The Peak of Twinking

[Insa]

I propose picking a single private server, populated and stable, and get a group of us to roll there.

This would be great. People dont know what they are missing not twinking at vanilla or TBC private server. There were crazy premade battles at Nostalrius 1.5 years ago.

There are 2 great candidates for building twinking community:
1. Warmane Medivh. TBC server that just opened, has x1 rates (so leveling char will actually queue) and is very stable/bug free. Admins promise xplock feature soon.
2. Gummy's BUrning Crusade. Will launch soon. Blizzlike TBC realm with x1 rates.

But to give motivation for players to level there, we need some well known twink guilds from retail to make announcement about moving there. I could get our alliance and horde 29 twink guilds from Elysium to swap, but we need to be sure there will be people to play with.

 

[MikrRice]

I'm going to make a toon on Medivh and start levelling. We won't know what consistent bg pops will be until it's discovered if lv70 raids are pre-nerf, as many people may leave for Gummy's if it isn't. I think it's too early to shift an established twink guild to the server at this point. We'll probably know by this next weekend.

There's a rumor going around that Gummy's won't launch with vanilla raids available, which would be a pretty hard hit to 19, 29, and 60 twinks. Again, we'll have to wait and see.

 

[Selaya]

A lot of 39s are already on Molten's Icecrown 3.3 server, including what is left from the various and glorious years past. We're also reviving it on June 1st. Check out this thread in case you haven't just yet: https://xpoff.com/threads/molten-warmane-icecrown-39s.70028/

 

[Trialmop]

Great thread topic.
Ill be speaking on 20s

For 20s otherwise known as free to plays its a interesting decision. The amount of people that played during cata was insane and many things were fresh and new partly due to cata remodeling the game anyway. Getting gear for the first time , in cata you actually had to win bgs in order to gain decent honor. People took call to arms very seriously on EU. EU bgs in cata were crazy insane. Rusty interlope Clinic Goblinhood Agrramar Mazrigos Magtheridon Lightbringer and Twisted Neither would all meet and have insane games. Many people don't know this but back in cata AB call to arms would be crazy. Most times alliance would have 3 sets of 5 man premades while horde was about 5-7 man 24 premade + aggramar twinks at least 10. People would have to swap bases and there would always be someone constantly watching and call where each player should go to. To me Cata is the best F2P expansion overall but there are things it didn't have that warlords of draenor did.

Warlords of Draenor introduced Skirmishes and further pushed players into arena. Arena had always been around for f2p and was a huge thing on US servers and on Aggramar EU. Warlords of Draenor was when F2P had its best organized events that might not be matched in any future expansion.

Wod had a 2v2 arena tournament, 2 wpvp events , 2 3v3 arena Championships. In terms of events Wod wins in a landslide. I feel Warlords of Draenor was the only expansion that had media and bracket promotion on that level. When you consider how packed BH was of 19s and 20 you can no doubt say it was one of the biggest moments in Twink World of Warcraft History. Ill have a thread and a video about some thing similar to this soon.

 

[Zaam]

Patch 2.4.3, 2008.. possibly pre-BC more challenging.

 

[Jadyn]

I probably did more guilds vs guilds premades in TBC (1-4 premades a week, usually) than all the guilds combined in WoD. We were the only alliance guild in a battle group with 5-6 horde guilds, which made things easier. I think anybody choosing later expansions either never played back then, or never played COMPETITIVELY back then. Regardless, class balance was much better in TBC than it has ever been since.

@Purj which Battlegroup were you in?

To me (39s), TBC x-realm was the beginning of the golden age obviously. It peaked sometime around 3.0, the population peaked as raiders got bored (and early WotLK raids got lame pretty quickly), the change to spellpower and ratings opened up a bunch of new builds, and the addition of gathering prof buffs to leg, head, and shoulder enchants created a bracket where there almost wasn't enough dps to balance the hp pools. And heirlooms hadn't been added yet to screw up gearing.

Unfortunately, I quit shortly before 3.2, so I missed pure-twink bgs, or I might've called that the peak. I'm always looking for even competition, not just noobs to beat on.

 

[ZenwØw]

Which expansion(s) were the best for twinking during? Every voice counts and all answers are valid because everyone has a different set of expectations when it comes to twinking.

You can make up to three selections.

Thanks for your input. Lets get some discussion going!

WRATH FOOL

 

[Kirise]

I was gonna give ZenwOw grief for necro'ing a thread so I could use that as an excuse to post, and lo and behold, it's Jadyn who did the dastardly deed! Does Jadyn get double points for necro'ing himself as well? ...Good to see you, Jadyn!

I started twinking in 2.3, and the spell damage/healing merge into spell power for 2.4 along with the battlegrounds server merge (into battlegroups) opened a lot of doors. I really enjoyed playing 29s and 39s during 2.4 on BG9/Bloodlust. If I had to choose, that probably counts for my favorite twinking time, because everything was so new and amazing.

With that said, every bracket brings some great moments in my memories.

