Conqueror's Plate - Go For the Gold!

Morning ladies and gents. I've been meaning to get this posted for quite some time now. Somehow all of my plate wearers (sans DK who's leveling atm) ended up in variations of the Conqueror set. So why the Conqueror set? It's versatile!! It's excellent as a stand alone set, it's amazing as mix n match. It goes with a good many Paladin tier sets and many of the fiery red and gold Vanilla pieces. It's sexy, it's smooth, it's classy.

It all started way back when I was making this blog. You'll see a nice little human gal on the right hand side in all gold with a big flaming sword. When they brought back the Mastercraft Blacksmithing weapons in 5.2 I decided it was time to make that sword. And considering I had farmed for the pattern for those shoulders already I was set. Frankly those are some of the sexiest plate shoulders in game, the Swiftsteel Shoulders. I love, love, LOVE! these things. Did I mention I absolutely love them? I'm sure you've seen them used a few times. I ended up with a lot of Conqueror's Plate after some BT runs for miscellaneous pieces of gear. So after a month of crafting Lightning Steel Ingots for Blazefurythe set was made.

	This is the full Conqueror's set. I'm using Blazefury for my main hand which takes a minimum of a month to make if you're a blacksmith. Or you can hit the AH and pay anywhere from 20k to about 40k gold for it. The Swiftsteel Shoulders are BoP so you have to be a blacksmith in order to make them. I used the Skyking Bulwark . It's a nice BoE item so you should be able to find it on your AH for a decent amount. The best way to "farm" it would be to run ToT LFRs or farm Isle of Thunder mobs. It can drop other places but the majority of drops come from Isle of Thunder. The shield I would really like to use with this set I haven't tried farming for. Pyckles was collecting dust before they added the new loot spec option. The raid finder version of Twinned Despair just has some sexy colors in it.
Here's my orc. One of my favorite pieces of art in World of Warcraft:The Art of The Trading Card Game depicts a female guard in Org with nice abs. Plus I love the racials for my warrior. I was going to do the same shoulders on this character but decided to go with pieces of the Heroism set instead. Hey, the blue matched her eyes. I used the shoulders and then since I needed one more little piece to pull in some blue I used the belt as well. It was the last day of Darkmoon Fair for the month and I just happened to have enough tickets. After staring at her a few days I decided I did NOT like it! The Conqueror's Breastplate made the shape of her chest funny. I had already used my Glorious BP on the Blood Elf, so I hit Wowhead for look alikes. A quick series of quests later and she's rocking the Nether Protector's Chest. MUCH better! I stayed Titan's Grip for the Crystalforged Waraxe
	And here is the Glorious chest that I had already used. I got it for like 150g on the AH or something obscenely cheap. "Conqueror's again? Yep, looks good. Now for the shoulders...." after going through my void storage I chose the Glimmering Steel Mantle from Hyjal. I was farming for the Blood-Stained Pauldrons when these dropped. I wasn't excited about them but kept them anyway for "just in case". They don't match the Conqueror's Breastplate very well because of all the orange in chest piece but work wonderfully with the Glorious. I got all excited about the pinky purpley and pulled out my Crimson Beholder Eye and it was a lovely match! Add a Mystical Cape and you've got a nice taste of femininity to go with the big bad polearm. Oh yes, the polearm. Elementium Poleaxe. Where would you be without a pink weapon? Truth to tell it was the only polearm that really matched. The is an awesome big gold intimidating Mogu polearm but it's NPC only. Dang.
And the must have tank or healing set. I liked shields. And another pink weapon. There isn't much to use Netherbane with so I was excited to pull it out. I did give the Kingly Axe some consideration though. Now add in a Titansteel Shield Wall and you're good to go. The Light-Bearer's Faith Shield would also be a good match but the gold is slightly paler. Originally on my ret set I was using Soul Cleaver to transmog my Shin'Ka, Execution of Dominion until the polearm dropped from ToT. Well there goes nice big gold ax and I had a hard time finding a polearm to match. Most looked puny on a blood elf, were the wrong color or were held awkwardly. I must admit it's my pet peeve that two hand weapons are sooo tiny on Blood Elves. I know we're dainty but still, let us at swing something larger than a knitting needle!

So those are the current plate sets I'm sporting. I'm working on a special new set for Svarya atm for the express purpose of looking good while killing Garrosh. /wick grin I am so excited about that. Maybe the mamby pamby Thrall will get killed during the Siege of Org and he'll ankh himself and be the bad ass he was back in Hyjal. Yeah right...ok then. I was putting together a nice dark set with touches of gold and then guildie started working on a set along the same lines. His turned out pretty darn awesome. I'll be posting it next week. We still have to farm a few pieces though. I'll also post my "draft" set that I planned around the Golem Shard Leggings. I'm not sold on it yet though so we'll see.

