THE WOW FOREVER COLLECTION · DISPATCH · RESEARCH CHECKED OCTOBER 12, 2026
Short answer: dungeon XP in the WoW Forever beta went up on October 8, but only a little, and Blizzard has said that is roughly where it intends to stay. The new build raised the XP from dungeon kills by about 20% and fixed a bug that based everyone's kill XP on the highest-level player in the party. Josh "Aggrend" Greenfield says that with perfect play, dungeon leveling is now "very close, if not equal" to optimal questing. Four days later, the busiest XP thread on the forums is a 320-reply argument that the math doesn't add up.
What changed in the October 8 build
Two lines in Kaivax's October 8 development notes matter here. First, "The experience earned from killing creatures in dungeons has been increased by approximately 20%." Second, a party XP fix that turns out to be the bigger deal for most groups.
Until this build, if you killed lower-level enemies in a party, the XP penalty was worked out from the highest-level member of the group. The developers' note says Classic Era never did that: each player's XP was adjusted for their own level only. Forever now does the same. A level 20 in a Deadmines group with a level 25 friend was getting a tiny slice per kill. Now the level 20 gets what a level 20 should get.
Blizzard's own summary: "We believe the combination of these two changes will dramatically increase experience earned in dungeons for most players." The old rule that nobody gets XP when a much higher-level player is in the group still stands.
| Change | Before October 8 | After October 8 |
|---|---|---|
| Kill XP in dungeons | Cut well below Classic in the September beta | About 20% higher than that |
| Low-level enemy XP penalty in a party | Based on the highest-level party member | Based on your own level, as in Classic Era |
| Dungeon quest bonus XP | Halved on October 1 | Unchanged |
| Dungeon quest XP when first completed | Still the best XP in a run | Unchanged |
The quest side was not touched. The October 1 build had already cut the extra quest XP that Forever adds on top of Classic, which we covered in WoW Forever cut dungeon quest XP too.
Aggrend's post: "hold firm"
Greenfield posted the party fix on X the same morning, then copied it into the forum thread for the third WoW: Forever Podcast, saying it hadn't come up in the episode. The key part:
"XP gain is not going to be what it was in era, but it should feel significantly better now. We understand that some of you want to dungeon cleave to 60, but this is another one of those things that has to pass muster with our core pillars. That playstyle being the optimal way to level does not pass that muster and we need to hold firm on these balance adjustments."
He tied it to two of Forever's design pillars, "World is the Main Character" and "Nurture and Protect Social Experiences," and said that once dungeons become the clear winner, "it has a cascading effect on player behavior." Then the line everyone has been quoting since: "with perfect xp/hr play, the leveling rates in dungeons will be very close, if not equal to the speed you can level with optimal questing play. That illustrates how much better it was to level in dungeons in Era."
The X post had about 263,000 views and 3,500 likes by October 12.
What the devs said on the podcast
The dungeon episode of the podcast, with Greenfield, Jay Hartman, Rowan Ryder and guest Hammerdance, spent its first section on XP. Ryder said the team doesn't want any dungeon to be "a one and done experience," but also wants "to make sure that just just grinding dungeons isn't the optimal way to play." A second developer put a picture on it: they don't want the game to be "I'm going to do Scarlet Monastery Cathedral 50 times from, you know, level 30 to 50."
There was one concession. A developer admitted the XP change "wasn't congruent with a lot of classic quest design in in dungeons," pointing to Wailing Caverns' Deviate Hides quest as a quest built to take more than one run. "We don't want to punish you for doing that," they added. No change to quest XP has followed yet.
Hammerdance, who said he had taken two characters to 30, thought quest XP inside dungeons "still feels pretty good" even after the nerf.
The numbers thread
The pushback has moved from "this feels bad" to spreadsheets. On October 9 a tester posted their own logs from Deadmines. Before the build, as a level 16 in a 16/18/18/18/20 group, they say they got about 18 to 22 XP per elite. After the build, as a level 18 in an 18/18/18/19/20 group, it was 34 to 36. The same group killing open-world elites outside the dungeon got 50 XP per kill, which they work out as about 43% more.
They also say one Deadmines run without quests is worth three to four bars of XP at 18, so five to seven runs per level, and that it took 45 minutes just to form the group. Those are one player's numbers from one dungeon, at a level where most people still have dungeon quests to hand in, so treat them as a sample.
On October 11 the same poster opened "Let's End this Dungeon XP Argument with Real Numbers," which passed 320 replies in a day. They compare Classic leveling videos (they cite 50k to 60k XP an hour for routed solo questing at 35 to 40, and 60k to 80k for a Scarlet Monastery Cathedral mage cleave) against what they think the beta allows. Their figure of a "76% net reduction" in dungeon mob XP rests on an 80% initial cut that Blizzard has never confirmed. Blizzard has only ever said dungeon mob XP was reduced, and now "approximately 20%" higher. Their conclusion is that questing is "at least three times faster" than dungeon grinding right now.
The other side
Not everyone wants the old XP back. "Dungeon EXP nerf is good for the game," posted the morning of October 8, argues that slower dungeon XP cuts down on paid boosting, eases the tank and healer squeeze because people only run dungeons for gear and quests, and pushes players into the open world. It drew about as much mockery as agreement, but it has over 100 replies and the argument matches what Blizzard is saying.
A newer thread shows the other side effect of gear being the main reason to run. A rogue posted on October 12 that they ran Deadmines 35 times for the Defias set and refused to invite rogues, druids or hunters, so nobody could roll against them. They asked Blizzard to make drop chances independent of group makeup. Most replies said picking who you invite is the party leader's call.
Where this leaves you
If you were planning to level through dungeons at launch, plan on questing instead and running each dungeon when its quests line up. First-time quest turn-ins are still the best XP in a run. Group with players close to your level so no one falls into the no-XP range. Blizzard's own words make it clear they want dungeon leveling to be slower than questing or roughly equal at best, and the October 8 notes describe the new numbers as a fix.
The beta is still at level 30 and runs to October 21, with launch on November 4. Blizzard hasn't replied to the numbers thread, and "we will be tweaking the numbers still" is the latest word from the podcast. Our original dungeon XP nerf piece covers why the tank shortage argument started all this. If you're picking a leveling class, the tier list and the best class to start with cover who quests fastest, and the beta hub has the dates.
Sources: Kaivax, WoW Forever Beta Development Notes, updated October 8 (October 8, 2026); Josh Greenfield on X, post on the dungeon XP fix (October 8) and the same text on the WoW: Forever Podcast Episode 3 forum thread (October 8); Blizzard, The WoW: Forever Podcast, Episode 3: Dive into Dungeons with Devs (October 8); Blizzard forums, Actual Numbers Behind This XP Buff (October 9), Let's End this Dungeon XP Argument with Real Numbers (October 11), Dungeon EXP nerf is good for the game (October 8) and Why is the meta to spam dungeons and not invite anyone who can compete for your gear (October 12); Warcraft Tavern, City of Dalaran Dungeon and Legacy Points Now Live in the WoW Forever Beta (October 8); Hotspawn, WoW Forever Beta Update Three Opens Dalaran Dungeon and Finally Fixes Rage (October 8).