The last time I dipped into leveling dungeons in WoW, it was a terrible experience. People in heirloom gear completely overpowered the instance, making it the zergiest of zergs. You didn't even have enough time to hand in quests.
In the leveling revamp of the last patch, heirlooms were reined in. They're still quite good, especially with the experience bonus, but they're comparable to dungeon blues.
Low level dungeons are actually a great deal of fun now. I've even rolled a newbie tank just to do instances. It's not excessively difficult, but the game rewards steady killing of group by group. Sometimes you can handle two groups, but it can be a bit stressful.
I healed a Stratholme run and we wiped a couple times due to accidentally pulling extra packs. The group even spontaneously started using crowd control to make life easier!
If you haven't tried a low-level instance in a while, I strongly recommend giving them a shot. Create an Allied Race character, and you'll start at level 20, making you eligible for instances right away. Queue times are pretty good, too. I'm seeing around 8 minutes for a DPS, 1-2 minutes for a healer, and instantaneous for a tank, of course.
Given that heirlooms were originally designed in Wrath to be the equivalent of regular blues, this is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteHmm, I remember them always being better than dungeon blues. I wonder when they got out-of-sync. Maybe in the last stat squish?
DeleteI believe it started getting out of hand in Cataclysm, but it became very apparent that heirlooms were superior to regular blues in Wrath not from their stats, but the ease in acquiring them vs. chasing down each equivalent blue. The additional bonus of not having to worry about chasing the next optimal blue but instead focus on BGs themselves was invaluable, because regular blues would be quickly outclassed while leveling, whereas the heirlooms were autoscaling.
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