The New Leveling Experience And Heirlooms in Shadowlands

[Nuggsy]

well these are supposed to be to level alts if you want to make a new character and main it right away thats on you. If you have such a problem with it then dont use them.

That's a pretty asinine reply. If your best counter argument is 'well don't use them' then you really don't have a spot in this conversation. My point is valid. People bought heirlooms for a specific reason. They spent hundreds of thousands of gold on full sets of each armor type plus weapons, neck and trinket. Aside from those last three, the rest was bought for the purpose of faster leveling and while they have indeed shortened leveling by a TON in Shadowlands the fact remains, they removed the primary reason people bought heirlooms and put in 'set bonuses' that don't equal the value of what was lost.

TLDR: The fact that they made leveling faster doesn't matter in this argument. The problem is we paid a lot of gold for a certain item and that item is no longer how it was when we spent the money and I don't think the replacement equals or surpasses what was lost - in its current form.

[Doffen]

As I’ve previously stated though, they could just leave the bonus XP so it’s still faster than others (as the intended purpose), or they could make the bonuses better. I think most people are upset because these bonuses are actually terrible and don’t really benefit anyone.
At this point, people should just create every character they want on multiple servers and then log out with them just to have rested XP maxed out. If you level like some people, I’d almost say most, you create a new character and start leveling then, which makes rested XP worthless. Out of combat regen is almost nonexistent as well, this will only make running mob to mob easier for healers so they don’t have to try and heal anyone. Bonus XP after leveling is nice, but unless you ding early in a dungeon or you’re leveling by chain pulling mobs in the world, it’s almost useless. Imagine gaining a level after you turn in a quest just to spend 1/4-1/2 the time of the buff just picking up new quests and traveling to the next location.

I’m not so much upset about losing the XP % increase, although yes it does suck, but I’m more upset that the bonuses that replace it are garbage.

I have the opposite feeling and experience, most people do level very slowly, so the rested xp wil have some use. But this is my anecdotal experience, though like someone else said, blizzard probably have some data that justify that bonus. But I might be wrong about my experience and its not like that at all.

However, I do agree with you, the set bonuses are overall lackluster. I think they should merge the two rested set bonuses into one, so they free up something for those who start from 1 and level up fast.

You know the craftable Leather Legendary in Legion? That bonus is so great, and I used it when I leveled stuff during Legion. It's a movement speed increase where you can fly for a bit with 5 stacks. What if they put the movement speed(stack up to 5) on one bonus and then put the flying one on maybe the last. I think that would have been great.

Each time you kill an enemy, you gain 5% movement speed for 1 min, stacking up to 5 times. At 5 stacks, while you are out of combat you turn into a Wisp, increasing your movement speed further and granting you the ability to fly. Make that flying last 8 seconds or so.

[Flurryfang]

So what is the current update on the leveling speed in SL Beta? How long does it currently take to level from lvl 1-50?

Im really curious about how much they are speeding up the leveling experience.

[Doffen]

So what is the current update on the leveling speed in SL Beta? How long does it currently take to level from lvl 1-50?

Im really curious about how much they are speeding up the leveling experience.

DesMephisto, the warrior powerleveler did some testing on beta, and this post were made about his findings:

The removal of bonus XP on heirlooms has hit the beta and DesMephisto has promptly tested out what that means for the 1-50 (current 1-120) leveling speed. Previously he managed to get to the max pre-Shadowlands content level in 4 hours and 10 minutes (he actually improved on the time from the article linked later on), with all heirlooms, and now he's done it in 6 hours and 10 minutes without any (the tweet info below is a little off). Now, unfortunately this isn't a 1 to 1 comparison, as he had 20% less bonus XP from War Mode on the one with heirlooms, but it's still a solid comparison. Also, average players obviously won't be leveling that fast, as DesMephisto knows all the tricks, but the ratio for the change is still applicable, aka it took him 50% longer (and he's definitely going to try to get that current number down and level up faster in the future). As he mentions himself, it should take average players 9-10 hours for the process, which doesn't seem that bad, which somewhat lessens the hit from losing heirloom XP. However, an important note here is that Blizzard have stated that leveling hasn't been finalized yet, so there might be big changes still coming.

Think he used 17 or 18 hours as world record on live servers.

So it's pretty substantial change to the leveling speed I would say, even with the removal of heirloom xp bonus. From 4h10m to 6h10m maybe add an hour from the WM on for direct comparison. So the nerf to heirlooms definitely did something, but the overall leveling speed is changed greatly.

