Shamans learn Ghost Wolf from their class trainer at level 20 in World of Warcraft: Forever. It turns you into a spirit wolf that runs 40% faster outdoors, and it is how a Shaman gets around until riding at level 40.
Blizzard confirms the spell is in the game: its Mage and Shaman class deep dive reworked the talent that improves it, and its development notes and hotfixes have fixed Ghost Wolf more than once since. Below is how to learn it, what it does, how to make it instant and usable indoors, and why you can ignore a “Tablet of Ghost Wolf” listed as unobtainable. Checked November 12, eight days after launch.
How to Learn Ghost Wolf
- Reach level 20. Ghost Wolf is a level 20 Shaman spell, the same level as Call of the Elements and Totemic Recall.
- Visit a Shaman trainer. Any of them will do. If you are not sure where yours is, Blizzard’s new player’s starter guide suggests asking a city guard for directions to trainers.
- Open the training list, select Ghost Wolf and click Train. Our guide to learning new abilities walks through the trainer window step by step.
- Drag it onto an action bar. Blizzard’s November 2 launch notes say “learning new spells will no longer cause them to be automatically added to your action bars,” so you will find Ghost Wolf in your Spellbook, not on your bars.
Bring some gold for the visit. Training is not free, and Blizzard’s November 2 notes put the total cost of class training from 1 to 60 at “between 206 and 207 gold for all classes.”
What Ghost Wolf Does
Ghost Wolf turns the Shaman into a wolf, increasing movement speed by 40%. Without its talent it only works outdoors and has a cast time, 3 seconds on its tooltip at the end of the beta, so it is a travel spell rather than something to fire off mid-fight.
That 40% matters most between levels 20 and 40, before you can ride. Our guide to what level you get a mount covers riding, and other classes’ speed tools such as Travel Form and Aspect of the Cheetah.
Improved Ghost Wolf: Instant and Indoors
Improved Ghost Wolf is a two-rank Enhancement talent, and Blizzard’s deep dive changed what it does in Forever: “Rank 1 now makes Ghost Wolf useable indoors while reducing its cast time by 1 second, and Rank 2 now makes Ghost Wolf Instant.”
| Improved Ghost Wolf | Cast time | Usable indoors? |
|---|---|---|
| 0 of 2 | Full cast time | No |
| 1 of 2 | 1 second shorter | Yes |
| 2 of 2 | Instant | Yes |
The November 2 notes moved Improved Ghost Wolf “from 2nd row to 4th row,” so it needs 15 points in Enhancement first: level 25 at the earliest for the first rank if every point goes into that tree. The Talented Legacy perk can bring that five levels sooner. Stormstrike, the new 16-point Enhancement talent, competes for your points at the same time; our Shaman leveling guide gives our full talent order. Elemental and Restoration Shamans can only reach it by putting 15 points into Enhancement.
At 2 of 2 the spell is instant, which also makes it an escape: shift and run when a fight turns bad.
Ghost Wolf Fixes Since the Beta
Blizzard has kept working on the spell through the beta and launch:
- October 1 notes: “Ghost Wolf should now be more visible while in well-lit areas.”
- October 8 notes: the Revelation enchant’s buff “will no longer be removed when the caster Shapeshifts into Ghost Wolf or Druid Forms.”
- November 9 hotfixes: Blizzard’s hotfix list “fixed an issue causing Improved Ghost Wolf to not hold the Night Watchman’s Torch in its mouth.”
The Tablet of Ghost Wolf You Can Ignore
You may come across an item called Tablet of Ghost Wolf listed as unobtainable and wonder whether the spell is locked behind it. It is not. The tablet is a leftover in the original game’s item data that teaches Rank 1 of the spell at level 12, and you cannot get it. You do not need it either: the spell comes from your trainer at level 20.
Does Ghost Wolf Stack With Other Speed Boosts?
Blizzard has not said. Tauren Shamans have Plainsrunning and Windshaper Skyborne Shamans have Skysight, and Blizzard’s notes do not say whether either adds to Ghost Wolf. Our guide to whether Plainsrunning stacks covers what the notes do say, and our best Shaman race guide compares the racials. Every WoW Forever guide we have is on our World of Warcraft hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
What level do you get Ghost Wolf in WoW Forever? Level 20, from a Shaman trainer.
Is Ghost Wolf obtainable in WoW Forever? Yes. The Tablet of Ghost Wolf item is unobtainable, but the spell itself comes from your Shaman trainer at level 20.
How do you make Ghost Wolf instant? Put two points into Improved Ghost Wolf, a fourth-row Enhancement talent. Rank 1 cuts a second off the cast and rank 2 makes it instant.
Can you use Ghost Wolf indoors? Only with at least one rank of Improved Ghost Wolf.
How much faster is Ghost Wolf? It increases your movement speed by 40%.