My pet battling enthusiam has brought me to the edge. I got my Safari Hat, and also took down all of the official Master Pet Tamers, including Grand Master Aki.

I have a sad related to this.

I am a Pandarian Hunter, and I do not like any of the mail sets that are out there right now.

I am a Hunter, and not just any Hunter, a Bear Hunter.

No, not a beer hunter, a bear hunter.

I keep browsing mail armor sets in the hopes I’ll find something that grabs me.

The flame set from Firelands was good as a human, but as a panda, I find I’ve got too much surface area to be attractive while on fire.

Plus, you know, the smell of burning fur. Ugh.

In looking over the mail sets out there, the one thing I keep running up against is that none of them say “I go out there and hunt things that would hunt me back.”

There aren’t any camouflage outfits, no gillie suits, nothing of a muted pattern that has any real style.

On the more romantic side of things, we don’t have any archer-style robin hood outfits, or anything I could see a Dungeons & Dragons style ranger wearing.

Instead, Hunter sets seem to say “I went out, killed something, then hollowed out its skull and wear it like a hat. I’m very emotionally balanced.”

Is that what WoW Hunters are? Beings who go out, kill something, then take the carcass and make clothes out of it?

As one style of armor, sure, it’s something that touches on the old D&D idea of being a hunting dragonslayer, going out to seek out materials resistant to dragonflame in order to survive hunting other dragons. Dragons don’t hurt themselves with their own flame, so we’ll make a set of armor out of dragonscales. It’s reasonable, it makes sense.

But for everything? As a concept it’s gone way too far.

What I want is a set that I can wear that feels like I am a Hunter prepared to go out into the wild actually hunting things. Like, on a safari.

Cue the Safari Hat.

Have you seen the Safari Hat? If you defeat 40 Master Pet Tamers, you get the Safari Hat mailed to all of your characters.

It is not transmoggable, not now. It confers 10% bonus to leveling XP for your battle pets.

As soon as I saw it, I loved it.

The Safari Hat is exactly what I want as a Hunter to inspire the set I wear. I am, and play as in my role-playing heart, an old-fashioned Big Game Hunter eternally out there on safari, exploring the wildest places in the world for the new, the amazing, the challenging.

Can you imagine it? I can.

I can picture my Pandarian Hunter, with the Wolfslayer Sniper Rifle from the Big Bad Wolf in Karazhan, wearing the Safari Hat and a safari set of armor looking like a set of linens with a ‘vest of many ammo pouches’, seated on the back of one of the new honking huge Triceratops mounts.

That is how I want to roll.

I want to be a bear, wearing safari threads almost like I mauled a human hunter and stole his stuff. With a massive rifle… riding a dinosaur.

If that doesn’t say TOTAL BADASS, I don’t know what does.

You can keep your freaking laser beams.

I’d like to add, and this is a key thing to consider, I don’t want to be a bear hunter that looks like he killed a human, and then made armor out of the human to wear. Just the safari clothes are fine, aaaight?

EARLY MORNING PICTURE EDIT:

Found a couple of pictures of exactly what I’m talking about, the Van Pelt look from jumanji, who even has a big ass cape/cloak and the honking big gun. Even his whiskers are panda-like!

My son got a drop in Outlands while running with Cassie and I in SSC, where we were just trying to get him neat looking stuffs, the Pauldrons of the Argent Sentinel. The shoulders look very cool, so he transmogged them and has used their appearance ever since.

One day he saw me on WoW Model Viewer, and I showed him how I could load his character from the Armory and play around with different looks.

He asked me if the shoulders he had were part of a set.

Well, shoot. I think so. You’d think they would be, they’re pretty sharp looking, right?

Not so simple.

What I found was that technically they are a recolor of a recolor of a Paladin shoulder armor from a Tier set, but they weren’t really part of a full recolor “set”.

I had faith, however, that if I scoured the Model Viewer long enough I would find a complete matching set in theme and color.

