Guild Wars 2

It’s very eye of the beholder. I can’t stand the heavy ascended, the medium is ok on women, and I really like the light on women. Tonight I finished up an ascended skirt for my fashion-tailor necromancer who is highly unlikely to ever be a fractal runner (my guardian fills that role). I’m looking forward to adding the chest and the Dwayna wings. And this is after my first look way back when was ugh wth — dyes really help.

The skirt changes dramatically in appearance with the dye scheme, including what part you choose to make lighter or darker in tone. Here’s the skirt in game, along with a concept of the finished look:

I’m not sure if this is the best place to post this, but the feathers protruding from the ascended heavy armor pauldrons are non-dyeable. It’s a purely cosmetic issue, but I was hoping Anet would address this in a future patch as I feel it is not intentional. I’ve attached an image of the pauldrons and the default color for the feathers. Other than those feathers, I really like the ascended armor design on my guardian and can’t wait to finish my set.

lakdav.3694:

Ill say it again, though i know full well it will never happen:

Transmutation stones need to be upgradeable to crystals in the mystic forge.

I would love to see this happen. Even if it was a 20 to 1 conversion or 50 to 1 conversion.

After taking a hopefully more dispassionate look at the issue, here’s my final, detailed opinion on the heavy ascended set for my female human guardian, in order of preference.

Chest: this is the only piece I’ve started to like. Especially the ‘polo neck’ is a distinctive feature, but other areas look reasonably sleek as well. The design is consistent, the piece dyes gracefully and despite the number of details the overall impression is sufficiently understated, making it a good piece for mixing and matching. Verdict: it’s a keeper.

Pants: clunky and marred by technical issues. The piece tries to stick to the same design principles as the chest but fails. Especially the triangular part covering buttocks looks like a bad idea lifted from a completely different set. The loincloth, or whatever piece that hangs on the front extends outward in a most unnatural fashion and animates horribly (if at all). I can see that shortcuts have been taken to avoid clipping issues, but this is a huge step back compared to, e.g., human T3 cultural which manages to combine plate and cloth very well. The joint between pants and chest is ill-fitting, with the pants having a waist circumference way beyond reasonable limits. Not only does it make the character look like wearing a barrel (an impression enhanced by the clunky thighguards), it makes my character’s backside look fat. Verdict: would like to replace but hard to find a suitable replacement that would properly complement the chest.

Boots, gauntlets and pauldrons: the executive word for all these pieces is inelegant. They contain design elements that are poorly thought out, unnatural and in conflict with the design of the main pieces. Verdict: too much of an eyesore, I’m slapping WvW skins on them as a stopgap measure.

Helmet: What is this, I don’t even… No, really. This is the most horribly bad piece of armor I have ever seen. Verdict: I would rather be seen in public wearing a toilet seat on my head than this … thing. On a second thought, most people might not be able to tell the difference.