9 new dungeons from 4 November
World of Warcraft: Forever launches on 4 November 2026 at 3:00 PM PST with 9 new
dungeons on top of the Classic ones. All 9 are open from launch day. The beta cap rose from 20 to 30 on 1 October. Testers now run
Hall of Thanes, the Ruins of Lordaeron and the Excavation Site: Wetlands, which the beta lists at levels 26 to 31 (the BlizzCon bracket said 24 to 29), plus the Classic Razorfen Downs and Uldaman. Since the 8 October 2026 build, the City of Dalaran dungeon is open for testing too.
The
raids open on 9 December, 5 weeks after launch, and every raid needs a
level 60 character. The 2 dungeons for 55 to 60 are where a fresh 60 collects its 1st blue gear before that date. Blizzard’s roadmap adds 2 more dungeons in spring 2027 and 2 more in summer 2027, unnamed so far. The PAX Aus keynote aired on 8 October 2026 at 6:00 PM PDT. Blizzard’s Clay Stone walked through Krol’dok Stronghold, an ogre fortress for levels 40 to 45 whose route now climbs to a summit, and showed pictures of 5 bosses without names.
The stress test runs on 19 October. No subscription is needed, and characters, names and guilds are wiped after it. 21 October is the beta's last full day.

Levels 13 to 33: the 4 low dungeons
Hall of Thanes lies under
Ironforge, the resting place of the dwarven monarchs. Someone broke in, and Blizzard points at the Dark Irons. It is an
Alliance story, and a
Horde group has to sneak or fight its way in.
Ruins of Lordaeron is the
Forsaken reclaiming their capital. Scourge still lurk in the corners and a necromancer has moved in.
Horde players take up arms with the Forsaken;
Alliance players find a way in uninvited.
Excavation Site: Wetlands sits above Whelgar’s Excavation. A strange mist comes down from the mountains, lights flash on the horizon and Titan constructs guard whatever is up there.
Since the 15 October build, members of the Horde are attacked on sight in Dalaran, but the City of Dalaran dungeon stays open to them.
City of Dalaran is the whole city as a
dungeon. The Kirin Tor raised a barrier to hide the restoration after the Third War, the barrier is down, and enchantments, arcane constructs and demonic energy are running wild inside.

Levels 35 to 60: the 5 high dungeons

The
Drowned City is a troll city that rose out of the ocean off the
Stranglethorn coast.
Trolls and naga hold it, and a pirate ship crashed into it. It was the playable
dungeon on the BlizzCon show floor.
Krol’dok Stronghold is an outdoor dungeon in the
Riverglades, run by an ogre clan that kidnaps travellers. Strange chanting comes from it at night. Blizzard built it as the alternative to running
Scarlet Monastery again.
Alcaz Prison is the island prison where the Defias once held nobles for ransom. The Defias and the naga are fighting inside, and you can finally go in.
Blackmaw Hold is the furbolg city behind the gate you could never open in Classic. The furbolgs are fighting a corruption, and the tunnels under the hold run deep into the mountain, toward the
Barrow Deeps. On Blizzard’s 8 October 2026 podcast, the designers said Blackmaw Hold was not built as a mega dungeon, though its footprint is probably bigger than Blackrock Depths. They expect a group to clear it in 1 long session and to be comfortable inside at level 60.
Shaper’s Terrace is a Titan site in the hills of Un’Goro Crater: old Titan buildings, power crystals and wildlife running between them. It is the last dungeon before the
raids.
Why the dungeons are harder
There is no level scaling. A
dungeon is as hard as its level says, and the levels above are Blizzard’s own.
Blizzard designed dungeon gameplay to be tactical. Crowd control matters: you polymorph, banish, root and trap to keep the healer alive and the tank standing. Threat matters: a tank holds 3 or 4 targets at once, so nobody pulls a whole dungeon. Combat pacing is a little slower, and a solo player takes about 15 seconds to kill a normal mob.
So a group wants a class that can sheep, sap, fear or trap, and it wants to talk before the pull. Blizzard has not announced the group size for the new dungeons yet. On the 8 October podcast, the designers said dungeon maps probably will not come and meeting stones do not summon players.
Boss timers and a threat meter help here, and these addons have Forever builds.
Loot: blue boss items, Blueprints, transmog
Blizzard re-examined the loot of every
dungeon boss in the game. Every unique boss item is now blue, many new items were added, weak items were improved and the old favourites stay. Quest rewards were added across the board too. The 1 October beta notes add more Blacksmithing and Leatherworking recipes as dungeon drops. The new plans, from dungeons and from Merchant's Favor, are in the Blacksmithing guide.
Blizzard has not published boss-by-boss loot tables yet. On 28 September players had revealed the stats of 4,419 of 12,594 beta items, so every per-boss list stays partial until launch. The Hall of Thanes loot rules, the dungeon players ask about most, have their own page: Hall of Thanes loot. Which blues land in each spec's pre-raid set: WoW Forever BiS lists.
Dungeon bosses drop
Blueprint recipes. Those unlock the advanced camping objects that give 1-hour buffs at a campsite, so a
level 60 still has a reason to run
Alcaz Prison. How camping works is in the camping guide.
Transmog changed the loot rules in your favour. An uncommon or rare bind-on-pickup item from a dungeon boss unlocks its appearance for every eligible looter, so nobody rolls against you for the look. Epic
raid items unlock their look only for the player who loots them. Healing items now carry bonus damage as well, so a healer can
quest in dungeon gear.
Ragefire Chasm (RFC) loot and levels
Ragefire Chasm, RFC for short, is still in Forever. It is the Classic dungeon under Orgrimmar at levels 13 to 18, with the same 4 bosses: Oggleflint, Taragaman the Hungerer, Jergosh the Invoker and Bazzalan. It is the Horde dungeon for that bracket, and Hall of Thanes is the Alliance dungeon at the same levels.
The beta server already drops 6 RFC boss items. Taragaman drops the Cursed Felblade, Crystalline Cuffs and Subterranean Cape. Jergosh drops the Robe of Evocation, Cavedweller Bracers and Chanting Blade. Each one is item level 18 and needs level 13 to wear.
Oggleflint and Bazzalan have no confirmed Forever loot list yet, so a full RFC table waits for launch.
XP: 1 clear each, then back to quests
Blizzard confirmed 3 XP facts. The XP curve from 1 to 60 is unchanged from Classic. Dungeon mob-kill XP started below Classic. Quest XP for the 1st run of a
dungeon is raised. The 1 October beta build then cut that bonus quest XP by 50%, because testers were leveling too fast.
The consequence is simple. Pick up every dungeon
quest before you zone in, clear the instance once, turn in, and go back to the zone. The 2nd and 3rd clears are for a specific blue item or a
Blueprint, and they pay less XP than the 1st clear. Chain-running
Scarlet Monastery to 60 is over. The 8 October 2026 build then raised XP from dungeon kills by about 20% (still below Classic Era, per Blizzard) and fixed a bug that tied party XP to the highest-level member. Blizzard’s Josh Greenfield says that with perfect play, dungeon leveling is now very close to optimal questing. Blizzard is still collecting feedback, so treat the dungeon XP values as not final.
Forever has no automatic Dungeon Finder. It has a Looking for Group listing tool: you list yourself or browse the listed groups and invite by hand. Since the 1 October build, players on the beta see a required playstyle on every listing: Learning, Relaxed, Competitive or Carry Offered. How the tool works is on the group finder guide. Groups also form in the zone, in cities and at
campfires, which is why a leveling character on a quiet ruleset wants a group it can count on. The full 1 to 60 route with the hours per bracket is in the leveling guide.
That route is about 150 hours of play, and the 9 new dungeons are stops along it.

