World of Warcraft: Forever keeps Classic’s experience curve, but several WoW Forever XP changes affect how fast you actually level. Monsters below your level give less XP than in Classic, dungeon monsters give much less and dungeon quests much more, crafted food adds 5% to your kill XP, and a new Leatherworking camp object tops up rested XP. Blizzard’s October 1 beta development notes then cut part of the dungeon quest bonus again, and the October 8 build raised dungeon mob XP by about 20%.
The short answer: no, WoW Forever leveling isn’t meaningfully faster than Classic. Blizzard’s beta data put the average time to level 20 at 20.5 hours, against 20.4 hours in Classic, and our math below finds that the new bonuses and cuts nearly cancel out, leaving you about 1% ahead of Classic over a 1 to 60 run if you keep a food buff up.
Beta warning: the beta runs until October 21 and is capped at level 30, so XP above level 30 is untested. Values are from the October 1 build (1.60.1.70170) unless stated otherwise (the October 8 build’s dungeon XP changes are included), and Blizzard can still tune them before launch on November 4.
WoW Forever XP Changes at a Glance
| Change | Effect on XP | How solid | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Experience curve | Unchanged: same XP per level as Classic | Confirmed (Kris Zierhut) | Nothing |
| Lower-level mobs | 4 to 20% less XP per kill; same-level mobs unchanged | Player analysis; Blizzard says intended | Fight mobs at or near your level |
| Dungeon mobs | XP brought “way down”, then raised about 20% on October 8 | Confirmed (Kris Zierhut) | Don’t farm dungeons for levels |
| Dungeon quests | Much more XP than Classic, extra XP halved on October 1 | Confirmed (interview, beta notes) | Run each dungeon once with all quests |
| Crafted food | +5% XP from kills for 15 minutes while Well Fed | Bonus confirmed; 5% from BlizzCon recipes and the beta | Keep the buff up, level Cooking |
| Camp Tent | Tops rested XP up to 5% of a level | Beta (Icy Veins) | Camp with a Leatherworker when your rested XP is empty |
| Well Rested perk | Rested XP builds 20% faster, cap 20% higher (rank 5) | Perk confirmed, values from the beta | Mainly for alts |
| Quest sharing | Several item and dungeon quests no longer shareable | Beta notes | Each player loots their own quest starter |
Is WoW Forever Leveling Faster Than Classic?
No. WoW Forever leveling runs at almost exactly Classic speed. On the WoW Forever Podcast on September 24, Senior Game Designer Josh Greenfield and Lead Classic Designer Tim Jones said beta players needed 20.5 hours on average to reach level 20, compared with 20.4 hours in Classic, as reported by Icy Veins. Principal Designer Kris Zierhut told The Sun that the XP needed per level is the same: “We did not change the experience curve.”
That stat comes from the first week of the beta, before the October 1 cut to dungeon quest XP, and from beta players, many of them veterans. Neither caveat changes the picture: Forever is a Classic-speed game.
What changes is where the hours go. Zierhut said the Riverglades and Shen’dralas sit in the level range where Classic leveling used to slow down, and Mount Hyjal close to 60. More quests in those stretches means less grinding between zones, which saves more time than any XP buff. Our WoW Forever zones by level guide shows where the new zones fit.
Lower-Level Mobs Give Less XP Than in Classic
In WoW Forever, monsters below your level give 4 to 20% less XP per kill than they did in Classic. Monsters at your level give the same as before. The figure comes from a player analysis by u/Deadness on Reddit, reported by Icy Veins on October 5, not from Blizzard. When the behavior was filed as a bug, Senior Game Designer Aidan “Zirene” Moon called it “an intended part of the game now that there are various exp buffs” such as food.
The Reddit post suggests Forever bases kill XP on the mob’s level instead of yours. Retail WoW has done that since patch 4.0.3a; Classic used your own level, according to Warcraft Wiki’s mob experience formulas. The theory fits the reported 4 to 20%. If it holds, the cut grows with the level gap and shrinks as you level. Our calculation from those formulas, untested above level 30:
| Your level | Mob 1 level below | 3 levels below | 5 levels below | Biggest cut (last level before gray) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 3.4% less | 10.3% less | 17.2% less | 20.7% (6 below) |
| 30 | 2.6% less | 7.7% less | 12.8% less | 17.9% (7 below) |
| 40 | 2.0% less | 6.1% less | 10.2% less | 16.3% (8 below) |
| 50 | 1.7% less | 5.1% less | 8.5% less | 16.9% (10 below) |
| 59 | 1.5% less | 4.4% less | 7.4% less | 16.2% (11 below) |
What to do: kill mobs at or above your level when you can, and move on once a zone turns mostly green. Green mobs already gave reduced XP in Classic, and if the theory holds, Forever takes another 4 to 20% off, more the closer they are to gray. The cut applies to kill XP only, so finish your quests even when their mobs are low, but don’t clear extra green camps for the kills.
