Tier 2

The tier 2 eight-piece epic armor set drops primarily from bosses in Blackwing Lair. Early in the game, the set items dropped in Molten Core alongside Tier 1, but were removed in Patch 1.4. Tier 2 was readded in Patch 1.6 with the addition of Blackwing Lair. The tier 2 sets all had placeholder models, which were updated in Patch 1.9.

Due to frequent complaints of often looting "useless" druid or warlock gear, Blizzard implemented the "quest loot" concept for raids after Blackwing Lair (starting in Patch 1.7 with Zul'Gurub). With quest loot, bosses drop a token limited to three or four classes that would be turned in alongside other reagents and often also requires a high reputation standing with various factions. Quest loot was further refined in The Burning Crusade to the "loot token" concept, which did not require completing quests or turning in reagents.

Onyxia, who has been retuned from a 40-player level 60 raid to a 10/25-player level 80 raid, drops reworked level 80 versions of the tier 2 helms.

All of the bosses drop two Tier 2 set pieces each except for Firemaw, Ebonroc and Flamegor who drop two tier 2 gloves between the three of them, and Nefarian, who drops two chestpieces and two helms.

Tier 2