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October 16 beta build: racial ability updates, Hunter pet nerfs and bug fixes

The Zul'Gurub loading screen from the WoW Forever client

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Blizzard put a new build on the WoW Forever beta. The development notes, posted by Kaivax, include a round of racial ability changes plus five bug fixes, covering Kirin Tor reputation for Horde, creature health regeneration, the Night Watchman's Torch, bright fog and drink tooltips. We quote the bug fixes in full from Blizzard's post. Our datamine of the new client (build 1.60.1.70425) also shows two Hunter pet abilities cut back, Dismember and Sonic Blast, which Wowhead reported.

Blizzard put a new build on the WoW Forever beta, with development notes posted by Kaivax (Community Manager). The notes cover a set of racial ability updates and five bug fixes. Blizzard titled the thread "Updated October 15"; the post went up on our feed on October 16. We now have Blizzard's own development notes and quote the bug fixes from it word for word. Wowhead also reported the build.

These are beta changes. Anything here can still change before launch.

Bug fixes

Blizzard's change log lists five fixes. Here they are word for word, under the "Bug Fixes" heading:

Resolved an issue with extra bright fog at lower shadow settings. Fixed an issue allowing Horde players to gain Kirin Tor reputation. Creatures will now properly regenerate health when out of combat. Fixed an issue with various Horde characters holding the Night Watchman’s Torch. Fixed an issue with various drink tooltips that were not displaying the correct amount of total Mana regeneration. Kaivax, Community Manager

What these mean for players: the Kirin Tor fix stops Horde characters gaining reputation they should not have. The Night Watchman's Torch named in the torch fix is a Forever quest item in the client's files, and various Horde characters were holding it by mistake. The creature-regeneration fix matters when you fight through a camp: wounded enemies should now heal back up properly once they leave combat, rather than staying low. The drink fix corrects the Mana regeneration shown in drink tooltips.

Other changes

  • A new tutorial experience has been added for new players.
  • Lighting 'Bloom Intensity' is now controlled by a slider, which has moved to the 'Advanced' graphics section.
  • A new 'Auto Attack/Auto Shot' setting has been added. If enabled, Hunters will automatically switch between auto attack and auto shot. This is now also supported for gamepad.

Hunter pet nerfs

Wowhead reports that some powerful Hunter pet abilities have been cut back in this build, singling out Dismember and Sonic Blast. Wowhead says these abilities felt too similar to other classes and gave Hunters too much utility, and that the cuts hand some power back to Warrior and Warlock, especially in PvP.

Player and site reports, not a Blizzard change or statement. Blizzard's development notes do not mention these pet abilities. The current figures below are from our own datamine of the new client; the "before" values are as Wowhead reported them, and we cannot check those against the game files.

Our client data is now on this build (1.60.1.70425, datamined October 16). It shows Dismember (Dismember, the pet's top rank) biting for 50 to 58 damage and reducing the effectiveness of any healing by 25% for 6 seconds. Rank 1, Dismember, does 11 to 13 damage with the same 25% for 6 seconds. Wowhead reports the healing cut used to be 50% for 10 seconds, so both its strength and its length are down. A healing-reduction effect like this overlaps with the Warrior's Mortal Strike, which is the overlap Wowhead points to.

For Sonic Blast, our client shows Sonic Blast (top rank) dealing 77 to 91 Nature damage and increasing the casting time of all the target's spells by 30% for 20 seconds, for 80 Focus on a 60 second cooldown. Wowhead reports this ability was reduced as well. We do not have the previous build's figures to show exactly what changed, so we give only the current values.

Racial ability updates

The build's headline is a round of racial ability changes; Wowhead titled its write-up "Massive Racial Updates". The full list is in Blizzard's development notes.

We are not listing the individual racial numbers yet. Our datamined client is now on this build (1.60.1.70425), and we have checked the Hunter pet abilities above against it, but we have not yet finished the racial figures. We will publish a full, checked breakdown once that is done. Until then, read Blizzard's post for the detail.

For how the last build changed racials (Tauren Cultivation, Gnome Eureka, Human Will to Survive and Undead Touch of the Grave), see our September 24 notes write-up.

Sources

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