When the first raids open on December 10 (December 9 in the West), finishing WoW: Forever's first Tier 1 set will take three raid calendars, not one — the set is split across Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit and Onyxia, and a 10-man-only schedule won't collect every piece.
WoW: Forever lead game designer Kris Zierhut and Classic lead designer Tim Jones laid that out in a YouTube interview with streamer Crix on November 6; Wowhead's recap went up November 6, 2:52 p.m. US Central — 4:52 a.m. November 7 in Beijing. Where lead encounter designer Michael Nuthals' podcast covered how encounter difficulty gets built, this conversation moved the camera to two things that land directly in your loot tab and your battleground bracket: how the gear is split up, and how PvP stays balanced.
Finishing the Set Means Running All Three Raids
The Tier 1 set is spread across Barrow Deeps (10-man), Hyjal Summit (20-man) and Onyxia (40-man). Every raid is meant to carry meaningful progression: a 10-man-only group gets a lot, just not the whole set.
Item level is meant to be equal across the three difficulties. The raid-size math gets settled too — by the developers' read, raid size doesn't change how hard the encounters are, it changes how hard the evening is for whoever has to organize the raid. If herding 40 people is the raid leader's problem, size shouldn't buy better loot.
Barrow Deeps' interior also got its first full airing: three entrances, each leading to its own section; killing the first boss opens three paths at once; all three wings have to be cleared to reach the final part. Budget your progression nights accordingly — one evening won't cover it.
On attunements, the stance is keep them around, sparingly. The Onyxia and Karazhan chains are called out as stories worth playing; the Tempest Keep and Mount Hyjal gauntlets are judged a step too far, with Karazhan the upper limit. How Onyxia's attunement will work in December's version wasn't detailed in the interview.
Raid-Wide Totems, One-Hour Buffs: Comp Stacking Pays Nothing
Against 10-man friction and class stacking, three changes already made got named: shaman buff totems now cover the whole raid, raid buffs last an hour across the board, and the list of blessings you want has been trimmed. The stated goal is plain — you shouldn't need to stack specific classes just to fill your buff sheet.
On difficulty, the interview offered a reference point rather than a new stance: complexity targets Naxxramas as it shipped in Classic Era and Season of Mastery, not Season of Discovery's modern design. The expectation comes with it — bring friends, wear your pre-BiS, skim the boss guides, and you should see a moderate amount of success without much stress. That tracks with what Nuthals said on the official podcast.
Shaman: Talent Revamp Early Next Year — Bank Strength Gear Now
Enhancement's stat mismatch got put on the table: current gearing pushes the spec toward spell power, and the design goal is to have Enhancement want Strength, Intellect and Spell Power the way Retribution paladins do — no cloth robes. This one already has an official follow-up. The November 6 tuning note (hotfixes planned for November 10) states that Strength will always be Enhancement's strongest stat, that the spec shouldn't be fighting mages and warlocks for gear, and that leveling Enhancement shamans should start collecting Strength and Attack Power gear now.
Elemental's Lava Burst was already removed outright in the November 3 pre-launch tuning, replaced by a stronger Chain Lightning. Zierhut owned the call: players didn't like Lava Burst and wanted more powerful Chain Lightning, but the last-minute decision could have used a little more time in the oven, by his own admission.
The timeline: a shaman talent revamp is slated for early next year, with numeric tuning first once December's raid data lands. Druid talents are on the same early-next-year radar.
Warlock Pets Get Their Durability Pass on November 10
Hunter and warlock pets already had their health lowered in the pre-launch pass (the official November 3 notes: warlock pet health per point of master stamina went from 7.5 to 2), and Voidwalkers have taken squishy feedback since launch. The interview's answer: check the numbers against 1.15 — and note the big structural difference from 1.15, that Forever's pet stats scale from master stats, so they rise as yours do. The official November 6 note matches: the intent is for pets (Voidwalkers included) to be relatively as effective as in Classic Era, with stats adjusted as necessary.
The same note queues up the Affliction fix for November 10: always channeling Wrack shouldn't beat weaving in Siphon Life, Corruption and Bane of Agony, and the fix comes without touching Affliction's total damage output.
Two Updates, Four Months Apart — One 10-Man and One 20-Man Raid Each
The roadmap holds two big content updates roughly four months apart, each packing a 10-man raid, a 20-man raid and new quests. That matches the four-month cadence Zierhut described in the earlier IGN interview; the new detail is the fixed 10-man-plus-20-man pairing per update. Legacy raids are being explored too — Zierhut finds Molten Core too one-note with its elementals and fire resistances and wants more varied environments and creatures so more class kits get to shine. Plans not announced yet.
Battlegrounds Stay the Centerpiece: Honor Gear In, Rank Gear Up
The PvP history lesson, as the developers tell it: balance tightened hard once rated arenas existed; before that, it was looser, and the question was what you contributed to a battleground team, not who wins a duel. Forever keeps battlegrounds as the centerpiece of PvP — that, in their argument, is what lets classes stay distinct instead of homogenized.
Counterplay is already visible: the frost mage 31-point talent's increased frost damage will be dispellable, so the other side of the battleground has an answer.
Gear catch-up comes in two tiers. Honor pieces are fairly easy to get; ranked gear is the seasonal grind's reward and the advantage for those who invest — and you have to trade in honor gear to obtain it. When the season starts and what each piece costs: not announced.
Before the Raids Open, Four Things Worth Doing
- Build your December raid schedule around all three raids — finishing the set requires a spot on the Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit and Onyxia rosters.
- Enhancement shamans, start collecting Strength and Attack Power gear now and leave the spell-power cloth for the casters — the official note's direct advice, in force before and after the November 10 hotfixes.
- Hold off on expensive stat swaps and enchants until the November 10 hotfixes land.
- Farm honor: honor gear is cheap to reach and doubles as the trade-in material for rank gear, and honor has no expiry before the season — whose start date is not announced.