Guild Wars 2

So, this game dispenses with the Holy Trinity of Tank/DPS/Healing. Every class has a spec that can support, dps, or tank with some level of success. I’ve tanked many a champion on my elementalist with a combination of slows and dodges and jump-forward powers.

So, that being the case… WHY do we still have a Trinity of armor weights?

I understand that melee is supposed to have much higher damage numbers than ranged, simply because of the safety factor involved. But why do only warriors and guardians benefit from higher armor numbers in melee?

I play a dagger elementalist, a 2-sword mesmer, a greatsword ranger. I’m in melee with them as often as I am with my warrior and guardian. And yet, I need to be much, much more mobile and careful doing so, and I am not rewarded with the kind of damage numbers the heavies get, either.

If the game is designed so that NO ONE can tank and spank, NO ONE is built to simply stand in melee and take hits, and every class can choose to melee or ranged… why don’t we have a choice of what armor we want to wear on our characters? Perhaps there could be an endurance reward for light armor and an endurance penalty for heavy, and the more pieces of heavy you wear the less dodges you get.

It makes no sense to penalize light armor wearers in damage for staying back out of melee, when they have no option to get a little more protection if they want to wade in there.

OP,

I usually stay out of General Forums owing to its chronic toxicity, but I think you’re asking a legitimate question built on erroneous assumptions and basic fallacies.

First of all, before we answer any question at all, we need to know what is meant by “Trinity.” Trinity in this case doesn’t just mean something that comes in threes. Trinity is a way of describing the fundamental and essential tactical configuration of MMO combat in most games which divides all combat encounters into three basic parts: The tank, which holds aggro and stays alive; the healer, which keeps the tank and the rest of the party alive; the DPS, which kills the target.

It is a three-part system of combat into which every class, every spec, every piece of gear ties into. That is the Trinity.

When you take the word “Trinity” and use it to describe the three types of armor (Light/Medium/Heavy), you are unintentionally creating a false analogy by using the term incorrectly. The three armor types do not constitute a Trinity. They constitute a taxonomy. A method of organization.

Light/Medium/Heavy : Armor :: Scholar/Adventurer/Soldier : Profession

That’s it. That’s the extent of the armor differences. They’re wholly cosmetic, and the minor difference in overall armor values will not allow a Soldier to stay in combat and take hits while an Adventurer can’t. Only very specialized builds can take multiple hits in combat and survive—and even then, never indiscriminately. Broadcasted boss attacks WILL one shot you, regardless of your armor type.

The other practical reason you cannot wear another profession group’s armor type is simple but often overlooked:

PVP. There’s really no way to instantly identify an enemy’s profession and build. You have to be able to visually identify your enemy, by the animation/effects of their attacks, their equipped weapons and—yes—the style of their armor.

TL;DR: Not gonna give you one. Ask a complex question and get a complex answer.

Roll a Guardian.

I’ve wondered this, too..

Why not an armor system that works like the weapon skills? e.g. You can choose light, medium, or heavy, but that comes with different benefits and penalties, based on class. Or something more interesting and fitting to GW2 like that, rather than just a tired old armor trinity system.

The game was never designed, nor intended to be balanced in this manner. This would require a massive co-ordinated effort between all the class designers to re-balance the game.

Simply put, it’s not going to happen. At least not in this game.

However, let me tell you… in past MMO’s where this was possible, everyone just wore plate armor. Everyone. It was silly and trivialized the need for any other armor type.

Vzur.7123:

I’ve wondered this, too..

Why not an armor system that works like the weapon skills? e.g. You can choose light, medium, or heavy, but that comes with different benefits and penalties, based on class. Or something more interesting and fitting to GW2 like that, rather than just a tired old armor trinity system.

That’s certainly what I was thinking, yes.

And I have no trouble believing that many people would go full plate. But if there were speed and dodging penalties to wearing plate, in a game with no mounts? I think people would at least consider balancing their suits a bit.

On the other hand… so what if people wore all plate? Who cares? That would be people’s choices to make.

Feycat.4370:

Vzur.7123:

I’ve wondered this, too..

Why not an armor system that works like the weapon skills? e.g. You can choose light, medium, or heavy, but that comes with different benefits and penalties, based on class. Or something more interesting and fitting to GW2 like that, rather than just a tired old armor trinity system.

That’s certainly what I was thinking, yes.

