Heirloom Farming Methods

[Update 09/17/13: Conversion rates between Honor and Justice Points has been increased from 375>250 to 500>250, causing a significant increase in the amount of farming required.]

Heads Up – F2P Heirloom Guides Coming Soon
During the past couple of weeks I’ve had a lot of increased traffic on my heirlooms guides, and I’ve had more contact from readers than I have for quite a while. With F2P twinking on a rise right now a lot of people are wondering why I haven’t bothered to cover the PvP heirlooms in my guides. In short, I have.

PvP heirlooms, in general, are not as powerful as PvE heirlooms. PvP heirlooms are defined as those that grant a bonus to Resilience, while PvE heirlooms are those that do not. PvP Heirlooms don’t often show up in my guides because they aren’t as good as PvE heirlooms and if I’m going to write a guide then I’m going to do it with optimization in mind.

However, for the sake of all those F2P players, there will be an heirloom guide soon that’s directed specifically at you and how to go about farming heirlooms for each class taking into account the amount of time it takes to farm Honor and the relative value of PvE pieces versus PvP pieces.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled blog post…
There are multiple ways to farm heirlooms in the game right now, some of which are faster than others. Prior to Blizzard making the change that now allows us to convert Justice Points to Honor and vice versa, some of the heirlooms were theoretically out of reach for players that did not take part in the activities that rewarded the type of currency used for the different heirlooms. Thanks to that change though, the heirlooms can be purchased by players who enjoy any combination of questing, PvP, and PvE.

Today we’re going to take a look at the possible farming methods and how quickly you can farm certain heirlooms. First I’ll explain the various farming methods, and then I’ll give my opinion on which methods of farming I suggest for different types of players.

Methods of Farming

Farming Justice Points (JP)
Cataclysm Instances: 140 per dungeon, 7 per week = 980 JP/wk
Cataclysm Heroics: 70 per boss (varies by dungeon)
Weekly Wrath Raid Quest: 138 JP
Honor Conversion: 375 Honor = 250 JP 500 Honor = 250 JP, no limit
To see a full list of the ways to farm JP, see Wowhead’s listing of Justice Points (JP).

Heirloom Costs: Armor 2,175, Shoulders 2,175, Weapons 2,175-3,500, Trinkets 2,725

I mentioned this type of farming first because the Justice Points are the currency for the majority of the heirlooms available, and because between the JP and Honor heirlooms, JP are almost always the better choice.

Easy Farming: As far as easy farming goes, running the seven random Cataclysm dungeons each week is the “easiest” way to farm JP. The few times that I have farmed dungeons for JP, it took me 1-2 evenings worth of LFG to finish all seven. You never know, even in normal dungeons, how good or bad the rest of the team will be in LFG, and you may or may not be able to talk guild members into doing this farm with you to speed it up. [Update: As I am no longer actively playing WoW, I don’t know what the easiest way to farm straight JP is right now.]

Fast Farming: The fastest way to farm JP, that I know of, is to actually farm Honor instead and then convert it to JP. A few months couple of years ago Cynwise wrote a post called The Carrot and the Stick which talks about this a bit. Because of how much of each currency you earn in relation to the activities that grant them, you can earn Honor at a significantly faster rate than you can earn JP, making the conversion rate of Honor -> JP faster than farming JP itself. In the time it takes me to farm seven dungeons for just 980 JP, I can farm roughly two whole heirlooms worth of Honor.

Heroic Farming: While most people farm Heroics for extra Valor Points, each heroic boss does reward JP as well. How much JP you get per dungeon depends on how many bosses the dungeon has to offer. Do you want to run dungeons that have seven bosses for more JP/dungeon, or do you want to run dungeons with only 3-4 bosses for more JP/hour? How much time you have to run them is the real deciding factor. If you’re farming Heroics anyway, you might as well get some heirloom profit out of the deal too.

Farming Honor Points
Heirloom Costs: Armor 2,175, Shoulders 2,175, Weapons 2,175-3,500, Trinkets 2,725

The PvP Heirlooms that originally appeared in Wintergrasp are purchased with Honor. In most cases, the PvP heirlooms are not as powerful as the PvE heirlooms. They can be better for PvP at some levels because they all offer Resilience, but they gain that stat at the expense of other stats so in most cases you get better heirlooms from JP than you do from Honor.

The great thing about Honor is that it can be farmed on any toon from level 10 on, which is especially important for free account players since they don’t have access to a character that can farm JP. It’s also good for people on new accounts who like to do PvP while they level since they can buy heirlooms even without having high level characters.

