World of Warcraft will stop tying transmog appearances to armor types in Patch 12.2.5, Blizzard announced during the Midnight: What's Next panel. Wowhead reported the change, which will let a character use any armor type for a transmog set regardless of what they actually wear: a mage will be able to put on plate shoulders, and a warrior cloth gear.
When Wowhead first reported the announcement on September 12, one part of it was unresolved. Blizzard had not said whether weapons would also be freed from their restrictions, and Wowhead noted at the time that they might be.
What stays locked
They will not be. In a follow-up interview with Wowhead, Blizzard's Paul Kubit said only the armor type restriction is being removed, and that weapon restrictions still apply. Kubit's example, as Wowhead reported it, was that players will not see a warrior running around with wands.
Class-restricted appearances are also staying where they are. Kubit told Wowhead that transmogs locked to a class, such as tier sets, will remain restricted to that class and cannot be transmogged across classes. Some tier sets do have alternate pieces that grant the same appearance, Wowhead reported, though the full set may not be obtainable from off-pieces alone.
Why the rule is going
Kubit framed the change as the system catching up to what Blizzard has already been shipping. He said the original transmog rules existed to keep characters recognisable by silhouette, with cloth wearers continuing to look like cloth wearers, according to Wowhead's account of the interview.
That guideline has been eroding. Kubit said Blizzard has more recently been adding cosmetic transmog sets that any class can use but that look like a specific armor type, which breaks the silhouette rule the restriction was there to protect. He described the studio as taking a page from Housing in allowing players to be more creative with transmog going forward.
