Transmog

As much as I adore the Valorous Scourgeborne look, with all it's black spikes and red accents, it was time for a new transmog for Morn. However I was unpleased with all my options. A lot of the DK sets are far too monochromatic: all blue or rusty red or horrible poisonous green. I was considering the heroic set from Dragon Soul, but I am missing the matching boots, and don't have a pair that wouldn't clash horribly. I was sad and resigned myself to keeping my Valorous Scourgeborne, which wasn't really such a bad thought.

Fortunately I was running DraNgNon's not-so-little-anymore boomkin through the ICC 5mans and I picked up the Pauldrons of the Souleater from the last boss in Forge of Souls. They are pretty striking shoulders. The understated spikes and fiery runes look pretty awesome. So I took a look through Wowhead and the looked at the loot drops from the various ICC 5man bosses, and eventually figured out that the set I now wanted was the Scourgelords's Frigid Battleplate recolor. I went with the Sollerets of Suffering rather than the boots suggested on that page and I think it looks pretty spiffy:

For a weapon I went with the Pit Lord's Destroyer, from the final pair of bosses in the Well of Eternity.

Morn's New Transmog

For a while now I've had Mornara in the Valorous Scourgeborne gear. It's the gear from Naxx25, and the black armor with red accents looks pretty good. I haven't always been happy with matching weapons, but she currently has a polearm, which only allows a limited selection anyway.

The set I'd really like her transmogged to is the Scourgelord set from ICC10. The set pieces are from ICC10, but the matching boots and belt are from ICC10 heroic. I have the set pieces, but if she ever got the belt or boots from ICC10H I never kept them. Because I am on the Shadowfrost shard quest I just can't make myself run ICC10H. If I have a group that can do that we can also run ICC25 and I'll get shards. So I was resigned to not being able to wear that set due to mismatch boots, and also a lack of reasonably matching polearm.

But then Kuan and Morn were romping through Molten Core, and Shadowstrike dropped. A polearm! And it had two options, one of them had to be decent looking. In fact, it looked good with the Scourgelord gear that I did have.

So I looked more closely at wowroleplaygear.com for the Scourgelord set. Specifically more closely at their comments. They list out a few pieces of gear that could reasonably replace the matching belt and boots. Fortunately I already had the Deathforge Girdle that would go reasonably well, but it did require a quick romp through the Botanica to get the Obsidian Clodstompers.

As an aside, I remember those boots from BC. Viljo was friends with ISD the undead warrior, and ISD was SO HAPPY when he got those boots to drop from H Botanica.

Now Mornara is transmogged to look quite spiffy. The boots don't quite match from the sides but the front and back of them is a remarkably similar color of purple to the Scourgelord gear.

Shadowstrike doesn't have any strong purple accents, but I think it would be too monochromatic if it did. The green goes with her skin quite well.

I do love the just slightly asymetrical shoulders.

We know what you really look like

We are running out of room to store unopened lockboxes, so Eeyan and Teltanara are gaining their Pandaria experiences in Townlong Steppes now.

Townlong is on the other side of the Great Wall, and thus doesn't have a lot of rest, mailboxes, or flight points.  But it does have gear that really is solidly upgrades from Dragon Soul.  Practically speaking, that means we sometimes have to let the gear show off what it really looks like.

I'm not sure if she looks like a refugee from the Darkmoon Faire or an escapee from Hellfire.

I will point out that this picture shows the difference in polygons between Wow's pants and shoulders.  It's really tragic.  Blizzard should fix that.

Valorous Scourgeborne Transmog

When Transmogrification first came out with the 4.3 patch I wasn't really sure how I wanted Mornara to look. I actually like how the the DK tier gear from Firelands looks. So aside from a shoulder upgrade to make her gear look a little more "Dragon Soul-ish" I kept her gear transmogged to the Elementium Deathplate set.

I'd been considering the Scourge lord's gear, but am still missing a belt and boots for the set. I've not had much of a chance to run ICC10 and when I do I get no RNG love. When I get a chance for ICC I'd rather go for 25 anyway, Morn still needs to work on Shadow's Edge.

One of the Monday fun runs that Darkfall did at the beginning of March was Naxx25. We actually did it two weeks in a row in a futile attempt to get Shocking. The name is all too apt, because if I ever actually get that achieve I'm going to have a heart attack from shock. Anyway, in one of those runs I managed to snag the chest token for the Valorous Scourgeborne Set. After a small side trip to Griselda Hunderland for shoulders, legs, belt, and boots, and another detour to my bank for the gloves, and I'm ready to transmog!

After a little bit of thought I grabbed the Reforged Trollbane from my bank as well. I like how the black handle looks with the Valorous Scourgeborne black and red.

But then just a few days ago I was looking at my tabard as I teleported to Northrend for a JC quest. And as I once again thought that the Argent Crusader's Tabard just didn't look right for a Death Knight, I realized that I had a tabard that would look absolutely superb.

