WoW Forever pet changes are planned for Tuesday, November 10, with Hunter pets and Warlock Voidwalkers targeted for better tank durability relative to Classic Era. The earlier launch tuning already reduced Warlock pet health inheritance to 2 Health per point of their master's Stamina and fixed Hunter pets losing innate attack-speed passives during untraining.
Pet tuning planned for November 10
A Blizzard community manager wrote on November 6 that the team was investigating pet durability and intended to adjust stats so Hunter pets and Voidwalkers would tank about as effectively as in Classic Era. The same post described November 10 as the intended hotfix date, with further Tuesday balance passes possible when needed.
Affliction is part of that plan: Blizzard wants Siphon Life, Corruption and Bane of Agony to be worthwhile alongside Wrack, rather than having uninterrupted Wrack channels outperform the combined approach, while preserving total Affliction damage.
Hunter pet scaling, training and controls
Hunter pets inherit some of their owner's stats and have baseline protection that reduces incoming area damage by 90%. The October 26 demonstration gives the inheritance as 2 Health per Stamina, 30% of armor and 10% of Attack Power, with racial bonuses included; the development notes specify that inherited critical chance uses the higher of melee or ranged crit and that pets benefit from Expertise.
The demonstration describes focus regenerating continuously at 10 per second, twice the Classic rate, and reports slower happiness loss during beta. Loyalty and happiness remain part of pet management, and a beta fix restored happiness loss for pets at maximum loyalty.
Taming and teaching abilities
- Learn Tame Beast at level 10.
- Choose a beast at or below your Hunter's level: Tame Beast does not work on a higher-level beast.
- To acquire a transferable pet ability, tame a beast that knows it and use that pet until you learn the ability.
- Teach it to another eligible pet using training points; pet trainers supply general skills such as Growl and resistances.
Innate attack-speed passives should survive pet untraining following the launch fix. A separate beta correction addressed beasts carrying ability ranks above their own level, which could previously make a pet appear to forget an ability.
Pet commands and combat controls
Aggressive Mode is available through the pet tab of your spellbook for Hunters and Warlocks. Controller support includes the stable interface, pet-control and pet-spell flyouts, and Pet Move; confirm placement with Interact or by pressing the ability again.
Hunters can place traps during combat, maintain one Fire Trap and one Ice Trap, and benefit from Attack Power scaling on Fire traps. All trap types share a 30-second cooldown before talent reductions.
Auto Shot requires approximately half a second standing still before firing, but continues during casts such as Aimed Shot and Sniper Shot. The Auto Attack/Auto Shot option automatically switches between those attacks and supports gamepad input.
The WoW Forever class changes overview is a companion read for the wider Hunter toolkit.
Pet attack speed and faster tame options
The October 26 demonstration describes a base swing interval of 2.0 seconds, modified by Faster Attack I–VII or Slower Attack passives; it counted 65 faster-than-base pets among 503 tameable beasts. Slower Attack II and III produced 2.5- and 2.7-second intervals without compensating hit damage in that demonstration.
Broken Tooth. Image: Warcraft Wiki.
| Pet | Location | Demonstrated swing interval |
| Broken Tooth, rare level-37 Cat | Badlands | 1.0 seconds; fastest pet in the demonstration |
| The Rake, rare Cat | Mulgore | 1.2 seconds |
| Durotar Tiger | Durotar | 1.3 seconds |
| Ornery Galestrider | Skyborne starting area | 1.3 seconds |
| Prairie Wolf Alpha | Mulgore | 1.4 seconds |
| Nightsaber | Teldrassil | 1.4 seconds |
| Prowler | Elwynn Forest | 1.5 seconds |
We'd choose a nearby fast pet for straightforward leveling rather than make a rare spawn the priority: the demonstration offers several accessible alternatives and warns that the slower passives do not buy harder hits.
Rare-pet camping felt crowded and difficult to a few players commenting during beta.
Shy-Rotam is a tameable level-60 elite Cat. The demonstration names Mangeclaw as a Bear option on Zephyrs Isle; Blizzard names the Skyborne starting island Zephras Isle.
Hunter pet family abilities
The pet demonstration describes 18 families and 22 distinct pet abilities, including Fox as the added family and Bird of Prey as the renamed Owl family. Pet family skills give Hunters a different tool alongside gear-based scaling.
