You get most of the quests transmog automatically with Threads of Fate, too.
I haven’t timed runs but TOF at least mixed with storymode in bastion till about 56 feels way better. Mentally if feels faster to me not slogging through stories not liked so much. Like Maldruxxus…not a loved place this area.
Also even in story mode the actual story quests are lesser xp than side quests. TOF still sees these side quests so you have that minus the 8k pops of story.
And even as dps waiting up to say 20 minutes between runs on a good day I get solid dungeon crews and fast clears. For say 20 minutes of dungeon time I will pull in more xp than the same time in 8k story pulls. even 3 in 20 minutes is 24k. Get a decent dungeon run…50k in 20 minutes.
Rough frame of reference this char if site updated smoother would show 58.5. I had the day off yesterday and chilled most of playing wow. Only time saver was the Monday night prior I did the maw intro…again. So the tuesday it could be hit the street running.
I want to say about 6 hours ish in bastion light dungeon work to hit 55. Vengeance allows me to clear the kill rare bounty quests solo so that helps not waiting for people.
Havoc (I open world vdh, dungeon havoc) weak geared is even weaker so I to be kind to my fellow team members waited till about 54 and some gear to sign up. Not alot of pops. I did get necrotic when needed after I saw its dungeon quest at zone end…so yay me. 2 birds 1 stone.
I went TOF then. did some irl things got in about 2 hours before I saw DT was coming when that was done. A big xp gainer was Night fae mist dungeon quest and a mist hit. 50K + 50 K equals 100, on jsut 1 run. And someone was a maze master…so smooth as silk there.
2 area 100% bars turn ins got me at 58.5 to close the night. so 8 to 9 hours to 58.5 I can’t complain too much. IRL may suck next 2 days so that final 1.5 may be a bit.
Okay so an UPDATE**
I picked ToF. My character is a Monk. I turned ToF on RIGHT as I left the Maw, so the first level or two were a bit slow going because I wasn’t able to queue up for dungeons until I hit 80 ilvl, and as you’d expect the quests/WQ were a tad bit harder with low gear. After I hit 51-52 from questing I noticed a dramatic increase in speed. I would generally do the side-quests surrounding the WQ in the area and kill a few birds with 1 stone, plus the side quests give more exp than story mode quests, which yeilds a lot of experience, and tank queuing was instant and fast. If you run keys at high level you can do the same routes and make the dungeons go by a lot faster. Within 3 hours my character went from level 50 to 54, and about ~1 hour per level thereafter.
The biggest thing for me, after leveling 6 level 60’s now, was not having to put up with the mind numbing story line again. This alone made it feel faster.