Is level 25 viable?

[Irosas]

Hi, first post, but I've been actively reading for a few days.

To give some context to my character before commenting on the problem, I created a level 60 warrior many years ago, and over time I've seen Blizzard gradually destroy its viability. From being a god on earth at level 60, now I'm level 25 (I can't use my character in F2P), I can't use my Thunderfury or Sulfuras (because they require level 30), my Tier 3 is ilv 30, I can't enter raids, I hit less than an Elekk Plushie in dungeons, and I can't solo anything.

Determined to solve part of this problem, I managed to get the famous trinkets with my warrior and started farming Draenor Warforged items. I got a belt with speed and a socket (yay!), but even with the trinkets, I realize that my level 20 f2p DH with blue gear from BC (without gems) can tank, deal damage, and solo dungeons better than my level 25 warrior who is only missing 3 epic warforged pieces.

To clarify, I really don't care about being extremely optimal, but I would like to reach the point where if they nerf the trinkets tomorrow, my character can still solo the content at these levels. Am I wasting my time trying to make a level 25 character viable, or am I simply missing key pieces that I don't know about?

Thank you for the responses, and apologies if the post is written a bit strangely, English is not my first language.

 

[chelly]

Short answer: in the current state of the game, lower level characters have more favorable dungeon boss and pve scaling


Unless it’s tied to some key ability learned after lv 20, the level 20 will always be superior to a level 25 as it relates to running dungeons
Of course there are other things to consider like class and spec.

If you finish gearing out your 25 it will likely be able to solo most content with ease, just not as easy as your 20. (Also you can play your 20 for free).

It remains to be seen how the upcoming expansion (TWW) will impact this dynamic. But I do bet it will shift somewhat.

 

[Irosas]

Thank you for responding. It makes sense why my DH feels more powerful if character power scales more by level than by gear.

Thanks for clarifying the character's viability as well. I'm satisfied with that.

Regarding whether the expansion will change this dynamic, that's what made me start farming Warforged items quickly. I'm worried they might limit what we can do or where we can access. FOMO affects me a lot. I hate it when I can't obtain something due to it being a limited event, especially after reading on the forum that we've lost access to certain items before.

 

[Bakedaflol]

This is very relatable.. I feel like I've wrestled with this nostalgic urge, to bring all my 60 twinks to the 20-29 bracket so many times since the squish

But what was cool with 60s was all the cool stuff some of us had on them.. Now all that stuff I won't delete will just be bank-trash getting in my way.
I've reach the point where I'm content with grandfathering old characters like that!

I've done the same with some pre-squish 20s aswell.
After a few years, logging to look at them is like visiting a museum

Argent Dawn on my main account is pretty much a pre-squish 60s graveyard

 

[Irosas]

The amount of "junk" I have in the bank (and bags) is beyond ridiculous. I need more than two 36-slot bags to continue my addiction to collecting trinkets and useless items that I won't use because they're completely unviable but seeing them makes me happy haha.

I hope to discover an item that scales only to level 25 and makes us so OP that everyone can revive these characters.

Bank

 

[Sponsor]

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/character/us/korgath/sponsy

I miss my old 60 so much It was my very first toon on the account. I, too, always wanted to make this character relevant at his current level post-level squish.

Ive got shit from Zul Gurub (60) still on him, and ofc HEAD enchants/full T3 </3

 

[Irosas]

I also missed mine, which is why I'm trying to rebuild it. I didn't expect 5 levels to affect the character's power so much to be honest... I remember the time when I was dual-wielding Untamed Blade and if they proc together with Crusader, the hits from my warrior could split the world in two, without the need for trinkets that don't work well or strange item level scaling, just raw brute strength!

All those memories will be lost in time like tears in rain

 

[Penster]

Talk to @Razien for build ideas and how viable 25s are.

 

[Sponsor]

Talk to @Razien for build ideas and how viable 25s are.

Yeah I think he's the only one that truly stuck around and made his old 60 new bis

 

[Sponsor]

I'm just bummed that having Naxx40 gear. Freaking NAXX40 gear gets NOWHERR near WF wod epics. I'd love to see it changed a bit in tww

 

[Irosas]

The last time they made changes, I lost access to my legendary weapons, and the time before that, I was locked out of raids. Before that, my tier 3 gear became worse than a green quest item. I really hope they don't make any more changes...

