WoW Forever race class combinations: the six new pairings, the Skyborne rules, and the full launch matrix

Rows are races, columns are classes. 'C' marks a combination available in the original 2004 game and therefore in Forever; 'NEW' marks one of the six additions; 'H' and 'A' in the Skyborne row mark Horde- and Alliance-aligned access. Blank means Blizzard has not made the pairing available and has not announced it. The Skyborne row is from the What's Next recap; the six new pairings are from the Deep Dive; the Classic pairings are the well-known 1.12 set that Forever inherits.

Blizzard has written more about this pairing than the other five combined, because it carries the story that links Forever to the new Warcraft III campaign. The Found Photos recap: Forsaken paladins' 'path rolls directly out of the new Warcraft III campaign Forsaken Kingdom, beginning at a time when these former paladins are deeply mistrusted by other Forsaken and still learning what it means to channel the Light in undeath'. Their hub is 'Bandarion Keep in the Whispering Wood of Tirisfal Glades', which 'becomes a key location for that experience, grounding the Forsaken Paladin Journey in a local struggle for acceptance, identity, and purpose'.

There is also an endgame beat: 'At level 60, Forsaken paladins will also embark on their own epic mount quest. Whereas Alliance paladins claim their epic charger in the name of Redemption, the paladins of the Forsaken ride in the name of Retribution.' The Paladin class itself has a full published pass; combine the two pages and the Undead Paladin is the most documented new character option in the game.

Blizzard names them and says nothing else specific. What can be said from the published rules: a Dwarf Shaman benefits from the reworked Dwarf racials the Deep Dive describes — Stoneform now reducing Physical damage taken, Mace Specialization now boosting crit 'with all spells and abilities while a mace is equipped', Find Treasure stacking with other tracking, and the new Big Game Hunter passive against Beasts. Whether Alliance Shaman totems, Ghost Wolf or class quests differ in appearance is not published. A Human Hunter is the first Alliance human ranged-physical class; nothing about pets or quests has been stated. A Gnome Priest is likewise named without detail.

The Dwarf Shaman is also the answer to a question the Skyborne raise: the Alliance's Skyborne branch is arcane and gets Mage, so the Alliance's Shaman access in Forever comes through Dwarves, not through the new race.

Orc Mage and Troll Warlock are named without detail. The Undead Paladin, beyond its story, sits on reworked Undead racials: Will of the Forsaken 'still removes Charm, Fear, and Sleep, but no longer grants immunity to those effects'; Cannibalize 'now restores Mana as well as Health, increasing its usefulness for mana-using classes such as Mages, Warlocks, Paladins, and Priests' — Blizzard lists Paladins there explicitly, which only makes sense with the new pairing; Underwater Breathing is unchanged; and a new Touch of the Grave gives 'attacks a chance to drain life from enemies'.

That Cannibalize sentence is the one place the Deep Dive lets a new combination change a racial's design brief: an Undead ability was extended to Mana partly because Undead can now be Paladins.

Everything about Skyborne classes comes from one passage: Horde-aligned Skyborne 'gain access to the Shaman class', Alliance-aligned 'gain access to the Mage class', and 'both factions can also play Warriors, Hunters, Rogues, and Druids, including new Skyborne druid forms created specifically for the race'. So a Skyborne offers six classes in total but only five to any one character, and never Paladin, Priest or Warlock. The race is pack-only ($29.99 and up), which the Skyborne page covers.

In modern WoW a new race-class pairing is mostly cosmetic. In Forever it plugs into a progression system built around re-rolling. The Deep Dive describes Legacy Challenges 'across several categories, with examples including leveling a specific class or reaching a particular skill milestone', with Legacy Points 'shared across all alts' and spent per character in three trees. Blizzard says the system 'grew out of one of the team's favorite parts of Hardcore: seeing so many players constantly leveling', and is 'designed to make leveling alternate characters (alts) more exciting'.

So a Dwarf Shaman or an Undead Paladin is not only a new look; it is a new class to level for a Legacy Challenge that the account has not completed, on a faction that could not field that class before. The Adventure tree's 'Well Rested' talent — 'to increase rested experience gains and raise the rested experience cap, making it especially useful for leveling alts' — is the perk Blizzard points at for exactly this. Each character can spend up to 16 points at launch; the account can earn up to 65. The Legacy page covers the trees.

Blizzard also says the six pairings are a start: 'with more planned for future updates'. Combined with the Legacy system's promise of 'new challenges, new perks … and potentially entirely new trees', the pattern is that each new pairing arrives as both a character option and a fresh challenge.

Three things about character creation are new and apply to every pairing on this page. First, there is no realm: you choose a ruleset — Normal, PvP or Roleplaying at launch, Hardcore later — and 'cross-ruleset grouping is not supported', so the choice is as binding as a realm choice used to be. Second, names are two-part, 'similar to having a first name and last name', and unique per region rather than per realm; Blizzard's example is 'Ana Forever'. Third, the packs' Early Name Reservation lets a buyer hold a name ahead of that regional pool.

The pack question only touches the Skyborne. Every one of the six new pairings for existing races is available to any subscriber at no extra cost; only the Skyborne row of the matrix requires the $29.99 Heroic Pack or higher. A Dwarf Shaman, in other words, is free with the game; a Skyborne Shaman is not.

Counting the matrix: before Forever, the Horde had no Paladins and the Alliance no Shaman; each side now gets one race for the missing class (Undead Paladin; Dwarf Shaman), and the Skyborne add Shaman to the Horde again and Mage — not Shaman — to the Alliance. Blizzard's only published statement on balance is about the PvP ruleset: 'faction balance remains an important consideration, and World of Warcraft: Forever will include systems intended to support Horde and Alliance balance similar to the approach introduced in Season of Discovery'. It has not said what those systems are.

The forum debate about the Skyborne being pack-gated is partly a balance debate — the thread title on the official forum is about 'faction support imbalance'. Blizzard has not replied in print. As with every claim on this site, that will change the day Blizzard posts.

For the record, and so that no answer on this site is mistaken for one: do Alliance Shaman totems and Horde Paladin auras or mounts have faction-specific art; do the six new pairings have their own class quests or reuse the existing ones; do Human Hunters start with a particular pet; will the 'more planned for future updates' pairings arrive before or after the 9 December raids; and can a Skyborne change faction later. None of these is published.