Hi

To start of with, this was not some completely random idea i had today. This is actually something i have been thinking about for quite some time now.

We all know by now that the current Heirlooms from wotlk will be active and working untill lvl 80, and from what we have heard, new heirlooms will also be implemented in cataclysm, however it is still unceartan how exactly they will be implemented.
When they announced the cataclysm's coming i already got worried. WIll i regret having bought this heirloom in cata? Will i feel like it was a complete waste buying/aquirering all possible heirlooms ingame? And the anwser was yes, i will be regretting it, because if cataclysm comes with new heirlooms that will cover the same slots, then i will be losing out on alot unless i replace all my heirlooms with the new ones. So i started thinking. What about allowing players that already have the wotlk heirlooms to "upgrade" their current heirlooms to the cataclysm heirlooms for a lower cost? Like instead of buying chest for 40 badges, then buying it for 30 or maybe even 25 badges when also turning in the chest piece you had from wotlk? Giving players some credit for having aqquired something in a previous expansion with a discount on something simmilar, yet upgradeed, in a newer expansion will prolly please alot of players. Farming all the heirlooms isnt something you just do in a day or 2, it takes time.

Responses are more than welcome but please keep it sober and with valid argumentation :)

We're adding more heirlooms in Cataclysm. Though I've not yet seen much evidence of tank specific items, development of the new expansion pack isn't completed yet and some of the new heirlooms we add might end up being of particular note for tanks.

However so far we haven't really focused on making heirlooms fill all the gear slots nor have we tried to completely replace all the items you receive from quests and dungeons as you level up. So it might well be that we decide to continue staying away from filling some slots and addressing some itemisation niches with heirlooms deliberately to maintain the value of quest or dungeon rewards, thus also maintaining the value of completing quests and participating in dungeons while leveling up.

Oops, wrong heirloom reply in wrong heirloom thread ;-)

But anyhow, if the existing heirlooms are good for your class and spec then chances are they'll remain still pretty good in Cataclysm. I'm deliberately erring on the side of caution there though, since some stats are no longer quite so interesting to some classes in Cataclysm and so though the heirloom items might still provide you benefits, in some cases they might not quite be as juicy for your class and spec in Cataclysm as they are in Wrath. This is all tentative until Cataclysm is on the live realms though, as things could change before then... or even after then, too!

If you are buying 1-80 heirlooms now, with the hope of using them to 85, then you may be disappointed to find out that they'll not be working beyond level 80. But if you are buying in advance for alts leveled between 1 and 80 then there's a pretty strong chance the item will still be of some use in Cataclysm, even despite the changes on stat weighting for some classes and specs. At the very least, sometimes it can seem like the non-ideal stats can be ignored in favour of the experience boost that some heirloom gear provides.