WoW Forever beta moves leveling XP from dungeons to quests, and players say dungeon groups are breaking

Classic players have always had two ways to level: quest out in the world, or join a group and run the same dungeon over and over. In the WoW Forever beta, the second option looks much weaker. Testers report that dungeon mobs give far less experience than in Classic and quests give far more. Two forum threads show how divided players are.

What players are seeing

The numbers so far come from players, not Blizzard. One tester reports averaging 9 to 18 XP per elite in Ragefire Chasm, while quest rewards feel roughly 200% higher than in Classic. Nobody has published a full comparison yet, and Blizzard has not commented. But every report points the same way: quests are now where most of your experience comes from, dungeons included.

This also fits what testers have said about leveling feeling too fast. If quests pay this much, questing through a zone moves you along quickly, even without dungeon runs.

Update, September 20: the other half of the change

Overnight the debate grew to three threads and more than 120 replies, and a second picture emerged: dungeon quests pay enormously, which is where the missing experience went.

One player reports turning in the six Ruins of Lordaeron quests and gaining almost three levels. Another reached level 18 on quests from Tirisfal Glades, Ragefire Chasm and Ruins of Lordaeron alone, without setting foot in Silverpine or the Barrens. Their conclusion is the opposite of the first complaint: dungeon quest rewards should be cut.

Several players also say the system is deliberate and was described by the developers: a large one-time payout the first time you clear a dungeon’s quests, and reduced experience on later runs. We have not found a Blizzard post saying this, so treat it as player understanding rather than confirmed design. It would explain both complaints at once: the first run through a dungeon is excellent value, and every run after it is poor.

If that is the design, the practical advice stays the same. Pick up every quest for a dungeon before you go, because the first clear is worth the most by a wide margin.

The strongest objection is still about roles. As one tester put it: “How are tanks/healers supposed to practice on the way to 60?” Another turned Blizzard’s position into a question worth answering: “We developed nine new leveling dungeons. We don’t want you to use them for leveling. Do you hear yourself?”

Why Blizzard might want this

No developer has explained the change, but players who support it offer three reasons:

• No dungeon spam. In Classic, groups repeated the same dungeon, or mages farmed it with area damage, to skip questing entirely. With little XP from mobs, that no longer pays off.
• Less boosting. Paid dungeon boosts for experience lose most of their value.
• More people in the world. Forever is built around its new zones and quests, so it makes sense to push players out into them. One poster even suggests a class other than Mage might be first to 60 this time.

One reply sums up the idea: “you should have an incentive to go, but you should not have an incentive to stay.”

What players say goes wrong

The critics are not asking for dungeon spam back. They point to side effects that are already showing up in the beta.

• Skip-everything runs. If the quests are the only real reward, the ideal run skips every pack it can. One player’s tank tried to skip half the dungeon, pulled the skipped packs anyway, and the group had to fight even more mobs.
• Nobody comes back. When everyone runs each dungeon once, players who arrive later struggle to find a group. One player argues guildmates will have “no reason to help them” because a second run is “an abject waste of time.”
• Hard to replace players. If someone disconnects mid-run, few people want to join a run that gives them nothing but the quests they have already done.
• Quest item drop rates hurt more. In Wailing Caverns, the Deviate Hide quest needs more drops than one run usually gives (about 7 to 10 per run, one player estimates), so a quest that once finished naturally now forces a second run that nobody wants to do.
• Tanks and healers lose out. Players who prefer to level as a tank or healer through groups say the change pushes them into solo questing they do not enjoy.

What this means for your leveling

For now, plan to quest. Run each dungeon when you have its quests and before you outlevel it, and treat the loot and quest rewards as the reason to go. Our level 20 beta guides are built around questing for exactly this reason.

One feature in the beta client could help groups quest together: Quest Time Link. Its strings say that while a party is Time Linked, only the party leader can accept or turn in quests, and “You must gather your party” first. It looks like a party quest-sync system for leveling with friends. Blizzard has not explained it yet, so we will cover it once it can be tested.

Will it change?

Probably, in some form. The beta’s XP tuning is the easiest thing to adjust, and dungeon XP is the kind of number Blizzard tweaks between phases. The level 30 phase opens in about a week and a half, and the new dungeons at those levels will be the real test.

Player reports from the official WoW Forever forums, September 19–20, 2026, including “Dungeon quest XP is super overtuned” and “Dungeon XP nerfs are WAY too much”, plus: “Dungeon EXP Nerf Has Bad Side Effects” and “Dungeon tuning feels almost wrong”. XP numbers are player observations, not official values. Quest Time Link strings from the beta client, build 1.60.1.69913, via the daybreakforever.com datamine.