EXP Mechanics

You can farm lanes with minions, but you have to be nearby to get EXP.  Just about everything else is true, although I'm not sure that just being nearby creeps when they die will get you anything unless your minions killed them.

You don't get the gold for A)

Yeah, I am really interested in what the exact mechanics are and where they differ between XP and Gold. In the Strategy Forum I found this:

- Flags split xp to every allied DG in (short) range of a cap.  Portal Grunts split xp and gold per Micah below.  Minions give no xp or gold when killed.  Teams should split lanes to farm grunts and cap flags.   Minions are great because they reward your opponents nothing when they die but while alive can kill, and you never run out of them. 

III. Micro:

Per Micah (thanks for digging through the LUA for this stuff)

If a demigod and their army (ie: minions and summons) does 25% of the total damage done (not 25% of health, 25% of total damage done) to a reinforcement then when that reinforcement dies a bounty is split amongst all nearby demigods (not just the one who did the damage). Also, if a demigod or their army gets the killing blow on a reinforcement then the bounty for that reinforcement is split amongst nearby demigods.

If a demigod does 25% of damage but does not get the killing blow and is not nearby the gold is still split, but they don't get part of that split. If a demigod (or their army) gets a killing blow though, that demigod does get part of the bounty for the kill.

- so that means as long as one guy in a lane is farming his ally can be sitting back and chillaxing and he will still get the gold benefits.  (Doesn't really make sense to me but I didn't write the code)

- again per a conversation with Micah made after his clarification post - Grunts will not provide xp to their killer unless he is in range, so using your minions to farm xp only works if you are close by.

So, some things are still unclear to me:

- You do get XP for standing next to creeps when they die. I was under the impression that you get more when you 25%-Tag them or kill them yourself. A result of that would be that fighting close to your towers would be bad, because the towers kill some creeps before you can tag them. Is that correct?

- When you kill stuff without being in Range (Minions, Heavens Wrath), you do get gold, but no XP. True?

- When you are in a lane without having large AoE, it should be better to alternate between creeps with your attacks, then killing one after the other, in order to 25%-Tag more. Actually getting the killing blow has no advantage over just tagging the mob. Right?

I am pretty sure EXP is distributed to all demigod in range regardless of damage dealt, Demigod (correct me if I am wrong) does NOT have last hit exp implemented.

As for money, I am not sure, but I think you need to deal damage.

Since none of this information is really documented at all, it would be amazing if we could have some sort of official response on this topic. Its the kind of thing that the community could spend months trying to work out, or one dev could explain properly in less than five minutes.

I know that people have checked out the code to find answers, but there is so much conflicting information out there that I don't know who to trust.

I would like to improve my skills and play on a competitve level at some point-- it's this kind of knowledge that great players have over good ones.

i.e., I know what works for me. I don't really know why it works.

Maybe we'll just have to wait for better sources of information to come up via legitimate fan sites.

Okay, I checked the lua code:

- For XP, the only thing that matters is that you are either the killer (your minions don't count) or you are in the radius when the unit dies. It doesn't matter who killed it. A fixed ammount of XP gets shared out between the killer and every ally in radius of the death.

- For Gold, each unit has a bounty value, that can be granted. When a unit gets killed, it gets checked if the whole enemy army (eg. all enemy heroes and minions) have done more than 25% dmg to the killed unit. If yes, the bounty gets shared between the same players as above.

This is if I havent missed anything, but I am pretty certain thats correct. So, answering my own questions above:

- You do not get more XP if you actively kill the creeps. Just standing around is enough. It also doesnt matter if the towers kill them in regards to XP, you do loose gold though, unless you "tag" them before.

- You can not farm a different lane with minions, you need to be around.

- You can farm from range with Heaven's Warth. The damage source of the effect is you, so you are the killer, you get both gold and XP no matter where you are. If you don't kill but only damage them, you get nothing. So I don't know if it really works with 250 dmg vs. 390 creep hp.

- Tagging as many units with 25% is effective in regards to gold, but doesnt matter at all for XP.

Pretty lame alltogether in my opinion

I'll try and post a propper writeup on XP/Gold mechanics in the Strategy Forum later.

Done: http://demigod.wikia.com/wiki/XP_and_Gold_mechanics

I just played some Oak and I believe that guy get s XP from kills within the ward's range. Can't think of any other reason I was gaining XP while walking around, with no enemy in sight.

So to clarify you have to be in range to recieve gold?

Unless you are the killer, in that case you get both gold and xp.

Wikified: http://demigod.wikia.com/wiki/XP_and_Gold_mechanics

That would be really strange, can't see that anywhere.

kBrain:GetUnitsAroundPoint(categories.HERO, pos, radius, 'Ally')

is the relevant call which gets all "close by" heroes, so unless there is a bug in that regarding Oaks ward, it shouldn't happen. The function no longer is lua code though, as far as I can see, so can't dig in there further.

So if you are the killer it doesn't matter how close you are to the kill?

Lets say REgulus lays mines and then jsut walks away, when the next wave hits them, does he gain exp and gold? (since you mentioned minions don't count)

Yes, range is not relevant when you actually kill the unit yourself. I just checked, for mines the dmg is considered to be coming from Regulus himself, so for mine kills you can hang around wherever you want

Interestingly, Rooks Towers shouldnt count as killing for him as far as I can see, but I don't really think thats correct ...

Yeah, imagine my surprise when I gained a level without being in a fight. I'll keep an eye out in the future, cause you're right, this is strange.

Edit: Tried again. No XP from the wards. I must have been close to flag or smth earlier. I didn't realize I'm getting XP while capturing a flag, I thought all the XP comes after I capture it.

I just tried ingame, you really don't get gold for the creeps your towers kill as Rook.

Thats lame, the rook should.

Yeah, I wonder if it might be worth it to get lvl 1 hammer slam, just to be able to tag a wave for you completely, as your towers are in fact actually denying you gold.