Blizzard's first World of Warcraft: Forever (WoW: Forever for short) class deep dive covers the Hunter and the Druid. Blizzard's post of 30 September lists their ability and talent changes. The short version: Hunters get Aimed Shot at level 20 and traps in combat. Druids can drink potions without leaving an animal form.

The Hunter is a ranged class that fights beside a pet. The Druid is a shape-shifting class that can heal, tank or deal damage, and tanking means drawing the enemy's attacks onto yourself. Blizzard says both classes may keep changing through the beta, the test version people can play before release.

How do talents work in WoW: Forever?

Talents are upgrades you buy with points to shape a character inside their class, spread over three trees for each of these two classes. Blizzard says they start at level 10 and keep the old structure, with the same number of rows. The one-point milestone talents at 11, 21 and 31 points stay, and a new one joins at 16 points. Blizzard's post calls these gold medal talents.

Some talents are exactly as they were in patch 1.12, a version of the original World of Warcraft. Others are changed, and several class buffs that used to be talents are now given to every player of the class. Blessing of Kings and Improved Mark of the Wild are the two examples Blizzard names.

To change your talents, Legacy talents included, you visit a class trainer, the in-game teacher for your class, in one of the major cities. Dual Specialization, a second saved talent setup you can swap to, opens at level 40.

What changes for Hunters?

A Hunter's three trees are Beast Mastery (pets), Marksmanship (ranged attacks) and Survival (traps and melee, the close-up fighting). Here are the baseline changes, the ones every Hunter gets.

Ability	The change
Aimed Shot	Every Hunter gets it at level 20
Arcane Shot	No longer shares a cooldown with Aimed Shot
Multi-Shot	Now shares a cooldown with Aimed Shot
Disengage	Its threat reduction is doubled
Aspect of the Beast	Now also grants melee Attack Power
Traps	Usable in combat, with a 30-second cooldown
Frost and Fire traps	Now on separate cooldowns
Scorpid Sting	Lowers the target's chance to hit by 2%, in place of Strength and Agility

Threat is how badly a monster wants to hit you. A cooldown is the wait before you can use an ability again.

What's new for Hunter pets?

Pets now get more stats from their Hunter's gear, and they can no longer take player buffs that raise their stats. Blizzard says every family can learn Bite or Claw, sometimes both, and Dive or Dash. Foxes are a new family with a new ability. Blizzard lists Trickster's Dance right beside them: it raises a pet's dodge chance and attack speed for 12 seconds.

The beta's own files also list a Core Hound family, which Blizzard's post doesn't name: it has Bite but neither Dive nor Dash, and the files don't say whether players can tame one.

Each family also gets one ability nobody else has.

Family	Its own ability	What it does
Bat	Sonic Blast	Damage, and slows the target's spellcasting
Bear	Swipe	Hits 3 targets
Bird of Prey (the old Owl)	Mine!	Damage, and disarms the target
Boar	Charge	Charges in, pins the target and powers up the next attack
Carrion Bird	Demoralizing Screech	Hits nearby enemies and lowers their melee Attack Power
Cat	Prowl	Stealth, and a harder first hit from it
Crab	Pinch	Damage, and slows the target's movement
Crocolisk	Dismember	Damage, and cuts the target's healing received by 50%
Gorilla	Thunderstomp	Hits enemies in an area
Hyena	Tendon Rip	Slows the target and makes it bleed
Raptor	Savage Rend	Makes the target bleed
Scorpid	Scorpid Poison	Stacking damage over time
Spider	Web	Pins the target and deals damage over time
Tallstrider	Dust Cloud	Lowers the target's armor
Turtle	Shell Shield	Less damage taken and slower attacks for 12 seconds
Wind Serpent	Lightning Breath	A 20-yard ranged attack
Wolf	Furious Howl	Raises the party's melee Attack Power

Picking a pet? Our hunter pet reference lists the families and abilities in the beta's own files, now with Sonic Blast for the Bat. The Hunter class page has more on the class.

Hunter milestone talents

These are the gold medal talents the post names by point count.

Tree	Points	Talent	What it does
Beast Mastery	16	Summon Hawk	Instant damage, and a Hawk attacks your target for 18 seconds, up to 2 at once
Marksmanship	11	Lone Wolf	20% more damage with all attacks while you have no pet out
Marksmanship	21	Trueshot Aura	Moved up to row 4, with new lower ranks
Marksmanship	31	Sniper Shot	A 4-second cast, 45-yard base range, and the next 3 Shots reach 10 yards further
Survival	16	Counterattack	Moved up to row 4
Survival	21	Strider Kick	An instant weapon hit, and 30% faster movement for 3 seconds
Survival	31	Lacerating Strikes	Mongoose Bite also makes the target bleed for 21 seconds

Lone Wolf is our favourite. Blizzard says the talent trees let a Hunter choose not to have a pet at all, and this talent pays 20% more damage for it.

