heirlooms
Latest
Heirloom Shields looking good for patch 5.3
Heirloom shields are looking good for patch 5.3, according to a tweet from Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street: @addohm No known issues with them at the moment. Looks positive for 5.3. - Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) April 30, 2013 Heirloom shields were amongst the things that didn't quite make the cut for patch 5.2. Blizzard Senior Community Rep Jonathan "Zarhym" Brown posted the following a little while back on the official forums by way of explanation for their absence: Zarhym Heirloom shields were originally planned to be added in patch 5.2, but, unfortunately, due to a late-breaking bug with these items which prevented them from properly scaling with level, we had to remove them. We still want to get these shields in the game and plan to do so in a future patch. source
New heirlooms in patch 5.2 resemble the old but bring in the new
Patch 5.2 is thundering down on us this holiday season, bringing a raid, a Thunder King, and all kinds of shenanigans. It even has some great news for those of us who like to level small hordes of alts: new heirloom items! Of course, there's a twist. The new heirlooms like the War-Torn Ancient Bone Bow may superficially look like the old Charmed Ancient Bone Bow, but it's actually a different item. That's perfect in one sense, since the War-Torn Ancient Bone Bow now goes all the way to level 85. But it's a bummer for people who like to collect and save their points, since it means you'll probably have to rebuy it. The Vengeful Heartseeker, Battle-Forged Truesilver Champion, and many others enjoy this treatment in patch 5.2. Granted, this is pretty early in to the PTR cycle. It's entirely possible that Blizzard intends to provide an upgrade path. But you have to spend all those points on something, and heirlooms items have always served as a very effective point sink. I suspect we'll all be buying new heirlooms soon enough.
The Daily Grind: Are heirloom items bad for MMOs?
In its Wrath of the Lich King expansion, World of Warcraft introduced a new class of items: the heirloom. Heirlooms can be transferred between all of the characters on your account, even your alts belonging to "enemy" factions. While a cloth-bedecked caster can't exactly wear the heavy platemail of his older Paladin brother, the hand-me-downs are pretty useful for twinking if you plan it out a bit. The trouble is that heirlooms effectively level up with the player, so an alt who has a truckload of heirlooms has no need to take part in the player market. Why would he need to buy a crafted staff from a Weaponsmith? He's got one that he can use for 80 (85, now) levels. And in that case, why bother crafting as a lowbie Weaponsmith at all? What do you think -- do the conveniences of heirloom items outweigh their negative impact on MMO economies? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
An end to mailing heirlooms?
If you're an altoholic, you've no doubt experienced the joy of schlepping your heirloom items around via the mail system (along with claiming all your pets and mounts for every new character). With Cataclysm and the focus on all the earlier content, many people are still running alts through the old world, soaking up all the different changes. A recent blue post by Zarhym hints at a potential design change to the heirloom system. Zarhym So, after making a trip to the doctor and having some blood stolen, I stopped by Ghostcrawler's office to discuss this and other topics with him. We talked about some of the feedback in this thread, as well as the developers' latest thoughts on BoA and heirloom items. Rather than potentially having my statements in this thread come back to bite me at some point in the future, I'm going to risk being confusing or sounding dumb. :p In short, they agree that the process of mailing heirlooms around constantly is a little annoying. We'd prefer to try and work ourselves away from the method of mailing out BoA items in the future, like pets, mounts, etc. To that end, we have some design goals in mind that would improve this sort of item distribution system. And with those design goals have come some ideas for changing heirloom mechanics. This is sort of contrary to the idea I stated in this thread about just designing the system to allow players to mail their heirlooms all around their accounts without realm restrictions. That's all of the information I can share at the moment, but I feel like it's worth pointing out that the design philosophy I stated earlier isn't so set in stone -- we're reevaluating these types of systems as we look toward the future. I apologize if I've caused any confusion. source This sounds great. Perhaps a BOA/heirloom vendor in each city who will sell you anything you've unlocked for a nominal fee? Time will tell!
The Queue: How else would he get in there?
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. The above image is what I spent my entire afternoon working on yesterday: a floating biosphere in Minecraft. The house inside of it is purple because a wizard lives there. Arkonn asked: Why no heirloom shields!?
