WoW Forever Raid Preparation Checklist for December 9

The checklist

Done?	Task	Needed for	Source
☐	Level 60 on your raid character	All three raids	Blizzard
☐	Same faction and ruleset as your group	All three raids	Blizzard
☐	Pre-raid gear from level 55 to 60 dungeons and crafting	All three raids	Our advice
☐	Drakefire Amulet in your bags	Onyxia's Lair	Blizzard
☐	Fire resistance gear and potions	Onyxia's Lair	Blizzard recommends fire resistance
☐	Mount Hyjal reached and its flight paths learned	Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit	Our advice
☐	Natural Flasks stocked	Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit	Game data
☐	Food, potions and class reagents	All three raids	Our advice
☐	Raid spec chosen, second spec set up if you swap roles	All three raids	Our advice
☐	Loot rules agreed in writing	All three raids	Our advice
☐	Enchanter and crafters lined up	Tier pieces	Game data

Level and gear targets

Level 60 is the only hard gear requirement Blizzard has published. There's no item level gate, and no source lists hit caps or stat targets tested in Forever raids, so we won't quote Classic numbers as if they were confirmed.

What you can do before December 9:

• Run the level 55 to 60 dungeons. Forever adds Blackmaw Hold in Azshara (55 to 60) and Shaper's Terrace in Un'Goro Crater (58 to 60) to the Classic endgame dungeons (Blizzard). Our new dungeons guide covers both.
• Work on the dungeon set. Blizzard's Legacy article lists the Lord Valthalak dungeon set questline as a challenge of its own, so the set chain is in the game and pays a Legacy Point as well as gear.
• Use crafted gear. MythicSim builds its level 60 reference characters from dungeon drops, quest rewards and crafted items, which is a fair picture of what "pre-raid" means right now.
• Check a slot-by-slot list, with care. The Forever Era publishes best-in-slot lists per spec and says to treat them as a starting point, because they score stats by weights and ignore set bonuses and procs.

Blizzard said in its November 2 notes that, apart from bugs and serious outliers, it doesn't plan big tuning changes before the raids open (Warcraft Tavern's summary of the notes). A spec you gear now should play much the same on raid night. Our DPS tier list, healer tier list and tank tier list show where each spec stands.

Consumables and flasks

Natural Flasks

Forever adds four Alchemy flasks built for the new raids. Each one gives Stamina anywhere and a second bonus only while you're in Mount Hyjal, Hyjal Summit or the Barrow Deeps. They last 2 hours, persist through death, and only one flask can be active.

Flask	Zone-only bonus	Materials (plus 1 Death Lotus and 1 Imbued Vial)
Flask of Natural Accuracy	Hit chance	12 Demonsage, 9 Golden Sansam
Flask of Natural Aggression	Critical strike chance	18 Demonsage, 6 Mountain Silversage
Flask of Natural Precision	Lower chance to be dodged or parried	12 Marefoil, 9 Dreamfoil
Flask of Natural Swiftness	Haste	18 Marefoil, 6 Icecap

Source: The Forever Era's item pages, build 1.60.1.70888. All four need Alchemy 300, character level 55 to drink, and an Alchemy Lab to craft. Where the recipes come from isn't stated.

The numbers have moved. The Forever Era's current tooltips show +30 Stamina and a 2% zone bonus. Warcraft Wiki's Flask of Natural Accuracy page, last edited on launch day, shows +60 Stamina and 5% hit. Check the tooltip in game before you plan around either figure.

Two practical points. The zone bonus doesn't apply in Onyxia's Lair, so there you only get the Stamina. And every flask needs a Death Lotus, so that herb is likely to limit supply (our reading). Our alchemy guide covers the herbs and the leveling route.

