Warlords is Coming

Warlords are coming? I've taken a nice little break from WoW once we downed Garrosh. With Warlords of Draenor in beta stages now I'm back in the game with a renewed vigor. The break did me good since I was starting to hit that burn out phase. We lost some of our raid team along the way and it took a combined effort of both raid teams to make the Garrosh kill the first time. He's down. I wore my AQ set for the occasion, honoring the bugs of course. I even turned on my helm graphic for each Paragon kill.

Posting a couple sets I've done recently. I'll update them later with resources but most of the fun is the pictures anyway right? The first is my red and black. I wasn't a fan of the PvP paladin plate set the last couple seasons although I did like the red accents. I replaced a few pieces with Dragon Soul warrior tier look alikes. And of course used Ashkandi. That sword really is like candy! It's a very nice huge sword, even for a Blood Elf. Add in the fact it's cool looking and red and you can't beat it.

Since I've already mentioned the PvP thing, the picture below really tells you why I ventured back into PvP. I think the last time I did serious PvP is when my warrior Pyckles was a level 35 twink. I had enjoyed getting the Sergeant title on her at level 28. Well I took at look at the PVP mount and decided "I need that!" So I went out and got it by running RBGs. Rated battle grounds for those of you who are PvE junkies. I have a soft sport for equine mounts, even if or especially when they have glowing green hooves.

And of course my PvP transmog. I went Holy instead of Retribution. I don't think I even transmogged my prideful weapon once I acquired it. It's based on the Hydralik check and Ornate Mithril pieces. Thanks again to my favorite Balcksmith Gygan.

I've been running around in Warlords beta and for now I'll leave my opinion of how they're doing out of my post and stick to the relevant info like what's new to transmog. And sadly...there is little in the way of color so far. More dull gray. Yech. Some of the NPCs are sporting some pretty stuff though! I'll be compiling some screenshots this week and will have some sets ready. One good thing to note for the gnomes who trasnmog, your mid section no longer disappears. Yay for new character models!

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!

Imbued With Blue

While flipping through WoW Model Viewer I ran across a fun pair of legs. The Bejeweled Legguards are lovely. I love the cobalt blue with the red swirlies. Unfortunately, I ran into that funny problem that Cataclysm caused, they are no longer available in game. There was no "same model as" tab in Wowhead, but I proceded anyway. I knew there was a chest that seemed to match and I wanted to see how they looked together.

The chest is the Imbued Plate Armor. I quickly went through and checked to see if there were other Imbued Plate pieces. Woot! A full set! Complete with legs of the same graphics as the Bejeweled ones. One problem, I didn't quite like it. The shoulders were an obvious "Don't match!" and I felt the belt was a little too busy. It drew the eye to the waist and you missed the rest of the armor. So I switch out a few a pieces and here's what I came up with.ed

As you can see I switched out the belt, boots and shoulders. The shoulders were a "must" /shudder, and the quieter belt allowed the eye to look at the full set of the armor, not just the middle. The boots, those were personal preference. Unfortunately the Bloodsoaked Greaves in the redo are longer in game so I stayed with the Imbued Plate Greaves. I chose the Grimscale Belt since I felt the red of the Imbued Plate Girlde was too much. However if you do prefer the red for the belt the Girlde of Galantry is another fitting option.

I went through every set of plate shoulders I could find. Quite a few sort of fit, but with a "meh" feeling. The Pauldrons of the Great Ettin were the right color combination for all that they are of a totally different style. Their size balanced out the multitude of color in the armor and kept them from being too diminuitive. The Slatesteel Shoulders or the Symbolic Pauldrons were also good matches, but didn't have quite the impact as the Ettins.

I wasn't sure what I wanted when I began looking at cloaks. At first I was thinking of finding a red and blue one, not a very common combination. I hadn't looked far when I came across the Arakkoa Sage's Shawl. Not only was the blue perfect, the solid color once again supported the armor, rather than detracted from it.

I used the same rule of simplicity while looking for a sword and shield as well. This is one of the few sets I've put together where I haven't tried for an eye catching shield. The smooth lines and soft shades of the Rock Golem Bulwark allow you to look at the colors of the armor instead being intimidated by some giant bulwhark on the left arm. The Battlecaster's Edge nicely complemented both the shield and the armor set.

This set is MUCH easier to acquire than the Dark Iron plate. It is all drops or from quests that are available to either faction.