And I have no trouble believing that many people would go full plate. But if there were speed and dodging penalties to wearing plate, in a game with no mounts? I think people would at least consider balancing their suits a bit.

On the other hand… so what if people wore all plate? Who cares? That would be people’s choices to make.

If everyone is wearing the best armor, then there is no choice.

Because looking at armor alone is an oversimplification of how things work.

You can spec to gain additional toughness and/or vitality.
Many skills have passives or active bennefits that increase survival.
Its not just about you. Its about the party working together. EG a guardian can tank by virtue of providing boons/healing to others and letting them “tank”.

Ragnar Dragonfyre.1806:

The game was never designed, nor intended to be balanced in this manner. This would require a massive co-ordinated effort between all the class designers to re-balance the game.

Simply put, it’s not going to happen. At least not in this game.

However, let me tell you… in past MMO’s where this was possible, everyone just wore plate armor. Everyone. It was silly and trivialized the need for any other armor type.

I agree it would require major revamping of the game, but in fairness… other MMOs didn’t have dodging, nor was dodging given the primacy of mitigation it gets in GW2. It would depend on the bonuses, but personally, if lighter armor made it possible to dodge more often or effectively? I’d wear light or medium on every character. Maybe heavy on my ranger since I like using sword/dagger on him, and that combo suffers from having tons of baked in evasion while also rooting you during the auto attack animation.

Outside of the required time to implement it, the idea has merit because of how different GW2’s approach to damage mitigation is.

Eh, I’d personally latch onto cloth and Never let go if they did this. That’s the only tier with any number of notably decent-looking armours in my eyes, and I’d love to be able to grab them for my ranger. Especially if we could mix-and-match…

Really, I don’t even care too much about there being any distinctions between the armour classes though. If every armour-class performs the same for me? Great. If I have to take a bit of a penalty? So be it.

Apathy.6430:

Feycat.4370:

Vzur.7123:

I’ve wondered this, too..

Why not an armor system that works like the weapon skills? e.g. You can choose light, medium, or heavy, but that comes with different benefits and penalties, based on class. Or something more interesting and fitting to GW2 like that, rather than just a tired old armor trinity system.

That’s certainly what I was thinking, yes.

And I have no trouble believing that many people would go full plate. But if there were speed and dodging penalties to wearing plate, in a game with no mounts? I think people would at least consider balancing their suits a bit.

On the other hand… so what if people wore all plate? Who cares? That would be people’s choices to make.

If everyone is wearing the best armor, then there is no choice.

Just means they need to make sure heavy armor isn’t the best. There are all sorts of things they could do to balance it. Instead of just effecting movement speed, or endurance regen, it could even effect damage in some way. Cooldowns, casting speed, crit chance, whatever. Just a matter of tweaking it, until it becomes a real decision.

Just means they need to make sure heavy armor isn’t the best. There are all sorts of things they could do to balance it. Instead of just effecting movement speed, or endurance regen, it could even effect damage in some way. Cooldowns, casting speed, crit chance, whatever. Just a matter of tweaking it, until it becomes a real decision.

Or, they could just use the current system where armor doesn’t really matter.

Vzur.7123

I agree it would require major revamping the game, but in fairness… other MMOs didn’t have dodging, nor was dodging given the primacy of mitigation it gets in GW2. It would depend on the bonuses, but personally, if lighter armor made it possible to dodge more often or effectively? I’d wear light or medium on every character. Maybe heavy on my ranger since I like using sword/dagger on him, and that combo suffers from having tons of baked in evasion while also rooting you in substantial animation.

Outside of the required time to implement it, the idea has merit because of how different GW2’s approach to damage mitigation is.

Considering the balance issues, bugs and cries for additional content we’re getting already, I just don’t believe this suggestion to be very constructive nor in the best interest of the future of the game. It’s a balancing nightmare that would take months of planning, work and testing.

This type of system needs to be in place from pre-production. It’s not something that can be slapped on after the entire system has been solidified and balanced to the point that it already is.

Coz a Thief would have a hard time stealing anything whilst wearing heavy armour
And who would trust a Guardian to hold the line wearing cloth

I was under the impression the heavy armour professions had less ranged and dodge options thus they were going to take more hits (even compared to a dagger elementalist, who I know to be somewhat ranged and have very high mobility, control and evasion abilities compared to the two heavy armour classes which seem to have more of a focus on gap closers rather than evasive skills). My experience has also been that armour doesn’t seem to matter as much as toughness and vitality.

