Posts with tag xp

Overnight, Blizzard rolled out a hotfix on all servers nerfing the obscenely high XP people were gaining from winning pet battles. You can no longer level characters to 89 in a matter of hours by hanging around capital cities battling level 1 pets.

Bashiok explains how and why they implemented the nerf.

Bashiok

We're in the process of updating the hotfixes blog with the recent changes to Pet Battle XP, but wanted to provide a bit more insight into why the changes were made and how XP is calculated.

• All buffs to player XP (heirlooms, enlightenment, guild bonus etc.) were bugged, these where hotfixed to work as expected.
• General player XP from pet battles was tuned too high, these numbers have been balanced accordingly.
• Player experience is granted based on a number of factors. These are player level, number of pet opponents, maximum pet opponent level and the level disparity between opponents pets and your pets.
• Our philosophy is that player XP from pet battles should be, in general, somewhat slower than normal questing.

source

While almost everyone agrees that it was not in the game's best interest to allow the ridiculously speedy leveling players were taking advantage of, the nerf at first seemed excessive. Whereas one could get 28K for winning a level 1 pet battle at level 60, this morning the same character got 900 to 2000. But as Bashiok describes above, the XP now scales appropriately according to level of the player and the pets in the battles.

I've been experimenting and I agree that they have succeeded in making pet battles slower than questing, but not a complete waste of time. If you are questing in a level appropriate area, taking time out to battle the wild pets in the same zone is definitely worth doing to add variety and experience to your endeavors.

Also, heirlooms, XP buffs, guild bonuses all still affect pet battle player XP, so do go take a ride on the Darkmoon Faire Carousel before you test the hotfix for yourself.

Did you take advantage of the insane leveling XP? I did only for a few levels. A grind's a grind, after all, and there are new islands to explore.

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It is no longer a waste of leveling time to battle pets with lower level characters. With the advent of patch 5.2, players can now earn XP from pet battles. (If you're max level, you have a chance of getting Lesser Charms of Good Fortune instead.) All you have to do is participate in any pet battle -- other than dueling -- with your highest pet being no more than five levels above the pets you are fighting. This includes pet battle PvP, where you queue up from your pet journal, just not the pet battle duels you can do with friends ... or strangers, for that matter.

The experience is comparable to completing the capital city cooking and fishing quests. For example, my level 77 mage gets 27K XP from the Orgrimmar cooking dailies and gets 26K for fighting a battle with three level 1s vs. a level 2. The XP varies according to how much higher your highest pet that your battling with is above the pets you are fighting. A four level difference nets my mage about 21K XP. Whether you are battling other players, wild pets or tamers, the XP gained is consistent.

Is it worth it to try to level via pet battling? I would recommend questing, gathering, archaeology digging and battling pets in the same zone to maximize your leveling potential. But if you're in a gotta-catch-'em-all frenzy, as I sometimes am, you can battle pets with your leveling alts while still progressing more than just your pets.

I wouldn't be surprised if players tried to level while just pet battling. Will you be taking advantage of pet battle player XP?

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Back in classic World of Warcraft, leveling typically involved one thing: slaughtering lots and lots of the current enemy du jour. Sure, there were quests and dungeons, but they were few and far between at the higher levels, so you were probably killing lots of something.

Since then, the game developers have provided us with an embarassment of riches for gaining that lovely XP. Gathering, archaeology, the dungeon finder, PvP ... Almost anything in the game you do will grant you XP in some form or fashion. In fact, I actually leveled my main toon on Cataclysm's release from 82ish to 85 using nothing but archaeology. (Yes, that was over 200 dig sites, and yes, this was prior to the archaeology hotfixes that made it much easier to level. It suuucked -- but then I was able to get the gold from all the quests I skipped, and it wasn't so bad.)

How are you planning to level your characters in Mists of Pandaria? Straight questing? Dungeon running? PvP? Or just a general mix?

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Visit WoW.com's WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

When PvP leveling in Battlegrounds was introduced with Patch 3.2 (August 2009), players rushed to try their blades and spellbooks at this new way to gain XP. It was fresh, it was fun -- and boy, was it fast! It took just one month for Blizzard to nerf experience gains (patch 3.2.2, September 2009), rolling back XP rates to more reasonable levels. Today, while we wouldn't say that Battlegrounds are a recommended way to level up, we do continue to recommend them as a healthy part of your leveling experience. (Yes, I was wearing scrubs and holding a clipboard and stethoscope during that last statement.) Let's take a look at all the reasons you should and shouldn't be PvPing on your path to level 80.

I'm really impressed with BG Hero. We take a look at these stats sites pretty often, but I have never seen a site targeted strictly at PvP data like this one, and with such a clean and interesting view. Unfortunately, it's still getting off the ground, so we're probably going to give the server a run for its money with this link, but give it a few days and head back there when they've smoothed things out.

It'll track your plays and wins in each BG, obviously, but you can also get a whole bunch of graphs and numbers about how you're doing each time you play, including HKs per BG, and killing blows per battleground that you play. The app also tracks your totals daily and weekly, so if you get your character in there and let it update over a period of time, you can see just how you're doing. Pretty amazing stuff if you've been playing a lot of battlegrounds lately (and with the extra XP in there, why wouldn't you?). We're told the site is still being worked on, so expect more updates soon (and Phood is keeping info flowing on his blog), but in the meantime, it looks like a great way to look at your BG progress in more detail.

