Meet The WoW Factor: Vrexia

The WoW Factor: Vrexia, Lightbringer (US)

Character: Vrexia
Race: Draenei
Class: Warrior
Gender: Female
Character Status: Alt (main is Imaginary)
WoW Factor Prizes Earned:

• Round 1: 1,000g
• Round 2: 5,000g
• Round 3: 10,000g
• Round 4: 1 Blizzard Store collectible mount courtesy of Icy-Veins.com

What You Should Know: "I don't just make outfits, I make NPCs and whole factions.  It's my tribute to Blizzard.  You may have seen some members of the Scarlet Crusade wandering around during the contest last night and observing. I'll leave them as easter eggs to find in the stream footage if you have it recorded." - Vrexia

Read on for my interview with Vrexia where we get some great insight into what it takes to create The WoW Factor, the story behind Vrexia's winning transmog and a bit about the player's prized posession: The Corrupted Ashbringer.

Keelhaul: There are a number of fantastic weapon models in the game for Warriors, so could you tell me a little bit about the selections you made for this particular look? And how did you go about acquiring them?

Vrexia: I wanted to go with an icy blue scourge themed set.  The choice of blue two-hander weapons (that match well) is actually fairly limited.

Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter was my first selection, it fit both the scourge theme I was going for and it perfectly matched with the blue coloring of my armor.

There is a mini-story about me acquiring that weapon as well, another person won it originally in the group where I finally ended up getting it, his name is Vendetha and I'd like to give him a quick shout out here as well, because he's a great guy.  Anyway, Vendetha won the item and I offered him 5,000g for it.  He said that he was mainly there for a helm for his transmog from Lady Deathwhisper (the second boss), and if that dropped, he would consider it.  We defeated Lady DW and the helm did not drop, so we continued on to the fourth boss, and Vendetha had to leave. He then decided to give me the Bryntroll, so I put 5,000g into his trade window, which he refused!  Loot for the fourth boss was going on at the time, and he wanted one of the tokens that dropped, because it would give him a helm similar to what he was looking for earlier.  I had not rolled on the token because I didn't really need it, so I rolled on it for him. As it happens I won the token, so I gave it to Vendetha which made him as happy as he had made me by giving me the Bryntroll.  Everyone won!

The second weapon, Abaddon, from Yogg-Saron in Ulduar was not actually part of my original outfit, I do swap to it now and then to replace my Corrupted Ashbringer if I want the full blue effect.  I run Ulduar every week on my own for guild experience (I am also a multi-boxer and I run ten accounts) - Ulduar is worth a couple million guild exp, and has a lot of cool looking gear that I have been collecting as well.  I've been running it for about 4-5 months.  I run almost every old raid for transmog gear and guild exp every week.  Before guilds had exp and transmog was around, I ran them just to collect outfits, mounts, etc.  I've been doing that for years.

Keelhaul: What began your look, was it Bryntroll? The shoulders? Why did you start with that particular item?


Vrexia: The core armor set - the icebane plate.  I had the plate from when we were running the original Naxxramas and always loved the look of it.  It was only recently (within the past year or so) that I decided to really run with that outfit.  My warrior was originally pure protection with no dps spec.  I built out the dps spec of my character to match the blue outfit and weapons.  I collected the gear that I have and transmog'd it all. Bryntroll was actually the last piece I got, it took a while to get the perfect matching axe to be transmog'd onto my existing 2h.  The icy set is my dps look.  My prot look is full tier3 Dreadnaught with Slayer of the Lifeless and either the Skull of Ruin or Shield of Impenetrable Darkness.

Keelhaul: Tell me a little bit about your Corrupted Ashbringer. It was one of the first things I noticed about your look from across the room, but you didn't end up using it as you moved deeper into the competition's final rounds.  How long did it take you to acquire it?   

Vrexia:  This has some story behind it.  I had always been a fan of the original Naxxramas, so when Omniscient started looking for people to run it with him about 8 months before WOTLK was released, I joined up with him on my warrior Vrexia.  I had always wanted to collect the Dreadnaught tier3 set, it is one of my favorite outfits in the game.  Over the course of the next couple months, we started to work on Naxxramas (which was still actually pretty difficult even for a group comprised mostly of level 70 characters) - hats off to those that completed it at level 60!  About 2 months in, the first Corrupted Ashbringer dropped, this caused quite a stir and there were a select group of people able to roll on it (as had been determined by Omniscient based on attendance with the group and a couple other factors).  I had been there since day one, and had been helping the group in other ways (farming scraps from trash on my own to help people with their Tier turn-ins, etc), so I was one of the 6-7 people able to roll on it.  Of those, I was the highest, and won what is one of my most prized possessions.  I ended up completing my Dreadnaught set about 2-3 weeks prior to Naxxramas being removed from the game (the belt was my last piece).

