Heirloom

Heirlooms (also referred to as just looms) are an item type that was introduced with Wrath of the Lich King. The items have a light blue hue in their text color ( golden before patch 7.0.3), and their attributes scale with the character's level, with upgrades to increase the max level it can scale to. Nearly all heirloom items are named after popular items from the early days of classic WoW and share the look of these items.

Once purchased, heirlooms are learned like mounts, pets, and toys, and show up in the Heirlooms tab. From there, players can upgrade their heirlooms to be effective for more levels, and to make copies of the heirlooms to use on a character. Heirlooms can be mailed to any character that shares the same account, including those of opposing faction or on different realms.

Since after patch 9.0.1, heirloom provides better attributes and a set bonus during the leveling experience to reach current content. Prior to patch 9.0.1, the shoulders, chest pieces, cloaks, helms, legs, and the rings granted greater experience gains while wearing them. The experience bonuses stacked with each other and with the rested bonus, and affect experience gains from quests, but did not stack with Essence of Wintergrasp. The maximum possible experience bonus from heirlooms alone was 55% (with full heirloom set, Garrison Shipyard Ring, and Dread Pirate Ring from the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza).

Heirloom items do not have a durability stat and do not need to be repaired. This saves money when leveling the character.

Heirloom item restrictions are skill-based and not class-based. For example, any class could wear the cloth shoulders and chest for the 20% experience boost, but classes such as warriors and rogues would not benefit from the item's casting stats. Because characters don't typically get any shoulder or head gear until after level 20, putting any lower-armor-type XP enhancing heirloom you may have sitting around (like cloth, which all can wear) on even a mail or leather class will be helpful until you start getting equipment for what would otherwise just be just an empty slot

Patch 6.1 implemented the Heirlooms tab in the Collections interface, and thus players now only need to acquire heirlooms once to learn them. Once learned (like pets, mounts or toys), players can right-click on an heirloom to add it to that character's inventory. Duplicate heirlooms and heirlooms that have been learned but are not useful to the current character can (like toys) be deleted without any further issue if they have not been enchanted.

The vast majority of heirlooms scale from levels 1 to 60, but can be upgraded with tokens three times: once to be effective from levels 1 to 90, secondly to 100, and finally to level 110. Upgraded heirlooms, when created from the heirlooms tab, will show up in characters' bags at the upgrade level seen in the UI.

Enchants only apply to individual copies of heirlooms (unlike upgrades), so if an heirloom has been enchanted and it is no longer useful to the character wearing it, consider mailing the heirloom to another character rather than deleting it.

Nontraditional heirlooms (like the Dread Pirate Ring or Garrosh weapons) are invisible in the heirlooms tab until acquired. Only the highest-difficulty Garrosh weapon will be visible in the UI if the player has the same item in multiple difficulty modes.

Now-upgradeable heirlooms acquired before patch 6.1 were automatically added to the heirlooms tab at upgrade level 1/2 (effective up to level 90) regardless of whether or not they were actually upgraded, with the heirloom items themselves staying in the character's bags, bank, or void storage.

• Pre-6.1 heirlooms

Heirlooms with attributes that are no longer used (such as dodge or PvP resilience) were updated to provide another secondary stat (crit or haste).

The following vendors sell heirloom shoulders, chests, trinkets, necklaces, and weapons, and both sets of the heirloom upgrade tokens for gold:

• Krom Stoutarm: The Library, Hall of Explorers, Ironforge
• Estelle Gendry: Gates of Orgrimmar, Orgrimmar or Rogues' Quarter, Undercity
• Dame Evniki Kapsalis at the Argent Tournament Grounds in Icecrown also sells many of the same heirlooms in exchange for Champion's Seals, and Daenrand Dawncrest at the Darkmoon Faire sells the same heirlooms that Kapsalis does in exchange for Darkmoon Prize Tickets.
• Liliana Emberfrost in the Champion's Hall of Stormwind City and Galra in the Hall of Legends of Orgrimmar also sell (formerly) PvP-focused heirlooms in exchange for Honor Points.

Guild vendors sell heirloom helms, cloaks, and legs with guild reputation requirements. Helms and cloaks merely require honored guild reputation, while legs require being in a guild that has unlocked the Working Better as a Team achievement:

Beyond the vendors, there are a few other sources of heirlooms:

• In the Brawler's Guild, once players reach rank 8, they may purchase the for from Quackenbush at Bizmo's Brawlpub in the Deeprun Tram beneath Stormwind or from Paul North at the Brawl'gar Arena in Orgrimmar.
• Players who manage to win the Grand Prize or get Second Place at the weekly Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza at Booty Bay in Stranglethorn Vale may elect to receive the.
• Four new rings were added in patch 6.2.0 that are rewards from completing Garrison missions: Admiral Taylor's Loyalty Ring, Captain Sander's Returned Band and Signet of the Third Fleet are from rare shipyard missions, and Touch of the Void from The Consuming Void, a rare follower mission.
• Defending Champion and Returning Champion are PvP trinkets obtained after completing the 12-trinket quests for the Gurubashi Arena and Darkmoon Deathmatch respectively.
• Completing the Class Hall mission: Assault on Felfire Armory, rewards the Man'ari Training Amulet.
• Battle Hymnal, Cloak of Hardened Steel, Bolstering War Horn, Dusk Powder, and Enchanted Warscroll can be purchased from Provisioner Mukra or Provisioner Stoutforge for or respectively.

