Positive feedback on Season 8 sets

Going to post everything that's good about the new sets here, so the forum feedback evens out a bit. There is so much baseless whining about set looks out there, I felt I had to chime in with why they're awesomesauce. To shorten the wall of text, I've left out the ones I didn't have all that much to say about.


Death Knight: Interesting, albeit surprising, evolution from S7 in that the abstracted human skulls are replaced with what looks to be wyrm skulls (or something, I can't really tell, except for them not being any normal animal). The blue glow has been tuned down, which I think improves on the overall appearance. Just having a slight tint like this brings out the details instead of making the armour look segmented and cartoony.

Druid: The best thing about the druid sets are the shoulders (the rest is mostly just retextured to fit the new theme) and how they grow more organic with every season. You can barely see the small vines starting to form at the tip of the shoulders above the bearpaw in S7, and now the growth has erupted and started to engulf the rest of the shoulder. This effect is also enhanced by the organic spikes protruding from what was previously just wooden nails affixing a strap. Furthermore, the theme of this armour is evidently something akin to Plaguelands/Felwood flora (you can spot the sickly "boils" on the growths and the bear paw losing its colour and becoming greyish) complemented by the change from the former healthy blue baubles in S7 to the yellow ones in S8.

Hunter: This is overall very similar to S7. There are additional trophy tusks on the front of the chestpiece and the ones on the shoulderpads are replaced by bigger ones. The armour also looks more furry and less scaley than the previous seasons (which I think is a good thing for the hunter class mindset). Finally, the colours are cooled quite a bit (as in getting colder, not more fancy), accented by the change from red to blue ornamental gemstones. A lot of people have complained about the hood being changed to a visored helmet, but I have to say I like this better than S6 and S7. The hood looked its best in S5, and compared to the previous two the S8 version is in my opinion an improvement.

Mage: This has just evolved somewhat from S7 with the crown getting a final piece and the shoulders becoming slightly more elaborate and sparkly glowy. The colours are very flashy, some might say a bit too flashy (at least compared to S7 which in my opinion was a masterpiece of colouring, purple and orange never looked so good), but when the guys are already wearing dresses, who am I to judge.

Paladin: This is where I want to give some of the whiners a good ol' slap in the face. Nobody post more about their gear looks then the paladins (heh, insert pink clothing related joke here), and most of the time they are regarding paladins not looking knight-in-shining-armour enough. Well, that time is now! The armour is a great continuation of S7 in terms of making the paladin look more holy-holy than ever. Actually, I'm going to go as far as to say this, along with S7, is the knightliest looking armour to be made since vanilla. The slight caricature in the helmet is what really sells it, though.

Warrior: The warrior sets seem to be the embodiment of Arena season transition. "Will they add even more spikes?!" Personally, I think they managed to do it subtly and elegantly this time. Evolving the ridges on top of the shoulders into blades was good move, and I'm happy they didn't overdo it (as with the axes(?) on the Wrath set). As with the DK set, the glow has been re-done to be more toned down, but where the DK set makes it look frosty, the Warrior now looks like he couldn't wait for the newly forged armour to cool before he put it on. Where the previous seasons looked a bit like opaque plastic, S8 looks really metally and tempered.

Warlock: Saving the bst for last. This is hands down the absolute winner of S8 in terms of looks. Actually, this has to be one of my favourite all time sets. It's not quite Valor, but it's damn close. I can't even decide what the most awesome about this. The colours are fantastic. I might be a sucker for toned down colours (even though WotLK has been very dark and bland at times), but this is both vibrant and controlled at once. Look how dark the contrasting orange makes the rest of the regalia! Just as awesomely awesome are the continuation from S7, which beats even the DK continuation, and that one was damn good. Even with the robe, which is more or less just re-texured, the awesome texture job makes the overall look that much more epic than the previous set. I also love how the little ornamental skull from the S7 hood has evolved into a mask.


Well there ya go. Sorry for leaving out priests and shaman, but I always thought that if you didn't have anything good to say you shouldn't say anything. And the rogue set just changed very little, so there wasn't all that much to say, really (and I think S6 was the best rogue set, with the introduction of white).

If you bothered to read through, maybe you'll now spot the awesomeness in the new sets as well, and will appreciate them like I do.