Armor Sets going downhill

[Zoludar]

What happen from the beginning of WOD when the mythic armor set actually looked good and now you go into the next tier and everything is just a recolor. WoD started out so great with all the gear that you can earn if you played at a higher level. But now you in legion it just looks like a different color why not make a crazy gear set give the people a reason to play the game at a higher level.

[Deleted]

Personally I find a large portion of the Tier designs since Cataclysm utter shit.

[-Skye]

If you're playing at a "higher level" just for unique armor models.. idk

[Deleted]

A lot of WoD Mythic sets looked worse than their Normal/Heroic counterparts *shrug*

[Imnick]

Every single time there is a new tier previewed.

[Darkhallows]

Legion stuff looks pretty good. But people have been calling "THIS IS SHIT!! WHAT HAPPENED TO *insert classic set here*.?" Since TBC.

Turns out art is subjective.

[Granyala]

Imho most of the cloth armor designs since TBC looked rather "meh" to me.
There was a shift in style in wrath and it wasn't to my liking at all.

I liked the bold colors and freaky designs from Vanilla and TBC a lot.

As for the mythic-models: Good riddance. Most looked way worse than the normal versions.

[Sliske]

Hasn't tier and pvp gear always been a colour variant? I remember when pvp and pve gear looked identical but was just a different colour also. I think the Legion gear (mostly) looks pretty tits 2bh. Models have gone down since they introduced transmog though, as they know people will more than likely mog out of the gear anyway.

s5 through to s15 didn't have recoloured armour.

Which is the start of WoTLK, until the end of MoP. WoD brought back the boring recolours of TBC.

[Sinndra]

visuals in gear are subjective. you dont like their looks, but clearly other people do. L2artisticdesign. i havent liked any of the hunter sets... at all. ever. because i prefer the look of a dark ranger over wearing the skin of some dead thing. i mean really you had to wear something before your first kill so why isnt there at least one set that isnt "Buffalo Bill" looking?

anyway, yah armor doesnt look great to everyone all the time.

[Netherspark]

Normal, Heroic, Alliance PVP and Horde PVP sets in Legion are all recolours of the same set. Mythic and Elite sets are 'evolved' versions, similar to WoD, but less extensive.

I think the reason they stopped doing it in WoD is because it was simply too much work (each class would need 4 unique sets for every patch). It seems in Legion they're trying to go for a middle ground.

[Taeldorian]

Idk man, I love the tier 19 shaman set, it's awesome. The only other sets that compete with it are the MoP CM set for shaman and the cata DS shaman set in my opinion. So, I like the tier honestly. Some gear is good, some gear is bad. That's how its always been.

And just to point out, you don't have to raid mythic at all for that gear. I'm only a normal/heroic raider and I have a transmog set from mythic BRF. Garrison's reward you with one level up in difficulty if you kill enough bosses on your current level with the caches from missions. So, it's fine if the armor sets look the same, there really is no difference between WoD and Legion with this, WoD just offered the cooler gear through missions.

Edit: As someone else above me also pointed out, it probably took a lot of work to make separate sets for the difficulties. Easier to just evolve the set a little bit, rather than making a completely different set. I'm all for it, either way works but this one takes up less assets.

[Sliske]

In Legion, Normal, Heroic, Alliance PVP and Horde PVP are all recolours of the same set. Mythic and Elite are 'evolved' versions, similar to WoD, but less extensive.

I think the reason they stopped doing it in WoD is because it was simply too much work (each class would need 3 unique sets for every patch). It seems in Legion they're trying to go for a middle ground.

"Too much work"

Lets be real, this is just a cop out reply that means nothing. I mean, case and point - we waited what, 6 years? For a cat and bear model revamp for druids. 6 Years, boomkins too. "Too much work" always the reply. What do we get in Legion? Literally like 24 new models, let alone recolours, in the span of a few months.

Its a cop out answer and everyone knows it.

[Archibalde]

Hasn't tier and pvp gear always been a colour variant? I remember when pvp and pve gear looked identical but was just a different colour also. I think the Legion gear (mostly) looks pretty tits 2bh. Models have gone down since they introduced transmog though, as they know people will more than likely mog out of the gear anyway.

