Still important questions that are unanswered:1) - what happens with heirloom upgrading and upgrades - it don't make sense to have it max level related with level squish (ALSO upgrades are when most gold spend went - not heirlooms itself)Solution to 1): - add bonuses like Speed, Sockets, etc. as tier upgrades2) - will be heirlooms to missing slots added - without exp bonus there is no reason NOT3) - some armor class + slot have same secondaries - will there be some changes so there are differences in stats?4) Heirlooms and enchants - with scaling like this and leveling/enchants proceeding in "alternate timelines" will there be some enchanting rework/consolidation?When we are at it how will leveling in different times affect crafting item levels?
Sooooo any word on the upgrade system? I'm sitting on 30+ Weathered Casings I bought with Timewarped Badges waiting to hear if it's worth spending the gold to use them or letting them brick to vendor for gold.
How about a hearthstone cooldown reduction? Ports to the hub of the content your are leveling in? Bonus to gathering skill leveling?
i'm totally agree with his bonuses. i'm also ok if blizzard gives us extra secendary stats as bonuses like 20% extra crit on 6 piece.
For the people saying they want a refund, sure it sucks that the heirlooms no longer give the same exp bonus, but it's not like you haven't 1) already utilised the bonus thus making the gold/currency spent worth it 2) got time to level new characters to max before Shadowlands hits to maximise the remaining potential.So I think a refund is a bit optimistic, I would like to see the set bonuses approached again as the rested exp thing really doesn't seem worth it. I think flying would be cool, but I'd actually add it as an 8 set and finally release heirloom pieces for the few missing pieces and then maybe just have an increased mount speed as the 6 piece bonus. Since bonus exp isn't a thing anymore I can't imagine there's a good reason to not allow a full set of heirlooms considering they don't need to worry about giving too much bonus exp/reducing the effectiveness of the other pieces to compensate.As an aside, even as someone that doesn't own it, I think the ring from the STV fishing event should still give the bonus experience as a unique heirloom. 5% is hardly game breaking on it's own but I think it's a fairly nice way of keeping that reward actually rewarding.
"Extra rested exp!" Only good if you play alts rarely."AoE damage when you level up and bonus to primary stat!" I usually level up at the ends of dungeons or when turning in quests. Honestly, I more often level up from gathering professions or exploration than from kills."Increased out of combat regeneration!" I'm reasonably sure I never pause to heal up while leveling except maybe casting a healing spell or two before charging into the fray again.
these are much better ideas than rested xp BS, i mean i have to make a character and not level him after getting heirlooms for him? that's so silly i feel the devs don't play this game anymore, whens the last time you think any dev leveled a toon and didn't just use a pre-made dev testing one.
To me the rested "buff" offered by heirlooms (if these changes stick) sound like it'll mostly benefit people making pandaren characters, as they already get twice as much rested exp than other races. So, if you leave the character to gain the full rested you'll get more out of that set "bonus". And even more so if it's a monk with the new enlightenment buff.And, personally, I don't find the idea of speed buffs the least bit interesting. I would honestly be okay with heirlooms if they just gave back some of the stats they removed from them. I'm not saying I want them to be as powerful as they were but making them equivalent to blues would be nice, compared to how weak they are atm.
They already nerfed the power of heirlooms from blues to greens a few years ago and made quest rewards way better, to the point where the rings provided so little of a boost you could easily replace them once you get far enough into the process. Taking the xp boost and replacing it with these... bonuses?, really makes the whole system unappealing. Boosting heirlooms is already absurdly expensive, with this, there is effectively no reason to bother with them in the future.
I feel like a better 6 piece bonus would be a flightmaster's whistle. Maybe the heirlooms should just be nice QoL changes and not power/exp boosts. Would I love flying at level 10? Yeah, but that would really kill wpvp for non-heirloomers
Another recommendation for the set bonuses in addition to what's been discussed is to make them provide reputation gain. Example +5% for 2 piece, +10% for 4 piece, and +15% for 6 piece. For content that isn't "current" this would provide a catch up mechanism to locked recipes and content with a fairly simple tuning adjustment that would provide an easy benefit to go back and run old content. This would be nice given the new expansion leveling experience.
