transmog
Latest
Breakfast Topic: Life without transmog
If you played World of Warcraft before the addition of transmog to the game, you probably remember your first faithful trip into Outland, when you ditched armor you'd carefully collected since launch for brightly colored and mismatched gear. It's pretty clear that no one had put a lot of thought into how this gear might look when together, which made the clownishly colored gear a rite of passage... or maybe a punishment for daring to level beyond 60. The only thing that was clear was that Blizzard really didn't like us in order to deck our characters out like this. But these days, some players don't remember the time before transmog. They go out intentionally trying to find the worst-looking pieces of gear -- which are perhaps even those same Hellfire Peninsula greens that were so memorable to anyone who leveled through them. So today, tell us, readers: did you live through the famed clown suit era? And do you now transmog your way out of it?
Arcane Brilliance: Taking your mage transmog beyond tier sets
Every other week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. Stacey Landry is the resident mage here, bender of space and time, conjurer of delicious confectioneries and expert at dressing well while setting things on fire. She also maintains the mage blog, Manalicious. I haven't written about transmog here yet, which is really a terrible oversight. It was always in the works, though, there's just been so many other things to talk about. But I find myself at liberty to do something a little more light-hearted this week and so let's talk about fashion! Many potential transmog enthusiasts might find themselves getting a bit overwhelmed when it comes to choosing what to wear. You don't need an article that tells you "tier sets look good," because it's kind of a given. They were designed to match each other, so yes, an entire tier set isn't necessarily a wrong choice. At the very least it'll look cohesive, and mages have some great tier sets. But it isn't necessarily an original choice, either, and it won't set you apart in a sea of cloth-wearers or even mages wearing the entirety of Tirisfal Regalia. So what we're going to talk about, for anyone who might be less confident in their transmogging, is how you can take your transmog to the next level and what you should consider as you do. We'll look at color and contrast, how to build a set around a unique piece, or take a potential theme and make it your own.
Transmog while you wait for Warlords
We're all looking for something to keep us busy while we wait for Warlords of Draenor. Why not spend sometime making ourselves look good? Many of us at WoW Insider have been obsessed with the transmogrification feature ever since it has been implemented, so let's take a moment to look back on some of the fashion options available. Superheroes in Azeroth Avengers, assemble! Our most popular transmog post ever. Transmogging DC Comics' greatest heroes Transmogging more of the women of DC Comics More superhero outfits for your nerdy pleasure Here are the Masters of the Universe, if you're into that Follow us behind the break for sets to match gaming icons from Nintendo and beyond, tributes to Azeroth's greatest heroes, class-based transmogrification inspiration, and guides to gathering tier armor of expansions past.
The Care and Feeding of Warriors: We do transmog better than anyone
Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host. I got to do some tanking in Heroic Siege this week - nothing major, just offtanking on Dark Shaman - and it was pretty fun all around. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy tanking in raids. It was fun to get to see the Warrior 2 piece Tier 16 tanking bonus in action in a current raid at the cutting edge of content, instead of in an LFR or using it to solo Cataclysm raids. It's a very solid set bonus, and I'm going to write more about it in the future - basically, I think it should be baked into the baseline Shield Block and Shield Barrier abilities, or perhaps be baked into Shield Slam in some way (so that, for ten seconds after a successful Shield Slam, you heal a percentage of your Shield Barrier absorb or Shield Block damage prevented, as one possible example) - but I'm not quite ready to write about that yet. Now, as I said, I've been using my tank set and prot spec to solo Cataclysm raids, up to and including the first three bosses in 10 man Dragon Soul. It's not always easy, but it is possible, and the reason I've been doing this is because I freaking love transmogrification, and therefore, I've been pursuing it with a fevered dedication that has completely robbed me of bank, void storage and even bag space. I've wanted to write about transmog and warriors forever, but I felt such deep shame at letting Cable, the mutant son of Cyclops and Madeline Pryor, write about it first. I mean, I'm so in love with transmog that I started a tumblr about it. So let's talk about transmog and warriors. (If you're not interested in transmog, you should probably come back next week.) Why do I argue that warriors do transmog better than anyone? Well, here's a few reasons.
