WoW Forever Beta Patch Notes 1.60.1.70291

WoW: Forever Beta Update – City of Dalaran Dungeon, Increased Dungeon XP, Class Tuning and More

The latest World of Warcraft: Forever Beta build introduces a brand-new dungeon, significant improvements to dungeon leveling, adjustments to several classes, and further updates to the Legacy System. Blizzard has also expanded Cooldown Manager support, introduced new voice chat options, and addressed numerous bugs across the game.

Here’s a breakdown of the most important changes in the latest Beta update.

City of Dalaran Dungeon Now Available

One of the biggest additions in this build is the City of Dalaran dungeon, which is now available for testing.

Players can explore the new dungeon and provide feedback as Blizzard continues to develop and refine WoW: Forever's dungeon content.

Dungeon Experience Increased by Approximately 20%

Dungeon leveling has received two significant improvements.

• Dungeon creature XP increased by approximately 20%.

• Experience calculations for groups containing higher-level players have been reverted to their Classic Era behavior.

Previously, experience penalties for killing lower-level enemies were calculated based on the highest-level player in the group. The system now evaluates each player's level individually.

Blizzard expects these changes to dramatically increase dungeon experience gains for most players.

However, groups containing players vastly higher in level than the enemies they defeat will still receive no experience, preventing extreme level disparities from being exploited.

Legacy System – 16 Points Granted to All Beta Players

Blizzard is making it easier to experiment with the Legacy System during the Beta.

All Beta players have been granted completion of the Legacy Challenge, awarding them 16 Legacy Points to test the system.

Additionally, the cheapest Legacy Point talent respec now costs just 1 silver, and respec costs decrease over time at a rate of one respec per hour.

These reduced costs are specifically intended for Beta testing and should not be considered final.

Major Class Changes

Several classes have received balance adjustments, mechanical fixes, and talent improvements.

Warrior and Druid – Rage Generation Reworked

Blizzard has corrected multiple issues affecting Rage generation when taking damage.

Previously, certain calculations could unintentionally penalize players wearing more Stamina gear. Critical strikes, crushing blows, and damage absorption effects were also handled incorrectly.

The updated calculations should generally result in Warriors and Druids generating more Rage when taking damage.

Blizzard has also rebalanced Rage generation around more representative armor values, particularly benefiting Warriors while questing.

Druid

Druids receive several notable changes, especially for Feral and tanking builds.

• Bear Form and Dire Bear Form: Threat bonus increased from 30% to 50%.

• Critical Strike Rage Generation: Additional Rage generated from critical strikes increased from 75% to 100%.

• Predatory Instincts: Renamed to Natural Instinct and now also increases spell healing by 12/25% of Intellect.

• Thorns: Base damage returned to Vanilla values, while spell power scaling decreased from 13.3% to 6%.

• Wolfshead Helm: Now grants 5 additional Energy when Shifting Power is used. Its Rage-related effect remains unchanged.

• Demoralizing Roar: Now correctly generates threat against affected enemies.

Additional fixes address shapeshifting interactions, Cat Form health calculations, Mana Potion usage, and the Thick Hide talent.

Paladin

Protection Paladins receive several changes intended to address excessive threat generation.

• Reckoning: Now has a 1.5-second cooldown between activations.

• Improved Seal of Fury and Shield Specialization: Restoring Mana no longer generates threat.

• Seal of Fury: No longer incorrectly restores Mana without the appropriate talent.

• Retribution Aura: Base damage reduced by approximately 33%, returning to Vanilla values.

• Retribution Aura spell power scaling: Reduced from 13.3% to 6%.

Blizzard explained that Protection Paladins were generating more threat than intended through Mana restoration while tanking.

Priest

Discipline Priests receive an important update to Penance, with Blizzard adjusting the spell to better reflect its intended power as a cooldown-based ability.

• Penance damage and healing have been reduced to correct an issue where the spell was calculated as a three-second channel rather than a two-second channel.

• Mana costs have been adjusted to preserve an efficiency advantage over Heal and Greater Heal.

• Penance Rank 1 mana cost increased by 50%.

• Healing from Penance Ranks 2 and 4 has been increased.

Additionally, the scaling of several lower ranks of Smite, Lesser Heal, and Heal has been adjusted to ensure that learning a higher rank consistently provides an upgrade.

Hunter

Hunters receive a collection of fixes across all three talent trees.

• Disengage: Its intended doubled threat reduction is now implemented.

