‘They had one job’: Blizzard tries to fix broken WoW transmog staff, only to break it further

It looks stupid and hilarious.

A Monk in World of Warcraft holding the Possessed Watcher Staff by Stormwind Harbor
Screenshot by Dot Esports

WoW’s trading post has been somewhat hit-or-miss, with some months offering a generous selection of swanky transmog items while others offered naught but a meager smattering of old, ugly, and clunky pieces.

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November has a decent selection to choose from, with the Spectral Gryphon, Spectral Wyvern, and Swift Zhevra mounts being stars of the show. For Monk players, though, the standout item of the bunch is undoubtedly the Brewmaster weapon transmog, the Possessed Watcher Staff, available in the Possessed Watcher Collection for 500 Tendies.

But in a cruel twist of fate, Blizzard made a hilarious blunder with the staff that has the Monk community up in arms. Few staffs in WoW properly fit monks’ aesthetic, and fewer still are tailor-made for Brewmasters, so this only makes matters worse for our favorite fire-breathing beer-chuggers.

A recent patch “fixed” how Monks hold the Possessed Watcher Staff. You now hold the staff over your shoulder, like the Brewmaster artifact weapon, rather than the default position by your side.

This would’ve been a welcome change, as now, you genuinely look like a proper Brewmaster while you’re holding the weapon. But there’s a hitch: When stowed on your character’s back, for certain character models, the staff is rotated the wrong way, so the barrel clips through your head.

Understandably, frustrated Monk players took to Reddit to lament about the change. “I mean holy shit whoever made this had one job and they can’t simply turn it properly,” one player said, which I think aptly describes the entire situation.

Another chimed in: “LMAO even the fix is half-assed,” while one user was tellingly pessimistic about their hopes of Blizzard addressing the problem: “we’re talking about monk here, it’ll get fixed with the talent tree rework… in 2-3 years.”

It goes to show that Blizzard needs more quality control. WoW has thousands of weapons to choose from, but so many of them have issues when transmogged. It’s nice to see fun, thematic weapons like the Possessed Watcher Staff on the trading post, but Blizzard needs to fix it sooner rather than later, otherwise it’ll join the ever-growing pile of seldom-used, awkward-looking mogs.

Author
Image of Tom Foley
Tom Foley
Tom is the UK Associate Editor for Dot Esports. He's the former TCG Editor for CBR and holds a Master's degree in Chemistry from the University of Edinburgh. Tom spent six years as a Science Editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, and AstraZeneca before leaving science to pursue his dream career in games journalism at the start of 2023. He loves MMOs, RPGs, TCGs, and pretty much every game by FromSoftware—especially Dark Souls.