Level grinding in World of Warcraft is very much a Marmite experience. Some love it, levelling dozens of alts to max level in quick succession, others do it once per expansion and hate every second of it. In a move that’s probably good news for both camps, the latest expansion, Dragonflight, is set to reduce the total amount of experience required to level to 60 by around 50% – at least going by the numbers that Wowhead.com pulled from the latest Alpha build (you can check out the full stat crunch here). People who love levelling get to boost twice as many alts to max level, and people who hate it won’t have to belabour the experience.
Some levels have had their requirements increased – more specifically, levels 10-31. Between 10-20 the XP requirements have increased by around 4% on average, and between 20-31 by an average of 13%. This is a drop in the pond, however. 32-40 are down by an average of 24%; 41-50 by a whopping 60% average; and 51-60 by a staggering 74% average. In raw terms, going from 1-60 will require 2.1 million XP, down from the 4.85 million required in Shadowlands. In addition to all this, Chromie Time, the system which allows players to level their alts in any expansion they wish, will no longer have the 89% XP penalty for levels 51-60. This makes sense, as the penalty currently exists as a way to encourage players to level their alts in Shadowlands areas. Once Dragonflight is introduced the level cap will be raised to 70, and most likely the Chromie Time penalty will apply to levels 61-70 instead.
Of course, we don’t know everything yet about how the new numbers will stack up. Previous expansions have squished XP requirements while also reducing the experience granted by quests and enemy mobs. Having said that, this wouldn’t be the first time that WoW has made the levelling process faster. In Cataclysm, Wrath of the Lich King, and Battle for Azeroth the levelling requirements were reduced by approximately 25-33%. If this XP reduction goes through as written, it’ll be the largest XP reduction in WoW’s long history.
For more on what’s to come in Dragonflight, check out our article on the new Dragonriding talents, or our rundown of the latest changes to hit Shamans.