THE WOW FOREVER COLLECTION · DISPATCH · RESEARCH CHECKED SEPTEMBER 17, 2026
The biggest gameplay argument of Forever's first week is not the Skyborne. It is a leveling change: dungeon mob XP has been cut and dungeon quest XP raised, to stop dungeon spamming replacing open-world leveling. The r/classicwow thread on it has more than 2,700 comments. The forums have six threads over 140 replies each, one of them titled "Dungeon xp nerf, i'm out."
Update, October 4: Blizzard went further in the October 1 beta build. Dungeon quests now give 50% less of the bonus XP Forever added on top of their Classic values, and mob XP was left where it was. Wailing Caverns' Deviate Hides dropped from about 4,650 XP to 3,100. We cover the numbers and the 1,000-post backlash in WoW Forever cut dungeon quest XP too.
Update, October 12: The October 8 build raised dungeon kill XP by about 20% and made party kill XP depend on your own level again, as in Classic Era. Blizzard says dungeon leveling is now close to optimal questing at best and that it will "hold firm" there. See the October 8 dungeon XP changes.
What Blizzard said
Principal designer Kris Zierhut and Michael Nuthals, in comments reported by The Sun: dungeon mob experience is brought "way down" and dungeon quest experience is raised "much, much, much higher." The stated goal is to make dungeons something you run for their quests and loot, not something you chain from 15 to 60 while a Mage cleaves. Blizzard has published no raw numbers.
The same design posture shows up elsewhere. Dungeon trash is tuned so a single mob takes around 15 seconds, tanks are built to hold three or four enemies rather than a room, and crowd control is meant to be mandatory. Whatever the XP numbers turn out to be, the dungeons are not designed for the Classic pull-everything-and-AoE loop.
Why the argument is about tanks
The community's case is not "we want to spam dungeons." It is that dungeon XP is the reason anyone levels a tank or a healer. In Classic, a Warrior levelling solo is miserable and a Warrior levelling through dungeons is in demand; the XP made the role worth the pain. Cut the XP and you cut the incentive at exactly the level range where groups already cannot find tanks.
The counter-argument, which Blizzard is clearly making, is that raised dungeon quest XP keeps a single run through each dungeon worthwhile, with only the repeated grinding devalued. Whether that holds depends on numbers nobody has seen. A thread titled "Nerfed Dungeon XP will exacerbate the tank/healing shortage" has 258 replies making the first case; "Please don't nerf dungeon xp!" and "A very long dungeon XP post" make it at length. "Mage Boosting Is Dead" is the shortest and probably the most accurate summary.
What it kills, and what it does not
Mage boosting, where a level 60 Mage AoEs Stratholme or Zul'Farrak while paying customers stand at the entrance, needs mob XP to be worth paying for. If mob XP is genuinely "way down," boosting is dead in Forever, and it is fair to read that as part of the intent. Blizzard has also said no WoW Token and no character boosts at launch, so the whole pay-to-skip-leveling economy is being closed at once.
What survives: running each dungeon once for its quests, which Blizzard wants to be the best XP per hour you can get at that level. And the new dungeons are spread so every ten-level band has one. Hall of Thanes at 13 to 18 and Ruins of Lordaeron at 15 to 20 are in the beta's opening cap, which means the numbers will be measured this week.
What to watch for in the beta
Three things will settle this. The XP per mob in Ragefire Chasm and Deadmines compared to a Classic Era character of the same level, which someone will post within days. The quest XP for a full Hall of Thanes clear versus an hour of open-world questing at 15. And whether tank queues in the beta's level 20 bracket are worse or better than Era's, which is anecdotal but is the only data that matters.
If the mob XP cut is around half and the quest XP roughly compensates for one run, Blizzard's version holds. If mob XP is a quarter and quest XP is a one-time bump, the forum is right. We will update this page with the first measured numbers.
Sources: Kris Zierhut and Michael Nuthals via The Sun; Blizzard's Deep Dive recap; Warcraft Tavern on Tokens and boosts; the WoW Forever forum weekly top and the r/classicwow thread "Dungeon Spamming DEAD in WoW: Forever."