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 3 of 5)
SarahTheGnome May 27th 2009 9:58AM
The explanation was perfect! So I have nothing to add, just addressing your question about having to do Wintergrasp. You don't actually. You get a buff when your faction wins Wintergrasp, doesn't matter if you participated or not. When you then do instances, whether they be normal or heroic, it doesn't matter as long as they are Northrend instances, stonekeeper's shards will drop from every boss!
I have a gazillion of the stupid things and I never do Wintergrasp. I have bought the shoulders and the mount, now I just... let them sit there, and all this without ever stepping foot in Wintergrasp itself!
pietrex May 27th 2009 8:42AM
I their functionality (increased stats and experience gains), but I'm pretty tired of the appearance. It's quite boring to see the same shoulders for 80 levels, on one or more characters. What is more, some of them look really bad, with poor textures (e.g. the Hunter ones). It's not very troublesome until I go to Northrend, but when I do, I'd like to wear some of the quest ones, which look much better. But I don't, because I don't want to lose the stats and exp bonus. I would be much happier if the exp gain was included in trinkets, which you can't see anyway.
kvanje May 27th 2009 8:44AM
I wish they could be transferred to the other faction, or even another server - in other words, that they were truly account bound. I level alts for three reasons: to experience a different race, to experience a different class and to have "insurance" against server downtime. Heirlooms lose a lot of their usefulness in this scenario.
Jay May 27th 2009 9:46AM
I'm taking a pass on using the the boa gear. The fun part of going back and leveling a new character (for me) is experiencing the vanilla part of the game...including the gear. It's not really a race to 80 for me as much as a way to spend my free time.
Besides...I had to laugh when I saw a lvl 8 hunter with these huge shoulders.
ash May 27th 2009 9:17AM
I wish they made more heirloom items available from different sources. Like what about all that token stuff you can get from Warsong, Arathi or Alterac - they should make heirloom versions available for that stuff.
Marie May 27th 2009 9:20AM
I agree with above posts regarding the issue of account bound. I dont understand why it is called that and we cant use them on other toons on another fraction/ realm. I am REALLY hoping blizzard will fix this soon so I can get me ally hunter to 80 asp :) If it is not account bound only dont call it it that. Call it account realm bound!
snowleopard233 May 27th 2009 9:22AM
OMG Those pictures are absolutely adorable.
Hal May 27th 2009 9:26AM
I really enjoy them, but I wish that there was a bit more variety to them.
It's a rough balance. Too much gear, and players are wearing the same thing from 1-80 until they start doing heroics or raids. As it stands, there doesn't feel like enough gear exists for each class or spec. For example, I think some people might trade in the caster staff for an heirloom wand.
I'd be excited about an heirloom trinket that increased your speed (mounted or not). One of the most painful things about leveling an alt is going back to foot travel until level 30.
Chuckles May 27th 2009 10:37AM
Excellent idea, Putting in an item("Inherited Steed"?) which means you can use a normal mount from level 1 would make the levelling process so much less painful. Darkshore, for example, is unpleasant enough to traverse on an epic mount, On foot, it's agonising.
I'm all for more heirloom items, and complete heirloom gear sets with stacking xp bonuses, for example. Blizz have already endorsed crazy-fast levelling with Recruit-a-friend, why not continue the trend with Heirlooms?
Lewis May 27th 2009 9:34AM
Personally, I want more heirloom armour. We've got the shoulders from dungeons... Now, how about adding the rest of the gear? I want to make level ones armoured with Lightforge, or Valor - not just the shoulders.
Neyssa May 27th 2009 9:37AM
I very much like the idea of scaling whilst leveling. However, for non-alts I would make a leveling dungeon set. Like, you pick up the level-scaling legs in some heroic version of Deadmines (make it so that you cannot do the heroic mode with high level character in team). Then, you get the shoulders in Scarlet, etc. It would be a kind of quest line spawning from lvl1-80, and I wish the design could be different my races (I know, making BE hunter / Tauren hunter /troll hunter gear sucks, but wouldnt it be awesome?). It should also provide some advantage for lvl 80 characters, to show off that they did go extra rounds whilst leveling. Some quests could involve using your character skills to the limit, and it would also show that you learned your class in and out while leveling. What do you guys think?
Cyrus May 27th 2009 9:43AM
Here's yet another person wishing they were truly account bound. I have horde alts on another server from my alliance characters, and now that my dwarf death knight is done with the shoulders it would be nice to pass them on to my 75 blood elf paladin for the home stretch, and/or my 61 orc DK, instead of having them languish on my alliance bank alt.
The only alt I'm leveling seriously right now is a level 24 gnome rogue. I've already bought him the pve shoulders, but all along I've been torn on whether to get him weapons and trinkets as well - the whole nine yards. Pro: leveling would be even quicker and easier. I'd never need to waste time or money on upgrades to his weapons. He'd look a little better. Con: leveling is already pretty easy, so it's not like I need them. And I don't want to have a dagger in one hand and a sword in the other. (Counterargument: why not? Cheap shot becomes available soon, that's just as good an opener as ambush. And like I said, I'm leveling, I don't need to worry about talents that aren't quite the best or whatever.) And I want to save my Emblems of Heroism for the 200-emblem mammoth. (Counterargument: I'm not saving Stone Keeper Shards for anything, though.)
Hmmm. I think I just talked myself into buying him more heirloom items, at least the PvP ones. Even if I never PvP with him - and "never" is a long time - those Stone Keeper Shards are just gathering dust. Might as well put them to good use.
SaintStryfe May 27th 2009 9:46AM
A one handed DPS mace, fist or axe for my Shaman and Warrior, please.
pietrex May 27th 2009 10:19AM
I like their functionality*
pietrex May 27th 2009 10:21AM
Uh, fail at replying to myself.
Sel May 27th 2009 10:41AM
That picture is just priceless.
karoneya May 27th 2009 10:31AM
What I would REALLY like is an heirloom (epic-speed) mount, ridable at level 1.
The thing that drives me nuts about levelling is how I have to run by foot the first 30 levels and then with a slow mount the next 30 levels. This was all fine for my first character - slowly exploring an unknown world is fun and even useful all for your first character, but when it comes to alts - IT IS SO DAMN SLOOOOOW.
We get good heirloom gear that speeds up questing and killing mobs and the whole levelling process has been sped up - but that only means I spend relatively MORE time running, say, back and forth between Darkshire and Raven Hill Cemetary.
Also, an heirloom mount would make sense from a character perspective: Some characters are poor upstarts and have to work their way up in society. However, our alts are spoiled members of a wealthy family, hence they get good gear AND know how to friggin ride and get a pony/porche/epic mount right at graduation day.
Gessilea May 27th 2009 10:49AM
First, those are a couple of freaking adorable babies.
Second, I quite enjoy the heirloom items. I've just gotten the shoulders though - as other folk mention, I like upgrading my weapons. The xp boost from the shoulders is just too good to pass up. Somewhat embarrassingly, I'm using the cloth shoulders I bought for my moonkin on my DK right now as I don't instance enough to afford the melee dps ones yet. So I look like a noob, ah well!
Daerth May 27th 2009 10:51AM
More heirlooms plox.
Caz May 27th 2009 10:53AM
I toyed with the idea of buying heirloom items for my lowbie druid, until I remembered why I made the druid in the first place - to escape end-game content and my guild. Levelling him faster and skipping old-world content would sort of defeat the purpose of playing him in the first place. I love the old lower level instances and some of that gear is too much fun to pass up right now.
Maybe in the future I'll pick some up, but I only have the one alt, other than a banker toon so it doesn't seem necessary yet.