World of Warcraft Forever keeps Classic’s three talent trees per class but adds a fourth one-point talent at the 16 point mark of every tree, principal game designer Kris Zierhut said during the World of Warcraft: Forever Deep Dive panel at BlizzCon 2026. That makes 27 talent trees, and the team’s stated goal is that every one of them earns a place in a dungeon or raid group.
The 2006 layout, plus one more gold medal talent
Zierhut, whose lower-third slide credits him for Combat, Items, Classes and Talents, set out the philosophy first. “All classes still have three talent trees, they still have seven rows, they still have those one point talents at 11, 21, 31, the gold medal talents, we called them,” he said. “We’ve even added a fourth gold medal talent at the 16 mark at every single one of the talent trees.”
The only slide for the section was the Paladin talent window, headed Class Abilities: Talent Tree Philosophy. It shows Holy, Protection, and Retribution side by side, each seven rows deep, ending in a single talent at the foot of the tree. An Unspent Talents counter reads 1, a Primary tab is selected, and a locked Secondary tab sits beside it. Individual talent names were not readable from the stream.
Party buff talents removed
Many talents are “exactly the same as they were, unchanged from 2006,” Zierhut said, while others have been updated and new ones added. The cuts are the talents that only improved group buffs. “Improved Battle Shout, Divine Spirit, Blessing of Kings, Improved Mark of the Wild. They’re all gone,” he said. “All of those bonuses are now baseline to the class.” Those four names were spoken, not shown on a slide. Freeing those slots, he said, “makes room for more cool new stuff.”
Bring anyone, stack nobody
The balance target came next. “Our goal was to make sure that every single one of our 27 talent trees is a viable option to bring to your dungeon or raid group. Every class, every spec is worthy to come, but no class is so strong, or spec is so strong, that you wanna stack them,” Zierhut said. He added that the specs are not equal, “they all have different distinct strengths and weaknesses.”
The section ran about two minutes before Zierhut moved on to Paladin as the worked example. The 16 point talents themselves were not named for any class, the panel did not say how many talent points a level 60 character has to spend, and the locked Secondary tab on the talent window went unexplained. Beta opens September 17 and the game launches November 4, 2026.