WoW Forever gives Orcs their pet damage bonus back ahead of launch
Orcs regain Command, Skyborne get new conditional bonuses, and other racial abilities receive balance changes.
A few weeks ago, Blizzard reworked multiple WoW Forever racial buffs, and they later on added another patch that covered a few additional changes.
Now, in the latest patch right before launch, it seems like they are making a few additional racial adjustments.
Human, Dwarf, Tauren, Orc, and Skyborne all got changes in the October 26 beta development notes. Night Elf, Gnome, Troll, and Undead did not get a single line back then. Undead and Troll received a few changes in a later patch, but that was about it.
This time, it seems like most of the classes are taken care of.
Blizzard said that these changes are part of their goal to move away from "generic racial bonuses." In a previous beta update, they had explained that some players felt the new traits were missing some identity. There was also the general concern that a few races were just stronger than the rest.
So now they basically want to bring back more role- and class-focused bonuses, even if that meant some races would naturally perform better in certain situations.
Orcs, Dwarves, and Humans Get New Bonuses
Orcs get one of the biggest changes since Command is being added back to the race, giving Orcs the ability to increase Warlock and Hunter pet damage by 5%.
But Orcs are not the only race getting an interesting adjustment. Dwarves lose Earth Fury, which previously increased critical strike damage and healing by 2%. Blizzard has replaced it with Artisan's Precision, granting 1% hit chance with spells and attacks.
Humans also get a couple of buffs:
Ruthless now increases critical chance by 1% (was 2%)
Human Spirit now increases Spirit by 10% (was 5%)
Tauren, Trolls, and Undead
Tauren get another adjustment to Plainsrunning. Each stack now grants 2% movement speed instead of 1%, so if you max out the bonus, you can reach up to 60% instead of 30%.
However, it no longer increases mounted movement speed.
Their Endurance now no longer provides any modifiers past 5% increased Health, so no hit chance or critical damage modifiers.
Trolls on their side receive a nice buff, with Berserking's duration increasing from 10 to 15 seconds.
And Undead get multiple fixes on Touch of the Grave, on top of adding back the ability to use Cannibalize while immune to Physical Damage:
Fixed an issue where Touch of the Grave was not activating frequently enough
Fixed an issue where Touch of the Grave was leaving a beam visual behind
Touch of the Grave internal cooldown reduced to 15 seconds (was 25 seconds)
Skyborne Get Better Bonuses Through Exploration
Skyborne are the new race, and you can only play it if you get one of the bundles, but it still got a few adjustments.
Wind-Blessed's Haste bonus has been reduced from 3% to 2%, but Skysight now grants 15% movement speed instead of 10% for 15 seconds. Using the ability at an elemental convergence also grants Charged for one hour, increasing the movement speed bonus to 30%. You keep Charged active if you die, but it will be removed if you enter any Raid.
Read Leyline received a little nerf. Its normal effect now increases Mana and Health regeneration by 50% for 15 seconds, down from 100%. However, this ability cannot be used while Innervate is active, and will be replaced by Innervate as a more powerful effect.
And similar to Skysight, if you use Read Leyline at a Ley Line, you get Attuned for 1 hour. This increases the benefit of Read Leyline to a 100% regeneration increase. It also stays if you die, but gets removed if you enter a raid.
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