• Unleashed Fury: Now correctly increases pet damage.

• Improved Concussive Shot: Proc chance corrected.

• Improved Wing Clip: Proc chance corrected, including adjustments for lower spell ranks.

• Expose Prey: Duration increased from 5 to 10 seconds.

• Entrapment: Diminishing returns now function correctly, and Frost Trap only triggers the effect on its initial activation.

A separate fix prevents Hunter pets from repeatedly gaining health when already low on health.

Other Class Changes

Mage

• Frostbolt, Fireball, and Arcane Missiles have received rank progression adjustments.

• Impact can no longer incorrectly trigger from Flamestrike's periodic damage.

Shaman

• Lightning Bolt rank progression has been adjusted.

• Elemental Focus no longer immediately consumes itself when triggered by Fire Nova.

• Water Shield tooltip corrections and Mana Tide Totem visual fixes.

• Flametongue Totem now properly accounts for shapeshifted targets' attack speed.

Warlock

• Shadow Bolt rank progression has been adjusted.

• Summoning a new demon now stuns the Warlock's existing pet during the summon.

• Demonic Brand's bonus pet damage now generates high threat only when dealing Shadow damage.

Warrior

• Demoralizing Shout now correctly generates threat.

• Deep Wounds is once again required to unlock Impale.

• Deep Wounds no longer incorrectly scales with off-hand Attack Power.

• Last Stand now grants the correct amount of health.

PvP – Critical Strikes No Longer Reduced

Another noteworthy change affects PvP combat.

Critical strikes in PvP no longer have reduced effectiveness.

This removes the previous reduction to critical strike effectiveness in player-versus-player encounters.

Blizzard has also corrected the location of the Shipwreck Cove capture point.

Cooldown Manager Now Supports All Classes

The built-in Cooldown Manager has received a substantial update.

It now supports:

• All classes

• Racial abilities

• Trinkets

Support for consumables is planned for a future update.

Discord Voice Chat Integration

Players can now select Discord Voice in the game's audio settings.

The party leader's selected voice chat option applies to the entire group.

Additionally, Group Finder listings can specify an in-game voice mode, prompting joining players to connect to the selected voice chat.

The update also includes several user interface improvements, including updated inspection windows, combo point displays, visible quest level requirements, and a new View Talents context menu option.

More Changes to Items and Questing

The update includes several adjustments to quest rewards and leveling content.

Desolace Quest Changes

The new Gelkis and Magram questlines, beginning with Valley of Bones, now require Level 35 instead of Level 30.

Rewards from these quests have also been rebalanced, with further equipment level requirement adjustments planned through a hotfix.

Additional Improvements

• Several dungeon quest rewards have been downgraded from Rare to Uncommon, with stats adjusted accordingly.

• Classic looting behavior has been restored, allowing interaction with creatures even when they have no loot.

• Weapon swapping within a single global cooldown is possible again, including macro-based swaps between two-handed weapons and sword-and-shield setups.

• Several quests now feature improved objective markers, faster respawns, and more reliable item drops.

• The Undead racial ability Will of the Forsaken can now be used correctly in situations where players are asleep or charmed.

• Various fixes address unintended creature pulls and visual effect flickering.

Gamepad Improvements

Controller support continues to receive attention, with updates to action bars, navigation, and input handling.

The Gamepad Action Bar now supports Edit Mode, and interface layouts are saved separately for different UI types.

Players should note that some previously configured Gamepad Action Bar settings will need to be configured again in Edit Mode, as they are not automatically migrated.

Known Issues

Blizzard has identified several issues that remain unresolved in this build:

• Some updated textures for Skyborne Druid Cat Form, creatures on Zephras Isle, mounts, and pets are still missing.

• The Hunter Ferocity talent's pet critical strike bonus is not reflected on the character sheet. This is a visual issue only.

• Some profession window icons currently appear broken.

A Major Step Forward for Dungeon Leveling and Class Balance

This Beta update brings meaningful improvements to several core gameplay systems.

The City of Dalaran dungeon provides new content to explore, while the dungeon XP changes could significantly improve the leveling experience for players who prefer group content.

Meanwhile, the Rage generation overhaul, Druid threat buffs, Protection Paladin adjustments, and Penance tuning demonstrate Blizzard's continued focus on refining class mechanics.

With free Legacy Points for testing, expanded Cooldown Manager functionality, and numerous quality-of-life improvements, the latest build gives players plenty of new systems and changes to explore as WoW: Forever continues its Beta development.