Guild Wars 2

Introduction

Now you are probably going to think I am a bit crazy/ insane, regardless though this has become a bit of a hobby of mine within GW2. For those that are interested I have provided a bit of a story for the characters I am showing off, a bit of a story on where this all began and the rules I’ve set myself for creating characters (there is a quite bit of reading for those that are interested).

Now for my first little story; it’s been a number of years since I started playing GW2. I haven’t always been just playing GW2 as I do need a break every now and again for varied periods of time, for various reasons which I won’t go into.

In this time creating characters within GW2 has become a bit of a hobby of mine (although it may actually be something more than that haha). Starting out it was pretty basic and I just wanted to look like the most kitten person with the characters I had made (Within the first 1-3 months I had over 10 characters made, but most had nothing done with them, as at that point I was in the process of levelling them up before I even thought about gearing them out with their awesome equipment).
Eventually my characters started to hit the level cap of 80 and so began my hobby of making characters. I soon discovered cultural armour and fell in love with a lot of the cultural sets after obtaining my first level 80. Tier 3 cultural armour looked exceptional most of the time and because it was made for each race it generally looked better (that’s just my opinion). At the time tier 3 cultural armour was also a bit of a rarity and as such this provided me with a bit more incentive to obtain some sweet cultural armour over other sets.

As time went on however cultural armour began to lose its prestige and not only that but I was finding myself not completely satisfied with all my characters (this was completely unrelated to the fact that cultural armour was losing its prestige, it was more or less a case of, I felt like I could do better and do more with the characters I made). Sure they all looked good, sure the likely hood of someone else having the exact same dye and weapon scheme as me was quite slim, but it didn’t change the fact that there were beginning to be plenty of other players with characters that had the same armour as myself, and for me this was a big thing, as I didn’t like looking like everyone else (been there and done that), I wanted to feel unique, I wanted my characters to be distinguished.

Over time I began to start seeing some really nice mix and match characters in the game from other players and of course even some really cool cosplay characters. At this time however I wasn’t too adventurous with mix and match characters. For the most part some of the characters I made would have nearly whole sets of armour, with 1 or 2 pieces of a different set that I liked, and thought complemented the look I was trying to create.

Then we got the wardrobe to store our skins in; it was at this point that my hobby truly began to take off and it has lead me to here(the wardrobe has made it so much easier to kit out my characters). I now have over 25 characters with over 20 of them at level 80 (not going to say the exact numbers, as that’s for me to know and you guys to find out another time haha).

As you can guess my hobby within GW2 has evolved a bit in this time, such as the rules I set myself for creating characters, my standards in creating these characters, and the lengths I will go to when obtaining skins for them. Of course in saying that I don’t just make these characters for the sake of making characters, it’s more or less only when I have an idea or am completely infatuated by a skin or set of skins. But generally with each character I make I try to do something different and up my standards a bit to make higher quality characters each time I set out to create a new one.

My Rules

Now we move onto the rules I’ve set myself for creating characters, and they will be in no particular order.

1. All characters must be named Kaz even if they are a cosplay character (this wasn’t always the case as some of my characters had other names to pay homage to some of my old characters from the original Guild Wars. However I decided to change this so that I had a more standard naming scheme.)
(There are 3 main reasons my cosplay characters have also adopted the standard naming scheme. The first is due to the fact that I came to the realization that it would be quite difficult to make characters that look exactly the same, or close enough to the character they are based off, with some of the cosplay characters I’ve tried to make; so I decided that I would put my own spin on my cosplay characters. As such this has allowed for a bit more creativity with these cosplay characters, and also allowed for me to play around with their looks a little more to make them feel a bit more special. The second reason for the standard naming system with my cosplay characters, is due to the fact that these characters, although they are technically from other universes, the versions I have created live within the Guild Wars 2 universe instead. And the final reason for my standard naming scheme, is because I want to leave my stamp on these characters haha, the “Kaz Seal of Approval” thumbs up. Please note that cosplay characters are relatively new for me as well)

2. All characters must have a title of some sort or a last name e.g. Kaz The Avenger

3. All characters must reach level 80 at some point and have a functioning build before I will officially classify them as complete (a few characters have made it to this point, however this was before HoT came out. When the time is right I will begin reworking those that are no longer classified as complete, which had been deemed complete before HoT was released)

4. All characters need to have a backstory to match the character and their personality (personality is determined by the name I choose generally, the profession, and the theme of the character). Generally the backstory of a character is made when I first make the character, where I select the best choices to suit that character. These are generally used as a guide to the characters actual backstory, as the choices I make do not fully reflect the backstory that I envisage for them (I do want to do something with this and I will be in the near future).

