It's OK To Love Plate Dresses

Some people dislike the idea of plate dresses. That's fine for them, but what about those of us who prefer a dress silhouette for our characters? I won't lie - there aren't a lot of options but I've rounded them up below for your delectation. Also, Warriors and Death Knights rejoice! There is the potential for you to aspire to our elegance and style. I know this is the news you've been waiting for while you clunk around in your plate trousers.

As an aside, this is mostly a paladin issue - we are the only plate-wearing class with some skirted tier sets. I do wonder if this is because we have a healing spec and healing is perceived as 'what girls like to do' but that's rampant speculation and I'm not qualified to figure that one out. Gender, dress and perception is one hell of a minefield, y'know. If one of you is more of the arts-educated, thinking persuasion feel free to ponder on this and let me know!

Immolation Battleplate/Breastplate/Chestguard

The chest piece of the paladin Tier 12 armor. This is the only chest slot model that comes with a skirt attached! Items for each spec are named differently but are completely identical in appearance.

All pieces are from Firelands or other sources of the same item level.

Head: token from Ragnaros / Casque of Flame from Baleroc
Shoulders: token from Majordomo Staghelm / Spaulders of Manifold Eyes from Beth'tilac
Chest: 2200 JPs (SW/Org vendor) / Clutch of the Firemother from Alysrazor
Gloves: 1650 JPs (SW/Org vendor) / drop from Occu'thar, Baradin Hold / Grips of the Raging Giant from Rhyolith / Holy Flame Gauntlets from Blacksmithing 
Belt: Belt of the Seven Seals from Avengers of Hyjal (at Honored)
Feet: Emberforged Elementium Boots from Blacksmithing / Treads of the Penitent Man from Majordomo Staghelm
Legs/Bracers: can't be seen

Tier set is paladin only, off-set pieces could be obtained by any plate-wearing class.

I really love this set and fully plan to drag my guild into Firelands at some point to get me the head and shoulders!

Valorous Aegis Greaves/Legguards/Legplates (paladin only)

The leg piece of the paladin Tier 8 armor. Items for each spec are named differently but are completely identical in appearance.

Head: token from VX-001, Ulduar
Shoulders: token from Thorim, Ulduar
Chest: token from Yogg-Saron, Ulduar
Gloves: token from Freya, Ulduar / drop from Emalon, Vault of Archavon
Legs: token from Hodir, Ulduar / drop from Emalon, Vault of Archavon
Tokens should be taken to plate merchants in Dalaran.

Here are a couple (of many) options for the other slots:
Belt: Blinding Girdle of Truth for 1650 VPs / Girdle of Valorous Deeds from Aeonus, Black Morass
Feet: Silver Sabatons of Fury for 1650 VPs
Bracers: can't be seen

The good news is that you can get the legs from two different places, so if you wanted to build a mogging set around them you don't have to be raiding Ulduar. The older tier sets are a pain to acquire because every slot was token-bought but don't give up! Speak to your friends and guildmates - this tier had some good gear for all classes and more of them might be willing than you think. There are two recolors of this set but they have legs rather than a skirt, which is a shame.

Judgement Legplates (paladin only)

The leg piece of the paladin Tier 2 armor.

Head: drop from Nefarian, Blackwing Lair / drop from Onyxia, Onyxia's Lair (level 80 version)
Shoulders: drop from Chromaggus, Blackwing Lair
Chest: drop from Nefarian, Blackwing Lair
Bracers: drop from Razorgore, Blackwing Lair
Gloves: drop from Flamegor/Ebonroc/Firemaw, Blackwing Lair
Belt: drop from Vaelastrasz, Blackwing Lair
Legs: drop from Ragnaros, Molten Core
Feet: drop from Broodlord Lashlayer, Blackwing Lair

This is one of the most popular paladin sets in the game and is easy to farm nowadays. As well as being very intricate, every piece of armor contributes to the look so you'll need all 8 pieces to nail it.

Cassock of the Loyal (Judgement Recolor, any plate-wearing class)

This is the leg piece of the Judgement Recolor, a dungeon set obtained at level 68-70 in Burning Crusade dungeons.

 

Head: Mask of Penance from Mekgineer Steamrigger, The Steamvault
Shoulders: Justice Bearer's Pauldrons from Omor, heroic Hellfire Ramparts
Chest: Breastplate of Many Graces from Grandmaster Vorpil, Shadow Labyrinth
Bracers: Virtue Bearer's Vambraces from Broggok, heroic Blood Furnace
Gloves: Life Bearer's Gauntlets from Nazan & Vazruden, heroic Hellfire Ramparts
Belt: Girdle of Many Blessings from Rokmar, heroic Slave Pens
Legs: Cassock of the Loyal from Hungarfen, heroic Underbog
Feet: Boots of the Watchful Heart from Captain Skarloc, heroic Escape from Durnholde Keep

A popular recolor of a popular tier set! Easily farmable nowadays. As with the Judgement Armor, you'll need all 8 pieces to complete the look.

Lightsworn Greaves/Legguards/Legplates

The leg piece of the paladin Tier 10 (lower) armor. Items for each spec are named differently but are completely identical in appearance.