Maybe they just shouldn't change it then and leave them alone as is, let people use the things for the reason they bought them with their gold. Otherwise just make the 2 set bonus a flat 20% exp earned increase and get rid of the rested exp bonus for a 6 set bonus with something else instead.
I would love sockets on heirlooms. Even if it's just rings or something. Especially with the cool new speed gem teased that increases speed for every SL gem. That would be a dope thing to stack. Agreed about the bonuses. Instead of your "gain the ability to use flying" I would rather see something like out of combat movespeed or staying mounted in combat (like WoD Nagrand garrison ability). I like flying, but I also like the time before you can fly, forcing you to explore the world you might otherwise never see.My final heirloom suggestion--keep the ranks. Instead of increasing their max level per rank, increase their relative ilevel. Like, non-upgraded are equivalent to greens. a 4-upgrade would be a high-end epic. That way all the gold, tokens, etc., we've invested in upgrades aren't magically erased. Plus, I love how heirlooms used to be beefy and you could steamroll stuff. Now they aren't even always the best items, which feels bad, man.
1. these are boring and encourage nothing. Id rather just see them power blue these to blue or purple item level and scrap the set bonus. it is a bonus for the system alone to not get with rng on level when you dont get a weapon or such. 2. losing the experience makes these feel bad but why? is the leveling just boring and the only way we want it is as fast as possible. I'm not sure blizz can or should pick this hill to die on. a lot of player have seen the content no dusting is going to fundamentally change it or bring back the excitement of the first time you did the content. 3. Its always the first grind. I think shadow lands does the most to combat this issue. Letting alts pick up end game power systems while leveling that our mains don't get till max level. I think this also is there idea of how leveling to speed up during the expansion compared to adding heirlooms later. were right now its just a trek to 60 to start the other systems you need to grind. 4. to fight the I've been her done that I want leveling to be fun. legendary type effects would be great if they are built around play. rested is just to dull and to niche for the only option. Maybe open the system and tune sets for how different people level pvp, dungeons, quests, mixed. or lean into some kind of quality of life like many are asking for. 5. if these goes live add something to speed up how much rested we get or where we earn it. maybe something like gain x amount of rested per hour played. or gain rested 50% faster. (but please please power bump them to blue or better) also make them cheaper and just work 1-50 no more upgrades. 6. i get why the refund cry but i have got to use my bonus for this long i'm fine with it going away but I would make sure people in game and don't follow news sites know its going away asap in game so someone doesn't spend 100k on them right now without knowing its going away in a few months.
The rested XP bonus is useless, I'll agree with that.Other than that, I don't agree with most of the article. The main bonus of heirloom leveling gear is easy to forget: the fact that the pieces level with you and get stronger whenever you gain a level. That's priceless.The extra xp are no longer necessary, since leveling will be faster even without these bonuses now.The bonus of faster out-of-combat-healing is very useful in my opinion, depending on its strength, of course. DesMephisto plays almost only plate wearers, mostly warriors, as far as I know, right? Those don't have a problem with out of combat healing, sure (Victory Rush, Death strike with leveling talent, paladin healing spells). But there are classes / specs who DO need to sit down and eat from time to time. Mages have no heal at all (not sure if that's changed with SL, though), and to see Crimson Vial as example in this article makes me want to cry and laugh at the same time, since it's being nerfed to uselessness in SL.So, I'm fine with this. I got plenty of use out of these heirlooms in the last years, I leveled almost 40 toons. And I'm looking forward to leveling more with Chromie time.
For me, the set bonuses don't work, they are greyed out like deactivated tier bonuses. I have all 7 equipped, but not max upgraded, no idea.