Current "World Record" with the WoW buff is 8h 42m 48s 039ms(vulpera so from level 20). So I guess it will land on that pretty much for the more casual players from 1 to 50. Which is pretty great. The world records in SL will probably be like between 4-6 hours from 1 to 60

[Collected]

9-10 hours for 10-50 and 9-10 hours for 50-60 feels about right to me.

[Sevarin]

Are you trolling right now?

idk about you or even him, but when i level, i generally dont get rested when leveling an alt. sometimes i might split it into two days, and get a nights worth of exp. that 60% extension on rested would save me about 20 minutes in current leveling. likely far less in new leveling.

am i saying new leveling takes too long? no, not at all. but those bonuses are pretty horrible tbh. especially considering the price tag on heirlooms. its not like you get to max level and theyre all free.

[Niwes]

Oh look, someone on a high horse.

Aside from holiday events, the DMF, or even better, the Timewalking dungeons, there were multiple avenues of
upgrading heirlooms without having to spend a single piece of gold. If you already had alts to begin with, then
before each expansion, you would have had multiple times to do them and easily farm enough badges to upgrade
at least one item. In at least a single expansion's lifetime, you can easily maximize an entire heirloom set, let
alone more sets for other classes.

So no, this isn't a time vs. money investment. This is a, "a fool and his money are soon parted", the example
being the posters demanding refunds. If gold was the ONLY method of upgrading? Yes, absolutely they'd be
justified in their outrage, and I would absolutely support the idea of some kind of reparations for the players
who spent all the gold on these items.

But that's not the case now is it. So no, they don't get their refund, and although I whole-heartedly agree that
the bonuses are absolutely fucking trash, I'm sorry, but you spent your gold poorly. This is a simple case of
spending gold poorly vs. smartly.

In your words, "not rocket science. Not that complex of a concept."

???

you are a rather strange person. i dont take any stance here and never had. i just say ppl can invest gold and get heirloom upgrades instantly or they can invest time by playing the game (holidays, DMF, etc) and get heirloom upgrades by investing time. and you answer with: „you can invest time instead gold, foolish ppl“. are you stoned ?

even when you dont have to invest much time, you must be totally clueless if you dont understand that some ppl used gold instead playing the game (regardless how fast you get upgrades by investing that time into gameplay). justifies this that ppl get their gold refunded ? no. did i said this ANYWHERE ? no. so, what the heck you talkin here?

ofc is this a time vs money investment. cheeseus christ, you talk so much stupid bullshit.

just because YOU did invest time, instead gold, because YOU said „omg for that less amount of time investment i dont give away my hard earned money“ this is not a proof that for everyone else that is NOT YOU this is the right way. maybe step out of your tunnel view that you and your behaviours are the one and only thing in the world. are you 12-16 years old ?

and you say something about high horses, lol.

this was my last post here. discussing with ppl like you is a stupid time investment. so, have a nice day. bb

[vitor210]

depends when you upgraded them. now? they aren't that expensive but back when gold wasn't plentiful it sure was. all in all if you do the absolute bare minimum and buy heirlooms to cover every armor type, weapon type etc and buy upgrades in an intelligent manner (only buying weapon upgrades to level 100, neck upgrades to 110) then it costs just under 100k (approx)

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oh take your conspiracy theories elsewhere troll. going off your attitude nothing shown in beta might make it to live, which is absolute rubbish. if stuff was going to be scrapped/change then it would've happened a long time ago

what you mean "back when gold wasn't plentiful"??? Dude, 3 expansions ago, in Warlords of Draenor, was when they turned heirlooms being bought with gold. The expansion that ruined gold and inflated the market. Before that, you had to use Valor points from dungeons. You sound like you had to buy heirlooms in Vanilla or TBC with your hard earned money lol

[MrLachyG]

what you mean "back when gold wasn't plentiful"??? Dude, 3 expansions ago, in Warlords of Draenor, was when they turned heirlooms being bought with gold. The expansion that ruined gold and inflated the market. Before that, you had to use Valor points from dungeons. You sound like you had to buy heirlooms in Vanilla or TBC with your hard earned money lol

Obviously I was referring to before then lol

[Unholyground]

Ah damn ez then. I remember soloing mythic Highmaul as blood at the start of Legionish. It was actually fun but Butcher (obviously was a pain due to the stacks) and a few other bosses made it hard as fuck and almost died a few times, but it was so fun lmfao.

the best part is if you like transmog there's a ton of really cool ones in all those raids too, so you get a ton of gold and you get new visual goodies too lol.

