Skyborne elves

At a glance

• Playable on both Alliance and Horde; you choose alignment at character creationConfirmed
• Horde-aligned Skyborne can be shaman; Alliance-aligned can be mageConfirmed
• Both alignments can be warrior, hunter, rogue or druidConfirmed
• Race-specific druid shapeshift formsConfirmed
• Start on Zephras Isle, levels 1 to 12Confirmed
• Descended from the ancient Highborne night elvesConfirmed
• Requires the Skyborne Heroic Pack ($29.99) or higher — not included in the subscriptionConfirmed
• Racial abilities, and whether they are competitive with dwarf or orc racialsUnknown

How to read these labels. Confirmed — Stated by Blizzard at BlizzCon or in official material. Strong signal — Datamined, or consistent across every previous Classic launch. Usually right. Speculative — Our read. Reasoned, but not fact, and we will say so when it turns out wrong. Unknown — Nobody has said. We are not going to pretend otherwise.

The faction split is the interesting part

A race that can join either faction is a first for WoW, and Forever does something sharper with it than cosmetics: the class list changes depending on which side you pick. Horde Skyborne get shaman, Alliance Skyborne get mage. Warrior, hunter, rogue and druid are available either way.

That is a real decision, not a flavour one. It means the Alliance gains an elven mage identity it has not had since blood elves went Horde, and the Horde gains a shaman option that is not orc, tauren or troll. If the racials are meaningfully different by alignment, the choice gets sharper still — and nobody has said whether they are.

The $29.99 question

The Skyborne are behind a paid pack. Everything else in Forever comes with the subscription; the headline race does not. That has been the most contested part of the announcement, and it has a practical consequence worth planning around: paid races self-select for committed players, so the Skyborne population on day one will skew hard toward people playing seriously and playing early.

If you want a quieter launch night, a non-Skyborne character in a traditional starting zone will be dramatically less crowded. If you want the new content, budget the $29.99 — or the $59.99 Epic Pack, which is the cheapest route into the beta.

Druid forms

Race-specific druid forms are confirmed, which is a bigger deal for Alliance than it sounds — night elf has been the only Alliance druid for the entire history of Classic. A second Alliance druid race with distinct forms is a genuine change to how the class looks and feels.

Related

• Zephras Isle
• Skyborne shaman
• Skyborne mage