This is absolute bias on my part, and one of the few times I'll cop to preferring Horde over Alliance or favoring them. 99% of the time, I love both equally and play both equally, but I have to state this honestly and let the chips fall where they may: the Horde PvP gear at level 60 (with one exception) looked much better than the Alliance gear, and it deserves a return in some fashion or another.

It's true for just about every set, too, but I'll focus on the plate armor because that's what I was going for. I had just gotten my tauren to 60 before Burning Crusade was about to launch, the PvP system changed and honor became a currency instead of a ladder system. As a result, I really only had the time and interest to get the epic 2h sword, as you can see in the picture accompanying my first post here at WoWinsider. I was happy with that sword because it was the first really good weapon I'd ever PvP'd for. Well, the pig on a stick doesn't really count. I just got that to tide me over until I could get the sword. I did love it, though, you kind of had to, it was a big spiky pig head on a stick.

The expansion hit not long after, and I ended up trading away my PvP gear bit by bit (finally replacing the High Warlord's Greatsword at level 66 in Nagrand with, I believe, the Arkadian Claymore... that stung a bit.) I still have it in the bank, of course, because it looked awesome. I never did get the 60 purples, though I did have several pieces of the level 70 blues that resembled the set. If I'd known Blizzard was going to phase them out, I would have ground the honor for the whole set just for looks. (I could still go back and get the 60 gear, that might be fun.)

We see a lot of reskinned sets in the new Arena system... Seasons 1 through 3 have just been reskins of the various Tiers, and Season 4 is reskinned Sunwell loot. Now, I have no idea what the new PvP gear will look like in Wrath of the Lich King. But frankly, instead of just reskinning whatever raiding loot drops, if you're going to use a repeated model anyway, why not bring this stuff back? It was and still is just awesome looking. If you're going to repeat yourselves, then do it up right, I say. Repeat your really good stuff. Bring back the Warlord gear! This is just one example of why it would be awesome. That is one scary looking rogue. I have no trouble believing he's going to stab me a lot.

Oh, and the one Alliance PvP item that just took the prize for being awesome looking? The Grand Marshal's Claymore. This thing is badass. It just looks so right in the hands of a ret pally, you can't even try and hate on it. That should definitely be a model used for a special level 80 paladin quest sword.

Tags: Awesome sword models, AwesomeSwordModels, Gear, Models, Reskin, wrath-of-the-lich-king

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, PvP