Scattered Shots: Hunting for transmog gear
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?
The Queue: Is Jaina evil?
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Let's find out! wi1dfire_b1ue asked: Do you think Jaina has already crossed into villain status, and would that answer change based on faction? I mostly think no, she's not there yet, but that Blood Elves are going to look at her as the human that broke the last link the old Elf kingdom had with the human kingdoms (which conveniently, would ignore the sins of their former prince).
An ode to transmog
How much do I obsessively love transmog? This much. But I'm hardly the only person who loves to switch around their gear's look - as much as I understand that the appeal of the feature is lost on many (I once had a guildmate ask me how I managed to change my look every raid - it turned out he didn't even know the feature exists) it's very much helped extend my enjoyment of playing the game. I run old content almost constantly now, looking for that one perfect matching piece. I do old quests I missed when the Cata revamp came in. I've completed sets that I never managed to finish (that last two protector tokens from Heroic ICC that evaded me for the entire time the instance was current? I got them this month.) I even use Warforged Seals on bosses simply to get matching pieces for transmog sets. Transmog is a huge part of how I play now, and even why I play to some extent - if it weren't for transmog I probably wouldn't log on half as much as I do. Not bad considering how much I hated the idea of transmog when it was floated over and over again over the course of the years I played before it existed.
Officers' Quarters: 8 gift ideas that won't break the gbank
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. The holiday season is all about giving. It's the perfect time of year to hold contests and giveaways. Doing so can be a great way to build morale in your community or attract new players. Giving gifts to your officers as a guild leader is also a heartfelt way to show appreciation for their hard work throughout the year. However, many of the most desired items can cost a fortune in gold. For officers, manpower is often much easier to come by than raw currency. Here are eight items that make great gifts or prizes without bankrupting your gbank. 8. Discombobulator Ray Where to get it: An engineer can learn the schematic in Gnomeregan. Wowpedia has a walkthrough. It also has a small chance (0.5%) to drop from Mekgineer Thermaplugg, the last boss of the dungeon. What it costs: A small amount of gold for materials: bronze bars, silk and wool cloth, and jade. Why it's a good gift: Many players don't even know this vanilla-era item exists. It has a unique and hilarious effect, and you don't have to be an engineer to use it. It's also a devastating item for low level players to unleash in PvP.
Shado-Pan transmog and player-created games
The coolest things to come out of Pandaria's multitude of reputation grinds were the rewards that players could reap at the end of what was sometimes an excruciatingly long journey. It was your treat for weeks, sometimes months of endless dailies. The rewards are fairly extensive -- mounts, new pets, items for your farm, trinkets and toys -- but none were quite as well received as one lone item from the Shado-Pan: the hat. A transmog-only stat-less item, the Replica Shado-Pan Helmet was created specifically for use with transmogrification. There was one minor problem with that, however. Shado-Pan armor was most definitely not included. This left players with the task of building outfits to go along with the sets. And due to this, players got ridiculously creative with solutions to the problem, sorting out which color schemes would look best with that unique red bandana and hunting down the various pieces, one by one.
