Outshining the Shattered Sun: Warrior Tank Transmog Gear

So, I have a lot of alts. A lot of alts require a lot of outfits. This is the primary reason to have a lot of alts. Shoe shopping.

Meet Normande, who mostly gets called Babynorm because she looks a lot like my main, a distant cousin, who is also named Norm.  She’s a 70 twink, but it turns out I get my butt curb-stomped every time I hit up a BG. So she’s my PvE Twink. She collects mounts and grinds rep and flies around Outlands with Onyxien doing quests with cool rewards. Sometimes she runs heroics in-character with highly flammable blood elf healers.  Sometimes my guild gets stuck carrying her through retro raids where she shrieks “UPGRADE!” and steals all the plate.

And she was tired of that old Sunwell PvP gear. Black, purple, vengeful cow of death, right right, can we have something different now?

I decided to build a set around Shattered Sun Offensive, which has been BBNorm’s latest project.  Cynwise has written about druid Cynli’s SSO Outfit here already, and how she liked and didn’t like feeling like an NPC, feeling the outfit lacked a “heroic” quality.  Using the Sunward Crest is a good way to promise that doesn’t happen. I feel like this is a good balance between having an outfit that clearly ties into a faction and an RP backstory, but also nods at a heroic player character.

Guys, I’m not even going to pretend that this is a simple outfit to put together. You could get lucky, or not, but there’s a few pieces here that are mogmaxing lunacy to set out for.   And that assumes you’re exalted with the Shattered Sun already.

It’s not the most underutilized mog outfit in the game, but the Overlord’s Field Plate is one of the best. It looks like practical armor that you could imagine in a medieval setting. That makes it a great base for either a conservative, realistic NPC-style outfit or a quiet backdrop for loud, bold statement pieces. I love the dark mail, the burnished shiny silver plates, and the leather straps that hold the whole thing together.  There are gold rivets in the boots and shoulders that tie into the statement pieces.  It’s well rendered model on all races, and is concealing on female toons, no “sexy transmog plate” here,  which is fine unless you are Ashwalker.

But like most things, why leave good enough alone when you can really liven it up with accessories? (See it in a dressing room here at Wowhead.)

• Tabard: Tabard of the Shattered Sun
• Helm: Crown of Empowered Fate
• Shoulder:  Overlord’s Spaulders
• Chest:  Overlord’s Chestplate 
• Hands: Deathbone Gauntlets
• Belt:  Belt of Might
• Legs:  Overlord’s Legplates
• Feet: Overlord’s Greaves
• Shield: Sunward Crest
• Sword:  Sword of Zeal
• Axe:  Axe of Rin’ji

A note: the Overlord’s Vambraces DO show if you wear the Overlord’s Gauntlets and Chestplate. You will need to mog the bracers or have a gap under the elbow if you wear the setpiece gloves.

I  didn’t like the Overlord’s gloves on my tauren. The brown leather straps are too prominent, and stretched out on tauren beefshank hands. It left the outfit without enough black to tie back to the SSO tabard.  I decided the best gloves were undoubtedly the Deathbone Gauntlets out of Scholomance.

I took a look at the drop rates, and said, “Oh, how bad can this be? After all, there are 6 bosses! If you add  up the drop rates, it’s like a 10.5% change to drop every time.”  That is not how math works. I know that, you likely know that, Hamlet’s going to show up and give us a spreadsheet to explain why I’m wrong, but it’s how it FEELS math should work.

So I did this, for days.

Fight Fight Fight Fight Fight

In additional crazymaking news, half the time the bosses don’t drop any blues at all. Oh, and there’s 3 pieces of trash a warrior can’t kill because they’re physical damage immune, so if you pull them, you need to run out and reset the instance. Also you can’t summon the last boss, because of those 3 trash mobs. Short story long: you may get lucky or you may spend a lot of time in Scholomance if you fall in love with one of these lovely dungeon sets. (And they’re worth it. Deathbone Plate / Bloodmail / Cadaverous Leather / Necropile Raiment)

The funny thing about the gloves is that they’re not a statement piece, but I think they’re critical for tying the outfit together on a Tauren. The true statement piece is the Crown of Empowered Fate, which is the off-tier match to Lightbringer Paladin T6. I love item models that are obviously magical because they float or move. I have an special weakness for halos of all kinds.  This one happens to match the SSO tabard perfectly.

The Overlord’s Belt is mostly brown leather and clashes with this outfit.  I liked bringing in the Belt of Might, the warrior T1 belt, because it again de-emphasizes the Paladin aspects of the outfit with a subtle nod to an iconic warrior tier. It ties together the gold, silver, and black. So much of the time, belts are a mogger’s nightmare, so it’s nice to have an outfit where there’s a good option, and the belt plays an important stylistic and thematic role. This is also something you could farm for ages in Molten Chore or find on the AH in a jiffy.

I originally began using the Sword of Zeal  with this outfit.  Ideally, I wanted an axe or a mace rather than a sword. I feel like glowing golden swords are really more of an Alliance thing, or at least a paladin thing.  The SSO is a unification of warriors, mages, paladins, priests, Scryers, Aldor, Horde, Alliance. All classes leaving their allegiances behind for a common goal. It’s okay for Norm to dress up in a paladin’s hat for the greater good.

But when all is said and done Horde warriors should use axes. The perfect stylistic fit for this outfit is the Axe of Rin’ji. This particular axe perfectly captures both the brightly polished silver and the glowing yellow-gold, and has the same brown handle  as the Overlord’s leather trim. This outfit is really about practical high fantasty, the brown wrapped handle makes it just earthy enough to fit in with the SSO outfit.  It  also echos the shape of the Sunward Crest.

Unfortunately it’s also a rare world drop, so patient AH scanning is your best bet to acquire this item, especially on a low-pop server like mine.  Unless you’re mildly crazy person, in which case you will get frustrated, go sell off the contents of your bank alt on an abandoned server, buy the axe on a better auction house, and then pay for a server transfer. Not that I did this. For a transmog axe. *cough*  A decent alternative, but much duller, is the same model Warlord’s Axe. Swordwise, you’d also do well with the Quickening Blade of the Prince, out of HMgT or The Willbreaker, out of H: Blood Furnace.

It’s also workable with the Burnished Quel’Serrar, if you’re level 80+ and can find people to run Onyxia and also your toon has basically zero modesty. That is not a weapon for a retiring field sergeant. You will not be mistaken for an NPC.  Look, I don’t advocate that sword here, don’t blame me if you want to walk around like Mr. Overcompensating Defender of the Shattered Worlds of Adal’s Dawn Demise. I’m just saying it’s silver and gold  and shiny and I hear girls love a tank with a big sword.