Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Because You Asked - Fiery Red

I recently noted a comment on my Red Gold post asking about the red and gold set on my back ground image. That particular set I call Fiery Red and it was just about the first transmog set I put together. I decided not to get it because it takes Heroic Firelands to get, namely the shoulders. And the Hyperion set...pain in the butt!!!

To start, the shoulders. I listed the ones that are usable by any class, the Spaulders of Manifold Eyes from Heroic Beth'tilac. They are the same as the Heroic Paladin tier gear. So you're looking at H Beth for these shoulders! Or you have a second chance, if you are a paladin, getting your tier piece off H Majordomo.

Chest, legs and gloves - Hyperion. Farm MC. A LOT!!! It does drop in other level 60 raids but the best drop rate I've found for Hyperion is Molten Core. Make sure you have lots of space in your bags, other good transmog stuff drops as well, not just plate. You can earn a pretty penny AH'ing the extra greens. Plus, Garr in Molten Core drops Drillborer Disk, the shield I have listed with this set.

Now the legs, they are part of the Hyperion transmog, however there are two other look alikes, both listed on Wowhead. The easiest to get is probably the Lavacrest since they drop fairly regularly off Bael'Gar in Blackrock Depths. The Khorium Pants are a sure thing IF you can find a blacksmith who has the pattern. Good luck farming the pattern, it's a rare drop.

Oh yes, the belt. I did not use the Hyperion Girdle because it doesn't do much for me. I used the Bloodfist Girdle instead. The color matched and the smooth gold background helped draw the shoulders and shield into the set. Plus I just like it.

If you are a blacksmith who played in Vanilla and did all the quests and farmed lots of patterns and are a Master Swordsmith to boot, you can make the legs, boots, and the sword. There is also a different set of gloves that I prefer over the Hyperion ones. The Fiery Plate Gauntlets are the same colors and basic style only a bit more streamlined and lot less clunky. The pattern however is from a quest that no longer in game.

Slot

Name

Source

Shoulders Spaulders of Manifold EyesHeroic Beth'tilac
ChestHyperion Armor Random Vanilla Green
BeltBloodfist GirdleRandom BC Green
LegsHyperion LegplatesRandom Vanilla Green
BootsHyperion Greavesrandom Vanilla Green
HandsHyperion GauntletsRandom Vanilla Green
Main HandBlazeguardBoP Crafted
ShieldDrillborer DiskMolten Core - Garr


So there you go, Charlotte. That's my fiery red set! Enjoy putting it together. I also do requests if you have a specific item or theme you want for your character. I'd be happy to help you put together a couple different sets to pick from. And yes, I do more than just plate. /wink

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

WoW Factor Coming to Deathwing

Wooot! WoW Factor is hitting my home server, Deathwing, Horde side. I am quite stoked about this. They'll be there on Saturday, September 8th. Meeting time and place has yet to be announced. If you don't have a Deathwing toon, roll an alt and come check out the action! If you happen to play on Deathwing by the way, we do have a Facebook page. Just in case ya didn't know!


Now here's the hard part! What toon do I enter? Which outfit do I pick?! Oh the choices! I think have at least two full trasnmog sets for each of my 85's. Main spec and off spec of course. Now Svarya, my main....Her void storage is full. Her bank is full. She has probably....seven full sets? And several sets in the works! Ugh...I transmog too much! But it is just so much fun! I love the ability to make my character look stylish, sexy and unique. This is one thing I will whole hearted say "Good job Blizzard!" to.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Ahn'Qiraj Paladin Set

"She thinks she's the pink of perfection!"
Items | Bosses | Goodies | Accessories

I've looked high and low to find pink plate armor. It doesn't exist. The closest is the Bloodscale set which I consider to be more of a diluted red. There are a few miscellaneous pieces that have pink in them but not enough to match for a full set. Disappointing. There's a fabulous pink shield and several assorted axes, daggers, hammers and so on. WRU Pink?! Asking for one or two pink plate sets isn't a bad thing. It doesn't mean the armor is all frufru or girly. You can in fact design pink plate that still looks badass. In fact, if anyone's an artist and creative like that, send me a couple designs. I'd like to see what other people come up with.

So the only set I found that had enough pink to be taken seriously was the Ahn Qiraj Avenger's Battlegear set. And each piece is individual, there are no look alikes! There is another belt with a different graphic that matches fairly well however. For this set, prepare to run the Temple of AQ repeatedly. And I mean repeatedly. I was in there for every lockout for almost four months before finishing this set. I already had the legs, chest and shoulders from long ago but decided to finish it off. Check me out on the Armory!

Since this is an actual set, not something you have to hunt down individual pieaces for I won't be making a chart of where to find it. Wowhead has already done that. What I am going to do it give you some pointers on killing the bosses and farming the materials for the quests and certain other little perks that come from farming AQ. I will also list a couple accessories I particularly like with this set.


