First off, a special thanks to my twitter buddy, @Bryterside for hooking me up with the link to wowpedia.org where all of the numbers in the following analysis came from. That and hundreds of other source links as he’s almost always one of the first three people to respond when I have a question.
Now on to what we’re talking about today – numbers for guild leveling. One thing you’ll find “wrong” in the wowpedia article linked to about is that Blizzard decided that guild achievements were too much, so they removed their ability to boost you over the daily cap. So the cap is the cap, and that’s all there is to it. They were initially going to let us use guild achievements to go beyond the daily cap, but seeing this put into action on the live servers rather than the beta servers showed that the achievements made it far too easy to level your guild.
The change is good for all those who were worried that being in small guilds would make their members leave to join larger guilds who would have faster access to more perks, because now every guild falls into the same limitations. The only difference is that large guilds will (theoretically) hit the cap earlier each day than smaller guilds. The change is bad for those who are in large guilds who view this as a nerf to their advancement.
Daily Guild Experience Cap
So what is the cap? 6,246,000 experience can be earned for your guild every day, and only the top 25 people who earn experience can contribute to that total. So if you have 30 people in your guild earning guild experience but you don’t reach the cap, then the 5 people who contributed the least amount of guild experience do not have theirs calculated into the total. If you hit the cap with 26 people, but not 25, then you don’t hit the cap.
Once you have the cap met for the day it’s met for the day and that’s that, as it only counts the top 25 and if someone surpasses one of those 25 then you’re still already meeting cap because you’ve only earned more experience.
Thanks to Lerali in the comments below for pointing us to the source for the 25 player cap being removed. All experience earned for your guild is counted now, on all members, until the daily cap is reached each day.
Earning Experience
So we know what the limit is, so now we need to know how to actually earn that experience. The following information is taken directly from the wowpedia.org article I linked you to at the top, slightly modified for my personal layout preferences:
1 – Earning Guild achievements
2 – Boss kills in a raid or dungeon in which “most” of the party is from the same guild
3 – Rated Battleground or Arena wins in which “most” of the party is from the same guild
4 – Completing quests (dailies included) that reward experience
5 – An individual player’s faction reputation advancement
6 – An individual player’s profession progression
When you see the word “most” in that list, here’s what it’s talking about:
Raid and Dungeon boss kills
Guild xp for boss kills is scaled on a few factors.
A – Boss level
B – Normal / Heroic
Amount of guild members present (more xp for raids, since they are limited to once a week)
A – 25 player raid, 20/25
B – 10 player raid, 8/10
C – Dungeons, 4/5
D – Old 25 & 40 man raids (pre-Cataclysm), 8/25
Arena victories
A – Amount of guild members present
A1 – 2/2
A2 – 3/3
A3 – 5/5
Rated battleground victories
A – Amount of guild members present
A1 – 8/10 – 10 player rated battleground
A2 – 12/15 – 15 player rated battleground
Now you’ll notice that this particular list above here is strictly the methods of which you gain the experience, not the actual values of how much you gain. That information I haven’t found yet, as I’m not sure anyone actually has that specific information this early.
How Quickly Can Your Guild Level?
So, just how fast can your guild actually level up then? Here’s a table to show you the absolute best case scenario; meaning that you’re hitting the experience cap every single day until you reach the cap of Guild Level 25. I haven’t found any information on how hard/easy it is to actually hit the cap every single day, so I don’t know if this is going to be exactly how you’ll work out or if it will take you longer.
LV | Total | Days | Reward | Desc |
2 | 16,580,000 | 2.65 | Fast Track (Rank 1) |
Experience gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 5%. |
3 | 34,820,000 | 5.57 | Mount Up | Increases speed while mounted by 5%. Not active in Battlegrounds or Arenas. |
4 | 54,710,000 | 8.76 | Mr. Popularity (Rank 1) |
Reputation gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 5%. |
5 | 76,260,000 | 12.21 | Cash Flow (Rank 1) |
Each time you loot money from an enemy, an extra 5% money is generated and deposited directly into your guild bank. |
6 | 99,470,000 | 15.93 | Fast Track (Rank 2) |
Experience gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 10%. |
7 | 124,350,000 | 19.91 | Reinforce (Rank 1) |
Items take 5% less durability loss when you die. |
8 | 150,880,000 | 24.16 | Hasty Hearth | Reduces the cooldown on your Hearthstone by 15 minutes. |
9 | 179,080,000 | 28.67 | Reinforce (Rank 2) |
Items take 10% less durability loss when you die. |
10 | 208,930,000 | 33.45 | Chug-A-Lug (Rank 1) |
The duration of buffs from all guild cauldrons and feasts is increased by 50%. |
11 | 240,440,000 | 38.5 | Mobile Banking | Summons your guild bank. Instant, 1 hr cooldown |
12 | 273,610,000 | 43.81 | Mr. Popularity (Rank 2) |
Reputation gained from killing monsters and completing quests increased by 10%. |
13 | 308,440,000 | 49.38 | Honorable Mention (Rank 1) |
Increases Honor points gained by 5%. |
14 | 344,930,000 | 55.22 | Working Overtime | Increases the chance to gain a skill increase on tradeskills by 10%. |
15 | 383,070,000 | 61.33 | The Quick and the Dead | Increases health and mana gained when resurrected by a guild member by 50% and increases movement speed while dead by 100%. Does not function in combat or while in a Battleground or Arena. |
16 | 422,870,000 | 67.7 | Cash Flow (Rank 2) |
Each time you loot money from an enemy, an extra 10% money is generated and deposited directly into your guild bank. |
17 | 464,320,000 | 74.34 | Guild Mail | In-game mail sent between guild members now arrives instantly. |
18 | 507,430,000 | 81.24 | For Great Justice | Increases Justice points gained by 5%. |
19 | 552,200,000 | 88.41 | Honorable Mention (Rank 2) |
Increases Honor points gained by 10%. |
20 | 598,630,000 | 95.84 | Happy Hour | Increases the number of flasks gained from using a flask cauldron by 100%. |
21 | 646,730,000 | 103.54 | Have Group, Will Travel | Summons all raid or party members to the caster’s current location. Unlimited range, 6 sec cast / Channeled, 2 hr cooldown |
22 | 696,480,000 | 111.51 | Chug-A-Lug (Rank 2) |
The duration of buffs from all guild cauldrons and feasts is increased by 100%. |
23 | 747,890,000 | 119.74 | Bountiful Bags | Increases the quantity of materials gained from Mining, Skinning, Herbalism, and Disenchanting by 15%. |
24 | 800,960,000 | 128.24 | Bartering | Reduces the price of items from all vendors by 5%. |
25 | 855,690,000 | 137 | Mass Resurrection | Brings all dead party and raid members back to life with 35% health and 35% mana. Cannot be cast when in combat. 64% of base mana, Unlimited range, 10 sec cast |
So 137 total days, 4.5 months, of reaching the experience cap will get you to Guild Level 25.