5. All characters professions need to best match the name, theme and backstory of the character I want to make, and this tends to be one of the main starting points when I create my characters (this is not to say that the other rules don’t influence or change my starting point when I want to create a character, and have an idea for said character).

6. All characters must have a unique theme unless they belong to a set of characters (what defines a unique theme is the overall choices I’ve made for these characters with the skins, dyes etc. This means I can reuse skins as long as they are being mixed in a different combination with other different skins to create a unique look. Hairstyles and faces don’t really fall into this rule, as there are really only a few that I like from each race. However cosplay characters that belong to a set of some sort will generally have the extra effort put in to make each of them look unique, and as such I will generally try to use different faces and hairstyles for these characters if it is required).
(characters that belong to sets can use the same theme and this is the only exception to this rule)

7. Chaos Gloves can only be used on characters that are portraying godlike beings, if the gloves work with the character I am making (this is a relatively new rule I set myself when the Chaos Gloves hit the gem store).
(I define being’s such as Angels, Devils, Immortals and other beings of a higher ascension than a mere mortal as being godlike. While other’s may not agree with my definition of godlike in this instance, this is just what I’ve decided on as the limitations/ rules for using Chaos Gloves, to cut down the number of characters using them. In reality I don’t actually classify one who’s just immortal as being godlike)

A little about each set

All the following character sets I made originally started off with a single character. However, at later dates I had the idea to expand on them and ended up making a set of characters to go with them.

Angel Set: My angel set currently consists of 2 characters; 1 Guardian and 1 Mesmer, and at this point in time I have no intention of further expanding it. This set originally started off with one character which was my Guardian, and she was the first to ascend to heaven and become a Guardian Angel (although both characters were made within the first month of GW2 being released they actually sat there for a while. Interestingly my Mesmer actually hit level 80 before my Guardian, though there is a reason for that; I already had a Guardian at level 80 and didn’t want to level up another until I had gotten at least 1 of each profession to level 80). If I recall correctly (been a while since I changed her into an angel), the reason I made her into an Angel was because I found a good build that I wanted to use on another Guardian. I saw her sitting on my account in her unfinished state, with a different name and thought “sweet we can do this! We’ll use this build on her and fix her up with a new name and look since she’s currently not up to my standards”. The other reason I chose to make her an Angel; I thought a Guardian would be perfect to make into an Angel, as they best fit the bill for a valiant protector of heaven. At the time of completion, of all the characters I had made before my Guardian Angel, she was the one that I was most pleased with as I felt she really looked the part (especially when I was able to trade out the Light of Dwayna back item for the Black Feather Wing’s). Since I made her into an angel I’ve really only changed 2 thing’s on her, the Back item and the gloves.

As time has gone by I also gradually made changes to my Mesmer and she was eventually included in the angel set unintentionally (to be honest I didn’t intentionally make her into an angel, it all just kind of happened as I made changes. She officially became an angel when I obtained those white feather wing’s. I wasn’t 100% certain who would use the wing’s when I purchased them, but as I went through my account I saw her and thought this would work nicely with her, since she’s got a pure celestial dye scheme. That includes the eyes and hair as well). While my Mesmer unintentionally became a part of my angel set, this did not change the fact that I felt she was also the best candidate to be an Angel of death, what with all those illusions Mesmer’s can create and being able to stealth. I’ve changed her dye scheme, her back item and her gloves (I changed the gloves to further break up her look a little more so there wasn’t 5 skins from the 1 set, and as she is an angel, she is considered to be a godlike being). I also made minor alterations to her appearance with makeover kits (these changes included a different hairstyle, and a different hair & eye colour along with other alterations using the sliders). Her dye scheme wasn’t always pure celestial, however as I made changes to her I felt she was 1 of the few, if not only characters within my account, that I could get away with a single dye scheme (currently she is also the only character that uses a single dye scheme). Her original back item was the Wind Catcher, which of course was replaced with the white wing’s.

