In WoW Forever, a Shaman's Windfury Totem reaches every player in the raid, not just the four people who share that Shaman's group. The October 15 beta build turned Battle Shout, Trueshot Aura, Leader of the Pack, Moonkin Aura and four Shaman totems into raid-wide buffs. Horde can now roll Undead Paladins and Alliance can roll Dwarf Shamans, so both factions draw from the same toolkit.
Not everything grew. Paladin auras such as Devotion Aura, the Imp's Blood Pact and Mana Spring Totem still stop at the edge of the group. Several famous raid debuffs, like Shadow Weaving and Improved Scorch, now only help the player who applies them. That changes how you fill a 10, 20 or 40-player roster.
Below you will find which buffs cover the whole raid and which stay in the group, what each of the nine classes brings, the stacking rules for totems and blessings, and what is known about world buffs and the debuff limit.
In the original game, shouts, auras and totems only touched the caster's own five-player group. Raid leaders spent half the night shuffling groups so every melee player stood next to a Shaman and a Warrior. WoW Forever keeps that rule for some buffs and drops it for others, so the first question for any buff is how far it reaches.
There are three kinds of reach. A raid-wide buff covers every raid member in range, whichever group they are in. A group buff covers only the caster's own party of five. A single-target buff lands on one player, and its raid version usually costs a reagent: Prayer of Fortitude covers the raid where Power Word: Fortitude covers one person.
The October 15 beta build moved Battle Shout, Trueshot Aura, Leader of the Pack, Moonkin Aura, Strength of Earth Totem, Grace of Air Totem, Windfury Totem and Flametongue Totem to the raid. The game files also show the wolf pet's Furious Howl covering the raid, a change Blizzard did not list in its notes. Resistance totems and the Paladin's Fire Resistance Aura, Frost Resistance Aura and Shadow Resistance Aura already reached the raid in earlier builds.
The table sums up every group-wide and raid-wide buff by reach. Single-target buffs are covered class by class in the next section.
One more rule applies to every class: Hunter pets no longer receive player buffs that increase their stats.
Every class in WoW Forever brings something to a raid, but the value sits in different places. Some classes carry the raid-wide buffs, some carry boss debuffs, and some bring tools nobody else has, like a battle resurrection or a summon. Here is what each class adds, grouped into buffs, debuffs and utility.
Raid Buffs by Class
Warrior
Rogue
Hunter
Mage
Warlock
Priest
Druid
Shaman
Paladin
A raid-wide buff is only useful if it does not collide with another one. WoW Forever keeps a few exclusivity rules, removes others, and adds one limit that is easy to miss: the totem slot.
A Shaman can have one totem of each element down at a time: Earth, Fire, Water and Air. Windfury Totem and Grace of Air Totem are both Air totems. Their buffs stack on the raid, but one Shaman can only hold one of them, so you need two Shamans to run both.
Flametongue Totem is a Fire totem and does not stack with Windfury Totem. It does stack with Grace of Air Totem, so a lone Shaman can cover a melee raid with Strength of Earth, Grace of Air and Flametongue at once.
The table shows the element of each raid totem and what it clashes with.
| Totem | Element | Does not stack with |
|---|---|---|
| Strength of Earth Totem | Earth | Another Earth totem from the same Shaman |
| Grace of Air Totem | Air | Another Air totem from the same Shaman |
| Windfury Totem | Air | Flametongue Totem; Windfury Weapon on your own main hand |
| Flametongue Totem | Fire | Windfury Totem; Flametongue Weapon on your own main hand |
| Fire Resistance Totem | Water | Another Water totem, such as Mana Spring Totem |
| Frost Resistance Totem | Fire | Another Fire totem, such as Flametongue Totem |
| Nature Resistance Totem | Air | Another Air totem, such as Windfury Totem |
Enhancement Shamans should note the weapon rule. A main-hand Windfury Weapon switches off the Windfury Totem bonus for that Shaman, and a main-hand Flametongue Weapon does the same for Flametongue Totem. Everyone else in the raid still gets the totem.
To learn more about totems, weapon imbues and talents, explore our WoW Forever Shaman guide.
Each player can carry one Blessing from each Paladin. Three Paladins can give everyone Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Might or Blessing of Wisdom, and Blessing of Light needs a fourth. The Greater versions follow the same rule but land on every player of one class.
