Hearthstone

• Hearthstone
• Binds when picked up
• Unique
• Item Level 1Disenchants into:
  Not disenchantable
• Use: Returns you to <home location>. Speak to an Innkeeper in a different place to change your home location.
• Cooldown: 30 minutes
• 10 sec cast

A Hearthstone is a device used to teleport oneself to any home place (an inn, location set by the player) in the world. All characters receive a Hearthstone upon creation. Should the player destroy it, asking an innkeeper to “make this inn your home” will recreate one for free.

Notes

Hearthstone by Raneman

• It is unique so you can only have one.
• The target inn destination of a hearthstone can be changed by binding to a different inn, by talking to an innkeeper and choosing "Make this inn your home."
• You can destroy the Hearthstone if you so desire. To get a new one, speak with any innkeeper and set the Bind point.
• Using a hearthstone takes 10 seconds to activate (effectively a 10 second Casting Time spell).
• The Hearthstone can be used during combat; however, the casting will be interrupted if the user takes any hits.
• After use, the hearthstone has a 30 minute cooldown time. This cooldown continues even if the player logs off.
• The Hearthstone is initially bound to the starting zone of the player. To be exact, the very spot that your character was initially created.
• One item in the world has the same ability as the Hearthstone, the  [Ruby Slippers] found on a boss in Karazhan.
• Inscribers can make and use stacks of  [Scroll of Recall] of various levels. They have a 20 minute cooldown, and the scroll is consumed on use.
• The Shaman's spell [Astral Recall] reproduces the ability as well, but has the cooldown reduced from 30 to 15 minutes.
• Due to their ability to teleport to capital cities, mages can be much more flexible with where they set their home to than other classes. Many set their home at Argent Tournament so they can help summon others to Ulduar or Crusaders' Coliseum, as well to complete the Tournament Daily Quests; Wyrmrest Temple is used for general accessibility in all Northrend, Naxxramas or Obsidian Sanctum; some set it elsewhere, maybe in Azeroth, like Booty Bay to complete the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza faster, or Light's Hope Chapel if they're grinding for the Baron's mount.
• While low-level players may not reach it conventionally, it is possible to be ported by a mage directly to Dalaran and then set one's hearthstone to a local innkeeper there. This is occasionally done for alts for accessibility to cities far away from each other, particularly the Exodar. However, it makes some travel longer due to the lack of immediate flight points past the large city itself.
• Hearthing can be done while seated.

Recommended home locations

Casting Hearthstone

Dalaran is the best home location for all level players, has portals leading to every capital on Azeroth as well as Shattrath City, though a player must still acquire flight paths to travel effectively past these locations.

But in the case of an inexperienced player, the home is usually set to a convenient location bearing in mind the zones in which he's questing and the instances he might be going to. They will likely look like the following:

For the Alliance

• Levels 5-10: Goldshire (human), Dolanaar (night elf), Azure Watch (draenei), Kharanos (dwarf & gnome)
• Levels 10-20: Sentinel Hill (human), Auberdine (night elf), Blood Watch (draenei), Thelsamar (dwarf & gnome)
• Levels 20-58: Ironforge, Stormwind or Theramore
• Levels 58-68: Shattrath City
• Levels 68-74: Valiance Keep or Valgarde
• Levels 74-80: Dalaran

For the Horde

• Levels 5-10: Razor Hill (orc & troll), Brill (undead), Bloodhoof Village (tauren), Falconwing Square/Fairbreeze Village (blood elf)
• Levels 10-20: Crossroads (tauren, orc & troll), The Sepulcher (undead), Tranquillien (blood elf)
• Levels 20-58: Orgrimmar, Undercity or Grom'gol Base Camp
• Levels 58-68: Shattrath City
• Levels 68-74: Warsong Hold or Vengeance Landing
• Levels 74-80: Dalaran

Ghetto hearthing

As of patch 3.1.0, ghetto hearthing has been removed from the game. Instead of returning to the home location, the character will be transported to the nearest graveyard. The cooldown of a hearthstone will now become 30 minutes, down from 60.

As traveling all over the world can be time consuming, players previously used the "ghetto hearth" trick to home teleport when the Hearthstone is still on cooldown. Instance portals being located in almost every zone, this was very useful when the destination is on another continent, or when traveling to the Outland. When ghetto hearthing was an option, players would have done the following:

• Create a group. If no friends/guildmates are online, look around your zone (using command /who) and whisper a player if they mind joining a group for some seconds to get you ported. You may randomly invite a player (using command /who), there are always some players who will first accept before asking why they have been invited — but this is considered very rude behaviour.
• Enter the instance
• Give the lead away (this is an important step as you won't be teleported if everybody else ungroups leaving you alone inside)
• Leave the group (and wait 60 sec.). Do not forget to thank for the group before leaving.

That way, it was possible to save up to 40 or 50mins on Hearthstone cooldown. As stated previously, this operation used to just refresh the cooldown to 60 minutes. This was especially useful when traveling from Kalimdor to Outland, or between the continents through Shattrath portals. Note that this trick becomes more efficient through leveling, as all instances have a level requirement (level 10 required for the Deadmines, level 45 required for the Dire Maul, level 66 required for Caverns of Time), and becomes fully efficient at level 70.

Patch changes

• Patch 3.1.0 (2009-04-14): The cooldown will be reduced to 30 minutes. 'Ghetto hearthing' will bring you to the nearest graveyard, instead of your home location.
  
• Patch 2.3.0 (2007-11-13): The mouse pointer changes when hovering it over an innkeeper NPC than can bind:

interact with innkeeper innkeeper out of range

External links

• Wowhead
• WoWDB