THE WOW FOREVER COLLECTION · DISPATCH · RESEARCH CHECKED NOVEMBER 7, 2026
Short answer: the first level 60s in WoW Forever arrived about 52 hours after launch, on the evening of November 6 Pacific time. Five characters on an EU Normal realm dinged together: Jokerd Prime, Burning Speed, Cloud Bells, Lmgd Mmr and Vitochie Gofast. The group was three Mages, a Paladin and a Shaman. From about level 35 they did nothing but AoE farm the open world: the Paladin pulled huge packs and the Mages killed them with Arcane Explosion. Blizzard hasn't commented. On the forums, the result has restarted the dungeon XP argument, because Blizzard cut dungeon XP to stop exactly this kind of mass AoE leveling.
How they did it
Wowhead's report describes the method in a sentence: "The Paladin would pull everything, and then the mages would use Arcane Explosion to AoE them down quickly." Icy Veins says the group leveled more or less normally at first and moved to "a full-time AOE grinding strategy at around level 35". From there they worked through classic pull spots as they outleveled each one:
| Zone | Spot |
|---|---|
| Dustwallow Marsh | Dreadmurk Shore |
| Stranglethorn Vale | Ruins of Zul'Mamwe |
| Tanaris | Lost Rigger Cove |
| Western Plaguelands | Dalson's Tears and Gahron's Withering |
The hard part at the end was dinging together. Jokerd said on stream that a single experience point could leave one member behind, according to Wowhead, and that the last 4% of level 59 needed "quite a bit of extensive math" about which mobs to kill and when. Wowhead says he plans to go through the full preparation on stream once the group has slept.
Icy Veins says the group "used consistent phasing to keep respawns coming, instead of waiting for mobs to show up again". Moving between copies of a zone to find fresh mobs is the part people are arguing about. More on that below.
Who Jokerd is
Jokerd won this race once already. In 2019 he was the first player to reach 60 in WoW Classic, playing a Gnome Mage that AoE farmed most of the way. Dexerto reported at the time that from level 58 he hopped between layers on his Mograine EU realm to skip respawn timers, which he said saved him "1-1.5 hours". So a Mage AoE group taking Forever's first 60s is what most people expected. A forum thread from launch day asking for guesses on the first 60 assumed it would be under 72 hours. It took 52.
The solo race is still on
Solo players are still racing for the first 60. When Icy Veins posted, the top solo character was Ksuper, a Beast Mastery Hunter, also on EU Normal, who was questing and was level 54, three levels clear of third place. A few hours later the worldfirst60.com tracker had "Ksuper Worldfirst" at 56.3 and "Tommysalami Forever" at 55.3. Trackers like that read public character data and can lag, so treat those levels as approximate. If you want to watch the solo finish, our live Forever streams page lists who is on right now.
The layering argument
Some players think the group's method crossed a line. A thread titled "Layering Abuse by Race to First Players" accuses Jokerd of using "multiple 5-man parties solely to hold and manipulate layers" so he could AoE uncontested, and asks whether that's fair play. A second thread, "Jokerd exploiting should be addressed", reached 27 posts.
Plenty of players disagree. A reply in "Hyperspawn Farming Hot Take (positive)" points out that "Blizzard has not explicitly stated that farming hyperspawns is an exploit, or, a bannable offense". Several replies in the bigger threads note that every Classic world first 60 has come from open world grinding. Changing layers by joining a group is also something Blizzard built into Forever on purpose. Kaivax spent part of launch week helping players use the "Refresh Now" prompt so they land on a friend's layer.
Blizzard hasn't said anything about the race or about layer hopping in Forever. We haven't seen the specific claims in those threads checked against the VODs, so treat them as accusations from forum posters and not as established fact.
Why dungeon players are angry
The anger has less to do with Jokerd than with Blizzard's dungeon decision. In beta, Blizzard cut the XP that dungeon mobs give and moved it into dungeon quests, and in October Josh "Aggrend" Greenfield said dungeon cleaving to 60 "does not pass that muster" with the game's core pillars and that Blizzard would "hold firm". The change was still in place at launch, as we covered in our dungeon XP launch piece. Now players can see that open world AoE grinding, with respawns that speed up in busy areas (what players call hyperspawns), got five people to 60 before anyone else, and dungeons played no part.
The forum shows it. On Friday, "Dungeons are dead" had 254 posts. Its opening post says the world first group was "doing the exactly same thing they would be doing in dungeons only in openworld", with no lockout. "People ding 60 already from hyperspawn farming why are we not nerfing that? Buff dungeon xp" has 126 posts, and "Fix Dungeon XP NOW, RIGHT NOW" and "Thank you for punishing regular players" have 65 each. The last one ends by thanking the devs "for punishing me for wanting to do proper social content more than once per dungeon."
The other side is busy too. "The friction is the point" (141 posts) argues that the complaints come from players chasing speed, and "Retail players still crying over dungeon xp?" has 53 posts. Some replies say dungeons are fine as they are. One player in "Dungeons are dead" says they've run Ragefire four times and Wailing Caverns three without waiting long for groups. It's also fair to say that a coordinated race group tells you little about how fast a normal player levels. Most of the people complaining aren't racing.
Blizzard hasn't replied in any of these threads. Several people asked about dungeon XP under Kaivax's November 10 class tuning post, and nobody from Blizzard answered.
What to watch
Three things. Jokerd's breakdown stream should explain how the group handled layers and respawns, which will settle much of the argument over facts. The first solo 60 is probably a day away. And Blizzard's Tuesday hotfixes on November 10 are the next chance for any change to dungeon XP or respawn rates, though the announced list only covers class tuning. If you're picking a leveling class, Mage is still the best AoE farmer, as it was in Classic. Our tier list and Mage piece from the Forever Open explain why.
Sources: Squishei, Wowhead, World First Level 60s in WoW: Forever in Less Than Three Days (November 7, 2026); Neryssa, Icy Veins, Three Mages, a Paladin and a Shaman Hit Level 60 First in WoW Forever (November 7, 2026); worldfirst60.com race tracker (checked November 7, 2026, 07:30 UTC); Dexerto, How the world's first WoW Classic Lvl 60 Jokerd leveled up so fast (September 3, 2019); US Forever forum threads Dungeons are dead (November 6, 2026), People ding 60 already from hyperspawn farming (November 6, 2026), Fix Dungeon XP NOW, RIGHT NOW (November 7, 2026), Thank you for punishing regular players (November 7, 2026), The friction is the point (November 6, 2026), Retail players still crying over dungeon xp? (November 6, 2026), Layering Abuse by Race to First Players (November 6, 2026), Jokerd exploiting should be addressed (November 6, 2026), Hyperspawn Farming Hot Take (positive) (November 7, 2026) and How long until worlds 1st 60 (November 4, 2026); Kaivax, Blizzard forums, Phasing issues with group still persist from beta (November 5, 2026). Post counts checked November 7, 2026, 07:30 UTC.