Rest Rest is a device that allows more casual gamers to stay somewhat on par with other players , as to character level . It ' s also a clever device to encourage less - active players to keep their accounts , making players want to come back and play some more after some time away from the game . Rest also adds more value to the subscription fee . In light of the controversy of game addiction , rest also gives players reason to cease play . Blizzard has also stated that World of Warcraft play should be taken in moderation according to loading screen tips . Execute the following script to display the amount of Rested XP your character has earned : A line will be added to your chat window displaying something similar to one of these : Storing up rest . While in an inn or anywhere in a capital city , your player portrait will begin to glow and your level circle will say " zzz " , indicating that you are resting . If you log off here , you will continue to rest while offline . One bubble of rested XP ( 5 % of a level ) is earned for every 8 hours spent resting . A maximum of 30 bubbles ( 150 % of a level ) may be earned . In other words , 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 , and a resting character stores up one full level of rest in 160 hours ( 6 days , 16 hours ) . You also become rested while logged off in the wilderness , but the accumulation is slower . When logged off " outside , " rest is gained at a quarter of the rate in an inn , or one bar every 32 hours . It may also be possible to engage the resting state while in ghost form , or dead . Consuming rest . When rested , your XP bar will turn blue , and a notch will appear indicating exactly how rested you are . You will earn double XP from killing monsters while rested until your XP bar fills to the notch . A rested character earns double combat XP until this rest state is consumed , at which point the message appears and you resume normal XP gains for kills . NOTE : Your rested state marker - notch can go off the right side of your XP bar such that you won ' t see it until you gain at least one level . When you are rested , when you kill a monster , in the combat log it may say something like This means you received a total of 120 XP : 60 XP for killing the monster , and an extra 60 rested XP . A note on consuming rested XP : Imagine the script above showed you had 5000 rested XP . Then , you earn 120 XP for killing a mob ( 60 kill XP , 60 rested XP ) . You would now have 5000 - 120 ( 4880 ) rested XP left , not 5000 - 60 ( 4940 ) . The extra XP that you got " ( + 60 rested XP ) " was not the only XP pulled from your rested XP pool . Non - combat experience such as exploration and quest experience does not consume rest state . But XP gained by farming herbs and collecting Archaeology fragment s ( possible with Cataclysm ) does . The amount of XP gotten this way is quite impressive at higher levels . The rest marker will be moved forward by as many XP as you gain from the exploration or quest . 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 . Further information . 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 . This is useful for rapid or unexpected logout situations ; you can activate your hearthstone and log out at the inn , gaining rest . Since rest XP is based on percentage , higher level characters will receive higher absolute rest xp . So the higher your level , the better rest is for you . By having at least two characters , you can rest on one while playing the other ! This is one pro benefit of having alts . In Wrath of the Lich King . As of Patch 3 . 0 . 9 , there is a glitch in the inn ' s bonus rest while logged out in that after you hearthstone to an inn , you have to leave the inn and re - enter before your character ' s icon indicates resting by glowing . It isn ' t immediately apparent because you don ' t receive the " 20 seconds until logout " that you would in the wilderness . This doesn ' t seem to be a problem when hearthstoning to an inn within a major city . In Cataclysm . At the launch of " " , rested XP was reset to zero for all characters . World of Warcraft Beta . In the beta version of the original game , rest did not exist and experience was designed to prevent players from playing more than few hours in a row . Experience gained was simply halved 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 " " .