Heirloom items bound to Battle.net accounts on patch 4.1 PTR
We just posted about the new heirlooms based on tier 1 armor discovered on the patch 4.1 PTR, but apparently there's even bigger news! Wowhead has discovered that as of 4.1, all heirloom items (including the newly added ones) are labeled as "Binds to Battle.net Account," an entirely different label than "Binds to Account." It's too early to discern exactly what this new distinction means, but at the very least, you should be able to mail heirlooms to characters on your realm that are on a different WoW account but the same Battle.net account. It's not known whether or not you'll finally be allowed to mail heirlooms to different realms, but at least you'll be able to mail some heirlooms to that Recruit-a-Friend mule account you made. Pretty cool! We'll let you know if Blizzard gives any official word on what's happening. WoW Patch 4.1 is on the PTR, and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from previews of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.
Patch 4.1: New heirlooms hint at tier 1 raiding sets
Patch 4.1 is chock-full of goodies, and it looks like a whole new slew of heirlooms are on the way. Better yet, the names of most of the heirlooms hearken back to the Molten Core days, hinting at the fact that the tier 1 sets might be coming back as heirloom sets. While the Might set is the only one currently listed, but we might be seeing fan favorites such as Giantstalker, Nightslayer, Earthfury, and others as full sets. Considering we're going to the Firelands, the second domain of Ragnaros' that we'll be facing him in, it makes sense that old Molten Core raid items might pop back up. Check out the new items found in patch 4.1 over at Wowhead. WoW Patch 4.1 is on the PTR, and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from previews of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.
Breakfast Topic: Do you use heirlooms when leveling?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. If you ask the guy or girl with the army of alts what they think of heirlooms, he or she will most likely tell you how great heirlooms are. When heirlooms were announced in Wrath, the players suffering from altitis all screamed out in joy. Something that would save them gold while leveling and make life just a little easier on the way to 80? Now 85? Yes, please! At first, we had shoulder and weapon heirlooms that were only purchasable in Dalaran or Wintergrasp. The shoulder heirlooms sold in Wintergrasp were identical to the ones in Dalaran, save that you sacrificed a sometimes useful stat for resilience. In patch 3.2, the Argent Tournament was introduced and with it, chest heirlooms and another way to buy heirlooms. Once you obtained the title you could buy shoulder, chest and weapon heirlooms with Champion's Seals. This was a much more viable and cheaper option to those who didn't want to dungeon crawl to gather the badges needed or who were spending your badges on gear for raiding. To some, the downside to these heirlooms is that they don't scale past 80. Cataclysm did introduce two new heirlooms that scale from 1 to 85: cloak and helm heirlooms purchasable once your guild hits the required level and you are honored. I myself have a number of different heirlooms for my alts, everything from cloth to plate, with different weapons for each class and their specific role. I stopped using them on my priest because I was flying through the revamped zones and couldn't finish all the quest chains before they turned gray. Do you have heirlooms for your alts? Do you prefer to use them while leveling, or do you keep it old-fashioned while leveling? %Poll-60592%
The Queue: Countdown to BlizzCon edition
Welcome back to The Queue, our daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mathew McCurley will be your host today. Some of my compatriots here at WoW Insider have already begun their long, difficult trek to BlizzCon. I, however, will be leaving early Thursday morning and powering my way to Anaheim. There is this happy disbelief right now because the convention is so close. Reality will probably hit me at 4 a.m. on Thursday, when I'm hating myself for early flights and starving at the airport. Let's answer some questions. Babaloo asked: When we go into The Burning Crusade/Wrath content, do we effectively go back in time? Seeing as events during those expansions are referenced in the new old world, how do they explain it?
The Queue: Hard (Stone)core
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Have we mentioned lately that we're positively getting our asses kicked by Cataclysm heroics? Emile asked: With flying in Azeroth coming up, we should be able to fly to those dancing trolls you can see when you fly from Darnassus to Moonglade (if I remember the right FP, I'm sure it's somewhere over Darkshore). Will those trolls still be there in Cataclysm? Yes, you'll be able to fly to Shatterspear Vale, where you can see the Shatterspear trolls joining the Horde and attacking the night elves, who've just had every single settlement in Darkshore obliterated by the cataclysm.