[Enty]

I have said many times (maybe not on this forum, but definitely elsewhere), that nothing will be as universaly useful as bonus xp on heirlooms and i was kind of expecting nothing out of this change... but boy do they manage to disapoint.

TLDR: I still do not see a proper, valid, justified reason as to why bonus xp has to be removed from heirlooms. Can anyone give me one, in a civil manner?

Lets adress several arguments:
1. Heirlooms are mandatory for leveling/leveling is too fast/i hate heirlooms.
No, they are not. You do not have to wear them for leveling. If you want, you can simply unequip them and use whatever gear you get from dungeons, questing, world drops, etc. That is how simple it is. I hate this mentality that everyone should be equalized to the lowest denominator, in this case someone who does not own or bother to purchase/upgrade heirlooms. I, as many others, invested a lot of time and gold to get this leveling bonus, so why now i am stripped of it without reason? Moreover, we are not talking about new players leveling too fast, heirlooms are mosly relevant to veteran players. So this makes it even weirder. If blizzard would worry so much about new players leveling too fast, boost would not exist....

2. You have already got your use of heirlooms
What? How? If someone leveled 50 chars using heirlooms, and i did 5, did i get less for my gold, or did another player get more? How do you evaluate this "price of new character"? How do you decide that i have had enough of bonus xp? Heirlooms are not depleted upon leveling new char so...?

3. Heirlooms scale with your level, so they invalidate other loot.
All items scale, so what? Besides, heirlooms currently are as powerful as quest reward greens. If that green gets an upgrade to rare or epic, then it will always be better than a heirloom piece.

4. They baked heirloom bonus into leveling/leveling is faster anyway
This does not matter. Blizzard should calculate leveling time assuming players are NOT using heirlooms, not the other way around.

5. Leveling is revamped so it makes sense
Leveling was not really rewamped, just instead of going through several expansions to get to 110, instead you will not go into single one. Inside that xpac, nothing is changed. You will still collect boar shit in hellfire peninsula, or spider legs in borean tundra. People will select fastest xpac with more streamlined leveling (that being MoP, Wod, Legion, maybe BFA), less travel time, etc., making those slower zones empty.
On this same point you should not take DesMephisto's leveling times on beta as an etalon. Few players will be able to replicate that, as he is using highly optimized routes and wastes very little time on other things. Time of an average player will probably be double of that of his. Also, worth mentioniong, that Blizzard will most likely run a number pass on different xpacs to bring leveling time between them in line, which will probably result in nerfing faster ones.

So yeah, i do not understand this change at all, i do not see the point nor need to remove or change bonus xp. This seems to me like a yet another "problem" blizzard created themselves and now tries to "fix" it.

[razorpax]

VERY underwhelming.. Rested EXP only lasts for 2 levels, out of combat regen is worthless since you will never die when you have heirlooms equipped and the level up buff is eh.

60% reduction makes it last for 3 levels

id prefer a speed buff

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I have said many times (maybe not on this forum, but definitely elsewhere), that nothing will be as universaly useful as bonus xp on heirlooms and i was kind of expecting nothing out of this change... but boy do they manage to disapoint.

TLDR: I still do not see a proper, valid, justified reason as to why bonus xp has to be removed from heirlooms. Can anyone give me one, in a civil manner?

Lets adress several arguments:
1. Heirlooms are mandatory for leveling/leveling is too fast/i hate heirlooms.
No, they are not. You do not have to wear them for leveling. If you want, you can simply unequip them and use whatever gear you get from dungeons, questing, world drops, etc. That is how simple it is. I hate this mentality that everyone should be equalized to the lowest denominator, in this case someone who does not own or bother to purchase/upgrade heirlooms. I, as many others, invested a lot of time and gold to get this leveling bonus, so why now i am stripped of it without reason? Moreover, we are not talking about new players leveling too fast, heirlooms are mosly relevant to veteran players. So this makes it even weirder. If blizzard would worry so much about new players leveling too fast, boost would not exist....

2. You have already got your use of heirlooms
What? How? If someone leveled 50 chars using heirlooms, and i did 5, did i get less for my gold, or did another player get more? How do you evaluate this "price of new character"? How do you decide that i have had enough of bonus xp? Heirlooms are not depleted upon leveling new char so...?

