I was thinking about Benediction/Anathema and Rhok’delar because of how cool they are, and how interesting the journey was to get them. I then thought about how they are no longer available in retail… which made me think of the mage tower weapons from Legion and how they are no longer available either.
This is not a thread to advocate for their return, I know it’s a touchy subject for a lot of people, but looking at weapons that have been available for transmogrification over the last number of expansions and there is a serious lack of unique and original weapons for players to work towards
Bows for example, there are only two that I can think of that are still available in the game that are “legendary” and totally unique. Rae’shalare and Thori’dal, and even then they are just rare raid drops. So many of the weapons we get now have like six reclours because they are from different raid difficulties/pvp or they are one off unique models that aren’t actually that rare such as the Golden Bow of Quel’thalas.
One thing Legion did fantastic was the investment into the artifact weapons, their histories/lore and associated challenges to unlock additonal appearances. The game is really missing some aspect of this and I would like to encourage the developers to reconsider investing some resources into this. Some players might say that they’d prefer resources be put into developing raids and other types of content, but for some players the pursuit of objects like this IS the content.
I think every expansion should have some sort of challenge content like the mage tower with some unique cool transmog options that are worth pursuing. The artifact skins were one of my favorite parts of legion, I wish I had spent more time on more characters and gotten them all.
Here is where the player base is it’s own worse enemy.
It can’t be difficult. Or else it’s just “for the 1%”
It can’t be time consuming. Or else “I can’t get this done in ever alt”
If it’s not difficult or time consuming, it won’t be unique.
I would love regular mage tower type events. Just everything apparently needs to be streamlined to work for the guy with 10 alts that plays 3 hours a week.
I think that is a totally valid complaint. There is no need for everything to be super obtainable. It’s good to have a variety of content and rewards for all different types of people.
For example, for me I really wanted the Wildrunner Thas’dorah appperance from the mage tower, and that is the one that I focused on and got. I didn’t try and do it on every character, and there’s nothing wrong with the people that wanted to get all 30 odd weapons, but things like that shouldn’t be scaled around the idea that someone will get all of them.
A big problem is Modern TM WoW has been designed to accommodate two specific buckets of players - those who only care about sweaty gear-grinding gameplay, and those who want to tick checkboxes on a collectathon. All content is designed for one of those two buckets exclusively.
Challenging solo content for mogs doesn’t fit into either of those buckets. So Ion has axed it.
I only like unique or “rare” types of gear in the sense that, “This one doesn’t look like all the others”.
For instance, Temple of Sethraliss is the only place that drops the double crescent blade polearms. There are 3 variation of it and thats it.
I don’t require it to be “rare” and “unique” when I compare myself to other players. I honestly couldn’t give 2 fertilizer piles about who has what. I’m worried about me. Not someone else.
Rare and Unique meaning everything looks one way in an expansion. Then you got a couple of models that are out of this world.
The double crescent bladed polearm from BFA.
The shield from Black Temple in TBC.
The Glaive from TBC.
Just examples of items that are one of a kind. I love that stuff. That’s the stuff I hunt down when I’m playing and looking for transmog.
I got all the appearances, but it was a significant investment of my time and effort, and I sympathize with people who don’t have that time. I know you specifically said you’re avoiding advocating for the return of these appearances, but I personally feel that things like mage tower, or warlock green fire, or (my favorite) the Brawler’s Guild are best when they are 1) challenging and 2) available. I hate that these things and their rewards disappear, and I feel that if they stuck around and were always available, that opens the door to allow them to be significantly challenging, because even maybe less skilled players with less time could then practice by hitting their heads against the wall as many times as it took.
Edit: I know you can still get green fire, and that’s good, but the title is gone.
It’s existed basically once in the entire games history, and it was under Ion, so it’s both his fault it was added and removed?
No great transmog rewards necessarily, but the massive expansion beyond “raid or die” all happened in the Ion era despite your hate for him (mythic+, mage tower, visions, delves, death of chromie, megadungeons, a large focus on outdoor content, etc.). Even solo rated PvP. Same with massive alt friendliness, account wide transmog learning, and a ton of other aspects.
I feel like your hate that mythic raids are too hard so people can’t pug them for their gear easily kind of puts the blinders on.
Can’t make anything unique and powerful without balancing the classes that can use it around it, thus making it feel required for even the most casual of people. Their best best for this kind of item (including legendaries) is to not balance classes around it, and make sure it’s rare by requiring say, 4x mythic raid end boss kills before you can even start the quest.