I don’t see anything wrong with the current armor system.

You fail to take into account the skill sets that these lower armor classes have. Yes a warrior and guardian have more survivability due to armor, but I’ve never seen a warrior vanish at 20% health like thieves mesmers and engineers do. Elementalists have the longest dash I’ve ever seen with that lightning rush, and don’t even get me started on ranger mobility.

If you want to nullify armor classes then you have to rebalance class abilities. No need for thieves to have several abilities that have a built in dodge or stealth mechanic. The engineers shield abilities put the warriors to shame as far as utility (I’m honestly jealous of the moves of engy shields)

This has already been asked and answered in another thread.

In the end different armors have roughly 200 armor of difference, which is probably a 5% damage reduction.
This hardly matters in game based on builds where you can make an Ele be very tany and a Guardian into a glass cannon.

I fear people will never drop the traditional MMO logics, they continually try to make comparisons between apples and oranges, failing to realize the only thing in common is they are fruits.

I agree but for different reasons cough As a medium armor wearer, I am seriously jealous of the really nice variance and beauty of the light/heavy armor wearers. The leather armors are all mostly a bit bleh for me, apart from the Sylvari cultural ones and the Rascal set. The rest are just very….generic, uninspiring. Look at the variety of the crafting Tailoring ones – feathered, winged, masquerade – they’re gorgeous. As it is, once I’ve collected my Nightmare jacket I’m feeling hardpressed to see what else I’d want to continue farming for.

I’d be totally cool with this being a rare Transmutation stone or something – transmute armor appearance onto different armor class. I don’t see PvP as a valid argument for this either – people can already transmute armor to hide its strength, and personally I recognise a class more quickly by their weapon or actions than I do their appearance.

its fine, not evetybody need heavy armor.
its more a question of the style you like, and hopefully there is at least 1 among the 8 profession.
i like mesmer in robe with 2h sword.

This thread is pretty old dunno why the cm ressurected it. Just a FYI Red

I do agree that there is a real missed opportunity by not allowing any class to use any armour (or even mix pieces from different armour ‘tiers’). An idea to perhaps balances allowing such a mix would be something like:

Light Armour: +5% Endurance Regeneration / piece
Medium Armour: -
Heavy Armour: -5% Endurance Regeneration / piece

Numbers as examples obviously, but playing on the most logical restriction of armour being the ability to dodge; easier with cloth and a lot harder in a full suit of plate. People would then have the choice to lose their toughness (EHP) in order to gain more dodge opportunity.

The potential for problems (balancing aside) would be recognizing other classes in PvP (though I think that would be part of the metagame going for deceptive looks) and in sPvP simply make armour of any tier look like armour of the classes ‘default’ tier (all armour has a matching light/med/heavy look). For WvW, let the deception commence.

Some thoughts:
It seems that there many stats that characters need to choose from, if all three armor types (and crafting skills) are kept and everyone is allowed to use all armors, then the stats on armor may need to be scaled. For example, cloth has the most power/healing, leather has the most condition/precision and plate has the most toughness/vitality. Each craft would still have some armor with a variety of stats as well. This would allow for balancing based on play preference and I think it would allow the maintenance of the current crafting system.

Balancing the looks of these armors together might make the design team take up drinking though.

“When you take the word “Trinity” and use it to describe the three types of armor (Light/Medium/Heavy), you are unintentionally creating a false analogy by using the term incorrectly. The three armor types do not constitute a Trinity. They constitute a taxonomy. A method of organization.”

No, by definition the terminology he used was correct. However i would like to point out you are misusing taxonomy as it is a system of grouping a number of similar things into groups to be classified, not the classification in it self.

Balancing the looks of these armors together might make the design team take up drinking though.

They could just make it so that any armors that blatantly clip can’t be worn together. That’d reduce choices, but it would still open up a lot of new possibilities. Other than that, I don’t see why the art team should be too controlling about that. Let players worry about that for themselves, IMHO.

and I wonder if that’s a big part of the issue. Choices and aesthetics. People want to choose their style more, rather than have it dictated to us by the design team?

This was something i was thinking the other day. If i was to build my necro into a melle range fighter with lifesteals going for a sort of “shadow knight/death knight” what have you style…it would make sense for me to want to equip some heavy armor.

