Heirlooms for every slot
by Mike Schramm 
Aug 7th 2009 at 3:00PM
I've been pushing forward on my Paladin lately, and so I've entered the wacky world of Heirlooms. I have already picked up the leather Heirloom shoulders (thinking that even though the Pally wears plate, if I ever want to level a Druid or Rogue, I'll have them), and I'm well on my way to grabbing the new Heirloom chestpiece as well -- 20% bonus XP, combined with a healthy amount of rested XP, should make the leveling curve as easy as it gets (RaF is nice too, I guess, but I'd rather not pay for a second account). So I'm in Heirlooms up to my neck (at least until they give us helms), and I was intrigued by this question over on the Rawrcast forums: do you think Blizzard will eventually provide Heirloom items for every slot?20% is already a significant bonus to killing and questing XP, and rested technically provides a 50% bonus. But with ten Heirlooms in 10 slots (we'll leave out weapons, since those don't have the 10% XP bonus, as well as shirts and tabards, and rings and trinkets for now), you're looking at a 100% XP bonus even without Rest. The current average 80 probably spent about 14 days leveling up, so with an extra 100% bonus, you're looking at seven days /played, or very close to the current record. At that point, Blizzard might as well let us grant levels to each other.
Then there's the other point brought up: dressed up in Heirlooms, who cares about your gear? I'd argue that's not as big a deal -- when I'm leveling, all I need from my gear is enough DPS to get the job done, so I don't worry about min/maxing or going for the pretty stuff. But yes, it seems unlikely that Blizzard would ever outfit us in full Heirloom gear, especially with the XP bonus. Even if another couple of expansions take us up to level 100, just making the leveling faster doesn't seem like the best way to do it.
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Instances, Leveling
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Barinthos Aug 7th 2009 3:08PM
After leveling 3 toons to 80 I would love full Heirloom gear. But since that's not an option I opted to go for the RaF route, 300% increased exp is the fastest way to level another toon to 80. Granted it stops at 60, but I'll only have to grind out those last 20 levels the "normal" way. I'll live with that.
dgcollins274 Aug 7th 2009 4:14PM
I don't think it's fair to ask someone to buy a new account just to level faster.
I think Heirlooms are a great balance. They make leveling more fun, without making it trivial. You still learn your class, You get to improve your gear every level, and all your gear is itemized correctly.
I'm someone who enjoys leveling in general. Never been someone who just rushes to max to raid. I don't see Heirlooms as a way to bypass leveling, i see it as a way to enhance it.
Barinthos Aug 7th 2009 4:17PM
Well I have a couple characters that I levels on different servers that I already know how to play to 20+, but instead of paying $25 per character I'd just buy the other account and enjoy playing them over again...but a bit faster lol.
I'm also trying to catch up to my wife's Shaman's level, so the faster I can get there the better. :P
Matthew Aug 7th 2009 3:10PM
I still thought the point of leveling though was to learn your character!!!
elvendude Aug 7th 2009 3:18PM
True. But what do you learn from Azeroth gear? What itemization was like 15 patches ago? That's not useful. Heirloom does not keep you from learning your class.
Matthew Aug 7th 2009 3:23PM
elvendude, Agreed, but leveling so quickly can cause you to skip some basics. Not to say I don't or won't use Heirloom or RaF, but the easier it gets, the less the player is prepared for end game content!
Ray Aug 7th 2009 3:28PM
Well, frankly you don't really "learn" your character that well while doing a turbo-leveling-hurdle to get to end-game raiding asap. I for instance have ended up using about the three main nukes/moves or each character type I have as alts and just bruteforced my way to 80 and only then can one really begin learning how to _play_ that character class.
Heck, still today I haven't healed even an HC with my priest even thou he's dual spec shadow/holy and farming Naxx-25 at the moment. I'm still learning how to do the shadow priest button/macro dance to get the rotation just-so. Same was with my old main mage during TBC end-game - I had barely even acknowledged spells like Polymorph or Remove Curse before I began raiding Karazhan!
The whole leveling stuff is to milk your monthly fees for a good 6-9 months before you can realistically hit level cap and begin raiding and these RAF & Heirloom & Wintergrasp +xp% bonuses are a way Blizz is trying to not kill the game a) for newcomers with a too long a grind (I've had two friends who both quit at abt. lv56 out of discust and boredom when TBC came out - took them a year to get there...) and b) try to cater for us veterans with a want to have a few alts to facilitate the grind with Heirlooms (that still require alot of PvP/HC's/grinding to get in the first place and are inaccessible for first timers. This ofc is nice that Blizz seems to listen to our QQ, but I'd still happily welcome more +xp gear - loved RAF to get my 8 alts up to lv61 in a flash (you can level your toon to 99,9% of your xp-bar and then grant levels to lv60 to them. The RAF level granter will just add a whole level to your character and not zero the accumulated xp %. Therefore you will end up with toons of level 60 with 99,9% of xp gathered and 1 killed boar will put you over to lv61 ;-) Worked wonders when I brought up my old trusty lv29 PvP rogue at 99% xp with grants to 60 and dinged to 61 with my first hellboar at the Honor Hold gates...
ashraith Aug 7th 2009 3:31PM
leveling a druid as feral and healing in endgame
leveling a warrior as dps and tanking in endgame
etc...
the playstyle is often very different between leveling and raiding
theRaptor Aug 7th 2009 3:31PM
@Matthew
Basics like what? In WotLK most classes don't need to use their utility abilities and just need to min-max for their role (I wouldn't be surprised meeting a mage these days that didn't know what "polymorph" was). And IMO Old World content is teaching people the wrong basics more than it serves as an instruction to how to play your class. It is the reason you see hunters gemming for spirit and int. I mean they put spirit on warrior armor ffs. Going through the old world is like watching someone trying to connect a Colecovision to a HD TV.