 

[Razien]

I've been summoned!

Yes 25 is very viable. It's stronger than 20s (obviously) and while you are definitely a bit weaker (mainly due to missing talent points) than 29s, you can definitely also beat lv29s. I've personally had no issue at all beating them. Often I even win 1v2.

 

[Irosas]

Thank you very much for responding and clarifying my doubts Razien. I am farming to get Warforged gear and focusing on Mastery. Should I be looking for another stat that scales better as a Warrior tank? How much speed can you achieve at level 25?

 

[chelly]

Thank you very much for responding and clarifying my doubts Razien. I am farming to get Warforged gear and focusing on Mastery. Should I be looking for another stat that scales better as a Warrior tank? How much speed can you achieve at level 25?

You can hard cap on speed very easily using shadowlands gems, and farming gear with gem slots

The hard cap is 49% from rating. Probably 130+ ish rating for a level 25. You can use the minor speed for boots enchant to get additional speed on top of this if you desire.

 

[Irosas]

Thank you so much! I'm enjoying my warrior again, and it helps to have a farming goal and discover a community like this

 

[shanker]

former 70s got ganked too when blizz made them level 27. world and dungeon greens and blues are like 2-3x better than gear i have from endgane. no longer able to solo old classic dung or BC normal dungeons with the gear level they were reduced to. imo this was intentionally done and not a accident by using the excuse of their squish math formula, which is proven by the level they made content for 70s, and 60s after the squish. imo they did this to kill those playing classic in retail

all the BC heroic and raid content is set to like WOTLK level requiring level 30

 

[Irosas]

former 70s got ganked too when blizz made them level 27. world and dungeon greens and blues are like 2-3x better than gear i have from endgane. no longer able to solo old classic dung or BC normal dungeons with the gear level they were reduced to. imo this was intentionally done and not a accident by using the excuse of their squish math formula, which is proven by the level they made content for 70s, and 60s after the squish. imo they did this to kill those playing classic in retail

all the BC heroic and raid content is set to like WOTLK level requiring level 30

It's obvious that they've destroyed our ability to do what we used to do, as well as the ilvl of our gear (they've even taken away my legendaries ), and I can believe it might have been intentional... But I don't understand the reason! Apart from the people who go around crushing others in BGs, we don't do anything wrong, we don't bother anyone. It's just another way of playing. What does Blizzard gain by ruining our years of effort?

 

[Razien]

Thank you very much for responding and clarifying my doubts Razien. I am farming to get Warforged gear and focusing on Mastery. Should I be looking for another stat that scales better as a Warrior tank? How much speed can you achieve at level 25?

Pretty much what Chelly said. 164% total movement speed is the unbuffed baseline HARD cap. Any additional movement speed such as from abilities is applied on top, but movement speed no longer increases with additional speed stat above 164% (that is 49% from the 'speed' stat, 10% movement speed from minor speed and 2% from cloak enchant).

There's actually several ways to gear at 25; either you build around survival and a balanced stat spread with automatic speed (49%) cap or you focus more on mainstat (agi/str/int). which is preferable for rogues for example, who don't need the HP10S heal from the shadowlands gem as much due to their gameplay being largely assassin-style but then you lose the automatic speed cap (49%) and the HP10S heal from the shadowlands gems. Your damage does dramatically increase, however, but again your movement speed and survivability drastically goes down.

Since you're prot I'd say your best bet is to go for as many sockets as you can get and filling them with shadowlands gems mainly so that you get as high of a heal (hp10s) from the shadowlands gem as possible. If at all possible you'll want Leech tertiary proc on your gear, not speed since you'll automatically cap the speed by simply having the shadowlands gems already, leaving your gear 'procs' all free to be entirely Leech.

Warforged gear isn't really that great unless you're going for a Strength-based set, in which case the only warforged pieces that are worth it are the necklaces, rings and trinkets, the first two of which you also want to have with a socket for a +3 (+4 in TWW) strength gem.

