WoW Forever Tauren need almost four minutes to catch a Druid, and then they never look back
Short trips still belong to Druids and Shamans. The Barrens is a different story.
Everyone is talking about the recent Racial changes for WoW Forever. So much so that the community has now shared a quick mathematical result about the new Tauren speed. How long does it take a Tauren to catch a Druid in Travel Form in World of Warcraft: Forever? Well, according to a player on Reddit, exactly 3 minutes and 52.5 seconds.
The post compares the new Plainsrunning Racial update to the speed of a Druid in Travel Form, as well as Shaman Ghost Wolf and a Rogue without Sprint. After we ran through the numbers, the 3:52.5 does hold up, as long as nothing interrupts you. Tauren are the fastest runners for long distances (of the four compared), if you are willing to keep running for almost four minutes without getting hit!
Why It Takes Almost Four Minutes
Plainsrunning got a huge buff in the October 26 development notes. Each stack now gives you 2% movement speed instead of 1%, and you can stack it all the way up to 60% (it was 30% before). Going by the Reddit post’s one stack every 5 seconds, that is about 2.5 minutes of running before you are at full speed.
Travel Form and Ghost Wolf give you 40% immediately. So by the time a Tauren hits 60%, the Druid is already about 115 yards ahead, and closing that distance takes almost another minute and a half.
So, let’s run the numbers ourselves, with the same setup as the Reddit post:
200 yards: Druid and Shaman 20.4 sec, Tauren 27.3 sec
Half a mile: Druid and Shaman 1:29.8, Tauren 1:44.8
1 mile: Druid and Shaman 2:59.6, Tauren 3:06.2
2 miles: Tauren 5:43.3, Druid and Shaman 5:59.2
These ignore Ghost Wolf's cast time, so Shamans would be a few seconds slower on short trips.
One Hit and You Start Over
As fun as it sounds to run across the plains, there are a few downsides that came with this Racial update. Plainsrunning no longer increases your mounted speed, and you have to keep moving a minimum distance per second to hold your stacks. Stopping is lava, so to speak. Stutter-stepping will not cut it.
Players in the Reddit thread also said that taking damage resets your stacks, which means that getting hit by one DoT (Damage over Time spell) or Ice Lance sends you back to zero. Blizzard's notes do not mention a reset on damage, though, so this is solely player-reported, for now.
Generally, the recent changes have caused quite the split in the comments and community reception. There are a lot of players who love Plainsrunning for leveling, especially while questing in the Barrens. Then, there is the other group of people who would rather have the 1% hit chance Dwarves just got, and point out that your mount makes it pretty much irrelevant later on. Fair point.
Tauren Druids might get the best of both, to be honest. You keep building stacks while in Travel Form, and the game will simply use whichever bonus is higher. That is how it should work, at least.
So no, Plainsrunning will not win you a race to the mailbox. But on a long Barrens run, those 16 seconds add up!
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