Originally Posted by
Nikkaszal
A long damn time
You don't just hit 50 and move straight into the expac, you have to do the ENTIRE main story including all the additional quests that got patched in over the years before you're allowed to get into Heavensward content. I hit 50 pretty easily and then still had a couple weeks finishing off the story before moving on.
The lvl 50 content gives a fraction of the amount of exp that Heavensward does, and even still I was almost 57 before moving into the expac, doing nothing but main story and dungeon dailies.
Long story short - ignore sidequests entirely (unless they have a blue quest marker, which means they unlock something important).