The most efficient way to farm honor is to do so on a high level character because the higher your level (and your opponent’s level) the more Honor you receive, and the higher your level the higher the Honor rewards are from completing battleground tasks such as capturing flags/nodes or destroying towers/gates/NPC Leaders. But, just because you get more honor at high levels than you do at low doesn’t mean you can’t farm for heirlooms on low level toons.

Honor Farming Without PvP: There are two ways you can farm Honor without doing any actual PvP. First is the Wintergrasp daily quests which each reward 24 Honor. The only quests there that require some form of PvP are the ones that want you to destroy enemy siege vehicles or to protect your own siege vehicles, all others can be done with no PvP at all (you can kill NPC’s for the one that asks for 10 kills). Winning Wintergrasp gives you Honor as well, and since Cataclysm I have not seen more than 8 people in WG at one time, making the battles extremely fast and easy. Losing Wintergrasp should give you honor as well, but I honestly haven’t lost in Wintergrasp since Cataclsym so I have no idea how much it is.

If you control Wintergrasp then you can take advantage of the second type of PvP’less Honor farming, which is Northrend dungeons. While your faction controls WG, all Northrend dungeon bosses reward Honor in addition to their normal rewards. During Wrath you got Stonekeeper Shards for killing the bosses while in control of WG, but with the currency consolidation of Cataclysm those shards were converted to Honor.

Thirdly we have Northrend’s PvP Daily Quests in areas such as Grizzly Hills’ Venture Bay. You will get flagged for PvP while you do some of these quests, so it’s possible that you’re opening yourself up to being ganked by passers by, but in my experience most of Northrend is pretty well dead right now and you shouldn’t have a problem. This honor grind isn’t especially fast, but it is a way to farm honor and gold at the same time, and one of these quests in particular is infinitely repeatable for 9 honor each time. It’s the quest that makes you pick up a small container of something that causes you to move incredibly slow while carrying it, so it does get very boring but at least it’s possible.

Fast Farming: If you want Honor fast there are a few options. Tol Barad is first on the list because it gives high amounts of honor regardless of win or loose, it’s typically finished quickly, and so many people are killed in such short bursts of time that Honor adds up fairly quick. Second is the Call to Arms (CtA) and/or Random BG queues. Call to Arms is most beneficial when it’s applied to battlegrounds that are already known for high honor rewards such as Alterac Valley (AV), Strand of the Ancients (SotA), and Isle of the Crusader (IoC). Call to Arms happens every weekend, while during the week your only option for bonus Honor is Random BG queues. [Update: TB is still a decent source of Honor, but now almost nobody actually goes there so it does take time and you’ll often end up there alone and you may be the only person there the whole time or you might find yourself up against a group of 4-5 people with the same idea and you get slaughtered. Still a decent source of honor considering time investment, but it’s not exactly fun these days.]

Wintergrasp is still a fairly decent place to farm up some quick Honor by doing the quests and scoring a victory. It’s an easy place to score a quick 200 or so Honor.

Farming Champion’s Seals
Seals/Day from Daily Quests: 14
Seals/Day from Heroic ToC: 3
Heirloom Costs: Armor 60, Shoulders 60, Weapons 60-95, Trinkets 75

The heirlooms that you purchase with Champion’s Seals are the same that you purchase with Justice Points.

In order to farm Champion Seals you need to have completed the full quest line in the Argent Tournament located in Icecrown. Once you’ve opened all of the quest lines you need to select the Champion’s Purse as your reward for all of the daily quests as each one rewards a single Champion’s Seal. You’ll also get another three from doing a full clear of Heroic ToC each day.

You can easily get 14 Seals per day solo, and may or may not need help clearing H-ToC. If you just do the daily quests then you can earn a new heirloom piece every 5-6 days. It’s a slow process compared to the other types of heirloom farming, but it does offer other side benefits such as earning gold and racial faction reputation, and extra Seals can go towards purchasing pets and mounts.

If you’re not in a hurry to farm heirlooms with this method, then just doing the daily quests and skipping the Heroic ToC clears. Doing this will add 1-3 days of farming per heirloom. I haven’t tried to solo H-ToC, so I don’t know how easy or hard it might be. With level 85 characters I suspect that it will be fairly easy to two-man the heroic version.

Farming Guild Reputation
Available Heirlooms: Cloaks and Helms
Heirloom Cost: 1,200g (Cloaks), 1,350g (Helms)

This grind is a different type of grind. Rather than earning rewards that you use to purchase the heirlooms this grind rewards you with the ability to purchase them in the first place. Both of these types of heirlooms are purchased with gold, and both require you to be Honored with your guild. Your guild itself must also be level 10 to unlock the Cloaks for purchase, and level 20 to unlock the Helms.

