The Enigma Order

Felt like posting another article I wrote. Comments are really appreciated.
Also, this article is meant to be humorous, so if you feel offended, then that's on you, not me.

Top 10 worst looking armor sets

Armor sets. The classic fantasy idea of finding pieces of armor that together became stronger than the individual parts! And we love them. Not for their set bonuses, and certainly not for their stats – as you can swim in alternative armor pieces. Epics are not the rare breed they used to be. No, we love armor sets for what they represent: I took this dragon, and all I got was this awesome hat, yay! We also love the armor sets because it awakens the collector and completist in us. And most importantly, because we like our character to look fabulous! This chapter of The Book of Obscure Remedies will tackle the armor sets, first the dreadful ones, and then a later chapter will contain the better looking ones.
I will mostly go by the looks of the armor, I will nitpick, and I will be extremely subjective. So your suggestions, your additions to both the lists are obviously welcome.

Have Blizzard run out of ideas? Maybe they need some new designers? If you think the tier 10 sets were boring, then you’re in for a surprise with the tier 11 sets. Warlock set is ripping off warrior tier 5, Rogue loans quite a bit from shaman tier 4, the mage set we’ve seen both warlocks and rogues use before, and the DK set looks like the parody of a DK set (yeah yeah we know, you’re a bad ass... your belt has teeth and your shoulders have burning skulls... neeeext!). The tier 10 and tier 11 sets aren’t bad (with one spectacular exception. Read on to find out), but they are certainly not anything special either. You could for instance recognize Battlegear of Might from 100 yards away, and even though you had never played the game before, you knew it was a warrior. What made the old sets so great, when compared to the new ones? Maybe epics really are that watered out? Maybe it’s that you can get the sets in hundred different colors? Anyway, the most memorable sets – in both a good and bad way – are from pre-wotlk. So naturally, as with the weapons in the last chapter, expect a fair share of nostalgia here too.

Worst:
10. Giantstalker Armor – Hunter tier 1


The hunter sets in wow has something good going for them, they are all based on the theme of the instance. Kill dragons in BWL: get Dragonstalker armor. Kill spiders in Naxx: Get the bug-looking Cryptstalker.And this is cool and all, but at some time you have to repeat yourself. Or begin scraping the barrel. Tier 17 – Koboldstalker. Tier 22 – Murlockstalker. Tier 34 – Gnollstalker.
Another thing that’s special about the hunter sets is that they are all flawed in some way. Neither of them sticks out in any positive way, that’s for sure, and quite a few of them are kinda ugly. I included Giantstalker, but this spot could just as well have been taken by Demonstalker or Riftstalker. Giantstalker gets the spot for the red hotpants and the ridiculous shoulders. 


9. Slayer’s Armor – Rogue tier 6


This one is weird, because the rogues have consistently had great armor sets up until this point. Some may even claim a few of them belong in the other list. But then it all comes crashing down with this piece of crap. Literally. The shoulders look like excrements. And what’s with that ”hood”? And they repeated this total failure when we got similar hoods from Zul Aman.


8. Crystalforge Battlegear – Paladin tier 5


Most of the tier 5 sets were fantastic when it came to looks, but paladins were hit by the curse that every other set is a bad one. I won’t say I agree, as you see with my comment about Lawbringer, but the general opinion is as follows: Paladin sets.
There’s not really any need to point out why Crystalforge makes this list, as it’s just beyond ridiculous. If they just made it white... or translucent. Now that would be something. The codpiece could still be blue though, no need to see the paladin’s junk.


7. Arcanist Regalia – Mage tier 1
 

This set is obviously not a bad looking set. And as you can see my mage wears it very well, it has cute details and lovely colors. It’s a great looking set. For a girl. Now believe me, I’m not insecure about my sexuality (or uh.. the sexuality of my characters), and I don’t think anyone else should be either. And I don’t really believe in boy and girl colors. But there’s no need to wear pink ALL THE TIME! Arcanist makes the list simply due to the fact that it set the standard for all future mage sets to be purple and pink. There you go mages, you’re pink for all eternity, deal with it, love Golemagg w/family.


