The New Leveling Experience And Heirlooms in Shadowlands
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Leading into Shadowlands, the leveling experience will undertake a complete rehaul – the current max level 120 will be squished down to level 50, a new introductory excursion that will teach you the fundamentals of the new character that you created, and a new starting experience that will allow you to select an expansion to level through and experience its full story.

Heirlooms and other experience gained bonuses were originally introduced as a quick fix for alts to not have to spend over 100 hours leveling. With the revamped leveling experience, you can look forward to reaching the new max level more than twice as fast than before. With the quicker leveling experience, the fundamental problem to the long leveling process has been solved and we found that the experience bonuses that come from Heirlooms were no longer necessary and instead, made the new leveling experience feel very awkward with the extra leveling speed.

We want to ensure that players’ investment in these Heirlooms continues to offer unique benefits while leveling, so we’re planning to replace the experience bonus on Heirlooms with unique Heirloom set bonuses.

  • (2) Set: Rested experience consumed is reduced by 30%.
  • (3) Set: Increases your out-of-combat regeneration in the outdoors, normal dungeons and battlegrounds.
  • (4) Set: Gaining a level triggers Burst of Knowledge, dealing Holy damage to nearby enemies and granting you 40% primary stat for 2 minutes. Defeating additional enemies extends this effect, up to 2 additional minutes.
  • (6) Set: Rested experience consumed is reduced by an additional 30%.

The new set bonus can be obtained from all Heirloom pieces except weapons and trinkets. Please keep in mind that the new Heirloom set bonuses are a work in progress and may have additional changes during the course of development and testing.

There are a few other experience bonus items that will also see changes due to the new leveling experience. Monks Peak of Serenity Enlightenment buff will be changed to granting rested experience and Elixir of Ancient Knowledge, Elixir of the Rapid Mind, and Excess Potion of Accelerated Learning will become Poor quality and no longer usable. The Draught of Ten Lands will still retain the 10% experience bonus but will now be capped at level 50.

We hope that you look forward to the new leveling changes that introduces a faster and more flexible leveling experience than ever before.
This article was originally published in forum thread: The New Leveling Experience And Heirlooms in Shadowlands started by Lumy View original post
Comments 378 Comments
  1. Jetstream's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Chewbacka View Post
    Refund my thousands of gold or change these to something worthwhile
    I didn’t get a refund for dual spec, epic riding, epic flying, yadda yadda yadda.

    Your reward for spending that gold was having those things at the time.
  1. alexs's Avatar
    (4) Set: Gaining a level triggers Burst of Knowledge, dealing Holy damage to nearby enemies and granting you 40% primary stat for 2 minutes. Defeating additional enemies extends this effect, up to 2 additional minutes.

    Haha, 4 minutes total for 40% increase in str/agi/int after leveling for 30mins insane bonus!!
  1. astaroth1837's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by NMX- View Post
    Can you go one-by-one with each perk and explain how they're useless?
    Sure I will

    2 set and 6 set - On a fresh alt or one your playing a decent amount regularly, will not have any rested exp to speak of

    3 set - Ok I guess, but regen isnt really an issue on toons with heirlooms.

    4 set - This could proc at a very bad time. Like flying over a zone and dinging a level. If it can be extended as long as you dont stop killing then yeah this one is good. Kinda vague wording though.
  1. Queen of Hamsters's Avatar
    Not too bad, most of my alts below the new 50-60 range will have quite some time to sit until I'll touch them in SL. Although I'll prefer to use gear drops. GW2 leveling ftw.
  1. Sangris's Avatar
    The only bonus that isn't COMPLETELY useless is the regen one for classes that can't heal, but even that is minimal at best. The other bonuses are bad.
  1. astaroth1837's Avatar
    If the 4 set bonus can be extended as long as you dont stop killing after a level then that one is really good. A straight 40% buff as long as you kill something ever 2 minutes will make your damage very high
  1. Azerate's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Tesshin83 View Post
    Insane bonuses. Should reduce them a bit so heirlooms doesn't feel mandatory, but rather like an option.
    Quote Originally Posted by City Pop View Post
    Those bonuses seem fine tbh.
    Quote Originally Posted by NMX- View Post
    Can you go one-by-one with each perk and explain how they're useless?
    These bonuses are not good at all.

    Out of combat regeneration is completely irrelevant. Almost every class (if not actually every class) has healing skills. Either in-combat, or out of combat. Food costs cooper coins while you get 1g from starting quests. (That and also the mobs while leveling barely hurt you, but I guess that's a bit reliant on the player skill so I'm leaving that out as a major argument)

    Aoe damage burst on level up doesn't make a difference. Most times you're leveling up will be with a quest reward, the burst will just fire into thin air. Even if you somehow get lucky enough to fire that burst into mobs, that doesn't help much because you can usually just 1-2hit mobs anyway with regular skills. There is an identical mechanic in D3, so it seems the consultations with D3 developers didn't stop with Torghas. In D3 you level every couple minutes and you do so near mobs almost every time, so it makes sense there, in WoW it does not.

    60% rested consumption rate also doesn't matter much. Why?

    First of all to even take advantage of that, you have to be the type of a player who levels for 20 minutes, and then leaves that alt for like 2 days to gain rested XP. It's unknown how many people play with each of these methods, but I could wager a guess that we have more players who just level continously without long breaks to get rested XP. Especially with how quick leveling now is.

