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Scattered Shots: Hunting for transmog gear

Adam Koebel
Updated ·10 min read
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Hunter & Loque'nahak

Every Thursday, WoW Insider brings you Scattered Shots for beast mastery, marksmanship and survival hunters. This week, your host Adam Koebel, aka Bendak will be discussing his favorite hunter transmog gear.

On my main hunter I count 61 ranged weapons, 11 complete tier sets, and 350 total pieces of transmog gear. I guess you could say transmogrification has become somewhat of an obsession of mine. As soon as I heard the feature was coming way back during patch 4.2, I began the hunt to to re-acquire gear I'd possessed in the past, or other gear which I always wished I had while it was relevant but never had the opportunity. It breathed new life into the game for me.

Hunters are well suited for farming transmog gear as we can solo things that other classes can't. We also have the freedom of transmogging any ranged weapon type into another, e.g. a gun into a bow. If you search hard enough, you'll find some really unique pieces out there which allow you to look like you're wearing armor from a different class. For example, did you know there's a mail armor eye patch available?


Easy to acquire PvP armor sets

The benefit of old PvP sets is you can reliably earn the honor points and know exactly when you'll be able to complete them, much unlike PvE sets. It may be easy to blow your way through Molten Core or Blackwing Lair every week, but that doesn't mean the bosses are going to drop what you want.

Dragonstalker armor


Easy to acquire PvE armor sets

The above picture is one of my favorite vanilla throwback sets. Everything is Dragonstalker armor except the helm, Crown of Destruction, along with the Dragonbreath Hand Cannon. When it comes to tier sets, those which are acquired through tokens (from Burning Crusade onwards) will be the easiest to acquire. There is a relatively high chance of a hunter token dropping on each kill compared to the individual class items in vanilla raids. The off pieces (typically boots and belt) will usually be the most difficult to acquire. The original vanilla dungeon sets (also known as tier 0 and tier 0.5) can currently only be obtained from the Darkmoon Faire using prize tickets.

All of the Burning Crusade sets (Demon Stalker, Rift Stalker, Gronnstalker) are some of the easier ones to acquire because they can all be completed by yourself. There are no special tactics needed to get through these raids at level 90. Wrath of the Lich King tier sets (Cryptstalker, Scourgestalker, Windrunner, Ahn'Kahar Blood Hunter) will present you with some extra challenges but you can always bring along a friend if they do. From Cataclysm onward is where you will start to need small groups to complete sets. Some of them can be completed solo, but others fall into the extreme soloing category and require an extra effort.

Tsunami Armor Set


Quest rewards, BoE gear, dungeons, and leatherworking

Those of you who leveled a hunter before patch 4.3 may be kicking yourselves over certain quest rewards you've sold to a vendor or disenchanted before transmogrification was introduced to the game. Back during BC or Wrath, there was very little reason to hold onto something like Lohn'goron, Bow of the Torn Heart once you had upgraded to something more powerful. The above picture features this bow

Black Dragonscale Armor

along with Tsunami armor set crafted with leatherworking and the Replica Shado-Pan Helmet from the Shado-Pan quartermaster. Whenever I level a new character I've gotten into the habit of keeping most of the armor I receive from quests. I throw it all in the bank and sort through it later.

When it comes to helms, there are a handful of options which use models traditionally reserved for the other armor classes. For a cloth helm look, you can check out the Stylin' Adventure Hat or Stylin' Crimson Hat from leatherworking. For the leather look, the Malefactor's Eyepatch is the only mail armor eye patch available for transmog. It is rewarded at the end of an 8-quest series in Blade's Edge Mountains called Showdown (Alliance/Horde). For a plate look, check out the Steelspine Faceguard which drops off Shade of Aran in Karazhan. It uses the same model as the warrior tier 1 helm, and looks great with a bulky armor set (especially on an orc).

For leatherworking, it can be somewhat difficult to find players with older patterns, such as the full set of Black Dragonscale armor shown in the picture on the right from Darkbrew (see here for full item list). If you're in a large guild you can browse your members by profession to see what leatherworking patterns they have. If all else fails, you can always advertise in trade chat.

Over at Wowhead, you can browse a full list of mail armor questing sets as well as Burning Crusade, Wrath, Cataclysm, and Mists dungeon sets. Another good place to look for some transmog inspiration is WoW Roleplay Gear. Sometimes you can get interesting results by mixing and matching similarly colored sets of gear together like this one submitted by a Scattered Shots reader.

