WoW: Forever Hotfix Notes (November 10): Stormstrike Nerfed, Windfury Stacks and Warlock Wrack Reworked

The class tuning Blizzard warned about last week has arrived. The November 10, 2026 hotfixes for World of Warcraft: Forever are the biggest balance pass since launch: Enhancement Shaman's Stormstrike is cut down hard, Hunter pets lose the bonus health they were never supposed to have, Warlock demons get sturdier and Affliction's Wrack is rebuilt from the ground up. On top of that, the Auction House gets cheaper to use and most quests from level 48 up now pay gold.

Like the earlier launch-week fixes, these are server-side hotfixes – there's nothing to download, though some Auction House changes needed realm restarts to take effect.

TL;DR

• Enhancement Shaman: Stormstrike now hits for 100% weapon damage (was 150%) on an 8-second cooldown (was 6). Windfury Weapon and Windfury Totem can now be active at the same time.
• Hunter: pets drop from 150% to 115% health, as originally intended. Arcane Shot costs 11% of base mana at every rank.
• Warlock: Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus and Incubus get about 15% more base health. Wrack deals 30% less damage but now makes your DoTs tick faster while channeled.
• Auction House: minimum deposit drops from 1 silver to 1 copper.
• Quests: most quests at level 48 and above now award gold as well.
• Items: all racial vendor mounts are now Bind-on-Pickup.

Enhancement Shaman: Stormstrike down, Windfury up

This is the change most players were waiting for. Blizzard says beta adjustments to Enhancement – together with Shock and Lightning Bolt changes meant for Elemental – pushed Enhancement to favor Spell Power and Intellect gear far too much. The fix pulls the spec back toward weapons and Attack Power:

The Maelstrom Weapon proc is now tied to weapon speed, and the tooltip shows your actual chance: with five points, a slow 3.6-second weapon shows a 60% chance per hit, while a 2.0-second weapon shows 33%. In other words, slow two-handers and slow one-handers are back in favor.

The good news for Shamans: weapon imbues and weapon totems can now be active together, so Windfury Weapon and Windfury Totem stack. Blizzard's note says Windfury should stay at the heart of the spec's fantasy. Blizzard also explained the timing – fixing Enhancement now, before raids open on December 9, means Shamans won't spend weeks winning contested caster loot that could lose its value after a later change.

If you're leveling an Enhancement Shaman, start collecting Strength and Attack Power gear now. The Shaman quest reward Rage of the Storm was changed to match: it now has 16 Strength instead of 16 Intellect and a 3.6-second speed (was 3.2).

Hunter: pets back to intended health

Hunter pets had been running with 150% of normal health due to an error; they now have 115%, which Blizzard says was the intended value. Pet-heavy solo play will feel a little less forgiving.

Mana costs were also cleaned up. Arcane Shot now costs 11% of base mana at every rank, so costs scale evenly with level – levels 6 and 60 are almost unchanged, while the ranks in between get slightly cheaper. Beast Mastery's Summon Hawk uses the same 11% cost, and the Hawk's melee damage is up by roughly 80%.

Warlock: tougher demons and a new Wrack

Demonology and leveling Warlocks get a direct buff. The Imp, Voidwalker, Succubus and Incubus all gain about 15% base health, and ranks 1–4 of the Imp's Firebolt hit harder.

Affliction's Wrack works very differently now:

• Its damage is reduced by 30%, and it no longer increases the damage of your other periodic effects.
• It now lasts 6 seconds, dealing Shadow damage every second.
• While you channel it, Corruption, Siphon Life and Bane of Agony tick 100% faster.

Soul Siphon was narrowed as well. It now increases only Drain Life, Drain Soul and Wrack by 4/8/12% for each of Corruption, Siphon Life and Bane of Agony on the target, up to 36%. Before, it boosted any Affliction spell. Destruction's Bane of Havoc now correctly triggers the global cooldown.

Other class fixes

• Druid: Omen of Clarity works again after swapping specs. Restoration's Nature's Swiftness now also makes Wild Growth instant.
• Priest: Holy Nova unlearns properly when you remove the talent, and the Revelation enchant no longer triggers off Vampiric Embrace healing.
• Warrior: Arms' Sweeping Strikes no longer spends charges when there's no second target.
• Paladin and Shaman: Redoubt and Maelstrom Weapon can now be tracked in the Cooldown Manager.

Auction House, quests and items

The Auction House minimum deposit is now 1 copper instead of 1 silver, which makes listing cheap materials worthwhile again. Blizzard also fixed mail that wrongly appeared to come from the Stormwind Auction House for everyone, and some mail that arrived after about 2 minutes instead of the intended 60.

Most quests from level 48 upward now reward gold too. Quests that already give valuable items, repeatable quests and trivial quests are left out. Other notable fixes:

• Racial vendor mounts are now Bind-on-Pickup for every race.
• Shatterspear Trolls no longer give experience when killed.
• Several stuck quests were fixed, including "Rescue OOX-22/FE!" in Feralas, with more spawns for "Poison Tips" in the Riverglades and "Worgen in the Woods" in Duskwood.
• Players are no longer sent to the wrong graveyard on death.

Professions got a handful of tweaks: the Journeyman Campfire Kit now needs Cooking 90 (was 140), Coarse Grinding Stones give skill-ups up to 90 (was 75), Iron Grenades cost 1 silver 25 copper (was 5 silver) from vendors, and Enchant Boots/Bracer – Lesser Spirit now actually give Spirit.

What it means for players

Enhancement is the big loser on paper, but the goal is to fix how the spec gears rather than to make it weak. Expect Enhancement damage to dip while players swap caster pieces for Strength and Attack Power, then recover as Windfury stacking and slow weapons do more of the work. Warlocks, especially Demonology and leveling players who lean on the Voidwalker, come out ahead, while Affliction will need to relearn when to channel Wrack.

For everyone else, cheaper Auction House listings and gold from late-game quests make the road to 60 a bit less of a grind. Blizzard says the hotfix list will be updated as more fixes go live, so expect additions this week. If you missed the earlier tweak to dungeon leveling, see our breakdown of the November 8 hotfix that raised dungeon kill XP by 50%.