People talk about how the 3.2 XP-off patch ruined twinking, but I'm here to tell you some of the best community-building work to ever happen in twinking, came from that change. Rampage 29s, Nightfall 39s, Ruin 49s and Ruin 59s worked hard to get their games, and for all of its challenges, Wrath remains the favorite of many midbracket players.

Cata was terrible in a lot of ways, but the 70-74 bracket became a shining exception. Yes, other brackets found a way to make things work, but the constant feuding between old-school and new-school twinks made things really toxic.

MoP took twinks through so many scaling changes. I'll admit that 80-84 was fun, but it was even more bursty than 49s, and that's saying a lot. However, @Chops finally talked me and @youbeezy into trying F2P, and I'll be daggone, it was the best twinking experience we had in MoP. All credit to Kochi and the community he assembled on Korgath. F2P was really strong at that time, with crews on Aerie Peak and...what was the server that started with a V that had the other large F2P population? Vek'nilash or something like that?

I don't remember much about WoD, and stat templates in Legion demonstrated how much OP gearing really did matter to the twinks. BfA provided some fun reunion opportunities while Blizzard kept queues integrated.

I have really high hopes for Shadowlands. Over the course of 2021, I think it could make unexpected twink history.

 

[DeLindsay]

For 10's the clear winner is WotLK, for most other Levels it's (mostly) TBC.

 

[Chops]

Nightfall 39s and the Korgath project were so damn good!

but bear with me here. I think we all missed out on the true peak of twinking that would have been BFA F2P. We blew it. We got caught up in vets because of the shiny enchants when really, we should have pushed for F2P premades/arenas. It really, very truly, would have been the best games in recent memory.

 

[Adeimantus]

I think I liked the 39 gameplay best in wotlk but in many ways classic has become my favourite. Premades in nightfall 39s were a rare thing. Being able to premade several times a month and play internal wargames with my guild is pretty damn great. Some sweaty pug games to be had too.

 

[hom]

19's in tbc were always poppin and probably the most iconic to me. Seeing decked out 19 rogues with a lucky fisherman's hat and cruel Barb with +15 agi. This introduced me to the idea of twinking.

29's and 39's were great in wotlk - there just seemed to be a lot of class variety and back when classes had actual strengths and weaknesses. I remember the mental battle in my head thinking of options on how to gank a flag, played feral 29 and had a load of fun.

Cata saw trial classes and I must admit it was quite fun decking out a trial account to the max but I think it took a lot of players away from other brackets. 70's popped off here but I never got into that bracket much. Started my level 60's here.

MoP was the king of wtf hit me expansion. 80-85 was hilarious. Destro warlocks hitting harder than max level 90's and the introduction of the Black Market AH gave 85 plate wearers the https://www.wowhead.com/item=44924/sun-lute-of-the-phoenix-king which outscaled any other weapon in the bracket. Frost DK's and Paladins with this were truly terrifying

WoD - I quit at this point. Too many large scale changes to x server, garrisons felt like a daily chore and the time gating of general wow content had begun

Legion - Never played this expansion but wish i had, pvp templates are the right direction for this game to create competitive environments and move away from pvp gear v pve gear. They should have continued this but given a set of stat points to distribute however they wanted.

BFA - quite a fun expansion to get back into battlegrounds again but that's about it. The power creep of healers and certain classes as well as the dilution of class balance to favor the borrowed power essences, azerite traits & corruptions.

 

[Inveja]

bc all the way. Alliance got shaman and horde got pally so that was fair. Pre do so that's awesome. pre boa gear. hands down the best.

 

[Ikaar]

I twinked alot of 10s and 1s in WOTLK that was fun for sure!

My experiences its been broken up in WOD you saw all the strange lvls pop up! Started to see alot more (24s,34s,64s) personally still have my 24 warrior.

Legion saw an quick coming and goings of 101s (rip 101's)

I also believe it was the same time asmongold tried out twinking in the 49 bracket before than the ally side was booming

Excited for SL but all our old twinks unless planned to be retro fitted for SL gear we worked hard for will be useless

 

[Anexa]

TBC.

Mongoose, aka 120 agi buff on a lvl 29 rogue was awesome

 

[Cattywompus]

Burning crusade for damn sure.

 

[Sponsor]

Nightfall 39s and the Korgath project were so damn good!

but bear with me here. I think we all missed out on the true peak of twinking that would have been BFA F2P. We blew it. We got caught up in vets because of the shiny enchants when really, we should have pushed for F2P premades/arenas. It really, very truly, would have been the best games in recent memory.

I agree. I'm topping charts atm on my f2p resto druid. Tossing those hots left and right. Waited all expansion to just start playing him yesterday.... kinda sad tbh lol.

 

[Charax]

I enjoyed TBC the most. Did mostly 29’s, eventually did 60. After all, someone had to take down the “unkillable” menace of Qpac!

I haven’t twinked since. Too boring since most of the players suck.

 

[Chops]

Qpac!

now theres a blast from the past

 

[Charax]

now theres a blast from the past

You might enjoy this then.

Bonus video...LOL