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Slot	Name	Source
Shoulders	Pauldrons of the Great Ettin (H)	Heroic Raid Boss
Chest	Imbued Plate Armor	Random Green Drop
Belt	Grimscale Belt	Random Green Drop
Legs	Imbued Plate Legings	Random Green Drop
Boots	Imbued Plate Greaves	Random Green Drop
Hands	Imbued Plate Gauntlets	Random Green Drop
Back	Arakkoa Sage's Shawl	Quest - Horde or Alliance
Main Hand	Battlecaster's Edge	Quest - Horde or Alliance
Shield	Rock Golem Bulwark	Dungeon Boss Drop

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The image below is an accidental "recolor". To be honest, I still have no idea how it happened but I thought it was quite interesting and gives a good idea of how armor is changed by simple recolors. I actually like the old red with the green too. All else fails I can just say my Human Female is getting ready for Halloween!

Dark Iron

When I started compiling this set I actually started with the Boulderfist Epaulets. In my usual fashion I went through and selected the rest of the boulderfist items. Well, the shades of black and red on the shoulders were a touch different than the rest of the Boulderfist set. The Boulderfist set had more of a dark maroon feel rather than actual black. So I went back to square one and started with the chest piece attempting to match a different chest to the shoulders. After going through a ton of chest pieces I came across the Dark Iron Plate. It matched perfectly, especially considering I was using a Dwarf maid model to start with! Lo and behold, the Dark Iron Shoulders had the same graphic as the Boulderfist ones, no surprise.

I selected the full set of Dark Iron Plate gear. Since there is no Dark Iron belt I used the Avenger's Waistguard. Then I moved on to cloaks. There were a great many cloaks that looked well with this armor! I selected the Crimson Paragon's Cover due to the way the black background and little spikes of red fit the armor set. The green was a nice touch of color without being too much. There are several cloaks from Wrath that are the same style such as the Royal Crimson Cloak or Greatcloak of the Turned Champion so be ready to run some Wrath raids if you're looking for black and red cloaks. There were plenty of plain black or red cloaks to choose from such as the Bloodmoon Cloak (red) or Blood Knight War Cloak(black) that looked well with the armor. For the alternate picture I used the Cloak of the Inciter. The white with a red border relieves the stark blackness of the armor set.

Next onto the shield! This was a tough one to start. There were a good many shields that matched or would look decent with the set. I took a moment to decide what I wanted for the look and tone of the set. The shield should be one with only black and red, no other colors and was well, intimidating. Once I set those standards the shield selection was cake. The Gladiator's Shield Wall had it all. Unfortunately, after doing all this work to put everything together I took a moment to jump in game to verify that this shield could still be purchased at the legacy honor quatermaster. It can not. So if you have it in your bank still, bully for you. As the other shield I chose one of my favorite ever in game shield, Ward of the Red Widow. The heroic version is blue I believe so you want the one from regular. This is a bind on equip drop from Beth'tilac. So if you're lucky you can get it off the Auction House for 50k gold.

For the sword, Broken Promise just looks so freaking cool. And hey! It's black and red. There were a couple other options such as Blackguard, however, I feltthe size and shape of Broken Promise balanced the Gladiator's Shield Wall quite nicely. For the alternate weapon I selected an axe, Rising Tide.

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Slot	Name	Source
Shoulders	Dark Iron Shoulders	Crafted
Chest	Dark Iron Plate	Crafted
Belt	Avenger's Waistguard	PvP - Halaa Tokens
Legs	Dark Iron Leggings	Crafted
Boots	Dark Iron Boots	Crafted
Hands	Dark Iron Gauntlets	Crafted
Back	Crimson Paragon's Cover	Boss Drop-Sunwell Plateau
Main Hand	Broken Promise	Boss Drop Naxxramas 25
Shield	Gladiator's Shield Wall	PvP - Honor Points

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Slot	Name	Source
Back	Cloak of the Inciter	Boss Drop - Shadow Labyrinth
Main Hand	Rising Tide	Boss Drop Black Temple
Shield	Ward of the Red Widow	Boss Drop - Firelands

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The only problem with this set? Other than the shield not being available of course... It's crafted. You will need to find a blacksmith who can A) Smelt Dark Iron and B) Has the Dark Iron Plate plans. The plans can be purchsed from Lokhtos Darkbargainer if you have the required reputation with Thorium Brotherhood. Be prepared to help your blacksmith farm Blackrock Depths, to mine the ore and get faction drops for Thorium Brotherhood!