Immortal Set: This set consists of 3 characters; 1 Warrior, 1 Guardian and of course last but not least 1 Revenant. The immortal sisters as I like to refer to them as, originally started off with just the Warrior, and at the time there wasn’t any intention of making others to go with her. The main reason I made her was because within 1 year of GW2 being released, I saw this Norn female Warrior with full Tier 3 Cultural and the legendary Twilight. As soon as I saw all this I fell in love and had to make my own. About a year later after creating her however, I concocted the idea of making 2 others 2 go with her all because there were now 3 different glowing masks. The original plan was to make a heavy, a medium and a light profession (it was likely going to be something like Warrior, Ranger and probably an Elementalist as the final one), get tier 3 Cultural for all 3 and use the 3 different glowing masks (Green, Crimson and Glint’s Gaze), while giving all 3 of them a matching dye scheme, a unique weapon set, and each a different back item to go with the chosen glowing mask.

In the end I never did make an Elementalist Norn, as I didn’t like any of the light cultural armour. So I scrapped the idea of making 1 from each of the different armour classes. However I still had my mind set on making 3 different Norns based on the 3 different glowing masks. So in the end I decided to make all 3 of them heavies (which I wasn’t completely satisfied with, but it was better than the alternative in my opinion); this was of course well before I was even aware that there was going to be another heavy introduced. But the way I figured it, if they ever did add in another profession, it was likely going to be another heavy and when that day came (which it has) I would finally finish off this set.

Saiyan Set: The Saiyan set currently consists of 1 Guardian, 1 Warrior and 2 Revenants. My original plan was just to make my own Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, to pay homage to 1 of my all time favourite animes, since they decided to reboot Dragon Ball with a new series and new transformations (it’s not my number 1 favourite, but it’s up there. This is the big one which got me into anime and I’m sure many others as well, so I felt it only befitting to do something to commemorate this occasion). The decision was made on what profession my SSGSS would be, and at the time he was to be a Warrior. There are a couple reasons I can remember which at the time pushed me towards making him a Warrior; the first being the Revenant had not been released yet and I wanted mainly to reserve the name at the very least; second some of the visual effects on skills for the Revenant really ground my gears and I felt did not mesh well with the aura’s (Impossible Odd’s just to name 1 of them. This was the main skill for me, which made it difficult to choose the Revenant to be my SSGSS. I say this because it provided a green aura and I felt that this did not mix with the other aura’s etc. that an SSGSS would have).

Ultimately though this did not stick, as time went on and I began to play around with my SSGSS Warrior I was finding issues with it. These issues included the following; the Warriors kit I felt did not best match an SSGSS, the damage on the sword wasn’t satisfactory and as such was more or less just going to be used in a utility weapon setup, instead of being a part of the main weapon set (I had decided from the get go that my SSGSS would be getting the legendary sword Bolt for the electrical aura, and since this was meant to be the main weapon, a lack of damage was quite serious to me). While this next reason wasn’t really an issue with my SSGSS Warrior, it was however the last deciding factor in making a set of Saiyans, as it helped me to overcame the final hurdle. I mentioned above that the visual effects for the Revenant were an issue with regards to making an SSGSS Revenant, but as I thought about it for a bit, I realised that a lot of the characters in Dragon Ball had unique attacks which for the most part had unique visuals. When I came to this conclusion I was able to let go of my issue with the visual effects and move on to creating my Saiyan Set.

