Monday, May 28, 2012

What Rhymes With Orange?

Well nothing really, I think orange is almost the only word in the English language that nothing rhymes with! And a fitting name for this set. It was hard to find matching orange pieces that could be worn by one class. Originally I had pally gloves and warrior shoulders planned out! I stuck with the warrior though and found pieces to match her. In case you didn't guess from the teaser pic, this set is based on the orange one from the background picture.
In order to complete this set you'll have to run quite a few Cata raids and farm faction. I do list some alternatives however and I must admit that once again I haven't quite completed this set on my warrior. I'm still working on the belt from Heroic BWD, and I've decided I'll make do with another shield since I can't stomach grinding the Shattered Sun dailies again. The shoulders are an older tier piece. Luckily, the Void Reaver in Tempest Keep is fairly easy to solo as a meelee. It does help and speed things up to take one ranged dps with you though.

Slot

Name

Source

Shoulders Destroyer Shoulderguards Warrior Tier 5
ChestBreastplate of Ire JP vendor in Shattrath
BeltBelt of Absolute ZeroHeroic BWD- Maloriak
LegsLeggings of the UrsaQuest-Deadwood of the North
BootsMaster Cannoneer BootsStratholme -Willey Hopebreaker
HandsConqueror's GauntletsRandom Green
HandsConqueror's HelmetRandom Green
Main HandEye of PurificationFirelands - Boss drop
ShieldDawnforged DefenderShattered Sun - Exalted


I used the Conqueror's Gauntlets on my warrior since the best matching orange gloves were Paladin only. The Conqueror's Aegis Gauntlets can be acquired by running the Vault of Archavon and getting lucky. You might even get the Black War Mammoth. If you want to make this set as a pally the Conqueror's Aegis Shoulderplates are a good switch for the shoulders. The Glimmering Steel Mantle from Mount Hyjal will also match the set. I'm currently using the Shard of Torment as my shield, and I plan to transmog it only if I manage to get The Fel Barrier. I refuse to pay 20k gold for the Skullflame Shield!

Saturday, April 28, 2012

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

ShouldersSwiftsteel ShouldersBlacksmithing - BoP
Chest Truesilver BreastplateBlacksmithing - BoE
BeltGirdle of the DawnBlacksmithing - BoE
Legs Cloudkeeper LegplatesWorld Epic - Vanilla Raids
BootsBoots of the Fallen HeroAQ 40 - Vem
HandsGloves of the Dawn Blacksmithing - BoE
HammerHammer of the Astral PlaneNaxxramas - Kel'Thuzad
ShieldAegis of DamnationNaxxramas - 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!

Monday, March 26, 2012

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

ShouldersSpaulders of the Grand CrusaderNo Longer Available
Chest Zandalar Freethinkers Breastplate No Longer Available
BeltElemental Plate GirdleGordok Tribute
LegsEldritch Reinforced LegplatesDire Maul - Prince Tortheldrin
BootsEarthmender's Plated BootsQuest - Escape from Coilskar Cistern
HandsSpiritualist's GauntletsQuest - 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 ChestplateQuest - 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 ShoulderplatesWorld Boss - Doom Lord Kazzak
Pauldrons of the Argent SentinelSerpent Shrine Cavern - Morogrim Tidewalker
Heroes Remption ShoulderplatesPaladin Tier
Lord's PauldronsRandom 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

ShouldersValorous Redemption ShoulderplatesPaladin Tier - Purchase in Dalaran*
Chest Zandalari Freethinkers BreastplateNo Longer Available
BeltBorak's Belt of BraveryQuest - Cipher of damnation
LegsEldritch Reinforced LegplatesDire Maul - Prince Tortheldrin
BootsEarthmender's Plated BootsEscape from Coilskar Cistern
HandsTopaz Studded Battlegrips World Boss - Doom Lord Kazzak
HammerLucky Old SunForge of Souls - Bronjahm
ShieldBlessed Qiraj BulwharkQuest - Imperial Qiraj Armaments
CloakCloak of Arcane EvasionCrafted - 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.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

White Ribbon

This is not a transmogrification post, but I feel the need to share it. While flipping through the blogs of other Xmoggers I ran across a strange little picture.



It was on Effy's blog supporting a "White Ribbon Campaign". I looked at the little sentence in the picture "Working to end violence against woman" and I rolled my eyes. Why? I figured it was some cheesy political club thing. And don't jump all over me assuming I don't think violence against women isn't a serious subject, I do take it very seriously. I've just seen so many projects about it that were started by someone with good intentions and were simply vehicles for someone's political agenda rather than a true desire to help and care for those who had been harmed.

