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Friday, September 25, 2009

Heirlooms


Ah heirlooms... That new class of items that can be traded between all your characters on the same account and faction. Heirloom items also are peculiar in being the only items that can be equipped from level 1 all the way to 80, with scaling stats.

Until recently, one could only buy heirlooms with badges from raids. I don't know exactly which ones and I don't care. I never considered heirlooms until a recent patch when they became purchasable with Champion's Seals.

Initially, shoulders and some weapons were available. In the patch that I mentioned, chest pieces were introduced and also a few more weapons, I believe. The beauty of the shoulders was that they offered 10% XP bonus while leveling. When chests were introduced, they also offered 10% XP bonus. People were asking if the two bonuses stack. The short answer is Yes! They do stack. More on that later.

Since my Hunter Main became exalted with the right factions recently, he was offered access to the heirloom vendor. I had about 170 Champion's Seals and I had several options of how to dispose of them.
  • Regular items - not worth it, unless you're a fresh 80 and want to gear up quickly with some ilvl 200 items. In fact I got my Silvery Sylvan Stave a long time ago and I don't regret it.
  • Vanity pets - I bought a single pet with Seals and afterward I regretted it. Why? Because these vanity pets can be "cheaply" bought at the Auction House. To me, gold is more easily made than the Champion's Seals.
  • Argent Pony Bridle - this is one of those very expensive items (costing 150 Seals) that can add some great utility to your character. In this case, it gives you access to your bank, mailbox and a vendor, anywhere. Very nice but since I maxed out my Engineering I have enough gizmos that offer me the same utility.
  • Heirlooms - now we're talking.
The problem with the heirloom shoulders and chest is that there are 4 types of armor (cloth, leather, mail and plate) and each have 2 types of items that give that coveted 10% experience. Getting enough Champion's Seals for all of them would have been a herculean task and so, I had to prioritize. It wasn't hard.

I plan to level a Worgen Mage in the next expansion and I'm also in the process of leveling a Priest (currently just level 15). Not only that, but my level 73 Warlock can also use those pieces. So I bought a Tattered Dreadmist Mantle and a Tattered Dreadmist Robe. That cost me 120 Champion's Seals.

When I get the next 120 Seals, I will use them to buy the leather pieces: Stained Shadowcraft Spaulders and Stained Shadowcraft Tunic. And that's because in Cataclysm I plan to level a Worgen Feral Druid and currently I'm leveling a 72 Rogue.

And that's my suggestion folks: if you've got excess Champion's Seals and the right reputation, give heirloom items a chance (if you haven't already). Try to plan in advance which of your current and future characters might be able to use them. The more that can use the same piece, the better. Heirlooms aren't just an item that you buy now and a few levels later replace with something better. The 2 pieces that give experience will actually help you level 20% faster! I won't even discuss the heirloom weapons. Those are very good also but I would rather buy all the armor I can, before spending any Seals on weapons.

Speaking of experience, the 10% from each armor piece does stack. I tested that on my priest by killing 3 level 14 mobs. 1st try I didn't wear any piece and got 210XP (rested). 2nd try I wore 1 piece, got 232XP. 3rd try I wore both pieces and got 252XP. 20% total baby! Level in style! As an added bonus, your crummy level 15 character might be mistaken by some for a level 80. You can tell them you're an 80 in disguise!

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can also buy the XP heirloom items for 200 Stone Keeper Shards. You might be better off using the those to get the heirlooms than the seals.

Geforce said...

I bought cloth caster heirlooms and leather melee heirlooms and a wep for melee and caster, then stopped.
i'm not going to waste more seals on the heirlooms as I want to go for the 100 mounts achieve and need around 900 seals to get there :)

Mike said...

Heirlooms are a gift from heaven for alt-oholics! Definitely agree with your comments. I started leveling a warrior alt a month ago. First thing I did was get the shoulders and chest piece. Nice thing to is you can add vanilla WOW enchants on these items as well. I will say the weapons are nice to. I picked up the Bloodied Arcanite Axe and slapped a crusader enchant on it. I leveled a warrior a couple years ago and had constant down time, but with the axe and crusader enchant, there is almost none this time around. It's a huge boon; I'd rather spend my time killing mobs than watching my alt eat bear meat!

The other great thing about these items is that scaling. People mention it, but don't play it up. It's blue level gear at your level all the time! Most the time, if you invest in a blue while leveling these days, it quickly falls by the wayside. But these are at level all the time. I'm definitely going to work on picking up some of the other gear types for leveling during cataclysm next year. My problem is that I'm not an engineer, so that argent pony is looking pretty cool, but it's a pretty steep price.

Darth Solo said...

@Anonymous I don't raid man. As far as I'm aware, those shards drop in raids & stuff. The Champion's Seals are perfect for me as a solo player.

@Geforce to each his own. I forgot to mention the mounts. Maybe that's because I don't give a rat's ass about mounts. Though I like collecting vanity pets on my Hunter (who's my main), that's where I draw the line. Mounts are way too expensive and don't do anything for me. The only mount that I would like is the 310% one but those are very hard to acquire.