I ended up making a set of Saiyans going through all the possible transformations that I was able to make. So I made a regular Saiyan (base form) as a Guardian, I felt this was the best choice as I picture Guardians as being level headed and tactical with their fights, perfect for a base form. I ended up converting my SSGSS Warrior into a Super Saiyan and I felt this was the best choice, as Super Saiyans tend to be more aggressive and angry, which I felt was perfect for a Warrior who just wants to get up close and personal to slap you silly. Finally I made My Super Saiyan God and my SSGSS both into Revenants; I felt this was best for these 2 as the kit for the Revenant best reflected a Super Saiyan God with skills like, Impossible Odds, Phase Travel and Frigid Blitz (also having a staff similar to Goku’s Power Pole helped to decide on this as well, since Revenants use the staff as a melee weapon). I also felt the Revenant was the best fit since it was a bit more of a spiritual/ godlike class in a sense due to the profession channelling the power of the mists. (Should I ever be granted the possibility to make a Super Saiyan 2 due to the introduction of an anime inspired hairstyle, he will also be made into a Warrior. Those that fall under the category of Base form will all be Guardians; all those that fall into the Super Saiyan Category will be Warriors; all those that fall under the Super Saiyan God Category will be Revenants).

DxD Set: This set currently consists of 2 Elementalists, 2 Mesmers, 1 Necromancer, 1 Revenant, 2 Warriors and 2 Guardians. This is so far my biggest set of characters and I’ll explain a bit about why I’ve done this one the way I have.

I’ll be honest about this one, after I made my Saiyan set, I didn’t have any intention of making more characters for a while, as my Saiyan set was the largest set of characters I’d made to date. But then my roommate gave me this idea since he knew that I love High School DxD soooo much! (quite possibly an understatement since it is currently my number one favourite anime! I’m also a little surprised I didn’t think to create this set of characters myself; but then maybe my subconscious knew that if I thought of making this set, the chances were extremely high that I’d probably do something pretty crazy with it, so it locked it away never to see the light of day. Regardless though I’ve made this set now and I do feel like I did something a little crazy with it haha) So I said outright, I’m only going to make this one, if I can find a suitable top that is similar to the uniform in DxD, so that I can make my own version of Rias Gremory.

After which I jumped onto GW2 and began going through the wardrobe to see if there was a suitable top. As I was going through the wardrobe, it wasn’t long until I found the top, and as soon as I saw it I burst out laughing as I could not believe how similar the top was (also began cursing at my roommate jokingly, for giving me this idea, because it was official that I was going to make this set now). After the laughter and cursing I then went back and continued going through the wardrobe to ensure that there wasn’t a better top (there wasn’t). Now again like my other character sets, this one was going to be a single character and so I made my own version of Rias Gremory. But then I started thinking to myself “hang on a minute you’ve just made a set of Saiyans going through as many transformations as possible, making for a grand total of 4 characters that belong to that set. On top of this, you have an angel set which consists of 2 characters and then the immortal set which has 3 characters. Since character sets are becoming a thing you’re going to need to step up your game, and make 1 character set to rule them all as the ultimate character set!” So this began to influence my decision and pushed me towards making a set of characters to belong to my High School DxD set.

Now the next phase was to decide how I was going to do this. Originally I wanted to make as many characters as possible from the anime series, but alas it was not meant to be (at least at this point in time); I say this as I was unable to find satisfactory skins to make a high school uniform for a male character, for my versions of Issei Hyodo and Kiba Yuuto. On top of this I couldn’t find suitable skins for some of the other male characters that I wanted to make (Sirzechs, just to name 1 of the other male characters. I was unable create them due to there not being similar enough skins to work with). This ended up cutting down how many characters I could make for this set quite significantly. So I ended up making five characters which consisted of the five light professions, and they were to be my own versions of Asia Argento, Akeno Himejima, Koneko Toujou, Xenovia Quarta and of course Rias Gremory in their high school uniforms (now I know what you’re thinking, I’ve said above that ten characters belong to this set, you’ll just need a bit more patience and all will be explained). To ensure they all felt a bit special and unique from 1 another, I made sure to give them unique skins for their heads, boots, gloves and weapon skins (I tried to pick skins which I felt best matched their personality, or were similar to something they had worn/ used in the anime series, while I was picking out the unique skins for each of them).

Of course because I really wanted to do more with my DxD set, I pondered what I could do for it as I wasn’t completely satisfied with it, since I wasn’t able to make all the characters I wanted. In the end the decision was made to also create a heavy profession variation of each of these 5 characters. The reasoning behind this was, that as these characters in the anime series are a part of a 3 way war between angels, fallen angels & devils, I felt it only befitting that they had some proper combat attire if you will. Another reason; I wanted to have a bit of fun with them and give them a completely unique look from one another, instead of the same 3 skins used to create their high school uniform. There may be some other reasons which influenced my decision on top of this (those awesome Mistward skins!), however those 2 are the main reasons and only real ones which I need to state.