Five features I really want from the next expansion
So everyone's handily speculating on just what the next expansion will be, and what it will have and not have. That's pretty awesome. I love speculating. So in the spirit of things, I've decided to throw my hat in the ring and natter on about what I'd love to see from the next expansion, whatever it ends up being. Let's just jump right into it. What stuff do I think would be awesome? An overhaul of the leveling/alt process I definitely think we need to reconsider how we deal with alts. I'd love to see a system that reduced the time you had to spend getting them leveled once you got the first one to max - heirlooms work for that, but that long-rumored heirloom tab would make it a lot easier. Another thing which would definitely help are more heirlooms like Hellscream's Decapitator - our current heirlooms don't take us all the way to max level the way it will, and it's also useful now as a raid-level item an alt can make use of. It's an experiment I hope they continue. I've seen some arguments that we should be able to start a high-level alt to skip over a lot of the leveling process, especially as we get closer and closer to the likely new level cap of 100. If that was implemented, it would need to be done carefully, but I'd definitely support some way to preview a class at or near max level so you could figure out if you'll like it or cut down on having to do the full 1 to 100 (or whatever it ends up being) march again.
How Diablo 3 has improved transmog and why WoW should steal it
Yesterday our Adam K (who I picture as a cyborg mutant from the future) posted about Diablo 3's incoming Mystic and the services she will provide. This post isn't adding any new information, it's just making a point - everything about Diablo 3's transmogrification is better than that of the game it was stolen from, World of Warcraft. When Reaper of Souls comes out, I will be drooling in envy over how that game handles transmogrification. Why is it better, you ask? Let's compare the two games. All items including legendaries and set items are eligible for transmog in D3. In WoW, there are item restrictions that include not allowing legendaries. D3 uses item appearances - once an item's appearance is unlocked, it's bound to your account and any character on that account can use that appearance in transmogrification. So if you have two barbarians and one has Unending War, the other can use its appearance in transmog. In WoW, if you have a warrior with Ashkandi, your death knight still has to farm BWL to get it if she wants to use that item for transmog. In World of Warcraft, if you want to use an item for transmog, you have to have that item - it's in your bank or void storage tab, taking up space. In D3, once you've unlocked an item's appearance, you do not have to keep that item. You can also dye items that you've transmogged in D3, but since you can't do that at all in WoW, it's not a fair comparison. Reading over the way transmogrification will work in Reaper of Souls just makes me convinced that WoW has an archaic transmog system that needs to be revamped, and handily for Blizzard, they just developed the perfect system to replace it.
World of Warcraft's peculiar time dilation
When you've been playing a game as long as some of us have been playing World of Warcraft, you get some unusual moments of realization. One of them occurred to me recently, when talking about the upcoming 9th Anniversary of the game this November 23rd. The person I was talking to said "Yeah, my mom showed me how to play, I used to fish for her on her hunter" and it came out that said person was 21 years old, and that she has been playing the game since she was thirteen. She has effectively grown up in Azeroth, at least part time - nearly half of her life has been spent playing this game. Meanwhile, with each expansion the game has lost some players and gained others - there are people who started playing in Cataclysm and even people who started play this year (I know, I've met quite a few of them) and many of them have no idea how to even go about absorbing all that happened in those nine years. To people who've played all along, it all happened - it's part and parcel of the game, it's history we experienced. But to new players, the sheer volume of it all can be daunting - I've had players comment with disbelief when told about 40 man raiding, who don't really grasp just how many times class mechanics have been changed and revamped and altered. One healer simply couldn't grasp the concept of an out-of-combat resser, a healing character who stood back out of range of boss fights and resurrected people who died over and over again. For me, the trippy part of that conversation was reading a 21 year old relate stories of Molten Core to this newer player and realize they were stories of what she was doing in grammar school. Of course, for me WoW is a game I discovered in my 30's. My early thirties, come to think of it, and now I'm well out of that decade. So we're all aging, but the proportion of time we spent playing the game is different - for me WoW is just one of many games I've played, and certainly not almost half of my lifespan.