Head: 1100 JPs (Dalaran/Argent Tournament vendors)
Shoulders: 695 JPs (Dalaran/Argent Tournament vendors) / Emerald Saint's Spaulders from Cache of the Dreamwalker, ICC
Chest: 1100 JPs (Dalaran/Argent Tournament vendors) / Chestplate of Septic Stitches from Professor Putricide, ICC
Gloves: 695 JPs (Dalaran/Argent Tournament vendors) / Festergut's Gaseous Gloves from Festergut, ICC
Legs: 1100 JPs (Dalaran/Argent Tournament vendors) / Corrupted Silverplate Leggings from Lord Marrowgar, ICC
Waist: Tightening Waistband from Blood Queen Lana'thel, ICC / Surrogate Belt from Halion, Ruby Sanctum
Feet: Ancient Skeletal Boots from Lord Marrowgar, ICC / Foreshadow Steps from Halion, Ruby Sanctum
Bracers: can't be seen

Tier set is paladin only, off-set pieces could be obtained by any plate-wearing class.

I was really excited about being able to pick this set up (head and shoulders included!) for Justice Points. There are loads of belt models that would blend in with this set and any dark boots would look fine.

Acherus Knight's Legplates (Death Knights only)

The leg piece of the Death Knight starter gear.

The full set can only be bought by Death Knights as it's sold by Quartermaster Ozorg in Acherus. It would be easy to change any of the slots to jazz this up a bit - plate with grey colour schemes isn't rare at all.

Well, that's it - all the dress silhouette avenues you could explore. I know that I'll be farming Justice Points for the Lightsworn set and picking up one or both of the Judgement sets. What about you? Are you a fan of plate dresses or do you skip over them in favour of legs (or do you not care in the slightest as long as it looks good)? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Hunt for Tier Gear: Week 3

Ok, so doing a post per tier, per week? A silly idea. One of you could have said something...honestly! *tuts* idea scrapped! I think a weekly ramble about what I've looted is quite enough.

This afternoon I went with two guildies, shaman and priest, to vanquish bosses in Blackwing Lair & Molten Core. Not a single drop for me! I won a couple of nice-looking cloaks though, and there was also a quest to hand Nefarian's head in to Varian Wrynn. He seemed happy to take it, but the cleaning bill for my bag will be ridiculous.

Interesting note. That yell that goes out across Stormwind all the time, about mighty allies and defeating Nefarian? Turns out it's for that old quest in Blackwing Lair...not for defeating heroic mode T11 Nefarian like I thought...

Yep, I'm a noobcake.

We popped over to Outland too and ran Gruul & Magtheridon's Lairs. Karma was on my side after the lack of druid drops earlier, because I won a shoulder token. Which means...

Tier 4, baby! I like it even more now I've seen it in the flesh. There's a good chance I'll be transmogrifying to this set and some matching items when 4.3 hits.

Hunt for Tier Gear: Tier 4, Week 1

Tier 4 tokens drop from three different raids:
Head: Prince Malchezaar, Karazhan
Shoulders: Maulgar, Gruul's Lair
Chest: Magtheridon, Magtheridon's Lair
Hands: The Curator, Karazhan
Legs: Gruul, Gruul's Lair

The Tier 4 druid set for balance is the Malorne Regalia:

Courtesy of Wowpedia

I like the pale colours of this set, and the blue on the shoulders. It's a little unusual as druid tier sets go!

Last week one of my guildies put out a call in gchat for people to run Karazhan and for once, I wasn't busy. A chance at two Tier 4 tokens? Sign me up! I've also wanted to see inside Karazhan for ages because everyone who played in TBC times (no exceptions) absolutely raves about that raid. We did it with three of us - balance druid, blood DK and resto shaman. The chess event was an education for a first-timer like me! It's a beautiful place and I can imagine some fights were great fun back in the day.

Tier 4 tokens drop from three different raids:
Head: Prince Malchezaar, Karazhan
Shoulders: Maulgar, Gruul's Lair
Chest: Magtheridon, Magtheridon's Lair
Hands: The Curator, Karazhan
Legs: Gruul, Gruul's Lair

I was lucky enough to get both the tier tokens from Karazhan, as there's no Tier 4 for Death Knights! I figured that since we were on a roll, we'd go and do Gruul's Lair too. For that we had four of us - balance druid, resto shaman, unholy DK and shadow priest. I missed out on the shoulder token but won the leg token there. At that point, 3 pieces out of 5 felt pretty good! I persuaded the DK and priest to join me in Magtheridon's Lair, where I proceeded to pull a complete Leeroy and trap our priest outside the room...

/facepalm

Watching a DK solo Magtheridon slowly down through 3M HP was a hilarious experience, but I'll be waiting until we're all ready next time! Our priest scored a really pretty staff and passed the chest token to me in return, so that was 4 pieces out of 5 in a couple of hours. I'll be heading back to Gruul's Lair this week to try and pick up that shoulder token - it would be my first complete Tier set from the days of yore :D

Guys, go hunting for this older gear if you like the look of it. It's not hard to get your hands on and there are plenty of laughs to be had if you take some friends! Have you been back to any of the Tier 4 raids yet?