Lohn'goron, Bow of the Torn Heart


Arrows and gun powder

Being able to transmog guns into bows and vice versa is a nice hunter perk. Some races have better bow animations than crossbow animations, and the gun sounds can get tiring after a while. The sounds will be changed to something a little more subdued in Warlords, but for now it remains the prime reason that many hunters transmog out of guns. One thing that has prevented me from transmogging crossbows is the fact that they shrink to the size of a dinky toy when sheathed on your character's back. This scaling problem may be worse for some races more than others, but it's a huge pet peeve of mine. I've still collected a large assortment of them in the hope that one day the weapon scaling will be adjusted. For now, I mostly stick to bows and guns.

My 5 favorite bows

  • Golden Bow of Quel'thalas from the Eredar Twins in Sunwell Plateau. You've probably seen this one before, and with good reason. It's arguably the most impressive looking bow in the game. Sunwell Plateau is easily soloed (you can even skip the first boss), but it may take you a number of weeks to get the drop.

    Bow transmog

  • Heartstriker from Broodlord Lashayer in Blackwing Lair. It may not be as flashy as some other bows, but the dragon theme is great and works well with vanilla raid gear. It also holds the record for the most number of kills to get it to drop. About 60 Broodlord kills in total. I wish I was joking.

  • Crypt Fiend Slayer from the Captain's Chest at the end of Halls of Reflection (normal mode only). This thing is criminally underused by hunters for their transmog. I'm convinced it's because they don't know it exists. If they were playing in Wrath, they probably only did this dungeon on heroic mode so they would have never seen it.

  • Lohn'goron, Bow of the Torn Heart from a very long quest chain in Shadowmoon Valley. More proof that BC was, in my opinion, the best expansion for ranged weapon art. This beautiful bow is hidden away in a quest chain that most people never bothered with except perhaps during BC. There is also an orange version from Karazhan.

  • Bristleblitz Striker from Archimonde in Hyjal Summit. Another memorable bow from BC.

My 5 favorite guns

  • Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle from the Big Bag Wolf encounter in Karazhan. Sleek and sexy, this gunmetal gray rifle goes well with virtually any transmog. The problem, once again, is

    Gun transmog

    RNG. The opera event in Karazhan can be one of 3 possible encounters per week, and this gun only drops from one of those encounters. I know hunters who have spent over a year of raid resets trying to get this.

  • Dragonbreath Hand Cannon from Ebonroc in Blackwing Lair. The dragon jaws open up when you fire. And bullets come out. Go get this thing.

  • Magnetized Projectile Emitter from XT-002 in Ulduar 10-player mode. This beefy gun spits out smoke and has some kind of twirly electrified gizmo coming out the top of it (which I am pretty sure increases DPS).

  • Rimebane Rifle from Scourgelord Tyrannus in Pit of Saron (normal mode). Double-barreled shotgun with twin blades. Not much else needs to be said.

  • Armor Plated Combat Shotgun from engineering. You don't want to be on the receiving end of this monstrosity. It features a big exhaust pipe which blows out smoke as you fire.

My 5 favorite crossbows

  • Skyforge Crossbow from Algalon in Ulduar 25-player.

    Crossbow transmog

    Love the art on this one, it's pure Ulduar.

  • Death's Head Crossbow from Lord Jaraxxus in Trial of the Crusader 25-player. This is a Horde-only crossbow, but it's pretty awesome looking.

  • Final Voyage from the Four Horseman in Naxxramas 25-player. This model is unique to this one item, and if you're looking for a big bulky crossbow this will suit you well.

  • Durumu's Baleful Gaze from Durumu in Throne of Thunder. If you want to creep out those around you, this is a good choice. Especially if you pair it with Gronnstalker armor.

  • Merciless Gladiator's Crossbow of the Phoenix from honor points. Without a doubt one of the best hunter PvP weapons ever.

One thing I didn't touch on was transmogging your hunter to look like a shaman. I'm not really a fan of the dresses on a hunter, but if that's your style then most shaman raid sets have alternate colors available without the shaman class restriction. Amani Mail is one of the nicer shaman sets in my opinion. If I had to pick a favorite overall tier set it would have to be Gronnstalker. I know the eyeballs turn some people off, but I happen to like the "wear what you kill" style of hunter armor, at least on male characters (not so much female). That must be why I get such a kick out of the challenge mode reward armor (Howling Beast). What type of armor and weapons do you prefer on your hunter?

Scattered Shots is dedicated to helping you learn everything it takes to be a hunter. From raiding tips and hunter addons to learning the DPS value of skill, we've got you covered. If you're stuck in one of the ten support classes, why not move up to the big league and play a hunter?