I've been pushing forward on my Paladin lately, and so I've entered the wacky world of Heirlooms. I have already picked up the leather Heirloom shoulders (thinking that even though the Pally wears plate, if I ever want to level a Druid or Rogue, I'll have them), and I'm well on my way to grabbing the new Heirloom chestpiece as well -- 20% bonus XP, combined with a healthy amount of rested XP, should make the leveling curve as easy as it gets (RaF is nice too, I guess, but I'd rather not pay for a second account). So I'm in Heirlooms up to my neck (at least until they give us helms), and I was intrigued by this question over on the Rawrcast forums: do you think Blizzard will eventually provide Heirloom items for every slot?

20% is already a significant bonus to killing and questing XP, and rested technically provides a 50% bonus. But with ten Heirlooms in 10 slots (we'll leave out weapons, since those don't have the 10% XP bonus, as well as shirts and tabards, and rings and trinkets for now), you're looking at a 100% XP bonus even without Rest. The current average 80 probably spent about 14 days leveling up, so with an extra 100% bonus, you're looking at seven days /played, or very close to the current record. At that point, Blizzard might as well let us grant levels to each other.

When the news broke that patch 3.2 would bring new chest heirlooms, with a stacking +10% XP bonus, one commenter made an interesting suggestion: get heirlooms for your level 80 characters, and bank them until the next expansion. So far between chest and shoulders you've got a +20% bonus to all XP right there, and having some quality equipment always helps the leveling process.

Of course, there's every chance that Blizzard will simply disable current heirlooms for characters past level 80, to prevent precisely this behavior. They've done level-based nerfing before, with items like the Riding Crop and enchants like Crusader.

The whole fate of heirlooms in the next expansion seems pretty nebulous to me, actually; will we need to go back and farm Emblems of Conquest at level 90 to gear up our alts? It's too early to tell. For now I would hold on to any extra badges you might have, but when the next expansion nears, you may be able to make good use of them.

As expected, the twink enthusiasts over at TwinkInfo are supremely excited about that experience switch coming in patch 3.2 -- not only are they finally getting to stop XP gains on demand, but Blizzard has given them their own little easter egg in the game. We already knew the two NPCs with the switch for each faction were called Behsten in Stormwin and Slahtz in Orgrimmar (get it? "Best in slots?"), but now that the PTR is open, they've discovered something else: the NPCs themselves are twinked out with classic Rogue twink gear. From the Blackened Defias Chest to the Feet of the Lynx (and dual Assassin's Blades with Lifestealing), Blizzard went all out on these guys. As Drayner says, the only thing missing is a 'chanted Fishing Hat.

Not everybody is big on twinking -- lots of people think it's annoying to duck into the BGs for the first time and get rolled by an alt who's got a lot of money and time behind them. Fortunately, though, this XP change will not only legitimize twinking even more, but it'll get it out of our way as well, as players with XP turned off will only face other players with XP turned off (other twinks, essentially). Throw in that it's something twinks have been asking for a long time, and it's a win-win for everybody.

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Patch 3.2 will bring about a new 5, 10, and 25 man instance to WoW, and usher in a new 40-man battleground called the Isle of Conquest. WoW.com will have you covered every step of the way, from extensive PTR coverage through the official live release. Check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for all the latest!

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I first heard about this from El Jeppy when I visited him and company on the Rawrcast Show a few weeks ago, but now he's posted a little more about goals and method on his site. He's just beginning something called "Project 62*80," which sounds pretty crazy on the front of it: he's planning to level 62 different characters (which is apparently one of each race and class combination for both Horde and Alliance) to level 80, and he's planning to do it by Christmas of this year. With 224 days until Christmas, that's 22 levels a day -- pretty easy when you're starting from level one, but not so much when you're trying to do 60-80.

He's not just grinding away on it, though -- he's chosen to do some multiboxing, and plans to level three characters at a time up until 60, and then three to five characters per group up to level 80, so if he can move four characters up five levels each a day, he'll be pretty close to his goal rate. And he's using recruit-a-friend, so the triple XP will make things even easier on him. It definitely seems like he can do it if he stays committed, but man, it's not something that would ever appeal to me.

He started off with Paladins (for the free mounts and the survivabiilty), and from there it sounds like he's going with Death Knights next, to raise some quick gold for the rest of the enterprise. You can follow his progress over on the Ten Gnomes blog if you want to see where he's at. It's hard to wish him luck (does anyone really need 62 freakin' 80s?), but we'll do it anyway: good luck, Jeppy.

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.

Today we're going to have a couple of simple answers and just plain "I don't know" responses mixed in with the usual stuff, because they've been repeat questions and not necessarily just one person asking them. Maybe a straight I Don't Know will help a little, but probably not.

Delshay Dethecus US asked...

My question is: Are Heirloom items worth getting for your Alts? If so why? I understand with End game going so well (easier) a lot of players are doing a lot of Heroics still and they are a good way to spend Emblems after you get the gear you need, but are Heirlooms a good thing to buy or should we save the Emblems for something that may come in the future?

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we'll be talking experience of leveling from 70 to 80 in Northrend.

Blizzard recently announced that December 16th would be the official start date of Arena Season 5. At just over 1 month from the launch of WotLK, it sounds like it's their expectation that a large number of players will be at the level cap and ready to PvP when the Season hits. While the numbers may make it seem like a daunting task, leveling in Northrend is easier than ever before.

Rogues have it pretty good when it comes to questing and grinding. We're finely tuned killing machines with the defensive capabilities to prevent unnecessary deaths and the offensive capabilities to turn those Group quests into solo outings. I've been fielding several questions from other Rogues about where to level, questing tips, and gear choices. After the cut, I'll break down the first couple levels of the trek to 80 and share what I've learned so far.