Weapon Models since Wrath

Community General Discussion
1

Hi,

This is something that has bothered me for about 10 years now, but I’ve never complained before. Today however I saw a comment on MMO Champion that made me realize I’m not alone.

"So are they ever going to design swords and daggers that look sharp and not like chunky heaps of iron/stone?

I don’t know why I didn’t give up on that years ago

TBH most of these look like they could’ve been WoD or Cata blues. The “savage” style is really played out."

So here is the deal, up until Wrath, ie Vanilla and TBC, weapon models had blades that looked thin and sharp. They also had very reflective textures that made them look metallic.

Once wrath hit, there was a VERY clear change in art design for a lot of things. I don’t know if an artist was fired, quit, or if a new art lead was promoted or what, but suddenly weapons were MUCH more thick and textured in a way that they almost looked like stone.
In fact that particular art style has been highly prevalent in many aspects of the game ever since. I’m not complaining either, it’s good work, but maybe not so much for weapons.

So although these models/textures LOOKED GOOD and people liked them… they definitely don’t look like metal anymore, not typically.

One only needs to look at the outlaw rogue artifact swords for an example.
From a profile, what an amazing looking weapon.
But turn the blade on its edge and look how thick it is! How would this cut through stuff?

Weapons have now been this way for over a decade now, and I’m putting this out there to say “Hey Bliz, it’s okay to have some swords that look like real swords again”.

I’m going to post a few examples. You’ll have to look them up on WoWhead or something, I can’t post a lot of links.

Before Wrath:
Drake Talon Cleaver
Twinblade of the Phoenix

Notice they look thin enough to cut and metallic?

After Wrath:
Poisonfire Greatsword
(This sword is fairly thin, but looks like stone)
Cataclysmic Ggladiators Ggreatsword
(looks like stone AND thick, too thick to cut)
Militant Eexarchs Longsword
(this sword actually has some reflection, I was surprised, but look how thick it is!)

Anyway,
The point was I wanted to have a conversation about this topic and see people’s thoughts.

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It’s hard to make thin sleek designs pop when you can make something bigger and have room to work with.

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WoW is really cartoony so they can do this more than other games, but I agree, need some more diverse weapons

The quality of steel was key to getting away with thin blades.

You could cut with an outrageously thick World Of Warcraft blade, but it would probably destroy the edge quickly, or even shatter the sword because of the huge weight, and be very unwieldy even to someone magically strong enough to lift them.

Japanese swords are thicker than European swords because Japanese steel was crappy and rather impure, Japan did not have crucible steel or knew how to work iron into spring steel.

Therefore, a katana has a much thicker blade to keep them from shattering, whereas a Euro crucible steel sword did not need to make such sacrifices to retain durability.

You could bend a spring steel arming sword 45 degrees with your foot and not damage it…getting off topic…

Point is, this is fantasy so daggers can look like giant teeth and hammer heads can be 60 pounds-300 pounds…when in reality a hammer head would have been only a few pounds.

While we’re on that, Sylvanas wouldn’t use a bow, bows were really an upper body weapon and women practically never used bows in battle …but that doesn’t matter because fantasy…

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Not just weapons, even the bfa raid gear looks as bad as wrath leveling blues.

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Just look at HoTS. Pretty much every “blade” counts both as a paddle and a mace. Hate that sort of design to be fair, with the huge non-functional weapons. I know I am holding one right now, but it is just a placeholder while I look for something that better fits my transmog.

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Not trying to start a fight, but I am curious as to your observations. I am an amateur metallurgist/blacksmith and find your posting to be confusing. If you compare a sword of similar time lines…say an ulfbrecht (made with crucible steel) and a katana (made with tamahagane); I would disagree and say that the tamahagane steel is quite pure. Yes the crucible has more carbon content; but, there is no way you could bend a ulfbrecht to 45 degrees without breaking. In composition, they are both not even CLOSE to modern spring steel. And, if you compare thicknesses, the katana is much slimmer in design than the crucible blade. They are both fine examples of edged weapons, but I find your thinking and comparison flawed. I am just bored waiting for the patch, so I welcome the debate. Cheers! Thanks for your post

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Not at the spine of the blade. The Spine of a Katana is quite thick when compared to most European swords, even most European Great Swords. Most Katanas are also shorter in reach than European arming/longswords despite being slightly heavier and this is due to the thicker spine. It helps them cut, though, as that extra mass makes for more force.

Katanas are built primarily to be cutting blades, and so their structure, shape, and weight are all designed around the cut. Most European swords are… more all-purpose swords.

A Katana can stab, don’t get me wrong, but if you’re not careful you have a much higher chance of damaging the blade doing that, as the spine is designed and reinforced around being struck and striking on the edge.

If what you stab with a Katana doesn’t yield, depending on how well the Smith was able to remove the impurities from the iron and blend the harder/softer iron together it will flex, bend, or simply snap.

A significant amount of European swords will run in to the same problem, though, but they have the advantage of better iron, fewer impurities, and thus European swords will flex and bend versus breaking in the same situations. This is also due to better blade design for stabbing as well, but they are not immune to damage.

This is why Crucible Steel swords, like a genuine Ulfberht blade were regarded as nearly magical in their day. Because the mix of blade design, true steel, and the skill of the smith lead to a blade that would flex where most other swords would break.

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I have held and used ancient japanese swords, but have never been lucky enough to handle an ancient crucible steel sword. No doubt katanas were cutting blades compared to their contemporaries which were much more all-purpose . Is this because managing the carbon content of crucible steel easier to manage than then that of tamahagane, which required burnt straw and such? Do you take into account the differential tempering? I still stand that tamahangane was quite pure by most written standards. Are we comparing apples to oranges? Bye the way, I love prehistoric European blades. I just worry that the comparison between crucible steel and bloom steel isn’t a a logical comparison. Thanks for the discussion.

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As much as I love dual thunderfuries, these fencer’s reach look nice and pointy, IMO.

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Think they got to sharp and pointy with swords and axes, but I agree with daggers.

The curved blades look cool but not much use for stabby stab time.

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I would like some really nice, high definition standard, but well crafted looking weapons.

One of my alts purposes Transmogs into basic stuff, because they are simple, sleek, and not messy, and finding full sets is easy with white gear.

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This is subjective, but I think many animations are much better with more realistically sized weapons.

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As much as I love my warglave collection, I would like to see the thinner warglaves of old added back into the game.

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So, I’m just gonna jump in here, be that guy, and speculate that in prehistorical times no one was forging blades. Those sticks and rocks though, very much in Blizzards design capabilities.

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What?! You mean I can’t stealthily run around and backstab people with this?

I can’t…

I will not believe that !

I mean, I guess you could use it to cut rope I guess as an alternative? Like saw it off

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Tamahagane was not very pure at all, smiths couldn’t melt the metals completely, so carbon would mix unevenly throughout the steel.

It was so impure right out of the fire that smiths had to make huge batches and only cut out the “good bits” that mixed well enough to be used.

Those good parts were definitely good, but they needed folding that purer steel does not need.

That’s why katanas are known to be folded x amount of times, their steel was impure compared to western crucible steel, and folding is only necessary with steel that is impure.

If you continue to fold pure steel, you’ll eventually begin rendering it back into iron.

Not saying Japanese steel was bad, they are all fine weapons because the metal was purified after being harvested from the fire, but their metal working technique was not as developed and it limited them in some ways.

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Well said… Its been awhile since school :slight_smile: My use of prehistory is way out of wack. Let me say between 9th and 10th century BC.? I was just trying to compare viking crucible steel (from Sri Lanka if I’am correct) and Japanese steel. My apologies.

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Thanks everyone for a good discussion. Its a rarity on the forums. Makes me want to go back and do a little reading and research. Have fun and see you in the the patch

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As a Transmogger, I dont see anything after MoP worth getting, with the exception of a few Legion items. I cant see me next expansion (10.0) wringing my hands waiting for legacy loot from BFA. Kinda the same for WoD. Handful of things at best. I miss the artwork of Vanilla, TBC and Wrath. It really hit the wall when it came to Cata, but got a bit interesting in MoP with the Asian theme. But the cavemanesque weapons and armor are not exciting. I think even from an Orc/Troll perspective, they arent exciting