New Heirlooms in 5.2?

The PTR has once again revealed the possibility of new heirlooms. For the last couple of years there have been heirloom rings that were datamined out of the PTR, but we still haven’t seen them in-game. The legs showed up at the same time as the rings, and we have had those for a while now but who knows whether these new items will really be available or not, and if so then when?

When and if these new heirlooms do become available, I will update my existing guide, or write a new one to make sure that all of your heirloom needs are covered from which ones you need or want for which class, to which enchants you’ll want to put on them as well. Until they are confirmed to be in the actual patch, I’ll just stick with this guide to give you an idea of what’s there.

This post will show you all of the new heirlooms that were found in the 5.2 patch, and compare them to their existing items so that you can see how they compare and whether or not they might be on your list of things to do once they go live.

[Update: I found a blue post yesterday that confirms that these new upgraded heirlooms will in fact be in the 5.2 patch, as well as the new shields and off-hand item. The price for the upgraded versions of the heirlooms is the same as the current version of the heirloom plus you have to turn in that old heirloom. So, if you want a level 85 heirloom, they basically cost twice as much as the original because you have to turn in a copy of the original in order to get it.]

The Cost of New Heirlooms
We don’t have any idea right now what these will cost. The assumption is that they will cost Justice Points as the current heirlooms do, but we don’t know what the prices will be, whether they’ll be the same as the existing heirlooms, more expensive, or if they’ll get the current price and the old ones will get cheaper. We don’t know if the current heirlooms will no longer be offered, or if you’ll be able to trade them in for a discount on the new ones. There’s plenty of speculation out there, but so far I haven’t found anything to confirm, well…anything.

How much do these new heirlooms cost? We don’t know.
Will they cost gold, honor, justice points, or something else? We don’t know any of that, either.
Will we be able to trade in current ones for new ones? I doubt it.
Will the old ones magically turn into the new ones? I doubt that, too.

[Update: We do know the cost of these heirlooms now. The three brand new heirlooms are two shields (one tank, one caster) and an off-hand item, and each of those costs 2,175 Justice Points. The upgraded versions of the heirlooms which will scale to level 85 instead of level 80, require you to turn in the original heirloom and then also pay a number of Justice Points equal to the original cost of the item. So far their PvP heirlooms have not been confirmed, though they have been data mined. So we don’t know for sure if you will be able to upgrade those or not. We also do not have any word on whether or not you will be able to get the upgraded versions through the Argent Tournament or the Darkmoon Fair.

My suspicion is that those will continue to provide ways to get the base heirloom, but that they will leave the upgrades as a way for people to dump their Justice Points. I could see the Darkmoon Fair maybe getting the upgrades, but I don’t think the Tournament will since it’s part of the level 80 world where the new DMF is a part of the level 85 world.

[Update: Confirmed that you can use the Darkmoon Faire to upgrade your heirlooms, the follow the same pattern of requiring you to turn in your old version plus pay the full cost of the original again. Also found that you cannot buy the new off-hand item via the Faire at this time, though it is available for Justice Points. The shields however, apparently never made the cut and are completely unavailable.]

Comparing New vs. Old
I was going to try to do a side-by-side comparison of the heirlooms to show you how the 5.2 heirlooms stood up to the current ones, but Wowhead apparently only has stats for the maximum level of the new heirlooms, which is 85. That makes doing a direct comparison impossible since the current versions only go up to level 80 and I can’t see what the level 80 stats are for the 5.2 version. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t make an educated guess, right?

So for this little test we’re going to look at the current heirloom Bow, the Charmed Ancient Bone Bow, and compare that to the 5.2 War-Torn Ancient Bone Bow.

CABB: 68 Agility, 68 Hit, 68 Crit (at level 80)
W-TABB: 267 Agility, 267 Hit, 267 Crit (at level 85)

That’s quite a difference, right?

The best way I could see to compare these was to take an existing heirloom that’s good until level 85 and compare its own stats at level 80 to itself to see what kind of percentage it comes out to. Since stats are added to items in different proportions based on the item slot in question, I decided to check multiple items as well.

Ancient Bloodmoon Cloak (Lv 80): 57 Stam, 38 Int, 25 Crit, 25 Haste
Ancient Bloodmoon Cloak (Lv 85): 224 Stam, 149 Int, 99 Crit, 99 Haste

Burnished Helm of Might: (Lv 80) 68 Str, 103 Stam, 47 Parry, 43 Expertise
Burnished Helm of Might: (Lv 85) 267 Str, 401 Stam, 183 Parry, 169 Expertise

Mystical Kilt of Elements (Lv 80): 103 Stam, 68 Int, 45 Spirit, 45 Crit
Mystical Kilt of Elements (Lv 85): 401 Stam, 267 Int, 178 Spirit, 178 Crit

The stats for the cloak range from 25.25% to 25.50% when you check what percentage the level 80 version is compared to the level 85. For the helm, stats range from 25.44% to 25.69%, and for the legs the range is 25.28% to 25.69%. If you average all of the stats for all three items, then you come up with 25.45%.

