WoW Forever Beta Spell Changes Datamined (Build 1.60.1.70009)

We compared the spell data in the WoW Forever beta client, build 1.60.1.70009, against the current Classic Era client, build 1.15.9.69722. Across the whole spell list the beta client has 5,334 spells Era does not, is missing 4,867 that Era has, and changes 5,258 that both share. This post covers six spells players asked about, using only the numbers in the files.

Two terms up front. The base value is the flat number a spell effect starts from. The coefficient is how much of your spell power gets added on top. The client stores both. It does not store server tuning, so treat every number here as a beta client value, not a final one.

One more note on how the two clients store base values. The Era client stores a damage or healing roll as a low value plus a random range. The beta client stores a single number. So every Era base value in this post is the average of that Era roll (the middle of the range), and the beta value is the number the beta client stores. That keeps the comparison like for like.

Frostbolt

The coefficient on the low ranks goes up a lot in the beta client:

Rank	Era coefficient	Beta coefficient
Rank 1	0.163	0.407
Rank 2	0.269	0.489
Rank 3	0.463	0.597

From Rank 3 up, the base value goes down instead. Rank 3 drops from 54 to 46, Rank 7 from 237 to 181, Rank 10 from 446 to 386, and Rank 11 from 535 to 475. Ranks 4 to 11 keep their Era coefficient. So in the beta client a low rank Frostbolt gets much more from spell power, and the high ranks start from a smaller flat number.

Lightning Bolt

Lightning Bolt follows the same idea, with one extra change.

Rank 1 coefficient: 0.123 to 0.429.
Rank 2 coefficient: 0.314 to 0.571 (base value 28 to 29).
Rank 3 coefficient: 0.554 to 0.714 (base value 49 to 45).
Ranks 4 to 10: the coefficient goes down, 0.857 to 0.714, and the base value drops hard. Rank 10 goes from 443 to 196, Rank 8 from 299 to 162.
Ranks 4 to 10 also change cast time. In the Era client they point at the 3.0 sec cast time entry. In the beta client they point at the 2.5 sec entry.

Holy Light

Every ranked Holy Light (Ranks 1 to 9) changes its first effect type from 77 to 10, and its coefficient goes from 0 to 0.714. The base value drops on Ranks 3 to 9: Rank 3 from 173 to 155, Rank 6 from 739 to 646, Rank 9 from 1,680 to 1,580. Ranks 1 and 2 keep their base values.

Three more Holy Light rows with no rank label (ids 19980, 19981 and 19982) also move to a 0.714 coefficient, from 0.554, 0.339 and 0.205.

Moonfire

Moonfire has two coefficients, one for the hit and one for the damage over time. On Ranks 1 to 3 both go up to the same pair in the beta client: 0.13 for the hit and 0.15 for the damage over time. In Era those were 0.052 and 0.06 on Rank 1, rising to 0.111 and 0.128 on Rank 3.

Ranks 4 to 10 keep their coefficients and lose base value. Rank 10's hit drops from 96 to 60 and its damage over time from 205 to 135.

Blizzard and Flamestrike: a new effect layout

These two area spells are rebuilt in the beta client. We can describe the numbers. We are not going to guess what they mean in play until someone tests it.

Blizzard, all 6 ranks:

The first effect changes type from 27 to 3. Its base value goes to 0 (it was 25 on Rank 1 and 149 on Rank 6), its 1 sec tick period goes to 0, and its coefficient goes from 0.042 to 0.03.
A new second effect of type 179 appears, with a radius.
A new third effect of type 6 appears, ticking every 1 sec.
The tooltip damage now reads its number from a different spell (id 1279976) instead of from Blizzard's own first effect.

Flamestrike, Ranks 1 to 6:

The burn effect changes type from 27 to 179. Its base value goes to 0 (it was 12 on Rank 1 and 85 on Rank 6), its coefficient goes to 0, and its 2 sec tick moves to a new third effect of type 6.
Rank 1's direct hit coefficient goes from 0.134 to 0.157. The other ranks keep theirs.

In short, both spells moved their damage over time out of the old type 27 effect and into a type 179 plus type 6 pair. Type 179 did not appear on either spell in the Era client.

One wider pattern

Outside player spells, 522 spell rows in the beta client have their first base value multiplied by the same factor, about 5.85. These are rows without a rank label that share names with player spells. A few examples: a Frostbolt row (id 9672) goes from 56 to 327.43, a Lightning Bolt row (id 15234) from 168 to 982.29, and a Holy Light row (id 25263) from 1,250 to 7,308.72. The client does not say who casts these rows, so we are only reporting the factor.

_All data is datamined from the game client and may change before release. Values are from the WoW Forever beta client build 1.60.1.70009, compared with Classic Era 1.15.9.69722. Drop rates and server-side tuning are not part of client data and are never stated here._