Dungeon XP: Mob Kills Down, Quest Rewards Up
WoW Forever dungeons give most of their XP through quests. Zierhut told The Sun that XP from dungeon monsters was brought “way down” and dungeon quest XP made much higher, so your first run is the rewarding one. On the podcast, the developers said the two changes balance each other out, according to Icy Veins’ summary.
The October 1 build then gave dungeon quests “50% less extra experience beyond normal quest values”. Blizzard never published how large that extra was. Our reading of that cut: if the two changes balanced before October 1, a full run with all quests then gave somewhat less total XP than the same run in Classic. The October 8 build pushed the other way. Dungeon mob XP went up about 20%, and a bug was fixed that judged XP from lower-level mobs by the highest-level party member instead of each player’s own level. Blizzard expects the two changes to “dramatically increase experience earned in dungeons for most players”. How a full run now compares with Classic is open again; repeat runs still give far less than a first run with quests. Our WoW Forever dungeons by level guide covers the routes and the quests to bring.
Food XP Buff: +5% XP From Kills
Crafted food is the XP buff you can keep up all the time. Blizzard’s BlizzCon systems panel recap says adjusted crafted food can grant a small experience bonus on top of its stats. The cooking recipes shown at BlizzCon read 5% more experience from kills for 15 minutes while Well Fed, and the Icy Veins camping guide lists the same bonus as being tested in the beta. Some foods need 10 seconds of sitting and eating before the full buff applies.
Food only touches kill XP. If kills make up about half of your XP, full uptime makes you about 2.5% faster, and a more realistic 75% uptime about 1.9%. The Gourmand Legacy perk doubles food durations at rank 3. What to do: take Cooking on every character and eat before each round of pulls, not only when your health is low.
Rested XP in WoW Forever: Classic Rules Plus the Camp Tent
Blizzard hasn’t announced any change to the base rested XP system, and Forever’s own numbers aren’t published. These are Classic’s rules, from Warcraft Wiki’s rest article:
- In an inn or a capital city you build rested XP worth 5% of your current level every 8 hours. Logged out anywhere else, you build a quarter of that.
- The pool caps at 150% of a level, about 10 days of resting.
- Rested XP doubles your kill XP until you reach the rested mark. Quest XP doesn’t use it up.
- The pool shrinks by everything you gain, bonus included, so a pool worth 5% of a level gives you 2.5% of a level in extra XP.
Camp Tent
The Leatherworking Camp Tent is Forever’s new source of rested XP. According to the Icy Veins camping guide, the tent raises your stored rested XP to 5% of a level and does nothing if you already have more than that. The first camp objects unlock at profession skill 20, per the systems panel recap. In the beta you sit at the campfire for about a minute to collect camp benefits, and the camp objects a player can place share a one-hour cooldown.
How often one character can be topped up is unknown. The October 1 notes mention a “Boosted Rest” debuff caused by a camp feature, going by the name the tent, without giving its length. Under Classic rules each top-up is worth 2.5% of a level in bonus XP. If the lockout is about an hour, an hourly tent matches food for a player whose kills bring in half a level per hour (5% of that is also 2.5%), and beats food at higher levels, where a level takes several hours (our math, untested).
Well Rested Legacy perk
The Well Rested perk in the Legacy System’s Adventure tree raises rested XP gains and the rested cap, as the systems panel recap describes; the beta values at rank 5 are 20% for each. It only scales Classic-style rested XP. Sixteen hours a night in an inn builds 10% of a level, worth 5% of a level in bonus XP, so 20% more adds 1% of a level per day. For an alt that gains about a level a day, that’s roughly 1% more XP (our estimate). A first character without points gets nothing. Our WoW Forever Legacy System guide has the builds.