3. Heirlooms scale with your level, so they invalidate other loot.
All items scale, so what? Besides, heirlooms currently are as powerful as quest reward greens. If that green gets an upgrade to rare or epic, then it will always be better than a heirloom piece.

4. They baked heirloom bonus into leveling/leveling is faster anyway
This does not matter. Blizzard should calculate leveling time assuming players are NOT using heirlooms, not the other way around.

5. Leveling is revamped so it makes sense
Leveling was not really rewamped, just instead of going through several expansions to get to 110, instead you will not go into single one. Inside that xpac, nothing is changed. You will still collect boar shit in hellfire peninsula, or spider legs in borean tundra. People will select fastest xpac with more streamlined leveling (that being MoP, Wod, Legion, maybe BFA), less travel time, etc., making those slower zones empty.
On this same point you should not take DesMephisto's leveling times on beta as an etalon. Few players will be able to replicate that, as he is using highly optimized routes and wastes very little time on other things. Time of an average player will probably be double of that of his. Also, worth mentioniong, that Blizzard will most likely run a number pass on different xpacs to bring leveling time between them in line, which will probably result in nerfing faster ones.

So yeah, i do not understand this change at all, i do not see the point nor need to remove or change bonus xp. This seems to me like a yet another "problem" blizzard created themselves and now tries to "fix" it.

1. its mandatory for leveling alts even when bfa first launched and more so when the upgrades get added. You arent stripped of the bonus as it is now baked into leveling along with the current 100% bonus.

2.whoever is making that argument is an idiot

3. other items do not scale...i honestly dont know how you got that idea. If you are leveling and at 111 you get an epic upgrade then yes it will be better than your heirloom but it wont have the exp bonus and in 2 levels the gap wont exist so no they wont always be better than an heirloom.

4. Its actually pretty interesting how the leveling is now since you can hit cap while doing endgame content like argus. I would rather blizzard normalize leveling in a way where they reduce the time required across the board instead of lengthening it so as far as the 500k ive spent on heirlooms...eh im ok with it because we have lost nothing and have gained the underwhelming bonuses

5. The leveling change is actually pretty relevant to the discussion. If you speed run it then yeah it wont take like 8 hours but even if you dont then its still faster than current even with heirlooms. You now go 40 levels in 1 expansion and can go through the endgame as leveling content and loremaster will be a bit easier.

blizz does create "problems" that it sees a need to fix for some odd reason and its never a good thing but this isnt really one of them. You arent losing the bonus exp unless you farmed a ton of potions.

[Pandragon]

I actually think those are reasonable and am surprised they didnt completely break them by making them useless. 60% slower consumption of rested XP is dope

Wait until everyone starts leveling allied races as a lock, because of the out of combat regen combo with burning rush, and they will nerf it just like they did fighter chow.

[Enty]

1. its mandatory for leveling alts even when bfa first launched and more so when the upgrades get added. You arent stripped of the bonus as it is now baked into leveling along with the current 100% bonus.

It is really not mandatory. If you want to level up alts faster then you wear heirlooms. If you want casual leveling, experience stories, etc. (as many tries to convince they do), you absolutely can choose not to equip any heirlooms. Again, it is that simple. Same thing would be to choose faster class spec vs spec you enjoy most.

Oh, and i absulutely am stripped of my xp bonuses. Currently i have 45% xp bonus (do not have a fishing ring), and after pre-patch i will not. It does not matter what leveling speed they set. They should not set it assuming everyone has heirlooms as it is not something handed for each new player upon char creation.

3. other items do not scale...i honestly dont know how you got that idea. If you are leveling and at 111 you get an epic upgrade then yes it will be better than your heirloom but it wont have the exp bonus and in 2 levels the gap wont exist so no they wont always be better than an heirloom.

What i meant was that it gets scaled up to your current level. So the reward is always current. My bad for wording it badly. Rare or epic will always be better. So someone who wants to wear better stats for a level or 2 can absolutely use them. And after those 2 levels, replace them with even better ones. Wearing heirlooms gives no advantage agains someone without them, combat-wise.