If you do the same calculation on the two different bows, you’ll see that the stats are each 25.47%. So the new items seem to follow more or less the same scaling format that the current items do, which means that the most likely result will be that the new heirlooms are exactly the same as the existing heirlooms with the exception that they scale up to level 85 instead of only level 80.

With that knowledge in mind, I think the most likely thing we’ll see in relation to the cost of these 5.2 heirlooms is that they will be the same cost as the existing heirlooms. And since the 5.2 version will cause all of the current ones to become redundant, I expect that they’ll make the level 80 versions simply no longer available for purchase. [Update: We now have confirmation on the costs. Upgraded heirlooms will require you to turn in the original heirloom, plus they will cost you the same amount of Justice Points as the original. So basically, these upgraded versions of the heirlooms cost twice as much as the original, and you lose the original if you upgrade it. As the items are completely separate, you will need to re-enchant them.]

I would love to see them add a way for us to upgrade our current heirlooms into these new versions, but Blizzard is all about making you play the game to get things in the game, so I’m leaning towards a whole new grind starting all over again. Since there’s only 5 levels worth of difference, I think that’s going to be their justification for making you pay the full price on the new ones. I would love to see reduced costs or other methods of obtaining heirlooms, but I think Blizzard feels pretty good with where they’re at right now and probably won’t bother changing it.

Some of the posts that I’ve seen people discussing these on, and even some of the comments on Wowhead suggest that they’ve finally given us a set of armor for plate-wearing casters (Holy Paladins), but that’s not the case. They do have an upgraded version of the plate shoulders that already exist in the game, but there is no chest, helm, or legs to go along with them. So if you want to level a Holy Paladin, you’ll still be rocking those mail heirlooms on into 5.2 and beyond for the foreseeable future.

Completely New Heirlooms
There are also a few brand new heirlooms that were found in 5.2’s data that do not currently have a related item in-game.

Weathered Observer’s Shield Caster Shield
Flamescarred Draconian Deflector Tanking Shield
Musty Tome of the Lost Caster Off-hand
Inherited Mark of Tyranny PvP Battlemaster’s Trinket

[Update: The only item from this list that made it into the game in 5.2 is the Musty Tome of the Lost. The shields did not make it in, nor did the PvP trinket.]

The first two items are shields, but the PTR database on Wowhead doesn’t list any stats on them at all. If you look at the original items that these are based on, which all heirlooms are, the Observer’s Shield was for casters (spirit and intellect) and the Draconian Deflector was for tanks (dodge). The Musty Tome of the Lost is a caster off-hand that gives Stamina, Intellect, and Haste.

The fourth item is a PvP trinket, but not the kind that breaks crowd control effects. Instead, it increases your maximum health for a time. This will allow you to pair it up with the current PvP heirloom trinkets, or the more improved 5.2 versions so that you can have both trinkets providing you with a boost to your PvP stats. [Side Note: Even the 5.2 version of the PvP trinkets that break CC effects still have a 5 minute cooldown.] [Update: None of the Honor heirlooms have been confirmed yet on the 5.2 PTR. So the two shields and the off-hand have been confirmed, but the PvP trinket has not.]

Another Look at Rings
We first found out about these rings when information was datamined from the 4.3 patch and we started learning more about the Darkmoon Faire. We still haven’t seen them introduced to the game yet, but that’s the same time we also found out about the heirloom legs that were only recently introduced.

Antique Myrmidon’s Signet: Strength, Stamina, Hit, Crit, +5% Exp
Burnished Dark Iron Ring: Strength, Stamina, Dodge, Expertise, +5% Exp
Gleaming Seal of the Archmagus: Stamina, Intellect, Crit, Haste, +5% Exp
Ornate Band of Accuria: Agility, Stamina, Crit, Haste, +5% Exp

[Update: As of 5.2, these rings are still not in the game.]

The first ring will be for Strength DPS classes, the second for Strength Tanks (possibly all tanks), the third for DPS and Healing Casters alike, and the last one for Agility DPS classes and possibly Agility Tanks. Also, note that these rings are all unique-equip which means you can’t wear two of the same ring. So melee DPS will likely wear the main ring along with the Strength or Agility DPS rings (whichever isn’t their primary one), Tanks will use the tank ring along with either the Strength or Agility DPS ring that’s appropriate for their class, and casters will pair the Archmagus ring with either the Strength or Agility DPS ring depending on whether Hit or Haste is more important to them.