Can the Alliance play a Shaman in Forever?

Yes, two ways. The Battle.net Shop lists Dwarf Shaman among the new race and class options, and a Skyborne who chooses the Horde at character creation gets the class too; an Alliance-aligned Skyborne gets Mage instead.

Is the Shaman a healer or a fighter?

In Classic raids, almost always a healer: Chain Heal and totems are what a raid wants. Enhancement with a two-hander and Windfury is the levelling and PvP spec, and Elemental throws lightning. Which of these Forever's updated class design favours is on our beta checklist.

Does the Shaman have a new specialization in Forever?

A pre-announcement leak said so. Blizzard has confirmed updated class design in general and nothing about new specializations, so this stays a Community-tagged claim until the beta shows it or does not.

Shaman in World of Warcraft: Forever

The short answer

The Shaman is Classic’s elemental hybrid: mail, mana, four totems planted at once, and a talent tree for each of healing, lightning and melee. In Classic it was Horde-only, the mirror of the Paladin. Forever opens it to Dwarves and to Horde-aligned Skyborne, who Blizzard says “embrace elemental traditions and gain access to the Shaman class” Confirmed Blizzard. Everything below describes the class as Classic shipped it; the beta opens September 17, and this page changes as we play.

Roles: Healer, Damage
Style: Melee, Ranged, Hybrid
Races: 5 · 2 new in Forever

Who can play it

Alliance
- Dwarf new one of the six new combinations in Blizzard’s Deep Dive recap; listed on the Battle.net Shop. Blizzard — Deep Dive panel recap · Battle.net Shop — product page
Horde
- Orc
- Tauren
- Troll
Skyborne
- Skyborne new (Horde-aligned only) Horde-aligned Skyborne only. Blizzard — What’s Next panel recap · Wowhead — Skyborne First Look

Classic's pairings per Wowhead — Classic races database and Warcraft Wiki — Playable race , checked 2026-09-13; Blizzard has not restated them for Forever and has not published the full list of additions. Pairings marked new are the ones Blizzard or its trailer has shown. Filter all nine classes in the class picker .

How it plays

Totems. One totem of each element at a time, dropped at the Shaman’s feet: Earth for armor and taunting, Fire for damage, Water for mana and healing, Air for Windfury and speed. Each is learned from a quest chain in the first thirty levels.
Windfury Weapon. The weapon enchant that gives extra swings and defines Enhancement and, in Classic, the melee groups a Horde raid builds around it.
Healing that chains. Healing Wave and Lesser Healing Wave for one target, Chain Heal for three; Restoration is the raid job.
Mail at 40. Leather before that. Enhancement wants a slow two-hander; Elemental and Restoration want mana and healing power.
Reincarnation and Ghost Wolf. A self-resurrection every hour and a travel form at 20 that no other class gets, which makes the Shaman the most independent Horde class to level.

Leveling

Enhancement, with the biggest two-hander available and Windfury on it, healing between pulls and dropping a Searing Totem before each. Ghost Wolf saves as much time as a mount before 40. The totem quests are worth doing the moment they appear: each element adds a tool the class is built around.

What Forever changes

Horde-aligned Skyborne “embrace elemental traditions and gain access to the Shaman class.”

Confirmed Blizzard — What’s Next panel recap
Combined hit and crit chances are meant to help hybrid specializations “such as Retribution Paladins and Enhancement Shaman,” and spellcaster weapons now carry spell damage and healing.

Confirmed Blizzard — Deep Dive panel recap

Blizzard’s Deep Dive recap names six new race and class combinations: Gnome Priest, Human Hunter, Dwarf Shaman, Orc Mage, Troll Warlock and Undead Paladin, “with more planned for future updates.”

Confirmed Blizzard — Deep Dive panel recap
Talent trees keep Classic’s structure: the same number of rows, milestone talents at 11, 21 and 31 points, and a new 16-point milestone. Some talents are unchanged from patch 1.12, some adjusted, and key class buffs (Divine Spirit, Blessing of Kings, Improved Mark of the Wild) are now baseline. Each race gets two active and two passive racial abilities, reworked to be stronger and more distinct.

Confirmed Blizzard — Deep Dive panel recap
Combat keeps Classic’s pace: an ordinary creature takes a solo player “roughly 10–15 seconds to defeat,” crowd control still matters in dungeons, and damage dealers still respect threat. Spell, melee and ranged hit chance are combined into one stat, as are the three crit chances. Paladins are the first class detailed; “more class and race details are planned through future videos and articles.”

Confirmed Blizzard — Deep Dive panel recap
Blizzard: class identity “remains central,” with “new abilities, new race and class combinations, and updates designed to preserve the feel of the original game.” The updates “focus on talents and abilities you notice, meaningful trade-offs, and reasons to value what each class brings.”

Confirmed Blizzard — What’s Next panel recap
The Battle.net Shop describes “updated class design” and “an expanded list of race and class options, including Dwarf Shaman and Forsaken Paladin.”

Confirmed Battle.net Shop — product page

What we will check in the beta

The Dwarf Shaman: its totem quests, its trainers in Ironforge and Dun Morogh, and whether the class story was rewritten for the Alliance.
The Horde-aligned Skyborne Shaman and what it starts with on Zephras Isle.
Whether the Alliance still lacks Bloodlust-style raid tools, and what Blizzard did with Windfury groups now both factions have the class.
Any new abilities, totems or talent changes in Elemental, Enhancement and Restoration.
The leaked new specialization: real or not.