WARNING: Paladin ONLY! The Warrior set is purple, and Death Knights aren't so lucky.

There are two sections of Ahn Qiraj, the Ruins which is a level 60 20 man raid and the Temple which is a level 60 40 man raid. This set is acquired in the Temple. The quests for these pieces are from NPC's who can be find just inside the temple AFTER you kill the first boss. You go up the stairs and to the left. For the individual quests you can refer to Wowhead.


Items


Make sure you got with empty bags, you'll be doing a LOT of looting. Make sure you get the coffer keys! There are chests, or scarab coffers through out the dungeons that will have satchels of scarabs in them. You need numerous scarabs for each piece. Put the extra scarabs you won't use on the AH or trade them for ones you do need. Here's the list and numbers of what you need:



  • Idol of Life (2)
  • Idol of Rebirth (2)
  • Idol of the Sage (4)
  • Idol of Strife (2)

  • Bone Scarab (10)
  • Bronze Scarab (5)
  • Clay Scarab (5)
  • Crystal Scarab (10)
  • Gold Scarab (5)
  • Ivory Scarab (5)
  • Silver Scarab (5)
  • Stone Scarab (5)


These can drop off of any trash. So make sure you loot and loot! You wil aslo need reputation for boss pieces, so make sure you loot each boss. There is a Qiraj Lord's Insignia on each boss. These are reputation turn-ins. It's a repeatable quest called Mortal Champions from Kandrostrasz, next to the other quest givers. The boss pieces require faction in order to turn them in, but NOT to loot them. So if they drop, snap them up!

ItemFactionBoss
Qiraji Bindings of Dominance (2)(Neutral)Princess Huhuran or Viscidus
Skin of the Great Sandworm (Friendly)Ouro
Veklor's Diadem (Friendly) Emperor Vek'lor
Carapace of the Old God (Honored)C'Thun



Bosses


Most of the bosses are easy to burn through. I was able to solo quite a few as a tank but trust me, it can be tricky and takes a while. Bring a dps or two to make it go quicker. The three that you need to be prepared for are the Twin Emperors, Viscidus and C'Thun. There is a special little thing about the Bug Family as well.

TWIN EMPERORS

I am not aware if it possible to solo the Twins or not. You'd have to pull enough DPS to beat them down while they heal each other or be one spectactular kiter. I do know it is easiest to at least two man it if not more. You'll start with the Twins on opposite sides of the room. One does magic, Vek'lor and the other does meelee, Vek'nilash. Have a caster open up DPS on Vek'lor while a meelee or hunter starts on Vek'nilash. Every so often they will switch places by porting and then they'll run back across the room to where they started. When they are close enough to each other, they'll heal each other, so you'll want to get them as far apart as possible. Each person should just stay on their same target, making sure to kite their boss away from his brother as soon as possible. The twins have a shared life pool so they'll drop at the same time. They will also occasionally explode bugs near you, this is negligible damage for an 85. You can't kill the bugs in the room before hand, they'll just respawn.

VISCIDUS

My LEAST favorite boss in here. Seriously. Ya really. But he drops your paladin gloves so you have to do him. I don't believe it's possible for a paladin to solo him, at least not in general and I'll tell you why. First, you need frost damage to freeze him. Second, you need to shatter him by hitting him enough times while he's frozen. Like 75 times in a matter of seconds or something nutso. Yeah, so bring friends. For frost damage, the mage is the ultimate choice. Other things work as well, just not as fast. DK's using frost spells, shamans, priests using mindspike, hunter's traps or just someone equipped with a weapon sold by Warsmith SigFinna. (You have to be far enough on the Sons of Hodir rep grind that you turn into a Vrykul babe in order to purchase from her.) You can put a frost enchant on your weapon or use frost oil. You need a total of 200 frost hits in order to greeze him. Once he's frozen he must be physcially hit 75 times in order to shatter. That's why you bring friends with fast weapons. Even healers should be beating on him at that point with one handed weapons that are fast. A haste potion might be helpful once he freezes. If you drop a snake trap shortly before he freezes, each time a snake hits him, it counts as a hit, same with Army of the Dead or any "helper" trinkets like the attack chicken or yeti or dragonling. Too bad the pet trinkets share a CD however. So in a nutshell, freeze with frost damaging attacks and beat the snot out of him really, really fast.

C'THUN

C'Thun is fairly easy. It is however possible to insta die if you get sucked into his stomach. GET OUT OF THE ACID asap. Get on an island as quick as possible. You'll pretty much just dps him, kill the tentacles, get sucked into his tummy, hop on an island, kill a tentacle, jump on the little circle with "bubbly" rocks into to exit the stomach and go back to dpsing him. Cake. If you die in the tummy you can't get rezzed, unless a rezzer is in there with you. It also sucks for looting since you'll have to release and run back and have no quick port to get there.