Food, camp buffs and potions

• Food buffs were reworked. Blizzard's Deep Dive recap says crafted food can grant stat boosts, and the Legacy perk Gourmand lengthens food buffs.
• Campfires give buffs too. Basic Campfires provide one-hour buffs (Blizzard). Our camping guide explains what stacks with class buffs.
• Potions and elixirs come from Alchemy as in Classic, with new combat potions added. Stock mana and healing options for your role.
• Class reagents. The Legacy perk Reagent Economy removes purchased reagents for class abilities (Blizzard). Until you have it, buy them before raid night.

World buffs

Classic raiders will ask about world buffs. MythicSim's methodology says they don't work in Forever raids, and press reports from BlizzCon said the same. We found no published Blizzard rule that confirms it, so treat it as likely but unconfirmed, and don't plan your raid night around collecting them.

Resistances

Fire resistance for Onyxia is the one resistance Blizzard has asked for. Its overview says to build fire resistance before entering Onyxia's Lair and to be ready to reposition during her three-phase fight. It gives no target number.

For the Barrow Deeps and Hyjal Summit, no source lists a resistance requirement. The Tier 1 set bonuses name Demons, Undead, Elementals, Beasts and Humanoids, which hints at the enemy types but says nothing about damage schools. Don't spend gold on nature or shadow resistance sets on a guess.

Professions that matter for raiding

Profession	Why it matters for these raids	Source
Alchemy	Makes the Natural Flasks and potions	The Forever Era
Enchanting	Disenchanting Hyjal Summit or Barrow Deeps items gives Malleable Essence of Nature	The Forever Era
Leatherworking	Crafts leather and mail Tier 1 pieces at 300	Warcraft Wiki; The Forever Era
Blacksmithing	Crafts plate Tier 1 pieces at 300	Warcraft Wiki
Tailoring	Crafts cloth Tier 1 pieces at 300	Warcraft Wiki
Herbalism	Supplies the herbs in the flask recipes	The Forever Era's recipe lists

The crafted tier pieces cover shoulders, hands, legs and feet, and the recipes we checked use three to five Malleable Essence of Nature each. Our Tier 1 sets guide has the details. Each non-gathering primary profession also pays Legacy Points at 150, 225 and 300 skill (Blizzard), so leveling one helps twice. See our professions guide for pairings.

Attunements

Raid	Attunement	Source
Onyxia's Lair	Drakefire Amulet in your inventory, from a faction quest chain that ends in Upper Blackrock Spire	Blizzard
Barrow Deeps	None listed. The client has a Brooch of the Wardens that opens a Vord'anaar Prison inside the raid, with no source given	Blizzard; The Forever Era
Hyjal Summit	None listed	Blizzard

Start the Onyxia chain now. Blizzard's advice is to begin early, bring friends for the elite quests and expect several trips into high-level dungeons. Our Onyxia attunement guide lists every step for both factions.

Legacy Points from raids

Challenge	Legacy Points
Defeat Onyxia	1
Defeat all 13 Hyjal Summit bosses	1
Defeat all 8 Barrow Deeps bosses	1

Source: Blizzard's Legacy article. Points are account-wide, and each character can spend up to 16 at launch. Two perks help directly with raiding: Permanence makes party and raid buffs last longer, and The Quick and the Dead speeds the run back to your body and makes party and raid buffs free after a resurrection. Note that Field Medicine's shorter bandage debuff doesn't apply in raids. Our Legacy system guide has a raider build.

Lockouts and the weekly reset

Blizzard's overview says all three raids are "currently planned" to reset weekly. That's all that is published. The reset day and hour, the opening time on December 9, and whether there are separate difficulties haven't been announced.

Plan on one clear of each raid per character per week, and keep your first week's schedule loose until Blizzard publishes the reset day.

Group roles for 10, 20 and 40 players

Blizzard sets the sizes. The splits below are our starting suggestions, based on how Classic-style raids are usually built. Nobody has seen these fights, so adjust after the first night.

