Guild Wars 2

Appearance matters. When I’m playing a MMO and my character is supposed to be a hero that is going to save the world from dragons or evil gods, that character should look the part.

So why is it when trying to find a combination of gear which looks the most epic on my character, I’m often comparing exotic/rare gear to lvl 30 crafted stuff, and having a hard time deciding which one looks better?

I went to the heart of the mists and after 30 minutes of checking the various sets of ranger armour I eventually decided that the best-looking of all the sets was the starter guild armour that all characters come with. My lvl 80 guardian ended up with a combination of banded mail and heritage armour.

This was not the case in GW1. There was a clear improvement on the aesthetic quality of the 15k armour vs. the 1k armour. Most of the FoW armour looked absolutely stunning (Ranger was the one exception due to being the only set that wasn’t symmetrical, though I realise that lack of symmetry bothers me more than most and obviously you can’t please everyone at the same time even IF studies show that humans are visually attracted to symmetry… but I digress).

All of my GW2 friends who played GW1 think that the old armour was better. Obviously there’s the potential for sampling bias but I’m still willing to bet that the same trend would persist through the general GW2 population.

So please give us epic looking exotic/legendary armour sets. And if those new sets take the form of prestige armour similar to the current legendary weapons with an associated time-sink involved, so much the better.

i think there’s a good variety in the armor sets and people have different values on aesthetics.

i disliked most of the 15k armor for the classes i played most in GW1 (monk, ritualist, paragon). whereas, so far, i’ve found several armor sets that i’ve liked in GW2.

it just entirely depends on your preference in aesthetics, tbh. the armor sets in GW2 are well designed.

They did a pretty good job with variety on heavy/light armor, but I agree medium armor is just trenchcoats trenchcoats trenchcoats.

I have one word for you – plastics…no wait, its transmutation! Transmute skin you like with exotic armor stats, its a win-win…

Although I really liked the GW1 prestige armour sets, I also love the armour of GW2 (except that there are WAY too many trenchcoats for medium armour). In fact I think that maybe they’ve made some of the more common armours look TOO good, which takes away from the sense of progression from bad armour to something prestigious. In GW1 the basic armour sets were really quite boring to look at, so the 15k armour stood out a lot.

I don’t know how they could really fix this problem. Considering we already have some quite extravagant armours and sets with flames coming out, I really wouldn’t want them to go over the top WoW style to make exotics stand out.

But if all you want is the old GW prestige armours in GW2, that would be sweet too.

kRiza krimos.1637:

I have one word for you – plastics…no wait, its transmutation! Transmute skin you like with exotic armor stats, its a win-win…

I’m guessing you don’t know what heritage armour is….

once I hit 80 I had to stop playing my Engineer because of the trenchcoat design. I could not STAND that look and my Sylvari did not look good in Duelist.

She also did not look good in any of her cultural gear because it was just a bad fit having all aesthetics being plant based then suddenly wearing an obviously human manufactured backpack and weapons (flame thrower, turrets, etc).

They really need more time to work on the aesthetics of this game.

Shindar the Reaver.2518:

Although I really liked the GW1 prestige armour sets, I also love the armour of GW2 (except that there are WAY too many trenchcoats for medium armour). In fact I think that maybe they’ve made some of the more common armours look TOO good, which takes away from the sense of progression from bad armour to something prestigious. In GW1 the basic armour sets were really quite boring to look at, so the 15k armour stood out a lot.

I don’t know how they could really fix this problem. Considering we already have some quite extravagant armours and sets with flames coming out, I really wouldn’t want them to go over the top WoW style to make exotics stand out.

I’m not asking for extravagent armour per se. I’m actually looking for elegant armour, and elegance is often very subtle.

But if all you want is the old GW prestige armours in GW2, that would be sweet too.

Well, ideally I think there should be new artwork, but if they put the old GW1 armour into the game, my ranger would get Elite Kurzick armour so quickly it would make your head spin. :P

I have no problems with most of the armor, yet yes medium needs some love. So do head gear, my god…so many horrible helms…and the random mask and the eye thing that looks like Dragon ball power scanners. Also why so many small shoulders! I hated how wow had huge shoulders but here they seem to be lacking in size.

i completely agree, the variety is poor, and the overall design of the majority of armors is misplaced and poorly imagined. Seriously, only heavy armor got any real attention.

the necromancer themed light armors (there are 5 or 6 sets of them) are beautiful, detailed and just totally kitten

medium armor is mostly meh I think, I like dredge, pirate and that witch hunter one, but lots of medium armor is just leather clothes, which is weak

heavy armor is just insane, some of the best I’ve ever seen

Xarog.3172:

kRiza krimos.1637:

I have one word for you – plastics…no wait, its transmutation! Transmute skin you like with exotic armor stats, its a win-win…

I’m guessing you don’t know what heritage armour is….