@Mike right on dude! What's the highest enchant you can slap on these heirlooms? I mean, can I put Crusader on one and send it to my lv.15 alt?? That would be neat.

Mike said...

You can slap on any enchant that doesn't bind the gear to your character and doesn't have a level restriction, which pretty much means vanilla WOW, and send it to any of your characters. I went with a crusader for the weapon and +100 health for the chest. The crusader is supposed to lose it's utility +60, but it's a pretty mean combo on my leveling warrior. The +100 health was an awesome bump from level 10-25 that I've used it. It was an extra 15-25% health on my fledgling alt.

Dalaila (ShadowsongEU) said...

@ Darth

"The only mount that I would like is the 310% one but those are very hard to acquire".

True. But if you never walk the path of 310 you will never acquire one. That's why some months ago I decided to complete all the special events for the "What a strange trip..." achievement. Hard (but fun, fun, fun!) and 1 year later... 310% mount speed ;)

Anonymous said...

You can get Stone keepers shards doing PvP quests in Wintergrasp. If you dont like PvP, you can obtain quests from NPCs in WG, join battle, do completely nothing, let others win battle, go to NPC and hand over quests. And voilaa, you have Stone keepers shards and buy Heirlooms. It is not that hard. But better join battle, kill some hordies and have fun.

Crusader Viesturs from Aszune server.

Darth Solo said...

@Mike I'll have to consider enchants then, sounds very good. Perhaps some spell power for the cloth pieces.

@Dalaila I'm kinda working on that meta too but I'm not sweating it. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard made 310% mounts easier to get in the future. Maybe even purchasable with gold.

@Anonymous no PvP for me man :) I'm too shy for that and it doesn't really attract me much.

Elynee said...

Darth, First I love your blog and follow it religiously. I have the exact same temperment as you when it comes to playing WoW. Now this question may seem really bone-headed. Maybe it is, but I have to ask.

How do you get Champion's Seals as a solo player? I play a level 80 rogue and a paladin. I'd love to get heirlooms for my alts but I don't raid or even group for 5 man instances. Aren't these Champion Seals from instances? Thanks for any information you can share.

Keep up the great work on your blog. I check it everyday!

TB said...

@Darth - Hey man, this is way off the subject, but I thought I would weigh in since it's been awhile. There are so many blogs to keep up with that I've been reading them in Google Reader and was missing all the comments. I forgot how much I enjoyed reading the back & forth here. Keep up the good work!

Darth Solo said...

@Elynee Champion's Seals are not obtained in raids. They are in fact obtained as reward from doing daily quests at the Argent Tournament grounds in Icecrown. You have to pass the Valiant stage and become a Champion before you will have access to the quests that reward you with the Seals. There is a bit of daily grinding involved but each quest gives about 13 gold at level 80 in addition to the Champion's Seals so it's a good way of making money.

@TB hey thanks and glad to see you back!

Celebrandil said...

Champion's Seals can also be obtained by running Heroic Trial of the Champion. Each boss drops a seal.

Heirlooms are sweet, my paladin alt has the Valor chest and shoulder and just plows her way through Azeroth. Currently in her mid-thirties. ^^

Skaut said...

Heirlooms would be great for an altoholic like me-if I actually had characters that they would really matter on!

The only character I have access to them with is my druid. The rest of the characters on that realm are 4 80s, a 75, 74, 72 and 70 that duo with hubby(so I don't want to get more xp than him), and a level 53 hunter. I've thought about getting shoulders for the hunter, but I'm just not sure if it's worth it for just one character.

Now if they ever get around to giving us more character slots on one realm, they would come in handy-but I'm full up right now!

Gormanghaste said...

You can get stonekeeper shards without pvp or instances. I do two of the wintergrasp weeklies whenever I get the wintergrasp fishing daily. In one you have to kill elementals and in the other you can kill faction npcs. I really hate pvp too, but if you go at a low population time and/or wait until the next day, you can usually avoid pvpers.

jfurrer said...

Just a suggestion -- maybe a guide to your dailies? Or, anyone know a good link for one?

I too am a pure solo with too many alts that would look great in heirlooms! But, totally clueless as to how to progress with it (plus, i'm a new 80 priest lol - don't judge the solo priest!)

Much appreciated. Great article and comments so far. I [heart] your blog!!

Regards,
--Jas

Darth Solo said...

@Celebrandil you're right, of course.

@Scout I have a feeling that Blizzard will give us more slots. And I really hope they do because I'm almost at the limit.

@Gormanghaste meh, I'm almost done with gear for my main. From now on it's smooth sailing until the next expansion. Well, I still need to level a few toons.

@jfurrer thanks for the appreciation. I might do a guide for dailies although that would be a lot of work and some of those damn dailies are also random :) It's not very hard to get working on the Argent Tournament dailies though. If you're a fresh 80, just to to the grounds and grab all the quests which you need to do for about 5 days until you become Champion. From there, the Champion's dailies open up. Once you become Exalted Champion there are a few more that open up.