So I have, and I’d be delighted to share it with you, because I think it looks very… dignified. It seems to me to be the equivalent of Full Dress Uniform for military plate. I can envision a Plate Warrior or Paladin using one set of armor on the front lines, spiky and brutal and efficient, and then having this set of armor as Full Mess Dress. Your Dress Grays, as it were, for The Field Army Ball.

The set consists of the following pieces, all from Outlands. If you pay close attention, you might, I say MIGHT, detect a pattern;

Head: Brighthelm of Justice - Drops from easily reachable boss Hydross the Unstable in SSC (Serpentshrine Cavern)
Shoulders: Pauldrons of the Argent Sentinel – Drops from boss Morogrim Tidewalker in SSC
Back: Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape – Purchasable from Justice Points from the legacy vendors in Dalaran
Chest: Glowing Breastplate of Truth – Drops from the Lurker Below in SSC. Best have your Fishing skill up there for this one.
Gloves: Glorious Gauntlets of Crestfall – Drops from boss Lady Vashj in SSC.
Waist: Girdle of Hope – A drop from boss Azgalor, in the Battle for Mount Hyjal raid.
Leggings: Pyrium Legplates of Purified Evil – A strange one for this set. Crafted by an iLevel 397 Blacksmith with a Dragon Soul pattern.
Boots: Blue’s Greaves of the Righteous Guardian – purchased from the Justice vendor in Shattrath
Weapon: Two Handed Axe, Honed Voidaxe – You might have trouble here. This is a quest reward for completing the Ring of Blood in Nagrand. If you already did it, and got rid of your reard or chose something different, that’s gonna hurt. This is a rockin’ axe look.

So, if by chance you happen to be part of a three or four person team that would all like to take your geared up level 85s (or, with MoP, level 90s) and farm some interesting gear, why, this is a fine set.

Almost like a team of two adults and a few gaming youngsters, huh? Go figure. :)

Happy hunting through the underbelly of slithering serpents for the gear!

When I posted a while back on the joys of mogging my leveling Mage, Mahdia left a comment asking what the items were I had used for mogging her look.

I’ve been busy, but I havn’t forgotten.

Just like I still need a “player’s choice” section added to the sidebar, a list of favorite books, and some screenshots and blog posts about what the Easter Bunny got for Alex (and it’s not what you think. It’s far, far, FAR more awesome), I know I need to answer.

So much to do, so much to post. Time, time, ask me for anything but TIME! /endnapoleanrant

As a refresher, here was the pic of my Mage, Unbearable;

Unbearable is sporting an outfit that I intended to wear when I created the character, an outfit to wear for most of me leveling time.

I chose her appearance during creation knowing she would be wearing that outfit. Yes, I’m silly, sue me.

The foundation of the outfit is the most expensive part; the Black Velvet Robes.

On my server, the robes frequently appear on the Auction House at 500 gold or so. I saw them and picked them up for the Mage before she was created, because I wanted to wear them fairly soon. There was an alternative; The Silver-Thread Robe, coupled with the Stylish Black Shirt (as mentioned in the Wowhead article on the Black Velvet Robes). I didn’t feel like fishing, and I had the gold, so I went with the Velvet option.

To go with the robes, I chose slightly different items than I saw commonly recommended.

For shoulders, I chose Vital Shoulders. The colors aren’t quite perfect, as they would be with the Flameseer Mantle (a drop in Uldaman), Batwing Mantle (a drop from a rare mob in Razorfen Kraal) or Darkcloth Shoulders (a reward for turning in the Swords Deck at the Darkmoon Faire). The best benefit for the Vital Shoulders is that I could equip them without having to solo instances, but I can replace them once I’m higher level with a more perfect match. Vitals are readily available on the Auction House. :)

I also wanted a touch of color so it wasn’t unrelievedly black and grey, so I chose for a belt the Durable Belt (of Fiery Wrath), which has a simple look with a gold belt buckle. Another item that is easily found on the Auction House.

To accessorize and pull together the outfit, I chose gloves that would vanish up the sleeves with a color that matches the grey of the sleeves with just a touch of gold trim for the belt, the crafted Black Mageweave Gloves.

