Will I delevel and lose my gear if I "upgrade" my toon

So playing silver atm, level 88 with 1000k AAs and decent gear. What will happen if I push upgrade button? Lose levels? Lose gear? Gain AAs?

Thanks for helping the n00b

Although I don't know for certain, my speculation would be:

You would LOSE 3 levels back to 85.
You would GAIN approx. 7000AA points, (similar to if you did autogrant at 85)

I am pretty certain the equipment allocated will be in the "rewards" tab similar to when you completed a daily quest. Much of it might not be useful to you, but you will get 2 x 100% WR bags (24/32slot?).

I think the intention behind heroic characters is for newer players to catch up with friends/established players, so they do not have to do the 1-85 grind. As a result, is far better to use on a freshly created level 1 character than an established 88. Using a heroic on your 88 seems very much a waste of a heroic, and would recommend it on trying a new class instead.

In your case, subscribing for 1 month, hitting the autogrant, (then cancelling membership) will allocate you every AA available to a level 88, which might be the best course of action.

You should not lose levels
You would gain the other "heroic" AA that you don't already have.
You would end up with 2 WR bags, 15kpp and the items / armor should go into your inventory.

however - I have not tested this.

You don't lose anything when you upgrade a character with the heroic button. If your character does not already have it, you will gain credit for the MPG trials. You'll also get the first 4 tiers of DoN progression AAs, though you will have to hail the DoN progression NPC before you actually receive those AAs. All of your non-tradeskill skills will be maxed out for a level 85 character, if they aren't already maxed out or above (not sure about languages). Your spellbook and or combat abilities will be filled in with missing discs/spells, except for special special spells like "ancient blahdeblah." And you will be granted any AA which is flagged Underfoot or earlier, except spell casting subtlety.

The heroic gear is granted as a quest reward that you can select at any time. You won't lose any items you currently have, and you can chose which, if any, of the heroic items you want to equip after you claim them.

Yep, all of this plus are then eligible for the nice set of heroic augs in Feerrot and HoT.

When you hit the upgrade button, it gives a warning about de-levelling and asks you if you are sure you want to continue. As very few (if any) people have ever used a heroic on a character higher than 85, it has probably never been looked at very closely and just skipped over.

Created some heroics a few days ago, and thought I saw this warning before getting a Yes/No dialogue box to continue. At least the OP can choose to back out if it looks likely he will lose levels.

Thanks for replies! Maybe the AAs will make up for lost levels. However I assume the AAs will not be "active" after March 30 unless I upgrade to gold?

All your AAs gained will remain active and usable.

Your total will read something like 7450/1000 but you will not be able to earn any additional AAs without an active membership.

Thanks Elsewhere! Defo worth considering then

Eh, the other day I applied the free upgrade to a level 92 on another account and she's still level 92.

Hmm please come back and let us know what happens if you do it. My thought is if you upgrade a free or silver account then you do not gain any AA or anything else other that that level unless you also go paid subscription at the time. The paid subscription is what gives free accounts the extra AA and stuff. Just like you will be 85 (or higher) but you still won't be able to get the J5 merc cause your a free account.

When you are that high it is better to make a new character. A level 1 or 2 of the same class will become instant 85. or a different class

I upgraded 4 silver accounts from 45th and below in levels and got everything a HC 85 character is supposed to get.

Reason I am not starting a new toon is because although being low level I have spent lots of time raising faction, tradeskilling and questing (yes I am that sort of player ). Delevelling from 88 to 85 I can live with but losing gear and hard work would be tougher, hence the question.
Considering the replies here it looks like gear will be intact (?) so when I get off work I think i'll press the green button. Cross fingers please

No, Im 99% sure the warning says nothing about deleveling.

you will not de level if you make a 105 or lower toon a heroic toon.

you will get all items that a heroic toon gets.. don progression mpg trials,skill ups, gear ect...

CORRECT.
A heroic toon will not "de-level". It will gain that which it does not have.
At 88 you might find some of the granted gear will be an upgrade for a few slots.
-R

No it does not. Because there is no de-leveling to begin with.
It gives a warning about this being a permanent change is all.
-Rat

The warning is that the change is permanent and that if you are below level 85, all of your corpses will lose their experience. That means you can't delevel yourself to level 1, hit the heroic upgrade, then resurrect all of your corpses to gain levels beyond 85.

You take the gear off and put it in your bank. Empty the inventory slots into your bank to.

Upgrade, nothing changes except you get a new level, new gear, and new monies. Put back what you want to use.