How does gaining experience work in Warcraft 3

Question

I see many players remove one hero from the creeping site in order to have another one gain more XP. I assume that if the hero isn't within a certain distance from the kills, he isn't getting XP. However, sometimes players creep using regular units only, with the Hero on the other side of the map harassing, and in such cases the Hero still gets XP.

So how does it work? What's the system behind XP gains, when do you get it and how is it divided between your heroes, is distance a factor, is damage dealt a factor, is whoever got the last hit a factor, etc? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The mechanics are rule based.

1. If you have only one hero, he gains experience for creeps killed no matter where he is on the map.
2. If you have multiple heroes, a hero gains experience when he or any unit under his "command" kills a hostile unit. If multiple heroes are commanding a unit that makes a kill, then the XP is split evenly.
3. If no hero "commands" the unit that makes the kill, then all heroes share the XP.

When getting experience from a creep, the hero only gets a percentage of the XP that he would have received had the hostile unit not been a creep, depending on the hero's level.

• Level 1 -> 80%
• Level 2 -> 70%
• Level 3 -> 62%
• Level 4 -> 55%
• Levels 5+ -> 0%

Hence, if you are supposed to get 100 exp, which is to be shared between 2 heroes of level 2 and 3, they will receive 50*70% = 35 and 50*62% = 31, respectively. This is worse than if only the lower leveled one of them got the experience (100*70% = 70 vs. 100*62 = 62).

That is why you creep with just one hero if heroes are of different levels.

Source: http://classic.battle.net/war3/basics/heroes.shtml

Edit: "commands" (it is not defined in the page) - I think this means that the hero is actively engaged in combat along with unit in question. This unit can be in a defined radius of the hero. IIRC, that radius is 600, but I don't have sources for that.