WoW Forever Skyborne Race Guide

The Skyborne are the new playable race in World of Warcraft: Forever: elves descended from Highborne exiles who made a pact with wind spirits and built a home in Skywall, one of the elemental planes. They are the only race that can join either faction, and the faction you pick changes their class options and one racial ability.

Quick facts

	Windshaper Skyborne	High Order Skyborne
Faction	Horde	Alliance
Classes	Druid, Hunter, Rogue, Shaman, Warrior	Druid, Hunter, Mage, Rogue, Warrior
Starting zone	Zephras Isle (levels 1–12)	Zephras Isle (levels 1–12)
Unique racial	Skysight	Read Ley Line

You need an upgrade edition to play Skyborne

The base game of WoW: Forever is included with a World of Warcraft subscription or Game Time. Playing a Skyborne, and the Zephras Isle starting questline, requires the Skyborne Heroic Pack or a higher edition (the Skyborne Epic Pack or the limited-time Warcraft Forever Collection). Blizzard’s official page states this in its purchase terms. If you only plan to subscribe, pick one of the eight original races.

Horde or Alliance?

You choose the faction at character creation, and Blizzard frames it as a split within one people:

• Windshaper Skyborne (Horde) are descended from the first shen’dorei to receive the wind spirits’ gift of “elemental skysight”. They embrace elemental traditions, which is why they can be Shamans. Their story is about finding out what happened to their missing elemental mentors.
• High Order Skyborne (Alliance) are descended from the Highborne scholars of Eldre’Thalas. They want to reclaim lost arcane knowledge so their people are no longer dependent on elemental patrons, which is why they can be Mages.

Both sides can be Warriors, Hunters, Rogues and Druids.

Racial abilities

Three racials are shared by both factions and one is unique:

Racial	Type	Effect	Faction
Walk on Air	Active	Glide downward through the air for 10 seconds	Both
Wind Blessed	Passive	1% increased melee, ranged and spellcasting Haste	Both
Elemental Insight	Passive	Damage to Elementals increased by 5%	Both
Skysight	Active	An Elemental Blessing that increases run speed by 10%	Horde
Read Ley Line	Active	Activate a ley line for 100% increased Health and Mana regeneration	Alliance

Druids can use racial abilities while shapeshifted in Forever, and Blizzard’s Druid deep dive lists Walk on Air among them.

Zephras Isle

Zephras Isle is a floating island and the Skyborne starting zone for levels 1 to 12. When you arrive, the island is in crisis: the air spirits that protected it have vanished, ancient structures are failing, communities are cut off from each other, and the Skyborne disagree on what to do next. Blizzard describes the art as classic Warcraft blended with architecture inspired by Skywall.

Skyborne Druids and appearance

• Skyborne Druids get forms made specifically for the race. Blizzard has already revised the HD versions with sharper fur textures and less saturated colours so they fit the rest of Azeroth better.
• Original races can toggle between Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD) models. Skyborne launch with HD models only. Blizzard has said SD Skyborne characters and SD Druid forms are in development for early 2027.
• Customization includes ten face options per body type, nine skin colours, a range of hair styles and colours, three ear lengths, feathers in the hair, and face and body tattoos. You can change your look later at a barber shop in the cities for a fee.
• Skyborne also have their own voices, dance and emotes.

What is not confirmed yet

• Skyborne racial numbers could still be tuned after launch.
• How Zephras Isle connects to the rest of the world for each faction. We will add a leveling route once we can follow it in game.

Related guides

• Race and class combinations
• Druid guide · Shaman guide · Mage guide
• What is WoW Forever and what does it cost