As previously mentioned, heirlooms as sold by the vendors are effective from levels 1 to 60. Upgrade tokens are available for purchase to upgrade heirlooms to be effective up to level 90, 100, 110, and 120 respectively.

During Timewalking Dungeon Events, the Timewalking Vendor sells upgrade tokens in exchange for Timewarped Badges.

Additionally, during holidays like Love is in the Air, Hallow's End, or the Lunar Festival, vendors tend to sell upgrade tokens in exchange for the event currency.

There are currently 22 armor pieces, 16 weapons, and 13 off-hand and miscellaneous available to everyone. Additionally, being Revered with a guild grants access to 20 more armor pieces. Finally, there are 2 armor pieces, 3 weapons, and 17 off-hand and miscellaneous which are acquired through special means. One-handed weapons have a cheaper base cost, but upgrade costs are the same as two-handed. To max out each piece would cost the following:

• Heirlooms not bought from a vendor have been factored out of the "first buy" cost. However, included in the upgrade cost as well as total cost.

There are four achievements for learning heirlooms, with the last requiring 35 unique heirlooms learned. Upon unlocking the fourth achievement, players will receive a letter in the mail with a Clinking Present attached. Inside the present is the Chauffeured Chopper, a mount that can be used by players of all levels.

• 1) Where's the Mailbox?
• 2) Alt-ernative Lifestyle
• 3) Ready for Powerleveling
• 4) Heirloom Hoarder

An heirloom's stats correspond to the item level of a blue quality item requiring its wearer's level until the heirloom stops leveling, as specified by the tooltip. However, heirlooms give bonuses to four different stats from a far lower level than blue items start doing so. At level 100, heirlooms are equivalent to an item level 605 item, and will ultimately be replaced by questing, instancing, and PvP at the maximum level. The heirloom weapons that were dropped by Garrosh Hellscream are instead equivalent to an item level 620 weapon at level 100.

On reaching levels 58, 68, 81, 86, and 91, players may notice unusually large increases to an heirloom's effective item level, because these are the lowest required levels for blues introduced in, respectively, the Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, and Warlords of Draenor expansions. However, since the stat squish in patch 6.0.2, there are no longer large increases in heirloom power from these jumps in item level, except the jump that occurs at level 91 (reflecting the new Warlords of Draenor blue items).

• Leveling from 57 to 58 increases an heirloom's item level from 62 to 79.
• Leveling from 67 to 68 increases an heirloom's item level from 105 to 139.
• Leveling from 80 to 81 increases an heirloom's item level from 187 to 279.
• Leveling from 85 to 86 increases an heirloom's item level from 333 to 384.
• Leveling from 90 to 91 increases an heirloom's item level from 463 to 520. This increase approximately doubles all stats on the heirloom, including weapon DPS. This shift does not occur on the heirloom weapons that were dropped by Garrosh Hellscream in Siege of Orgrimmar prior to the launch of Warlords of Draenor, which follow a different line of item level progression.

Heirlooms can be enchanted only with enhancements that will not bind the item to the character. All enchantments can be applied to heirloom items. High level enhancements applied to items equipped by low level players have their power scaled down to be similar to enhancements intended for that level range. Note that profession-specific enchantments still require the profession.

Heirloom shoulder enchants can be used at any level, but are only usable by level 30 characters and makes the heirloom soulbound. This is to allow for the use of these enchants without having to grind through the reputations of Sons of Hodir with another character.

Note that the Sons of Hodir heirloom items are only the highest level version of the item the faction vendor carries. For example, Lesser Inscription of the Axe is not an Heirloom and the name will not appear in the light blue color in the vendor's trade window.

From patch 5.4 to the launch of Warlords of Draenor, Garrosh Hellscream, the final boss of Siege of Orgrimmar, dropped heirlooms for level 90-100 players. These heirlooms can no longer be acquired, and are invisible in the collections UI unless one of the heirlooms has already been learned. If players have multiple versions of the same item in different difficulty levels, only the highest-difficulty heirloom will be visible in the UI.

These weapons start at item levels of 556, 569, or 582, for the normal, heroic, and mythic versions respectively (flexible, normal, and heroic, before patch 6.0.2). All 3 versions scale linearly to item level 620 at level 100, however, so the item level difference between the 3 versions decreases as a character approaches level 100. For example, at level 95, the weapons have item levels of 588, 595, and 601, respectively, which is a difference of 6-7 item levels, compared to the 13 item level difference at level 90.

5 new trinket heirlooms were added in patch 6.2.3, available to the launch of Legion, having a chance to be rewarded to the player through Personal loot upon the defeat of the Warlords of Draenor dungeon bosses on Mythic difficulty. These trinkets can only be used from levels 100-110.

Select Mists of Pandaria factions have Grand Commendations available for purchase that double the reputation gains with factions once their commendation has been purchased and used. In order to purchase a commendation, one character on the player's account must reach revered standing with that faction.

Though technically heirlooms (they have the light blue color), commendations are BoP and should be consumed immediately after purchase.

• Armory Light: Heirloom Scaling Calculator
• Heirloom Items Scale Calculator
• RRVS: Beta Bind to account items
• MMOC: Some BtA items
• WoW Insider on Heirlooms
• MMOC: Chests