World of Warcraft Tier Armor Raid Sets - Part III, Wrath of the Lich King

Written by Rolf

Within a few weeks after the launch of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, my friend Mario convinced me to start playing again, to do some casual raiding with the remains of our original alliance guild.

The biggest change of this expansion was the introduction of a new 'hero' class, the death knight, that started at level 55 and was limited to 1 character per realm. Since my shaman was already level 70, I continued with my draenei.

The expansion also introduced so-called PvP bosses that drop 2 parts (gloves and legs) of raid tier armor, meaning everyone and their mother could get some of the latest raid gear.

Tier 7 - Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum, Vault of Archavon

Together with a few semi-real-life friends who also revived their accounts, we formed half of a 10-man raid. We gathered the other half from the remains of the guild, all of whom were under-par raiders. In Vanilla, a handful of slackers did usually not affect the outcome of a boss fight, other than causing frustration with the more talented and motivated players. But in a 10-man setup, a handful is half the raid and we struggled to conquer the new Naxxramas.

Soon I was tired of it and wanted more, so I abandoned my draenei again and powerleveled my beloved troll. I was 80 just in time to attend the raid where we got the 25-man Immortal achievement and my black proto-drake.

In the meantime, my future girlfriend had quit the game so we still hadn't met.

Naxxramas was a remake of the level 60 40-man Naxxramas in Eastern Plaguelands, but instead of an end-game raid, it was a starter raid and had lost most of its prestige. The tier graphics were heavily copied and slightly modified versions of their level 60 predecessors. But a goodlooking set of sets nonetheless.

Tier 8 - Ulduar, Vault of Archavon

Back in my horde guild, we continued to clear Ulduar and earned the Ironbound proto-drake. I completed the shaman set and collected a few higher level items from doing 'hard modes'. That was another interesting new feature. By doing the encounter in a special way, like kill order or beating a timed event, you triggered a special mode, 'hard mode' which yielded higher level rewards. These were altogether new items, not high-level versions of normal mode loot.

The raid sets weren't exactly ugly, but they seemed like a collection of separate outfits. They didn't look like they came from the same instance or design department. I was glad I was a shaman and not a warlock, that reminded me of the Terokk birdmen from Skettis. But that wasn't half as bad as the mage's kit. That one was just off, with an odd-looking hat and pants instead of a skirt.

Tier 9 - Trial of the Crusader, Vault of Archavon

The tier 9 sets all seemed to have been designed by the same 1 or 2 designers again. They also matched the origin, the Crusader's Trial. Peculiar thing about the tier 9, though, was that alliance and horde each had their own looks.

Tier 10 - Icecrown Citadel, Vault of Archavon

The long-awaited end-game raid did not disappoint. Icecrown Citadel was huge and felt epic. The boss fights were awesome. We enjoyed our status as best horde guild on the server and I was the best-geared shaman. Or so people with the GearScore addon kept telling me. Rawr. Best thing about this patch was when my girlfriend reinstated her account and we got to know each other and fell in love. Awww.

Raid-wise we cleared up to Lich King heroic in 25-man mode before our guild started collapsing and people stopped showing up while waiting for Cataclysm to come.

» Part I - Vanilla
» Part II - The Burning Crusade
» Part III - Wrath of the Lich King
» Part IV - Cataclysm

Related:
» Walking Down Memory Lane in Warcraft