Non Tier Gear FTW

To say I was disappointed the day that the paladin tier 8 armour was released would be an understatement, after running through naxxramas as banana man with non matching black boots, I was looking forward to a much better looking armour set to tank in. The paladin tier 8 model was actually revealed very early on in sketches which can be found in the collectors edition art book. As I flicked through the art book and gazed upon the sketch, I thought to myself oh this must be some sort of rubbish shaman armour. You will never catch me going anywhere near that. I was sadly mistaken, as mmo champion released data mined models of tier 8 and later on confirmed the hideous set was in fact for paladins. Paladin tier 2, 6 and 5 to a lesser extent had been some of the greatest looking models in the game but they are only memories now with tier 6 still taking valuable space in my bank.

I have always felt somewhat of an outcast tank. I remember levelling as prot back in The Burning Crusade and people would laugh when I said I could tank for them. Blizzard also had their part to play. Instead of making paladins viable main tanks they instead designed gimmick fights where aoe tanking was a must and every top end guild had to have a tankadin. The latest expansion has gone some way to adjust the tanking system so that all classes are somewhat equal but still different, however there is still the annoying fact that tanking gear models is designed to suit warrior tier. I mentioned before that I was running round in full yellow paladin gear but for the black tanking boots that stuck out , it seems that blizzard is holding onto the belief that warriors are “the tanking class”. I mean how hard would it be to offer boots with the same tanking stats but a different texture to suit all tanking classes?

When tier 8 was on the PTR, I had a look and realised the set bonuses were not great and decided that I would not look so ridiculous and instead I would collect the non tier tanking gear which drops from various Ulduar bosses. I have had some great success acquiring the non set armour, which is basically a copy cat of warrior tier 8 with a different texture. The best thing about it is everything more or less matches and the stats are great, the only thing that niggles in my mind is the small set bonuses from the tier gear.