Keelhaul: You did some things that truly rounded out your overall look, but why no cloak?


Vrexia: As you mentioned in the live stream last night, cloaks can look pretty awkward on a Draenei character.  I agree with that and it is especially true for the Draenei women.  There were a few cloaks that match the color scheme, but they have that awkwardness where they stick out over the character's tail.

The other factor was that I wanted the armor itself to be as visible as possible, I really like the skeletal / icy look of it, and I think it detracts from the overall look of the outfit to hide part of it with a cloak.

That said, Blizzard has started making cloaks that appear better on the Draenei.  However none of them really go with the outfit and, for reasons above, I wouldn't use one anyway.  Unless it was really, really outstanding.

Keelhaul: The WoW Factor judges certainly spotted a number of unique things with your look and that's why we put you all the way into the top two along with Verenous whom I'll be interviewing next. But could you tell me a little bit about why you put in the effort to round out your look with the things you did?


Vrexia:  It is my primary reason for playing World of Warcraft.  Other players play to enhance their stats, or defeat bosses, and I like those things too, but my primary concern with all of my characters is collecting things that look cool.  To build their look and identity, to make them just a bit more unique.  I like my characters to turn heads for reasons other than having the current best gear (stat-wise), and I think they do sometimes.  I mainly do it for myself though, I get really into making up different outfits, things you don't see every day.  I think it's fun!


Keelhaul: Did we miss any details about your look you feel are important?

Vrexia: The look of the outfit is not intended solely to be blue/icy, it is also meant to be skeletal/scourge.  The shoulders and chestpiece have a skull/skeleton thing going on, Bryntroll is made of up bones, and the Corrupted Ashbringer has so much to do with the scourge, the lore behind it, etc..  I feel that the Ashbringer is an integral part of the outfit, despite the fact that it isn't all blue and the colors do clash a bit.  My choice to not have a helm was purposeful as well, as was the selection of white hair.  Every helm I looked at took away from the overall look I was going for.

I decided to switch from the Ashbringer to Abaddon because it seemed, from listening to the live stream, that the judging was going more on the color coordination than other thematic considerations.


Keelhaul: How long have you had these items, and did you acquire them before/after transmog?

Vrexia: Well, that specific set is comprised of many different parts, the core of it is the icebane plate, which I have had since about 5-10 months before the release of WOTLK.  Vrexia has never been race changed, so she wasn't around to get these things during Vanilla wow. I went with the Heaving Plates of Protection for the shoulder slot because I liked it better than the icebane shoulders, it had more of a scourge thing going on, and it fit the model structure of my character much better than the icebane shoulders.  The belt is actually a burning crusade quest reward that I saved specifically because it matched this outfit.  The boots go with the shoulders and are also from Cataclysm, both those pieces are copies of the DK tier 11 set.  So I've had these items for different amounts of time, dating back to early-mid Burning Crusade.

I also have a polearm which perfectly matches this outfit (Sonic Spear), which I carry around in town now and then.  It doesn't do me a lot of good out in the world though.

As you can probably imagine, I am eternally low on bag space.  I have the largest possible bags in every slot, and I sometimes have to get rid of an item now and then to make space for something cooler.  Void storage was a blessing in that regard, when it was released alongside transmogrification.

Keelhaul: If you had to begin your look all over again, but could only start with one piece, which would you carry over and use in a new look?

Vrexia: Ironically the one piece I didn't have on when I won.  Corrupted Ashbringer.  As much as I love the rest of the icy set, the ashbringer has such a huge amount of lore behind it, causes your character to physically look darker, and various other things.  To me, it's a dream item to have and I would build a new set around it if I had to start from scratch.

Keelhaul: Is it important to you that players look beyond "recipe" looks, or pre-existing looks and come up with their own unique thing that we've not seen before?

Vrexia: I think there are a lot of interesting items out there in the game that can be assembled together to form more interesting, less common outfits. I'm not sure I place any real importance on players choosing to come up with neat looking outfits outside of what Blizzard might have put together.  It is nice to see what other like-minded people come up with though!  It is just something I like to do, and I plan to continue doing it until Blizzard pulls the plug!

Keelhaul: If they were to remove transmogrification from the game, what do you think you, personally, would lose?

Vrexia: Personally, it would take away the icing on my fashion cake, so to speak. I've been collecting these outfits since the game began back in 2004, beginning with Imaginary and Charisma, and moving along with all my other characters over the years.  The addition of transmogrification added the ability for me to use these sets in my actual dungeon groups/raids, etc. and that really made me happy.  Of all of the things Blizzard has added to this game over the years, I think this is my favorite.

Thanks for promoting this aspect of the game and trying to elevate it to

the next level!