All Experience Buffs Available During the WoW 20th Anniversary

Have you ever heard of other people leveling their characters crazy fast and wondered how on earth they managed that? Most likely that person was using some form of experience boost, or a combination of several boosts which are only available during special times of the year. Now is such a time.

During World of Warcraft’s anniversary event you constantly have access to 20% increased experience. But there are other events overlapping the anniversary, which also bring experience boosts, and during one period (between November 2nd and November 8th) you will have access to a total of 85% increased experience.

In this guide we break down all the sources of experience boosts during the World of Warcraft anniversary and the best ways to obtain them, as well as give you some some leveling strategies we recommend.

Experience Buffs

This is a list of all the buffs, their sources and how to get them. These Include:

• World of Warcraft Anniversary Event
• Hallow’s End
• Darkmoon Faire
• Warmode
• Warband Mentor
• Draught of the Ten Lands

World of Warcraft Anniversary Event

The 20th Anniversary event brings a total of 20% increased experience split into two buffs.

The first 10% is automatically applied when you log in.

The second 10% is obtained when you complete the Celebrate Good Fun! daily quest in the anniversary area in Tanaris. The quest applies the buff Blessing of the Bronze Dragonflight which lasts 12 hours and persists through logging out. If you want a suggestion of how to complete the daily quest quickly we cover that in the following article: How the XP buff works in the WoW 20th Anniversary Event.

Hallow’s End

Hallow’s End runs from the 25th of October through to the 8th November. While active you can click on the Bonfire just outside of Stormwind as Alliance, or click on the Pile of Wickerman Ash outside of the Undercity as Horde, to receive a 10% increased experience buff. This buff lasts 2 hours and is lost on death.

Alliance Bonfire

/way Elwynn Forest 32.84 49.42

Horde Wickerman Ash

/way Tirisfal Glades 62.24 68.12

Darkmoon Faire

The Darkmoon Faire arrives on the first Sunday of every month. There are two experience buffs from Darkmoon Faire, however they do not stack so you should pick whichever is best for you.

The first is WHEE! This can be obtained by riding on the Carousel or Roller Coaster both of which require a Darkmoon Ride Ticket, which can be purchased from Kae Ti who is standing just in front of the carousel on Darkmoon Island.

The second buff is the Darkmoon Top Hat. This is a consumable item sold by Gelvas Grimgate for 10 Darkmoon Prize Tickets. Prize Tickets is the reward for doing daily quests in Darkmoon Faire. However there is a quicker way to get tickets and that is to purchase the nine Darkmoon Adventurer’s Guide items from the auction house and then hand them in for prize ticket rewards. We have included a list of them here and how many tickets each item rewards gives.

As you pick up the items from your mailbox they will each start a quest, and these quests you hand in to Professor Thaddeus Paleo, who is located on Darkmoon Island. The items are usually very cheap to buy and you can only hand in one of each item, so don’t buy stacks of them. If you hand in all nine items you receive 80 Tickets for a total of 8 hats.

Both buffs are 10% increased experience and last 1 hour (and both are removed on death). Our suggestion is to pick up the buff from the carousel/coaster, and also buy a few hats to refresh the buff after the first hour without going back to the faire.

Warning: Any Darkmoon Top Hat's not used by the end of Darkmoon Faire are removed from your inventory and lost forever, so only purchase the amount you will definitely use.

War Mode

Introduced in BFA, warmode is an easy 10% increase to experience which becomes available at level 25. It can be turned on by opening the Talent window and clicking the War Mode Icon in the bottom right hand corner. This can only be done in Orgrimmar/Stormwind, Valdrakken or Dornogal.

This buff only applies to World Content and does not provide any experience bonus for instanced content, such as dungeons or delves. The experience bonus is not removed on death, it is permanent as long as you have War Mode on.

WARNING: War Mode makes you attackable by players of the opposite faction. While that’s mostly not an issue, if you feel like you ever want to turn off War Mode you can do so in any rested area. You do not need to return to a main city.

Warband Mentor

The War Within introduced the Warband Mentor buff, which is a 5% increase in experience for each max level in your warband, up to a maximum of 25%. So with 5 level 80 characters you will have the maximum experience buff across your account.

This is automatically applied and you don’t need to do anything special to gain it.

Draught of the Ten Lands

Draught of the Ten Lands is a potion that increases your experience gained by 10% for 1 hour. The potion is warbound and can only be used by characters who are below level 50. The buff is lost on death.

For Horde the potion costs 5 Honorbound Service Medals and is sold by Provisioner Mukra in Dazar’alor. For Alliance the potion costs 5 7th Legion Service Medals and are sold by Provisioner Stoutforge in Boralus.

/way #1165 51.24 95.21

/way #1161 66.81 25.61

Both currencies were used in the Battle for Azeroth expansion, and are warbound transferable, so you can look if you have some on an old character. Otherwise it can be obtained by doing world quests in Arathi Highlands and Darkshore while your faction controls those warfronts or through the Assaults on Zandalar and Kul Tiras.

Best Dates to Utilize the Buffs

Below is a list of when the different maximum amount of experience buffs are available.

85% Experience Buff

• November 3rd - November 8th

75% Experience Buff

• November 9th
• December 1st - December 7th
• January 5th - January 11th

65% Experience Buff

• All other times until the end of the anniversary event on January 6th 2025.

Leveling Strategies

These are some leveling strategies we recommend, which you might want to utilize while you have the buffs.

Timewalking

Timewalking dungeons are a great way to level, as they are usually pretty short and grant a large amount of experience when completed. You can queue for timewalking dungeons using the dungeon finder.

Additionally, because of the scaling, you can start from level 10 and low level characters are very strong. This is a great strategy if you are a leveling as healer or tank specialization, or have a friend of that role to queue with, due to the fast queue times.

Questing

Questing can be exceptionally fast, especially if you pick the right zones where the quests are densely located so you can do many objectives at once. Some vanilla zones are really good, as well as several Warlords of Draenor zones. The Warlords of Draenor intro scenario also rewards a lot of experience for relatively little time spent, so unless you dislike the intro scenario, consider not skipping it.

Note: If you have a strong battle pet, make sure to complete nearby pet battle tamer quests in the vanilla zones as they give large chunks of experience for very little time spent.

List of Dense Questing Zones

Alliance Zones:

• Elwynn Forest
• Redridge Mountains
• Duskwood
• Shadowmoon Valley (Draenor)

Horde Zones:

• Stonetalon Mountains
• Silverpine Forest
• Hillsbrad Foothills
• Frostfire Ridge

Shared Zones:

• Gorgrond
• Ohn’Ahran Plains
• The Azure Span

At level 70 you will have to level in Khaz Algar. If it’s not your first character we recommend jumping straight down to Hallowfall as the quests are much more densely located. If you run out of quests in Hallowfall, move onto Ringing Deeps, then the Isle of Dorn.

Delves

Once you reach level 70 and have access to Khaz Algar, delves are a great way to level. Keep the delve at level 1 difficulty, as doing higher delves does not increase the amount of experience significantly. Repeatedly run the quickest delve of your choice over and over.

The delves which are fastest, for most classes, are:

• Fungal Folly
• Mycomancer Cavern
• Skittering Breach
• The Dread Pit

We hope this guide helps you level a character or two, and once you hit max level make sure to check out our class guides.