Heirlooms are worth it if you plan to level several alts. A full set of XP-granting pieces stacks to roughly 50% bonus experience, the gear scales with you so you never replace it, and every character on the account can use it. For a single main, or a first character, skip them — modern leveling is fast enough without.
The break-even point is simple: heirlooms cost gold once and pay out forever. If you are the kind of player who rerolls, chases class fantasies, or parks a character in every armor type, they pay for themselves quickly. If you have one main and no plans for more, that gold does more for you elsewhere.
Quick facts
- Heirlooms are account-wide and managed from the Collections window, under the Heirlooms tab — no mailing pieces between characters.
- Only armor slots grant bonus XP. Heirloom weapons and trinkets give none; they are there for raw power and utility.
- The gear scales up with your level until it reaches its upgrade cap, then it stops improving and starts falling behind.
- Upgrade tokens are bought with gold (and, for some tiers, Timewalking currency) to raise that cap.
- The XP bonus does nothing at max level, and it does not apply to reputation or renown.
Which slots give bonus XP
| Slot | Typical XP bonus |
| Head | ~10% |
| Shoulders | ~10% |
| Chest | ~10% |
| Legs | ~10% |
| Back | ~5% |
| Rings (each) | ~5% |
Those values have been retuned over the years, so treat the tooltip in your Heirlooms tab as the authority rather than any table you read online — this one included.
Which heirlooms should I buy first?
Weapons, then the four big armor slots. Weapon upgrades are the single largest power jump while leveling and the drops are wildly inconsistent, so an heirloom weapon that never falls behind removes the worst part of the process. After that, buy head, shoulders, chest and legs for the XP, and pick up back and rings last since they are the smallest slices.
Do I have to upgrade them with gold?
Yes, if you want them to stay useful past the low levels. An unupgraded heirloom stops scaling at its cap and quietly turns into dead weight while quest greens overtake it. Upgrading is the real cost of the set, and it is worth budgeting for before you buy every slot at the base tier.
Are heirlooms better than gear handed down from a main?
Not on raw item level. If you have a max-level character, warbound gear and crafted pieces will usually out-stat heirlooms outright — but none of that grants bonus experience, and none of it scales, so you keep re-gearing every ten levels. Heirlooms win on convenience and XP; handed-down gear wins on stats. Plenty of people run both.
Do heirlooms still matter now that leveling is fast?
Less than they used to. Levelling through a chosen expansion timeline is quick, and a 50% bonus on an already short trip is a nice-to-have rather than a rescue. The scaling gear and never sweating a weapon drop are arguably the bigger draw today.
If the leveling itself is not the part you enjoy, or you want to arrive at max level actually knowing the class, PewPewShop can pair you with a vetted human player for coaching or a play-together session — real players, no bots, no cheats. Either way, the answer above stands on its own.