The latest World of Warcraft PTR build has an odd new aura seemingly directed at "twink" characters that speedrun island expeditions in parties designed to boost low-level, undergeared characters. If one player in a party has experience disabled, the rest of the party will see a 95% reduction in XP gains. Warcraft Secrets later clarified that the aura is seems to be directed at Demon Hunters that have been in wide use in both the Freehold Dungeon & Island Expeditions.
A new aura has been added to the Patch 8.2 PTR. While someone in your party has disabled XP, you will get reduced experience from quests and kills. pic.twitter.com/YzmxaCqtPI
— Warcraft Secrets (@WarcraftSecrets) June 16, 2019
This will mainly affect Demon Hunter boosting in Freehold and Island Expeditions. If you still have characters to level then you might want to hurry, as Patch 8.2 Rise of Azshara is rumored to go live on June 25th.https://t.co/g7oPAsVCpz pic.twitter.com/M0B3tZ5ipc
— Warcraft Secrets (@WarcraftSecrets) June 16, 2019
The aura reduces experience gains by all party members within 200 yards of the player with XP turned off. While Demon Hunters are seemingly the primary target, other classes have been able to accomplish much the same thing. Legion artifacts and Antorus gear is very effective up to level 116. With this gear, players can turn off XP gains at 110 or 111 to maximize the ability to run normal island expeditions in less than 5 minutes. By doing so, a carried character can level from 110 to 120 in about two hours. With the XP nerf, this will no longer be possible.
In late 2018, Blizzard announced that this nerf was incoming:
Since the launch of Battle for Azeroth, we’ve noticed an increasing trend of players turning off XP gains at level 110 in order to repeatedly powerlevel other players’ characters at an excessive rate without increasing their own level. The intention of the XP-off feature is to allow alternate characters to stay in lower-level PvP brackets or relive lower-level content, not to purposefully halt progression in content relevant to the current expansion.
The aura is expected to be part of the v8.2 Rise of Azshara update that, while not on live servers yet, is expected to launch sometime this month.