WoW Forever: first raids pitched nearer Blackwing Lair

The first raids in WoW Forever are not meant as a gentle warm-up. According to an interview with Blizzard designers Kris Zierhut and Aidan Moon published on 28 October, Barrow Deeps and Hyjal Summit are closer in difficulty to Blackwing Lair than to Molten Core, the first raid of the original game.

Every dungeon and raid launches with a single difficulty. Adjustable difficulty, of the kind seen in Ulduar or in the Classic seasons, may come later but is not part of launch. Onyxia also returns, in a slightly adjusted version.

The designers said quest and dungeon rewards were too generous in the beta, and new items are meant to feel classic: rarely perfect and often situational. Content up to level 30 that was switched off or simply not found during the beta is still waiting, legendaries are planned for every class and role, and class tuning continues, with Elemental Shaman named for further changes. Fixing layering problems is currently the team's top priority.

These points come from a summary of one interview rather than a Blizzard announcement, and Blizzard has not published tuning for the launch raids. The raid line-up and boss count were covered on the official podcast. Forever launches for Europe at midnight on 5 November in Central Europe.