WoW Forever: the druid helm that ruled Classic is cut down

Wolfshead Helm has been weakened in the latest beta build. The game data now gives it a plain line: you gain an additional 5 rage from activating Enrage and an additional 5 energy from activating Shifting Power. It is otherwise the leather helm druids remember — item level 45, level 40, 109 armour and 10 spirit, made by leatherworkers.

The 5 matters because of what the helm used to be worth. In the original game its effect fired every time a druid entered Cat Form, which is what powershifting was built on: a macro that dropped the form and took it again, over and over, trading mana for a burst of energy. That made the helm the best head slot a feral druid could own for the whole of Classic and most of Burning Crusade, and nothing that came later displaced it.

Forever had already taken the trick apart before this. Shifting Power is a new talent that does the conversion in the open: 55% of base mana, instant, a 16 second cooldown, usable in Cat Form, and it turns mana into 40 energy without any form-dancing. The helm was pointed at that ability instead of at shape-shifting, which kept the idea and removed the macro. What the new build changes is the size of the bonus, and 5 energy on a 16 second cooldown is not an item anyone builds a specialisation around.

This is read from the game's own data on the beta. Blizzard has not written about the change, has not said whether these are the numbers it means to ship, and has said nothing about how feral druids are meant to look at launch. The beta runs until 21 October, and WoW Forever opens at 23:00 UK time on 4 November, which is midnight on 5 November in Central Europe.