A second chance at top-Tier gear
by Mike Schramm 
Jan 30th 2007 at 2:26PM
I wrote this post about "Dream Gear" way back in October when my Shaman was obsessed with the Pauldrons of Elements, the Tier 0 shoulders that dropped from Rend in UBRS. I just love the way they look, all hooky and Shaman-y. Unfortunately, despite a huge number of UBRS runs, they never dropped for me, and when the Tier 1 shoulders fell into my hands in MC, I abandoned my dream to wear the Pauldrons, I thought, forever.Until now. A fellow Shaman friend was running the Mana Tombs, and announced in guild chat that he'd grabbed the Lightning Rod Pauldrons, a terrific set of mail shoulders that drops from Tavarok in there. I drooled over the stats, and then CTRL-clicked to check out how they'd look on my Shammy, and lo and behold, I'd found my shoulders again! The devs had reused the Tier 0 skin, in new and cooler colors! Now I've got a new goal to run an instance over and over again for.
And a lot of people are living the same dream. Cearrdorn over on LJ really likes the Judgement set, but his guild never made it long enough in BWL for him to get the whole thing. Fortunately, it looks like almost the whole set is findable in different colors in Outland, most of it in 5-man (both regular and Heroic mode) instances. I can't wait to find a Bloodfang lookalike for my Rogue, too-- for those of us who were never able to get all the cool-looking high end gear we always wanted (for whatever reason), it looks like the devs, by laziness or design, are giving us a second chance by reusing the old skins.
Filed under: Items, Virtual selves, Instances, Expansions, Raiding, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
kerni Jan 30th 2007 2:46PM
If they're going to reuse the Judgement skin at least bring back the leggings.
http://pallywithash.wordpress.com
Gman Jan 30th 2007 2:51PM
Man, I can't believe you like those coat-hanger shoulder pads! I always thought the Elements shoulders looked awful! Luckily, I was able to pick up Runic Stone Shoulders in an AQ20 run (not that these look all that great either).
In BC though, any real shaman should be drooling over the Cataclysm set (Tier 5)... the look is amazing!
Mike Schramm Jan 30th 2007 2:56PM
Gman, well if you're asking me whether I want Tier 5 or the hooky shoulders, of course I'm going for Tier 5. But you can bet that every Mana Tombs run I do I'll be praying for the hooks to drop.
Zuuler Jan 30th 2007 3:09PM
I would really like to see the Felheart or Nemesis lookalikes drop. I always wanted to get one of those sets but my lock hit 60 about a month before the expansion, and I spent most of that month chasing my dreadsteed since I knew the gear would be worthless once the expansion was out. So I never got any of those 2 sets.
Nerf Pallies
Mccullough Jan 30th 2007 3:21PM
Does anyone know if the Jugement clones are all purple or maybe in other colors too? And lol at #4, just a heads up 4, horde has pallys now.
Nerf MacDonalds!
Döt Jan 30th 2007 3:42PM
Nerf WoW
lol...ummm, I don't have any Tier Gear, so, whatever.
Deusirae Jan 30th 2007 5:35PM
Simply outstanding! I love the Judgment gear look. The artist who came up with that set needs a huge raise. I was looking at the things that would eventually replace my Judgment helm and was not impressed. I know that stats count in the end, but I would never want to part with my helm.
Something that I wish the Devs would come up with would have been the ability to take class gear and upgrade it through the quests and instances. It could work along the lines of what they are doing with tokens. The stats would change, but not the look, unless they wanted to turn in the token for the new gear instead of just upgrading the stats. If someone liked their Tier 0 (or any Tier that may have meant something to them), they would just upgrade it to the next stats.
I realize that there would be a LOT more computations needed for the servers to handle multiple set constructs. I just wish there was a way for me to level my Pally and get the new stats without having to eventually wear that pink and purple putrid tier set. The artist for that must have really hated Paladins...
multikast Jan 30th 2007 3:54PM
@2
you are seriously the first person i've ever heard of that didn't like the looks of the shammy shoulders dungeon 1 set. they are awesome looking.
Seper Jan 30th 2007 5:25PM
ummm so have they brought back the dreamwalker tier 3 set for druids. Thats my favorite set and if I got all the pieces for that I wouldn't care about armor :p it just looks sooo cool in my opinion.
HalcyonGT Jan 30th 2007 6:11PM
So does anyone have any other names for the "re-skinned" Tier sets? If the Wrath set has been reused, what is it called now...and from which dungeons are the pieces dropping?
Nialyah Jan 30th 2007 5:17PM
I already made my dream equip and I'm gonna collect it. Got a few parts of what I call Purplecraft and when I got some better gear, instances on heroic mode I'll try gather what I call Goldslayer.
Look at this picture why I call them those names:
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/3306/mywishlistlk5.jpg
-Nialyah
Bunkai Jan 30th 2007 5:48PM
I play a 61 shaman as my main. I've passed on those(tier 0) shoulders as the only shaman in the group because of their looks.
One of the worst shoulder graphics in the game, IMO.
The other being the HWL shoulders for shaman...at least on a male troll.
Kevin Jan 30th 2007 6:16PM
I seem to remember when the Tier 2 was filled with placeholders (including an uber ugly turban for Transcendence). They were then given real graphics at a point after their release.
Makes me wonder if the current graphics being discussed in this article are merely placeholders as well...
Nulmorr Jan 30th 2007 7:23PM
enjoy. tier 2 - remodeled.
http://www.worldofraids.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1702
Hiroshi Jan 31st 2007 9:07AM
All I can say is for Blizzard to PLEASE give us some better Paladin PVP shoulders horde-side. The Alliance-eagle was arguably much better, at least much more unique than the current blandness. Honestly, ideally, I would happily accept a recolored version of the Horde warrior plate. That set looks great.
Honestly though, I do suspect that the degree of bland design in that PVP armor could be an indicator that it's just a place holder set until Blizzard has the opportunity to design something better. But this is likely wishful thinking.
Digitcon Jan 31st 2007 9:40AM
Well at least your overall look is positive!
I HATE the reuse of old skins. I find them on EVERYTHING in BC and its my #1 complaint with Blizz. They did such a wonderful job on the environments, but they just tossed all the old gear skins into lvls 60-69 and called it a GG. They even turned most of it into a joke. I mean they named them the Lightning Rod Paldrons. They are nice gear and better than Tier1 imo. A friend finished the Ring of Blood quests and got a 160 +heal mace and lo! it was the Aurastone skin. :( Im happy for people who liked them, but im still disappointed. I saw a nice level 70 blue shoulders yesterday and what skin did they use? Earthfury, but blue. :(
Potatoes Jan 31st 2007 12:39PM
i've noticed they are re-using some of the tier 0 shoulders too.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24024#c0z
these drop off the first boss in Ramparts and look just like the mage's Magister shoulders.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24366#00Rz
these drop off the last boss in Slave Pens and look just like the hunter's Beaststalker shoulders.
i also saw someone link in guild chat some shoulders that look like the druid's tier 0 bird shoulders.