Breakfast Topic: Heirloom excitement

In short, heirloom items rock. They rock so much, in fact, WoW.com user James Peripheral wrote in his blog about the very coolness of heirloom items. He mentions how, even at Level 5 (or Level 1 for that matter), a character can look absolutely dapper or "looking like he owns Eastern Plagulands". That seems to be a bonus of account-bound items -- they allow players to skip the clown phase of leveling. What's your take on heirloom gear? We know you all love them (if you don't, you probably have issues...), so tell us about your experience with them. Head on over to James' blog, too, to share your thoughts. Even better, why not write your heirloom experiences in your WoW.com account blog and tell others about them? We'd love to hear your hand-me-down stories.
Filed under: Items, Breakfast Topics, Leveling
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
Rotclaw May 27th 2009 10:16AM
zmoe: Actually, assuming both kids are around 2, she would have been 27 when she had the baby. No teen pregnancy here, move along...
xavierlives May 27th 2009 11:18AM
I hope you aren't making these "17 year old" comments from school.
Psst. Your math teacher is calling your name... right now!
Wulfkin May 27th 2009 8:24AM
I think they're a good idea, partly because they're fun but mostly because its an adaptation to the current nature of the game. WoW has reached the stage that all successful MMOs do when the low-level zones becomes a ghost world. Whilst fun for alts and new players, these areas become less somewhere to bask in and more something to play through so as to be able to play higher-level content with other players. Heirlooms help with that process comfortably.
Pexxle -=SilverHand (RP)=- May 27th 2009 8:35AM
Well said Wulfkin.
Jamison May 27th 2009 8:31AM
I wish they'd extend heirloom items to other useful things. Like being able to buy a movement-freeing trinket that you can trade between toons would be awesome. Or a special fishing pole that could get passed along to each toon would be cool too.
chaac May 27th 2009 8:38AM
http://www.wowwiki.com/Inherited_Insignia_of_the_Alliance Something like that?
Fedya May 27th 2009 8:41AM
"Like being able to buy a movement-freeing trinket that you can trade between toons would be awesome."
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=44098
Evelinda May 27th 2009 9:12AM
I'd just like MORE heirlooms, personally... some sort of shield and off-hand item would be super, and it might be nice to have a libram/sigil/totem/relic, seeing as you generally wont be getting one of those for 60+ levels anyway...
Candina@WH May 27th 2009 9:50AM
I would like to see an Heirloom Customizable tabard. While guild tabards are great, I would like something that said 'this is me' across all my toons sometimes.
Microtonal May 27th 2009 1:22PM
@ Candina:
The best I've been able to find in that regard is to buy the same kind of shirt for all my toons. I think most of my characters are sporting a Red Linen Shirt at the moment. I've just been too lazy to really make sure that everyone has one.
artifex May 28th 2009 11:38AM
Candina: All my alts on my primary server (but not my main) belong to a guild I set up just for them. I've been thinking about making a tabard for a while, too.
Matt May 27th 2009 8:36AM
I agree heirloom items rock but they suffer from the same problem all account bound items have and that is you can't give them to characters on your account of the other faction or another server.
Why I care is because I have always played Horde a few months ago I switched to alliance to play with some rl friends. My Horde characters had everything they could want from the game money, pets, embelems and stone keeper shards i enough number to take care of a new toon if they were horde. But they weren't so I had to take the slow road. Not that I care per say I would just like if an item is account bound that you be move it to all the characters on your account not just the ones that you can mail stuff too. I knows that is not a simple matter, and If could it bulk I would even be happy to pay for it. But It would have saved me a lot of time and trouble if my horde characters had been able to get my alliance character heirloom gear.
Benny May 27th 2009 8:34AM
Personally I'd like to see an option to make items into heirlooms. We've all got a piece of gear thats our favourite from a lower level thats just useless to use now. I still keep my Sin'Dorei Warblade as a ceremonial sword in my backpack, but it would be nice to get it so its stats scale upto something similar to a low level 80 item
Legendary items should scale as well so that they maintain their awesomeness even with new content patches coming out
I just overall feel the scaling mechanic has further use outside of how its currently being used
Realmreaver May 27th 2009 9:07AM
I agree! mostly.. legendary should NOT be heirlooms because as they scale they would scale as green level items meaning the next level you'd lose stats not to mention there is no developer in their right mind that would want a legendary weapon scale cause they would make other legendary weapons obsolete.
But yes I'd love to turn an old set of greens (dear ord did some of them look awesome) into heirlooms.
Dah May 27th 2009 8:36AM
Heirloom items are awesome, but sadly some classes are skipped over. Where is the feral druid staff and the slow 1 handers for enhance shaman???
Realmreaver May 27th 2009 9:07AM
I love the concept but why not have full sets of heirloom gear? Why not make them more easily obtainable? I know I sure as hell am NOT gonna level another toon from 1 to 80 and these items might make me rethink it.
Great idea? Short on results cause the people who need them the most (casuals) seemingly have the most difficult time getting them.
Freak Mojo May 27th 2009 8:40AM
So how do I actually get heirloom items?
I've heard about them, now read about them, but have no idea what I need to do to get them or how to use them.
My altaholism would greatly appreciate the knowledge :)
pietrex May 27th 2009 8:51AM
I suppose it is written somewhere here, but in brief: you need a lvl 80 character who can do heroic dungeons or pre-3.1 10-man raids (Naxx, OS, EoE, VoA). The bosses you kill drop Emblems of Heroism, the currency you need to buy some epics and heirlooms. There's also another way - but it also requires a high level character (68 at least I guess). When your faction controls Wintergrasp, you get Stone Keeper's Shards ("weeklies" in Wintergrasp award them as well). They allow you too get different, more PvP-oriented Heirlooms.
For shoulders (which are the most popular ones because of the exp bonus), you need either 40 Emblems or 200 Shards.
Heirlooms are used as any other piece of gear, you just wear them. However, you can send them between your characters on the same realm (and faction). Their statistics increase with your toon's level, so you don't have to replace them at all.
Here's a list of all heirloom items: http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=7.
Hope it helped.
Ok, that wasn't brief at all. Lol.
pietrex May 27th 2009 8:52AM
Forgot one thing - Stone Keeper's Shards drop from every Northrend instance boss.
Freak Mojo May 27th 2009 9:07AM
Thank you so much! That was exactly what I was looking for.
So basically I'll have to play in Wintergrasp to have any hopes of getting such items. My main is only 73 and will never see the heroic side of any dungeons, so at least I know there's another way.
Thanks again.