During the Burning Crusade the leader of Darkfall was Drognin. I still keep in sporadic touch with him, but the point of this is that one day during BC DraNgNon and I browbeat him into changing the guild tabard. It had been some ridiculous thing with eyes or paws. I forget exactly what it was, but on female characters it looked quite horrible, and it didn't look all that great on male trolls either. Anyway, after he was done changing the tabard to our satisfaction, it was the above lovely shield and sword motif.

No one has changed that tabard since then, and I kind of like that.

alt #4 is max level and must look pretty

Yesterday, with horrible weather outside, Clara and I decided we were tired of leveling Tylara and Khyrie, and we were going to play them until they were 85, which they now are. Huzzah!

We determined to run through the entirety of Deepholm, which we did for the sake of shoulder enchants; and then went to Uldum, and traded off Ramkahen quests with normal randoms. Unfortunately Blizzard's idea of normal randoms for level 84 characters is to swap back and forth between Vortex Pinnacle and Stonecore; I feel I am spoiled, playing a tank in there, as those are so easy. They also don't drop much in the way of qualifying gear for heroic 5 mans.

Perhaps in a later post I will talk about how Stonecore behind Priestess Azil appears to be where the opening cinematic for Cataclysm tool place. Yes, we were in there enough times to compare the area with the cinematic.


Today, of course, we had to go about the business of taking some motley character that was leveling via facerolling and making it not be an embarrassment to the guild tag hanging over its head. I decided for Tylara this fell on Eeyan, who had nothing left to buy with Justice Points. She bought a [Deflecting Brimstone Band] herself, with all the JP from the randoms. Then Eeyan crafted an [Elementium Earthguard] for her, then bought her [Bracers of Regal Force] and [Rock Furrow Boots] with JP. Then after alt hopping for the mats, he also crafted [Hardened Elementium Hauberk] and [Hardened Elementium Girdle].

Tylara bedecked all this gear, hit ilvl 335, and looked like she was preparing to go into a weightlifting competition in the mud. Really?

Really! in the fog too, with her knees all lit up.

So, once I got that all taken care of, and enchant & gem requests to Clara, who has the useful professions on her alts, I went and dug out the [Tempered Saronite] gear I'd saved, crafted a pair of shoulders too, and after a couple of comparisons, dug out some of the midlevel Cataclysm gear she hadn't vendored. And marched her to the transmogrifier. Becuase for a Blood Knight, even more important than respec'ing and reforging and being a tank who facerolls through instances without disheveling one's hair, is to look put together.



Really.

Experimental Specimen Slicer

Mornara likes her axes. I'm sure I've mentioned this before. Not only is she an orc with that lovely orc racial bonus for using an axe, but a nice axe cleaving through her enemies just appeals in a very visceral way. Heart Strike seems more plausible when I'm using an axe.


For most of the Firelands raiding Mornara carried the Skullstealer Greataxe from Shannox. It wasn't a bad axe. In fact it was quite a nice axe and lasted her a good long while. It didn't quite match the rest of her Firelands tier gear, but it wasn't so far off as to be butt ugly.

However the item I replaced it with, the Experimental Specimen Slicer from regular Yor'sahj, aka skittles boss, was actually kind of creepy.


It's hard to see since that is just a picture, but there are small tendrils or perhaps tentacles coming out from the axe. The spiky bits along the back and top of the axe also waved gently back and forth on their own yellow-ish tentacles.

Yes, yes, I know: Dragon Soul is all about stopping Deathwing and the old gods behind him from destroying the world. It stands to reason that there will be tentacles. In fact, this axe isn't nearly as bad as several swords that drop from Madness and from Archbishop Benedictus. But that axe is the item that is strapped to Mornara's back. Those tentacles are the ones nuzzling against (or between /shudder) her armor.

So when we ran Karazhan I rolled need on Gorehowl. Gorehowl is a lovely axe. It's got a nice curve to it and a subdued red sheen to the metal. But best of all the spikes on the back of it don't move! No more tentacles! So, of course, Mornara promptly visited the Ethereal transmog shop and fixed her axe to look not-creepy.

Mailbox Dancing

Ohhhh Myyy. (said like George Takei)

I just realized what outfit Telt will be wearing once Transmogrification comes out. Oh, yes.

Long, long ago Telt made an outfit. I'm not sure what I was thinking. It did take some work to get the pattern for Red Winter Clothes, so it could have been after that. Possibly it was when she got a hold of the Crimson Felt Hat from level 60 dead side of Stratholm.

Regardless, my snooty blood elf priest has an outfit called Mailbox Dancing.

Yes, you read that correctly. Hey, a young blood elf sometimes makes decisions that weren't the wisest at the time. Bloodthistle is not cheap, and a girl's gotta make ends meet somehow.