WoW Forever Guide for New & Returning Players

Start here

Five steps, in order. Each links to the one page that answers it best.

1. Know what's different. Read the Icy Veins overview. Five minutes, and you'll know what changed from Classic.

2. Pick a ruleset, not a realm. There's no realm list: you choose Normal, PvP or Roleplaying (Hardcore comes later). You can't group across rulesets, so pick where your friends are. Blizzard's ruleset post.

3. Pick a class by role. Every spec is meant to be viable, so play what you enjoy. Choosing your class is role-first; undecided players are usually pointed to Druid.

4. Install only Forever builds of addons. On CurseForge, set the game flavor to Forever. Start with Questie; the game already has a damage meter and a Cooldown Manager.

5. Level by questing. Dungeon-spam XP is nerfed. Run each dungeon once for its quests and follow Questie, or buy RestedXP routes if you want to go fast.

Official

The source of truth for dates, access and rules.

Carve a New Path with WoW: Forever worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com Blizzard's BlizzCon recap. The feature list in one place: zones, dungeons, raids, Skyborne, Legacy, transmog. Official Pre-Purchase WoW: Forever Upgrades news.blizzard.com What you actually need to buy (just a subscription), what the packs add, and how launch-week Invite-A-Friend codes work. The packs are optional extras, like beta access. Official Choose Your Ruleset news.blizzard.com Replaces "which server should I pick?". Explains Normal, PvP and Roleplaying, and the one-faction rule on PvP. OfficialRead before launch Blizzard Forums us.forums.blizzard.com Development notes, known issues and hotfixes are posted here first. Open the WoW: Forever categories. Noisy. Wowhead tracks the blue posts if you just want the news. Official

Classes & races

Forever reworked every class, so only use guides written for it. Follow one spec guide plus the official dev notes; skip tier lists until launch.

Icy Veins: All Class Guides icy-veins.com One consistent guide per spec: talents, rotation, stats, gear. The best default for any class. Written during the level 30 beta; 31 to 60 content fills in after launch. Top pickAds Wowhead: Forever Class Guides wowhead.com More guides and more depth on individual specs. Good second opinion. Community-written, so quality varies by author. Ads Icy Veins: Choosing Your Class icy-veins.com For players who don't know what to play. Starts from the role you want, not from rankings. New players Icy Veins: Race Guide icy-veins.com Every race/class combo, including Skyborne and the six new combos for old races, plus what each racial does. Ads

Talents & sims

Plan before you spend points. 51 talent points at 60, plus 16 account-wide Legacy points per character.

Talents Forever talentsforever.com Fast talent calculator for all nine classes, built from the beta client's data. Share a build with a link and compare it against Classic. FreeTop pick DPS Forever dpsforever.com Damage simulator for all nine classes. Set talents, gear and a rotation, then compare builds by simulated DPS instead of guessing. Every assumption it makes is listed in the app. Free Wowhead: Forever Hub wowhead.com/forever Item and quest database, talent and Legacy calculators, and a tracker for Blizzard's posts. The site you'll keep open in a tab. BookmarkAds

Leveling

New zones (Zephras Isle 1–12, Riverglades mid-30s to mid-40s), nerfed dungeon spam, and Legacy perks that speed up alts.

Questie github.com/Questie Shows quest givers, objectives and turn-ins on your map. Official releases support Forever. The one addon every leveler should have. New Forever quests are still being added; update often in the first weeks. FreeTop pick RestedXP Forever Guides restedxp.com Step-by-step routes with an in-game arrow. The only route addon built for Forever. Worth it if you level a lot of alts or race to 60. $30 per faction, $45 both. Forever routes past 35 arrive after launch; the free addon has starter routes. Paid WoW Forever Guides: Leveling wowforeverguides.com Free zone-by-level table for both factions, dungeon quests and XP rules, with sources cited. New fan site; has RestedXP affiliate links. FreeNew site

Addons

Forever uses the modern addon API (client 1.60.1). Classic Era builds won't load properly. Install from the Forever flavor only, and keep the list short at launch.

Reference

For when you want the details: systems, lore, logs.

Warcraft Wiki: WoW Forever warcraft.wiki.gg Neutral, cited overview: features, roadmap, race/class table and instance list. No ads, no upsell. FreeTop pick Wowhead: Guide Compendium wowhead.com One page linking every Wowhead Forever guide: professions, collections, Legacy, camping and more. Ads Zockify: Forever FAQ zockify.com Quick answers to the common questions (rulesets, tokens, addons) with countdowns. Ads Forever Logs foreverlogs.gg Combat log parser for Forever. Warcraft Logs hasn't announced support yet. New site. Mostly useful once raids open on Dec 9. New site

Community

Where to ask questions and find a guild.

r/wowforever reddit.com The Forever-only subreddit. Requires sources for news posts, which keeps rumors down. Top pick Blizzard Forums us.forums.blizzard.com Bug reports and feedback that the developers read, plus guild recruitment. Official r/classicwow reddit.com Bigger, older audience covering every Classic version. Good for general vanilla knowledge. Not Forever-specific; check which version a post is about.

Key dates