WoW Cataclysm: Worst Dressed List
I'm something of a WoW armor enthusiast and some really, really nice sets came out for this expansion in the form of tier raiding gear and arena season armor. But of course with the good comes the bad. Here are my top three (personal choice) dud-duds for this expansion.
Honorable mentions:
Rogue (Tier 13)
It's not fair to call this set "bad" because, really, it isn't - there's some neat detail with the stitching pattern and those shoulders are hella cool. It's just the...helm. Stick a cape on that and prepare to become the hero Undercity deserves but doesn't need.
Third Place:
Paladin (Tier 13)
As with the Tier 13 Rogue, to start this looks like a really nice set. Some pearly, cathedral-like white, gold plating, lovely cyan accents and simply designed but effective shoulders. Also like with the Tier 13 Rogue, we come to the helm, and while the Rogue stealths away from the third spot thanks to the set's very-cool shoulders and funny but not terrible Batman-like helm, the Tier 13 Paladin...what.
It looks like huge, fab eyebrows are spreading from the model's face and flapping off into the sky. Not even Druids are tacky enough to put that kind of wingspan on their face (or are they?) If the wings on the helm were removed or just made very, very small and quietly decorative this would have been a lovely, subtle but very co-ordinated set. Now it just look like Light-wielders are heading off to Mardi Gras.
Second place:
Druid (Tier 11)
Well obviously I spoke a bit too soon.
Tacky. This...is tacky. There is too much going on with the mantle. From the feet up to the chestpiece the set is quite nice with some feather, stitching, and colour co-ordination. The only thing kept in the helm and the shoulders, though, are the colours and feathers. Those weird single-talon guards on the shoulders clash and are just uuuuuuugly, as is the beak and the stitch-guard helm. Those glowing, flat diamonds are ugly too (there's a nice, big blue jewel on the kilt and gloves, why wouldn't you use jewels instead?) Worse still, the diamond placement on the helm makes it look like the bird-shape of it has big stupid diamond googly-eyes. The wings on the shoulders are okay, but the feather mullet on the helm is not. In animation, this set's shoulders will glow, spark with lightning and constantly have feathers falling from the wings. That is TOO MUCH. Choose one or two, don't go with all three. Alternate colour combinations don't work either. Piss yellow, dirt brown and puke green? There are others and they don't help. This set looks decent from the feet to the neck and it all goes downhill from there. This only places second and not first for that nice pre-shoulders/helm bit, and the fact that this is, for better or for worse, very Druid-savvy in design (relates to Druids of the Talon).
First Place:
Rogue (Tier 11)
Oh Rogue, you thought you could get away.
This entire set...is a disaster. And what makes it especially discouraging is the fact that the idea behind it was really neat. For the Tier 11 Rogue Blizz was going for a sort of Arabian/desert bandit sort of motif, which works great with the Rogue class, as well as the Uldum questing area, where the Tier 11 raid was held (which also features Arabian-style wind elementals, specifically final boss Al'Akir). Not only that, it's a small throwback to the Ethereals of Burning Crusade, which came back in Cataclysm to man the item re-forging, void banks, and transmorgrification. It all ties together so nicely.
WHY DID THIS GO WRONG?
First of all, these colour combinations are atrocious. A vibrant bright glue glow mixing with those armor palettes does NOT WORK. If the glow was different for each colour set it's possible this may have meshed better, but it does not.
The design of the armor itself before the mantle and helm isn't tooooo bad, save for that weird, ugly spotted pattern on a few areas. It looks lightweight, leathery - good for a Rogue, and even has a few nice jewel placements for that Arabic touch. It's topped off with a turban, which is okay, but you can barely see the turban in the MESS around the head.
The shoulders and mask are torn bandages floating in that huge, bright blue ethereal glow. They come out of no where and don't correspond with anything else in the armor (see: diamond things on Druid Tier 11). What makes it worse than Druid T11, though, is that they chose to make it the main incorporation of the shoulders. Why couldn't some of these wrapping be on the rest of the armor? Hanging off the gloves, for example? And what's up with those weird shuriken things on the sides of the shoulders?
What makes this armor set particularly offensive though is that glow. That burning, ethereal glow. This is armor for a ROGUE - Rogues are quiet, stealthy, hidden, calculating masters of the shadows. How are you supposed to sneak up and gank a bitch when you're lit up brighter than the Sunwell? Furthermore, how the hell does the Rogue even SEE ANYTHING through all that blue haze? It's just a mess, in design, colour and class practicality. When it was first previewed before Cataclysm hit it was heavily ridiculed for the reasons listed above and then some.
Congratulations Rogue Tier 11, you are on the top of my personal worst-dressed Cataclysm list.