My favorite touch is the staff, because it brings elegance with it’s straight lines and glowing purple gems; the Magician Staff (of whatever). For something so nice, it’s a surprise how easy it is to find on the Auction House.

So, for a lower-level character that can’t solo things, I’ve been very pleased with how nice an outfit you can put together. It may not be fancy Tier, or a complete set of something, but it looks good just the same.

Mahdia, I hope that helps, and thanks for asking! Have a great weekend.

With the addition of transmogrification, the ability to change the appearance of your equipped gear without affecting it’s gameplay stats, the World of Warcraft has seen the rise of many new mogging-related resources.

Dawn Moore wrote a good compendium on WoW Insider of transmogrification resources.

From databases to addons to blogs devoted to mogging, transmogrification has clearly taken WoW by storm.

There have even been contests going on amongst bloggers I follow, where some beautiful outfits are shown off, following themes and individual stylistic choices to show how talented fashion artists can create sets out of disparate pieces that look better than some items that were intended to be sets in the first place.

This post ain’t about all of that. Not really. For one thing, I’m not that talented. I go to the masters when I want true art.

I love how much this one feature has added to the fun of World of Warcraft for so many people, myself included. I’ve enjoyed designing a ‘dream outfit’ for a favorite established character, and then going and running content in search of specific items. It has added a lot replayability to the game for me.

But I am also the kind of person that envisions that one wonderful set, seeks out those items, and then once they are acquired… well, that one is done. Next!

Except for my Priest, all of my other level 85 characters are actually done. I love their look. I’m good. My Priest isn’t, because of course for my Priest I still want the one set I always wanted since I created her; the Tier 5 set from Serpentshrine Cavern and the Eye, along with the angel-on-a-stick staff from Black Temple. Since I don’t have an old-school raid group in my back pocket, I’ll just have to wait for pug groups to form, or wait until 90 and solo them with Cassie, whichever comes first. This is what comes of not raiding in BC, right?

What I did want to talk about was my favorite feature of transmogrification; setting and maintaining a personality while leveling.

I love the fact that the way transmogrification works is you acquire a piece of gear that provides the look, and as long as you own that gear (and are high enough level to equip it), you can apply that appearance to any upgrades you ever get. Your gear changes and evolves and grows more powerful, but your character (if you so choose) looks the same.

You can even pick out and acquire item sets you love that are equippable at different character levels, so that once you are high enough level, you could change your overall appearance to something that represents a major change in your characters Role Playing life.

As an example, you could have a set that is quite dark (even emo) in tone to show how depressed or crushed by rage your character was when first setting out on the road to vengeance, and then change that up over the levels to show character growth as you slowly develop a more positive, selfless attitude.

Or you could go the other way, with a bright and cheery start, gradually changing in tone as you descend into cynicism and inner darkness. I won’t judge.

You could even have a Mage who goes all flame colors for Fire spec, and Blue colors for frost, and pretend you’re a DC Comics superhero that has to color coordiante their costume with their powers. It’s a rule, you know.

All you have to do is set the scene once. Get that one set that you can equip early enough to use as the foundation of your appearance. Hide hat and cloak appearances, get chest/legs, shoulders, gloves, belt and boots and you’re good to go. Oh yeah… and that perfect weapon (or range of them for the different types).

From that time on, as you level, your character can maintain an appearance that over time adds some consistency to how you think of her.

I love that. You don’t HAVE to spend all your time constantly looking for new gear for mogging, you can get one outfit early that you dig, and go with it.

Over time, it seeps into your imagined personality for the character.

Let’s look at my Mage alt (created in honor of Gnomeaggedon) as an example.

My Mage has a fairly simple outfit. I intentionally chose race and appearance with the outfit in mind, intending to go with a stark color scheme, minimalist pattern, and clean lines with just a touch of color and style here and there to show that her heart wasn’t completely closed off to beauty, but that she was very focused and even resentful of distractions and ‘unnecessary frippery’.

She’s meant to give the impression of being stern, even harsh, but to still have just enough softness of appearance to indicate she would be willing to pause in the pursuit of her own important personal goals to aid others who have gotten themselves into trouble.