    Now even for those who do use rested XP. The wording on this bonus does not imply that it will actually remove the cap on the rested xp you can get. Right now on live you can only use rested XP for 2 levels, after which you lose it all. What does it exactly mean to "reduce consumption of rested xp"? Who knows. But even in the most advantageous interpretation possible, it barely helps.

    They could have done so much interesting stuff with this. Some of the ideas are listed here in this very thread. Faster mount speed would be better. Free bag space would be better. Or maybe just flat speed increase to your character. Maybe just 5% more gold rewards from quests? You know, still not that significant, but slight quality of life improvements. These bonuses listed in the blue post are just useless and no one will notice them ever unless specifically looking for them.
  1. Dristereau's Avatar
    So only worth using at Level 1 when you don't have gear for those slots? Also time to sell my Exp potions
  1. Powerogue's Avatar
    2) Alright, not terrible. Just not useful when you're dedicating yourself soley to leveling that alt.
    3) Alright, that was really useful as a set bonus in Legion leveling, looking forward to that.
    4) Not bad, fits with me chaining enemies while leveling.
    6) Alright, functional.

    As far as additional changes I'd just add something to the 5 piece bonus. How about 25% additional mount speed below level 50? I might also add onto the 6 piece set bonus, an additional 50% rested xp gained for time spent logged out.

    Considering 1) is still "all these items are enchantable and will only need to be enchanted once to last the entire leveling experience" is still a nice effect, and I assume motorcycles will still be level 1.

    Any news on the upgrades being refunded though?
  1. Daedius's Avatar
    Those stink... was hoping a movement speed buff at the very least... :|

    Ditch the 2/6 Piece rest XP bonuses, and replace it with 15/30% Movement Speed. Please
  1. Drub's Avatar
    The reduced rested rate seems like bad design because it encourages you to make a new character but not level it until next week. Others are okay i guess. I would have preferred getting my gold back tbh
  1. Mouri Kogorou's Avatar
    Rested experience consumed is reduced by 30%

    how does this work?
    does it mean i have to do more work to consume all the rested experience?
  1. Bootynuzzler's Avatar
    The 4-piece set bonus is really bad... Imagine turning in a quest that levels you up while in a neutral hub with an enemy player nearby. Guards turn you into a fine red mist and you get to enjoy a corpse run and 10% durability damage. That is beside the fact that most level-ups will happen in front of a quest-giver or the very end of a dungeon, rendering the effects of Burst of Knowledge useless.

    "Please keep in mind that the new Heirloom set bonuses are a work in progress and may have additional changes during the course of development and testing."

    I really hope so.

    Imo this would be a lot better, and improves the leveling experience without being gimmicky or redundant:

    (2) Set: You earn rested experience at twice the normal rate.
    (3) Set: Increases your out-of-combat regeneration in the outdoors, normal dungeons and battlegrounds.
    (4) Set: Movement speed is increased by 20% outdoors (does not work in dungeons or battlegrounds).
    (6) Set: Rested experience consumed is reduced by 60%.
  1. Tygera's Avatar
    They baked in the experience gain with the level squish - do you really think it's reasonable to get it back and lvl to 50 with additional 'X' reduced hours?

    I'm okay with the changes, and i've upgraded almost all sets to max. They still give me the gear benefit and now indirectly an XP increase via rested. Log on all your alts come Shadowlands, let them build up rested while you level your main. If you are making a fresh character, you can also do that in advance if able, and if not im SURE the average person will not do 1-50 in one sitting. And if you do im certain the little bit of extra rested xp boost you would have gotten wasn't missed.
  1. Sharnie786's Avatar
    Anyone want to buy 16 x Elixir of the Rapid Mind on Kul Tiras, Anachronos or Alonsus EU? Lol!
  1. FelPlague's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by LarryFromHumanResources View Post
    Ugh, Blizzard providing the positive statement of "Heirlooms make the leveling experience awkward" without giving any reasoning for why this is the case.

    It's not the case. They haven't tested shit and just want people to put more hours into dead content noone cares about. Wonderful.
    because heirlooms gave you such a huge exp bonus on EVERYTHING that it made leveling way too quick, so it felt disjointed, so heirlooms felt required and expensive, instead of a bonus you could get.
    rested only effects a few things, and is limited, while just overall all exp is not.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by alexs View Post
    (4) Set: Gaining a level triggers Burst of Knowledge, dealing Holy damage to nearby enemies and granting you 40% primary stat for 2 minutes. Defeating additional enemies extends this effect, up to 2 additional minutes.

    Haha, 4 minutes total for 40% increase in str/agi/int after leveling for 30mins insane bonus!!
    gaining a level does not take 30 mins, actually if you are good you can keep this buff up 100%
    50 levels, takes about 10 hours to get 1-50.
    but you can speedrun it to be better of course.
  1. HateTrain's Avatar
    Wow, kinda dog shit.
  1. Kyphael's Avatar
    Stupid squish. Should have just kept heirlooms and extended leveling to 125.
  1. arboachg's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Chewbacka View Post
    Refund my thousands of gold or change these to something worthwhile
    Or they can do literally nothing and you'll keep playing.
  1. FelPlague's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Azerate View Post
    60% rested consumption rate also doesn't matter much. Why?
    Lol so the old heirlooms that gave you 60% bonus exp also didnt matter much right?
    Cause this is literally just free exp but nah, totally doesent matter.

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