Rest



Rest is a system whereby characters may accumulate a bonus modifier for experience point (XP) gains. Earning XP from certain sources while rested will grant additional XP, but will consume part of the rest state or bonus. The bonus is gained slowly while the character logged out, and more rapidly whenever the character is in an inn or city. A character's rest bonus is displayed along the top of their XP bar.

The rest bonus serves several purposes. Its presence allows players who play less often to level their characters at an increased rate, while its absence encourages players who are playing frequently or for prolonged periods to take a break, or level an alt. It can also encourage players to return to the game after time away, and can be seen as a way of discouraging game addiction. In terms of gameplay, the rest bonus encourages players to begin and end each playing session by 'resting' their player in an inn or city, which can increase immersion in the role-playing elements of the game. It can also encourage players to spend time engaging in other aspects of play such as trading and PvP.

The rest bonus is a useful and easily-obtained boost to the leveling process, and provides a good reason to log out in cities and inns, and to take regular breaks from play. However, even if constantly maintained, it represents only a fraction of the experience gained by a player while leveling, and should be viewed as a bonus and not a requisite for play.

Storing up rest
While in an inn, anywhere in a capital city or at your Garrison, your player portrait will begin to glow and your level circle will say zzz, indicating that you are resting. Characters in these locations (including characters logged off in these locations) gain rest quickly. Characters can also earn rest by logging off in other locations, although they will earn rest at a quarter of the speed.

One bubble of rested XP (5% of your current level) is earned for every 8 hours spent resting in an inn or city, or for every 32 hours spent logged off in another location. A maximum of 30 bubbles (150% of your current level) may be earned. This means that you can leave your character resting in an inn or capital city for up to 10 days (without gaining experience) before you earn the maximum amount of rest state. A fully-resting character stores up one full level of rest in 160 hours (6.67 days).

Note that rested bonus is earned relative to the character's current level. Since lower-level characters gain levels more frequently, the rested bonus is generally consumed far more quickly at these levels. For example, a fully-rested level 1 character could easily use up their rest bonus within a few minutes, while a level 50 character's full rest bonus could last for hours of play. The rested bonus can therefore be seen to be more valuable and worthwhile at higher levels.

The rate of gain of rested bonus, and the maximum amount of rested bonus, are also based on your current level, not the level at which you'll be when your rested bonus is fully consumed. At certain points in the levelling process, the XP requirements for your next level can be as much as double the requirements for your current level -- e.g., it requires about half as many XP to get from level 59 to level 60 as it does to get from level 60 to level 61. If your XP bar is nearly at the end of level 59, and you log out for 10 days, your XP bonus will only stretch about 3/4 of the way through level 60. (Some mods that show your rested bonus through the next level may not take this into account, and give you overly optimistic data.)

It may also be possible to engage the resting state while in ghost form, or dead. You also gain rested XP if you log off while on route between two flight points.

Improvements

 * The pandaren racial Inner Peace causes players to earn twice as much rested experience

Consuming rest
When rested, your XP bar will turn blue, and a notch will appear indicating exactly how rested you are. (If there isn't enough room to show it on your current XP bar, it will show up after you gain a level.) You will earn double XP from killing monsters, mining ore nodes, gathering herbs, collecting archaeology fragments, and opening chests while rested until your XP bar fills to the notch. At that point, the message
 * bossemote

will appear and you will resume normal XP gains.

When you are rested and you gain eligible XP, in the combat log it may say something like
 * 120 XP (+60 rested XP).

This means you received a total of 120 XP: 60 XP for the action, and an extra 60 rested XP.

The amount of rested bonus consumed is equal to the total amount of XP gained. In the example above, 120 rested bonus would be used, not 60.

Experience earned from exploration and quests does not consume the rested bonus. When XP is gained from these sources, the rest marker will be moved forward by as many XP as you gain from the exploration or quest, indicating that your rested reserve remains unchanged. Also if you're using the Recruit-A-Friend function, the rest marker will be pushed forward and your rested XP will not be consumed.

Displaying rest
Execute the following script to display the amount of Rested XP your character has earned: /script p="player";x=UnitXP(p);m=UnitXPMax(p);r=GetXPExhaustion;if -1==(r or -1)then t="No rest."else t="Rest: "..(math.floor(20*r/m+0.5)).." bubbles ("if r+x<m then t=t..r else t=t.."level +"..(r+x-m)end t=t.."XP)"end;DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(t)

A line will be added to your chat window displaying something similar one of these:
 * No rest.
 * Rest: 12 bubbles (23456XP)
 * Rest: 24 bubbles (level + 43251XP)
 * Rest: 54 bubbles (level + 34365267XP)

Tips
When you are about 5th or 6th level, you will receive quests to go to another town area. This town is where the first inn is available to a new character. Put another way, until you get your first 5 or 6 levels out of the way you will not happen across an inn and so you will have to 'camp out' when you logout, accumulating rest at the slower "wilderness" rate. It is easy enough to get these first five levels, so it is good to finish those quests and hurry over to the inn.

At this inn, and at all other inns that you find, you will find an innkeeper, who can bind your hearthstone to that inn. Activating your hearthstone you will move your character to that bound inn (until you do this, the hearthstone will return you to the starting zone). This is useful for rapid or unexpected logout situations; you can activate your hearthstone and log out at the inn, gaining rest.

By having at least two characters, you can rest on one while playing the other! This is one benefit of having alts.

Not required for play
Rested bonus is nice to have and use, but it is not required. Some players have been known to stop playing their characters when they have consumed all of their rested bonus. This is fine, and it is the player's choice, but know that it is not bad to play without rested bonus. Your character is not tired, nor penalized in any way. It actually takes longer to level to the current cap if you stop playing a character specifically to let rested bonus accrue because in the amount of time the bonus fills up you could easily go another level.

In short - if you're enjoying playing the character, just keep on going - rested or not. Just log out in an inn for a little bonus between sessions!

Why rest state was added
The rest state was added for a number of reasons: blizz

In the beta version of the original game, rest did not exist and experience was designed to prevent players from playing more than a few hours in a row. Experience gained was divided by 50% after few hours. However, beta-testers did not like it and rest was implemented, giving instead 200% of experience for few hours, which Blizzard's developers later reported as being the "same numbers seen from the opposite point of view".