Cloudkeepers: Two Handed Swords

This is another "By Request" post. A while back someone asked about cloaks to transmog with the Cloudkeeper set. More recently I had someone, Jedge, comment on the Cloudkeeper's Set asking for suggestions for two handed swords. I selected only six. There are quite a few that match and will work but I selected ones that I felt worked best with the set. Unique, intimidating, cool, whatever. I also tossed in a couple hammers and axes as well.

My mistake while doing all this? I didn't check availability and usability. Some of the swords are class and faction specific. Some are no longer available. So only a few are usable by a Blood Elf warrior. My bad. However there are still quite a few different options to choose from.

---

Grand Marshall's Claymore	PvP - purchasable with honor points	Alliance only - Won't work for a Blood Elf.
Starshatter	Elegon in Mogu'shan Vaults	Both the LFR and the reg graphic work
Greatsword of the Ebon Blade	Purchased from Quatermaster Ozorg	DK only - Won't work for a warrior

---

Unfortunately, of these three only Starshatter is "easy" to get and available to all who can use two handed sword. Quel'Delar would be another option, it's pretty and it's unique but it's annoyingly hard to get however. Batter Hilt questline anyone? I do have a friend who plans on using Lionheart once he finishes up his blacksmithing. While the Lionheart looks cool and mostly matches this set, it just didn't do much for me.

---

X'caliboar	Ragglesnout in Razorfen Downs	He is a "rare" spawn. Used to have a silver nameplate, now it's gold but he's still not up every time you run.
Stormrune Edge	Assembly of Iron in Ulduar	This sword only drops in normal 25m but has a chance to drop off any of the three bosses.
Warblade of Caer Darrow	No longer available	Option: Deanship Claymore

---

Here are some simple two handed swords. Well ok, so Stormrune is only simple in shape. But if you want a "classic" looking two handed sword to match this set, there are lots to choose from. Most match with a smooth blue/silver blade with the occasional gold hilt. One of the reasons I selected X'calidoar was because of the stylized hilt that sets it apart a bit from most basic two handed swords. I did an "Ooops" and didn't check availability before screenshotting and uploading. I should have learned to do that by now....You can no longer get the Warblade of Caer Darrow so I selected the Deanship Claymore as an option. The other "same model as" that matched nicely is also no longer available, Seraph's Strike.

---

Bloodmoon	Blacksmithing: BC Mastercraft recipe, readded in 5.2.	It just looks so dang cool.
Captain Roger's Polite Knocking Stick	Quest: Unleash Hell	Alliance only. Again. Why does Alliance always get blue and gold?
Experimental Specimen Slicer	Yor'sahj in Dragon Soul	This color only drops in normal, 10 or 25.
Spiked Battle Axe	Random green drop	It's a green. Awesome, good luck finding it on your AH. Try grinding BC 5 mans.

---

A few more options here if you get tired of a sword. I was thinking of Catastrophe when hammers came to mind. Darn my Alliance roots. It's a Trial of the Grand Crusader drop. Once the attempts counter was removed from the game, the items associated with it were also removed. Bummer. However, the Spiked Battle Axe is one of my picks for this group. I love that particular axe graphic and was actually wishing you could get in something other and than red and gold. Surprise! Here it is! This is an awesome axe that could go with a plethora of transmog sets.

My absolute favorite with this set is Stormrune Edge. I love it. I am partial to a lot of Uludar graphics. I also like the raid itself. If you do go farm for this sword and want a few quick achieves here are some tips.

Kill the council in a different order each time for the "I Choose You...." achievements.

Make sure to purchase an Iron Boot Flask with your Relic of Ulduar for the But I'm on Your Side! achieve.

Enjoy playing around with this set. It's fairly open to change, you can accent with more blue pieces or focus on the gold. Changing cloaks and weapons and a helm or a belt will personalize it more. Good luck.

Do You Have A Transmog Blog Pyckles?

Why yes, yes I do! A guildie asked me that during down time in Heart of Fear last night. He was looking for a new set for his tauren and apparently my site came up on Google. Sundevils figured there couldn't be too many "Pyckles" out there so he guessed it was me. It made me feel warm and fuzzy that someone stumbled across my blog until I realized that my last post was in November of last year. I have the second part of Sexy Plate Transmog in draft stages but haven't finished it yet. So I'm posting a quick update to let everyone know I'm still around. I'll work on putting the finishing touches on the second half of Sexy Plate this weekend.