Fox, Bird of Prey and Bat
- Fox: Trickster's Dance grants 50% dodge and a 30% attack-speed increase for 12 seconds, with a three-minute cooldown and level-20 requirement; Foxes also have Bite and Dash. The demonstration places tameable Foxes on Zephyrs Isle, while official material calls the Skyborne island Zephras Isle.
- Bird of Prey: Mine! replaces Screech, deals damage and disarms for three seconds on a 90-second cooldown.
- Bat: Sonic Blast replaces Screech, deals damage and lengthens the target's spell casts by 30% for 20 seconds, with a 60-second cooldown.
We'd pick Bird of Prey when the useful interruption is against melee attacks, or Bat when slowing spell casts matters more: their disarm and casting-time penalty target those different threats.
Raptor, Carrion Bird, Bear and Boar
- Raptor: Savage Rend replaces Cobra Reflexes with an 18-second bleed on a one-minute cooldown; Dash is added.
- Carrion Bird: Demoralizing Screech replaces Screech, reducing nearby enemies' melee Attack Power for 30 seconds with a 10-second cooldown.
- Bear: Swipe damages up to three nearby targets, and Bears gain Dash.
- Boar: Charge deals slightly more damage than its Classic version, retains a one-second root and has a 25-second cooldown.
Crab, Crocolisk, Gorilla and Hyena
- Crab: Pinch deals damage and slows movement by 50% for nine seconds, with a 30-second cooldown; Crabs gain Dash.
- Crocolisk: Dismember deals damage and cuts healing received by 25% for six seconds, with a 15-second cooldown; Crocolisks gain Dash.
- Gorilla: Thunderstomp gains a fourth rank, roughly matching Classic's third-rank damage, while its first rank deals less damage; Gorillas gain Dash.
- Hyena: Tendon Rip deals damage and reduces movement speed by 50% for nine seconds, with a 30-second cooldown.
The pet versions of Pinch, Dismember and Tendon Rip have ranked entries at levels 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60 in build 1.60.1.70862.
Scorpid, Spider and Turtle
- Scorpid: Scorpid Poison deals twice its Classic damage in the demonstration, and Scorpids gain Dash.
- Spider: Web deals damage and immobilizes its target for four seconds on a 40-second cooldown; Spiders gain Dash.
- Turtle: Shell Shield retains 50% damage reduction, increases the interval between attacks by 60% instead of 43%, and increases damage per swing while active; Turtles gain Dash.
Wind Serpent, Wolf and Tallstrider
- Wind Serpent: Lightning Breath deals approximately 30% less damage than in Classic in the demonstration; this family does not gain Dash.
- Wolf: Furious Howl boosts melee Attack Power for party or raid members within 15 yards for one minute, with a 30-second cooldown; its Attack Power bonus was reduced by 40% during beta.
- Tallstrider: Dust Cloud reduces the target's armor by 65 for 30 seconds in the demonstration.
The pet Dash entries in build 1.60.1.70862 last 15 seconds, have a 30-second cooldown and appear at levels 30, 40 and 50; the demonstration gives the initial movement bonus as 40%. Furious Howl's one-minute pet entries appear at levels 10, 24, 40 and 56, while the 30-second Dust Cloud entries appear at levels 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60.
Warlock pet health, shards and related changes
The launch tuning changed Warlock pet health inheritance from 7.5 to 2 Health per point of the master's Stamina. One creator regarded that reduction as especially dangerous in PvP, where losing a pet during crowd control could undermine pet-dependent tools such as Soul Link.
Drain Soul's chance to generate a Soul Shard from damage without a kill was substantially reduced, affecting the duel-pet shard farming shown in the November 3 demonstration. That creator still described a killing Drain Soul as yielding a shard.
Summon Incubus no longer bypasses its Soul Shard cost through the Reagent Economy Legacy perk, and an existing demon is stunned while you summon a replacement. Warlock class-training costs are reduced to account for expected pet Grimoire purchases; the general level-1–60 class-training total is 206–207 gold.
Affliction and damage changes
- Spellstones: Their bonus applies to Shadow damage, correcting the earlier application to Fire as well.
