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r/wow • … • u/Klony99

Why can't expansionfeature-items be heirlooms?

Hi Everyone!

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With the announcement of Shadowlands, two thoughts crossed my mind:

First, what happens to the Heart of Azeroth once the expac hits?

Second: With no more grinds, what will happen to the (probably expansion spanning feature) of earnable armors once SL is over? (Covenant armors)

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Browsing this sub, I had an idea. What if Blizzard just morphed these items into heirlooms, once the expansion is over?

Now, this might sound a bit weird, but just bear with me for a second.

In Legion 7.2.5 leveling was remodelled, including heirloom items. The armor you can upgrade up to 120 by now is no longer best in slot at every single level, but provides an xp bonus and makes you "kinda strong enough" for the current content (aside from balancing issues).

With the experience in early BFA feeling like we're losing so much, not only abillities during the leveling process, but a lot of power as well as a beloved item, what if once hitting 111, the Artifact Weapon would turn into an heirloom weapon, specific to your class of course, leveling with you, up to 120, where it would be around itemlevel 300, so you would have to replace it soon. But until then, you could still wield your incredibly farmed up Ashbringer that you boosted for an entire expansion.

Same could be done with the Heart of Azeroth. An heirloom necklace with a good boost of stats, so that you could keep it up to level 60 but replace it once you hit max level.

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Now you might say: But that would defeat the entire purpose of the gearing process and would make the leveling progression even worse! - to what I would answer:

With the level squish finally coming in Shadowlands, it is clear that Blizzard does not intend for us to play through old expansions, making the leveling process a long journey. Instead they try to make it fun and refreshing by shortening it down massively (I think it was in the deep dive where they mentioned that the leveling speed and XP required would be up/down (respectively) by another 60% from BFA to SL). Only the item from THE LAST EXPANSION (in this case, the HoA, BFA) would just "level up alongside you", while other heirloom items (e.g. Ashbringer) would level up once you can buy the itemlevel upgrade for all heirloom items to 120 (50) to 60. This way, old expansion features (INCLUDING Shadowmourne, the Cataclysm staff and the Pandaria legendary cloak) could be used in the leveling process of alt characters, and players who sat through the grind with those items would not feel like this is just crap you dust off for the occasional timewalking event (maybe you could even wear this through ALL of the timewalking events, making you more powerful and boosting the ego of some returning players or accomplished raiders).

I am unsure whether I want my legendary cloak to be an actual heirloom (e.g. accessible from all characters) or just leveling up with the character that owns it. I'd hand that off to Blizzard as a balancing decision.

On a sidenote, Blizz needs to TOTALLY make Covenant Armors transmog after Shadowlands, so I can switch between Vampire-DK and Bastion-DK.

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TL/DR: I think it would be fun to still be able to use everything I grinded for in older xpacs, even if it's not hugely relevant in current content. Making older items "heirlooms", that automatically adjust to your level, but aren't automatically best in slot, could achieve that and bring some life back to those old items, aside from Timewalking.

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