Blizzard has raised the level cap in the World of Warcraft: Forever beta to 30 and opened a new dungeon, in a build whose patch notes also slow the leveling pace testers had complained was too fast.
The new dungeon is Excavation Site: Wetlands, scaled for levels 26 to 31. Razorfen Downs, at level 25 and above, and Uldaman, at level 30 and above, are now accessible as well, joining the eleven dungeons already open in the beta. Barbershops have been added in Darnassus and Thunder Bluff, every barbershop now has a barber working in it, and city guards will give directions to them.
Leveling slowed
Dungeon quests now reward 50% less extra experience beyond normal quest values. Blizzard tied the change directly to tester feedback about leveling too quickly. The experience economy has been contested throughout the beta: quest experience was given a large boost while experience from defeating creatures was cut, and Wowhead reported concerns from both directions, that questing had become too fast and that lower creature experience discouraged repeat dungeon runs.
Class, item and economy changes
The Gnome racial Eureka! was nerfed for a second time and no longer benefits periodic effects at all; channeled spells do not count as periodics. The first pass had reduced its resource discount by a flat percentage. Warriors now generate more Rage from critical strikes, with the build's notes setting the increase at 75% and a follow-up developer post published later the same day raising it to 100%, and a bug granting Dual Wield Specialization's hit chance to both weapons was fixed, which prompted another pass on Fury.
Our goal here is to give Fury more access to utility and meaningful choices early in the tree for leveling, and free up points later for more choices instead of being stuck placing points into Enrage to get Flurry.
That pass added the talents Lingering Rage, Furious Precision and Gore Drinker, removed Improved Cleave and Boundless Rage, and moved Flurry's prerequisite from Enrage to Death Wish. Druids lost Tiger's Fury, gained immunity to Disarm effects in all shapeshift forms, and picked up a new Cat Form talent, Shifting Power. Verigan's Fist, the level 20 Paladin weapon, gained a Holy Forgefire proc dealing 39 to 59 Holyfire damage after Alliance players objected that the Horde's equivalent quest reward was stronger. Savory Whimsyfin Delight's Murloc and Ogre transformations were placeholders, Blizzard said, and the food now turns players into orc versions of the Ninja and Pirate outfits granted by Savory Deviate Delight.
On the economy side, all crafted common and uncommon wands now sell to vendors for 1 copper, closing a route players had used to flip Enchanting-crafted wands for profit, and a Bind-on-Equip item with an uncollected appearance now becomes soulbound rather than bound to account when sold to a vendor. Honor costs for PvP gear and upgrade tokens rose by roughly 50%, with the Honor cap raised from 15,000 to 25,000. Blizzard also removed the Ray Traced Shadows option, which it said will return once the functionality is fixed.
