20s Guide Index and FAQ - Read Before Posting New Threads

In an effort to try and consolidate the flow of excellent guides we currently have and help new members find relevant information quickly, we thought it best to create a single guide index and FAQ post. Otherwise, there's so many good guides that we'd eventually end up with a front page of nothing but pinned threads.

I will be extremely hard-assed about locking/deleting threads asking questions that are answered in the guides linked below or in the FAQ. So please take the time to read through this if you're relatively new to twinking at 20 or you've been gone from the game for a while.

Guides:
There is a lot of very good information in these guides and the discussion threads that follow them.

The Basics:

• Starter Guide To Shadowlands 20s - The very basics of level 20 gameplay, including classes, ability run-downs, talents and a basic gearing guide
• Baseline F2P Guide - Intended to help you quickly reach a "base line" from which to grow your F2P character
• Enchant Scaling Spreadsheet - Local legend Swoops compiled all the available enchants and how they scale at various levels. Enjoy.
• Race Base Stats Spreadsheet - All you min/maxers out there can find the race with the best base stats for your class, thanks to Pokspell
• World Drop Farming - Learn where and how to get ilvl 28s so you can stop posting the same fucking "how do I farm ilvl 28s thread" that gets posted three times a week

General Gearing:

• F2P/Vet Armory List - "What gear is best for X class?" Well here's a list of what people are wearing
  
• How Do I Get That - @CigNus has an excellent video series on how to get various things, from leg and shoulder enchants, to engi trinkets and beyond
  
• TwinkDB - A very fancy list of available gear for 20s as well as short gearing guides and a stat calculator
• Plenty'o'Bags Bag Guide - Vets can buy bags on the AH, but for the rest of us, here how to get some storage space.

Stat Guides/Discussions:

• All Specs Mastery Run Down - 20s arena legend @Bop gives a breakdown and opinion on the value of Mastery for every spec in the bracket. The original post as well as ensuing discussion is extremely valuable.
• In-depth Speed Scaling - @glancealot helpfully breaks down how the most useful tertiary stat breaks down for 20s.
• Weapon DPS comparisons - What weapon is best? Look no further than this handy spreadsheet from resident math geek @mirrorbender

Class Guides:

• Tence's Holy Pally Guide - Tence does Tence things and teaches us all how to be more like Tence.
• Chops F2P Warrior Guide - Learn from the worst
• Andre's Demon Hunter Guide - Live the meme and answer the eternal question: Is dEMOn hunter any good in this bracket?
• Rise's 20 Resto Shaman Guide - The man, the myth, the legend, Rise teaches us to be good little RShams
• Vyvenem F2P MM Hunter Guide - Solo F2P PVE Legend @Vyvenem gives a deep dive into the magic of F2P hunters
• Cheys Feral Druid Guide - The master of feral tells you his secrets

Profession Guides:

• F2P Jewelcrafting Guide - A comprehensive look at grinding out Jewelcrafting on a F2P for BIS gems.
• F2P Engineering Guide - A comprehensive look at engineering for F2P toons looking to get trinkets and tinkers.
• Enchanting And You - Read the OP *and the thread* for a useful breakdown on easy enchanting leveling for F2P/Vet
• Shadowruby Band Crafting Guide - Get those Chaos Crystals for your F2P neck enchants

Achievement Guides:

• Conzil's F2P Mount Guide - TrollCat extraordinaire provides a comprehensive list of mounts available to F2P accounts
• F2P Reputation Guide - @Monkeyflip Put together this great guide for obtainable reputations that F2P players can farm.
  
• Solo Classic Dungeonmaster Guide - PVE Maniac Dragynslayer shares his tips and tricks for soloing your way through all the Classic dungeons.

FAQ:
If you've recently returned to twinking or are new to 20s, please review these FAQs before starting a new thread to ask why you suddenly cant que BGs or what to do now that you accidently leveled to 21.

Account:

Why 20 and not 19 or 29?

Players with their XP turned off are in a separate BG que than players with their XP turned on. Due to the small twinking population, this means players with XP-Off don't actually get games (yes, we're aware of how ironic this has made the site name). However, F2P and Vet accounts don't gain experience because of their account status, so their XP is still technically "on" allowing for casual BG ques.

Vet? F2P? Whats the difference?

F2P is shorthand for Free-To-Play or Starter Accounts or Trial Accounts and denotes a WoW account that has never had game time, ever. Vet is shorthand for Veteran Account and is a WoW account that has, at one point, had game time. You can see Starter Account restrictions here. Note that F2P accounts bank XP but Veteran accounts do not. The benefit of a Veteran account is that it lets you access the AH, join a guild, trade etc before you let the game time end. Its the cowards way out but it also means you arent spending months farming before you're geared and playing BGs.

Yes, Veteran accounts are technically free-to-play but we use the terms "F2P" and "Vet" to denote the difference.

Whats this about banked XP?

F2P accounts will "bank" XP up to level 30. This is to entice new players to buy a sub. But it also means if your F2P account gets game time, all your F2P twinks will level. Bummer dude.

