Dungeon kill XP in WoW Forever is up 50% since November 8

Blizzard has turned up dungeon experience on the live realms. In a short post on the official forums on November 8, community manager Kaivax wrote that a hotfix deployed at about 11:05 PST (20:05 CET) “increased kill experience in dungeons by 50%, so it feels better to go back in for more runs.” The post signs off wishing players luck with their Deviate Hides, the Wailing Caverns quest that asks for twenty of them.

It is a hotfix, so there is nothing to download: the change is already live on every realm.

What changed

• Experience from killing enemies inside a dungeon is 50% higher than it was before the hotfix.
• It applies to dungeon kills only. Blizzard’s post does not mention quest experience, dungeon quest rewards or experience outside instances.

How we got here

Dungeon experience was the beta’s loudest argument, and it moved three times before launch:

• October 1: the level 30 beta build halved the bonus experience dungeon quests give on top of normal quest values.
• October 8: Blizzard fixed a bug that paid kill experience at the level of the highest player in the group and raised base kill experience in dungeons by about 20%.
• At the same time Blizzard set a target: perfect dungeon play should land very close to, if not equal to, optimal questing, and dungeon experience would not return to Classic Era levels.

The November 8 increase is the first change to that maths since the realms opened. Blizzard did not say whether the parity target still stands or where the new rate puts dungeons against questing.

Not everyone is satisfied

The announcement thread filled up within hours, and one of the most active replies on the forums argues that the increase is still not enough. Players there work out, from the beta changes, that dungeon kill experience is still well under half of what Classic Era paid. That is their arithmetic, not a Blizzard number, and Blizzard has not published the rates it used.

What it means for your route

• Run the dungeon at your level twice if the group is good. Before the hotfix the advice was one run for the quests, then back outside. With half again the kill experience, a second clear before you outlevel it now pays.
• Full clears gain the most. The increase is on kills, so a run that skips trash packs gains less from it than a full clear.
• Keep the group close in level. One player far above the enemies still stops experience for the whole party.
• Still pick up the quests first. Quest rewards did not change, and most dungeons have quests you can only start outside. Each dungeon page lists them, including the Wailing Caverns quest for the Deviate Hides.

We have updated Dungeons or questing? and the fastest leveling guide with the hotfix, and the XP changes box on every leveling guide shows it too.

The next round of changes is the class tuning due on Tuesday, November 10.