Making Legion's Transmog Feature Work for You - MMOGames.com

Usually I wouldn’t worry too much about what’s coming up in a World of Warcraft Expansion, but Legion is creating an interesting new precedent. The much anticipated Transmog ‘Wardrobe’ feature means that if you want a particular look for your toon, no longer do all the items required to construct it have to sit in bags taking up space, but will instead be learned automatically within a special UI which will be available account wide. Making Legion’s Transmog feature work for you is potentially a full-time job for those players who’ve never really collected any items for cosmetic change before, but you need not be alarmed. I am here to tell you that now is the PERFECT time to not only be collecting items in anticipation of this change, but also to earn some gold on the side to boot. Let’s face it, any chance to generate free money is great, even if you can afford to buy a Token or two with real life cash to sell. For me at least, making Legion’s Transmog feature work is about to become an exercise in crafting expertise. It’s a labor of love that allows me to embrace eleven years of production and sale, across every single Expansion.

I intend to do my level best to craft one of every pattern in Leatherworking I own in preparation for this change.

If I believe my addon (and Ackis Recipe List is pretty solid) I own 870 of the 885 possible Leatherworking recipes currently available in game. I’ll never get a Kodo Hide Bag as Alliance scum, so that means there are 14 recipes I am yet to see, but that doesn’t stop me scouring my AH in the vain hope they’ll finally appear. However, this exercise isn’t about filling holes, I’m attempting to make every item at least once if the look is unique. The Transmog UI in Legion suggests that color variations are learned automatically when you pick up at least one item that shares that ‘skin’, so that’s the goal that is going to be worked towards There’s also a ton of of stuff in Leatherworking that harks back to the ‘classic’ age of World of Warcraft crafting, and that means I’m going to have my work cut out for me in making some of these items a reality. There’s undoubtedly going to be grinding too but I’ve never really been put off by hard work when it comes to getting the job done. Making Legion’s Transmog feature work means that I’ll have as many looks as possible already completed before the game goes live. Suddenly, being one of those ridiculously organized individuals will finally pay off.

Last night I went off in search of leather in anticipation of starting this project. Once upon a time the grind for such things was both long and tedious and players would keep their favorite spots a closely guarded secret. Then the internet came along and made the guide an indispensable part of the playing process. Guides really do help you find the best areas to farm. Hence I found myself on a Tuesday night in the Wetlands, where a bunch of rapidly spawning Orcs meet a group of equally fast spawning dragons. The result is a pretty constant stream of skinnable fare and last night I struck doubly lucky when I found someone already in the spot with no interest at all in the mobs for their carcasses, simply what they dropped when dead. There’s a Battle Pet in the loot table for these guys that is certainly worth the effort but I don’t think my Undead Monk realized the potential he was wasting until I’d racked up a 200 stack plus of both Light and Medium leather. Then he called for an Orc buddy to come clean up for him and I took my leave, because a good gold maker knows not when to push her luck.

So, I now have stacks of basic raw materials. However, this is only half of the story.

Making things back in Vanilla was designed to be deliberately awkward. You’d be asked to provide raw materials which undoubtedly involved some kind of ridiculous ask: whether it was herbs from inside of what was then 20 man Zul’Gurub, or scales from World Event dragons it took 40 people or more to dispatch, these reagents undoubtedly never came cheap. Then there would be the encyclopedic knowledge required of pretty much every elemental mob on two/three/four continents (delete where you came in) in order to craft stuff before you had to skin anything with a pulse for the framework on which you constructed the garments. Needless to say, the simplification of Skinning and Leatherworking in Legion is a pleasant change, but it does at least give a passing nod to all of that effort that used to be necessary to ensure you had everything required for your task. In fact I would go so far as to say that the Devs have struck a sweet spot between making crafting feel like another chore and presenting you with a genuine adventure. You don’t just need leather any more as it was in Draenor: scales are back, and they come from turtles as well as dragons. You don’t have a lot of variety and instead of hunting down higher level raw materials, they’ will drop automatically when you attain the right level of competency. There is some overlap too: at least one of the base level Leatherworking recipes require Broken Isles gems, for instance, which will be good news for those of us in the room with multiple crafters.

But I digress, and I don’t want to spoil you for content we don’t have yet, rather prepare you for that which is coming. Needless to say you’ll want to learn Professions from scratch again in the next Expansion, and you’ll thank yourself for doing this preparation now rather than when there is actually new content to consume instead of the same stuff that’s existed since last year (give or take). For now, as you can see, I’ve got pretty much all I need but if anyone has any Bloodvine I think I might need that, unless that was actually removed in a patch. It all gets a bit complicated as you head further into each Expansion, especially over what were quite ridiculous lists of materials in The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. No matter, I will make it all, and I’m going to really enjoy the process. I’m palpably excited over clearing out bankalts and the prospect of having to find grinding spots for all the varieties of leather I will undoubtedly be short of. I can see time in Outland and Northrend in my future, and frankly that is never a bad thing.

Of course, making Legion’s Transmog feature work for you could well start with Tailoring or Blacksmithing. I don’t envy Engineers having to make all those goggles, and I’m a bit nervous about what I’ll need as a Scribe to knock out the weapons they can craft. Fortunately, Jewelcrafting only has to worry about clothing items and not rings or necklaces, which is probably no bad thing for all concerned. However, if we’re talking about other items of interest for the Transmog Wardrobe? Both tabards and shirts are included as additions, and you’re going to want to look at both of those closely in the weeks that follow, especially those of you who need to work on reputations to secure Exalted status and access to the overgarment they present. Shirts could be a great way for Tailors to rake in the golds prior to Legion too, as I can tell you now that there is an achievement (understandably called Fabulous) in store for collecting 25 items in every slot apart from necks, rings and trinkets. So yes, that will be 300 items required across all of your characters. Now you may understand my enthusiasm to begin this process well before the Expansion hits, and with as many BoE items as possible so that I can store them in vanity banks anticipating release.

There will be some of you at this point looking at me with disparaging eyes, and I can entirely understand this regard. However, let me say this in response: I don’t raid any more. I gave it up because it made me ill and caused stress in an environment where I thought the whole idea was to enjoy myself. Having stopped raiding, and in the long run worrying too much about being competitive at anything, this is now how I relax. Yes, this is actually making me vibrate with excitement as I type, because I have a chance to beat a part of the game entirely on my own terms and nobody else’s. The significance of this cannot be adequately overstated either. Making Legion’s Transmog feature work for me allows a measure of joy and excitement that I’d actually forgotten existed. It’s not just this exercise that has re-energized me, I’ll be honest, but we’ll talk more about my other new diversions next week. For now if you see me in-game on the EU servers, the chances are that I’m farming for something related to this project. I have only myself to beat: there are no world firsts to be had here, or server league tables to concern myself with. I have 25 x 12 slots to fill before Legion launches, and I feel that this goal is utterly and totally attainable.

Wish me luck as I start my journey today. I’m going to need it.