Twinks are below level cap player characters who have gained the best powerful gear for their level with enhancements such as expensive weapon enchants, leg patches and BoE/BoP greens, blues or epics. Twinks are mainly used in PvP fighting and Battlegrounds. Twinks obtain their items through rare drops, drops off of bosses in instances, rewards from quests that are difficult to complete at their level, and from the Auction House. Twink items on the Auction House can be expensive and twink enchantments can only be performed by high-level characters. Therefore, twinking usually requires significant assistance from high-level alts, friends, and/or guild members. However, there are examples of self-made twinks that generate the necessary gold from Auction House trading or other in-game methods.

Twinking is common in MMORPGs, including World of Warcraft, though many mechanisms are in place that limit a player's ability to equip a character with gear beyond its level. Blizzard made it clear with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion that they support players who twink by providing for their shutting off experience gain.^[1] However, some twink-players felt otherwise (see below, Future of Twinks).

Contents 1 Examples 2 Game design 3 Future of Twinks 4 Updated Twink Status 5 Expansion-cap twinking 6 Twinking resources 6.1 Class-based 6.2 General or topic-based 7 References 8 See also 9 External links

ExamplesEdit

Examples of twinking include

• Having a high-level character provide uncommon, rare, or epic Bind on Equip items to a low level character, or the gold to purchase those items; also having a high-level character provide heirloom Bind to Account items to a low level character; usually paired with high-end enchantments.
• Having a high-level character farm an instance or accomplish high level quest chains with a lower-level character for the sole purpose of getting some items; The higher level character has no need for the gear, leaving all gear up for grabs by the lower level character, who can grab the best pieces for the battlegrounds and sell what he doesn't need.
• Enchanting or applying arcana to a low-level character's equipment with bonuses that require large amounts of gold or high-level materials.
• Sending massive bulks of ingredients to a low level character so it can power level its professions, in particular Engineering and Blacksmithing, which allows the creation and use of equipment without level requirements.
• Also leveling their fishing skill up to 150 and using shiny baubles to raise it to 225 and fish in Stranglethorn Vale in the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza for a Hat and Boots.
• Players may also make an account that they level to level 60 and keep in the XP turned on bracket, without buying any expansions. These are commonly known as vanilla twinks, or AV twinks. This method also works for level 70 twinking, simply keep the account a Burning Crusader account.

Twinking is most often done in order for a level character to compete in the battleground bracket. Two popular classes for twinks in World of Warcraft are rogues and hunters. Hunters do well in battlegrounds, especially at low levels since many melee classes have no way to stop a hunter who can kite. Their damage is largely affected by the gear they have, so they can go above and beyond what other classes could twink to.

Game designEdit

World of Warcraft has several mechanisms in place that limit twinking, including:

• Minimum level requirements to use or equip items.
• Minimum level requirements to do quests and thus receive quest reward items.
• Minimum level requirements for potions, buffs and healing spells.
• Minimum level requirements to advance in professions.
• Minimum level requirements on enchantments in the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansion (new enchants have an item level requirement of 35/60 respectivley).
• Binding of items on pickup or use to prevent "hand-me-downs."

Noticeably absent from this list is a minimum level requirement for pre-Burning Crusade enchantments and Arcana, with the exception of librams formerly used to give a head (or leg) enchant which now have a level 55 minimum limit placed upon them in order to function.

On the flip side, patch 2.3 was arguably the best pro-twink patch in WoW history, encouraging players to solo level (by reducing the experience needed to do so) and increasing experience awarded, while at the same time upgrading most or all dungeon loot and even adding in an epic ring requiring level 29, the high end of one of the popular twink brackets.

In patch 2.2, Blizzard made gear a factor in matching BG groups/players, so twinked players are more likely to face twinks and characters passing through a given level are more likely to face others like themselves. Also, max level raid geared players will tend to get opponents in epics and casual players in green/blue gear will face gear similar to their own.