On a side note, I'm wearing the Jade plate transmog set currently. You can see it my background image or in the Sexy Plate Transmog post. I mean hey, Pyckles are green right?!

Since we were discussing taurens, I'm going to take a moment and post my favorite Tauren plate set. This also looks smashing on female orcs and dwarves. It's one of the Northrend sets. There are four color schemes to this set, red, green, blue and gold. Each of the sets have a myriad of pieces so it's actually an easier set to acquire. Many of colors will mix and match quite well. Try switching a few pieces around to see how they work. Coincidentally you can easily find a set to match any tauren skin color as well.

In this picture he's sporting the Bloodcrush Cudgel and the Wrathful Gladiator's Shield Wall. Both have the same dark red with accents of a glowy fluorescent green that really sets off the red in the gear. There lots of good weapons that go well with this set. Happy hunting!

By Request: Cloudkeeper Legplates

This is the little teaser I put in my last post. It's for a guildie of mine. He got the Cloudkeeper Legplates while helping me run AQ, loved them and wanted a set to match! While there's a piece or two that match perfect, there is no full set. I had a lot of fun coordinating the proper shades of blue and gold to make a full suit for this set. And a personal perk for me is I found another set that goes well with my favorite plate shoulders, the Swiftsteel Shoulders which you might have recognized from my teaser pic!

---

Slot	Name	Source
Shoulders	Swiftsteel Shoulders	Blacksmithing - BoP
Chest	Truesilver Breastplate	Blacksmithing - BoE
Belt	Girdle of the Dawn	Blacksmithing - BoE
Legs	Cloudkeeper Legplates	World Epic - Vanilla Raids
Boots	Boots of the Fallen Hero	AQ 40 - Vem
Hands	Gloves of the Dawn	Blacksmithing - BoE
Hammer	Hammer of the Astral Plane	Naxxramas - Kel'Thuzad
Shield	Aegis of Damnation	Naxxramas - Maexxna

---

As you can see there's a lot of Blacksmithing involved in this set. The only required reputation for this set is Argent Dawn. Since I didn't have the required faction I had to run Fiona's Caravan quests and do a couple quests out of Light's Hope Chapel, took less than an hour to get to revered. The on hitch in the Blacksmithing department are of course the Swiftsteel Shoulders. Since they are BoP, you have to be a blacksmith yourself. The Lightforge Spaulders are an acceptable substitute and they really bring out the gold in the set. For the belt, there are a quite few gold belts that "match" color wise but kept the set from feeling balanaced. I tried the Conqueror's Girdle for example, but the gold in the middle was too much so I went with the Girdle of the Dawn which was more subtle. Since you're already grinding for the glove pattern, you might was well purchase the belt pattern as well. The toughest part of this set? Getting the legs!!

---

Here's the teaser for the next set. It's orange of course! I made it for my orc Warrior and I'm quite happy with the way it turned out. It's a bit of a challenge to find things that I like for my warrior. The blood elf? She's easy. Orc females? That's a different story!

---

Smooth Gold

I have a favorite hammer. It's the Lucky Old Sun from Forge of Souls. I decided I should do a transmog to match it. I recalled seeing Zandalar Freethinkers Breastplate in my bank and I tried putting them together. It didn't look too bad, so I started finding the rest of the smooth gold set. Some of the pieces are no longer available, such as the chest piece I used, and have no look alike peices in the game unfortunately. You can however put the entire set together, you'd just be missing the chest. There as some good substitutes that I have listed. The only other draw back is the shoulders. There are shoulders with the same graphic, the only problem is the shade of gold is slightly different.

---

Slot	Name	Source
Shoulders	Spaulders of the Grand Crusader	No Longer Available
Chest	Zandalar Freethinkers Breastplate	No Longer Available
Belt	Elemental Plate Girdle	Gordok Tribute
Legs	Eldritch Reinforced Legplates	Dire Maul - Prince Tortheldrin
Boots	Earthmender's Plated Boots	Quest - Escape from Coilskar Cistern
Hands	Spiritualist's Gauntlets	Quest - A Fate Worse Than Death

---

The first image is the full smooth gold set. This is essentially a recolor of the Dark Iron set. As you can see I've put together some possible matches for the chest since you can't get the Zandalar Freethinkers Breastplate anymore. The helms I used are the Glorious Headdres, the Templar Crown (with the blue gem) and the Warbringers Crown. All three head pieces are random green drops.