Salvation is no longer a Blessing. It sits next to your Blessings instead of replacing one, so a damage dealer can keep Kings, Might and Salvation from two Paladins. Tanks should not have it, and Revoke takes it off.
Auras work the same way as Blessings: each player gets one Aura from each Paladin. A raid with two Paladins in one group can run Devotion Aura and Concentration Aura there together.
We cover every Blessing, Aura and Seal in our WoW Forever Paladin guide.
In earlier builds Moonkin Aura and Leader of the Pack shared one critical strike buff and did not stack. The October 15 build split them: Moonkin Aura now gives spell critical strike chance and Leader of the Pack gives melee and ranged critical strike chance. The game files no longer mark them as exclusive, so a raid with both Druids gets both.
Each Warlock can keep one Curse on a target. With two Warlocks you can run Curse of the Elements and Curse of Recklessness on the same boss. Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom are now Banes, which use their own slot, one Bane per Warlock.
The biggest quiet change for raid building is on the boss, not on your players. In the original game, one Shadow Priest made every Warlock hit harder through Shadow Weaving, and Fire Mages shared one Improved Scorch stack. In WoW Forever those debuffs belong to the player who applies them, so stacking one school no longer pays off the way it used to.
The raid-wide debuffs that are left are mostly armor reduction for physical damage and Curse of the Elements for spells. Curse of the Elements now covers every magic school, so one Warlock boosts Fire, Frost, Arcane, Shadow and Nature casters alike.
This table lists the main boss debuffs and who gains from each.
| Debuff | Class | Effect | Who benefits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunder Armor | Warrior | Lowers armor, stacks 5 times | Raid |
| Expose Armor | Rogue | Lowers armor as much as 5 Sunders | Raid |
| Faerie Fire | Druid | Lowers armor, stops stealth | Raid |
| Curse of Recklessness | Warlock | Lowers armor | Raid |
| Dust Cloud | Hunter (tallstrider pet) | Lowers armor | Raid |
| Curse of the Elements | Warlock | Lowers magic resistances, raises magic damage taken | Raid |
| Hunter's Mark | Hunter | Raises ranged attack power against the target | Raid |
| Judgement of Wisdom, Judgement of Light | Paladin | Attackers can regain mana or health | Raid |
| Judgement of the Crusader | Paladin | Raises Holy damage taken | Raid |
| Demoralizing Shout, Demoralizing Roar | Warrior, Druid | Lowers enemy melee attack power | Tanks |
| Thunder Clap | Warrior | Slows enemy attacks by 20% | Tanks |
| Insect Swarm | Druid | Lowers enemy chance to hit by 2% | Tanks |
| Curse of Weakness | Warlock | Lowers enemy physical damage | Tanks |
| Shadow Weaving | Priest | Raises Shadow damage taken | Casting Priest only |
| Improved Scorch | Mage | Raises Fire damage taken | Casting Mage only |
| Winter's Chill | Mage | Raises Cone of Cold damage taken | Casting Mage only |
| Improved Shadow Bolt | Warlock | Raises Shadow damage taken | Casting Warlock only |
| Stormstrike | Shaman | Raises damage of the Shaman's next spell | Casting Shaman only |
Blizzard has not said which of these armor reductions stack with each other in WoW Forever.
WoW Forever opens three raids of three different sizes, all sharing a December 9, 2026 unlock date. A raid is split into groups of five, and that number decides how much the group-only buffs are worth: a 10-player raid has two groups, a 40-player raid has eight.
| Raid | Players | Groups of five | Bosses |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Barrow Deeps | 10 | 2 | 8 |
| Hyjal Summit | 20 | 4 | 13 |
| Onyxia's Lair | 40 | 8 | 1 |
For bosses, entrances and loot, read our WoW Forever raids overview.