If i was to want to sit back and play healer with a staff on my gaurdian…perhaps i felt cloth might be my favor. Simply put, i dont like the cosmetic limitations particularly considering i dont see any balance to it.

Zinwrath.2049:

This was something i was thinking the other day. If i was to build my necro into a melle range fighter with lifesteals going for a sort of “shadow knight/death knight” what have you style…it would make sense for me to want to equip some heavy armor.

If i was to want to sit back and play healer with a staff on my gaurdian…perhaps i felt cloth might be my favor. Simply put, i dont like the cosmetic limitations particularly considering i dont see any balance to it.

I can see everyone’s point in this thread in their arguments which are all equally valid. I wouldn’t mind if you could mismatch armors but the question is not whether it’s good for the player-base – but how much WORK would be involved in doing so? It could simply be far easier to allow “skins” so to speak of different armors to be used and mismatch to fit. But still have the professions use light/medium/heavy stats.

It would simply be a modification of the transmutation stone I think would be the easiest solution if people REALLY want to go this route. To be honest, I rather just have the looks rather than the stats. I believe the stat differences between light and heavy is marginal enough that overall – it makes no difference what so ever virtually that I see little reason to homogenize the stats together.

This is a really good point, and it asks a really great question: If there is no trinity of classes, then why does the armor rating still matter?

I’d posit a few theories: One, a majority of the classes that wear lower armor rating equipment tend to have other viable options for survival through class mechanics (i.e. Necromancer’s Death Shroud) or through careful thought of weapon sets and utility combinations. However, a few of these mechanics don’t transfer well over into PvE.

For example, the Mesmer’s Shatter and Duplication skills (Phantasms/Clones) do not grant additional survivability because mobs in PvE just do not prioritize the fake mesmers. Therefore, the mesmer is left with having to either kill fast enough via glass cannon builds or hope to never take the mobs attention. Either way, it doesn’t solve the issue.

In the case of PvP, I think the armor rating system is far more balanced: We have the idea of two classes (Guardian and Warrior) that are very reliant on approaching melee combat to deal maximum damage (Yes, this may not always be the case, some builds are meant to outlast others, etc. Fine point, but let’s ignore that scenario for now, for the sake of argument). Therefore, it makes more sense to grant them armor so that they may try to accomplish that goal.

However, the overall balance of armor rating in general PvE from leveling to dungeons really shows. I have a lv80 Warrior and a lv65 Thief, I go to Ascalonian Catacombs and the dungeons are two different beasts whenever I play either. Regardless of the level difference, I still am far more tanky than Thief will ever be, even though I’m running Full Prescision/Strength.

Overall, I think this issue is one of the better meta-arguments that will be discussed throughout the course of GW2. Similarly, I see Weapon Choice also being a big issue. Let’s see what happens.

I think an interesting idea would be to make armor upgrades available from the toughness trait line.

Example: A mesmer spends 10 or 20 points in Chaos (toughness) and is able to unlock a trait for medium armor. Then if that mesmer spends 20 or 30 points in that trait line they could unlock heavy.

For warriors and guardians wanting to go backwards (ie medium or light). . . well, I have no idea what to do for that.

This is a good question… shouldn’t a light armor class who is using melee skills do more damage than a warrior? It certainly doesn’t seem to be the case.

Armor rating doesn’t mean -that- much. It’s the HP differences that are noticable. With Elementalist, Guardian, and Thieves having the least HP; Engineers, Mesmers, and Rangers having the average HP; and Warrior and Necromancers having the top HP; it’s not going to boil down to armor ratings.

Each profession has their own way of surviving up close. We can’t gauge the effectiveness of those skills because the effectiveness varies from player to player. The reason why Warrior, in my opinion, is so popular is because the effectiveness of their survivability is static across all players. Highest health and the highest base HP will definitely be the easiest way to survive.

In all honesty, I believe that Elementalist is the only profession that truly needs help when up close. The fact that they have the lowest health, and lowest armor rating should mean they should have either built in defenses, or high damage to compensate. Earth Attunement is not a valid enough problem solver for Elementalist.

I like the feel of the three different armor weights.

I have a Mesmer, a Ranger, and a Guardian, all of whom often use one-handed swords (well, the Guardian doesn’t quest much because he’s always home cooking in the Grove – but he’s going to use swords when he’s bigger).

