It’s official – World Of Warcraft is bringing back class armour with the new Tier sets in the upcoming Shadowlands update, Eternity’s End.
Blizzard has revealed that World of Warcraft is bringing back class armour with a whole new range of Tier gear available in the upcoming raid, Sepulcher Of The First Ones.
During an interview with NME, lead game designer Morgan Day discussed the new class armour sets and how they might change the way you play.
“When people think of class armour sets, they think of unique set bonuses,” he said. “If you’re an Affliction Warlock, you’ll have an Affliction bonus and it’ll change into Destruction or whatever if you change specs.”
“We want to not only create a spec bonus but also something that might change the way you engage with your class,” added Day. “That’s always been something that we felt was valuable with armour sets in previous World of Warcraft expansions – it’s a way to make your gameplay feel fresh every time we introduce a new armour set.
Of course, this is nothing new – Tier sets have often given players new ways to play their class, with additional bonuses and changes to class spells or abilities.
Recommended
“Maybe it changes your rotation in a specific way. It’s like, ‘okay cool, I need to engage with the set bonus so it will mix up my gameplay and that makes it feel like my gameplay isn’t getting stale over the course of multiple patches’.”
But while class sets have appeared in World of Warcraft since early in the game’s development, these new Tier sets mark the first time we’ve seen class-based armour since Tier 21 back in 2017.
“We’re bringing back sets, so we have an opportunity to really reimagine what they might be,” explained Day. “We’ve been talking about sets coming back and there’s been lots of discussion about it, so just reading player feedback, that was something that we felt we really needed to deliver on.”
But how has the community responded to the new armour sets?
World of Warcraft fans have taken to reddit in droves since the announcement of Eternity’s End to express their disappointment at the new class sets. Common complaints are that the new tier sets are “as generic as can be” with the visual look of the sets seen to be “boring”.
That said, there are plenty of players who are happy to see class armour back at all.
“The art team have been really missing [class armour],” said Day. “It’s such a unique challenge from an art perspective to say ‘Hey, what do these new ecologies look like? What does Zereth Mortis look like? What is the shape language of the buildings and creatures and how can we integrate that into the armour?’ And then also make sure it reads as class armour.”
“The art team really loves that – it’s one of their favourite things, to build class armour sets. That was very cool from an art perspective.”
Whether or not these new class sets will generate more buzz when players can get their hands on them remains to be seen. But with others pointing out that the ability to earn the gear outside of raiding means you can get the latest looks and set bonuses without a guild behind you, it could be the saving grace for this new Tier.
Meanwhile, Back 4 Blood is still far more difficult than intended, even after a recent update to fix elite spawns.