New gems and enchants
The next expansion brings its own gems and enchants, and a locked character can still use them. The gear is finished; the things you socket and apply to it are not.
Methodology / how the characters get made
Gear a character at max level, then lock it.
I play current endgame while preparing a future twink. When the expansion ends, I lock that character with the gear it has earned and start a new max-level character.
I have worked this way since Dragonflight. Characters from before that were not built like this, so the loop does not describe anything earlier.
The loop
The same four steps each expansion.
The old main becomes a locked character, and a new one takes over at max level.
- 01
Gear the character during the current expansion
I gear a character through the current seasons and use it for max-level solos. The difference is what I do with it when the expansion ends.
- 02
Lock it when the expansion ends
When the expansion ends, I stop that character earning experience. It keeps the gear it collected while playing at max level.
- 03
Keep the gear it already earned
The character can start attempting bracket content with that set. I do not need to farm the same gear again at its locked level. Gems and enchants can still change later.
- 04
Level a new character for the new endgame
A fresh character takes over max level for the next expansion. Last expansion’s main stays behind as a twink.
Why it works
Why I gear before I lock.
A locked character takes gear earned at max level into content at its new fixed level. That is why I do the gearing first, while the character can still take part in current endgame.
Once the character is locked, I can spend my time testing fights instead of rebuilding its gear inside the bracket.
After the lock
The gear stays, but the game keeps changing.
A locked level does not freeze gems, enchants or encounter tuning.
Tuning and encounter nerfs
Fights get retuned and nerfed over time. That means a character can eventually solo things it could not manage while its own expansion was current — the same character, against a target that moved.
Where it leads
See what the locked characters have done.
The bracket pages collect my published solo records at levels 30 to 80, with links to the videos.
See the bracket records