Congratulations to Sleek for reaching max level and making them the 40th The War Within Iron Man Challenge champion. Sleek’s journey was 17 days, 21 hrs, 28 mins, 1 sec with a /played of 25 hrs, 30 mins. 
Sleek said this is their first max level challenger.
Why did you choose this challenge to play? Sleek said, “I had many attempts at Iron Man back in the day – my first attempt was way back in WoD and I kept at it through Legion. After that I took a break but got sucked back into the challenge world with Classic Hardcore where I hit 60 on a Self-Found Rogue. It inspired me to come back to Retail Iron Man and clean up my unfinished business.”
What race/class/spec did you choose to go with and were there any specific reasons for that choice? “I main a Rogue and my Classic Hardcore 60 is a Rogue, I’m most comfortable with it and love having Stealth, Sap, and Vanish to make non-combat quests a breeze and get out of sticky situations. I also completed the challenge specless!!” mentioned Sleek.
What path did you take to level and were there specific reasons for those choices? “I know nowadays spec and talents are allowed despite not being mandatory anymore – which I think is a good choice for the rules because it makes it way more interesting to actually be able to use the toolkits of different specs – but I decided to try it without using either like it was pre-Legion. Turns out that’s a bad idea if you actually want to kill things, at least on a Rogue, so after Level 20 or so I was basically limited to non-combat quests because my damage output was so atrocious. This did make for an interesting sub-challenge though, basically a Pacifist without the flower picking, as I had to scour through all the Chromie Time expansions to find all the non-combat quests. With how leveling is now, there’s enough of them to where you can easily hit 70, especially as a Rogue with Stealth and Vanish. It was basically just flying through every zone and checking every hub. Once I hit 70, I did the Midsummer Fire Festival quests around the world which got me to 76, then did Khaz Algar non-combat quests and lots of racing and climbing world quests to get to 80.”
Did you have any close calls while leveling this character? Sleek said, “Disconnected while doing a climbing world quest. Funnily enough this was my 2nd attempt at a TWW specless Rogue, and my first one died at 76 because I didn’t realize this ‘cave’ in Azj-Kahet would dismount me, (you know, the big cave inside the even bigger cave zone!), so she died of fall damage. So this time I made sure to buy some Goblin Gliders, and thank god for that and that I reacted enough upon logging back in after realizing I was falling to my death to use one.”
Do you have any advice you would give to someone else thinking of trying out Iron Man challenge? “Play a Rogue, Hunter, Night Elf or any other class/race that can leave combat at will. Buy Goblin Gliders from the Auction House so you don’t fall to your death if you don’t have a slow fall ability.”
Are you working on any other challengers or do you plan on taking a break for a while? Sleek mentioned, “Nothing right now, but I might give another Iron Man a go, and actually playing it with a spec and talents so I can kill mobs properly. I’ll also probably do another Classic Hardcore character on the opposite faction.”
Congratulations once again to Sleek on becoming our 40th The War Within Iron Man champion, and best of luck with your future challenge adventures.