Alternate Chest Pieces

---

Field Plate Armor	Random green
Glowing Breastplate of Truth	Serpent Shrine Cavern - Lurker
Phantom Armor	(H)Shadowfang Keep - Lord Walden
Bullet-Pierced Chestplate	Quest - Fashionism

---

Here are the shoulders. I actually found quite a few more that would work but only chose to show a small sampling. The chart lists the chest in order of appearance. I list both the Mantle of the Horusath and the Templar Pauldrons because they share the same graphic as the Shoulders of the Grand Crusader although the gold is slightly differently. The Templar will probably be harder to get than the Horusath, but I never count on bosses dropping anything for me so...

Alternate Shoulder Pieces

---

Mantle of the Horusath* Same	Ruins of AQ - Ossirian
Templar Pauldrons* Same	Random Green
Ripfiend Shoulderplates	World Boss - Doom Lord Kazzak
Pauldrons of the Argent Sentinel	Serpent Shrine Cavern - Morogrim Tidewalker
Heroes Remption Shoulderplates	Paladin Tier
Lord's Pauldrons	Random World Green

---

And last but not least the full set my paladin is currently wearing! I changed out a few of the "accessories" to put the emphasis on the aqua shades of blue in the Lucky Old Sun I also kept the extra pieces to a "diamond" theme. If you look at the gloves, belt and shoulders, each of them have diamond shaped markings on them. I lvoe the way it turned out. After seeing three other girls in Orgrimmar in my red "super hero hooker" outfit (as my guildies calls it anyway) I decided I need a change and something unique. My biggest concern with putting this quest together is that I had already don the quest in BC and therefore wouldn't be able to get the items. Luckyily I hadn't finished them although I had started the quest lines. I flew around to each NPC in each quest line hopping to be able to pick it up again.

My second biggest concern was the gloves. I confess. I don't have the Topaz Studded Battlegrips yet. Kazzak a) isn't spawning while I'm camping and b) he's not dropping them when he does spawn! /grumblerottenjerkgrowl I keep a character camped in Hellfire to watch for him on my alt account (don't laugh, I'm addict and can admit it!) and regularly check the AH for any of the items he drops, just to see if he spawned, got killed and I missed him. Been doing that for weeks now, no gloves. /cry I live in hope.

---

Slot	Name	Source
Shoulders	Valorous Redemption Shoulderplates	Paladin Tier - Purchase in Dalaran*
Chest	Zandalari Freethinkers Breastplate	No Longer Available
Belt	Borak's Belt of Bravery	Quest - Cipher of damnation
Legs	Eldritch Reinforced Legplates	Dire Maul - Prince Tortheldrin
Boots	Earthmender's Plated Boots	Escape from Coilskar Cistern
Hands	Topaz Studded Battlegrips	World Boss - Doom Lord Kazzak
Hammer	Lucky Old Sun	Forge of Souls - Bronjahm
Shield	Blessed Qiraj Bulwhark	Quest - Imperial Qiraj Armaments
Cloak	Cloak of Arcane Evasion	Crafted - Lower City Honored Required

---

Here's a little teaser of the next set I'll be show casing. It's a set I put together for a holy paladin in my guild. He's pretty good at kissing up and keeping me alive while I'm tanking so I was nice and designed a new outfit for him. He liked my super hero hooker one so much I had to design him his own!

Also coming up in the next week, tips and tricks for customizing your own transmog sets! I know you can look up certain sets on Wowhead, or pull on off a transmog blog but it's so much more fun and rewarding to mkae your own. You can make unique, look good and match your personality.

---

*Many tier pieces used to require tokens dropped off raid bosses in order to purchase them. Now however you can simply purchase the token with Justice Points and then use the token to purchse the item so you don't have to run old raids repeatedly hoping you get your class token for that week's lock out.

Updates Coming!

I haven't posted anything recently but I do have some sets in the works. I think I've spent a lot more time than I planned farming transmog sets and I end up changing my sets every few weeks. Here's a little teaser of something I'm in the middle of. The Smooth Gold Set. See pic. In that upcoming post I will include the following:

Where to get the standard smooth gold pieces.

Where to get the individual custom pieces I switched out.

Where to get alternate pieces in cause you can not acquire a certain quest piece.

I must admit what I had in mind when I started putting this set together is definately not what I ended up with! I am however very pleased with results. I've also finished some sets using the Swiftsteel Shoulders, Some of my favorite plate shoulders in the game. So keep checking back. I'll be getting these posted this week!

Red Gold

I love red. It's one of my favorite colors. I had planned on doing a fiery red set for my paladin, much like the red and gold armor on the background picture, however I was having difficulty getting a few of the pieces. Some of the pieces I ended up using were from random dungeons and what not and I had kept them because they looked cool. I didn't plan on using them with this set until I began to put it together.

