Enchanting Heirlooms

Once or twice each week I’ll take a look through all of the search terms that people used that led them to my blog. Sometimes I find strange ones, like the guy this week who found me by searching for “realid cannot play secretly hide from wife”. I can’t help you with problems like hiding your play time from your wife, but I’m not really sure why you would hide from your wife if the only way she would be able to see you is if she’s playing the game at the same time. But, sometimes it’s better not to try to figure out the crazy things people say or ask for.

Other times search terms or phrases prompt me to write something, and that’s the case today. I see every week, and on most days, people searching for which enchant they should put on their heirlooms or which ones they’re allowed to put on them, or maybe someone looking for a reason why they can’t put a particular enchant on them.

So today we’re going to talk about which enchants you should put on your heirlooms to get the most benefit out of them. The only heirlooms that we are not going to cover are Trinkets because there are no trinket enchants.

Chest Heirlooms
There are currently six options for heirloom chests in the game; one cloth, two leather, two mail, and one plate. Each one is purchased with either 40 Emblems of Heroism or 60 Champion Seals.

You have a few different options for your chest enchant, and which one you use is mostly a matter of preference. By default people like to use the “+X Stats” enchants because they’re a nice, rounded enchant that could help any class that wears it. Everyone benefits from having their stats increased, regardless of class or role. For some pieces though you know that it will be more beneficial for you, at least early on, to have a specific enchant that adds a large amount of either health or mana instead.

Here are the most common enchants for heirloom chests, and the ones that I would recommend.
Greater Stats: Permanently enchant chest armor to increase all stats by 4.
Stats: Permanently enchant a piece of chest armor to grant +3 to all stats.
Major Mana: Permanently enchant chest armor to increase mana by 100.
Major Health: Permanently enchant chest armor to increase health by 100.

If you’re going to level a lot of different classes with these heirlooms, or if you’re going to use them for multiple specs while you level, then it will probably be better for you to go with one of the +Stats enchants. It’s not too hard to find enchanters with the +3 Stats enchant because it’s taught by trainers. The +4 Stats enchant though is only a drop and its drop rate sucks, so it’s harder to find. If you’re using a specific piece for a specific class, or you’re using a piece that really only benefits one class/spec, then you might be better off using the Mana/Health enchants if they suit your role.

For example, I prefer to use the Major Mana enchant on my Tattered Dreadmist Robe because I know that any class I put it on is going to be a caster, and I would rather have the mana, especially in early leveling. I similarly prefer Major Health on my Polished Breastplate of Valor because the toons wearing plate are either going to be tanking or in melee and extra health appeals to me in that case.

For mail and leather I tend more towards the Stats enchants because they’re more versatile and the classes that would use them are more versatile as well, so it’s better for me to have a more generic enchant than specific. It doesn’t do me any good to put +100 Mana on a leather chest that works on my Rogue as well as my Shaman. Likewise it does little good to have +100 Health on a chest that’s going to a druid healer that will rarely be touched in combat.

As you get higher in level though, the Health/Mana enchants provide less and less benefit overall as you start taking hits that deal more than 100 damage or when your spells cost more than 100 mana to cast. So your best bet overall is to go with the Stats enchants, I just have personal preferences that cause an exception.

Finger Heirlooms
Right now there is only one heirloom ring, the Dread Pirate Ring rewarded from the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby held each weekend and given to the first person that catches the right fish.

Assault: Permanently enchant a ring to increase attack power by 40. Only the enchanter’s rings can be enchanted, and enchanting a ring will cause it to become soulbound.
Greater Spellpower: Permanently enchant a ring to increase spell power by 23. Only the Enchanter’s rings can be enchanted, and enchanting a ring will cause it to become soulbound.
Stamina: Permanently enchant a ring to increase Stamina by 30. Only the Enchanter’s rings can be enchanted and enchanting a ring will cause it to become soulbound.

I’ve tried getting my hands on this ring a few times, but no luck as of yet. Going strictly by wording, I believe that you could apply any of the three enchants above to this ring. Now, those enchants would only work for characters capable of casting the enchant (it’s a profession-only benefit), but there are no level requirements on those enchants.

