How Dungeon XP Works in WoW Forever

Short answer: in WoW Forever, killing monsters inside dungeons gives far less experience than it did in Classic, while completing dungeon quests gives far more. Your first run through a dungeon — with its quests — is one of the best experience payouts in the game. Your tenth run of the same dungeon is worth very little.

That one change ends the most famous leveling strategy in Classic history, and it reshapes how groups, boosts, and routes work from level 13 to 60.

Here's exactly how it works and how to get the most out of it.

What Changed

WoW Forever's design team confirmed two changes to dungeon experience, and one thing that stayed the same:

• Experience from killing monsters in dungeons has been brought down substantially

• Experience from completing dungeon quests has been raised dramatically

• The overall experience curve from 1 to 60 is unchanged — reaching 60 takes the same total experience as it did in Classic

So the total cost of leveling hasn't moved. What moved is where the experience comes from inside a dungeon.

Why Blizzard Did It

In Classic, the fastest mid-level route for years was chain-running one instance. Groups farmed Scarlet Monastery or Maraudon over and over, and high-level mages sold AoE boosts where a low-level player sat in the group soaking kill experience.

Forever's team wants the opposite: players out in the open world, meeting other characters, and experiencing each dungeon as an event rather than a grinding loop.

The design intent is simple:

• Exploring a new dungeon should be rewarded heavily

• Clearing the same dungeon repeatedly should not be the optimal way to level

How It Works in Practice

Quests Are the Payout — and Quests Are Once Per Character

This is the key to the whole system.

Dungeon quests can only be completed once per character. Since the big experience now sits on those quests, the big payout effectively happens once per dungeon per character.

That makes the pattern obvious:

A dungeon without its quests is now a poor use of your time. Running an instance you haven't picked up quests for throws away most of what it's worth.

Quest Experience Isn't Split Across the Group

This detail makes Forever's system friendlier to groups than it first looks.

Kill experience is shared between group members — five players in a dungeon divide what each monster is worth. Quest experience is not divided. Every player who completes the quest receives the full reward.

With dungeon value shifted from kills to quests, each member of a five-player group now takes home far more of the total experience than they would have in Classic. A full group is no longer an experience penalty — it's just a safer way to clear.

Don't Out-Level the Dungeon

In Classic, quest experience dropped steeply once your character was several levels above the quest's level, falling to a small fraction of its value when the quest turned gray.

Assuming that rule carries into Forever — and nothing announced suggests otherwise — out-leveling a dungeon now costs you far more than it used to. When the quests are the payout, turning them in ten levels late means losing most of the reward.

Run each dungeon inside its level range. Don't save them for later.

Picking Up Dungeon Quests

Most dungeon quests start outside the instance — in nearby towns, capital cities, and quest hubs in the zone.

1. Collect every quest for a dungeon before you zone in. Check the nearest towns and your faction's capital.

2. Watch for quest chains. Several dungeon quests only unlock after an outdoor chain. Finish the outdoor steps as you level through the zone.

3. Share quests with your group before entering so everyone completes the same objectives in one run.

4. Pick up the inside quests too. Some dungeons have quest givers inside the instance.

5. Turn everything in right after the run so the experience lands while the quests are still at their full value.

Why Repeat Runs Still Have a Point

Repeat runs are no longer an experience strategy, but they still have value for loot.

Dungeon boss loot has been upgraded. Every boss drop was re-examined and raised to rare quality, so dungeons are a real source of blue gear throughout leveling.

Bosses drop Blueprints — recipes for Camping objects. If you want a specific Blueprint, a second or third run is justified.

Transmog appearances are shared. When an uncommon or rare bind-on-pickup item drops from a dungeon boss, its appearance unlocks for every eligible player in the group. Nobody needs to roll against you for the look.

Healing gear works for questing. Healing items now carry bonus damage as well, so a healer's dungeon gear doesn't leave them helpless in the open world.

The rule of thumb: repeat a dungeon for a named item or Blueprint, never for experience.

How Forever Dungeons Play

The experience change fits a broader shift in how dungeons are designed.

One difficulty only. Forever's dungeons have a single fixed difficulty — no Normal and Heroic versions. Raids follow the same approach.

Tactical pulls, not mass AoE. Dungeons are built around careful pulls of a few enemies at a time. Crowd control matters again — polymorph, banish, sap, and shackle all have a job.

No dungeon finder. Groups form in zones, in cities, and at campfires. Plan your group before you travel to the entrance.

No level scaling. A dungeon is exactly as hard as its level range says.

What This Kills

Chain-running a single dungeon to level. The Scarlet Monastery loop is over. Kill experience in dungeons is too low to justify it.

Classic-style AoE dungeon boosts. A high-level player pulling an entire instance while a low-level player soaks kill experience relied on kill experience being high. Without it, the method loses most of its value.

Saving dungeons for later. Overleveled quest turn-ins lose most of their experience.

What Isn't Confirmed Yet

• Exact numbers. Blizzard has described the scale of the change, not the formulas. How much kill experience remains, and how large quest rewards are, will only be clear once the beta covers more dungeons.

• Krol'dok Stronghold. It's an outdoor dungeon in Riverglades designed to work like a quest hub for the 40s. Whether its monsters follow the reduced dungeon kill experience, or regular outdoor rules, hasn't been clarified.

• Beta coverage. The beta is capped below the higher dungeons, so only the early instances can be tested before launch.

The Nine New Dungeons

Nine new dungeons plus the originals means a large number of first-clear payouts spread across the whole climb. The full route by bracket is in our WoW Forever Leveling Guide: 1–60.

The Short Version

1. Dungeon kill experience is way down. Dungeon quest experience is way up. The total curve to 60 is unchanged.

2. Quests are once per character, so the big payout is your first clear of each dungeon.

3. Never enter without the quests. Collect them in nearby towns and capitals first.

4. Quest experience isn't split across the group — every member gets the full reward.

5. Don't out-level dungeons. Turn quests in while they're still in range.

6. Repeat runs are for loot and Blueprints, not experience.