Of course their skills with the weapons are different, but I also like the fact that getting in melee range feels different for the three of them – the Mesmer really has to keep moving, the Ranger really should get back in bow range sooner rather than later, and so on.

In a game where a limited number of weapon types are shared among several classes, the diversity that armor weight brings is, for me, a plus.

Of course, that’s an altoholic’s perspective: someone who plays only a single character class might care more about parity with other players and less about variety in gameplay.

Seeing as it’s all looks anyway I don’t really see why we can’t choose what style of armor we wish to wear and the different armor values going along with it. I’d so mix some medium and light armors on my Mesmer to get a more swashbuckling look in a heartbeat instead of all the accursed hiptents that light armor consists of. Not a single decent pair of just pants or shorts anywhere for light armor and no shorts for medium armor or just skirts. Depressing to say the least.

You could even have the armor values be by class instead of armor look if it’s such a balance issue. In game excuse is the training a guardian/warrior goes through being far more physically intense then any of the other classes results in a slightly higher defense value.

Then everyone could have the looks they wanted. The melee heavily armored looking necro or the light armored swashbucker warrior etc..

Imaginos.3756:

Seeing as it’s all looks anyway I don’t really see why we can’t choose what style of armor we wish to wear and the different armor values going along with it. I’d so mix some medium and light armors on my Mesmer to get a more swashbuckling look in a heartbeat

I can imagine a gem shop “Uber Transmutation Stone” that would be able to transmute between armor weights. Clipping would be a problem to some extent, but not really much more than between pieces of different sets of the same weight.

In ranked PvP “class camouflage” would be a problem, but that has its own gear anyway. And WvW is too harum-scarum for it to make much difference.

Imaginos.3756:

instead of all the accursed hiptents that light armor consists of. Not a single decent pair of just pants or shorts anywhere for light armor and no shorts for medium armor or just skirts.

This. Really. Please. Give a guy a pair of pants, could you?

In all honesty, I was thinking a possible solution as what Sahfur said would be best, although the implementation of damage types per armor class is not feasible.

In a broader sense i would like to see the armor classes providing different playstyles in terms of different tactics.

For example, Heavy Armor could have incorporated higher Defense Ratings, or boosted Toughness to encourage players to defend themselves by soaking or minimizing damage.

Medium Armor could be focused on giving a bigger health pool and better reactions to healing spells/skills, might do well for skirmishers who can rush in, do what they need to, and have that little extra to survive the retreat and recharge, or plainly just to survive attacks that would usually instakill with armor penetration.

Light Armor could be focused on giving extra dodge rolls with scaled recharge rates, maybe four or five bars but no benefit of damage reduction or plain survivability, and encourage mitigating damage totally.

This in my opinion would really open up the possibilities of the game. At the moment, armor doesnt really do anything IMO except to serve as stat sticks and art pieces, and the difference in raw defense rating between armor classes is negligible.

maybe lighter armor should regen endurance more, to the point of light armor being able to dodge twice as often as heavy armor, with medium armor being able to dodge three times for every 2 dodges a heavy can do.

But seriously it does kind of seem like a joke that warriors can put out that much damage while having that high of base toughness and high HP.

Usually survivability was balanced by lower damage… but not when warriors are doing 100 blades for 30K+ damage.

Going back to my pen and paper roots its about training and what you sacrifice to do the things that you do.. Ie: With Warriors and Guardians its more then just wearing the armor, its about position covering your week spots, learning how to maximize your weapons potential, etc. To learn all this you had to spend less time doing other things, other training. In a skill point based system on could increase the cost fr certain class to be able to use certain armor in an MMO like this ? Maybe no offhand slot use, slower movement and dodge?

Feycat.4370:

Vzur.7123:

I’ve wondered this, too..

Why not an armor system that works like the weapon skills? e.g. You can choose light, medium, or heavy, but that comes with different benefits and penalties, based on class. Or something more interesting and fitting to GW2 like that, rather than just a tired old armor trinity system.

That’s certainly what I was thinking, yes.

And I have no trouble believing that many people would go full plate. But if there were speed and dodging penalties to wearing plate, in a game with no mounts? I think people would at least consider balancing their suits a bit.

On the other hand… so what if people wore all plate? Who cares? That would be people’s choices to make.