Cynwise
December 8, 2010 at 5:01 PM
137 days after Cataclysm is April 23, 2011, if Excel’s math is correct.
Psynister
December 8, 2010 at 5:20 PM
Excel never lies. It is the method by which that crappy table and all of it’s calculations were put together. :P
Lerali
December 8, 2010 at 5:18 PM
Um, I need to double this and see if I can find a source but I believe the 25man contributor cap was removed. I will try to update with a source as soon as I can…
Nice post though!
Psynister
December 8, 2010 at 5:21 PM
Hmm, yeah let me know. I don’t remember reading about that, but I haven’t paid special attention to blues in the last couple of days.
Lerali
December 8, 2010 at 6:28 PM
Ok! I found it! It was a blue post made by Mumper back in September on the old WoW forums but I was able to find a blue tracker that had it archived. Here is the original (copy and pasted for you viewing pleasure!):
by Mumper | 17/09/2010 06:51:59
Mumper
There is no concept of “Top 20 contributors” anymore. We changed that functionality many months ago. XP contributed to the guild comes from all members. Guild rep is always available no matter what amount you have contributed to the guild.
Lead Content Designer
Natalie
December 9, 2010 at 1:48 PM
Did this table include the three hour window from midnight to 3 AM before the daily cap reset?
Either way it wouldn’t really matter, you could just add a day to all the totals :)
Psynister
December 9, 2010 at 3:35 PM
It does not include the window as there’s no way to judge how much you could have gotten in that time period. It’s possible to have gotten the full cap in those three hours if you had enough people on in the guild that rushed as much content as possible into that time window.
Bimini Asheye
December 9, 2010 at 2:26 PM
Thanks for the table! I posted a link on my guild’s website. :)
I’m surprised that the daily guild XP cap is so low. It’s easy to get to with just a handful of active players. I wonder if it is a certainty that the XP required is constant for all levels of guild leveling. One would think that it would go up with each level, like how it does for our characters.
Psynister
December 9, 2010 at 3:38 PM
The cap is low so that large guilds don’t completely blow away smaller guild on the progression.
The amount required does go up every level though as it does with players. That’s why it will take you 2.65 days to get to level 2, but 4.5 months to get to level 25 – because it continues to grow every level. You can find the experience requirements in the table at the bottom.
Torin
December 13, 2010 at 3:40 AM
Weren’t Guild Achievements completely removed from getting xp?
Torin
December 13, 2010 at 3:45 AM
Yes, I found it: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1306052109
We have decided to remove the added bonus of gaining Guild Experience from Guild Achievements earned. This change will realign Guild Achievements with our philosophy held for normal Achievements, which are intended to be predominantly their own reward (barring the rare exception of special achievements that grant an additional reward.)
Christopher Schmidt
December 13, 2010 at 7:30 AM
Old raids like Molten Core actually require a full 10, I believe, not just 8.
Psynister
December 13, 2010 at 9:24 AM
I thought I’d read that somewhere too, but I didn’t see it in the short time I put into the research.
Finding out how long it would take was the real reason for the post, so I didn’t get too extensive in looking up the rest of the information. Failure on my part there.
Aoife
December 13, 2010 at 9:07 AM
It appears that guild XP gained has been reduced to 25% of total gained, at least for questing. No Blue post on this but it’s been noticed in my guild. MMO-Champion is reporting it this morning http://bit.ly/ii3Yxi
We’re a small guild and it was bad enough they removed the guild XP from guild achievements. Now it’s even harder to get a lvl. As a GL, I’ve lost the excitement I had about the new system.
Psynister
December 13, 2010 at 9:19 AM
I still see a lot of potential for what’s going on right now. It’s not nearly as fast as it was going to be, and they took away some of the reason to do the bonus runs of old content and such, but I’m still optimistic. It stops it from being a grind, and instead turns it into a more natural kind of progression where the perks just come as you go along.
4.5 months is a heck of a time to wait for all the benefits, but at least they didn’t just scrap them all together.