Congratulations to Kelman for reaching max level, making them our 24th The War Within Iron Man Challenge champion! Kelman’s total journey was 16 days, 21 hrs, 45 mins, 5 secs, with a /played of 1 day, 11 hrs, 11 mins.
This is Keli’s first Max Level Champion in The War Within expansion.

Why did you choose this challenge to play? Keli said, “I’ve been playing WoW since TBC and wanted to test my skill. I’ve done raiding and other end game content, but Iron Man seemed like a fun new twist on the leveling experience to test myself with.”

What race/class/spec did you choose to go with and were there any specific reasons for that choice? Keli mentioned, “I chose a Blood Elf Destruction Warlock. Wanted the Voidwalker to help keep damage off of me for my first attempt. Want to increase the difficulty on my next attempt, perhaps choose a melee class this time! Other than having a Voidwalker, I don’t believe any other decision went into the class. And I simply like playing Blood Elf’s, part of the reason I’m a Demon Hunter main lol.”

What path did you take to level and were there specific reasons for those choices? “I went with a fairly typical leveling path for the challenge, Wanted to redo Sunstrider Isle as it has been some time since I’ve done it. Then from there I followed mostly the campaign quests through Dragon Flight until I’d run out of quests and then moved into The Battle for Azeroth via Chromie until I hit 70. Then did as many quests as I could in The Isle of Dorn, skipping anything that felt too risky. Such as too much mob density, or too many high health mobs close together. Overall I believe I only skipped 4 or 5 quests in the zone, and stopped the campaign pretty quickly as a delve is required. From there I moved into The Ringing Deeps around Level 73 if I recall correctly. Managed more of the campaign for the zone before hitting a quest inside the dungeon and played it safe by not completing rather than flagging myself near the end of the challenge. Was only one storyline off of completing the sojourner achievement to put into perspective how long I was in the Ringing Deeps. I was either fresh Level 78 or nearing Level 78 when I moved into Hallowfall. Followed the campaign again, along with any other quest I picked up before fairly quickly it seemed I was done!”

Did you have any close calls while leveling this character? Keli said, “A handful of close calls! One or two in Dragon Flight where I slowly ran out of cooldowns and my Voidwalker had died, which left me tanking a couple hits trying to finish off the mob, before eventually kiting as best I could until I had Mortal Coil off of cooldown and saved myself. Pretty much the same scenario in the Isle of Dorn, in that fungus area in the center of the map, can’t recall the name. As well as one or two nearly one hit scenarios, becoming too focused on something else and standing in a frontal, or in that same fungus area I pulled the big guy roaming around and stepped on some mushroom while running away that chunked me for around 80%. So there was one of the quests I skipped, that place sucked lol!”

Do you have any advice you would give to someone else thinking of trying out Iron Man Challenge? “My best advice is to take it slow! Rushing or getting unfocused nearly got me. So don’t watch videos on a second monitor lol. I kept my sessions to 2-3 hours at most, after that I felt myself losing concentration and likely would have wanted to pull more mobs or end up doing something dumb. Your damage doesn’t really reflect speed, so I had to keep reminding myself to go slow,” Keli mentioned.

Are you working on any other challengers or do you plan on taking a break for a while? Keli said, “I’m planning my next class now! Deciding if I wanted to try another challenge as well, but might just give Iron Man another go on a melee class. Perhaps I’ll be answering some more questions about my run soon!”

Congratulations once again to Keli on Kelman becoming our 24th The War Within Iron Man Challenge champion, and best of luck with your future challenge adventures.