My two main focal items where the Hyperion Armor and the Drillborer Disk. The Hyperion Armor is a just a gorgeous set of red and gold. The most likely places for these peices to drop are in the Vanilla raids. I got sick of farming MC and BWL and only having a belt. I finally found the chest on the AH for 200g and snapped it up! I did get the Drillborer Disk while farming for the Hyperion though, thank goodness. I've drooled over that shield since my baby healing days in Vanilla, now I can finally use it! I did not however end up using the Hyperion Girdle since I "Ooops!" vendored it somehow. I have on the Conqueror's Girlde instead.

Since I was having rotten luck getting the rest of the Hyperion plate I started looking for other options. The Legplates of Blazing Light dropped for me while I was farming AQ for the Avenger's gear. I saved them in case I found a set for them to match. Well so far so good. During WoW's Seventh Anniversary Event I used my little token for reputation gain and farmed Old Hillsbrad Foothills. The Bloodskull Destroyer dropped. I was still sporting a sword at the time and I didn't see myself switching to a hammer any time soon but I kept it for a possible red set anyway. I wanted to use the heroic versions of either Soaulders of Manifold Eyes or the paladin tier gear, Immolation Shoulderguards but I find a nice substitute in the Lightforge Spaulders. I had of course vendored my my set from Vanilla a looong time ago so I just cheated and got the BoA ones instead.

Now, the boots and gloves and I chose. I found these both by using WoW Model Viewer. These were a pain. Both are crafted. The gloves, you can't get the pattern anymore and the pattern for the boots is a rare drop. Oddly enough I didn't have either on my blacksmith and no one in my guild had either piece so I spent a few days spamming trade chat looking for a blacksmith with the required patterns. The Fiery Plate Gauntlets recipe was a reward from a quest that is no longer in game. I also like the graphic much better than the Hyperion Gauntlets. The Hyperion ones have a fat orange stripe going through the middle that hits just at the waist where the belt is so it splits your character in half. I also rather have more red-gold and less orange. The Khorium Boots are the same graphic as the Hyperion Greaves so they matched beautifully.

I'm not a big helm fan as I've stated before and I prefer crown types where I can see my face. I helped a bunch of guildies with their transmog runs and ended up with a few token pieces myself. After turning them in, I decided the Lightbringer War Helm wasn't half bad! It did however require a trip to the barber in order for it to fit over my hair properly. I chose the Shroud of Silvermoon (or Mantle or Cape) because the colors matched, I decided I liked the slightly shorter length and well, I'm a Blood Elf, racial pride and all that.

---

Slot	Name	Source
Shoulders	Lightforge Spaulders	Honor Point Heirloom
Chest	Hyperion Armor	Random Vanilla Green Drop
Belt	Conqueror's Girlde	Random BC Green Drop
Legs	Legplates of Blazing Light	Boss Drop - Temple of Ahn Qiraj
Boots	Khorium Boots	Blacksmithing
Hands	Fiery Plate Gauntlets	Blacksmithing
Back	Shroud of Silvermoon	Silvermoon Reputation - Horde only
Main Hand	Bloodskull Destroyer	Boss Drop - CoT Old Hillsbrad
Shield	Drillborer Disk	Boss Drop - Molten Core
Helm	Lightbringer War Helm	Paladin Tier

---

Look Alikes and Options

---

Slot	Name	Source
Legs	Hyperion Legplates	Random Vanilla Green Drop
Legs	Lavacrest Leggings	Boss Drop - Blackrock Depths
Boots	Hyperion Greaves	Random Vanilla Green
Helm	Crown Empowered Fate	Boss Drop - Black Temple

---

It Looks Better On You

I took a moment to redo the For The Tauren outfit and put it on a Blood Elf. Looks better on the Tauren me thinks! The shoulders sit a little differently, the chest piece doesn't fit the same and belt seems clunkier. So judging from the comparison my quest "Make a Taurn Look Good" was a success! While the set doesn't look bad on a Blood Elf, there are quite a few sets that would look better.

I'm currently working on the "Top Ten Reasons to Level Blacksmithing" I've found some incredible pieces that bind on pickup when they're made by a blacksmith. Big drawback if you don't have blacksmithing leveled already. And it's turning out some patterns may no longer be available in game so I'm searching to find my favorite pieces that can still be learned and let you know where to get the pattern! Perhaps I can provide you with enough incentive to level a new craft. I may have to break down and drop mining in favor of BS just so I can make those Swiftsteel Shoulders.