How much do you remember hitting the level cap?

Finally reaching the highest level possible on a World of Warcraft character is not the end of the journey — more like the beginning of another chapter. While the number we’ve aimed for has varied over the decades from 60 to 120, the actual experience of hitting the end of the climb and seeing your experience bar disappear can be quite memorable, especially for the first time.

Even though I started adventuring in Azeroth just before The Burning Crusade launched, we were well into Wrath of the Lich King before I had my first max level character. I don’t remember exactly what I was doing, but I do recall that I was in Grizzly Hills and had been checking how many XP I needed after every mob kill and quest turn-in. I went AFK for about five minutes while I tried to absorb the fact that I had finally hit this milestone after playing on and off for years.

Other times have not made such an impact. Somewhere around Warlords of Draenor I hit the level cap at the end of a dungeon and didn’t even notice. The achievement pop-up got lost in the notification chaos of downing the final boss for the first time, and it wasn’t until I noticed I wasn’t getting experience anymore that I realized what had happened.

Leveling in The War Within is quite different from the long road that we had in the early years of WoW. Last week I was working on the Hallowfall storyline with my Warlock, and I happened to see that I was on level 79 with an almost completely full XP bar. I also happened to notice that there were two goats wandering nearby. It wasn’t the most iconic way to reach a major power milestone for a legendary hero of Azeroth, but I’m positive that I’ll remember slaying two goats and seeing the level 80 achievement pop up for quite a while.

So how well do you remember finally arriving at the level cap for the first time? Many players have only done it a handful of times (or fewer), but I’m sure there are some who have seen the max-level message hundreds of times. What are your memorable max level moment stories?