When Heirloom gear was introduced with Wrath of the Lich King expansion they included the mechanic of Bind to Account (BoA) which allows for gear to be sent to other characters at lower levels. This gear can be enchanted as well but the level requirements of the enchant still apply. Should an enchant on a BoA item be higher level than the character the enchant show up red on the item and is not used.

Future of Twinks Edit

In patch 3.2.0, a feature was introduced that allowed players to disable experience gains in exchange for 10g. Battlegrounds were then altered to allow level-locked characters to face only other level-locked characters. Battleground XP was enabled for all other characters. Initially this mechanic led to a slow down of queue times, and some if the twinking community felt this was blizzard assuming a negative stance to twinks, because the pool of players was reduced sometimes even resulting no battleground "pops", actually, for a time, providing evidence that twinks and non-twinks had a co-dependancy (prior to adjusted/eliminated battlegroups) that twinks needed non-twinks to get a 'pop' and non-twinks needed twinks to get a 'pop' (which might've been less of a problem had xp gains been introduced at the same time as the adjusted/eliminated battlegroups). Players adjusted by concentrated on a specific battlegroup for a PvP bracket. Blizzard responded by eliminating battlegroups resulting in vastly improved queue times. This adjustment is seen yet again as one that supports Twinks exclusively as queue times were only an issue for non-XP battlegrounds.

Updated Twink Status Edit

Today there are new adventures for the Twink since the invention of heirloom weapons and gear. Also Blizzard shrunk the brackets to every 5 levels so (10-14, 15-19 and so on). This allows players to gather tons of "best in slot" gear with a high level character and give it to a low level character. Keeping experience on is easily done in the level 10 to 14 bracket because once the character levels to 15 they can pass their gear back to the high level character and delete the twink. It does not take much time or gold to level back up to level 10 and start owning the 10 - 14 bracket once again.

Expansion-cap twinking Edit

A player without one or more expansions will be level-capped by their client (as opposed to the "no-xp" option). They will remain at 60 (for a classic WoW account), 70 (with Burning Crusade), or 80 (with Wrath of the Lich King) until further expansions are added to their account.

Unlike "no-xp" level-capping, they remain in the same character pool as characters with more of the expansions. This larger pool naturally means that the battleground pool fills faster. Note that at levels below the absolute level cap, a large, unpopular battleground may still take hours to launch.

As of patch 4.0.1, expansion capped players are moved into the same bracket as those with XP disabled.

The 60 bracket consists of levels 51-60 in AV and 60-69 in WSG and AB.

The 70 bracket consists of levels 61-70 in AV and 70-79 in WSG, AB and EoS.

Twinking resources Edit

Class-based Edit

• Druid twinking guide
  • Level 14 Feral Druid twinking guide
• Hunter twinking guide
  • Level 14 hunter twinking guide
  • Level 19 hunter twinking guide
  • Level 29 hunter twinking guide
• Mage twinking guide
  • Level 14 mage twinking guide
• Paladin twinking guide
  • Level 14 paladin twinking guide
  • Level 19 paladin twink guide
  • Level 29 paladin twink guide
  • Level 39 paladin twink guide
• Priest twinking guide
  • Level 14 priest twinking guide
• Rogue twinking guide
  • Level 14 Subtlety Rogue twink Guide
  • Grudge's 19 Rogue
• Shaman twinking guide
  • Level 14 shaman twinking guide
• Warlock twinking guide
  • Level 14 warlock twinking guide
  • Twinking a warlock
• Warrior twinking guide
  • Level 14 warrior twinking guide

General or topic-based Edit

• Healer twinking guide
• Teebu's Twinking guide
• Twinking for battlegrounds
  • Peregrine's Guide to Battleground Twinking
• Level 1 Twink
• Level 5 Twink
• Level 19 Twink

References Edit

See also Edit

• Power Leveling

External linksEdit