I have polled the Twitter crowd and I have been told that you can use Inscription enchants on heirloom shoulders (that only work for inscriptionists, of course), so I assume the same would be true for these. Since you have no other option for ring enchants anyway, then you might as well put them on if you have an enchanter and just have your enchanters benefit from it. You have to have Enchanting 400 for them to work, so you wouldn’t get any benefit until you could train that hight, but still, it’s better to have an enchant that only works for 20 levels than to not have one at all.

Weapon Heirlooms
There are a lot of different heirloom weapons in the game. All non-ranged heirlooms can benefit from “Enchant Weapon – ???” enchants, while some can also benefit from additional enchants such as “Enchant 2H Weapon – ???” or “Enchant Staff – ???” enchants. We’ll talk about all of the important ones here though.

Unfortunately, the Bow and Gun heirlooms get shafted on the enchanting front, only being able to benefit from Scopes that all have varying benefits and level requirements that go with them. So you either need to apply various scopes as you level, deal with a dinky +1 or +2 Attack Power scope, or apply a scope that doesn’t come into effect until your character is higher level. I use the Standard (+2) Scope on mine because I use them on my twinks, but otherwise I would probably go for a mid-level scope that would kick in at level 30 or 40 respectively.

Heirloom weapons vary in their prices both in the type of currency and the amount required to purchase them. The more PvP-oriented ones can be purchased with Stonekeeper’s Shards while ones with more PvE-style attributes require Emblems of Heroism or Champion Seals.

Weapon
Spellpower: Permanently enchant a melee weapon to increase spell power by 30.
Healing Power: Permanently enchant a melee weapon to increase spell power by 29.
Mighty Intellect: Permanently enchant a melee weapon to increase Intellect by 22.

Crusader: Permanently enchant a melee weapon to often heal for 75-125 and increase Strength by 100 for 15 seconds when attacking in melee. Has a reduced effect for players above level 60.
Strength: Permanently enchant a melee weapon to increase Strength by 15.
Agility: Permanently enchant a melee weapon to increase Agility by 15.
Fiery Weapon: Permanently enchant a melee weapon to often strike for 40 additional fire damage.

Spellpower is the favored enchant for caster weapons and one that will benefit you throughout your character’s career. It’s not an easy enchant to find and it’s often expensive as the recipe for it is dropped only in vanilla raids. Mighty Intellect is another caster or Marksman Hunter enchant that’s usually the backup enchant for when you can’t find Spellpower for casters or +25 Agility for Hunters. I typically prefer +22 Int over +30 SP for my heirlooms just because I like to play a lot of casters and prefer to reduced downtime from extra mana to the increased spell power. Healing Power is another vanilla raid drop, but for some reason it’s a bit easier to find than Spellpower.

Crusader is my favorite enchant for most melee heirlooms. The only exception is for those that I intend to use for Rogues or Hunters who will benefit more from +Agility enchants than from one that increases Strength. Strength and Agility are also excellent options, particularly for one handed weapons that you intend to dual wield. Fiery Weapon continues to be one of my favorite enchants of all time. At low level this is one of the most powerful melee enchants available to you because it can crit for +80 Fire damage which is a really big deal at low level. As mobs get more and more health though this one becomes less and less impressive. You’ll have more lasting benefit from the other melee enchants, but more low level benefit from Fiery.

If you level a lot of low level toons then Fiery is amazing, but if you like to take your characters all the way to the level cap then you’re probably better off with Crusader or one of the stat enchants.

Two-Handed Weapon
Agility: Permanently enchant a two-handed melee weapon to increase Agility by 25.
Iron Counterweight: Attaches a counterweight to a two-handed sword, mace, axe or polearm increasing the wielder’s haste rating by 20.
Superior Impact: Permanently enchant a two-handed melee weapon to increase its damage by 9.

The Agility enchant is one of the best for hunters. You’ll want to put it on either an axe or a staff if you do. Some people like to put Superior Impact on the Bloodied Arcanite Reaper to increase it’s base damage. I’m personally a fan of proc enchants from the Weapon list up above instead, or the +25 Agility enchant I just mentioned, but go with the enchant that suits your style and your needs the most.

