Datamined: the WoW Forever client drops Classic's spell power penalty on low-rank spells

2026-09-30 · ForeverDB

In the Forever beta client, spells you learn before level 20 get their full spell power coefficient. Classic Era's client cuts them hard: Shadow Bolt rank 1 scales at 0.14 in Classic and 0.486 in Forever. That makes early spell power worth more and low ranks very mana-efficient. Not every coefficient went up, though: Lightning Bolt's higher ranks and Chain Lightning scale less.

This week Crix Forever went through the Warlock's spell changes in a video, reading the numbers off a comparison site. One set of numbers stood out: Shadow Bolt's spell power bonus at ranks 1 to 3 is "48.6 instead of 14, 62 instead of 29, 80 instead of 56", and then the changes stop. He also passed on a rumour that Warlock simulations cast rank 2 Shadow Bolt over and over. We checked the Forever beta client. His coefficients are right, and they come from a change that reaches every caster, not just Warlocks.

The short version

• Classic Era's client cuts the spell power coefficient of spells learned before level 20: 3.75% less for each level below 20, so a level 1 spell keeps only 28.75% of its value. Shadow Bolt rank 1 scales at 0.14 there.
• The Forever client has no such cut. Every rank gets the full value for its cast time: Shadow Bolt rank 1 scales at 0.486, rank 2 at 0.629 and rank 3 at 0.8. From rank 4 (level 20) it's 0.857, the same as Classic.
• It's the same for every caster. Fireball, Frostbolt, Smite, Lesser Heal, Mind Blast, Lightning Bolt, Healing Wave, Wrath, Healing Touch, and damage-over-time spells such as Corruption, Immolate, Shadow Word: Pain, Moonfire and Rejuvenation all follow the same pattern.
• Not everything went up. Lightning Bolt from rank 4 scales at 0.714 (Classic 0.857), and Chain Lightning at 0.571 (Classic 0.714).

What the client says

These are the spell power coefficients in the two clients: how much of your spell power each cast adds. The Classic Era numbers are from the Classic Era 1.15.9 client; they're shown only as the "before" side.

Every Classic Era number above is the full value times Classic's low-level cut: Fireball rank 1 (level 1) is 0.429 × 0.2875 = 0.123, rank 3 (level 12) is 0.714 × 0.7 = 0.5. Each class's full list is on its changes page, for example Warlock and Mage.

Some spells also got a real change on top: Corruption and Shadow Word: Pain scale at 0.2 at every rank (Classic's top ranks 0.167), and Bane of Agony at 0.133 (Classic 0.083). Bane of Doom has the biggest jump of all, from 1.0 to 4.0, although its base damage fell from 3,200 to 1,742. We checked the numbers against a second extract of the Forever 1.60 client, and they are the same in beta builds 70009, 70058 and 70124.

The ones that went down

• Lightning Bolt: ranks 4 to 10 scale at 0.714, down from Classic's 0.857. Ranks 1 to 3 still went up.
• Chain Lightning: 0.571 at ranks 1, 2 and 4, and 0.517 at rank 3, down from Classic's 0.714.

What it means

• Spell power matters from level 1. At the beta's level cap, your spells are mostly ranks learned before 20, so spell damage and healing on gear now adds its full share to them. In Classic it added little.
• Every rank of a spell gets the same spell power per second of casting. For Shadow Bolt that's about 0.286 per second at every rank (0.486 over 1.7 sec, 0.629 over 2.2 sec, 0.857 over 3 sec). A lower rank has less base damage, but it costs much less mana.
• Downranking is mana-efficient. Shadow Bolt rank 2 does 22 to 28 plus 0.629 of your spell power for 40 mana in 2.2 sec. Rank 4, the rank you get at level 20, does 52 to 60 plus 0.857 for 110 mana in 3 sec.

Speculation: Our maths on the "spam rank 2 Shadow Bolt" rumour, using the client's numbers and ignoring crits and hit. With 5/5 Bane (-0.5 sec on Shadow Bolt), rank 2 casts in 1.7 sec and gets slightly more spell power per second than rank 4 or rank 5 at 2.5 sec (0.37 against 0.34). The higher rank's base damage still keeps it ahead until your spell power passes about 280 (rank 4) or 600 (rank 5), far beyond a level 20 or 30 Warlock. Without Bane, the top rank is always ahead. Rank 2 wins on damage per mana: with 50 spell power it does about 1.4 damage per mana, against 0.9 for rank 4 and 0.75 for rank 5. So rank 2 makes sense when you're short on mana, but not as a way to do the most damage.

What we can't see

The client only has the coefficients. The server works out the damage, and it could still apply a penalty the client doesn't show, such as a later expansion's penalty for casting ranks far below your level. Blizzard's posts so far say nothing about spell power coefficients or downranking. Until beta players test a low rank against a known amount of spell power, treat the downranking picture as Speculation.

From the WoW Forever beta client (build 1.60.1.70124; the Warlock and caster numbers are the same as in 70009 and 70058), compared with the Classic Era 1.15.9 client. Beta data can change before launch on November 4, 2026. The video's other Warlock numbers are checked claim by claim in our video check: most match the client, but Bane of Agony rank 6 does 552 damage (not 522), Bane of Havoc copies 15% of your damage (not 50%), and Rain of Fire went slightly down, not up.

Sources

• Warlock: changes from Classic Era (ForeverDB, from the client)
• Shadow Bolt in the WoW Forever client (ForeverDB)
• Crix Forever: WoW Forever Changed Warlock WAY More Than You Think — ALL Spell Changes (YouTube)