This is the only way to get access to heirloom cloaks and helms, and I suspect that Blizzard will keep it that way.

For some people 1,200g is nothing at all, while for others it really can be quite a grind. When you look at purchasing all of the different helms and cloaks available those numbers can really add up quick as well. There are a lot of different ways to earn gold in WoW, and I’m not about to go into details on the various ways. If you want easy gold farming, do your daily quests at level 85. If you want a bit more work, start playing the auction house. If that’s not enough, start playing the auction house while maximizing your characters professions and flipping potentially lucrative items.

Farming Fish
Required Fishing Skill: 1+

There’s only one fish farming heirloom, but it’s also the only way to obtain this heirloom and the only one of its kind as of the current patch (4.2).

The Dread Pirate Ring requires you to win the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby which takes place every Saturday at 2 PM server time, lasting for 1 hour or until someone claims the prize. In order to win you must be the first person to catch and return the Blacktip Shark to the quest giver. You can catch the shark in any Northrend fishing pool, and there is no specific rank of fishing required in order to catch it. If you decide to farm for this heirloom, be aware that this tournament typically lasts for less than 10 minutes.

If you’re serious about farming for this ring, I suggest you do a little research before hand. If you would like to know how to best go about winning this tournament, I direct you to the master fishermen of El’s Extreme Anglin’.

Farming Suggestions

In this section I want to address you, the reader, to help you decide what kind of farming might be best suited to your particular playstyle.

Raiders
If you classify yourself primarily as a raider, then you’re likely in the habit of running heroic dungeons, and you probably hit the JP cap regularly. If this is the case, then farming for heirlooms is part of your normal activities (as you likely are already aware). In addition to your regular Heroic runs though, try to add in the seven Normal dungeon runs each week as well. As a raider you likely have gear that far outclasses the normal dungeons, which should make running them significantly faster (especially if you have a full group of raiders running them).

If you’re in a guild where the players who raid are set and you’re already geared far beyond heroics and JP purchases, then your next best option is most likely PvP. If you’re already fully geared beyond the usefulness of heroics then you’re probably sick of seeing the dungeons and can’t stand the thought of farming them anyway and PvP could provide a nice change of scenery for you.

Also keep in mind that the Honor -> JP conversion doesn’t have to wait until you have an entire heirloom’s worth of Honor. If you have 2,000 JP and you’re trying to buy an heirloom that costs 2,175 then the fastest way for you to get those extra points is probably going to be a quick trip to Tol Barad which should get you more than enough Honor for a single conversion that will give you another 250 JP to get that purchase. Mixing and matching activities like this doesn’t hold you back in farming for heirlooms. Just keep an eye on how much you need versus how easy it is to obtain more and what you have the time to do.

Some raiders like to enjoy their downtime away from the raid and take it easy. For you I suggest the Argent Tournament farming of Champion’s Seals. There’s a good chance that those of you who fall into this category have already farmed this area for every mount and pet it has to offer, but it’s still a legitimate method of heirloom farming if you’re still looking for heirlooms.

PvP Haters
People who can’t stand PvP, like my wife, will most likely stick to farming Heroic dungeons and/or the seven weekly normal dungeons for their Justice Points. Since you’re not going to participate in PvP, the next best option to dungeons is going to be the Argent Tournament.

If you fall into this category, refer to the Raider category directly above. You’ll follow that same advice, minus the PvP portion. Since you’re not into PvP, you have little reason to bother with even looking at the PvP heirlooms. However, there are still three items that the PvP vendors offer that don’t have an equivalent item from the PvE vendors: Battleworn Thrash Blade (procs extra, free attacks), Pristine Lightforge Spaulders (plate caster shoulders), and Inherited Insignia of the Horde/Alliance (PvP trinket with Resilience).

Of those three items, the one you’re most likely going to be interested in is the Pristine Lightforge Spaulders as they are the only piece of plate-caster heirloom armor in the game. You may or may not be concerned about the Thrash Blade, it’s a good weapon if you like to use enchants that proc, but even then it’s outclassed by most of the JP heirlooms regardless. Very few of you will be interested in the Insignia as it’s a PvP trinket and very little PvE content has enough crowd control for you to concern yourself with having it.

PvP Lovers
If you’re into PvP, then you’re already on the fast track for heirloom collecting. Arenas aren’t going to help you with heirlooms unless the season is about to restart. Arenas award Conquest Points which cannot be used to purchase heirlooms. Non-Rated Battlegrounds are the primary source of Honor points, and that’s what you need for heirlooms.

