WoW Forever notes: Final racial trait pass and racial supplement (build 70634)

Builds 1.60.1.70630 and 1.60.1.70634 (both October 27). The October 26 update to the Beta Development Notes is a final pass on racial abilities and passive traits, and Blizzard also published a fireside reading of the short story “Unbowed”. On October 27 Blizzard added a supplement with items that were meant to be in the first list.

Why the change

Players said some new racial traits felt too generic, and that some were clearly stronger than others. Blizzard prioritized racial identity, so some races will be slightly better at certain combat roles. Where role- or class-focused racials had been replaced by generic ones, those changes are rolled back. The exception is weapon specialization racials (such as Human Sword Specialization or Orc Axe Specialization): they are not healthy for future loot tables in the long run. A tuning pass on the remaining passive bonuses is also included.

Character & Class changes

The class changes below come from the wclbox build comparison (machine-translated from the Chinese client), not from an official post.

Paladin

• Righteous Fury: the level requirement was raised to 16 in build 70630 and set back to 10 in build 70634, so it is unchanged.
• Retribution:
  • Champion of the Light now lists 60% (was 30%).

Mage

• Frost:
  • Frost Warding: Ice Barrier and Frost Barrier now absorb 20% more damage.
  • Elemental Precision now gives up to 6% hit chance with Frost and Fire spells at max rank.

Race changes

Human

• Ruthless now gives 1% critical chance (was 2%).
• Human Spirit now gives 10% Spirit (was 5%).

Dwarf

• Earth Fury (2% critical strike damage and healing) is removed.
• New: Artisan’s Precision, +1% hit chance with spells and attacks.

Tauren

• Plainsrunning now gives 2% movement speed per stack (was 1%), for a maximum of 60% (was 30%), and no longer affects mounted speed.
• Endurance now only gives 5% more Health, with no hit chance or critical damage modifiers.

Orc

• Savage (1% critical strike chance) is removed.
• Command is back: Warlock and Hunter pets deal 5% more damage.
• Supplement: Blood Fury cooldown is reduced to 2 minutes (was 3 minutes).

Troll

• Supplement: Berserking duration is increased to 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).

Undead

• Supplement: Touch of the Grave internal cooldown is reduced to 15 seconds (was 25 seconds).

Skyborne

• Wind-Blessed Haste is reduced to 2% (was 3%).
• Read Ley Line now increases Mana and Health regeneration by 50% (was 100%) for 15 seconds. It cannot be used while Innervate is active and is replaced by Innervate’s stronger effect.
• Using Read Leyline at a Ley Line also grants “Attuned” for 1 hour, raising the regeneration bonus to 100%. Attuned persists through death and is removed upon entering a raid.
• Skysight now gives 15% movement speed (was 10%) for 15 seconds.
• Using Skysight at an elemental convergence also grants “Charged” for 1 hour, raising the bonus to 30%. Charged persists through death and is removed upon entering a raid.

Known issues

• No official known-issues list came with these posts.