Cataclysm Beta: Guild vendor armor, pets, mounts and more
See that dark phoenix pictured above? Want one for your very own? Wondering where to get it? Wonder no more -- with the latest patch drop on the Cataclysm beta servers, this mount is listed as a guild reward that you may purchase from the guild reward vendor located in the capital city of your respective faction. On top of the gorgeous dark phoenix, plenty of other amazing items have been added to the vendor. Recipes, pets, a ground mount that is unique to your faction -- and for those wondering where we'd get our level 85 heirlooms from, they're on the vendor, as well. Take a look at the gallery below for a peek at what the guild vendor has to offer. Please note the heirlooms reflect both level 1 stats as well as stats for my character's current level, 83. As for prices on the items, don't get your hopes up -- as with everything on the beta, these are subject to change at any time. %Gallery-99399%
Spiritual Guidance: So you wanna play a priest, part 2
The word priest is derived from the Greek work presbyteros, meaning "elder." While Dawn Moore is neither Greek nor an elder, she has 300 days played between her various priests (two-thirds of which was probably spent AFK) and will do her best to relay the information learned in those days each week in Spiritual Guidance. This week instead of one of my typical, eloquent (ha!) introductions, I am going to tell you a story. A story about a machine. The machine was an ancient treasure, crafted by the titans and unearthed by a young priestess. The machine was very powerful and was said to hold the answers to all questions, even the ultimate ones. The priestess honored this machine with her life and wished only to do good with it. One day, while traversing the icy northern valleys of the Storm Peaks, the priestess crossed paths with a leopard. A snow leopard. The priestess slowly took guard, not wishing to agitate the beast. It seemed to be of no matter, however, as the beast was furious with hunger, and it leapt at her without hesitation. The priestess scrambled to her right, calling up a protective shield as the leopard came at her. It seemed she would have to do combat; she began to recite the words to a holy prayer aloud. Unfortunately, before she could finish her prayer, the beast broke her barrier and tackled her to the ground. As she fell, she panicked, thinking of the machine tucked carefully in her satchel. The sound of metal crunching and contorting split through the sounds of the leopard's growls. Or maybe it was just the sound of the priestess' heart? Whatever it was, the priestess screeched in anger, frightening the animal off of her as she called forth the shadows. A protodrake later dined on the leopard's broken corpse. The priestess hurried to Mimiron, master tinkerer and watcher of the titans. She begged him to repair the machine but he shook his head sadly. The machine was ruined, and only the absent titans themselves could restore it. The priestess lowered her head solemnly. Don't understand what that story is about? Don't worry about it. It's time for the second installment of my holy and discipline healing guide. Let's get started.
Cataclysm Press Event: Older heirloom items to work for goblins and worgen
Here's some good news for everyone planning to roll a goblin or worgen, or even a human hunter or troll druid, when the expansion hits: Your heirlooms will still work, but only until level 80. At the recent Cataclysm press event, Blizzard confirmed that heirlooms from the Wrath era will still work for new characters in the Cataclysm era, and specifically even for goblins and worgen. Since you earned them, you should still get to use them. However, they also note that the heirlooms will only work up to level 80. At level 80, you'll have to start using new heirlooms that will be added in Cataclysm itself. So go ahead, buy that Bloodied Arcanite Reaper for your new holy cow or worgen warrior; it'll still work just fine, at least until you get level 80.
The Queue: Earthquake bonanza
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today we're going to skip the wacky shenanigans that usually plague the intros to the Queue. Instead, I'm going to blow your minds with the news that Chile's recent earthquake was large enough that it has potentially moved the Earth's axis and an Earth day is now shorter because of it. dav103id asked... "When running Shadowfang Keep during Love is in the Air, did anyone else notice Arugal on the other side of the courthouse gate when you first enter the instance? Has he always been there at that location or was he added for the Love is in the Air boss event?"
The Queue: Go lay down
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Mike Sacco will be your host today. Why do I always wait to do the easiest post of the day until four in the morning? I should do the easy one first, then do the several-thousand-word posts. Flaskamel asked... "Is it possible for 25 druids to kill a 25-man boss?"
