Are Warfront Sets Effectively Heritage Armor?

Beginning with allied races as an incentive to level them up all the way rather than simply race-changing or boosting them, Blizzard released race-themed transmog sets as a sign that you had done just that. While I'll never forgive them for having the Lightforged heritage helmet cut off my paladin's glorious beard, they're generally pretty fun to have.

In 8.1, we now have heritage sets for older races - the Blood Elves and Dwarves (of the non-Dark Iron variety.) That's pretty exciting, and also interestingly timed as my next two alts in my grand alt-priority queue to do the new content are, in fact, my Blood Elf and Dwarf characters.

I imagine these established-race heritage sets are going to have a gradual rollout, with Tauren and Gnomes coming in 8.2 (already have those guys at 120 and exalted with their home factions since probably Wrath of the Lich King.) I'm super-eager to see sets for Draenei (of the original blue flavor,) Worgen, and Goblins. But I also wonder about, for example, the Undead.

See, while one of my two major Horde characters (always jostling for Horde main - I just wish that I were better at Subtlety because my damage on the rogue always seems way lower than the gear should be giving me) in Undead, there's actually a new source of quite a bit of Forsaken-themed gear out of the Darkshore warfront.

Indeed, my main, the human paladin, is currently rocking most of the top-tier Arathi warfront gear set (still need I think only the shoulders now.) If we wanted human heritage armor, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better example than the Arathi plate set. Likewise, Orcs can use pretty much any of the Arathi sets and look very Orc-appropriate.

Darkshore brings us sets inspired by the Night Elves and Forsaken.

Now, I'll confess that I'm a little less impressed with these designs - primarily the Night Elf ones. My main Night Elf character is a Demon Hunter, and the leather set here feels far more Druidy. The plate set has some very strange contours. On the other hand, the Forsaken-themed sets on the Horde side are generally very cool. Sadly, the only one I don't really care for that much is the leather set, though primarily just the spiked-hood look of the top tier helmet. The mail set, on the other hand, is fantastic.

But it does make me wonder if they won't bother doing Human, Orc, Undead, or Night Elf heritage armor given how relatively easy it is to attain these sets (I do wish there were an easier way to get the top-tier stuff. I have three plate-wearers at 120 now, so that should help collecting it, but man is the Mail going to take a while.)