WoW Forever Hunter Nerf and the Ice Lance Cooldown

The live WoW Forever servers changed on Oct 28, a week before launch, and Blizzard posted no notes with it. Hunters lose a big share of their attack power from Aspect of the Hawk and Trueshot Aura, Ice Lance gets a cooldown at its first rank, and one Alchemy elixir is cut in half. We read every number below from the server data our client downloaded on Oct 29 (build 70685), so they are what the realms run now, not what a forum post says.

Hunter: Aspect of the Hawk and Trueshot Aura

The aspect every Hunter levels with gives roughly half the Ranged Attack Power it did at ranks 1 to 5.

Aspect of the Hawk	Learned at	Now	Before
Rank 1	10	15	20
Rank 2	18	22	35
Rank 3	28	30	50
Rank 4	38	38	70
Rank 5	48	47	90
Rank 6	58	55	55
Rank 7	60	120	120

Trueshot Aura, the Marksmanship aura for the whole group, goes the same way:

Trueshot Aura	Learned at	Now	Before
Rank 1	25	15	30
Rank 2	32	22	40
Rank 3	40	30	50
Rank 4	50	40	75
Rank 5	60	50	50

That also ends an oddity we wrote about on Oct 8: rank 5 gave less than rank 4. Rank 5 wasn’t touched, so it’s the strongest again. Wowhead’s report of the change gives a few different “before” values (22 for Hawk rank 1, 78 for rank 4); the client files we archived for every build say 20 and 70.

One smaller Hunter change came with it. Efficiency also cuts the mana cost of Flanking Strike and Strider Kick, matching its “melee abilities” wording.

Mage: Ice Lance gets an 8 sec cooldown

Ice Lance, Forever’s Frost talent spell, now has an 8 second cooldown at rank 1, the rank the talent gives at level 20. It had none before. The ranks a trainer teaches from level 28 (rank 2 to rank 6) have no cooldown in the server data yet, so either the change reaches them later or they stay free to repeat; we’ll check in game at launch. The damage is the same. Players spotted the cooldown on the forums before any article did.

The Mage talent Accelerant speeds up Arcane Wrath as its tooltip always said, and Precision now raises hit with all spells instead of a list of Mage spells, again as the tooltip reads.

Elixir of Wisdom is halved

Elixir of Wisdom, the level 10 Alchemy elixir, now gives 3 Intellect for 30 minutes. It gave 6 for an hour.

Also live: the Orc Blood Fury cooldown

Blood Fury is on a 2 minute cooldown on the live servers, as Blizzard’s notes of Oct 26 promised (it was 3 minutes). The rest of that racial pass (Berserking, Touch of the Grave, Human, Dwarf, Tauren and Skyborne) isn’t in the server data yet. Every change from that pass is in the Oct 26 racial changes.

Build 70685: the Adventurer’s Tent grants rested XP

The client build that went out the same evening changes one thing. The Adventurer’s Tent, a toy whose source isn’t known yet, now builds a tent next to a campfire: you and party members sitting nearby get rested experience up to 20% of a level, with a 1 hour cooldown. Before, it only changed how your camp tents looked. More on campfires and rested XP: camping.

Every change here is live server data from Oct 28 and can change again before or after launch on Nov 4. Each spell’s page shows the current value and its history.

Questions

Were Hunters nerfed in WoW Forever?

Yes. On Oct 28, 2026 the live servers cut Aspect of the Hawk ranks 1 to 5 from 20/35/50/70/90 to 15/22/30/38/47 Ranged Attack Power, and Trueshot Aura ranks 1 to 4 from 30/40/50/75 to 15/22/30/40. Ranks 6 and 7 of Aspect of the Hawk and rank 5 of Trueshot Aura are unchanged.

Does Ice Lance have a cooldown in WoW Forever?

Rank 1, the one the talent gives at level 20, has an 8 second cooldown since the server changes of Oct 28, 2026; before that it had none. The server data shows no cooldown yet on the ranks a trainer teaches from level 28, and the damage didn't change.

What does Elixir of Wisdom give in WoW Forever?

3 Intellect for 30 minutes since Oct 28, 2026. It gave 6 Intellect for 1 hour before, as in Classic.