World of Warcraft offers many good reasons to get into raiding. The community spirit of defeating a hard boss, the achievements, the occasional hilarious wipe because your tank forgot to change out of their DPS spec – but above all, the lure of sweet swag towers, squashing lesser incentives like “social enjoyment” beneath its hairy toes.
The only thing more exciting than a new raid dropping is getting to see what slick threads your class will be sporting for the next six months. Thanks to the ever industrious data mining efforts of WoWHead.com, we’ve got an early peek at the first tier of class gear for Dragonflight. Let’s take a look!
Cloth
Warlock
The Warlock clobber is suitably demonic with horns and bony skull mask, and has a delightfully shadowy colour scheme.
Priest
The Priest garb gives off Val’kyr vibes with the wing-like appendages on the shoulders and head, and the general icy-blue colour scheme.
Mage
The Mage continues the icicle motif of the cloth sets, with some lovely floating crystals on the shoulder. Everyone knows that floating crystals just scream “Mage”.
Leather
Monk
The masters of martial arts rock a prize-fighter bandage wrapping aesthetic, with some added prayer bead orbs on the shoulders.
Rogue
Rogues might need a dimmer switch if they want to stealth properly, given this sets flaming accents and glowing orbs.
Druid
Druids are leaning hard into the Owlbear aesthetic, with both feathered and furry details on their new kit. The aethereal claws on the shoulders are a nice touch.
Demon Hunter
Everyone’s favourite Illidan cosplayers will be sporting this revealing little number, expressing their inner power ranger. If you’ve got abs, you might as well show them off, right?
Evoker
The new kids on the block will be suiting up in this Deathwing-inspired set, complete with Cataclysmic flaming accents.
Shaman
The new Shaman set is channelling the humble rock elemental, with an almost power armour-esque bulky frame with floating rocks (crystals are for mages, rock are for shamans).
Hunter
The Hunter set evokes a deadly bird of prey, with a bird skull helmet, feathery crystals on the shoulders and sharp talon-like spikes on the wrists.
Plate
Death Knight
Death Knights will be showing off a frosty, draconic look that’s like if Deathwing became the Lich King. How would he keep the helmet on in Dragon form? We may never know.
Warrior
Warriors are looking positively sci-fi in this slick rocky exoskeleton. The smooth helmet and sharp plates give a good idea of what Reinhardt from Overwatch would look like in WoW.
Paladin
An earlier render gave many Paladin mains a fright, as the shadowy helmet effect was absent, creating a rather goofy look. But thankfully the set is looking good, with the added cloth wrappings evoking a clerical vibe.
For more of the latest Dragonflight news, check out our rundown of the latest Dragonflight alpha patch notes, or our article on the revamp coming to Shamans.