5 Specs to Play First in the WoW Forever Beta (Video)

The World of Warcraft: Forever beta opens Thursday, September 17 with a level cap of 30, and Classic+ launches November 4 (how to get into the beta). This video picks the five specs worth rolling first and explains why each looks stronger than its vanilla self. The talent detail comes from the Forever talent trees as they exist right now. Blizzard has published named talent detail for exactly one class so far, Paladin, from the September 13 design panel. Everything else here can move before November 4, and when it does I will correct it here rather than re-cut the video.

1. Protection Paladin

The headline, and the one pick with a Blizzard panel behind it. In vanilla, Protection could not hold threat for two reasons: no taunt, and no Consecration without speccing deep for it. Forever fixes both. Consecration is in the spellbook. And there is a new seal, Seal of Fury, where Judging the seal taunts the target. Blizzard confirmed Seal of Fury by name on the panel.

On top of that sits Templar's Bulwark, a personal cooldown that Blizzard confirmed exists and confirmed triggers Forbearance. In the video I read the tooltip as a shield equal to 100% of maximum health for eight seconds. Those two numbers are off a talent tree, not off a Blizzard post, so hold them loosely. The shape of the spec is not in doubt. Threat, a taunt, and a wall, on a class that had none of the three.

This is also the one pick you can fully test at level 30 on day one of the beta.

2. Restoration Shaman

Riptide, modified: a heal plus a heal over 15 seconds that also buffs your next Chain Heal by 25%. Put it on the tank, Chain Heal off the tank, and you are tank healing and raid healing in one cast. Healing Way, Nature's Swiftness, Mana Tide and Ancestral Healing are all still there, and a Guardian Totems talent strengthens Stoneskin and Windwall. In the video I call Riptide a hero talent. Forever has no hero talents. That is retail vocabulary and it reads as a capstone.

3. Discipline Priest

A Power Word: Shield loop built on Weakened Soul. Soul Warding cuts the cooldown of Power Word: Shield by four seconds. Renewed Hope gives Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Lesser Heal, Greater Heal and Penance 2% more critical strike chance on targets with Weakened Soul, and crits shorten Weakened Soul by a second. So you shield the tank and pump direct heals into a target that is almost always shielded. Penance looked very strong in what we saw of the beta build. All of this is tree-read, none of it is Blizzard-confirmed.

4. Survival Hunter

The sleeper. The tree turns Survival into a dual-wield melee spec: Clever Traps for AoE traps dropped in melee range, more trap damage, Predator's Edge for crit and 50% off-hand damage, Resourcefulness for the traps again, and Lone Wolf at the end. It looks like a sword hunter that does real damage. Tree-read.

5. Affliction Warlock

Two systemic changes stack here. Damage-over-time effects can crit in Forever, which they could not in Classic. And Curse of Agony becomes a Bane, Bane of Agony, so it no longer fights Curse of Elements for the single curse slot on a target. Both changes push Affliction up on their own; together they make it a solid pick.

A note on the first change. The video states it as fact. It is a systemic claim I have not found in a Blizzard post, and our own tier list treats it as unverified. If Blizzard confirms it, Affliction moves up on the tier list too. If not, this segment is the one that ages worst.

Chapters

0:00 Intro. 0:15 Protection Paladin. 1:48 Restoration Shaman. 2:47 Discipline Priest. 4:20 Survival Hunter. 5:11 Affliction Warlock. 7:16 Wrap.

What is Blizzard-confirmed and what is not

Confirmed by Blizzard: Seal of Fury exists and taunts on Judgement. Templar's Bulwark exists and applies Forbearance. Paladin got the first published talent pass. The beta dates and level cap.

Read off talent trees, not yet Blizzard's word: the Templar's Bulwark numbers, everything about Restoration Shaman, Discipline Priest and Survival Hunter, Bane of Agony, and DoTs critting.

Four of these five will not have their capstone talents live at the beta's level cap of 30. Prot Paladin is the one you can judge on Thursday. Rank the rest yourself on the spec tier list.