Slightly Reduced Effectiveness Of Wrath Heirlooms in Cata

[Groovemaster]

From my experience on the Cata beta and what I have heard other people telling me, while still viable the stats on these heirlooms have reduced effectiveness in terms of stats and scaling. Item levels and the overall balance of leveling gear have risen meaning that many quest greens and blues you find actually out stat your heirlooms until you get around two levels above them. A small but annoying change in the expansion I suppose, adding a little salt to the wound is the fact that alot of the Cata leveling gear as all new models, where of course your wrath heirlooms still have the old vanilla models.

A little annoying yes, but despite that the 20% exp bonus still makes them beat out any leveling gear you might find, that is until you reach level 78. At level 78 you will not be in Northrend, you will be heading straight to either Vash'jir or MT. Hyjal where NPC's immediately start handing out ilevel 284-300 greens. While technically your Wrath heirlooms do scale to level 80, they only scale up to the equivalent of ilevel 200 blues from early wrath. At this point, for these last two levels you have to decide if you either want the 20% exp bonus, or you want the vastly superior stats of Cataclysm quest gear.

So draw your own conclusions, I just thought I would drag this out there.

[Deleted]

Good. Heirlooms shouldn't mean you massively out-gear everyone just because you have them, IMO. They should just be enough for you to never need to worry about having bad gear in the lower levels, while also speeding up your leveling with the extra experience gain.

[Adrim]

Actually, if I remember correctly, the item budget for LK heirlooms is equivalent to 187 blues at max level.

But anyway, how many times do you see Paladin alts running around with leather/rogue shoulders/chest heirlooms?

Or rogues running around even in cloth/caster heirlooms? I see it all the time. Most people buy one set and just use them on their alts regardless of class (especially now with the prices all tripled). It doesn't matter for the same reason that nobody bothers to enchant their gear while leveling.

You could roll into Cataclysm with those two slots empty and still be fine, if not have a slightly more difficult time leveling. But XP is XP and I fully expect people to just pull one fewer mob or have a kill take slightly longer than give up 20% XP...which I'm guessing if mobs are dropping five-digit XP is a non-trivial amount.

In conclusion, I would wear Woolies of the Prancing Minstrel into Vash'jir for even a 5% XP bonus. So I don't think this will be in any way a problem for most folks.

Besides, we have equipment manager and if you find you just can't kill that boss in your heirlooms, swap sets, down him, then swap back when you turn the quest in.

[iadygaga]

Heirlooms are amazing

[Rivin]

Even if the questing gear is slightly better, the 35% experience boost (with the new heirlooms included) will be much more beneficial than a bit more stats. The mobs up until 80 aren't dangerous enough to really require that sort of min-maxing. Plus, there isn't always a nice upgrade to every slot.

As an aside, you can't start Hyjal or Vashj'ir until 80. Even if you went at 78, there'd be no quests.

[Groovemaster]

Well I just assumed quests would open up at 78 like it had in previous expansions, I never actually tested the theory.

[Trivial]

One could always use gear for mob killing and equip BoA for quest delivering!

[Deleted]

One could always use gear for mob killing and equip BoA for quest delivering!

If the quests cannot even be accepted before level 80, how is that even possible?

[Deleted]

One could always use gear for mob killing and equip BoA for quest delivering!

I was wondering, whether that works... Does it or will the XP Bonus be turned off when the character is over lvl 80?

[Rivin]

I was wondering, whether that works... Does it or will the XP Bonus be turned off when the character is over lvl 80?

The experience bonus on the old heirlooms doesn't work anymore once you hit 80.

[Deleted]

I'm fine with havin slightly less stats, for that huge xp-bonus.

But I would replace them at 80, because the xp-bonus doesn't work further than that, afaik

[Sylreick]

If the quests cannot even be accepted before level 80, how is that even possible?

Talking about low level quests may be? The subject is wrath heirlooms in cata, not the new ones.

Edit: It doesn't really matter about the stats. The thing that makes them useful is that they scale, letting you sell other stuff and not worry so much about switching out of the gear while leveling.

I think it's a good idea, in pvp anyway. Removes the disadvantage of new players from not having heirlooms.

[Deleted]

Talking about low level quests may be? The subject is wrath heirlooms in cata, not the new ones.

But then there's no purpose to what he wrote whatsoever, since it'd only slow you down.

[Sylreick]

But then there's no purpose to what he wrote whatsoever, since it'd only slow you down.

With the outfitter setting in the character sheet it wouldn't really slow you down. If speed is the goal, you could nab the quests put on the set that provides higher dps/whatever to get the quest done, then switch into the exp set to turn them in for higher exp.

[Deleted]

I am very happy for heirlooms to be outperformed by leveling gear. I have plenty of heirlooms, so this isnt about me not being able to get them, but its rediculous for heirloomed players to outperform non heirloom players in low level pvp and pve. Heirlooms should be there to increase your experience, not your performance.

[Tyrilion]

At level 78 you will not be in Northrend, you will be heading straight to either Vash'jir or MT.

Wrong Blizz have stated many a times that You will need to be 80 before u even think about heading to cata content, you are forgetting mobs have been buffed, u will need some hcs gear i expect

[Deleted]

At level 78 you will not be in Northrend, you will be heading straight to either Vash'jir or MT. Hyjal where NPC's immediately start handing out ilevel 284-300 greens. While technically your Wrath heirlooms do scale to level 80, they only scale up to the equivalent of ilevel 200 blues from early wrath.

Level 80, itemlevel 272 and heirlooms are scaling to blue 187, not 200. This alone makes your entire post useless.

The zone after Vashj'ir and Hyjal, Deepholm, gives itemlevel 289 and is available at level 82. So use heirlooms all the way to 80, then replace them as soon as possible. The mobs you will be fighting in the first zone, regardless of which one you pick, will be easy enough that you CAN kill them in crap gear. As it should be, since not everyone is in full T10 by the time Cata hits and there is always new characters being leveled.

[Evolixe]

Wrong Blizz have stated many a times that You will need to be 80 before u even think about heading to cata content, you are forgetting mobs have been buffed, u will need some hcs gear i expect

Nah its doable at 78.

[Deleted]

With the outfitter setting in the character sheet it wouldn't really slow you down. If speed is the goal, you could nab the quests put on the set that provides higher dps/whatever to get the quest done, then switch into the exp set to turn them in for higher exp.

I guess that would be true - if it weren't for BoAs still being close to equal to top gear at the specific levels for gear. I'd say it'd be more of a hassle to actually gather that second set of gear in the first place. In the end, the gain would be negligible, and you lose bag space while carrying all that extra gear.

[Deleted]

Heirlooms should be there to increase your experience, not your performance.

Heirlooms increase experience by increasing performance. That way you level faster. That is their purpose and they are doing that just fine.