Every other slot will be TBC Socket gear* since those automatically have the most stats. The only pieces you have to farm a lot are bracers and belt because you want to have the extra socket on them (as well as +leech if at all possible). The other slots only need to have +leech tertiary proc as they can't proc an extra socket slot anyway.

*The item level difference between Warforged gear and TBC blue gear will be normalized in The War Within, thus making TBC gear far stronger than Warforged gear in most cased, as TBC gear has far more gemslots. In TWW regular blues will be ilv 112, and Warforged (or any other Epic item for that matter) will be Ilv117.

Oh, and I suggest that you play Mists of Pandaria Remix, because [Hellscream's Shield Wall] will be the best-in-slot Shield due to being the only shield that has 2 socket slots pre-27.

This is also the case with other classes, should you have alts, as [Hellscream's Warbow] and [Hellscream's Razor] are also best-in-slot in TWW due to the ilvl normalization and due to there not being any other items in those slots having two socket slots.

There's also a case to be made for [Hellscream's Doomblade], as some stats on it are higher than on other available 1hs.

---

I should honestly just make a full guide on 25s but idk how much of a demand there is for such a thing. Ya'll can let me know about that, if you'd like.

 

[Irosas]

Pretty much what Chelly said. 164% total movement speed is the unbuffed baseline HARD cap. Any additional movement speed such as from abilities is applied on top, but movement speed no longer increases with additional speed stat above 164% (that is 49% from the 'speed' stat, 10% movement speed from minor speed and 2% from cloak enchant).

There's actually several ways to gear at 25; either you build around survival and a balanced stat spread with automatic speed (49%) cap or you focus more on mainstat (agi/str/int). which is preferable for rogues for example, who don't need the HP10S heal from the shadowlands gem as much due to their gameplay being largely assassin-style but then you lose the automatic speed cap (49%) and the HP10S heal from the shadowlands gems. Your damage does dramatically increase, however, but again your movement speed and survivability drastically goes down.

Since you're prot I'd say your best bet is to go for as many sockets as you can get and filling them with shadowlands gems mainly so that you get as high of a heal (hp10s) from the shadowlands gem as possible. If at all possible you'll want Leech tertiary proc on your gear, not speed since you'll automatically cap the speed by simply having the shadowlands gems already, leaving your gear 'procs' all free to be entirely Leech.

Warforged gear isn't really that great unless you're going for a Strength-based set, in which case the only warforged pieces that are worth it are the necklaces, rings and trinkets, the first two of which you also want to have with a socket for a +3 (+4 in TWW) strength gem.

Every other slot will be TBC Socket gear* since those automatically have the most stats. The only pieces you have to farm a lot are bracers and belt because you want to have the extra socket on them (as well as +leech if at all possible). The other slots only need to have +leech tertiary proc as they can't proc an extra socket slot anyway.

*The item level difference between Warforged gear and TBC blue gear will be normalized in The War Within, thus making TBC gear far stronger than Warforged gear in most cased, as TBC gear has far more gemslots. In TWW regular blues will be ilv 112, and Warforged (or any other Epic item for that matter) will be Ilv117.

Oh, and I suggest that you play Mists of Pandaria Remix, because [Hellscream's Shield Wall] will be the best-in-slot Shield due to being the only shield that has 2 socket slots pre-27.

This is also the case with other classes, should you have alts, as [Hellscream's Warbow] and [Hellscream's Razor] are also best-in-slot in TWW due to the ilvl normalization and due to there not being any other items in those slots having two socket slots.

There's also a case to be made for [Hellscream's Doomblade], as some stats on it are higher than on other available 1hs.

---

I should honestly just make a full guide on 25s but idk how much of a demand there is for such a thing. Ya'll can let me know about that, if you'd like.

Taking notes, thank you very much again!! I had no idea about the Pandaria items, good thing you warned me in time to farm them. I also didn't know about farming Leech, but it makes sense if we reach the speed cap through gems.

As soon as I get the shield and sword from Pandaria, I'll start farming the blues with sockets from BC, just as Bakedaflol recommended too for the extra socket.

Regarding the guide, I would be eternally grateful, but I understand that it's a lot of work, especially since it seems there are very few of us who have ended up at this level, and we still don't know all the changes the expansion will bring; perhaps the items from the rares will become the new BIS no?