pre-program a set of four totems, one per element, dropped with a single 3 second cast. Totemic Projection at 22 then moves the whole set up to 30 yards.
• Fire Nova Totem is gone, replaced by a Fire Nova spell that erupts at your current Fire Totem and can be cast again. Windfury Totem and Flametongue Totem stop being weapon enchantments and become party-wide buffs, with rules about which can run together.
• Casting got faster: Lightning Bolt drops from 3 seconds to 2.5 at rank 4 and up, Chain Lightning from 2.5 to 2 at every rank. Spell power coefficients were cut to match, so this is pacing rather than a damage buff.
• Three new capstones: Lava Burst at 31 points in Elemental, Maelstrom Weapon on Enhancement’s row 6 stacking melee hits into an eventually instant Lightning Bolt, and Riptide at 31 in Restoration. Stormstrike moved onto the 16-point milestone with its cooldown cut from 20 seconds to 8.
• Dwarves can be Shamans, which breaks the oldest faction rule in the game, and Horde Skyborne can be Shamans as their faction-locked option.
• Four talents were removed outright: Elemental Mastery, Shield Specialization, Nature’s Guidance and Tranquil Air Totem. Blizzard says Elemental Mastery went because it "would have made them much too strong in PvP".

Talents named: Named at the new milestones: Call of Thunder on the 16 and Earthbound on the 21 in Elemental, with Lava Burst at 31 and Lightning Overload new on row 5; Shamanistic Focus at 11, Stormstrike at 16, Spirit Weapons at 21 and Rage of the Farseer at 31 in Enhancement, plus new rows Mental Dexterity, Mental Quickness and Maelstrom Weapon; Water Shield at 11, Mana Tide Totem moved down from 31 to the 16, and Riptide at 31 in Restoration. Enhancing Totems, Two-Handed Axes and Maces, Weapon Mastery and Improved Weapon Totems all moved to baseline. Published as prose rather than a grid, so the full trees are still unknown.

Warlock

RangedFull kit published

Demons, damage over time, and a summoning stone your group will love you for.

Changed from Classic

• Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom are now Banes rather than Curses, and only one Bane can be active per Warlock on a target. Because everything that interacted with Curses also interacts with Banes, you can finally run a damage effect and a utility Curse on the same target at once.
• Curse of the Elements now applies to all magic damage, and Curse of Shadows is removed as redundant.
• Pets scale from their summoner’s stats. Blizzard states the rule and does not say which stats or by how much, so the scale of it is still unknown.
• Firestone and Spellstone become weapon imbues that stack with temporary enchantments like Wizard Oil: Firestone for Fire damage and crit chance, Spellstone for Shadow damage and spell haste. Both their Improved talents were deleted.
• Drain Soul gains a progressive chance per tick to produce a Soul Shard, rising until it is guaranteed, so shard farming stops being a coin flip. Life Tap now scales with Spirit.
• Each tree gained a capstone: Wrack at 31 in Affliction, Demonic Pact at 31 in Demonology, and Incinerate at 31 in Destruction, a 2.5 second cast at 30 yards that hits 25% harder with Immolate up. Bane of Havoc on Destruction’s 21 mirrors 15% of your damage onto one cursed target.
• Trolls can be Warlocks.
• This is the heaviest pruning of any class. Seventeen talents were removed across the three trees, among them Dark Pact, Devastation, Improved Immolate, Emberstorm, Fel Intellect and Fel Stamina.

Talents named: Named at the new milestones: Curse of Exhaustion moved to the 16 at a flat 30% slow, with Wrack at 31 in Affliction; Demonic Sacrifice redesigned down to the 11 with its effects lasting 2 hours, Fel Domination on the 16, Soul Link down from 31 to the 21 and Demonic Pact at 31 in Demonology; Conflagrate on the 16, Bane of Havoc on the 21 and Incinerate at 31 in Destruction. New rows include Malediction, Pandemic and Soul Siphon in Affliction, Demonic Aegis, Fel Vitality, Decimation and Demonic Knowledge in Demonology, and Molten Skin, Fire and Brimstone and Shadow and Flame in Destruction. Published as prose rather than a grid, so the full trees are still unknown.

Warrior

Tank / MeleeFull kit published

The rawest tank and a gear-hungry damage dealer.

Changed from Classic

• Rage from damage taken ignores Armor. Blizzard applies the old formula as though you always had 50% Armor reduction, which fixes the Classic problem where a well-geared tank generated less Rage the better their gear got.
• Rage from damage dealt is fully normalised against weapon speed, and critical strikes grant 75% more Rage than non-crits.
• Tactical Mastery is baseline at level 14, keeping 10 Rage through a Stance change. Stance dancing stops being a talent tax.
• Victory Rush is baseline at level 20 on a 30 second cooldown, which is the first real self-heal a levelling Warrior has ever had.
• Recklessness, Retaliation and Shield Wall no longer share a cooldown with each other, and Thunder Clap works in Defensive Stance.
• Unified Hit improves Taunt reliability. In Classic a missed Taunt could end a pull, and it used the normal attack hit table.
• Skyborne can be Warriors on either faction.
• Rebuilt dungeon loot and stronger weapon progression hit Warriors hardest, since they are the most weapon-dependent class.
• Reduced weapon skill per item softens the cost of switching weapon types.system-wide

Talents named: Blizzard framed the Warrior changes as making Rage reliable, pulling utility forward into baseline and sharpening each specialisation, and mentioned three new 16-point capstones without publishing the trees. The baseline changes above are what is actually on the record.

The six new race combos

Free with a subscription at launch, and each one breaks a rule Classic enforced for twenty years.

Race	Class	Faction
Gnome	Priest	Alliance
Human	Hunter	Alliance
Dwarf	Shaman	Alliance
Orc	Mage	Horde
Troll	Warlock	Horde
Undead	Paladin	Horde

What the Skyborne can play

Elves descended from Highborne exiles who made a pact with the wind elementals of Skywall. They start on Zephras Isle, a floating island, and they are the one race that picks its faction at creation. They need an upgrade pack, so unlike the six above a subscription alone does not cover them.

Class	Available to
Warrior	Both factions
Hunter	Both factions
Rogue	Both factions
Druid	Both factions
Shaman	Horde only
Mage	Alliance only

Last verified 2026-10-22. System-wide changes and the Paladin rework come from Blizzard’s Deep Dive panel recap; the race combinations come from the BlizzCon 2026 reveal. Entries marked system-wide are Blizzard changes applied to that class rather than statements Blizzard made about it. Beta does not open until September 17, so detailed talent tables circulating for the eight classes without a published kit cannot be datamined yet, and none are reproduced here. Race and class icons are Blizzard game assets; the Skyborne icon is a crop of Blizzard’s own Skyborne art, since a race announced this month has no icon in the game files.