The “Winds of Wisdom” buff, which has doubled experience gains for all World of Warcraft characters on live servers for the past month, has brought a completely new breath of fresh air to the leveling system at large.

After initially coming to the game on March 20, The Winds of Wisdom XP buff is set to expire on April 20, exactly one month after its implementation. With only four days to go until the leveling process is reverted back to how it used to be, plenty of members of the WoW community are pleading for the buff to stay active until the game’s next expansion, Shadowlands, launches later this year.

Quite frankly, seeing the experience rate practically double over the course of the past month has been obviously healthy for the game, as the leveling experience feels well-paced, engaging, and rewarding. After so much time, it finally feels like the journey to max level feels like a manageable experience opposed to the lengthy, largely unrewarding time-sink that has existed for so long. These past few weeks have actually made myself and many other WoW players enjoy the process of leveling again. It only makes sense for the buff to stick around for a little while longer.

Between the Winds of Wisdom, heirloom bonuses, and War Mode (if enabled), players can have a potential static boost to their experience gains of approximately 175% at all times. And while this is definitely a much needed jumpstart for the game’s leveling content, the fact that the experience from 1-120 only feels balanced and well-paced after these implementations just goes to show that the real leveling process is 175% behind the curve.

While the double XP buff certainly feels nice, it’s simply serving as an indicator of how backwards and sluggish the leveling experience was prior to its implementation. Removing it now, with just a few months of “dead time” until the Shadowlands launch, would be a step in the wrong direction.

This is especially notable when you factor in the fact that the expansion is going to completely revamp leveling – squishing the game’s level cap back down to 60 and making the leveling process last no more than 12-15 hours for a given character. Even now, with the buff in place, the leveling process doesn’t fly by that quickly. Once Shadowlands launches, leveling will be a breeze, so why shouldn’t it be a little less painless in the meantime?

Photo Credit: Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft