
World of Warcraft’s Celestial Ensemble Cosmetic Set vs. 9.2 Tier Sets
by Magistrate - 3 years ago show comments
Blizzard recently revealed the newest additions to the in-game shop, the Celestial Ensemble
armor transmog set ($20) and Baby Murloc Satch-Shells transmog backpack ($15). Setting aside the latter, I’m looking at the Celestial Ensemble set–with it’s animation, helmet glow, versatile spellbook belt, and general outstanding quality. I look at this set, on sale for $20, and wondering why I can’t help but feel a little more bitter about the recently revealed patch 9.2 tier sets.
Note: I am grateful for the work that Blizzard’s developers, artists, testers, and many others continue to provide in spite of Kotick being shitty, the board being shitty, and generally the industry being really, really shitty. By comparison, the topic of this article is not at all as important. This is not meant as a QQ fest–just feedback.
The recently revealed and long-anticipated patch 9.2 class tier sets
, on the other hand, arguably had decent concept art.
But the execution… I can’t help but to look at them and say not only that they very much feel like starter dungeon sets, that I couldn’t tell what class a player was playing for most of them despite their goal of class fantasy, and overall just that it feels like a let down. We’ve been waiting on a return to tier sets for years, and Blizzard very much knows that. They’ve talked about it for one Blizzcon, if not more. Not to mention we’re still waiting on the remaining heritage armor, to boot.
Source: Wowhead
The Celestial Ensemble, by contrast, comes complete with fully unique belt, chest, glove, head, and shoulder 3D geometry, a unique celestial-themed ground aura, and those astral, chest-height glow effect orbits. I also can’t help but feel this feels much better suited to Mage or even to some degree Priest aesthetics than the new tier set.
This also comes at a time where we’re sort of hurting for things to do. Patch 9.2 probably won’t be out until early or mid spring of 2022 at this point. Patch 9.1 went live in June–meaning 9.1 might last for 9 months or more, by my guess.
I would encourage the company to consider making these attainable by in-game means, such as Mythic+, achievements generally, or some other, non-rng and non-cash shop option. But more than that, I just hope going forward we see a little more wow-factor in new tier sets.