Blizzard's October 20 raid overview is the first time the launch tier of WoW: Forever has been described in numbers rather than themes, and those numbers reshape how guilds should be recruiting right now. All three raids open December 9 at level 60 — thirty-five days after the November 4 launch — and they are deliberately sized for three different rosters.

Original editorial illustration by RealmList, generated for this article. This is artwork, not game footage or official promotional material.

The tier at a glance

All three are "currently planned to reset each week," in Blizzard's wording — a plan, not a permanent policy, so guilds should not yet build a season-long schedule around it.

Barrow Deeps: the small-guild raid with too many doors

The 10-player option is the prison that held Illidan Stormrage for ten thousand years, and eight bosses puts it in the same weight class as a Classic 10-player raid rather than a two-boss side instance. The detail that will actually cost people time is the geography: Blizzard names three separate entrances, connected through Mount Hyjal, Winterspring, and Blackmaw Hold.

That makes Barrow Deeps the first Forever raid whose route begins in a five-player dungeon. Blackmaw Hold, the level 55–60 Azshara dungeon, is the link — which means a raid group arriving via Blackmaw Hold needs its own attunement-free path through the dungeon first, while groups coming from Hyjal or Winterspring skip that entirely. Raid leaders should pick one meeting point and enforce it, or the first pull of the night will be four players short and on the wrong continent.

For a ten-player roster, this is also the tier's best answer to the perennial Forever problem of guild size: two ten-player teams can run Barrow Deeps on the same night without splitting a twenty-player core.

Hyjal Summit: thirteen bosses and a route decision

Twenty players, thirteen bosses, and — after an opening fight against an ancient guardian — multiple paths across the mountain, with ruins above and below ground. Blizzard's framing is that groups "choose from multiple paths" and that the route determines the order of encounters before everything converges on the final fights.

Thirteen bosses is the largest single raid of the tier by a wide margin, and a branching layout means two guilds can run "Hyjal" in the same week and see completely different fights. That is good for replay value and bad for pickup groups, which will need a stated route before the first pull rather than improvising at the fork.

Onyxia: the tier's logistical bottleneck

Onyxia's Lair is the only encounter in the tier with a per-character gate. Blizzard's instruction is unambiguous: each member of the raid must carry the Drakefire Amulet to enter, and the amulet does not need to be equipped — it only has to be in the inventory. One attuned player cannot pull the rest of the group in.

The attunement itself is the long Classic chain, unchanged in shape:

• Alliance — Helendis Riverhorn in the Burning Steppes starts Dragonkin Menace, followed by six The True Masters quests. The chain runs through Marshal Maxwell at Morgan's Vigil, into Blackrock Depths for Marshal Windsor, A Crumpled Up Note, A Shred of Hope (Golem Lord Argelmach and General Angerforge), Jail Break!, then the Stormwind sequence (Stormwind Rendezvous, The Great Masquerade) and Bolvar's The Dragon's Eye before the final trip to Upper Blackrock Spire for General Drakkisath's blood.
• Horde — Warlord Goretooth in Kargath opens with Blood and Thunder and Warlord's Command in Lower Blackrock Spire, then Thrall's For the Horde! and Rend Blackhand's head, Rexxar in Desolace, Myranda the Hag in the Western Plaguelands, Emberstrife's four Test of Skulls trials (Scryer, Somnus, Chronalis, Axtroz), and finally Drakkisath again in Upper Blackrock Spire.

Practically, the Horde route is longer and includes four named dragon kills in the open world, while the Alliance route leans on Blackrock Depths runs — at least two of them, since the note drop and the two boss items are separate steps. Both factions end in Upper Blackrock Spire, which means UBRS demand in the last week before December 9 will be severe.

What to do with the thirty-five days

Two caveats worth repeating. Blizzard has not announced any attunement requirement for Barrow Deeps or Hyjal Summit — the absence of one in the overview is not proof there is none, but it is the only evidence available. And the fire resistance advice is Blizzard's own, not a datamined threshold: no resistance numbers have been published, so treat early Onyxia attempts as gear checks rather than established strategy.

::note Verified on October 26, 2026 against Blizzard's October 20 raid overview (boss counts, sizes, entrances, weekly reset wording, and the full Alliance and Horde attunement chains) and cross-checked with Guided's October 20 report on boss counts and per-player amulet requirements. The December 9 unlock date is from the same overview. Attunement requirements for Barrow Deeps and Hyjal Summit were not stated and may still be announced; weekly resets are described as a current plan, not a confirmed policy. Nothing here reflects live encounter tuning, which cannot be tested until the raids open. ::