Six Shamans and Two Druids

A couple of pictures that I drew around the beginning of Cataclysm.

The clothes these shaman are wearing are modeled after the apparel of the Shaman trainers in each of the starting zones. Once, each of the women in this picture was a character on my roster. Aside from Kamalia, only the dwarf and the orc remain — and the orc’s existence is somewhat tenuous.

Hey, look, it’s the curly-haired tauren! The night elf used to be on my roster, too, but, like most of the shamans, she didn’t survive the pruning I did last summer.

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Prize for Most Creative Use of Shapeshifting

I figured I ought to get this posted while the Faire was still going

For Navimie and Akabeko.

4… 3… 2… 1… shift. In unison, the two druids shifted from stealthed cat form to bear form and pushed with all their might. With their heads partially underneath Dubenko, shifting into their more powerful bear avatars was just enough to get them the leverage to try and force Akabeko’s nemesis into a vulnerable and humiliating position…. Time seemed to pass slowly, almost comically, as Dubenko was tipped onto his back and he rocked in the dirt helplessly, his limbs, head and tail pinioning wildly as he bellowed his outrage.

Navimie-kitty and Navimie-bear are kind of hard to see behind Akabeko-kitty and Akabeko-bear, so I’ve made some supplementary images with the layers pulled apart.

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Things my Druids Wear

A collection of Transmogrification Template Kits actually worn in-game by my Tauren Balance/Resto Druid and my Tauren Feral Druid. I will update it whenever I change my in-game TTK. Items that are no longer obtainable are marked with an asterisk (*).

Mistspray

Pauldrons of Malorne (T4), Jinxed Hoodoo Skin, Imposing Belt, Mistspray Kilt*, Cenarion Gloves (T1), Misthide Drape, Rapture
The Spring Gatherer says, “I’m not certain what form of magic was used in the creation of the eggs, and the druids aren’t keen on explaining it to me.”
This unique two-toned look is created using a kilt that vanished in the Shattering. If you don’t have one, use the Jinxed Hoodoo Kilt that matches the tunic.
I chose these gloves because they match Kerisa’s tan fur color so well that she almost looks like she’s not wearing gloves at all. Another character might want different gloves.

Woodland Blossom

Preened Ironfeather Shoulders, Dervish chestpiece & leggings, Headhunter’s belt gloves & boots, Willow Cape, Bright Yellow Shirt
The pale pink stripe down the center of the shirtfront is the perfect finishing touch for this spring outfit.

Sun, Moon, and Stars

Raven-Heart Headdress, Mantle of Autumn, Starry Robes of the Crescent, Moonrage Girdle, Stormrider’s Gloves (T11 Normal), Glaive of the Pit
One of the most exciting things about Patch 5.2 was the expansion of Transmogrification to allow all weapons that use the same animations to be cross-Transmogrified. I’ve long thought that the Glaive of the Pit coordinates with the Starry Robes of the Crescent very beautifully, but as a Balance Druid who will never legitimately equip a polearm because there are no +Int polearms, I couldn’t use this combination in a proper Transmogrification kit — until now!
If I can ever get them, I’d love to use the Stormrider’s/Passive Resistor Spaulders in this set.

Forest Dweller

Tracker’s Headband, Forest Leather Mantle, Archer’s Jerkin & Trousers, Deviate Scale Belt, Dervish gloves & boots
A set with a name like “Archer’s” seems like it ought to be ideal for a Hunter. Alas, this set is leather, and even among NPCs, it is more frequently seen on Druids. These NPC Druids, found on Shalandis Isle in the Ghostlands, are wearing the Archer’s core items with furry Bristlebark accessories.
The pattern for the Deviate Scale Belt is no longer obtainable in the game, but you can still have one made if you can find a Leatherworker who already has the pattern — or you could just watch the AH for the Archer’s set belt, which is identical.

Heart’s Blood

Cutthroat’s Mantle, Wolf Rider’s Padded Armor, Bard’s belt pants gloves & boots
On another character, I might use a Pink Mageweave Shirt with this set, but with her pure white fur, I didn’t think Kaiuna needed it.

Nordrassil Nymph

Nordrassil Wrath-Mantle, Big Voodoo Robe, Sentinel Girdle, Runic Leather Gauntlets, Lavender Mageweave Shirt
Although only the shoulders are identical, this combination was definitely inspired by how adorable Zazzy’s druid looks in her outfit that uses the T6 shoulders with the Conqueror’s Nightsong (T8-25s) chestpiece.