She may scorn the poor planning and lack of common sense that caused other people to get themselves into trouble and need help, but she will act out of consideration for the innocents who had no choice in being born to such idiots, innocents who shouldn’t be made to suffer for the stupidity of others.

Of course, as soon as this piece of business is taken care of, I’m returning to my own pursuits. Next time, use your head, fool. Don’t plant your damn beans next to the active volcano whose magma is alive with cranky elementals. And if you do, harvest them your own damn self, don’t send your kids in to do it for you, or I’ll come back and show you what a terminal case of indigestion is really like. You thought your chili gave you burning pains? You are NOT prepared! Are we clear?

This is my favorite thing that mogging has brought to the game. The option to choose an appearance early on with just a little prep work, and allow that prep work to feed my perception of the character as I level for 60 or even 70 more levels.

The only thing that could be even better would be a ‘master mog option’ of tweaking the color palette of a single item during transmog, so that if you have a model you dearly love, you could then change it’s color just a little (or a lot) to better match the other items in your set.

Who knows? They may add something like that someday. With the way things are going, I never would have dreamed we’d see some of the features we’ve gotten so far.

My only sadness is the knowledge that, so long as Blizzard maintains a stated desire to keep people wandering around in capitol cities so they artificially seem active, vital meeting places thronging with crowds, we’re never going to see guild housing, where a guild could have their own customizable meeting place, a place where their trophy kills could be mounted on walls, and RP meetings could be held.

Considering the brilliance of websites and their artist/owners devoted to mogging, I’d love to see “This Old Guild House” as a blog.

Ah well. What do you want for nuthin; a rubbbbbbber biscuit?

Oh, and the title of the post is in honor of our traveling Navi. Have fun in all those British places with fancy French accents!

I’d like you to say hello to my Rogue.

I am obviously biased, but I happen to think my Rogue looks incredibly badass wearing full Darkmantle gear, especially considering how suddenly rare that look is thanks to Blizzards rather draconian class quest slaughter, and insanely high priced replica Darkmoon gear.

But the awesome look is part of the problem.

When you look that good, a crappy looking weapon stands out like a zombie in the nursery.

The dagger isn’t an issue, I’m not sure I’ve even seen a bad dagger design.

The fist weapon though… blech.

I searched around, found a really nice fist weapon design I thought would look great with the Darkmantle set, the Nexus-Claw.

Nexus-Claw, part of a set of claws released in Burning Crusade that mirrored an awesome but hard-to-get set from Zul’Gurub, is eminently easy to obtain. You simply fly out to Netherstorm in Outlands, visit the exotic weapons dealer at the Consortium area of the Stormspire, and buy them. You don’t even need rep. He only has one of each of the claws at a time (the other one is the Void-Talon), but wait for a day or two, they should return. It’s not like Netherstorm is a hub of activity anymore.

I went out and bought them, and thought myself something of a smarty-pants for getting great looking items without effort. You know, because Darkmantle was so freaking easy to get.

When I went to transmog my main hand weapon, though, the Perforator, I encountered a teeny, weenie little problem.

They are indeed both Fist Weapons.

The problem lies in the fact that the Perforator is a one-hand weapon, and thus can be used in either hand. The Nexus-Claw and Void-Talons are hand specific, main hand and off hand respectively. Or the other way around, whatever.

What I have found is that I can’t transmog my one hand Fist Weapon with the hand specific Fist Weapons.

Son of a bitch.

Do you know how many great looking Fist Weapons there are in the game? And of those, do you know how many old school ones are hand specific?

Just… crap.

In retrospect I understand what the deal is. The one hand Fist Weapons display bilateral symmetry. Most of the hand-specific Fist Weapons do not. Pop the appearance of an Off Hand claw on a Main Hand weapon, and you’ll likely be holding the blade or something, while the handle is waving in the breeze.

I guess if I had given it any thought, I’d have thought that the appearance would mirror over if on an opposite hand.

Clearly, I was wrong. Damnit.

Fine. Be that way.

I’ll just have to go to Badlands and do The Day That Deathwing Came quest to get Theldurin’s Fist.

So there, nyah.