With raid-wide buffs, the first copy of a class does most of the work. A second copy adds less, unless the class has a per-caster limit such as one Blessing, one Curse or one Air totem. That makes the first slot of each class the most valuable one in a 10-player roster.
| Class | One player covers the raid with | A second player adds |
|---|---|---|
| Warrior | Battle Shout, Sunder Armor | Nothing new for the raid |
| Shaman | Strength of Earth Totem plus either Windfury Totem or Grace of Air Totem with Flametongue Totem | The second Air totem, so Windfury and Grace of Air run together |
| Paladin | One Blessing per player, Salvation, resistance auras | A second Blessing for everyone |
| Druid | Gift of the Wild, Leader of the Pack or Moonkin Aura, Rebirth | The other crit aura, a second Innervate |
| Priest | Prayer of Fortitude, Prayer of Spirit, Prayer of Shadow Protection | More Fear Ward and Power Infusion casts |
| Mage | Arcane Brilliance | Nothing new for the raid |
| Warlock | One Curse, such as Curse of the Elements, plus summons and a Create Soulstone | A second Curse on the boss |
| Hunter | Trueshot Aura (Marksmanship), Hunter's Mark, Aspect of the Wild | Nothing new for the raid |
| Rogue | Expose Armor | Nothing new for the raid |
Group-only buffs reward planning the group layout. Devotion Aura adds armor, which matters most to tanks. Mana Spring Totem and Mana Tide Totem return mana, so they belong with healers and casters. Blood Pact adds Stamina to whoever shares the Warlock's group, and a Shadow Priest's Dark Inspiration raises Spirit for the casters next to them. Life Tap now scales with Spirit, which makes a Warlock group a good home for the Shadow Priest. Tremor Totem also stays in its group, so Priests should spend Fear Ward on the players outside it.
In a 40-player raid you have eight groups to fill, so it pays to spread these classes out. In a 10-player raid there are only two groups, and one Paladin, Shaman or Warlock already reaches half the roster. Blizzard has said it plans to keep releasing 10 and 20-player raids and that two 10-player groups can come together for the 20-player content, so a guild with two balanced 10-player teams already has most of its Hyjal Summit roster.
If your guild is short on players for its first clear, our WoW Forever Hyjal Summit boost gets you through the 20-player raid with an experienced group.
WoW Forever's camping system gives anyone who sits at a campfire an hour of buffs from objects that professions place around it. Blizzard built most of these as copies of class buffs, and a camp buff does not stack with the class buff it copies. A First Aid Kit is wasted on a player who already has Power Word: Fortitude.
These are the pairs Blizzard lists:
Our WoW Forever camping guide lists every camp object by profession and the skill each one needs.
The classic world buffs still exist in WoW Forever, but their tooltips now end with "No effect while in a raid instance." The list includes Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer, Warchief's Blessing, Songflower Serenade, Fengus' Ferocity, Mol'dar's Moxie, Slip'kik's Savvy and Sayge's Dark Fortune of Damage.
The clause names raid instances only, so these buffs still matter while leveling and farming in the open world. For raid night, class buffs and consumables are what you bring.
Blizzard has not given a buff or debuff limit for WoW Forever. Its beta notes, class previews and developer videos do not mention one, and the beta stopped at level 30, so nobody tested a full raid of debuffs on a level 60 boss.
The removal of the buff and debuff limit that players often quote was announced for the Classic Anniversary realms, not for WoW Forever.
These are the questions players ask most about buffs since the October 15 build.
Some of them. Strength of Earth Totem, Grace of Air Totem, Windfury Totem, Flametongue Totem and the three resistance totems cover the raid. Mana Spring Totem, Healing Stream Totem, Stoneskin Totem and the other utility totems still cover only the Shaman's group.
No. Both are Air totems, and a Shaman can only have one totem of each element down. Their buffs stack, so two Shamans can run both.
No. The old talents that improved Windfury Totem and Strength of Earth Totem are not in the WoW Forever Shaman talent tree, so every Shaman drops the same raid totems. Guardian Totems and Restorative Totems still improve the defensive and healing totems.
Yes. Since the October 15 build Battle Shout reaches every raid member within 20 yards, with less attack power than in the original game.
No. Trueshot Aura covers the whole raid but raises only ranged attack power, so Hunters are the ones who gain from it.
Yes. Moonkin Aura now gives spell critical strike chance and Leader of the Pack gives melee and ranged critical strike chance, and they are no longer exclusive.
Only the resistance auras. Devotion Aura, Retribution Aura and Concentration Aura still reach only the Paladin's group.
No. Salvation is no longer a Blessing, so a player can carry it next to a Blessing from the same Paladin.
No. World buffs such as Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer state "No effect while in a raid instance."
Blizzard has not given a number. The removal of the limit that players often quote applies to Classic Anniversary realms.
No. Each camp object copies a class buff and does not stack with it, for example the Fish Bowl with Blessing of Kings.
Once your buff plan is set, these guides cover the raids themselves and the classes you will bring.
