First off, even though I love Chromie time and think it’s a great addition to the game, I find myself missing the old way of leveling, before all these changes were made. This challenge is a way of going back to the old ways, with a slight twist. This challenge is not necessarily based on skill, like the Ironman challenges of old, but rather one of patience, time, and frankly, willpower. I’ll try to find a way to TL;DR this at the end, incoming wall of text.
The challenge is as follows: start a character at level 1, leveling through the traditional starting zone. This means you cannot do this challenge on an Allied Race, or any of the hero classes, and you can’t do Exile’s Reach. Then, once you hit level 10, you do NOT go to SW/Org and activate Chromie time. Instead, you will keep the world at its natural scaling. In the old days, you would just level through about 5-6 zones spread throughout Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms before reaching the level requirement for Outland, but here’s where the twist comes in: rather than picking and choosing, you do EVERY zone on those two continents that your faction can quest in, except for the Cataclysm zones, more on that later.
The purpose of this challenge is to fully complete all the Loremaster achievements on this character, whether for the first time or again after so many years, as well as allowing you to become more immersed in your character and how they explore and perceive the world around them, basically taking them on the full journey that we’ve experienced thus far in WoW. You could think of a cool backstory for the character, maybe do some RP along the way. Maybe there’s a core race that has a Heritage Armor set that you could earn at the end of this challenge, and this could be a way to further immerse yourself in the culture and history of the race you’re playing. Basically, have fun with it and make it your own.
Another main feature of this challenge is utilizing the NPC in your capital that turns off XP gains; you will be using them a lot. By not selecting Chromie time, the Vanilla Kal/EK zones will scale up to level 30, as will Outland and Northrend. So what you do is this: level in Vanilla until hitting 30. Then, visit the XP NPC and turn it off. Then go back to questing through every zone from Vanilla, BC, and WotLK (this will be the longest part of the challenge, you’ll be level 30 for a while).
Once you have finished Northrend, turn XP back on, and go to the Cata zones. Once you hit 35, turn XP off again, and finish both Cata and MoP. Rinse and repeat every 5 levels for WoD, Legion, BfA, and SL if you feel like it (I’ll leave that one optional since I know people wanna wait until 9.1.5 for more SL leveling).
Your primary form of leveling with be through quests; dungeons are optional. If you find a dungeon quest while leveling, you can choose whether to do it or not, since for the most part, I believe dungeon quests are not required for Loremaster. But some might want the additional story and rewards that they provide, which is totally fine.
This challenge is less restrictive than other leveling challenges of the past. In addition to dungeons, you are allowed to group, select talents, use potions and other buffs, and if you die, there’s no penalty. This is mostly because, especially in BC and Wrath, there are many Loremaster quests that require groups, so don’t be afraid to ask for help!
This challenge will most likely take a very long time, especially from 1-30. You will not have access to your class’s entire toolkit for most of it. At least you get flying at level 30 though, so that will help a lot. But hey, content droughts are a good time to do some fun projects like this! I will post the rules and level ranges below, as well as a summary.
RULES OF THE CHALLENGE
*Must play as a core race that starts at level 1; no Allied Races, DK’s, or DH’s allowed
*Must level through your traditional starting zone, rather than Exile’s Reach
*Must not activate Chromie time
*Must level through every zone available to your faction in Kal/EK, and every expansion then on
*Must turn off XP at level 30, 35, 40, 45, and 50, to finish all zones and quests from respective expansions
*Dungeons, professions, groups, Warmode, and buffs are all allowed, and there is no penalty for dying
*Doing endgame zones and quests is not required, but might be fun to do again if you haven’t in a while (this includes Firelands, Throne of Thunder, Tanaan Jungle, Suramar, Argus, Class campaigns, those kinds of zones)
*Must have fun; this is not optional. If sufficient fun is not had, you may be subjected to constant paper zeppelins spamming your bags (totally kidding)
LEVEL RANGES WITHOUT CHROMIE TIME
Kalimdor, Eastern Kingdoms, Outland, and Northrend: 10-30 (some zones start at a higher level than 10, but they all end at 30)
Cataclysm: 30-35
Pandaria: 30-35
Draenor: 35-40
Legion: 40-45
Kul Tiras/ Zandalar: 45-50
TL;DR: Level a character from 1 to max in every single zone, finishing the quest achievements for every zone, without activating Chromie time, and turning off XP gains where applicable, see leveling chart above and official rules above.