Most Honor heirlooms are overall weaker than the Justice Point heirlooms. While most of the stats will be either the same or very close to one another, the Honor heirlooms replace one or more attributes from the JP versions with a bonus to Resilience (a PvP stat for those that aren’t aware). That’s why PvE heirlooms are usually more powerful than their PvP counterparts, because Resilience isn’t always useful (especially in PvE where it’s almost worthless).

If you’re going to farm for the PvE heirloom via PvP activities, you’ll have to convert your Honor into Justice Points to buy them. It costs 375 Honor to purchase 250 Justice Points, so you’re taking a 33% loss during the conversion. That’s a pretty hefty conversion fee, but you can still farm Honor more than 33% faster than you can farm JP, so you’re still ahead in terms of time investment.

Most heirlooms have a similar item on the other side of the PvP/PvE fence, but not all of them. A couple of the items that are PvP only are: Battleworn Thrash Blade (procs extra, free attacks), Pristine Lightforge Spaulders (plate caster shoulders), and Inherited Insignia of the Horde/Alliance (PvP trinket with Resilience). For those three items you need to farm Honor instead of JP, so if you want those then you’re already on the right side of that fence and don’t need to bother with a conversion fee.

You should also consider running at least some of the seven weekly dungeon runs that award Justice Points. Most of these can be done in a reasonable amount of time and doing a couple of them back to back should give you a BG or two worth of JP after conversion. If you can’t stand LFG and you don’t have guildmates that want to run normals, then by all means forget about these and stick to PvP.

Solo Gamers, Questers, and Altoholics
If you fall into this category then there’s no clear cut path that you’re going to follow by definition of this classification. If you like PvP at all, then PvP is your fastest source of heirlooms with the assumption that you don’t mind doing quite a bit of PvP. If you’re the type that likes to dip their toes into a bit of everything then you’re actually in a pretty good spot for heirloom farming because you can get all of the different types of currency and use them as needed.

While doing straight PvP farming is faster than doing straight PvE farming, the fastest method possible is to actually combine the two methods by taking advantage of all of the options that grant large amounts of JP and Honor. Take advantage of Tol Barad when you see it up. If you don’t like PvP much, try to stick to the large groups and assist the other people rather than running off and doing your own thing. You can also help in TB by driving the siege vehicles to the towers if you’re on offense or going to destroy those siege vehicles if you’re on defense. Take advantage of Wintergrasp as well, as participation is usually very low which means victory is often easy, and the quests there are very quick and easy to do for extra Honor.

Whether or not you participate in the Argent Tournament is up to you. Since these types of players are more likely to spend time on multiple characters, you may or may not feel that a third form of farming is worth your time. JP and Honor can both be mixed and matched as needed because of the conversion, where Seals are Seals are Seals, end of story. On the other hand, doing these dailies on multiple characters every day means you can get basically one heirloom every week per character. So if you have three characters that will farm all of the quests, then you’ll be able to buy roughly three heirlooms every week. It might not be as effective at mass farming as PvP or dungeon runs, but it’s also less time intensive and can be done here and there as you have time as opposed to long stretches dedicated to dungeons or BG’s.

Trial Accounts
Your only option for getting heirlooms is to farm Honor in battlegrounds. F2P accounts that participate in PvP are twinks even if they don’t want to be twinks because those accounts are forced into the 20-24 twink bracket. Farming Honor can be a real struggle for you, especially if you’re only getting WSG queues and have problems with capturing flags.

Warsong Gulch is the single-worst battleground in the entire game for honor rewards, and farming kills by camping the graveyard does almost nothing to counter this fact. If you are on a trial account and are specifically farming honor to get heirlooms queue for Arathi Basin. Do everything in your power to get the gold together to buy your mount, and then go to AB.

When the time comes to decide whether you want PvE heirlooms or PvP heirlooms, there are a couple of things to consider. First there are some PvP pieces that while lacking secondary stats do have higher +Stamina values which might be appealing to you. Second is that PvE heirlooms cost significantly more than PvP heirlooms because of the 33% conversion fee. To give you an idea, take a look at the comparison below of Honor values between both types of heirlooms.

Honor Values
PvP Heirlooms: Armor 2,175, Shoulders 2,175, Weapons 2,175-3,500, Trinkets 2,725
PvE Heirlooms: Armor 3,375, Shoulders 3,375, Weapons 3,375-5,250, Trinkets 4,125

As you can see, once the conversion is taken into account, that’s a lot of honor farming on a character who might average anywhere from 30-150 honor per game. Also, keep in mind that if you are going to do the JP conversion, there’s still an Honor cap of 4,000 so if you get anywhere close to that number you need to start converting to JP so that you don’t end up losing honor from already being capped. Only the cheapest JP heirlooms can be purchased with a small enough amount of honor that you won’t break the Honor cap.