Bind to Account

The rumors were true then. Fortunately it won't work for "all" items. That'd be pretty pointless if that were the case. What am I talking about? Oh right, well the thing is.... Blizzard is adding a new "type" of item in WotLK. "Binds on Account". They'll be available for the next kind of heroic badges. Emblem of Heroism to be exact. I kid you not, Gold colored text as was expected to be the artifact level item or such. But it seems that color is being used for account bound items now. Red will be artifact level. (Perhaps Frostmourne?) You can find a list of some more items over at MMOC. The list is small still, but it appears there'll be plenty to spend your emblems on. Mail caster shoulders, Mail physical shoulders, 2H axe, 1H Dagger, MH Sword, Bow, 2H Staff, 1H Caster mace, Caster leather, Caster Cloth, DPS Mail-Plate, Physical trinket, Caster Trinket and undoubtedly many more coming. So, what are these? It's quite simple really, it's a reach out from blizzard to all the QQ and whiney kids who complain about having to level from 1-70 all over again after already owning 2-8 max level characters. Aside of lowering the required XP from 60-70 by 30% they're adding these items. The shoulders as you can see will increase your XP gain from killing monsters by an additional 10%. It's not certain yet whether the other armor pieces will also gain your XP gains, but I highly doubt that. The items are only available if you have a level 80 character. So blizzard still wants you to go out there and play the game to get them. The items are weak. Very weak even, and appear to be itemized in such a way to scale in much the same way as an equal level blue item would. Just look at the weapons. A lvl 80 blue sword would have 120.0 DPS, just like the BtA dagger would if you were level 80. The blue would have better stats though. Obviously, this also means these items are a lot weaker than the level 80 epic badge gear would be. So you're not likely to buy any unless you're: A: Planning to reroll B: Already equipped in the best of the best and have nothing else to spend your badges on. C: Are plain retarded. What's the point? As stated, it's a reach out from blizzard to help players level new characters faster. 10% extra XP, and always a good piece of armor and weapon at hand without having to worry too much about trying to find a group for uldaman, gnomeregan, scholomance, blackrock depths, etc, etc. It's a great badge sink. See "B" a bit higher. It also helps to urge some familiar altoholics to go and level at least "one" character all the way to 80 so you can farm badges to equip your alts with. It urges players who normally can't be bothered to make alts, to start collecting gear for an alt, and perhaps even level it. This should help reduce the low number of tanks or healers at the high end of the game. In theory anyway. It helps level the playfield at the twink stage. Anyone can get "good" items for their low level alts now without too much effort. Low level battle grounds would no longer be a complete massacre of blue geared chars vs green geared chars. Or perhaps more so... What can you do? Blizzard has responded on the finding of these items and confirmed what we know about them.

Mail them between your own characters on the same account. Finished making a shadow priest? Make a mage or warlock by re-using the same gear! Done with a paladin? Then you can make a Death knight or warrior just as easily.

Use them on a level 1 character and keep using them all the way to level 80, the stats will scale as you gain levels.

Use low level enchants on them. What can you NOT do?

The itemlevel is marked as iLvl "1". That means that for any and all enchanting purposes these items can not be enchanted with anything but the most basic enchants that were available before TBC. e.g. lifestealing, fiery weapon, +4 to all stats on chest, 7 stamina on boots, stuff like that.

Mail the item to characters that are not on your account.

Put the item on the auction house.

Disenchant the item. Nope sorry, no easy shards. What is still uncertain? WotLK Also has some other new enchant type professions. A familiar example will be the ring enchants, these bound an item to your character. In the expansion there's wrist and leg enchants for leatherworkers, leg and cloak enchants for tailors, glove and feet enchants for engineers and even sockets on your chest, belt and gloves by blacksmiths. Those new enchants all cause the item to be bound to your character. How these will affect the new Bind to Account items is not certain yet. However, as it's not possible to use high level enchants on low level items, it's fairly safe to assume that you'll be unable to use any of the WotLK profession specific enchants on these items. Another uncertainty, is how these items will be affected by character transfers. It seems logical that the items will remain with the character and be bound to the account that they arrive on. Yes it's possible to transfer a character from one account to another. Costs you a bit though. Repair cost, will it scale too? Obviously having to repair an item worth 30g will be a bit much for your poor frequently dying alt. Having a repair cost of only 3 silver would be rather unfair to your level 80 character though. Can you mail the item if it's not repaired? Some classes get a new type of armor when they reach level 40. Shamans, Paladins, Hunters, Warriors. Initiallyl they may use leather or mail, and then learn to use mail or plate when they reach 40. Would these armor pieces change from leather to mail automatically? It seems very unlikely. Update: They do in fact upgrade. See this image or blizzard's confirmation. So... What do you think, good idea, bad idea? Personally I think the items should be toned down and scale like they were green items instead of blue items. Opinions may vary though.