The Iron Counterweight is crafted by blacksmiths and its usefulness varies quite a bit. There are only two heirlooms you can apply it to, an axe and a mace, and both of them are melee weapons. It basically reduces your time between auto-attacks by about 0.2 seconds which will be an increase in your DPS. That haste also applies to your GCD and everything else that Haste normally applies to, but the weapons it’s restricted to force it to be a melee enchant rather than a spell caster enchant.

Ranged Weapon
Standard Scope: Attaches a permanent scope to a bow or gun that increases its damage by 2. (requires level 10)
Deadly Scope: Attaches a permanent scope to a bow or gun that increases its damage by 5. (requires level 30)

There are other scopes that you can use at higher levels that add additional amounts of damage, crit, or haste as well. The whole concept of heirlooms is to be able to use them throughout the leveling process and on multiple characters, so I like to go with lower level enchants myself so that the enchants aren’t quite so wasted.

Shoulder Heirlooms
There are several heirloom shoulders available to us. Shoulder enchants are similar to the Ring enchants in that most of them require specific circumstances to be met before you can benefit from them. Those circumstances are going to require that you be a certain level, have the inscription profession, or have a certain level of reputation with specific factions before they can be used.

All shoulder enchants added in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion require you to be level 80 to use them, so I’m not going to bother listing them here as level 80 is where you stop using heirlooms in favor of other gear.

PvP – Honor Points
Greater Inscription of the Gladiator: Permenantly adds 30 Stamina and 15 Resilience Rating to a shoulder slot item.

For 10,000 Honor points (honestly, not that hard to get) you can purchase this enchant which is going to be the strongest option you can get prior to level 80 that does not require you to build reputation with a specific faction. If you want more specific enchants than just +Stamina then you’ll need to grind that Scryers/Aldor rep from Outlands.

Crafted – Leatherworking
Heavy Borean Armor Kit: Permanently increase the Stamina of an item work on the head, chest, shoulders, legs, hands or feet by 18. (requires level 70)
Borean Armor Kit: Permanently increase the Stamina of an item work on the head, chest, shoulders, legs, hands or feet by 12. (requires level 70)

These are your two easiest options for enchanting your heirloom shoulders. While there are quite a few shoulder enchants that you can use prior to level 70, they all require that you grind reputation with various factions. If you want to find out which enchants you can get before then and which factions you need to build reputation with, then I’ll direct you to this Wowhead list.

None of these enchants (the PvP ones included) are going to make or break the game for you so it’s definitely not critical that you have them, and they don’t come into effect until the end of your character’s leveling career, but once again any enchant is better than no enchant. These are also usually fairly cheap on the auction house and with small material requirements it’s easy to find Leatherworkers who are willing to make them for you.

Technically you can get “better” shoulder enchants at level 70 by grinding rep with the Scryers or Aldor faction based in Shattrath. The problem is that each character can only build reputation with one of those factions because all quests that raise your rep with one lower your rep with the other at an increased rate. Each of those factions offers enchants with the same modified stats but at different values as well, so what will be good for one character may not be good for another.

Wrap up
So in summary, there are a lot of enchants that you can do that will customize certain heirlooms to be more beneficial to certain classes and specs, and there are other enchants which are great for generalization that can be used for multiple characters of any class or spec that still provide benefit.

Generalized List
Chest: Greater Stats: +4 to all stats
Finger: Stamina: +30 Stamina [or no enchant]
Weapon: Crusader: Proc on Hit: Heal 75-120, +100 Strength for 15 seconds (Melee)
Weapon: Spellpower: +30 Spell Power (Caster)
Weapon: Deadly Scope: +5 Damage (Ranged)
Shoulder: Heavy Borean Armor Kit: +18 Stamina

In general, these are the best overall enchants that you can get for your heirloom items. As I mention in the individual sections up above, there are other options that can provide more benefit for certain classes or specs as well, but if you like to switch your heirlooms around to several different alts, then this is a solid list of general enchants that will benefit the majority of your characters.

For clarification’s sake, enchants that require you to be a certain level in order to benefit them also require you to be that level to apply them in the first place, so the character you used to purchase those heirlooms is typically the character you’ll have to use to enchant them in the first place. The Stamina enchant to a ring also requires that you be an Enchanter 400+ in order to apply the enchant in the first place, so if you don’t have a high level enchanter then you cannot enchant your heirloom ring.