- Bane of Agony: Damage updates dynamically, and Amplify Curse correctly affects it and Curse of Exhaustion.
- Improved Drains: The launch tuning adds Drain Mana's drained Mana to its benefits and removes Wrack damage from them.
- Wrack: The launch tuning gives a spell-damage coefficient of 0.286 per second, base damage growth of 2.5 per level and effective level-60 base damage of 86 per second instead of 36.
- Shadow and Flame: Its five ranks increase Fire or Shadow damage by 4/8/12/16/20%, replacing 2/4/6/8/10%.
- Shadow Mastery: Its five ranks increase Shadow damage by 2/4/6/8/10%.
- Destructive Reach: Its two ranks increase Destruction spell range by 10/20%.
- Voidwalker Sacrifice: Its scaling includes 10% of the Warlock's spell healing.
Hunter talents in the beta client build
The current beta-build snapshot, 1.60.1.70790, contains 51 Hunter talents across Survival, Marksmanship and Beast Mastery; compared with Classic Era, 18 are additions, 13 Classic talents are absent and 22 have altered ranks, placement or text. The effects below are the snapshot's final talent-rank values, with each talent's total rank count.
Survival
| Talent | Row; ranks | Effect at final rank |
| Improved Tracking | 1; 5 | Deal 5% more damage to your tracked creature type: Beast, Demon, Dragonkin, Elemental, Giant, Humanoid or Undead. |
| Entrapment | 2; 5 | A triggered trap immobilizes all affected targets for five seconds. |
| Improved Wing Clip | 2; 3 | Wing Clip has a 20% chance to immobilize for five seconds. |
| Savage Strikes | 2; 2 | Gain four percentage points of critical chance for all melee abilities. |
| Survivalist | 2; 5 | Gain 10% total Health. |
| Surefooted | 3; 3 | Gain 3% hit chance and shorten movement-impairing effects by 30%. |
| Counterattack | 4; 1 | After a parry, strike for 50% weapon damage plus 26 and immobilize for five seconds; the strike cannot be blocked, dodged or parried. |
| Predator's Edge | 4; 5 | Gain 30% melee-ability critical damage and 50% off-hand weapon damage. |
| Survival Tactics | 4; 2 | Gain 10% hit chance for traps and Feign Death. |
| Expose Prey | 5; 2 | Melee and ranged attacks against a marked enemy have a 10% chance to enable Mongoose Bite for 10 seconds. |
| Resourcefulness | 5; 2 | Cut trap and melee-ability Mana costs by 60%; melee and ranged ability crits enable 50% Mana regeneration during casting for 30 seconds. |
| Strider Kick | 5; 1 | Deal 100% melee weapon damage and gain 30% movement speed for three seconds. |
| Survivalist's Discipline | 5; 2 | Reduce trap and Deterrence cooldowns by 40%. |
| Lacerating Strikes | 7; 1 | Mongoose Bite adds a bleed totaling 40% of its damage over 21 seconds. |
Mongoose Bite's ability ranks are learned at levels 16, 30, 44 and 58, with a five-second cooldown. Strider Kick remains usable while disarmed or without a main-hand weapon, and Resourcefulness does not trigger from traps.
Entrapment, Improved Wing Clip and Counterattack roots are subject to diminishing returns. Lacerating Strikes can critically strike and replaces the same Hunter's existing bleed even when the replacement has lower damage per second.
Lightning Reflexes grants 3/6/9/12/15% Agility across its five ranks in the launch tuning. Around level 30, Survival's melee kit starts to take shape, with Lacerate and Aspect of the Beast coming in at that point, followed later by Resourcefulness and Expose Prey.