The Queue: Now or later
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. It's been awhile since I've done listening music for The Queue. It's a lot of fun to do, but we do it so often here on WoW.com that it's starting to get a little stale. I've started to miss doing it though, so here you go. Today's listening music is some fantastic Rhett and Link, who you probably have never heard on the radio. Which is a shame. YimmyZ asked... "Is there any lore related to Emblems/badges? Something like the people need so many badges to draw magic from to imbue items or some such?"
The Queue: Still wishing for weather
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Please, everyone. We're begging you. Stop asking us Cataclysm questions that we'll need a time machine to answer. We're not in any betas, and if some of us were magically in an alpha, we probably couldn't tell you. We don't know what will happen to your favorite NPC when the world explodes. We don't know how much Loremaster will change. We don't know if Ragnaros procreates with Maiev Shadowsong. We don't know if Deathwing has enslaved a herd of unicorns. Mr Shinra asked... "Where are all battlegrounds supposedly located on the world map? I figure if come cataclysm we have the entire (old) world available for flight then perhaps we might by able to see the (empty/placeholder) battleground locations by flying over? I know the BGs are seperate instances much like a dungeon is, but it would still be kind of cool to be flying from, say Mount Hyjal to Orgimmar and passing over Warsong Gulch."
IgroMir 2009: More Cataclysm guild leveling details
IgroMir is Russia's largest gaming convention -- sort of an Eastern European Electronic Entertainment Expo (E5?) -- and Blizzard made an appearance there this week, showing off World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and Starcraft II. Besides the demo booths, visitors could look forward to panels with J. Allen Brack (the current WoW head honcho) and Chris Sigaty (SC2 grand poobah), trivia contests with the Russian Blizzard CMs, and goblin/worgen leveling contests. But, of course, here at WoW.com we're mostly interested in Cataclysm news, so let's get right to it, shall we? In his Cataclysm panel, Brack touched on two subjects -- Tol Barad, the new outdoor PVP zone/quest hub, and the new guild leveling system. The Tol Barad talk was apparently nothing new, but the guild leveling talk had some good information in it. Not everything discussed here is new, but some of it is, so I'll just reiterate what he said. After the jump, of course.
Patch 3.3 PTR: A little extra XP bonus
The sneaky database over at MMO-Champion has uncovered a little spell/aura/attribute hidden in the patch 3.3 PTR files that hints at some extra XP from future versions of heirloom gear. Currently, with two pieces of heirloom gear, you can get up to a 20% bonus (the chest and shoulders each give a stackable 10%, while heirloom weapons give nothing). But this Heirloom Experience Bonus +5% "spell" grants an extra 5% experience, so it could be that in the future, we'll see pieces of heirloom gear that have an extra bit of bonus on them -- maybe gloves, cloak, or a belt -- that will bring the total bonus XP up to 25%. There's no base level or other identifying information on this attribute (we call it a "spell," but really, given its information in the game, it seems like a gear-specific ability), so we can assume that it'll be a full 1-80 bonus, just like the current heirloom gear in the game. Unfortunately, we haven't actually uncovered any new heirloom items yet, so we have no idea if this stuff will show up in patch 3.3 or the expansion. And of course, just because the bonus applies from 1-80 doesn't mean the gear can be worn that whole time -- it sure seems like Blizzard wouldn't necessarily want Worgen and Goblin alts speeding past Cataclysm lowbie content. But we'll see -- in the meantime, look for a little extra heirloom power, coming soon. Thanks, Gene! Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.
Nibuca's route for picking up candy
Unfortunately, even though I really want "The Hallowed" on my Paladin, he's not quite 80, so going to face the Headless Horseman will be a problem for me. But I may still run around and pick up all of the candy quests, now that they're up and running during Hallow's End. They're only a part of the big meta-achievement, but it might be worth getting them out of the way anyway, and the XP is supposed to be pretty good (especially if you're getting the Heirloom bonuses, which I am).If I do go, I'll be using Nibuca's handy route to all of the candy buckets -- she went through for you and figured out the quickest and easiest (or at least a quicker and easier -- it may not be perfect, as she says, but it works) way around to all of the candy quests in old Azeroth and Outland. You'll have to do Northrend on your own, but you may want to wait on that anyway, as it's supposed to be slightly bugged. If you are planning on getting all of your just desserts this year, Nibuca's route should be extremely helpful.