One snag: Blizzard calls Trueshot Aura the 21-point talent, but also moves it to row 4, which is the 16-point row. Our talent calculator, read from the beta, has it on row 4.

What changes for Druids?

A Druid's three trees are Balance (spellcasting), Feral Combat (shapeshifting, turning into an animal form) and Restoration (healing). Blizzard says the class-wide changes aim to make shapeshifting feel more fluid.

• Potions: all potions and almost all similar consumables work in form without cancelling it. Rage potions and Thistletea are usable by Druids too.
• Bombs: most Engineering bombs still don't work in form, but some new recipes do.
• Weapons: weapon enchantments and procs, the effects that sometimes fire on a hit, now work in form.
• Doors: most doors and objects can be opened without leaving form.
• Racials: abilities that come with a race, like Shadowmeld and War Stomp, now work in form.

Several abilities also become baseline. Nature's Grasp comes at level 10 and Omen of Clarity at level 20. Revive, a new resurrection spell for use out of combat, comes at level 12. Lacerate comes at level 42, a bleed that stacks up to 5 times. Tiger's Fury is removed, and a new Feral talent called Shifting Power replaces it.

Druid milestone talents

Tree	Points	Talent	What it does
Balance	11	Nature's Splendor	Longer Moonfire, Rejuvenation, Regrowth and Insect Swarm
Balance	16	Insect Swarm	Nature damage over 12 seconds, and lowers the target's chance to hit
Feral	11	Feral Charge	Now also has a Cat Form version on a 30-second cooldown
Feral	16	Shifting Power	Cat: instantly grants 40 Energy at a big Mana cost
Feral	16	Primal Bite	Bear: a 20 Rage attack with very high threat, chosen over Mangle
Feral	21	Leader of the Pack	In the post, its critical strike bonus covers all spells and attacks (since changed, see below)
Feral	31	Berserk	15 seconds in Bear or Cat Form: Fear immunity, and Primal Bite hits up to 3 targets
Restoration	11	Gift of the Earthmother	0.5 seconds off the global cooldown of three heals
Restoration	16	Swiftmend	Moved up to row 4, and no longer uses up the heal it rides on
Restoration	31	Wild Growth	A heal over time on the target's whole party, pets included

Rage, Energy and Mana are the resources a Druid spends, depending on the form. Feral gets two gold medal talents on its 16-point row, one for cats and one for bears.

Furor, a Restoration talent, now lets a Druid with 5 points in it build Energy, the resource Cat Form spends, outside Cat Form. Going into Bear Form throws all that Energy away, and Blizzard says that is there to stop "bear-weaving". It says the change also took away "power shifting", a playstyle some players prize, and Shifting Power brings it back "in a much more approachable way".

Compared: the post against our talent calculator today

Our talent calculator is built from the beta's own game files, now Forever build 1.60.1.70450. Every milestone talent in the two tables above is in it by name and row, Shifting Power included. Some of the beta's talent descriptions still read differently from Blizzard's post, so read the two side by side.

Blizzard's post said three Feral changes weren't in the beta yet: Shifting Power, Improved Shifting Power and Shredding Attacks moving up to row 3. All three are in the calculator now. Shredding Attacks sits on row 3, Shifting Power on row 4, and Improved Shifting Power, which needs it, on row 5. One gap: the beta's own description of Shifting Power has no readable Energy number, so the calculator shows a question mark where Blizzard's post says 40.

This build also splits Leader of the Pack's bonus again. It now raises melee and ranged critical strike chance for the party or raid, Moonkin Form raises spell critical strike chance, and neither text calls the two exclusive any more.

Our reading: a cat Druid plan built in the calculator now has every talent the post names. We refresh the calculator when a new beta build appears, and the Druid class page shows which Druid abilities are new since Classic Era, the re-released original game.

What they still can't do

Blizzard says both classes keep weaknesses.

• Hunters deal damage only, though a pet can tank in solo and small-group play. They have the longest range of any class. They can't use ranged attacks inside 8 yards of an enemy, and they can't Stun or Interrupt, the moves that freeze an enemy or cut off its spell.
• Druids can fill any role, but they can't snare (slow an enemy), Silence or Interrupt, and their crowd control, the moves that take an enemy out of a fight for a while, is weaker. Blizzard says they'll rely on others for the full toolkit in raids and dungeons.

Hunter and Druid come first. Blizzard says more class deep dives follow as the beta goes on.