In a world of flying mounts, teleports, and portals, moving fast remains one the most important parts of leveling quickly in World of Warcraft, with players dedicating an incredible amount of preparation to find the best ways of speeding their characters to max level, but while that's the goal for most players, others don't make it a priority at all. A surprising number of players also purposefully stay at lower levels, turning off experience in order to PvP, raid, or farm older content while still enjoying various perks of the current expansion. Using the Heart of Azeroth with Longstrider azerite power is a big part of this, though that's taken a big hit in the newest expansion.
I feel the need...
For these players, movement speed is everything, often depending on Warrior's War Machine, Hunter's Aspect of the Cheetah and Trailblazer, or Druid forms to get around even faster. Combining those bonuses with older gems, enchants, gear, and consumables can push players even over 200% base movement speed... because who needs mounts anyway?
Five expansions later, at least you can still use Gunshoes to go fast!
Stats Squished
Many of these bonuses have been steadily decreased over time, but the Midnight stat squish hit some bonuses very hard.Longstrider was a cornerstone for dedicated speed farmers, but the newly squished scaling has limited the maximum bonus to around 4.73% in Midnight. Likewise, the coveted Enchant Boots - Minor Speed is now limited to 120 item level making it much less effective for higher level characters, though the small amount of speed rating on Straddling Sage Agate and Straddling Viridium are actually worth a little more than they used to be.
Some of the gear lower level players were using can't even be equipped after the squish.
The new series of Argentleaf Tea consumables were also nerfed shortly after launch, rendering them unusable in Mythic+ dungeons and raids, though a recent hotfix now allows the buffs to persist in Silvermoon City, Delves, and non-Mythic+ dungeons.
But I wanna go Fast
The War Within featured several sources of movement speed available to everyone, granting nearly 20% from enchants and another 10-15% gems and embellishments alone. While Midnight still offers a selection of +speed enchants, they're much more limited - between Enchant Shoulders - Akil'zon's Swiftness, Enchant Boots - Farstrider's Hunt, Enchant Helm - Empowered Blessing of Speed, and even including Enchant Chest - Mark of the Rootwarden, players are looking at only around 9% extra speed. The speed meta gem has also been replaced by bonus armor, so there's no new version in Midnight to stack on top either.
The Idol's Lynx buff also grants a sizeable amount of all three tertiary stats.
Although they may not hit the same levels as easily, a few pieces of extra speed can be very helpful for all characters. Being able to move out of bad situations faster means less downtime, quicker reaction, and an easier time getting back on target, which has a very real (if someone hard to measure) impact on offensive and defensive performance. That said, more isn't always better, as each of the tertiary stats continue to work on a rating system, with diminishing returns beyond certain thresholds to prevent excessive stacking.
Courtesy of Maxroll.
Because of this, many players will likely find value in one or two speed enchants or pieces of gear. The Enchant Shoulders - Akil'zon's Swiftness shoulder enchant in particular is a very effective enchant to have, as the almost 6% extra speed can be felt much more than the alternative 2.4% leech or 3% avoidance, especially for players who don't have any natural speed buffs of their own! Of course, tertiary stats don't typically have a significant impact on performance and each player's needs are different, so choose whatever seems preferrable for you.
