New to Twinking
- Thread starter Humdrum
- Start date
Rahn
Member
It depends on what you want to do.
If you want to be the most powerful, level 10-11 is probably the best.
If you're F2P or letting your subscription lapse (Vet) and want to experience the most content available then level 20 is the way to go.
There's also the "don't buy the next expansion" subbed twinks.
Past that there's additional subbed brackets for old raids, WoW classic.
If you want to be the most powerful, level 10-11 is probably the best.
If you're F2P or letting your subscription lapse (Vet) and want to experience the most content available then level 20 is the way to go.
There's also the "don't buy the next expansion" subbed twinks.
Past that there's additional subbed brackets for old raids, WoW classic.
cletus
Member
You picked a bad time to start.
To be a twink is to be at constant war with Blizzard. Every time a meta forms at some point it gets nerfed. This is particularly the case when a new expansion launches. So you have to be comfortable with the idea that one day you'll login and everything will be terrible and you'll need to farm a new set of gear. There's no escaping that. If that's not for you then maybe twinking isn't for you.
We're in the Midnight prepatch now and there's been an ilvl squish. So what was ilvl 700 a week ago is now is like 120. When that happens all quest rewards, BOEs and drops get re-scaled and that's always chaos. Often the meta completely changes. People are still figuring out what the new meta is but it seems like the meta (being TBC dungeon drops, mostly) is still the same.
On top of that, some of the key benefits of twinking were taken away. Shadowlands ("SL") gems were nerfed heavily. Where once twinks had great movement speed, now it kinda sucks.
On top of all that, all the talent trees changed and a lot of the changes really screwed twinks. Priests, rogues, DHs and hunters all got worse to the point of not being worth it or even fun.
The standard advice used to be to start with an 11 Fury Warrior and get 6 SL gems. You moved fast (because you also chose the War Machine talent) and you could solo Timewalking ("TW") dungeons with ease. Being able to even go into TW was new to TWW tbf. But last year Blizzard changed how scaling worked for TW only such that soloing TW dungeons was no longer a thing and you really needed a new set of gear without primary stat on it. That's actually kinda difficult to pull off.
On top of that TW scaling seems to be really off with the prepatch and the ilvl squish.
As for where to start, it kinda depends on if your focus is PVE or PVP. By PVP I mean that some people like to dominate in, say, the 10-19 bracket or to play BGs with other people in the 20-29 bracket with other 20 twinks. For PVE an 11 fury WArrior is a safe (ish) place to start. Look at the forums. Look at what gear other people have in the armory.
To be a twink is to be at constant war with Blizzard. Every time a meta forms at some point it gets nerfed. This is particularly the case when a new expansion launches. So you have to be comfortable with the idea that one day you'll login and everything will be terrible and you'll need to farm a new set of gear. There's no escaping that. If that's not for you then maybe twinking isn't for you.
We're in the Midnight prepatch now and there's been an ilvl squish. So what was ilvl 700 a week ago is now is like 120. When that happens all quest rewards, BOEs and drops get re-scaled and that's always chaos. Often the meta completely changes. People are still figuring out what the new meta is but it seems like the meta (being TBC dungeon drops, mostly) is still the same.
On top of that, some of the key benefits of twinking were taken away. Shadowlands ("SL") gems were nerfed heavily. Where once twinks had great movement speed, now it kinda sucks.
On top of all that, all the talent trees changed and a lot of the changes really screwed twinks. Priests, rogues, DHs and hunters all got worse to the point of not being worth it or even fun.
The standard advice used to be to start with an 11 Fury Warrior and get 6 SL gems. You moved fast (because you also chose the War Machine talent) and you could solo Timewalking ("TW") dungeons with ease. Being able to even go into TW was new to TWW tbf. But last year Blizzard changed how scaling worked for TW only such that soloing TW dungeons was no longer a thing and you really needed a new set of gear without primary stat on it. That's actually kinda difficult to pull off.
On top of that TW scaling seems to be really off with the prepatch and the ilvl squish.
As for where to start, it kinda depends on if your focus is PVE or PVP. By PVP I mean that some people like to dominate in, say, the 10-19 bracket or to play BGs with other people in the 20-29 bracket with other 20 twinks. For PVE an 11 fury WArrior is a safe (ish) place to start. Look at the forums. Look at what gear other people have in the armory.
I'd argue that this is probably a good time to start, actually! You have no prior expectations, youre gearing, not regearing, everything has changed but for the new twink, its all fresh. Perfect.
That said, the thrust of Cletus post is accurate. So here's what I'll tell you
A lot of people like level 10 and 11 because of how scaling works. You get access to dungeons and you can be pretty OP for your level. There's no pvp to speak of but the barrier to entry is extremely low and the returns in pve are strong. That said, unless you just really LOVE smashing a 1-2 button AoE rotation... theres not much to do after the novelty wears off.
Level 20 is popular because its the highest you can play on a free account. Theres two options here, common (though somewhat inaccurately) called "F2P" and "Vet". F2P means someone who has never had gametime on their account. Ever. You start from scratch. Vet is short for "veteran" account, which is blizzards term for an account that used to have game time but lapsed. Most people who play 20s do so as "collectors" or to push achievement points, etc. Seeing just how far you can go for free, basically. I think conzil is well past 30k achievement points right now, so the ceiling is pretty high. PVP at this level is intermittent to non-existent but there are communities that do scheduled wargames, if thats your thing.
The other popular option is expansion capped twinks. Just... dont buy midnight. Hit level cap and depending on the gearing situation either hope you put in the raid time or buy Midnight greens off the AH once they become available. PvP at this level is usually available, given how many people dont buy expansions, but the quality is hit or miss. I had some great games on my 70s this past year but also had some really horrible "wait 2 hours for a lopsided GY farm". Youre going to have to relevel and regear every expansion though. Nobody sticks around at the lower levels.
Ultimately here's what Im going to heavily encourage. Decide what you want to do with twinking and pick a bracket/class you're going to enjoy playing, not necessarily whats most powerful right now. All that changes, as some people are figuring out for the first time. Meta chasing can be fun but its also gonna burn you out real fast.