Hunt for Tier Gear: Tier 1, Week 2

We frolicked through Molten Core again this week and I was lucky enough to pick up the Tier 1 hands and legs for my druid! 2 pieces down, 6 to go. I also managed to keep my pocket warrior happy with another two pieces of his Tier 1 set. Clicky on this link to see the full list of what dropped for us this week. We've decided to stockpile the materials that we're looting in an alt bank so that we can craft older epics for ourselves or guildmates once 4.3 hits - there is some great-looking craftable gear which still needs these older components.

Have you been running Molten Core at all, or any of the older raid content? Have you had any luck with drops yet? Let me know below!

Hunt for Tier Gear: Tier 1

Welcome to the first installment of 'Hunt for Tier Gear'! I had this idea a few days before the patch 4.3 announcements, after picking up T11 shoulders for my druid (finally!) and the T11 helm for my paladin. Getting these highly visible bits of tier gear was immensely satisfying - I felt like I had something to show for my efforts that couldn't be bought with VPs. I started looking up old druid tier sets and put together a plan of action to farm them, from Tier 1 right through to Tier 10. Such a big list, with so many notes - heaven!

The patch 4.3 news and the announcement of Transmogrification, accompanied by 80 slots of Void Storage, put an end to any restraining concerns of space and also gave me a good kick up the behind to get started.

Each 'Hunt' I start will be updated when I run the relevant content but there will links on the 'Gear Hunt' page at the top of the blog. I'd like to give other gear-hunters an idea of how long it might take because this is new ground for me, and doubtless will be for other people who started playing in WotLK or Cataclysm. I'll list the tier items that dropped each week and there'll also be a running total of materials which dropped for me - you could either hoard these for crafting professions (as I will) or sell them to fund your fashion needs!

Let's begin the Hunt for Tier 1! The Cenarion Raiment isn't widely adored by players, but I really like it. All the pieces drop in Molten Core - the belt and bracers as BoE from any mob, the rest from bosses. Ragnaros drops Tier 2 legs, but no Tier 1 pieces. Whilst running Molten Core, you gain Hydraxian Waterlords reputation (trash rep from Neutral to Revered, boss rep from Neutral to Exalted).

There are also two (yes, two!) legendary weapons connected to Molten Core:

[Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros]
[Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]

I'll be writing mini guides on how to obtain these soon.

Week 1 rundown:

Molten Core is ridiculously easy to clear. I think any class is capable of soloing it now but for fun I got my partner to bring his warrior. If you've never been to Molten Core, Ragnaros is still pretty imposing! He managed to kill my meatshield warrior with a huge knockback and the resulting fall damage, so if you eat a Hand of Ragnaros you might have a corpse run on your hands.
No druid tier gear dropped this week, but the warrior tier pieces have bought me company for future runs!

Materials looted in Molten Core after 2 weeks:

[Elemental Fire] x 56
[Elemental Earth] x3
[Heart of Fire] x 37
[Core of Earth] x 16
[Essence of Fire] x 36
[Essence of Earth] x 12
[Blood of the Mountain] x 1
[Lava Core] x 19
[Fiery Core] x 14 

Week 1 drops:

Hunter - wrists, gloves, legs, feet
Mage - shoulders
Paladin - head, chest, wrists
Priest - chest, hands
Rogue - legs, legs (Tier 2)
Shaman - legs (Tier 2)
Warrior - shoulders, hands

Week 2 drops:

Druid - hands, legs
Mage - shoulders
Paladin - hands
Priest - shoulders, chest, bracers, feet
Rogue - legs
Shaman - feet
Warlock - legs (Tier 2)
Warrior - chest, legs

Plans!

By now, you've all heard about patch 4.3 and the new features it's adding to the game. A raid with Deathwing in and some new 5-mans - no more trollroics? YES! - is definitely exciting. Personally, the thing I'm most excited about is Transmogrification - the ability to give your existing gear the outward appearance of other gear you own, as long as it's the same armor class or weapon type. This heralds an end to uniform appearance at certain levels and will allow those of us who like the look of older/lower-level gear to customise our outfits! The addition of Void Storage, 80 slots of extra non-bank space for your armor and weapons, is the icing on the cake.

You might think I'd be quite bitter about this, as I spend most of my active time in giant laser chicken form. I won't deny that it took a little of the sparkle out of the news, but I spend all my downtime out of form. Seriously, the moment my UI reloads after a hearth? POOF, night elf again. So you won't find me kvetching about the change.

What you will find soon is the first post in my 'Hunt for Tier Gear' series. I'm planning to make my way through old content, starting right back in Molten Core and collecting as many of the old druid tier sets as I can. I'll be detailing which pieces make up each tier along with where they drop or where to buy them from. For those of you who multi-task on everything in WoW (we are many, and I salute you) I'll also note if there is a reputation you can grind at the same time, any achievements you could pick up and details of the legendaries you could obtain!

First up will be Tier 1, which drops from bosses in Molten Core. It's certainly a quicker way to see Ragnaros nowadays!