You have reached level 21!
Your shoulders have gained 1 point of armor,
1 point of agility,
1 point of stamina,
1 point of attack power,
and 1 point of resilience!
That isn't actually what happens, but it was interesting to take a look at my shiny new [Exceptional Stormshroud Shoulders] when my rogue gained her first level wearing them. My very first heirloom item does not disappoint (poor Cheery had been wearing [Brocade Shoulderpads] for lack of anything else). It's nice to know that I've going to have a level appropriate pair of shoulders from now possibly all the way through level 80. It's too bad gear can't always level with you, but I guess they need some form of non-level advancement in the game for max level.
The only real catch to them is that they have to go unenchanted because there aren't (to my knowledge anyway) unbound shoulder enchants that work on ilvl 1 items. On a character like my rogue, who doesn't have rep with the Aldor/Scryers at the moment, that's not a huge deal. For a character like, say, my Pally, losing out on the exalted shoulder enchants in level 70+ content is a substantial hit in stats. Then again, there is no other source of experience boost in the game at the moment, so weigh that accordingly.
Speaking of experience...
The 10% kill bonus stacks with the rested exp bonus. The upshot? As a freshly dinged level 21, I was a mere 59 kills away from level 22. It's been so long since I leveled a character in this region that I don't know exactly how that compares to the old school rate of experience, but I'm guessing it's pretty darned fast. I suspect that I'll be paying Cheery a visit once a week to burn off her rested exp state, and probably be picking up a level each time I do so. Not a bad deal, though I'd still argue that the bar is too high for non-DK alts compared to instant level 55 DK's complete with epic ground mount and gear.
You can put pre-bc enchants on heirlooms items but that's about it.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget you don't need to repair that item
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you could mail a Heirloom item between 2+ characters as you're logging back and forth between them right?
ReplyDeleteI.e. Grind a level or two on your hunter, then mail the shoulders to the shammie and burn some rested XP, then back to the hunter. There's no cooldown or delay in the mail-system?
Whoa, whoa, whoa... I just got back into WoW. What the heck is this all about?
ReplyDeleteYes Michael you can mail it back and forth as long as both characters are on one account.
ReplyDeleteIf you send an item to your alt there will be no delay unlike sending an item to one of your friends which takes ... awhile.
@jo
The emblems that you receive from Bosses from Heroics or 10mans can be traded in for your own gear or heirloom item for your alts.
@Herc: Yeah, and, again, AFAIK there are no unbound pre-TBC shoulder enchants. I'm presuming the Zandalar one would fail because the item that grants it is soulbound. The Heavy Knothide Armor Kit, and its Borean upgrades, is unbound but requires a level 60 item. Heirloom weapons do take pre-TBC enchants - I'm thinking Lifestealing for the rogue daggers (perhaps switching to 15 agi if I'm still using them past 60), and I'm not looking forward to scouring Trade for enchanters who have the old Spell Power enchant from MC for when I get one of the caster Staves.
ReplyDelete@Michael: Yeah, there's no more mail delay for any mail, whether it has items, heirlooms, or cash, sent between characters on the same account, so you can definitely juggle your one heirloom if you're so inclined. If you meet the criteria for account-to-account transfers, you should even be able to ship the heirloom (on a character) to another account within your family, though the item would then be on the new account instead of the old one.
@JoBildo: To ellaborate a bit on Herc's comment, I think Blizzard was looking for ways to provide incentives to keep running the level 80 5-man group content, even after you've got what you need for your main. Account bound items can be mailed to other characters on the same account (subject to the normal server/faction restrictions) and scale down in stats to the alt. Not necessarily the best solution if you wanted more progression for your main, but it's not a bad token sink, all considered. The bad news is that the current items are only available at 80 (well, maybe you can snag the Wintergrasp ones sooner, but it would be difficult).
The tokens used to get the herloom items? Are they new lvl 80 badges, or can the old level 70 badges be used in any way toward the items?
ReplyDeleteI am now the proud owner of WotLK, and will be starting up leveling Moranin in ~2 weeks (had to promise the husband I'd wait 'till he was back in law school classes before I restarted WoW) just wondering if there will be an actual use for all my hoarded badges!
Sadly, the old level 70 badges aren't useful for much of anything anymore. Maybe Primal Nethers still sell or something, I dunno. I've probably got 13 or so on Green that I never managed to cash in.
ReplyDeleteThe two types of tokens that can be used on heirloom items are the emblem of heroism (drops one per boss in heroic 5-man and 10-man raid content) and the Stone Keeper's Shard (up to 10 per day via Wintergrasp daily quests, and Northrend instances bosses drop 1-4 based on difficulty when your faction owns Wintergrasp - the early instances are 1 per boss, mid 70's are 2 per boss, level 80's are 3 per boss, and heroics are a whopping four per boss).
Aah well it was too much to hope for, I guess.
ReplyDeleteAlthough maybe I'll do some PVD digging to see if you covered (pre-expansion) what a non-raiding mage could get from the badge vendor at 70!
That was a bit before my time - since I spent the remainder of the TBC era post-PS guildless, I didn't have much of a chance to farm badges at 70. You might check:
ReplyDeleteList of all Badge items sorted by badge cost (note that the epic gems are all worthless because Northrend uncommon cuts are better):
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29434#currency-for:0+13+1
Said list filtered for items that a mage can technically equip, sorted by item level (not a perfect proxy for cost):
http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=ub=8;cr=118;crs=29434;crv=0#0+2+1