TBH next expansion they need to go back over the levelling experience and start new characters at a boosted level with a condensed number of abilities (eg they should get rid of all the other heals besides Flash Heal and Greater Heal for priests, they have made those other abilities redundant since before BC).
Helicase Aug 7th 2009 3:45PM
That's why, when I'm leveling an alt with heirlooms, I make sure to get the Northrend Dungeonmaster achievement. It's a better way to learn your class than killing 15 wolves or gathering ten pieces of scrap metal.
Bullseyed Aug 7th 2009 3:58PM
Anyone who thinks leveling is to learn your character isn't very bright....
Lets go over what I learned on my druid so far from 1 to 17.
-Bear form is for dps
-It is important to shift out of bear form to keep moonfire up
-Rage bar never goes over 20
-Spam my 2 key as fast as I can to queue my 'on next swing' ability
I'll try it in a Naxx pug when I hit 80 and see what happens.
Eddy Aug 7th 2009 4:25PM
I don't know, I think leveling at least gives you some spaced-out options to test one or two new abilities at a time. I had RAF to level my mage, then I powerleveled my lv 20 rogue to 50. Now I don't have a clue what any of his new moves do and I haven't played him since.
ragingkittai Aug 7th 2009 4:41PM
The spacing in learning new moves is what's important. Sure, you don't learn exactly what to do in raid, but you understand the mechanics and/or gimmicks on some of your moves. Try making a premade of a different class on a PTR. You can read elitist jerks all you want, but you'll still be a bit shaky when it comes to actually trying to attack the dummy.
For example, leveling as a hunter, when you get feign death at level 30, you aren't overwhelmed because you only have that and a couple other moves to worry about. You get the "feel" for that move, knowing whether you have to stay down, when it will get resisted, and so on. This isn't a big deal when it comes to raiding, sure, but the better you know your abilities, the better you are. Even if it is something indirect like a split second of hesitation because you don't have the feel of your moves, it will hurt your DPS.
dgcollins274 Aug 7th 2009 4:59PM
The only way you could argue that Heirlooms take away from your learning process is that you do not have to choose gear i.e. you don't learn how to itemize.
But if you already have one level 80 toon buying your Heirlooms then you alredy know the basics of itemization. And you choose the Heirlooms in the first place, so you are itemizing yourself. And looking at the stats on Heirloom items will only further embrace the correct stats you should have. "well my Heirloom has all stam/str/atk pwr .... i should look for other gear that has the same stats."
The +20% xp (or 40% if they put it on head/pants) does quicken the leveling. But not to a point that it makes your levels irrelevant.
dgcollins274 Aug 7th 2009 5:31PM
I don't think it's fair to compare Heirlooms to RaF. Ones 300%+instant levels for $, other is +20% for lv.80 items.
PvtDeth Aug 7th 2009 7:56PM
For a rogue, yeah, it really helps to practice new abilities as you level. You're going to be using abilities from all three trees at 80. But healing and tank classes are very clearly not intended to level in the same spec that they will use at max level. I'm lvling a shaman enh fully intending to switch him to resto at 80. There's no way I'd lvl resto and we only recently got the option of dual spec.
Personally, I think this makes dual spec alot more necessary than it ever was before. At one time, playing your character all the way from 1-60 was what the game was about. Now it's about playing at 80 only. So, you could have a good play experience as a lvl 45 prot warrior or holy priest at one point, but now it would be masochism. (Maybe not so much the warrior.)
Solution, imo: greatly reduce the cost of dual spec so that people can have some clue what they're doing when they get to 80. My newly dual-specced tree druid would have appreciated that.
Zarzuur Aug 8th 2009 8:21AM
Anyone who claims RaF is better for learning a character are not credible altoholics, they just think less of the levelling process because it is now easy to exploit RaF. Heirlooms aren't so bad to 10%/20%, but still it is like opening the gates for people who never bothered doing it _normally_ pre-Wrath. And levelling used to be a noob-filter, but now anyone can be a Deathtard, go to lvl XYZ instantly and then proclaim they have "skillz" of all the lower levels they missed. The days /played needed should always be constant.
@Bullseyed, because Cat form is only available at lvl 20, OF COURSE then Bear form is a viable DPS, so comparing lvl 17 to Naxx is idiotic.
@Ray "loved RAF to get my 8 alts up to lv61 in a flash", well a flash is not long enough to learn anything. Skipping the game 8 times and claiming all those points is mindless nonsense. They are not a veteran, they have no idea what levelling might teach, they have literally skipped 8x60 (480!) levels.
Viper007Bond Aug 7th 2009 3:13PM
I think it's fine as-is, or maybe one or two more. Otherwise you'd never be using quest rewards which is a major part of the game.
dgcollins274 Aug 7th 2009 3:55PM
But by the time you're leveling your umpteen alt, the quest rewards feel more like a restriction than a fun experiance/carrot. It's more like "Now i have to make sure i stay in XR, so i can begin the WC quest chain, run to each oasis, kill some turtle, run to TB, so i can get the sword/staff i want" And the whole time you are a zombie because you've done it so many times. But since it's the best way to get what you want, you grind through it again.
If you had all heirloom items, then you could explore new areas you've never leveled in before without feeling like you're gimping your leveling.
Viper007Bond Aug 7th 2009 4:19PM
Hmm, a valid point. I change my opinion then.