6. Battlegear of Wrath – Warrior tier 2


Wrath is easily recognizable, and still to this day one of the most memorable warrior sets. One thing about the first three warrior sets is that they are so different. While the latest warrior sets look pretty much identical. That may be due to the nature of wotlk, where everything was brown and rust colored, and was supposed to look like it was made by dirt, crap and skulls. The first warrior set was metallic gray and sported spikes. The second was blue and had that axe thing going. We’ll get back to this. And the third set was all black and had huge skulls.
Wrath, like Arcanist, isn’t a horrible set, specially if you do the simple trick of hiding your headpiece. You see, the first thing that comes to your mind when you look at Wrath isn’t axes, but can openers. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing... if you want soup. My biggest issue is the size of the axe on top. It serves no practical purpose, in fact it would probably hinder you quite a bit. The jaw of the helmet is also interesting, brings our thoughts to other universes.


5. Valorous Dreadnaught Battlegear – Warrior tier 10


Do I dare to do this? One of the most beloved warrior sets reaches the list of the worst sets in the game. Yes I dare. You see, this is in fact not one of the most beloved warrior sets, it’s merely a copy! As with all the tier 7 sets, and the entire instance where they dropped. WotLK was supposed to be something new and refreshing, and the very first raid instance was one we’d already seen. I’ll admit, they released Naxx 40 dangerously close to TBC, and since most players didn’t get to see it, it made sense to re-release it. But it just felt wrong to start off WotLK like this. Another issue was that it took a long time before we saw new content. Many players, me included went tired of the game because of this. And the armor sets... Let’s take a trip down memory lane (what, another? Crowd reacts). Oh yes.
Tier 3 (crowd gasps). There’s really no doubt that this is the strongest collection of sets in the game, and I could fill the ”best” list with 7-8 of them, and you guys in the crowd would probably nod in agreement. Look at it, Frostfire (Oh shit those shoulders look cold!), Boneschythe (damn, that actually looks like real leather!), Plagueheart (eeew, that’s kinda creepy!), Crypstalker (Hey, this hunter set is actually not bad!). And I haven’t even touched the best of them. Fantastic set designs all over. And again, it made sense to re-release them. But why they felt the need to adjust them, making them worse, is beyond me.
Valorous Dreadnaught Battlegear have the typical skull thing going on, and a few interesting details in red and yellow. Is it mustard and ketchup? He’s been eating hotdogs. But if hot dogs are made from cow meat, is he a cannibal?


4. Casters tier 2.5


You have to hand it to Blizzard for listening to their customers. The AQ40 sets were very refreshing, giving warriors, paladins, druids and priests sets that were designed for damage specs. The caster sets were pretty awesome statwise. But damn they ugly.


3. The Postmaster


I know, I said I would be judging the looks on these sets, and everyone knows this is one of the better looking sets in the game. But it’s so damn hard to get, and boring. You are more likely to die of boredom before you complete the set. I speak from experience here. I had 4/5 pieces and was hospitalized for weeks.
The Postmaster is actually kind of a nifty set, and it’s one of many times Blizzard use real life references for their ingame stuff. The NPC you have to kill is named Postmaster Malown, and is based on LA Lakers legend Karl Malone, nicknamed ”The Mailman”, since he always delivered points or something. I can tell you this much, Postmaster Malown does NOT deliver his clothes when you kill him.. uh.. kill him again. He’s already dead. And that is good, I don’t want his stupid set anyway.


2. Aegis Battlegear – Paladin tier 8


The sets from Ulduar were a mixed bag. Sure you had some ok looking, like priest and warrior. But both those classes have had so many other fantastic sets. The warlock set was as usual kinda creepy – which is a good thing when it comes to warlocks. But on the other side, you had some bloody awful sets, and I’m obviously thinking about mage, rogue, hunter. And the worst of them all: Aegis Battlegear, paladin tier 8. The images naturally speaks for itself, and it certainly doesn’t look any better on the male human. But let’s dissect it a bit. Can we make food on the hot plates on the shoulders? What is that giant thing on the forehead? Is it stapled to the forehead? Is it held in place by glue? And ridiculous plate covering the mouth? Is the paladin not allowed to eat or talk? Maybe it’s some kind of chastity thing, we all know the paladin live a life in celibacy. Uh oh..


1. Mercurial Vestments - Priest tier 11


Yup... it's a toilet.