WoW Forever Beta Build of September 24: Every Class Change

NewsPublished September 25, 2026

Blizzard put a new build on the Forever beta on September 24 (client 1.60.1.70009) with a long list of class tuning: Druid Wrath hits about 50% harder, Holy Strike gains damage at every rank, two talent pairs trade rows, Improved Holy Strike is gone and Mangle is now Primal Bite. Gnomes lose most of their Eureka! discount, wands stop scaling with spell damage and the Cooldown Manager is in testing.

Checked against the sources below. Last reviewed: September 25, 2026.

The build

The beta went down for the update on September 24, and Blizzard posted its development notes and a new known-issues list the same evening. The client build on wago.tools is 1.60.1.70009, the fifth beta client after 69876, 69893, 69913 and 69977.

For the beta only, re-speccing costs 1 silver if you haven’t changed talents recently. The price rises after the first reset and drops back to 1 silver an hour later.

Talents that moved or went away

Talent tree changes in the September 24 beta build
Class	Change	Blizzard’s reason
Shaman (Elemental)	Elemental Fury (row 3) and Elemental Alacrity (row 6) swap places	Crit damage early in the tree meant little to a leveling Elemental Shaman; Alacrity is the talent that makes the spec work. Enhancement loses early spell crit damage, and Blizzard says it will add to Enhancement later.
Warrior (Protection)	Bastion (row 5) and Focused Rage (row 6) swap places. The September 24 client doesn’t have this swap yet, so our calculator still shows the old rows	Focused Rage earlier smooths leveling as Protection before Shield Slam.
Paladin (Holy)	Improved Holy Strike is removed; Holy Strike’s cooldown is 10 seconds baseline (was 12)	A cooldown talent that early in a healing tree felt required.
Druid (Feral)	Mangle is renamed Primal Bite, and the Primal Fury talent goes back to the Blood Frenzy name and icon	Mangle lost its debuff, so the name no longer fit.
Paladin (Retribution)	Crusade (row 4) is gone from the client’s tree	Not in the notes; we found it comparing the two clients.

Our talent calculator now follows the September 24 client: 466 talents, 18 of them changed, with the renamed talents keeping their place in shared builds.

Class tuning

Class changes in the September 24 beta build, from Blizzard’s notes
Class	What changed
Druid	Wrath base damage about +50%. Rejuvenation, Tranquility and Wild Growth can crit. Thorns scales with spell power. Feral Charge (Cat) can no longer target allies.
Hunter	Pet Furious Howl attack power −40%; Bats get Sonic Blast; you can’t tame beasts above your level. Leaving Lone Wolf no longer leaves a −4% damage penalty with a pet out. Lacerating Strikes can crit; Strider Kick gives 30% movement speed for 3 seconds.
Mage	Arcane Missiles checks line of sight once, at the start of the channel. Wake of Fire lasts 30 seconds (was 20) and Hot Streak 20 (was 15); Ignite no longer double-dips on damage increases.
Paladin	Holy Strike deals 25/29/32/36/39/43/46/50% weapon damage by rank (was 25/25/30/30/35/35/40/40%). Righteous Fury’s Holy threat bonus falls to 60% (was 90%). Holy Power adds 15% crit to Holy Strike. Retribution: Vengeance triggers from any non-periodic crit but stacks to 3 (was 5); Two-Handed Weapon Specialization 2/4/6% (was 3/6/9%); Sacred Arbiter 20% (was 10%); Twist of Light also cuts Seal mana costs 20%. Retribution Aura scales with spell power and Consecration was fixed.
Priest	Renew can crit. Power Word: Shield can replace an existing shield on a target without Weakened Soul.
Shaman	Lightning Bolt ranks 3 and 4 hit harder, and Lava Burst ranks 1 and 2 about 10% harder than the Lightning Bolt of the same level. Riptide can crit. Rage of the Far Seer no longer adds casting speed. Flametongue Totem has no duration and no longer stacks with itself, Flametongue Weapon or Windfury Totem; Tranquil Air, Windfury and Grace of Air totems no longer stack even from different Shamans.
Warlock	Voidwalker Sacrifice scales with 10% of spell healing; the Life Tap tooltip was corrected.
Warrior	Sunder Armor threat corrected, with a little more from attack power. Arms: Bloodthrill triggers 4/8/12/16/20% of the time (was 2/4/6/8/10%), from main-hand attacks only, Cleave and Heroic Strike included; Slam’s cooldown is 18 seconds (was 15) and Improved Slam takes 1.5/3 seconds off it.
Rogue	Sap now flags you for PvP when used on a flagged target.

Racials

Gnome: Eureka! now takes 10% off the cost of your next 3 damaging abilities for every class. Wowhead’s comparison of the two builds shows it was 50% for Mages and Warlocks, 40% for Warriors, 20% for Rogues and 15% for Priests; the 10% damage bonus stays. Contingency Plan can crit and Confounding Flash has a cast visual.
Tauren: Cultivation now needs a character level of each herb’s Herbalism requirement divided by 5; herbs above 300 skill can be grown at 60.
Undead: Touch of the Grave only triggers from abilities that deal damage and no longer breaks crowd control, and Dark Sacrifice no longer breaks it either.
Night Elf and Human: Starshards gets pushback resistance from Twilight Focus; Will to Survive has a new visual.

Items, the Cooldown Manager and gamepads

Wands no longer gain damage from your spell damage. Minor, Lesser and plain Wizard Oil go back to Classic Era’s 8, 16 and 24 spell power; Brilliant Wizard Oil is unchanged. Some guns and bows that didn’t use ammunition now do.
The Cooldown Manager is in the beta for Druids, Mages, Priests, Warriors and Warlocks, off by default (Options, Gameplay Enhancement). It doesn’t handle spell ranks yet, and Blizzard wants to hear which spells you’d want tracked by default.
Gamepads get class flyouts (Druid forms, Hunter and Warlock pets, Paladin auras, Warrior stances), a compact action bar and fixed party targeting.
Campfires: sitting in a chair, sleeping, lying down or kneeling now earns the Campfire buff, and you can cast, craft and buff others while you wait for it.

What this means for you

Paladins, Elemental Shamans and Balance Druids got the most help. Holy Strike, Lava Burst and Wrath all hit harder while leveling.
A Gnome caster loses a lot. Eureka! went from half price to 10% off for Mages and Warlocks; the other racial choices look closer now.
Casters leveling with wands will see less damage from gear. Spell damage no longer adds to wands.
It’s a beta. Numbers keep moving until launch on November 4.

Still unknown

Whether the class changes carry over to launch unchanged.
When the Cooldown Manager opens for the other four classes.

Sources

How we choose and check sources