Congratulations to Elfster for reaching max level, making her our 4th The War Within Iron Man Challenge champion. She’s also the first Rogue to make it to max level as an Iron Man in the War Within expansion. Elfster made it to championship last year in January, so she started the TWW expansion this past August. An additional 1 day 5 hours of play time was used to go from 70 to 80. 
When asked to describe this Night Elf rogue, Ster said “Elfster who reached Level 60 in Shadowlands, became my main Iron Man challenger to level up in both Dragonflight and The War Within. I’d take this Outlaw spec’ed Elfster out to figure out which zones, quests, mobs, and the like that were doable. At the same time I’ve been leveling a Pacifist too. Pro tip: if you have existing champions in your collection, be sure to log into them, run around for a few minutes to start the Rested timer. Elfster had rested XP the entire journey to maximize points.”
“Looking back on leveling Elfster, I learned some stuff about The War Within that will help future challengers. First, scout, Scout, SCOUT! Did I say scout? When you are exploring a new xpac, there’s only a little bit of information about safe/dangerous spots. There are some odd items scattered on the ground here and there, such as disturbed dirt or even explosive minerals that go off if you get near them. That’s right, even though not trained in mining (or any profession), just keep a distance from these odds and ends. Xaya created an excellent forum – one on Paci-safe quests, another with tips, issues, and another about mobs/quests to avoid. https://wowironmanchallenge.proboards.com/threads/recent Highly recommend you skim through these. Since an Iron Rogue’s DPS is pretty low, I simply chased quests that Xaya had flagged as Pacifist-safe. These tend to be gather/meet/click-stuff quests. Even with guarded items/areas, a rogue can easily navigate around hostile NPCs.”
“But what about Elfster’s leveling journey? Here’s what I did… your results may vary since a Rogue has a very distinct advantage of other classes. Like what? Well, unlike the Hunter’s who have a pet to tank and kill NPCs in their journey, let’s face it, a Rogue can not fight and win. So a Rogue does what a Rogue does best – explore, sneak, ninja treasure chests, tag along with other player mobs, and world quests that are not too dangerous. Hint: in the forum post that is titled “Paci-safe quests in the War Within” – these are generally safe for the other challenger classes like Rogue. Next tip: on a non-challenger toon, maybe your main or scout, go do all the Campaigns. Skip the other non-campaign quests for now, go get to 80 on your scout/main. Don’t try to do the above with a real challenger, many of the campaigns will kill a challenger easily. This gets you three things: 1) all your toons, including challengers will have the acquired flight points as your scout. 2) Now all zones are open to your challenger at scaled level. 3) You get an XP bonus account-wide for all toons – from 5 to 25% depending on how many level 80 toons you have. 4) Many hostile NPC bosses have a long-range AoE or DOT, which will easily kill a challenger – know ’em so you can avoid ’em.”
“Here’s another tip. Just like past xpacs, Battle For Azeroth and Shadowlands, your challenger can continue to gather chests, do safe World Quests, explore, etc. before heading out to the newest xpac. Same is true for WW! Well, I didn’t go over to WW until I was 72. Squeeze out as much XP in the old worlds as you can before heading over. Speaking of BfA and SL… the chests that spawn daily in BfA continue to provide decent XP, though by the time you’re 77ish, the numbers drop. Naturally, holidays can help a lot too – Elfster took advantage of Brewfest dailies for a couple of bubbles of XP.
So you can’t go wrong picking a Hunter as an Iron Man – let the pet take it in the face as you fight mobs. But Rogue is a decent non-fighting Iron Man, can’t beat stealth, SAP, and Vanish. What’s next for me? Oh, likely try a couple of other classes…. especially if they at least have Shadow Meld….”
Congratulations once again to Ster on Elfster becoming our 4th The War Within Iron Man Challenge Champion, and best of luck with your future challenge adventures.