Ironstevo Dings 75 & Finds Some "Safe" XP

Ironstevo hit level 75 last night. Holy moly, I can't even believe it! He's the number two warlock in the world currently on the wowironman.com leaderboard. He's also number one for the forsaken! Hurrah for the undead! =D

He's had a few close calls in the past week, but no deaths yet...thank kittens!

Ironstevo is currently questing through Borean Tundra and The Howling Fjord, and has been popping back and forth between those two zones since he hit 72. From 70-72 he did a mixture of Outland quests in Blade's Edge, Shadowmoon Valley and Nagrand, as well as dailies on the Isle of Quel'Danas. He did a bit of grinding to kill some of his massive rested xp as well in Borean Tundra on neutral mammoths for about half a level. He's also finally opened up all of the Kalu'ak dailies, and has been doing those religiously since.

A Close Call:

Ironstevo has had one very close call worth mentioning, and that was totally my fault for not quite paying 100% attention. I was doing the quest The Jig is Up along with The Frozen Heart of Isuldof, which were nerfed recently (the NPC's in the cave are no longer elite), so I figured I'd give them a shot. Although not elite anymore, both Jonah and Hozzer did have quite a large amount of health compared to everything I had been fighting so far. I figured it was worth a shot though, if things were to go bad I could always sacrifice my voidwalker and run out of the cave entrance which I had cleared behind me. Feeling confident enough I sent my voidwalker in, and even summoned my Doomguard to help dps. When Jonah got low on health Jonah yelled his crazy person rant and jumped below to get eaten by Hozzer. Not quite thinking I jumped right down practically right on top of Hozzer, who to my surprise wanted to eat my face off. For some reason I thought that Hozzer was still sleeping -- but he wasn't, and he was pissed! Of course at this point my voidwalker was like 8 million miles away because I had jumped down. I was also low on health because of the falling damage I took, and from Hozzer's first few initial smacks. I sacrificed my poor voidwalker and turned around for half a second while running like a wee little girl to hit Hozzer with Death Coil, which thankfully healed me almost to full. I kept running up the ramp toward the entrance to the cave until FINALLY my slow ass voidwalker joined me to help out. He was low on health and I was low on mana at this point, but a few dots, wanding and Health Funnel (which I do not feel all too comfortable using as an Ironman Challenger) were enough to get us through the ordeal. After a near heart attack, I logged for the night.

Alternative XP:

In order to keep a nice cushion in levels between Ironstevo and the zones he has been questing in, I've been looking for alternative was to gain xp without putting him at risk, and without having to grind. I've found that treasure chests are flippin' AMAZING xp. Check out the screenshot below:

This screenshot was taken when Ironstevo found a chest while rested. When not rested the xp is half of that shown above -- which is still quite phenomenal. Quests at Ironstevo's level right now are giving about 20k xp -- so finding a chest while not rested is essentially equal to one quest turn in, and one found at rest is equal to two! This morning before I went to work I did a quick run around the Howling Fjord looking for chests and found two up within about 3 minutes, so it seems that more than one can be up in a zone at a time. =D

I think these chests are an amazing find for Ironman Challengers as well as people leveling normally. As a matter of fact, I plan on doing a post in the future with a little more information about what addons can help you find these little buggers, so stay tuned!

Even Ironsteve the druid (now level 45) has been finding a bunch of chests to help move him along quicker. ~