Quest Sharing and Other Leveling Changes
Blizzard closed several group shortcuts during the beta. The September 24 notes stopped dungeon quests that hand out a quest item from being shareable. The October 1 notes did the same for quests that give an item when you accept them and quests that start from an item, and fixed certain quest items that were multi-drop. In a group, plan on each player looting their own quest starter.
- Faster respawns. The October 1 build raised respawn rates in Hillsbrad Foothills, Ashenvale, Wetlands, Duskwood and Thousand Needles, after Redridge Mountains and Stonetalon Mountains in an earlier build. Less waiting for quest mobs on crowded layers.
- Grouping with higher-level friends. Until October 8, XP from lower-level mobs in a party was judged by the highest-level member. The October 8 build went back to Classic rules, where only your own level counts. A party member far above the mob still blocks XP for everyone, as intended.
- Normal quest XP. Blizzard hasn’t announced a general change. The October 1 notes only say that “certain quest rewards” were recalibrated, without details.
- Talented. This Legacy perk starts talent points at level 5 instead of 10.
- No paid shortcuts. Clay Stone of the Classic team said there are no plans for character boosts or the WoW Token in WoW Forever, as Warcraft Tavern reported.
How Much Do the Bonuses Offset the Reductions? Our Estimate
Our estimate: on a normal questing run from 1 to 60, crafted food more than cancels the lower-level mob cut, and the net comes out about 1% faster than Classic, within a range of 0.6% slower to 2.4% faster. That’s smaller than the difference a good or bad route makes. The math:
- Kill share. Kills give about half of a quest-focused player’s XP. That’s our assumption; we test 40 to 60%, and grinders sit higher.
- Mob cut. With the formula theory above and a typical spread of kills (about 45% at or above your level, the rest one to five levels below), the cut is 3.5% of kill XP at level 20, 2.2% at 40 and 1.6% at 58, about 2% across the run. Times a 50% kill share: 1.0% less total XP (range 0.4 to 2.1% less).
- Food. 5% of kill XP at 75% uptime is 3.75%. Times 50%: 1.9% more total XP (range 1.0 to 3.0% more).
- Net. 1.9 minus 1.0 is about 0.9% more XP than Classic. Skip food and you’re about 1% behind Classic instead.
- Camp Tent. 2.5% of a level per top-up. One top-up per level adds about 2.5%; hourly top-ups, if the Boosted Rest lockout allows them, add much more at high levels. This is the biggest unknown, and it needs a Leatherworker at your campfire.
- Dungeons. Not counted, because Blizzard hasn’t published the numbers. Since October 1 the change most likely costs dungeon runners some XP.
In hours, those percentages are small. Blizzard’s Classic average for levels 1 to 20 was 20.4 hours, so 1% there is about 12 minutes; over a full run of, say, 150 hours played, 1% is 1.5 hours. That fits both Blizzard data points: Zirene’s comment that the mob cut offsets the new buffs, and the near-identical time to level 20. Your route and taking every dungeon quest matter more, and our WoW Forever leveling guide has the zone route for both factions.
FAQ
Does WoW Forever have an XP boost?
There’s no paid XP boost: Blizzard’s Clay Stone said there are no plans for character boosts or the WoW Token in WoW Forever. The in-game XP buffs are crafted food (+5% kill XP), rested XP with the Camp Tent, and the Well Rested Legacy perk.
Does rested XP apply to quests in WoW Forever?
No, assuming Classic’s rules carry over. Rested XP doubles kill XP only, and quest turn-ins don’t use it up.
What are the WoW Forever XP rates?
WoW Forever uses Classic’s XP curve and Classic XP values for mobs at your level, and Blizzard hasn’t announced any general XP multiplier. The changes are targeted: less XP from lower-level and dungeon mobs (dungeon mob XP went back up about 20% on October 8), more from dungeon quests, plus bonuses from food and rested XP.
Sources: Blizzard’s beta development notes (September 24, October 1 and October 8), Blizzard’s BlizzCon systems panel recap and Kris Zierhut’s interview with The Sun. Also used: Icy Veins (the 1-20 leveling time, the WoW Forever Podcast, low-level mob XP, camping), Warcraft Wiki (rested XP and mob experience, Classic formulas) and Warcraft Tavern (boosts). Screenshot: Blizzard Entertainment. Chart: ByteTavern.