Raid	Size	Tanks	Healers	Damage	Notes
Barrow Deeps	10	2	2 to 3	5 to 6	Every slot must cover a job: interrupts, dispels, crowd control
Hyjal Summit	20	2 to 3	4 to 5	12 to 14	Room for one of each buff class
Onyxia's Lair	40	2 to 3	8 to 10	The rest	A single boss, so tanks are few and healers many

Three rules sit above any composition:

1. One faction, one ruleset. You can't group across rulesets or factions (Blizzard's Deep Dive recap).
2. Threat needs attention. Blizzard removed Blessing of Salvation before launch and raised Bear Form threat to compensate (November 2 notes, via Warcraft Tavern), so damage dealers can't lean on a threat-reduction buff.
3. Loot rules first. An epic raid item's appearance unlocks only for the player it binds to (Blizzard), so who gets an item matters for collections as well as power.

Our math on rosters: one Hyjal Summit group plus one Barrow Deeps group is 30 raiders. A guild with 30 regulars needs 10 more for Onyxia, which is where alts and trial members fit.

Your plan from now to December 9

When	Focus (our plan)
Now to November 18	Reach level 60. Pick your raid spec and professions
November 18 to 25	Run level 55 to 60 dungeons for gear. Start the Onyxia chain while you're in Blackrock Mountain
November 25 to December 2	Finish the Drakefire Amulet. Walk to Mount Hyjal and learn both flight paths. Push professions to 300
December 2 to 8	Craft or buy flasks, food and potions. Collect fire resistance pieces. Confirm rosters and loot rules
December 9	Raids open. Expect an unknown opening hour and busy entrances

The trip to Hyjal is covered in our Mount Hyjal guide. If you're still leveling, our leveling guide has routes to 60.

Mistakes to avoid

1. Leaving the Drakefire Amulet for the last week. It takes several dungeon runs and a lot of travel.
2. Expecting the flask bonus in Onyxia's Lair. It works only on Mount Hyjal and in the two new raids.
3. Rolling on a different ruleset from your guild. There's no cross-ruleset raiding.
4. Vendoring raid drops nobody wants. Disenchant them for Malleable Essence of Nature.
5. Treating datamined boss lists as a route. The orders come from achievement criteria, as our Barrow Deeps guide and Hyjal Summit guide explain.

Want a hand with this?

If you would rather not grind this part yourself, pre-raid gear services and other WoW Forever raid services are listed on FullBoosts. Read the publisher's rules before you buy any service from anyone, FullBoosts included. A marketplace listing isn't publisher permission.

Frequently asked questions

When do raids open in WoW Forever? December 9, 2026. The Barrow Deeps, Hyjal Summit and Onyxia's Lair all open that day, and Blizzard hasn't announced a time.

What level do you need to raid in WoW Forever? Level 60. Blizzard lists all three launch raids as level 60 content.

How often do WoW Forever raids reset? Blizzard says all three are currently planned to reset weekly. The reset day hasn't been published.

What gear do you need for WoW Forever raids? There's no published gear requirement beyond level 60. The practical target is gear from the level 55 to 60 dungeons, the dungeon set questline and crafted pieces.

Do world buffs work in WoW Forever raids? Probably not. MythicSim's notes and press reports from BlizzCon say they don't, but we found no published Blizzard rule, so it stays unconfirmed until the raids open.

Which flask should you use in WoW Forever raids? In Hyjal Summit and the Barrow Deeps, one of the four Natural Flasks, chosen by the stat you need: hit, crit, haste, or a lower chance to be dodged or parried. Their second bonus doesn't work in Onyxia's Lair.

Do you need attunements for WoW Forever raids? Only for Onyxia's Lair, which needs the Drakefire Amulet. Blizzard lists none for the Barrow Deeps or Hyjal Summit.

How many Legacy Points do raids give? Three: one each for defeating Onyxia, all 13 Hyjal Summit bosses and all 8 Barrow Deeps bosses.

Related guides

• Onyxia attunement guide
• Barrow Deeps raid guide
• Hyjal Summit raid guide
• Tier 1 sets guide
• WoW Forever raids overview
• Alchemy guide