Saturday, June 30, 2012

Transmogrifying your demon: Part 1

I'm pretty excited about a lot of things coming in Mists of Pandaria. As a mount collector I'm pretty happy to see a plethora of new mounts added to the game and, as a chronic altaholic, I like that I'll be able to use all of my mounts on all of my characters with a few exceptions. As a PvE focused player I'm looking forward to the new raids, dungeons, PvE scenarios and hundreds of daily quests being added. However, even with all of that (and much more) coming with the new expansion, I think I'm most excited about the newly redesigned Glyph of Felguard.

Glyph of Felguard: Your Felguard will equip a random two-handed axe, sword or polearm from your backpack.
I love visual customization in a video game. Whether it's creating a seven-foot-tall mutant teddy bear in City of Heroes or picking just the right outfit in Tony Hawk's Underground, it's a gameplay mechanic that I've always been able to lose myself in, so Transmogrification in WoW has been a pretty big hit for me. It's also no surprise that, when told I would be able to choose the weapon my Felguard carries around, I instantly started digging through my various addons, programs and favorite websites looking for the "the perfect weapon" . . . or at least a sizeable collection to pick and choose from.

The biggest problem with this glyph I see is simply that no one seems to know about it. Even dedicated warlocks I know that are actively playing on the beta are giving me "Wait, we can do what?" type responses when I bring it up. That said, I felt it time to sit down and talk about this little piece of awesomeness.
  • It does exactly what it says it does. ANY two-handed Axe, Sword or Polearm. It doesn't even need to be soulbound so you can grab a cool looking green off the Auction House, use it and relist it if you feel the need.
  • The wording is important. The glyph specifically pulls from weapons in your backpack, meaning the standard 16-slot bag that everyone has and cannot be replaced. If it's in another bag that you have equipped, it won't work. This is actually kind of nice as you can carry around multiple weapons to change things up while still having control over which one your demon uses. Just keep the one you want in your backpack and the rest in another bag.
  • It works with both your standard Felguard and your Grimoire of Supremacy Wrathguard. The Wrathguard, however, is a dual-wielding pet and will pull two different weapons out of your backpack and have a different one equipped in each hand. As of this current beta build, if only one weapon is in your backpack it will equip it in the main hand and leave the off-hand unchanged.
Personally, I would like to see the Wrathguard dual-wield your weapon of choice when only one is in your backpack. I suspect you might be able to force this by having two copies of the same weapon, but that seems a somewhat tedious mechanic for something that is intended to be nothing more than a fun cosmetic option. It's also possible that the glyph simply isn't currently functioning as intended and will be changed before launch.

In any case, this is looking to be a very awesome addition to the game and fits perfectly with what the developers have stated they want to do with minor glyphs. Next time, I'll start taking a look at some of my favorite weapons and the ones I'll personally be hunting down for my own use.

1 comment:

  1. I think this glyph is super fun. As a roleplayer, I have occasionally written about warlocks and their demons, and I think it's fun to give a demon a specific personality. If I could actually convince myself to level my lock, I would for sure be out collecting fun weapons, just so I could make sure I had one that fits. :)

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