Cosmetic helms now available in Blizzard Store
The first round of transmog gear for purchase has appeared in the Blizzard store. The Crown of Eternal Winter, Jewel of the Firelord, and Hood of Hungering Darkness are all head slot items with zero stats, functional only for cosmetic reasons. All three of these items are unique models with animations, and I do have to say, they are rather visually arresting. Of the three, I think the Jewel of the Firelord (pictured above) is my favorite, but I'm quite sure the Crown of Eternal Winter will be a popular choice thanks to its skull face look. Spooky! Something notable about these helms is that they don't seem to have an armor type. The description tells us that they work across all races and classes, and are available on all current and future WoW characters. So for those of us playing classes that might not have a whole lot of variety available to us (ahem, mail-wearers) this could be a nice way to expand the wardrobe. All three of these helms are available for purchase in the US Blizzard Store under the Collectibles tab for $15.00 apiece and in the EU Blizzard Store under the Pets & Mounts tab, for 12,00 euros each.
The best cloth transmogrification item ever
Today I present you with the best cloth transmog item ever: Exiled Dabbler's Gloves. What makes these gloves so special? Well, it's that they don't really look like gloves at all. They display more like a pair of bracers, so when paired with many cloth chest pieces they appear as though your character isn't wearing any gloves at all. See why they're so awesome? Few would dispute the universal appeal of having no gloves as an option. So far the Exiled Dabbler's Gloves appear to work best with any cloth chest that have a bell sleeve. Sleeveless, short sleeve, and fitted sleeve chest pieces don't seem to hide the gauntlet of the glove. Fortunately the gauntlet is quite simple in design, displaying as a black bracer with some silver detail. Coincidentally, they're a pretty close match to the ever popular Black Mageweave Leggings. According to Wowhead, these gloves are a random uncommon quality drop from the Isle of Thunder and Throne of Thunder. So if needed more incentive to keep doing dailies on the Isle of Thunder, now you have one. What do you think? Will you be chasing these down on the auction house or the Isle of Thunder? Personally I think it would be interesting to combine them with Griftah's Authentic Troll Shoes, so my character can go gloveless and shoeless.
EU forums announce amazing transmogrification race
If you live in the EU and love to dress up your toons, you might be interested in this new game announced by community manager Meldheron: the transmogrification race! According to Meldheron it will be a monthly mini-contest in which players are prompted with a transmog theme on the WoW forum. Reply to the thread with a list of the pieces for use in your outfit, and upvote your favorites. The five most popular will be featured on the World of Warcraft facebook page. I know we've got lots of transmog fiends around, so if you're in the EU this might be a fun way to share your ideas with fellow WoW players and even get a little bit of attention for your sartorial efforts. Have fun, and I look forward to seeing the top contestants!
Is it time to remove all transmog restrictions?
I think an experience along these lines is pretty common for WoW transmog enthusiasts: "Fantastic, I finally got the Talon of the Phoenix! I'm gonna transmog it to... wait. I'm using an axe for raiding." Or maybe this one: "Yes! This is an amazing upgrade! ...Oh I can't transmog a two-handed weapon into a main and off-hand, so I have to redo my outfit." I use weapons as examples because they often have the most limited transmog options, despite the fact that Blizzard did lift a lot of their restrictions in patch 5.2. Polearms and staves can be transmogged into each other. One-handed maces, axes, and swords can be transmogged into each other. Two-handed maces, axes, and swords can be transmogged into each other. But two-handed axes, swords, and maces cannot be transmogged into staves or polearms. Fist weapons cannot be transmogged into one-handed swords, axes, or maces. In one view, the limitations make sense. As a druid, I can use staves, polearms, and two-handed maces. I cannot use two-handed axes or swords. If there were no restrictions, I could transmog my healing staff into a sword and be a resto druid with a sword. That seems odd to me. Then again, I can be a resto druid with a staff transmogged to a polearm, but I cannot be a resto druid with a staff transmogged into a two-handed mace, even though I can equip both those weapons.