All 3 calendars reach the dungeons in level order, from
Hall of Thanes to Shaper’s Terrace.
Dungeon runs with a Pro from $12
A
dungeon run is a full clear of the instance you name in chat, self-play or piloted, from 4 November 2026. The Pro plays on your ruleset and your faction, because Blizzard allows no cross-ruleset and no cross-faction grouping. Extra runs of the same dungeon are priced as a multiplier on the constructor, for a specific blue item or a
Blueprint.
Every leveling order already includes 1 clear of each dungeon on the way to 60. The 55 to 60 runs are the pre-
raid gear before the raid spots from $349 on 9 December.
Piloted runs are played by a human Pro in our own gaming hubs, on a PC dedicated to your account and a unique residential IP in your city, so every run looks exactly like you playing from home.
Carry Offered is also how Forever players earn
gold: they agree a price in LFG chat and carry a group through a dungeon. Our gold service has a Pro run those carries on your own character, so the gold arrives from real runs, never through a trade, the mail or an auction-house dump.
From the source
Official“Members of the Horde are no longer welcome in Dalaran under any circumstances and will be attacked on sight. This does not affect access to the City of Dalaran dungeon, but the Horde questline to obtain the Dalaran Sewer Key no longer grants unrestricted access to the city in the open world.”
Official“PAX Aus opening keynote on 8 October at 6:00 PM PDT with an in-depth look at one of the new Forever dungeons.”
Report“1 October beta build: level cap 30, Excavation Site: Wetlands at 26 to 31, Razorfen Downs and Uldaman open, dungeon-quest bonus XP cut by 50%.”
Report“Ragefire Chasm in Forever: levels 13 to 18, Orgrimmar, Horde, 4 bosses, 6 boss items seen on the beta server (ilvl 18, req 13).”
Report“Ragefire Chasm beta page: 4 bosses, Taragaman and Jergosh loot, all boss drops item level 18 requiring level 13, Hall of Thanes as the Alliance counterpart.”
Official“Beta development notes, 8 October build: the new City of Dalaran dungeon is available for testing, XP from killing creatures in dungeons up by about 20%, party kill XP now set by each player's own level.”
Official“With the 8 October changes, dungeon XP gain stays below Classic Era, and perfect dungeon play levels very close to, if not equal to, optimal questing.”
Official“WoW Forever Podcast episode 3: Blackmaw Hold was not designed as a mega dungeon, its footprint is probably bigger than Blackrock Depths, it is cleared in 1 long session and players are comfortable inside at 60.”
Report“City of Dalaran dungeon overview from the beta: entrance, quests and rewards.”
Official“Podcast episode 3 on dungeons and questing: dungeon maps probably will not come and meeting stones do not summon.”
Official“PAX Aus keynote recording on the official Warcraft channel: Krol'dok Stronghold walkthrough.”
FAQ
- Fact update for the October 15, 2026 patch notes: the stress test date and Dalaran for the Horde.
- Fact update: the PAX Aus look at Krol'dok Stronghold and the 8 October podcast on dungeon maps and meeting stones.
- City of Dalaran on the beta, more dungeon kill XP from 8 October, the aired PAX Aus keynote, Blackmaw Hold size notes and Excavation Site 26 to 31 in the FAQ. The trash-skipping note and the mega dungeon tease give way to the 8 October facts.

