“You’ve collected this appearance, but not from this item.”
There are items in WoW that appear to be identical. If I see the message above, does that mean that this item offers a slightly different tint or variation to an appearance I already have? Or do I still need to research through my wardrobe to see whether I have this particular appearance and tint?
It means that item is completely identical to one you already know, in every way except name.
If you right click on an item in your Wardrobe that you have multiples of, you can choose which name you want to transmog it as, if you like one item’s name better than the other.
So I can vendor or disenchant the item without losing anything? Other than the ability to attribute the appearance to the name of the item?
Does this mean if I look up someone else’s xmog, I shouldn’t just look at how I get the item they used? I should look up the appearance, find any alternative items and see if they’re easier to obtain? If yes, more planning but a possible vast time savings.
yes, and yes. If you look up an item on wowhead it has “same appearance as” information. They’re not down to exact color matches; they consider a recolor to be the same appearance. But it’s a good starting point.
This is particularly relevant for one-handed weapons since some of them share an identical appearance but sheath differently. Being able to switch between the specific item affects how you can sheath it. Here’s an example:
Sometimes an item that counts as the same appearance isn’t transmoggable by all classes, so you do need to check pieces of class tier, or lookalikes.