Play Times to Level

I just found a neat feature. /played which is a chat command that displays the time played for the current character since creation and in the current level.

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Update: See below.

Since I reupped in May, I’ve been leveling some toons pretty efficiently. I typically used dungeons to level 60, then quests through Outland, Northrend, Vashj’ir and Pandaria. Some dungeons were played after level 60, but primarily quests were used to level. At this point, they continued with Quests and Treasure Hunting through Draenor. Treasure hunting gives about 1.5 times the XP of a quest in the area, so using a Treasure Hunting AddOn can be a very efficient way to level, especially if you can fly through Draenor.

The goal is to get to 101 before going to Legion. All the characters have 4 Heirloom armor pieces, an Heirloom weapon and a necklace. At level 101, there is a jump in Heirloom item level, which will help a lot when starting Legion. Here are the play times for some of these characters leveled this way to about 100:

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Leveling to 100ish

Before taking these characters to Draenor, I took a Demon Hunter through the DH starting area, and then directly to Draenor to most efficiently get Draenor Pathfinder. So all other characters could fly in Draenor. As these characters reached Level Cap of Outland, and Northrend they moved on to the next area. Before moving to Draenor, some of the classes were taken to 91 to boost the Heirloom Item Level, but in general this is not that necessary. The Pandaria and Draenor starting areas are quite friendly and reasonable even with green level gear.

Here are the times for two demon hunters.

DH that helped with Pathfinder
Demon Hunter that only leveled

The 110 Demon Hunter was taken to Draenor as soon as the Starting Area was completed and gained a few levels in Draenor, although not quickly. The idea was that a powerful character would make it easier to get Draenor Pathfinder. After finishing Pathfinder, the toon has played quite a bit in the Broken Isles, but has not finished Legion as yet.

The other 102 Demon Hunter has done only a little leveling in the Broken Isles after finishing the starting area.

Update:

Let’s do some simple math.

  • 4 days = 4 x 24 = 96 – an optimistic average to reach level 100 with Heirlooms.
  • 96 / 8 = 12 or over two 5 day weeks @ 8 hours / day.
  • More realistically. 96 / 4 = 24 or 5 weeks.
  • Or for those who actually have life and play 4 hours 4 days a week, that’s 96 / 16 = 6 or a month and a half to level one character to 100.

But this ignores rested XP gain, which doubles the gain. Most of the leveling for these characters was done “rested”. You need to leave the characters for a couple of days to gain more than a level of rested gain. So, leveling of Alts is best done with multiple Alts and switch off when ever Rested status is lost. This means the real-time for a single character is tripled or more, which realistically means months of leveling for a set of Alts. So, this explains why I’m now reaching 100 with many of these Alts that I started to level on May 2, 2017.

You may find it interesting to use /played on your characters too.

:ww