It’s been well-documented that leveling in World of Warcraft Classic takes a lot of time, especially once you start hitting the game’s later levels.
But in the third phase of WoW Classic’s Season of Discovery, Blizzard is making an effort to make some of those later levels (40 to 50) go by a bit quicker than usual. In a recent deep dive on all things SoD phase three, the WoW Classic devs discussed their decision to keep the Discoverer’s Delight buff—which has been increasing the rate at which your alt characters catch up on experience—active for main characters when phase three goes live next week.
At the start of SoD phase three, Discoverer’s Delight will continue to hang around, with the buff increasing all experience gains between levels 40 and 49 by 50 percent. In SoD phase two, the buff increased all gains from levels one to 39 by 100 percent, and that bonus will continue to remain intact when phase three launches.
“It will still be a sizable number of hours to hit 50, but this will help move that along without feeling like you’re either just flying through zones or conversely, in danger of running out of quests if questing is your preferred leveling method,” WoW Classic’s senior game producer Josh Greenfield said in the dev update.
As the game evolves into future phases, Blizzard will continue to look at more ways to make leveling more efficient for your main characters. Although the Discoverer’s Delight buff is a solid way to bring alts up to speed and into the current content stream, there are more avenues that could “smooth the leveling curve,” according to Blizzard.
“While [the buff] was effective in increasing the speed at which you could level alts, it didn’t really help to reduce the fatigue that came with leveling your first main character,” Greenfield said.
Blizzard also made a point to mention that repeatable, exploitable XP-heavy quests won’t serve as a reliable way to grind XP during phase three. Quests like Water Pouch Bounty in Gadgetzan and Troll Necklace Bounty in the Hinterlands “will not function to allow you to level quickly from 40 to 50.”
When phase one transitioned over to phase two, it was very easy for players to “bank” thousands of experience points by pre-completing quests and waiting by the turn-in NPCs as soon as the new phase went live. Although preparing for a new phase is definitely encouraged, the idea of gaining a full level or two just a few minutes after your experience bar gets re-enabled is something Blizzard wants to avoid in not just phase three but all future SoD phases.
When phase three starts, we recommend heading to zones like Tanaris and Stranglethorn Vale as there are many quests for players in their early 40s to complete in those zones, among others.
Phase three of WoW SoD will go live on April 4 at 3pm CT.