Marksmanship
| Talent | Row; ranks | Effect at final rank |
| Hawk Eye | 1; 3 | Increase ranged-weapon reach by six yards. |
| Lethal Attacks | 1; 5 | Gain 5% critical chance for all attacks. |
| Careful Aim | 2; 5 | Add Attack Power equal to 100% of Intellect. |
| Efficiency | 2; 5 | Reduce Mana costs of shots, stings and melee abilities by 15%. |
| Improved Stings | 2; 3 | Increase Serpent Sting damage by 20%, shorten Viper Sting's cooldown by six seconds and extend Scorpid Sting by 45 seconds. |
| Improved Arcane Shot | 3; 5 | Shorten Arcane Shot's cooldown by 1.5 seconds without changing other abilities sharing its cooldown. |
| Lone Wolf | 3; 1 | Deal 20% more attack damage without an active pet. |
| Rapid Killing | 3; 2 | Shorten Rapid Fire's cooldown by two minutes; killing a non-trivial enemy, or having one die with your Serpent Sting, grants 20% more damage to your next shot within 20 seconds. |
| Mortal Shots | 4; 5 | Increase the critical-damage bonus of ranged abilities by 30%. |
| Trueshot Aura | 4; 1 | The snapshot's talent text grants 20 Ranged Attack Power to party or raid members within 45 yards. |
| Barrage | 5; 3 | Increase Multi-Shot, Aimed Shot and Volley damage by 15%. |
| Rapid Recuperation | 5; 2 | Applying Serpent Sting permits 50% Mana regeneration while casting for 15 seconds, rising to 100% when Rapid Killing is consumed. |
| Sniper Shot | 7; 1 | Deal ranged damage plus 320 and extend your next three shots' reach by 10 yards for 10 seconds. |
| Improved Serpent Sting | 62; 5 | The client entry increases Serpent Sting damage by 10%. |
Arcane Shot's base cooldown is six seconds, with ranks at levels 6, 12, 20, 28, 36, 44, 52 and 60. Scorpid Sting's base duration is 20 seconds and its initial level requirement is 22.
Sniper Shot's ability entries at levels 40, 48 and 58 have a four-second cast and 15-second cooldown; the development notes give it 45-yard range. Trueshot Aura's launch-tuning values across its five spell ranks are 20/35/50/75/100 Ranged Attack Power.
Aimed Shot is baseline, and abilities no longer interrupt Auto Shot's sequence. Marksmanship emphasizes the Hunter's own damage and supports a petless endgame approach through Lone Wolf, at the expense of solo and leveling strength.
Beast Mastery
| Talent | Row; ranks | Effect at final rank |
| Deadly Aspects | 1; 5 | With Aspect of the Hawk, Auto Shot has a 10% chance to grant 30% ranged attack speed for 12 seconds; with Aspect of the Beast, melee auto attacks have the equivalent chance to grant melee attack speed. |
| Endurance Training | 1; 5 | Increase pet Health and Armor by 15%. |
| Focused Fire | 2; 2 | While your pet is active, increase both your damage and its damage by 2%. |
Pathfinding moved to the third row in the launch tuning, and Improved Mend Pet's Mana-cost effect was corrected to reduce rather than increase the cost. Summon Hawk arrives at level 25 and now spawns its Hawk at the selected target, which remains its target.
We'd choose Beast Mastery for a player who wants the pet to remain central: its damage relies more heavily on the companion and scales with better equipment, while its beta gameplay was simpler than Marksmanship's.
Warlock talents in the beta client build
Build 1.60.1.70790 contains 52 Warlock talents across Affliction, Demonology and Destruction, with 21 additions, 19 Classic talents absent and 29 entries changed in ranks, placement or text. These are the current beta-build snapshot's final-rank effects for the supplied Affliction and Demonology entries.