The PvP sets in Classic, Wrath, Cataclysm and Mists were all unique sets. Even in the first PvP season of Warlords, the sets were similar to tier but not identical. It had different models and textures.

Im pretty sure there was recoloured gear in MoP. I remember DK pvp set with that horn on it having multiple variants.

That was 2 seasons back to back, at the start of Mists of Pandaria, and it was during a single raiding tier.

[Netherspark]

"Too much work"

Lets be real, this is just a cop out reply that means nothing. I mean, case and point - we waited what, 6 years? For a cat and bear model revamp for druids. 6 Years, boomkins too. "Too much work" always the reply. What do we get in Legion? Literally like 24 new models, let alone recolours, in the span of a few months.

Its a cop out answer and everyone knows it.

You expect them to make 48 armour sets for every single patch?

[Sliske]

Im pretty sure there was recoloured gear in MoP. I remember DK pvp set with that horn on it having multiple variants.

Yes that was pvp sets though

Green = honor, Blue = conquest, Red = elite conquest. The PvE gear was a totally different model

[Sicarius87]

The rogue DK and warrior sets look fucking AMAZING. I think the rogue looks best of them all. Sorta reminds me of Shredder or some shit from TMNT.

[Sliske]

You expect them to make 48 armour sets for every single patch?

Yes I expect a billion dollar company to make a measly double digit number of armour sets in the 8-14 months it takes them to release a patch.

edit: like they did from 2008 until 2014.

Literally only TBC and WoD have had this level of laziness.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

I really disagree with WoD sets. I don't like them much at all, and feel like while everything else in the game has visually progressed, armor has regressed.
The stylistic appeal used to be basic, simply, yet interesting.
Now it feels there are too many "moving parts" on each set, and to some degree there literally are!

The last sets I felt a connection to was in MoP, but after seeing t19 I actually really prefer it to all the ones from WoD.

However, I think its important you take this into consideration:
Transmog changes the way we look at tier for a few reasons.
One, its HIGHLY unlikely you'll actually use your tier if you are a serious player. Everyone in my guild has quite specific sets built that incorporate multiple pieces from a few expansions. The chances that one of these tiers will contain peices that fit your current set is quite unlikely, so unless you simply don't transmog gear ever, what are the odds you'll wear it?

The second reason is, at least for me, I'm worried about gear with the right stats.
When I think about transmog, I think about soloing old content to get an awesome looking piece to go with my current set.
When I raid, I don't even look at the gear's appearance, I only look at its stats.
This wasn't something I even realized I was doing until some one said they needed help farming SoO for some transmog, and I realized I had no idea what some of the sets even looked like!
Best example was the weird bug Druid tier from earlier in the expansion. Saw some one wearing the full set of that and I was like "where the fuck did that come from" despite it dropping weekly.

Do you feel that same way? Something about transmog to me makes me not care about it until its something that interests me in a color scheme, and since while I'm raiding in my current set I'm not thinking about changing it, I just overlook it all.

So frankly, the only time I even see this gear is when MMOc displays it on its main page!

[Archibalde]

Yeah I know. I was saying I remember when the tier and pvp gear looked pretty much the same. Not that it still does.

It only happened in Burning Crusade (and some sets had different textures anyway) and the last tier of Warlords, though.

[Angel of Justice]

Think they said that the reason BRF/Highmaul tier looks better is simply because they had more time to make them then the HFC stuff,as they started making them in Alpha of WoD,same will probably happen in legion,first tier will look amazing,2nd tier meh/standard.
Also Transmog changes alot,for the people making the sets and for us players. Realistically everyone is already wearing their favourite set ever,and its hard to top that,but these mythic/pvp sets from Legion have a chance to top my fav transmogs (most are from tbc/wrath,aka before transmog,coincidence?) for a few classes.
Also,how good the armor looks is really subjective,the only objective change I can see from tbc up untill now is better textures and "more going on" with all the new sets/weapons,and they felt more realistic back then,esp if you look at Vanilla weapons,they started deviating from the classic/realistic style in weapons and armour since TBC i'd say.
There are still sets that look simple and realistic but they are few and far between.