Congratulations to Xayarwinna on becoming our 8th Shadowlands Iron Man Challenge champion. It took Xaya just over 20 days to reach max level with a /played time of 2 days, 13 hours, and 32 minutes.
Xaya is no stranger to the victor’s podium having reached max level on several other challengers. “For Iron Man, I got Xayaforsi to 90 in MoP and 100 in Draenor, she died at the start of Legion. I was able to get Xayamil to 120 in BfA but she died in Maldraxxus. I also got a 120 Green Man (Xayagettara, now dead), Working Man (Xayawomil, also dead), and Tin Man (now 55 with 7 deaths). I also got Xayasky to 60 in Shadowlands.
We consider Xaya to be one of our veteran challengers but what exactly drew him to the Iron Man Challenge in the first place? “I started playing Iron Man years ago. Iron Man is my preferred challenge, and by listening to Ster how hard warrior was decided to give it a try. My first try died at 55 so I had to reroll.”
What leveling path did Xaya choose for Xayarwinna? “I mostly used Chromie Time and stayed in Azeroth most of the time to 50, with some dailies in Pandaria. Going through the maw was not as hard as I expected on the warrior, after that, I chose ‘Threads of Fate’ and started Bastion (with Night Fae as my covenant). Each zone has a quest to do stuff in it that gives a lot of XP, so did them all. I switch from one zone to the other doing world quests, while also relatively safe quests and bonus objectives. A prot warrior can usually stand one on one with SL mobs, but 2 (or special ones) means to not even start the fight, so a lot of quests and bonus objectives cannot be done without following another player. I also got the habit of taunt the mob, charge it then go back to be out of aggro range if I had to use Shadowmeld.”
Iron warriors can be a bit fragile due to extremely limited heals and it seems that Xaya became very familiar with the low health flashing screen while leveling Xayarwinna. “On a prot warrior, a flashing screen is not unusual at the end of a fight, and you must eat after each one. Around 35-40, victory rush becomes almost useless because it does not heal enough. There have been a few times where I aggroed during a fight (so ran and SM). Another time I received a DoT at the end of the fight and eating was barely to keep up.”
Xaya has the following advice for those thinking of trying the Iron Man Challenge: “Do what you know, especially in Shadowlands. I definitely suggest scouting everything, unless you’ve done it many times as an Iron, and even then it might be quite different from one class to the other (my paladin could do a lot more stuff in Shadowlands than my ironman warrior).”
What’s next for Xaya? Well, it seems that he’ll be keeping himself rather busy. “I am still working on my paci that has not learned archeology (doing chest runs in BfA and Azeroth). I also started new Blood Thirsty, Green Man, and Working Man, but since the last 2 have tracking problems on the website they will have to wait till the website is fixed.”
We wish you the best of luck with your other challengers and once again congratulations on becoming our 8th Shadowlands Iron champion with Xayarwinna!