WoW Forever Auto Shot: Blizzard Fixes the Wand Bug

Wanding while running is about to end. On September 23, 2026, Blizzard acknowledged a beta bug that was cutting short the pause before every wand Shoot and before the hunter’s WoW Forever Auto Shot. Venruki, a well-known arena player, read the announcement on video thirteen minutes after it went up. He had just praised that smoother shot as a hunter buff, and found himself accused of causing the nerf.

Blizzard Acknowledges a WoW Forever Auto Shot Bug

The message comes from Kaivax, Blizzard’s community manager, on the official beta forum, titled “Auto-shoot Bug and Fix Incoming.” Normally, WoW Forever Auto Shot and wand Shoot have a 0.5-second cast time, during which you have to stand still. On the beta, that delay no longer applies correctly. It’s much shorter, and hunters and wand users alike no longer need to stop for as long as intended. The fix will land in an upcoming beta build, “hopefully next week.”

Wowhead had spotted the reduction as early as September 21, without knowing whether it was intended. The site relayed Blizzard’s response two days later. This shorter delay mainly benefits kiting, the technique of shooting while backing away to keep the enemy at range. Blizzard says nothing about damage: only the pause before the shot is affected.

Shooting While Running: What the Bug Allowed

To show what it looked like, Venruki plays a clip posted by a player named Zeekerik, seen the day before. Wand shots and Auto Shot chain together in it at a pace that “looks a little crazy.” Zeekerik captioned it “Great, got the hunter nerf.”

The trick relies on a macro (a shortcut that chains several commands into one click) built around /cast Shoot, the wand-shooting command. It kept firing the shot without ever interrupting it. Zeekerik could spam it, run around in every direction, and keep shooting. Venruki calls the trick “a little bit cheesy.”

On the European forum, the alert was already three days old. The thread opened by Artyom, a level 45 human paladin, describes a hunter who winds up a shot while running, stops for a few milliseconds, and moves again: the arrow still fires. For the wand, you have to stand still the moment you click, but the shot resolves instantly. Artyom calls hunters “absolutely busted” and kiting now “an unthinking exercise.” He suspects a mechanic borrowed from the modern version of the game, not Classic.

On September 22, the community site WoWForeverBuilds described the same behavior. It also noted another change: a melee attack resets the ranged shot timer, which removes the old back-and-forth between the two.

Priests and Hunters: What the Fix Takes Away

Venruki then tests WoW Forever Auto Shot with his own hunter. By eye, he puts the current delay at around 0.1 second: the moment he stops, the arrow fires almost instantly. After the fix, every stop will cost half a second again, and kiting will become “a bit harder.”

In his view, the hunter isn’t the only one losing something. Spellcasters are affected too, “especially priests”: the Discipline Priest was, to him, the best at wand-kiting. A “small hit,” then, but a good change for the game, which “felt a little bugged” as things stood.

His chat is split. Half a second “isn’t that bad,” one viewer writes, and the wand “will still be good” as long as you wait out the timer. Others think the fix “adds skill” to the game. One player mourns a real quality-of-life buff for the hunter. Venruki replies that the class has gotten plenty of other buffs like that on the beta, and it’ll still be fun to play.

On the American forum, a message from the mage Incenerator asked the question as early as September 21: “Priest is literally OP in WoW Forever with Wand spec, is this on the nerf list?” His complaint is about damage, and Blizzard’s announcement says nothing about that. On the beta, wands benefit from spell power, as shown by the site’s article on priest wand leveling, published the same day. That method, which involves stacking Shadow Word: Pain on several mobs and then finishing them off with the wand, relies on damage. The announced fix doesn’t touch it, unless Blizzard says more.

For end game, the Discipline Priest build and Beast Mastery Hunter build pages don’t rely on this bug: their talents stay valid after the fix.

Venruki, the Obvious Scapegoat

His previous video had praised the hunter’s smoother shot. That was all it took: part of the community “very seriously” accused him of causing the fix. “It’s Venruki’s fault.” His reply: “as if I have any power over the Classic community.” The theory strikes him as “absolutely absurd,” and he points out that neither he nor Zeekerik is responsible for a bugged shot.

His chat doesn’t let up, though. “I’m so tired of streamers getting classes nerfed,” one viewer writes. Another sums it up: hunters never complained about Auto Shot, they were given too much money, and now they have to give it back. Asmongold, another popular streamer, is already reacting to the idea that Venruki “managed to weaken hunters.”

Venruki eventually leans into the role. “It’s me, I personally weakened hunters, the whole community can thank me,” he says, while admitting that a few hunters are holding a grudge. He asks his chat which class he should play next to get it nerfed. Retribution Paladin comes out on top. He also explains that he avoids mage: if he wins another tournament with it, the class will never get buffed. For Blizzard, though, this isn’t a nerf or a balance decision at all. It’s a bug, fixed in the next build.