World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

It is said that beauty is skin deep. No where is that more apparent than in MMO games like WoW where one of the many goals is to deck your avatar out in the top gear sets. Unfortunately as a druid that spends most of our time in a shapeshifted form we fail to benefit from the aesthetic portion of the game, reliant solely on the skins given to us by the developers.

Currently the only difference available to a druid is based on their faction. Night Elves and Tauren have different skins for shapeshifted form but no further customization is available.
Druids have been vocal in their desire to change their appearance in these forms and after many years of pleading the dev's have stepped up and answered our cries!

In an upcoming patch Blizzard will implement customizable druid skins that you can modify with a visit to the barber shop. When I first learned of the barber shop and its pay model all I could think about was the "bright red hair" that UO implemented years ago to farm cash out of the game. I am now glad that they are using this feature in a creative and practical manner.

The official link can be found here. 

It is still unknown whether or not there will be any updates to the talent spec forms of the boomkins or treants in the future but as a resto druid I certainly hope so.

                                              Tauren Bear Form


                                            Night Elf Bear Form


                                              Tauren Cat Form


                                          Night Elf Cat Form



Several members of the community over the years have made excellent suggestions to blizzard regarding new skins and looks. One person however went above and beyond and designed his own skins. While it does not appear that Blizzard has as of yet taken any of his designs and incorporated them, I wanted to spotlight these for you


The first is an idea for an alternate form for melee DPS, allowing the druid to remain in a standing position and improving our ability to position and interact with the hit box. I think this is an amazing idea.


Next up is the travel form.


An interpretation of the standard melee form. I am in favor of removing the horns from Tauren as well.


Dire Bear form.


An updated look to the Boomkin

I hope you enjoyed these new takes on skins from a fellow member of the druid community. I appreciate the time and effort that went into them. While I doubt there will ever be any official word about the influence these had on the dev’s, I am sure it added to the impact of the communities feeling about this change.

Overall I am excited to finally feel comfortable "in my own skin". I am a big fan of customization and any steps Blizzard takes toward that goal are certainly positive ones in my book.

Until next week, stay safe and have fun in Azeroth!