WoW Forever: auras, totems and Battle Shout now cover the raid

In the WoW Forever beta development notes updated on 15 October, Blizzard turned a set of group buffs into raid-wide effects. In the original game these buffs reached only the caster's own party, so a raid had to spread the right classes across its groups to give everyone the bonus. In WoW Forever one caster covers the whole raid.

For druids, Moonkin Aura now only raises spell critical strike chance and is raid wide, and Leader of the Pack now only raises melee and ranged critical strike chance and is raid wide too. The hunter Trueshot Aura is now raid wide, and so is the warrior Battle Shout, which already gives less attack power in WoW Forever than in the original game, as covered in the warrior changes Blizzard detailed earlier.

Shamans get the biggest share of the change. Grace of Air Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem and Flametongue Totem are all raid wide now. Grace of Air Totem is no longer exclusive with Windfury Totem and Flametongue Totem, while those 2 still cannot be active together, and both now correctly affect only players.

Paladins lose Blessing of Salvation and Greater Blessing of Salvation. In their place come Salvation and Mass Salvation, which are cast the same way but no longer take up a blessing slot, so they stack with the other blessings. Paladins also learn Revoke together with Salvation: it removes Salvation or Mass Salvation from a party or raid member. Blizzard says the aim is to give the paladin more control over who has Salvation and who does not, which matters for tanks who need their threat. More on the class is in the paladin deep dive.

These are beta notes, and Blizzard has not said whether any of it will change before launch. WoW Forever opens in Europe at 23:00 London time on 4 November, which is midnight on 5 November in Central Europe.