The WoW anniversary event is now active, it's the 18th birthday of World of Warcraft, coming with a few extra activities you can take part in and special rewards to collect. You can get a mount that is only available during this event, there are all sorts of cosmetic rewards to stock up on and perhaps most importantly, there are some massive experience buffs you can stack to get up to 88% increased experience gains or even higher in some cases. So let's go through everything to do during the 18th anniversary event WoW and how you can level super quickly while the event lasts, and how to prepare for phase 2 in Dragonflight pre-patch. 

WoW 18th Anniversary Event Complete Guide - Things To Do Before Dragonflight Prepatch Phase 2

If you're playing Dragonflight preparing for the expansion itself, now is the absolutely perfect time to start doing that and we have the 18th anniversary for World of Warcraft that is active right now as well. There are a few fun things to do, mounts to collect, new gearing options, as well as up to 88%+ increased experience buffs to stack!

To start this event, all you want to do is log into your game, go to a mailbox and pick up your anniversary gift, so just go to any mailbox wherever you are and then you can also go to Caverns of Time. So basically you go here first, you get your mailbox and then you can start doing the event itself and it tells you in the mail that “we hope that you will join us for a celebration in the Caverns of Time”. 

How to get 88%+ Exp for fast leveling in WoW 

It's always exciting to open the anniversary package when this event comes around and the increasing experience buff is still there, and because this is the 18th anniversary for World of Warcraft, the experience bonus is now up to 18%. To grab your experience, both you just have to swing by your nearest mailbox grab the package and open it. Your way out of anniversary buff should be right there, use the item and you'll have the experience buff until the end of the event. This experience bonus does stack alongside the Winds of Wisdom Buffs, so that's 18% on top of our already huge bonus of 50% which is going to make leveling also incredibly quick for the next few weeks. Now the 50% Winds of Wisdom buff will be disappearing on November 15th so you don't have too long to take advantage of these buffs together, but there are some huge experience changes coming with phase 2 of the Dragonflight pre-patch which will largely offset the loss of the Winds of Wisdom buff. So it really doesn't matter if you want a level right now or level after November 15th. Leveling is going to be super quick almost no matter what during this WoW anniversary event, so don't feel pressured to get it done right this very second. With that being said, these aren't the only experienced buff we have access to this week just and so happens to be the Darkmoon Faire week as well, so you can pop by the Darkmoon Faire ride on your favorite ride, the Merry-Go-Round all the roller coaster. Doing that will give you the 10% experience buff from the Darkmoon Faire which also stacks on top of these other huge buffs.

If you really want to go one step further and maximize your experience gains, you can also grab an experience potion from the Battle for Azeroth service metal Quartermasters, the Draught of Ten Lands increases experience gains by 10% for characters below level 50 which will be perfect for giving your lower level alts a nice boost. It does cost service medals though which are a BFA currency that you might not have saved up. So these potions could be a pain to get in general if you didn't play during BFA. If you add up all of that, we're looking at 78% bonus to experience gains during this week which will definitely speed things up. If you're also doing outdoorsy stuff, questing and whatnot instead of dungeon farming, you can even turn on war mode for an extra 10% boost minimum even higher if you're playing Alliance though that would open you up to the horror is of world PVP. 

Note: With the experience changes coming on November 15th, leveling from 50 to 60 should be faster after November 15th even with all of these bonuses in place. Because the experience requirements for 50 to 60 will be reduced by about 75%. So you only need 25% of the previously required experience, so you would need a whopping 400% bonus experience gain to make up for that just in case you want to start scrambling to getting some leveling right now. You can level your alts up to 50 right now with all these buffs in play and then wait for phase 2 of the WoW Dragonflight pre-patch to do the 50 to 60 leg of your adventures. The other bonus there is that if you wait for after November 15th for the 50 to 60 portion of leveling, then you also aren't forced into Shadowlands, you can use Chromie Time to do whatever you want which is going to be a nice change of pace. We will still also have access to most of these experience boosts past the 15th most notably the WoW anniversary 18. So leveling will be even faster with the experienced nurse in the game, either way the anniversary event offers you a big boost to your experience games which will significantly speed up your leveling adventures.

Event Mounts & Ilvl 272 Gear

There are also some opportunities to snag up some higher item level gear or some special mounts during the event. Right outside of the Caverns of Time, in Tenaris you will find the Doom Walker World boss. There's a quest you can pick up from Chromie called Doomwakin has come knock in, all you have to do is pop outside and kill the Doom Walker. The quest is weekly and Awards with timewarped badges to spend as you wish, but the Doom Walker himself also drops a special event only Mount the Illidari Doomhawk as well as a little trophy stand for you to show off. The boss can also drop item level 272 gear which could be a good upgrade for some lower gear players and some of the items have unique appearances that can only be obtained during this event. So there's a mount and some shiny gear available if you haven't killed the Doom Walker before. 

We also have the originals quest once again, this quest asks you to kill some other old world bosses in their original locations, so we have Lord Kazzak over in the Blasted Lands and she goes over in Azshara and then the dragons of nightmare at their Emerald dream portals. Each of these bosses also can drop item level 272 gear for this event. So if you need some quick gear to help you out, these bosses might just do the trick, completing that quest also rewards you with even more timed what badges. 

Korraks Revenge and More Gear Options

The anniversary event also brings back the Korraks Revenge Battleground, which is a vanilla inspired version of Alterac, you can earn more timewarped badges, some honor and there's an event quest from Chromie which rewards you with even more badges. There's also an achievement called Alterac Valley of Olde which rewards you with the Stormpike battle Ram for the alliance and then the Frostwolf Snarler for the Horde. Those achievements just require you to earn badges inside correct revenge, so it's pretty easy if you complete the quests in Alterac Valley. This also used to be a great alternative leveling option as well, the experience gains have been pretty good in recent years. so if you'd rather do some old school Alterac Valley PVP ink to level up your alts, this could be a fun option to break things up and it should be fast almost no matter what with all those experience buffs in play. you can queue up for correct Revenge as early as level 10, so almost no matter what level you are, you should be able to hop in. 

There is also a vendor over in Hillsbrad Foothills where the original battleground entrance was during vanilla, the time-displaced vendors sell all sorts of iconic outrack Valley items but with boosted up item levels. For this year, the item levels should be 272. The items will cost you Timewarped badges as well as marks of honor.

Typical Anniversary Event Items & Vendor

There's also some random fun stuff going on as per usual down in the Caverns of Time. You can buy lots of fun anniversary items like the Edwin VanCleef costumes, the Inflatable Thunderfuries, the Corgi Goggles, as well as the celebration ones. It's all the usual stuff, so nothing new, but this is the only time of the year you can stock up on the special cosmetic items. So if that's something you're interested in, that vendor is still down in the Caverns of Time ready to take all your shiny Timewarped badges off your hands. So lots of random fun to be hand and you can get a special event only mount and there's some extra chances at gearing up if you can use that item level 272 gear. But the big opportunity with this event really does come in that big experience boost. So if you have some alts to level up, this is the perfect time to do so either right now or just after November 15th. 

That's everything you can do during WoW's 18th anniversary event and how to stack experience buff to get some super quick leveling in. What will you be doing to celebrate WoW's 18th birthday? Do you have any alts you still need to level or are you just waiting for phase 2 the pre-patch in Dragonflight's launch?