With the prepatch out now, one of the defining rewards for participating is the heirloom ring. Unfortunately, the state that heirlooms are in makes these rewards uninteresting and feel not worth it to get.
Those of us that were around prior to when heirlooms were nerfed can attest how much better they were than they are now. Previously, they were without question the best gear the average person could get to level with while simultanously granting bonus’ to experience upwards of 55% for wearing a full set. This changed in shadowlands and was, in my opinion, the worst change they could have made for the leveling experience.
The reason given to why these changes were taking place was because the level squish was going to make leveling much faster and rather than keeping the experience bonus and strength of the heirlooms, they were nerfed to the state that they are today.
Why is this a problem? The answer to that is (3) parts:
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Experience Value
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The experience value of the previous iteration was, as mentioned, around 55% for a full set of flat bonus experience from all sources with rings and cloaks providing additional xp from mobs and quest rewards.
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The current set’s xp bonus is limited to only extending the duration of your rested xp rewards. This means it could legitimately offer 0% value in terms of xp gains if you choose not to wait for rested xp. This contradicts the WHOLE reason that most people got heirlooms in the first place, which was to level quickly. The only way to get rested xp is to not play as it is acrued at an abysmal rate of 5% per 8 hours of rest in capital cities and 1.25% per 8 hours outside of capital cities. In other words, with the current heirlooms, it’s better for me make my character, get them to the capital city and then log off and wait for 10 full days IRL, which is how long it takes to get a full rested xp bar, and then log in and play so I can get full use of my heirloom gear. To put it bluntly, this is stupid, and whoever made this as the trade-off for the removal of the experience bonus should be forced to only level their characters from hence forth utilizing rested xp only. Needless to say, these are not even close to the same
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Power Value
- Previous iteration was very powerful and you could 1 shot mobs out in the wild while questing. No gear outside of heirlooms or twink gear was anywhere near as powerful.
- Current heirlooms are outpaced by quest blues and sometimes greens even when they’re upgraded. You never feel strong, you always feel as strong as the average new player. They do not speed up game play or questing unless you factor in enchanting them and then trading them which is only a marginal speed boost that was available with the previous iteration as well.
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Fun Value
- This is a value that’s hard to quantify, but I think there’s a very clear example about how much people enjoy feeling powerful that is out currently: MoP Remix. There has never been someone who has a ton of threads that came out and said “man, I really wish I was weaker so mobs would threaten me while I was gearing up”. No, it doesn’t happen. why? Aside from being much quicker, it’s super simple: BIG NUMBER IS BIG FUN. SMALL NUMBER IS SMALL FUN.
If we use MoP Remix as a case study; then I think this provides a pretty good reasoning on why heirlooms should be reverted to their former glory. At a glance, it may be hard to see, so let me explain:
If I level on MoP remix, there is a specific strategy to do so. You group with a level 20 starter character that cannot level beyond level 20 but has a ton of threads to power level you through dungeons. You don’t loot any of the experience badges off the mobs, and you let them all go into your mail box. The level 20 limits the dungeon pool so that you only get dungeons that have less RP/less walking while having more boss density yielding more xp/hour. If done correctly you can level from creation to 70 in under 90 minutes.
Now, replace MoP remix with live and replace the level 20 character with a toon decked out in heirloom gear. It’s exactly how it used to be. No one who has end game characters wants to waste time leveling, and new players who see this fanasize about how they get to become that. It also lowers the amount of players getting kicked from dungeons and group content at lower levels because there’s no reason to kick someone if you’re just soloing the dungeon anyway. Hate if it you want, but the reality of the situation is that people don’t quit the game because they play WITH someone who is stronger than them, but they do quit the game if they feel like they’re playing with a toxic community who is kicking them for not going fast enough.
Myself, prior to this change, I purchased every heirloom in the game and upgraded them so that I had a full set of all armor types upgraded to max, a task that is worth a hefty gold price to do. Since then, I have leveled many characters from 1-max level throughout DF, and SL and I can say that every time I look at my heirloom tab, I feel ripped off because I bought something that doesn’t exist any more.
Lastly, I want to draw a parallel to when heirlooms were introduced to where we are today. Heirlooms were introduced during WOTLK when the max level was 80. TWW’s max level is back to 80 again, and the same factors that made it make sense to release heirlooms in the state they were originally are back in play. Outside of MoP remix, leveling is slow, you never feel powerful, and it’s a chore to get to end game. I beg, I plead, please make my heirlooms feel good to use again.