WoW Forever: best Warlock race after the October racial changes

Quick answer

Pick Human on Alliance and Orc on Horde. Gnome remains a sound choice for Destruction, where most damage is direct.

Why Human now: Eureka! no longer touches DoTs and lasts 8 s every 2 min, while Ruthless is a permanent 2% crit on all spells.

What the October 15 racial changes mean for Warlock

Values from Blizzard’s October 15 beta notes, checked against the Forever tooltips on Wowhead. Blizzard may still tune the game before launch on November 4.

Human — Ruthless

+2% critical strike chance with all spells and attacks. Replaces Sword Specialization: no sword required.

Gnome — Eureka!

Now an 8 s buff with no charges, 2 min cooldown: non-periodic damaging or healing abilities cost 10% less and deal 10% more. Periodic effects have been excluded since October 1.

Orc — Savage, Blood Fury

Savage: +1% critical strike chance with all spells and abilities, replacing Axe Specialization. Blood Fury: +10% attack and spell power for 15 s, cooldown raised to 3 min (was 2).

Undead — Touch of the Grave

Drains health up to 5% of maximum health: 30% proc chance for casters, 20% for Paladins, Rogues and Warriors, 25 s internal cooldown; no longer scales with Shadow bonuses. Will of the Forsaken cannot be used under Scatter Shot.

Troll — Regeneration, Berserking

Regeneration: health regeneration +20%, and 20% keeps running in combat (was 10%). Berserking is unchanged: +10% casting and attack speed for 10 s, 3 min cooldown.

Alliance races for Warlock

Horde races for Warlock

By specialization, and what we cannot measure

Affliction: we have not verified whether periodic ticks can crit in Forever, so we do not claim that Ruthless boosts DoTs. The pick rests on Eureka! being excluded from them.

Undead: Touch of the Grave no longer benefits from Shadow damage bonuses, which removes an old Warlock synergy. Blizzard gives no damage figure.