Forever: final pass on racial abilities before launch

Shortly before launch, Blizzard made a final pass on racial abilities and passive traits. The developers explain that feedback showed some new racials felt too generic, while others were seen as objectively stronger than the rest.

The team prioritized racial identity: some races will now be slightly more effective in certain combat roles. Where role- or class-focused racials had been replaced with generic ones, those changes were rolled back. The one exception is weapon specialization racials, such as Human Sword Specialization or Orc Axe Specialization — they have strong fantasy, but the developers do not want future loot tables to be judged by "required" weapon types. A tuning pass was also applied to the remaining passive bonuses.

Human

• Ruthless now increases critical strike chance by 1% (was 2%).
• Human Spirit now increases Spirit by 10% (was 5%).

Dwarf

• Earth Fury (2% increased critical strike damage and healing) removed.
• Added Artisan's Precision: increases hit chance with spells and attacks by 1%.

Tauren

• Plainsrunning now grants 2% movement speed per stack (was 1%), for a total maximum increase of 60% (was 30%).
• Plainsrunning no longer increases mounted movement speed.
• Endurance no longer provides any modifiers beyond 5% increased health.

Orc

• Savage (1% increased critical strike chance) removed.
• Command re-added: increases Warlock and Hunter pet damage by 5%.
• Blood Fury cooldown reduced to 2 minutes (was 3 minutes).

Troll

• Berserking duration increased to 15 seconds (was 10 seconds).

Undead

• Touch of the Grave internal cooldown reduced to 15 seconds (was 25 seconds).

Skyborne

• Wind-Blessed haste bonus reduced to 2% (was 3%).
• Read Leyline now increases mana and health regeneration by 50% (was 100%), lasting 15 seconds. It cannot be used while Innervate is active and is replaced by Innervate as a more powerful effect.
• Using Read Leyline at a Ley Line grants Attuned for 1 hour: while Attuned, the benefit of Read Leyline is a 100% regeneration increase.
• Skysight is now a 15% movement speed increase (was 10%), lasting 15 seconds.
• Using Skysight at an elemental convergence grants Charged for 1 hour: while Charged, the benefit of Skysight is a 30% movement speed increase.
• Both Attuned and Charged persist through death and are removed upon entering a raid.

Sources

• WoW Forever Beta Development Notes — racial abilities update (October 26)
• Clarifications and additions (October 27)