WoW Forever Talents Talent calculator for World of Warcraft: Forever Patch notes 3 Nov the shaman, hunter and warlock changes are in

Battle for Gilneas

Battleground for 10 a side, rated · New in Forever · read from the Forever client, build 1.60.1.70755. All instances →

Battle for Gilneas loading screen

As the Greymane wall collapses, the inevitable conflict between the Forsaken and Worgen reaches a new climax.

Two things set this map apart in the client's queue list: its row is marked rated, which almost nothing in the build is, and it is the only battleground row with no level band. Neither says what Forever will do with it.

What the client says

  • A battleground.Its map row is typed 3, the client's number for a battleground; an arena is 4. The client's link table does not yet join its queue row to the map; the two are matched by name.
  • Rated.Its queue row carries a rated team size of 10, the only battleground row in the build that does. Of the build's nine queue rows, two carry one: this one and Hyjal Crater at 5. None of Classic Era's four rows does.
  • Ten a side, in groups of up to five.No level band is set, so the row does not say which levels can queue.
  • Built on 9 of its 16 terrain tiles.Those 9 tiles carry 2,031 placed objects and 38 buildings. That is 1.1× the built area of Warsong Gulch. The size says how much was made, not what it is for.
  • Dressed for a player.A loading screen, a description and 8 named areas (Lighthouse, Waterworks, Mines and 5 more).

What it does not say

  • What “rated” means in Forever.The row states a team size and nothing else about rated play.
  • Whether it ships at launch, or when.Blizzard's BlizzCon PvP panel named one new battleground, Darkspear Islands, and did not name this one.
  • Which levels can queue.The row states no level band.
  • Anything the server decides.Objectives, scoring, start positions and rewards are set by the server, not the client tables, and so is whether the queue can be entered at all.

Each line is read from the Forever client, build 1.60.1.70755: the map and queue tables for what it is, its terrain files (measured on build 1.60.1.70425) for how much of it was built.

What else the client carries for it

Read from the tables around the map row, each block only where the build has something: nothing here is typed in. What the server decides (prices, vendors, scoring) is not in these tables.

Level brackets

The queue splits players into 6 brackets.

  • 10–19
  • 20–29
  • 30–39
  • 40–49
  • 50–59
  • 60

How much of it was built

A map's terrain is stored as tiles, each 533 yards square. Counting only the tiles with something actually built on them (which leaves out the empty ground a map pads its edges with) gives each battleground's real built area. Warsong Gulch is the yardstick.

Hyjal Crater5 a side4.4×
Darkspear Islands15 a side3.0×
Alterac Valley40 a side2.1×
Battle for Gilneas10 a side1.1×
Warsong Gulch10 a side1.0×
Arathi Basin15 a side0.9×

Built area as multiples of Warsong Gulch. Every tile of every map was read, not sampled.

End to end2,133 yardsAbout 5 minutes on foot, 3 mounted
Built tiles9 of 164×4 grid, 2,133 × 2,133 yards
Scenery placed2,03138 buildings, 7 ground textures

One caveat, because this is the figure most worth quoting. Built area is where terrain work exists, not where a player can walk. Alterac Valley's mountains are built ground to a level designer and a wall to everyone else. What this establishes is how much was made, not how much is playable, and not what the map is for, which only its queue rows say, and the card above states.

Every measured PvP map

Scenery and buildings are placement counts, read from every tile of each map.
MapQueueBuilt tilesvs Warsong GulchSceneryBuildingsTextures
Hyjal Crater5 a side35 of 354.4×8,7445841
Darkspear Islands15 a side24 of 253.0×2,4619125
Alterac Valley40 a side17 of 352.1×3,5547019
Battle for Gilneas10 a side9 of 161.1×2,031387
Warsong Gulch10 a side8 of 161.0×1,1151911
Arathi Basin15 a side7 of 160.9×3,287266

The evidence, tile by tile

For anyone who wants to check the numbers rather than take them. Each square is one 533-yard terrain tile as the client stores it, shaded by how much scenery sits on it; a dashed square is ground with nothing built on it. This is where every figure above comes from.

Show the terrain grids
Hyjal Crater5 a side · 35 of 35 tiles built
Darkspear Islands15 a side · 24 of 25 tiles built
Alterac Valley40 a side · 17 of 35 tiles built
Battle for Gilneas10 a side · 9 of 16 tiles built
Warsong Gulch10 a side · 8 of 16 tiles built
Arathi Basin15 a side · 7 of 16 tiles built
nothing built 1–99 pieces 100–299 300–599 600+— hover a tile for its exact counts

SOURCES — the built-area figures on this page are read from the World of Warcraft: Forever client, build 1.60.1.70425: each map's own terrain files, every tile of every map, with a tile counted as built when a doodad or a building is placed on it. Nothing here is taken from another site. Reproducible with node scripts/measure-map-terrain.mjs --json.

Areas inside

Lighthouse · Waterworks · Mines · Horde Landing · Gilnean Stronghold · The Overlook · Gilnean Coast · Beneath the Double Rainbow

★New in Forever · map 3005 Sources: Forever client build 1.60.1.70755 · Forever client build 1.60.1.69893 · BlizzCon, 12 September 2026

Every instance

Dungeons & Raids

51 instances
With a level set, doors you cannot enter yet lock and instances near your level light up.

5 group size, 10v10 players a side 28 Group Finder level, entry level with a plus, or a battleground's level band Confirmed raid Blizzard has confirmed for Forever Announced announced, not in the client yet Not confirmed 40? in the client from Classic, not announced ★ new in Forever ◆ changed