O Tannenbaum

Preened Tribal War Feathers, Darkbrand shoulders, Ymirjar Physician’s Robe, Feral Cord, Bark-Gloves of Ancient Wisdom, Conifer Cone Staff, Red Lumberjack Shirt
I love the pinecone-like look of these Cataclysm-era shoulders, but I’ve had trouble working them into an outfit. This isn’t perfect — I wish the colors of the shoulders were a little brighter — but it will do. The only thing missing to complete the look is a Miniature Winter Veil Tree, but it would be a lucky thing indeed if Kerisa manages to get one before the holiday ends.

Snowball Stalker


Tracker’s Headband/helm not shown, Ghostwalker shoulders chest & pants, Moss Cinch (green)/Bard’s belt (red), Bard’s gloves & boots
This idea is mostly borrowed from WoW:Fashion; I added a hat and had to find a different belt because Kaiuna is a Kitty!Druid, not a Monk. I used the green hat & belt during Winter Veil. The Adventurer’s Bandana would be the perfect headpiece for the all-red version of the set; perhaps by the time Kaiuna is leveled up enough to wear it, it will have shown up on my AH.

Misthide

Misthide set, Funeral Pyre
This crafted set, which can be worn by level 85 characters just starting out in Pandaria, is identical to many other dropped or purchasable items.

Darkmoon Acrobat


Headhunter’s shoulders belt gloves & boots, Darkmoon Vest, Gypsy leggings,Cloak of the Darkmoon Faire
I tried adding the Bright Yellow Shirt to this set, then decided that it didn’t really need it. The sleeveless Bold Yellow Shirt might look good, though.

Windscale Sarong (Balance)


Chieftain’s Headdress, Shoulderpads of Dormant Energies, Wild Draenish Vest, Sentinel belt, Windscale Sarong, Runic Leather Gauntlets, Golden Filigreed Doublet, Conifer Cone Staff
This outfit is a little bit different from how I originally imagined it. In the interest of conserving inventory space, I used the Runic Leather Gauntlets because I already had them, and I decided not to get the cloak because I didn’t have any other potential outfits already in Kerisa’s inventory that it would go with.

Phaelia’s Vestments (Resto)

Headdress of the Verdant Circle, Somber Shawl/Shoulderpads of Dormant Energies, Phaelia’s Vestments of the Sprouting Seed, Thatch Eave Vines, Aessina-Blessed Gloves, Green Workman’s Shirt/Golden Filigreed Doublet, Staff of the Verdant Circle
When I originally made this outfit, I was using the Somber Shawl merely as a placeholder until Baron Geddon coughed up the Cenarion Spaulders for me. After I finally got the Cenarion shoulders, however, I discovered that Phaelia’s Vestments looked better to me with the muted greens and browns of the Somber Shawl than with the brighter greens and browns of the T1 shoulders.

Ninja II

Ghostwalker Pads, Dusky Leather Armor, Scouting Trousers, Bandit belt gloves & boots
I spent several quite amusing minutes just rappellingjumping up and down the mountain to get this screenshot.
See version I on the Rogue page.

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art post: in cahoots

For Akabeko and Navimie.

The rockets spun completely around and settled on Akabeko.
“T A R G E T – A C Q U I R E D,” the rabbit chirped helpfully.

Wire cutters in hand, Akabeko frantically began snipping connections inside the rabbit, hoping to deactivate it. The rockets began to hum. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” she muttered, snipping away.

Calmly, her friend leaned forward and flicked the switch off.

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Coming Soon: Stuff my Characters Wear

This weekend has been pretty exciting.

I went to put something in Void Storage, not having looked in my Void Storage since I transferred most of my characters from Lightninghoof to Bloodhoof nearly a month ago, and was horrified to find that it was empty! Completely empty, on all the characters who had it! I put in a ticket, and after a false start when I got a boilerplate response about loot being misassigned during a raid, GM Jeydolen chatted with me. Jeydolen assured me that all the stuff was still there, and suggested that a UI error might be why I couldn’t see it. After performing the UI reset that Jeydolen suggested, I still couldn’t see my stuff. The Void Storage dude was giving me the tutorial box, without asking for money to (re)open Void Storage, so I clicked through it and voila, my stuff appeared! Then I felt a little silly — perhaps I had just needed to click through the tutorial boxes again to begin with, and I didn’t really need to have done the UI reset. I was still very appreciative of Jeydolen’s prompt, gracious, and helpful response to my second ticket. Thank you, GM Jeydolen!

Then I went to this weekend’s Laid Back Raid with Kerisa. Karazhan and Gruul’s Lair were on the ticket, and I hoped to get the T4 shoulder token. I didn’t, but after Kara and Gruul, part of the group continued on to Magtheridon and from thence, at my suggestion, to Tempest Keep, where Kerisa scored the T5 shoulder token. Many thanks to the estimable Coolidge for heading up that part of the evening!