BUG FAMILY

Bug family is easy. Once you almost have one of them killed another bug will eat it. I usually kill princess first since she heals. However the order in which you kill them makes a difference on loot. Each bug has their own loot and then there's shared loot. If you want a specific item, make sure to kill the bug that drops it last.


Goodies


Now for the goodies! Fun stuff that drops in Ahn Qiraj? Bug mounts, which can't be used outside the instance but are fun to have. They also count towards your mount achievements. There are four mounts, green, yellow, blue and red. They have a chance to drop off any mobs in the instance. If you loot the red one (pictured above) you get a feat of strength. Exalted plate drops in both sides of Ahn Qiraj. It is some of the sexiest uncommon plate in the game. Excellent for transmog and sells for a bundle on the AH. And dropping off Battleguard Sartura are the Robes of the Battleguard pictured on the left. Sexy. A definate carrot to getting a caster to run with you. And my favorite non-set quest item? Blessed Qiraji Bulwhark, one of the coolest shields in game!




Accessories


Now for accessories. I'm picky. Colors have to match. I only found one cloak that I even liked with this set and I do not have it yet. Dumb thing never drops. As usual, an item that by itself might not look so good with the gear, can be enhanced by adding another item that draws it in. There are plenty of "orange" items that match this set, pretty much anything that has a fiery style to it. I'm going to concentrate on the pink things.

SlotItemSource
ShieldDawnforged DefenderShattered Sun - Exalted
ShieldAegis of the VindicatorMagtheridon
SwordElementium FangStonecore - Priestess Azil
SwordSouldrinkerRegular DS Madness
1h AxeKingly AxeRandom Green
2h AxeBurning CrusaderQuest: Nexus-King Salhadaar
2h AxeTreant's BaneDire Maul: Gordok Tribute
HelmCrimson Beholder EyeCollidus
CloakNethervoid CloakHyjal Summit zone drop
BeltGirdle of the Fallen CrusaderBWL: Chromaggus

My absolute favorite combination is the Souldrinker and Dawnforged Defender. I was so excited when the Souldrinker finally dropped for me. I was waiting to do the transmog until I had it. The shades of pink and orange match perfectly. As for belts, the Girdle of the Fallen Crusader matches very well. I did chose to go with the Belt of the Fallen Emperor however. I made sure I had the Girlde but it didn't quite look the way I wanted on my Blood Elf. The Crimson Eye is basically a pink eye patch! I had several at one point and AH'd them for thousands of gold a long time ago. Now I can't get one to drop for me, I just get mail instead. Collidus is a rare spawn so that doesn't help either. I do like the helm with this set however so I actually have the helm graphic turned on. And cloak, it's the only real pink cloak in game.

Good luck getting this set. A bunch of guildies runwi th me at different time and were able to get achievements, farm rep and get a few cool items. Good tiems were (mostly) had by all. And of course all the QQ stories of killing Viscidus.

Up next I'll be deviating from my "plate" design. I'm so happy with the set I did for my hunter I'm going to post a chain mail set. Sexy. Another one of my customized designs that I had a lot of fun putting together.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Let's Get Moggy With It!

Terrible pun I know but I'm good at those. Since transmogging has be introduced to the game a whole new online community has sprung up, the Transmogger Bloggers. In fact quite a few sets of bloggers have banded together to set up contests for transmogrification, hosted on specific servers or via screenshot submission. These are your way to show off your truly unique set or just get new ideas for that hunter outfit you want to put together.



The WoW Factor is hosted by Keelhaul of Disenchanting Azeroth and Ironyca and Noelani from WoW Roleplay Gear (one of my personal favorite transmog sites). When someone contacts them with a request and a desire to host a show on their home server then the games, and the long preparation, begins! They actually provide in game gold prizes to the winners. I've been watching this one for a while, the creators put a LOT of work into this and it's amazing. This is definately one to keep an eye on and be ready to participate in if they come to your realm! I believe Keelhaul has since retired and Ironyca and Noelani have taken up the torch now.




This was a short March only contest with five rounds. While it is now over, I'm posting it just in case Tome, Kenada and Effraeti decide to do another one. You can keep on eye them. I certainly enjoyed checking out the pictures of some of the outfits. They used a different twist by specifying outfits based off of a specific item or theme.



"So Pyckles (you might ask) are you going to be doing any contests some time soon?" The answer would be most likely not. Although I do still have t-shirts left over from when I was manager of the WoW Vault. Think anyone would interested in a limited edition WotLK WoW Vault shirt? Eh? Maybe not...I most likely would get ahold of Ironyca and Noelani and ask about hosting a WoW Factor on my home server of Deathwing if I decided to do anything.

What I would like to do is outfit of the month though! I love for people to see my outfits and you might feel the same. If you just want to share yours, send me a screenshot of your character and their armory link. If you want to add a little something about how long it took you farm your set, how many dungeons runs or how much gold you were crazy enough to pay for it, that would just add a little spice. Shoot me an email pyckles@pallydog.com.

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.