4. Its actually pretty interesting how the leveling is now since you can hit cap while doing endgame content like argus. I would rather blizzard normalize leveling in a way where they reduce the time required across the board instead of lengthening it so as far as the 500k ive spent on heirlooms...eh im ok with it because we have lost nothing and have gained the underwhelming bonuses

We lost xp bonus. That is pretty significant. Imagine someone takes away your car and tells you that instead public transport will drive faster.

5. The leveling change is actually pretty relevant to the discussion. If you speed run it then yeah it wont take like 8 hours but even if you dont then its still faster than current even with heirlooms. You now go 40 levels in 1 expansion and can go through the endgame as leveling content and loremaster will be a bit easier.

blizz does create "problems" that it sees a need to fix for some odd reason and its never a good thing but this isnt really one of them. You arent losing the bonus exp unless you farmed a ton of potions.

As i explained above, i am loosing my xp bonus. It is not there any more. It does not matter if blizzard says it is baked in. They can do whatever they want with leveling time. In beta now it seems all over the place between the xpacs. They will definitely do a number pass on it and that might lower this "baked in" bonus because they feel like its too much. I prefer stuff i can see and control.

Leveling get old and boring very fast and i will take any bit of reduced time from it.

[Vaelor83]

A speed bonus would be great.

Sent from my moto g(7) optimo maxx(XT1955DL) using Tapatalk

[razorpax]

It is really not mandatory. If you want to level up alts faster then you wear heirlooms. If you want casual leveling, experience stories, etc. (as many tries to convince they do), you absolutely can choose not to equip any heirlooms. Again, it is that simple. Same thing would be to choose faster class spec vs spec you enjoy most.

Oh, and i absulutely am stripped of my xp bonuses. Currently i have 45% xp bonus (do not have a fishing ring), and after pre-patch i will not. It does not matter what leveling speed they set. They should not set it assuming everyone has heirlooms as it is not something handed for each new player upon char creation.



What i meant was that it gets scaled up to your current level. So the reward is always current. My bad for wording it badly. Rare or epic will always be better. So someone who wants to wear better stats for a level or 2 can absolutely use them. And after those 2 levels, replace them with even better ones. Wearing heirlooms gives no advantage agains someone without them, combat-wise.



We lost xp bonus. That is pretty significant. Imagine someone takes away your car and tells you that instead public transport will drive faster.



As i explained above, i am loosing my xp bonus. It is not there any more. It does not matter if blizzard says it is baked in. They can do whatever they want with leveling time. In beta now it seems all over the place between the xpacs. They will definitely do a number pass on it and that might lower this "baked in" bonus because they feel like its too much. I prefer stuff i can see and control.

Leveling get old and boring very fast and i will take any bit of reduced time from it.

You didn’t lose the exp bonus

It’s like if today it took 160exp to level without heirlooms
Tomorrow it takes 100exp to level Without heirloom

Instead of the bonus being optional it’s baked in

The exact idea used for the lvl squish

[Drusin]

You didn’t lose the exp bonus

It’s like if today it took 160exp to level without heirlooms
Tomorrow it takes 100exp to level Without heirloom

Instead of the bonus being optional it’s baked in

The exact idea used for the lvl squish

and if we didn't lose the xp bonus it would take 70 xp to level

[razorpax]

and if we didn't lose the xp bonus it would take 70 xp to level

Didn’t lose anything

It’s like saying you lost 60 levels

[Jotunhammer]

And they did, for YEARS. If you haven't been using them to level alts for the past several expansions then that's on you. This game undergoes pretty frequent changes. You should have learned by now not to get attached to any part of it. If you can find anything from Blizzard stating clearly that Heirlooms would remain unchanged in perpetuity regardless of any other changes in the game, then maybe you'll have a point.

True, except one thing, throughout the years you had to upgrade said gear to match the current level, if they do this, remove the upgrade cost from it
because to me, it is gear not levelling gear, just gear.

[Adamas102]

True, except one thing, throughout the years you had to upgrade said gear to match the current level, if they do this, remove the upgrade cost from it
because to me, it is gear not levelling gear, just gear.

Is there a cost to "upgrade" current heirlooms to the new 1-50 system once SL hits? Or do you mean in future expansions when they (presumably) increase the leveling range?

As for it not being "leveling gear", I still disagree. From a personal standpoint, I'll still use them if they grant ANY benefit (which they do) and I don't have to worry about changing gear as I level. Don't get me wrong, I did like the xp boost, but after going through well over 2,000 levels anything that helps smooth out that process (which includes not having to worry about almost a dozen gear slots) is certainly welcome.