Kerisa earned the T9 and T10 shoulders as my raiding main in late Wrath, and she still has them in her bank. After the debut of Transmogrification, she farmed Molten Core for weeks on end until she got the T1 shoulders. In ES guild fun runs (prior to the server transfer) and previous LBRs, she has picked up the T3/7, T6, and T8 shoulders. Now she just needs to get the T4 and T11-Normal shoulders to complete her collection of Favorite Druid Shoulders! (and then I’ll have to start working on outfits to go with them all )

One of my greatest regrets about Cataclysm is that I didn’t manage to get the T11 Druid shoulders when they were current content. I wanted them from the moment I first saw them, but I left Kerisa untouched for months to ensure that Kamalia would be my raiding main. By the time I finally got Kerisa ready for raiding, there wasn’t enough time left in T11 for her to get a pair of those gorgeous blue feathered T11 Druid shoulders before T12 arrived. Well, actually, she did see the T11 shoulder token drop once… and she passed on it, because she felt like the Resto Druid raid leader of ES’s alt run deserved it more. (Sometimes, in my more selfish moments, I wish I’d gone ahead and rolled on it normally.)

Finally, ever since I started writing this blog, I’ve intended to eventually do a series on “Stuff my Characters Wear”. Over the last few days, I’ve begun working on it. I’ve been going through all the alts for whom I have long-term goals and attempting to put together for each one of them a coherent, attractive ensemble that I’d be happy to see her wearing for a long time. It’s a lot easier for the higher level characters! On my lower-level characters, the outfits I’ve been making are frequently only partially Transmogrified, but the idea is to make something that would also be an attractive full Transmogrification Template Kit for a high-level character. Some of my characters will need to gain a level or few of XP before I can get them into an outfit that I like. For the time being, I am focusing only on Transmogrification-friendly outfits. After the initial set of posts is done — but not immediately — I also plan to expand the series to include “wrong” or mixed gear-type pure RP outfits.

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art post: Intervention

for Akabeko

Iharu tapped her chin thoughtfully while Akabeko pecked at her side with a useless clang. “That new guy Had could probably help us set her up with some proper druid pursuits. Maybe she could mentor him?”

Katza created a portal to Orgrimmar, and together they stuffed their protesting friend back into respectable society.

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MOG MADNESS round 2: Glaive of the Nether-Beast Master

Amateur Azerothian, Effraeti, and Tome of the Ancient have teamed up to bring Mog Madness to the WoW blogosphere! There will be five rounds, and each round will have a different “Mog Build” prompt. For the second round, the Mog Build criteria are these: Hunter or Druid (using class-appropriate gear type), must incorporate Glaive of the Pit/Marrowstrike as the weapon.

As it so happens, just a few weeks ago, I took my caster Druid, Kerisa, on a guild fun run night that started in Magtheridon’s Lair, then continued to Ulduar. The Glaive of the Pit dropped from Magtheridon, and I won the greed roll for it. Looking at that beautiful blue and gold weapon made me sad that polearms will never, ever be itemized for casters, because it matched what Kerisa was already wearing so perfectly!

For the purposes of the contest, however, I decided to look into mail and let my Hunters, Ketura, Katelyra, and Kerithian, be my models.

Mixing blue and gold makes green, and, as it happens, there are a matching set of beautiful gold, green, and blue mail breastplate and leggings — the Netherstrike Breastplate and the Leggings of Beast Mastery.

Thunderbringer’s Guard, Pauldrons of the Promise, Netherstrike Breastplate, Dreadhawk’s Girdle, Leggings of Beast Mastery, Triumphant Gauntlets, Radiant Boots, Permafrost Cape, Glaive of the Pit

This is the second time I’ve wanted to make an outfit for Ketura using this combination of chestpiece and leggings. Unfortunately, the chestpiece is a Bind-on-Pickup crafted item. I’m beginning to think that perhaps I should drop Ketura’s Mining, level Leatherworking until she can craft the Netherstrike Breastplate, make it, and then drop Leatherworking and relevel Mining (her other profession is Engineering, and no way am I dropping and releveling that!).

Ketura is also extremely unlikely to ever visit Al’Akir in the Throne of the Four Winds, so if I ever make this outfit for her in-game, she will probably use the much easier to obtain Cloak of the Moon instead of the Permafrost Cape.

Suggested ranged weapons to use with this Transmogrification Template Kit:

Mark “S” Boomstick, Expedition Repeater, Moonbow
I have deliberately chosen simply-styled ranged weapons to not compete with the elaborate melee weapon and to keep the visual focus of the ensemble on the chestpiece and leggings when in combat.

As the Thunderbringer’s Guard is a Horde-only quest reward, I have used the neutral quest reward Princess Poobah’s Tiara for Kerithian.

Round 2 Results!