Eveningstar already gave a good answer. Identification of armour drastically aids PvPers in preparing for the fight. Also personal identification is a big part of any RPG. Specific armour types go a long way to cementing that.

Armor weight as a concept is incompatible with eliminating the trinity. It existed in the first place to create class distinctions in pencil/paper games to explain why a wizard could do massive burst damage, or how a thief could achieve stealth and surprise but still manage hand to hand combat, or how a warrior could absorb damage while standing right in the monsters face and smashing it with heavy things.

The “role” in roleplaying has always been about two things: you play the role of the person (I am Grundar the Warrior), and the role of the character (I am a wizard of immense power, but I’m old and weak since I spent so much time studying my books!).

When you try desperately to eliminate true roles based on the only two options available in games that are combat-centric (damage and healing) you have to make other, new, informed decisions about how to replace those roles and my suspicion is that without being much more elegant and thoughtful about those replacements, you end up with a muddle: much like this one.

I’m not supporting “the trinity”, I’m just explaining why it existed and why attempts to eliminate it sound good in theory but are so difficult to manage in reality.

Everyone having a “dodge” skill isn’t good enough. Softened dps and healing for everyone isn’t good. So-so armor and dps for everyone isn’t good. It makes all the class play essentially the same way.

And I think most people who are less than satisfied with this game sense it, even if they can’t explain it to themselves.

I think the armor system is fine but as far as looks go, I wouldn’t be opposed to there being an “exotic” level Transmutation Stone that could do this, as previously suggested. There’s more than a few of us RPers who would love the option to transmute some of the looks of armor we normally cannot wear on certain characters.

Of course it is true what the sPvPers argue here in terms of looks but sPvP is already such a PvE-removed system (what with PvP armor/weapons and builds being “saved” separately) that I don’t think it would be hard to simply flag all PvP gear un-transmutable in that manner. In WvW, opposing teams see you in generic armor anyway so no need to make changes there.

There would be no “best” armor to switch to in terms of game mechanics—it would simply be a matter of looks-only. Of course, such a thing is really more appropriate to bring up in the Suggestions Forum.

What would be the reason for rolling a guardian or a w if casters could do teh same exact thing while doing more AOE?

There are other differences that balance the classes too. Ex- range on a guardian is rather small even with a wand or a scepter.Also, Necros have minions, engineers have turrets, rangers have pets.

Its not as simple as you made it sound. In the end it all has to be balanced or you would get people rolling one class to the exclusion of others.

Short answer seems to be something like, “Um… because we didn’t think about that part…”.

Games have always had armor categories, so they all need armor categories.

Except that the fundamental reason for the existence of the trinity was BECAUSE of the existence of the armor categories.

And the reason for the categories was to balance the only two factors that really mattered in old school combat based games: damage and healing.

When you take out the trinity, you take out the need for armor because all classes become basically the same.

I think they just didn’t think it through.

I have never been one to buy the idea that certain classes should wear certain armor types because of PvP. It doesn’t take but a mere second to find out what class you are fighting against because their abilities are completely obvious. With that being said, my belief only works in a game where armor value disparities are not large. Guild Wars 2 seems to have little difference between armor types when it comes to pure survivability, so I don’t see why there is a point to limiting armor types, especially for transmutation purposes. That is just my opinion though.

SHM.7628:

What would be the reason for rolling a guardian or a w if casters could do teh same exact thing while doing more AOE?

There are other differences that balance the classes too. Ex- range on a guardian is rather small even with a wand or a scepter.Also, Necros have minions, engineers have turrets, rangers have pets.

Its not as simple as you made it sound. In the end it all has to be balanced or you would get people rolling one class to the exclusion of others.

Okay look dude.

A warrior can do 30,000 damage to EACH target across 3 targets, while having higher health and damage reduction than a dagger elementalist. The elementalist is taking far greater risk, but getting less reward for it.

It seems to me the point of wearing ‘heavy’ armor would be to reduce one’s need to dodge/kite/bunny hop. Otherwise, why bother? Unless as an aid to swimming, if one is for whatever reason too buoyant (possibly due to a diet consisting primarily of foods high in certain polysaccharides). If quick-footed, nimble evasion is required in order to survive while in combat, heavy armor would certainly not be the wise or logical choice.

I just want the option to transmute the looks of any armor onto another, regardless of weight. The game is about looks, so why lock us from 2/3rd of the content? I don’t get it.