Among everything else Blizzard is bringing to Warcraft Forever, one of the more substantial new systems is Legacy - a whole track of unlockable, account-wide perks and rewards built around long-term goals rather than a single story to finish.
Legacy Challenges
The core of the system is a set of achievement-style challenges spread across several categories, each one aimed at a different kind of player:
- Exploring
- Leveling Classes
- Increasing Tradeskills
- Earning PvP Ranks
- Maximizing Reputations
- Completing Dungeons and Raids
A completionist can lean into pushing reputations, climbing PvP rank, or clearing dungeons and raids, while someone who's mainly there for the classic leveling experience can get just as much out of it by leveling several characters and professions instead. The key difference from a normal achievement: every challenge here actually unlocks something - a real account-wide perk, not just a checkmark.
Spending Legacy Points
Finishing a challenge hands you one Legacy Point, and those points go into a dedicated talent tree split across three categories - Professions, Adventure, and Resourcefulness - all of which apply to every character on the account, not just the one that earned them. Most of what's in the tree is passive, though a few entries are activated abilities; none of what's been shown so far affects combat directly. There also seems to be some kind of cap on how many of these perks can eventually be unlocked, though exactly how that scales isn't clear yet.
Professions
- Working Overtime (0/5) - +4% chance per rank to gain a skill-up from any primary, secondary, or class tradeskill.
- Performance Bonus (0/5) - 5% chance to get double Merchant Favor when turning in a crate to the Azeroth Commerce Authority or Durotar Supply and Logistics.
- Luremaster (0/5) - 25% chance to reel in an extra fish while fishing with a lure active.
- Master Chef (0/5) - 10% chance for your cooking recipes to produce an extra result.
- Dedicated Study (0/5, 25 sec cast, 23 hour cooldown) - Bumps your lowest Primary or Secondary tradeskill by 1 skill point. Once every Primary and Secondary tradeskill is already sitting at 300, it instead grants 2-4 of a random Elemental Essence.
Adventure
- Well Rested (0/5) - Rested XP builds 4% faster per rank and the rested XP cap goes up by 4% per rank.
- Talented (0/5) - Talent points start arriving at level 9 instead of level 10, though the overall cap stays at 51 total points.
- High Alert (0/2) - Improves your odds of spotting stealthed targets as though you were 1 level higher; doesn't work in battlegrounds.
- Thrill of Adventure (0/5) - Getting the killing blow on a non-trivial enemy restores 1% of max Health and Mana over 10 seconds; doesn't work in dungeons, raids, or battlegrounds.
Resourcefulness
- The Quick and the Dead (0/2) - +5% movement speed while dead, and your helpful spells cost no resources for 1 minute after being resurrected (or until you enter combat).
- Reinforce (0/5) - Cuts durability loss on death by 6% per rank.
- Diplomat (0/5) - +2% reputation gains per rank.
- For Great Honor (0/5) - +2% Honor gained per rank.
- Permanence (0/2) - Long-duration stat/attribute buffs you cast on your party or raid last 50% longer, and rest-at-camp benefits also last 50% longer.
Legacy Rewards
Separately from the perk tree, earning points also unlocks a track of cosmetic and collection rewards - similar in spirit to a renown track, but tied to total points earned rather than points actually spent. That distinction matters: spending points on perks doesn't cost you anything toward the reward track, since it counts your total earned, not your current balance.
From what's been shown at BlizzCon's gameplay demo so far, the reward track includes a Replica Ironforge Air Rifle (a PvP-style toy that lets you shoot and briefly stun other players, complete with its own kill counter), a Spectral Bear Cub pet, a matching Spectral Bear tabard, and the Reins of the Spectral Bear mount.