The latest WoW: Forever beta build drops racial weapon specializations. Humans trade their sword bonus for Ruthless, worth 2% critical strike chance. Orcs swap the axe bonus for Savage at 1% crit chance, and Dwarves replace Mace Specialization with Earth Fury, which adds 2% critical damage and healing. Blizzard listed the changes in its development notes updated October 15.

An orc with an axe or a human with a sword no longer gets anything extra for the pairing, since the crit bonus applies whatever you wield. Most other races changed too.

Race What changed
Tauren Endurance gives 2% critical damage and healing instead of 1% hit chance; Plainsrunning adds 3% mounted speed; War Stomp is down to 90 seconds and Cultivation to 15 minutes
Dwarf Find Treasure can turn up extra items in most chests
Orc Blood Fury's cooldown rises from 2 to 3 minutes; Shatter Curse now dispels Curses, and its magic damage reduction falls from 15% to 5%
Troll Regeneration bonuses double from 10% to 20%
Night Elf Quickness now stacks with other movement speed bonuses
Gnome Eureka! becomes an 8-second buff with no charges and also works with Power Word: Shield
Undead Touch of the Grave procs more consistently after a proc chance and cooldown pass
Skyborne Wind Blessed haste goes from 1% to 3%, and Skysight and Read Leyline can be cast on the move

Nearly every change is a buff except for Orcs, who get half the crit Humans do and a weaker Blood Fury and Shatter Curse.

Classes and Dalaran

Wands and Hunter Auto Shot now fire only after 0.5 seconds of standing still, as in early WoW. Mages learn Frost Blast at level 24, a new spell that slows the target by 40%. It replaces the slow players used to get from Rank 1 Frostbolt, since Forever penalizes down-ranking; Frost Blast costs more Mana but hits a little harder. Arcane Blast has been redesigned, and Battle Shout, Trueshot Aura and Shaman totems are now raid-wide.

Dalaran is closed to the Horde: guards attack Horde players on sight. The City of Dalaran dungeon is unaffected, but the Sewer Key questline no longer opens the city itself. New players also get a new tutorial.

Where to try it before launch

You can test the new racials in the open stress test on October 21. Europe starts at 17:00 UTC (19:00 CEST) and the Americas at 21:00 UTC (2:00 p.m. PDT). No subscription is needed, and every character is wiped afterward. Our stress test story has the details.

WoW: Forever launches November 4 at 15:00 PT, which is 23:00 UTC. You can set a reminder on the game page.