Vet accounts DO NOT BANK XP

Vet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XPVet accounts DO NOT BANK XP

Hey, my game time ran out but I cant que for BGs. What gives?

So you made a vet twink, let your account time run out and holy shit, now you cant que BGs. Welp, thats because Veteran accounts (and F2P accounts) cant que BGs with XP turned off and you didnt turn your XP back on before your account wound down. You'll have to open a ticket and get a GM to turn it back on for you. Good luck!

I'm including the following script courtesy of Zwab from the XPOff discord that he recently used to get this problem resolved. It includes a link to a battle.net support article on this very topic. Feel free to use it when contacting GMs

Oh no! My game time ran out and I still leveled to 21! Help!

It's a known bug and tends to happen when your impatient self is counting down the seconds till your game time is up and then you immediately que a BG. You win, you level, you cry. Luckily, most people seem to have some luck getting this reverted by GMs BUT that seems to be getting harder and harder to do. Your best bet is to let your game time run out, log out of the game, log out of bnet and give it an hour or two. Go get dinner, watch a movie or something. Then come back.

Gearing:

How do I get Heart Of Azeroth?

You don't. That was a "creative use of game mechanics" that got patched almost immediately in pre patch. Don't worry, it also got slapped with a req level of 40, so you didnt miss anything but the story.

Can I get Legion Artifact weapons?

Yes. They're a cool little item to have but are no longer BIS. Due to some shenanigans, Blizzard decided to treat them like heirlooms. Cool xmogs though!

Whats the best gear for my class?

Good news! There isnt one set of "best" gear. You can build any way you like! Check out the armory thread to see what other people are doing and make some educated calls of your own. Generally, though, Im gonna advise you to not look at Icy-Veins or other end game resources as a guide. Without our full toolkits and the way certain secondaries scale down here, we have different priorities. When in doubt, main stat > secondaries.

How do I get that sweet, sweet ilvl 28 gear with sockets?

You farm it. If you're a vet, you can scour the AH and pick up pieces here and there (be prepared to pay a pretty penny for them) or you can make a lvl 24-25 farming toon and go to Legion zones and farm for them.

Side note: this gear will sometimes appear as "req level 24" or "req level 25" in the armory. It's a known display bug.

This thread isnt really a guide, but its a great discussion with lots of tips and tricks on where to farm.

This thread, however, is a guide. Use it wisely.

General Gameplay:

Why can't I use Chromie Time?

F2P accounts dont have access to Chromie Time (except some *very* old GFd accounts... dont ask) so you won't be able to use it. If you're a Vet account and cant access Chromie Time, chances are its because you dont have a main on your BNet thats hit level 50. Go do that.

How come I can't use the portals room?

Snag the breadcrumb quest from the hero board first, champ.

Wait, how come I can't que for XYZ dungeon?

Well if you're F2P, its because you cant access Chromie Time and therefore cant que for anything but Battle For Azeroth dungeons. But if youre a vet and do have Chromie Time and find dungeons you have access to but cant que for its because... well... you cant que for every dungeon that you have access to. Some of them, you gotta walk in to manually like the olden days, when we used to trudge uphill (BOTH WAYS!) to Scarlet Monastery with a group of jackasses who had nothing better to do than LFG in Stormwind all day.

 

Gonna leave this thread open for a limited time to take FAQ suggestions. So submit some, please and thank you.

Change log:
1/5/21 - added ilvl 28 FAQ
1/16/21 - added engineering guide link
1/24/21 - added Tence HPal guide and Gobolords BOE farming guide
2/9/21 - added a "Vets dont bank XP" section so I can get mad at people for not reading it
3/2/21 - Added Dragynslayers solo dungeonmaster guide
3/14/21 - Added Zwab script for getting gametime bug fixed
4/24/21 - Added Pokespells base race stats spreadsheet and Swoops enchant spreadsheet
5/12/21 - Added Donovans Sahdowruby Band crafting guide.
6/24/21 - Added Bags guide
7/21/21 - Added Cignus "How Do I Get That" videos
8/17/21 - Added Enchanting guide
9/11/21 - Added Andre Demon Hunter Guide
9/22/21 - replaced wow 20 atlas with twink DB
11/15/21 - Added Rise Rsham guide
11/22/21 - Added Monkeyflips reputation guide
11/28/21 - Added Vyvenems MM hunter guide and edited some old FAQs
11/30/21 - Added Conzils mount guide
4/17/22 - Added Cheys feral guide, Bops Mastery thread, Glancelots Speed thread, and reorganized the guides section for more clarity
4/29/22 - Added Mirrorbenders weapon spreadsheet

 

There's xanx pretty excellent discussion thread on theorycrafting weapon procs. But I was thinking specifically about HPals using sword/board and fury warriors using SMF here. I was intentionally vague not to try and gatekeep SuperSecrets but rather because I dont want to be specific and have to re-write this shit every three weeks.

I mean, buff is better than not-buff

20s specific thread is in the 20s specific forum

 

vet accounts dont bank XP, F2P accounts do

 

Swoops sheet is still the definitive guide, though the atlas has some similar information.