Earthen Leveling Just Got Nerfed, Because Flying Around Was Apparently Too Powerful

World of Warcraft has many dangerous activities.

Mythic+ pugging. Solo Shuffle. Explaining loot rules. Walking into a raid without flasks and hoping nobody notices.

But apparently, one of the most threatening activities in Azeroth was Earthen players gaining experience by flying around and looking at places.

Blizzard’s latest Patch 12.1 PTR development notes include a major change to exploration experience. Baseline experience gained from exploring zones is being reduced by 60%, a move that especially affects Earthen characters thanks to their Wide-Eyed Wonder racial bonus.

Earthen Sightseeing Took A Hit

Earthen have had a very unusual leveling path because Wide-Eyed Wonder gives them significantly more experience from discovering new areas.

That opened the door to a strange but very WoW kind of leveling method: skyriding around the world, discovering zones, and gaining levels through aggressive tourism.

Icy Veins notes that this method has been one of the fastest ways to level Earthen characters, with players using skyriding routes to level extremely quickly by chaining exploration discoveries.

Was it traditional gameplay? Not really.

Was it funny? Absolutely.

Was Blizzard ever going to let “fly around and become powerful” remain untouched forever? Come on now.

The Nerf Is Big, But Not Entirely One-Sided

The headline number is rough: exploration XP is being reduced by 60%.

That will clearly slow down Earthen discovery leveling in Patch 12.1. If your plan was to level another rock person by treating Azeroth like a sightseeing brochure with XP attached, the clock is ticking.

But Blizzard is not only taking something away.

The same notes say experience gained from exploring low-level zones will no longer be reduced from baseline. Blizzard is also increasing the effectiveness of the Well Fed bonus from Ingest Minerals by 30% to compensate Earthen characters in other areas.

That is the more interesting balance here. Blizzard is reducing the extreme speed of exploration leveling while trying to make the Earthen racial package less weirdly lopsided.

Leveling By Exploration Was Peak WoW Weirdness

There is something wonderfully absurd about this whole situation.

World of Warcraft has spent years adding systems, campaigns, dungeon routes, scaling zones, heirlooms, events, and leveling improvements. Then Earthen showed up and players said, “Nice. I will now gain power by flying past geography.”

That is exactly the kind of player behavior Blizzard systems always produce. Give the community a loophole and someone will turn it into a route, a guide, a spreadsheet, and probably a weak aura by dinner.

For more leveling and Patch 12.1 coverage, check our WoW leveling archive and Patch 12.1 coverage.

Use It Before Patch 12.1 If You Care

This change is still on the PTR, so timing and final numbers can always shift before Patch 12.1 goes live.

But if you were planning to level an Earthen character through exploration, now is probably the time to do it before Blizzard puts a speed limit on sightseeing.

Earthen will still have their flavor. They will still have Wide-Eyed Wonder. They will still be extremely committed to minerals as cuisine.

They just may not level quite so absurdly fast by flying over mountains and pretending that is character development.