Affliction
| Talent | Row; ranks | Effect at final rank |
| Improved Corruption | 1; 5 | Shorten Corruption's cast by two seconds and increase its damage by 10%. |
| Improved Life Tap | 1; 2 | Increase Life Tap's Mana return by 20%. |
| Suppression | 1; 5 | Gain 5% hit chance and generate 20% less threat. |
| Grim Reach | 2; 2 | Extend Affliction spell range by 20%. |
| Improved Drains | 2; 3 | Increase Drain Life's healing, Drain Soul's damage and Drain Mana's Mana drain by 20%. |
| Soul Harvest | 2; 2 | A non-trivial enemy dying under Drain Soul grants 100% more Mana regeneration for 10 seconds and permits full normal regeneration while casting. |
| Amplify Curse | 3; 1 | For 30 seconds, empower the next Curse of Weakness or Bane of Agony by 50%, or Curse of Exhaustion by 20%. |
| Fel Concentration | 3; 3 | Give Drain Life, Drain Mana, Drain Soul and Wrack a 70% chance to avoid losing channel time to damage. |
| Improved Bane of Agony | 3; 2 | Increase Bane of Agony damage by 10%. |
| Pandemic | 3; 3 | Increase the critical-damage bonus of Corruption, Bane of Agony, Bane of Doom, Drain Soul, Drain Life, Siphon Life and Wrack by 100%. |
| Curse of Exhaustion | 4; 1 | Slow the target by 30% for 12 seconds; each Warlock can maintain only one Curse on a target. |
| Malevolence | 4; 5 | Add 5% critical-effect chance to Shadow spells. |
| Nightfall | 4; 2 | Corruption, Drain Soul, Drain Life and Wrack damage have a 4% chance to make the next Shadow Bolt instant through Shadow Trance. |
| Siphon Life | 5; 1 | The snapshot's talent text transfers 11 Health every three seconds for 30 seconds. |
| Soul Siphon | 5; 3 | Increase Drain Life, Drain Soul and Wrack damage or healing by 12% per other Affliction effect, capped at 36%. |
| Wrack | 7; 1 | The snapshot's talent text lists 36 Shadow damage per client-computed interval and increases damage from your other Shadow damage-over-time effects by 10% for six seconds. |
Bane of Agony lasts 24 seconds, with spell ranks at levels 8, 18, 28, 38, 48 and 58; Siphon Life's spell ranks appear at levels 30, 38, 48 and 58 and last 30 seconds.
The WoW Forever Warlock guide covers the Affliction leveling route in more detail.
Demonology
| Talent | Row; ranks | Effect at final rank |
| Demonic Embrace | 1; 5 | Increase total Stamina by 15%, without Classic's Spirit penalty. |
| Improved Health Funnel | 1; 2 | Transfer 40% more Health, pay 30% less Health and generate no threat; Health Funnel remains usable at any demon Health level. |
| Improved Imp | 1; 3 | Increase Firebolt damage and Fire Shield's effect by 30%. |
| Unholy Power | 1; 5 | Increase all damage from Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Incubus and Felhunter by 10%. |
| Demonic Aegis | 2; 2 | Improve Demon Skin and Demon Armor effectiveness by 30%. |
| Demonic Energies | 2; 2 | Heal your pet for 15% of your spell damage; Life Tap gives the demon Mana equal to the amount you gain. |
| Fel Vitality | 2; 3 | Increase Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Incubus and Felhunter maximum Health and Mana by 15%, and your maximum Mana by 15%. |
| Improved Voidwalker | 2; 3 | Improve Torment, Consume Shadows, Sacrifice and Suffering effectiveness by 30%. |
| Demonic Sacrifice | 3; 1 | Sacrifice your demon for an effect lasting 120 minutes, canceled by summoning another demon; the supplied Imp effect increases Shadow damage by 15%. |
| Master Summoner | 3; 2 | Shorten Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus, Incubus and Felhunter summons by four seconds and reduce their Mana cost by 40%. |
The beta notes also corrected Soul Link failing to apply to the pet. Orc's Command racial increases Hunter and Warlock pet damage by 5%.
The companion system is what drew one player toward Hunter.
Was gonna roll a rogue in Forever, which I mained back in vanilla, just to re-live those memories..
— one player
What players report
Seven players on the official WoW: Forever forums report that one same-level or lower-level enemy kills or nearly kills their Voidwalker, and two enemies reliably kill it; six report a level-10 Voidwalker at about 250 Health rather than roughly 500 in Classic.
Voidwalker. Image: Wowpedia.
Four forum participants describe the Succubus and Imp as too fragile or weak to replace it, while three attribute poor survival to low armor as well as Health.
Three players on the official forums report that Health Funnel fails to keep the pet alive through a fight and favor resummoning, while two say frequent deaths exhaust shards that Drain Soul rarely supplies.
Switching to Imp avoided Voidwalker deaths and shard costs for two forum posters despite low damage, while two others report better survival from Stamina gear and Demonic Embrace.
Seven players on the official forums regard the nerf as excessive and damaging to Warlock leveling, and five favor waiting or rerolling because they doubt a quick fix.
Four forum participants believe the health and armor behavior is unintended, with one writing:
Imo it’s not working as intended. The patch notes for the entire beta and 2 days ago mention notbing about warlock pet health, armor etc.
— one player
