Twinks are player characters below the level cap 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. Although Blizzard remains neutral on the subject and has confirmed that they neither endorse nor oppose twinking, the topic continues to be very controversial in the game. While some argue that twinking a character requires considerable effort and is a legitimate goal and facet of game-play, others argue that twinking is an inappropriate use of gold, and that they have an unfair advantage against regular players in PVP. Levels of twinks and "twinking" in World of Warcraft are commonly associated with PVP brackets for battlegrounds. One common rationalization is that "they just stop leveling", while another states that twinks have essentially finished the game because they have the best gear possible for their level and no longer need to worry about such things as raids and end-game content.
Examples
- 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,
- 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 design
World of Warcraft has several mechanisms in place to reduce 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.
Future of Twinks
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 force xp-off characters to face only other xp-off characters. Battleground XP was enabled for all other characters.
In patch 4.0.3 all battlegroups were merged into one large region wide battlegroup (US and Oceanic servers are in the same region). This means that battlegrounds will launch for all brackets regardless of your server.
Expansion-cap twinking
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
Class-based
- Druid twinking guide
- Hunter twinking guide
- Level 19 hunter twinking guide
- Level 29 hunter twinking guide
- Level 60 hunter twinking guide
- Level 70 hunter twinking guide
- Mage twinking guide
- Paladin twinking guide
- Level 19 paladin twink guide
- Level 29 paladin twink guide
- Level 39 paladin twink guide
- Priest twinking guide
- Rogue twinking guide
- Shaman twinking guide
- Warlock twinking guide
- Twinking a warlock
- Warrior twinking guide
General or topic-based
- 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
See also
External links
Battlegroundforums.com Twink and other PvP discussion DeadlyTwinks.com TONS of WoW 19 Twink info for all classes Gear for Twinks Comprehensive web site for everything about World of Warcraft Twinks. Gameolosophy.com Xeniba's Ultimate 29 Rogue Guide PwnDepot.com The Original and Most Popular Online Community for World of Warcraft Twink Guides and Information Shadowpanther.net Commonly used twink armor Shadowpanther.net Commonly used twink weapons Twink Info Drayner's World of Warcraft Twinking Blog - Twink Smarter Twink Source WoW Twink resource focused on news and guides. Warcraft-Twinks.Com World of Warcraft Twink Resource
Wikipedia Twinking in MMOGs