I clicked the link anyway. And discovered my assumption was wrong. This White Ribbon Campaign was started in support of a fellow gamer who was terribly, brutally hurt. More than just hurt. The first thought to come to mind is that gamers are real people with real lives, not just pixels. Then my heart was touched by the show of support from the rest of the blogging community. She is a gamer. She is a woman. She is a real person. Not just some faceless "this is how you earn gold in WoW" blogger.

I read some of Alyzande's blog entries telling a little of what happened to her, what she's dealing with and how she felt about the White Ribbon Campaign in her behalf. There are two things she said in her "Hi Honey I'm Home" post stood out to me. The first was to enlarge the campaign to encompass more than just women. Insightful, caring, forgiving.

I was proud that bloggers had looked beyond the sensationalism of “eep one of our own was hurt” to the wider issue of caring for our fairer sex in general. I’d like to widen that issue further and turn attention to violence to all, not just to women. Mankind is capable of great beauty, of deep thought, but also of great destruction.

The second addressed my pet peeve. The casual use of the word "rape" among many gamers. "I got raped by that rogue!" Well most often the person who says that has no clue of the reality of the word. In essence they are dumbing it down and casualizing it. You hear the term rape and it's becom common place instead of something to be taken seriously.

Do me a small favour. When you get ganked in a battleground, yell out in rage that you’ve been “pwned” not “raped”. Rape isn’t a joke.

Taking down an enemy in a battleground is funny. IRL trauma isn’t.


Amen sister. I have added a White Ribbon for you. <3


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!

    Wednesday, January 11, 2012

    Crystal Swords



    The most well known crystal sword is probably the Phantom Blade. This particular sword has been in the game pretty much from release. Several other swords with the same graphic were added later, a few of them even had fiery or glowy effects. If you love this graphic, here's a list of the swords available in all their colors. Just in case someone is interested in dual weilding some of these puppies they've been sorted by Main Hand and One Hand since

    Main hand weapons can only be used to transmogrify Main hand weapons.*

    One of the swords, Sword of the Archmage is Alliance only and changes to a sword with a different graphic if you transfer factions. The Fiery Retributer is no longer available so IF you happen to still have one in your bank, I'd be for transmogrifying it and showing it off! The Elemental Attuned Blade is a random reward from using your cultist outfit to summon elementals in Silithus. The bonus to this sword is that it is Bind on Equip so it can be sold. The original quests have changed and it has not been verified whether or not this sword is still available. Rumor has it, it still is. However it would be much easier to simply do the quest for the Pilfered Ethereum Blade if you haven't already done it.

    ImageSwordSlotBindSource
    Sword of the Archmage *Alliance OnlyMain HandBoPHonor Hold Faction
    Continuum Blade
    Has purple fiery effect
    Main HandBoPKeepers of Time Faction
    Elemental Attuned BladeMain HandBoERandom reward for killing a summoned mob
    Ethereum Phase BladeMain HandBoENetherstorm Vendor
    Fiery Retributer
    Has orange fiery effect
    One HandBoPNo Longer In Game
    Phantom BladeOne HandBoEBlacksmithing
    Pilfered Ethereum BladeOne HandBoPQuest - Declawing Doomclaw
    Renetaki's Soul SlicerOne HandBoPZul'Gurub Boss Drop
    Vibro SwordOne HandBoPQuest-Cutting Your Teeth

    I must admit that the Vibro Sword is my favorites but then I'm partial to red. I may just have to make a yellow-green set for myself in order to use Renetaki's Soul Slicer as well. There are a couple daggers with the same graphic for any rogues who happen to stealth by, however neither of those daggers are available in game. You might want to take a moment and see if you still have Shard of the Defiler or Wushoolay's Poker in your bank. Happy Hunting!

    *Transmogrification Rules

    Thursday, December 29, 2011

    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

    ShouldersLightforge SpauldersHonor Point Heirloom
    ChestHyperion ArmorRandom Vanilla Green Drop
    BeltConqueror's GirldeRandom BC Green Drop
    LegsLegplates of Blazing LightBoss Drop - Temple of Ahn Qiraj
    BootsKhorium BootsBlacksmithing
    HandsFiery Plate GauntletsBlacksmithing
    Back Shroud of Silvermoon Silvermoon Reputation - Horde only
    Main HandBloodskull DestroyerBoss Drop - CoT Old Hillsbrad
    ShieldDrillborer DiskBoss Drop - Molten Core
    HelmLightbringer War HelmPaladin Tier

    Look Alikes and Options


    Slot

    Name

    Source

    LegsHyperion LegplatesRandom Vanilla Green Drop
    LegsLavacrest LeggingsBoss Drop - Blackrock Depths
    BootsHyperion GreavesRandom Vanilla Green
    HelmCrown Empowered Fate Boss Drop - Black Temple