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A Rainbow of Classy Clothes

In which I have an irresistably silly idea to compile a Transmogrification-friendly outfit for each Class using that Class’s color.

Death Knight Maroon: Tyrant’s Epaulets, Breastplate of the Warbringer, Legguards of the Shattered Hand, Thorium Belt, Bloodforged boots & gloves, Sawbones Shirt

Druid Orange: Warchief Kilt, Scorpashi shoulders, Dokebi tunic belt boots & gloves, Orange Mageweave Shirt

Rogue Yellow: Robust set with Headhunter’s Girdle and Bright Yellow Shirt

Hunter Green: Bog Epaulets, Turtle Scale chest & pants, Der’izu belt boots & gloves, Green Linen Shirt

Mage Cerulean: Lunar Mantle, Robes of the Exalted, Belt of Arcane Storms, Runed Spell-Cuffs, Royal gloves & boots, Cerulean Filigreed Doublet
I tried to stick to items that could be obtained solo, but it was very, very difficult to find a belt that layered well with this robe. The golden Sutarn’s Ring also looks reasonably good.

Shaman Blue: Elements set (soon to be available again as “replica”-quality items from the renovated Darkmoon Faire) with Blue Linen Shirt
Okay, I cheated with this one because Shaman have a wonderful class set that is already in their class color — and, as far as the datamining at WoWhead can tell, the replica items will NOT be class-exclusive!

Warlock Purple: Twilight Cultist Shoulders, Death-Speaker’s Tunic, Darkweave Breeches, High Councillor’s belt, Gloves of the Deadwatcher, Kayser’s Boots of Precision, Rich Purple Silk Shirt

Paladin Pink: Bloodscale set with Commander’s Pauldrons & Pink Mageweave Shirt

Warrior Brown: Brutish set with Rustic Workman’s Shirt

Priest White: Gossamer robe and shoulders, Aurora belt, Sage’s boots, Gandling’s Gloves, Formal White Shirt

~*~*~

And here they are again, arranged by armor type:

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Tier 13 and Tier retrospectives: Kamalia’s personal favorites

I wanted to see all of the Tier 13 previews before I shared my opinions on it.

The Shaman T13 looks pretty cool, but not so awesome that I can’t wait to begin replacing my T12. I definitely won’t be showing that hat — I’ll probably transmogrify it to something still wolfish, but a little more classy, such as the Headdress of the First Shaman. The wolf-skull shoulders look awesome on the Orc model, but I’m not sure if I’ll like them on Kamalia. I think it might be fun to play a little Transmogrification mix-and-match between the items of T13 and the items of the black Earthfury (T1) recolor from Outland.

Kerisa’s still in T11, and she’d be perfectly happy to skip right over T12 in favor of T13. Again, I’ll be either not showing the hat or transmogrifying it into something more attractive — most likely the Cenarion (T1) antlers because I haven’t got the Malorne (T4) antlers or the Nordrassil (T5) or Nightsong (T8) crowns. The glowing mushrooms on the shoulders are a neat iteration on previous woodsy shoulder designs, and I hope they provide Akabeko’s leatherworkers with a bit of a respite from the trials they’ve had to endure while crafting other recent Druid tier sets.

Of the other T13 sets, the ones that make me wish I had a raiding character of that class are (from least to most desired) the Vestments of Dying Light (Priest), Timelord Regalia (Mage), and Battleplate of Radiant Glory (Paladin). The Vestments of Dying Light are pretty cool in a spooky sort of way. I love the design of the robe, but I think that helm will look bizarre on a long-faced character such as a Tauren or a Worgen. The steampunk stylings of the Timelord Regalia are a refreshing and fun change from the more usual wizardly look of a Mage. I like the quilted detailing on the upper part of the robe and the way the buckled straps at the bottom hint that the kilt could be refashioned into trousers at a moment’s notice for greater mobility. The gold-trimmed silver of the Battleplate of Radiant Glory is the most classically “Paladin”-like look (to my sense of aesthetics) of Cataclysm so far. To me, the feathery details suggest an avenging, defending, mighty seraphim.

For a brief review of my favorite Tier looks for every class, follow the cut:

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art post: ES tanks prepare for battle

And I’m back! Here are a few things I drew while I was on vacation over the past two weeks.

A little bored-at-the-airport doodle. Ronada has Baby Spice over his head to explain why the Bear is so much smaller than the other two.

These are the five girls I’ve mentioned previously. Can you tell that I watched Enchanted again over my vacation?

This year I gave myself a project to complete at least one piece of artwork every month by printing up a blank calendar. For this month, I took the calendar and a box of Prismacolor Verithin pencils with me on my vacation, and sketched this little lake that we hiked to while we were at BTH’s grandma’s cabin.

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