Now you are probably wondering how was it that I picked each profession for these characters. Well it wasn’t easy and wasn’t exactly ideal for some of them.

So we’ll start with my version of Rias; I picked Necromancer for her light and Revenant for her heavy. I felt the Necromancer was best for her as she is a pure blooded devil, and I chose the Revenant to be her heavy form as I just felt the Revenants kit fit the role of the King chess piece best, while also being a more magically inspired heavy class (Revenants can pump out some serious damage, and Warriors aren’t a very magical class since they are the weapon masters of the game. So if I were to make her a Warrior it just wouldn’t have worked. I could have chosen Guardian, but I felt that was better for two of the other characters).

For Akeno I chose the Elementalist and Guardian. I felt the Elementalist best fit her due to her magical capabilities and the fact that she does use lightning magic. The reason which lead me to make her as a Guardian, is due to her magical capabilities, her Angel heritage, and finally as she is the Queen chess piece she is a perfect combination of the other chess pieces (She has good defence, good overall damage etc. just like a Guardian). I also felt that the Guardian was a more magically inspired class like the Revenant so it was perfect for the Queen chess piece.

Asia, like Akeno was made into an Elementalist and Guardian. The main reason for this was because the Elementalist and Guardian both make for pretty decent healers which I felt was perfect for the Bishop chess piece (seeing as she does possess the sacred gear twilight healing).

Koneko was made into a Mesmer and Warrior. I chose to make her a Mesmer due to her being a Nekomata before a Devil, and when looking into what her sister is capable of, I felt this was the best profession for her (Koneko’s sister is capable of creating mirage copies of herself to throw her opponents off). As for the reason I chose for her to be a Warrior; I felt the Warrior best fit the role of a tank, which was perfect for the Rook chess piece, as they posses superhuman strength and have high defence to absorb large amounts of damage.

Finally we move onto Xenovia. I made her into a Mesmer and Warrior like Koneko. Unfortunately the Mesmer wasn’t exactly the most ideal choice for her as a Knight in service of the house of Gremory, but it was the best choice since they are the only light class that can use swords. As Xenovia takes on the characteristics of the Knight chess piece, I felt the Warrior was best for her, as Knight’s aren’t as magically capable as a Bishop, Queen or King chess piece and they rely on speed and mobility to win the fights.

Finally to wrap this section up on my DxD set, as this is the largest set I’ve made to date I don’t plan on making another set as large. It’s highly likely that I won’t be making any more character sets, as I already have a few sets as it is, and not all of them have been shown here. I am also pretty pleased with how this set has turned out overall (I don’t really think there is any way I can top this one in terms of size and quality, so it’s very likely that I will just make single characters from here on out. Just don’t quote me on it though, as I could always have a change of heart haha). I haven’t taken screenshots of my DxD characters in their heavy armour, however if you guys really really really want to see them, then post to this thread and if enough people request it, I will go in again and take these screenshots to upload to here (If enough request the heavy versions, I will also update shots of my characters that have had changes made to them since these shots were taken, as I changed some of the skins, or made other changes to visuals on a some of the characters).

Anyways I hope you guys enjoy what I’ve done with my characters and for those that took the time to read, I hope you enjoyed my little stories etc (although, they aren’t really that little haha. Though consider yourselves lucky as I could tell you more about each of the sets I’ve listed in this thread. For example I made my SSGSS & Super Saiyan God slightly taller & slimmer than the Base form, and Super Saiyan form to make them as accurate as possible to the source. Sadly however it won’t be easy to notice the height difference, but you can distinctly tell they are slimmer. There are lots of little things I did to each character and set I’ve made, but I have no intention of posting all these little thing’s I did as you would then be bombarded with significantly larger walls of text and I’ve spent enough time as is on these posts for the time being; maybe some other time).

Here are a few animated gif images of my SSGSS and the immortal sisters, due to their being some visual effects/aura’s on these characters that the screenshots just won’t do justice for.

Reserved for later.