Shoulders use different kinds of "visuals"... The article wasn't terribly clear on how it works.

Weapons, helmets, and shoulders can all have built-in particle effects, which are built into the actual model.

Weapons can also be enchanted, which applies an additional particle effect to the existing model.

However, many of the weapons in the game simply "hijack" that "enchant slot" for their particle effects. This also prevents them from displaying whatever enchants players actually put on them.

As sort of side-effect of the way transmogrification works, the enchant displayed on a transmogrified weapon will be whatever is being used by the base item.

So, for example...

Frostscythe of Elune has a "dripping ice" enchant effect by default, which displays no matter what it's actually enchanted with.

If you use the scythe as the "visual source", it'll lose that dripping ice effect in favor of whatever the "base item" has enchanted (say, Hurricane).

In contrast, if you use the scythe as the "base item", then whatever you use as the "visual source" will have its enchant effect overwritten by the dripping ice effect.


This ONLY applies to weapons, and perhaps off-hand items.

Helmets and shoulders don't have an "enchant effect" slot, so their particle effects are all directly built into their individual models. If you have a hood that gives you red glowy eyes, those red glowy eyes are an intrinsic part of the helmet model.