The top five things you need to know about patch 5.3
Patch 5.3 has arrived, and there are a truly staggering number of changes to the game, many of them with significant effects to gameplay. You can check out Blizzard's complete patch notes on their blog, but for the sake of brevity, WoW Insider has compiled a list of the top five changes that are most likely to be of the biggest interest to the average player. If you haven't been paying much attention, this is the stuff you probably really want to know! 1. The experience required to go from level 85 to 90 has been reduced by 33% Mists of Pandaria has been called very alt-unfriendly, and while this particular change won't entirely fix that, it does help. Along with the changes to reputation factions -- the Shado Pan and August Celestials dailies are no longer hidden behind the gate of "Revered" with the Golden Lotus -- this will make it easier to get your army of alts up to speed to hop into max-level content.
Patch 5.3: Transmog to be available from bank and void storage
If you're a fan of mogging whose bags are already full to bursting, then MMO-Champion brings good news: in patch 5.3, you'll be able to transmogrify using items that are currently in the bank or void storage. The ability is actually already in the game for void storage, but there's no UI elements that let you access it. However, anyone wanting to get ahead of the curve can download the VoidTransmog addon, and transmogrify away without the bother of actually pulling your items out of storage. While it's a small change, we're sure transmog fans will appreciate the convenience of this tweak. Of course, patch 5.3 is still far on the horizon and it's likely that eager transmogrifiers will be waiting on this for quite a while.
How to get started with transmogrification and be the most stylish newbie on the block
When I first created my gnome monk, I immediately noticed that while the other class options had stylish starting gear, my monk had a sleeveless black shirt, plain black pants, and no shoes. I assumed that, as a monk, my gnome valued simplicity over flash -- but, really, a sleeveless shirt and bare feet in the endless Dun Morogh snow just seemed impractical. Wouldn't she get cold? Did I need to be concerned about frostbite? What if my poor gnome stepped on something sharp? Fortunately, I soon found a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of boots and was able to stop worrying about it. Until level 64 when, questing in Hellfire Peninsula, I received a pair of boots that was a huge upgrade from my old boots, but weren't quite boots. Instead, they were bright green bands that wrapped around the ankle and covered the top of the foot, but left the bottom bare: Hardly practical footware for exploring the demon-infested Outland. It was this that finally drove me to figure out WoW's transmogrification system, which lets you make one piece of gear (armor or weapon) look like another. Though this feature seems primarily designed for high level players who have had the time to collect numerous pieces of gear, you can start transmogrifying at any level. The only downside to starting early is that you'll be tempted to find and buy gear just for its looks -- which can be pricey! But if you're a savvy auction house trader, you can use everyone else's transmogrification obsession to make some cash.
A wish list for features in 5.2 or beyond
I'm greedy. Oh, not in a monetary sense - I'm notoriously bad at even pretending to care about money - but whenever Blizzard puts out a cool new feature it immediately gets me thinking about other cool new features I'd like to see added to the game. I know, I know, I should be happy with what I have. But since I'm not, here comes a list of features I wish they'd add to World of Warcraft, be it in patch 5.2 or in some future patch. All of these are based purely on my selfish desires, and are in now way promised or even hinted at by Blizzard, so please don't start asking Blizzard why they haven't delivered on any of them. That would be like going to McDonald's and demanding that Bacon Sausage Egg McMuffin (with Canadian Bacon) that I dreamed up when I was 20. Seriously, how has that never actually been a thing? My cardiovascular health dodged a bullet there. The Revenge for Southshore battleground/World PvP hub Seriously, how is it this hasn't happened yet? It seems like a natural to me. While the World PvP might be a bit too disruptive to leveling characters (relatively easily fixed with a phasing change, but it might be better to just make it a battleground up front) the actual idea seems simple enough - Alliance landing craft disgorge a massive force on the beaches south of the ruined Southshore and begin their push north. As players, we either defend Tarren Mill, or take part in the drive for revenge northward. Victory is achieved by claiming a series of important strategic points and then taking the other faction's starting zone and successfully destroying it. Perhaps it's just nostalgia for all the times we ran into Tarren Mill back in the day only to discover we couldn't really do anything, but I'd love to finally set it on fire.