I dont see what heritage armor got to do with it? But yes you are right, my HoM is only at about 40 pts and my gw1 account is only 5 yrs old so i have no clue what heritage armor might be…

xiv.7136:

the necromancer themed light armors (there are 5 or 6 sets of them) are beautiful, detailed and just totally kitten

medium armor is mostly meh I think, I like dredge, pirate and that witch hunter one, but lots of medium armor is just leather clothes, which is weak

heavy armor is just insane, some of the best I’ve ever seen

LOL.

You’re aware that you’re pasting an armour skin imported from GW1, right? Thx for proving my point. :P

Also, I bought that off the TP and tested it out and sadly the pieces don’t mix well with other sets from GW2. The lack of symmetry makes it look ugly to me, but as I said in the OP I understand that not everyone feels as strongly about symmetry as I do.

xiv.7136:

the necromancer themed light armors (there are 5 or 6 sets of them) are beautiful, detailed and just totally kitten

medium armor is mostly meh I think, I like dredge, pirate and that witch hunter one, but lots of medium armor is just leather clothes, which is weak

heavy armor is just insane, some of the best I’ve ever seen

Armor skin you showed is primeval armor from gw1, afaik its not obtainable thru any other means but cash shop.

kRiza krimos.1637:

Xarog.3172:

kRiza krimos.1637:

I have one word for you – plastics…no wait, its transmutation! Transmute skin you like with exotic armor stats, its a win-win…

I’m guessing you don’t know what heritage armour is….

I dont see what heritage armor got to do with it? But yes you are right, my HoM is only at about 40 pts and my gw1 account is only 5 yrs old so i have no clue what heritage armor might be…

Because heritage armour is a skin and I said in the OP that my guardian was using it, so therefore I obviously know how to transmute items and your initial post wasn’t making a good point at all.

It’s actually half karma 80 exotics and some old pieces of primeval (which I have now replaced with karma pieces)

I think the primeval skin is ok when you hit 80 exotic level, but once you get your karma pieces for heavy, stick with those skins, they are nicer

Xarog.3172:

kRiza krimos.1637:

Xarog.3172:

kRiza krimos.1637:

I have one word for you – plastics…no wait, its transmutation! Transmute skin you like with exotic armor stats, its a win-win…

I’m guessing you don’t know what heritage armour is….

I dont see what heritage armor got to do with it? But yes you are right, my HoM is only at about 40 pts and my gw1 account is only 5 yrs old so i have no clue what heritage armor might be…

Because heritage armour is a skin and I said in the OP that my guardian was using it, so therefore I obviously know how to transmute items and your initial post wasn’t making a good point at all.

I just pointed out to you that if you like low tier armor skins more than you do exotics and what not, you can simply transmute stats to skin you like and your problem is solved. Since you know how to transmute, i dont see point in making this thread. Art is subjective, tastes for art are different, you are given option to use stats you like on skins you like…

I have not really played GW1 although I dabbled in it a bit. I’m curious as to why they just don’t bring those armors over albiet update them a bit but still wouldn’t that sate some people’s desires?

Personally I really like this game the only real gripe I have is that I can’t find a guild that actually converses and does things. I’d even switch servers if I could find a like minded group of people.

Personally It would be better if we had a locker or something in which we could switch at will instead of transmuting. Or you could even have a cost to it, but at least this way you could keep different visual sets for use.

You could even have two diff. types of lockers one use or infinite use ones and restrict them to character instead of account wide.

kRiza krimos.1637:

Xarog.3172:

So by your argument, if all the legendary weapons looked like drek, the best solution would be to transmute them with rare/masterwork skins?

if legendarys looked like shiyt nobody would go thru pain of crafting them, since they are mostly skins.
Are you saying that legendarys do look like crap?

No, on the contrary, most of the weapons look pretty good; far better than the armour skins.

Which is my point. People actually want the weapon skins. I don’t see anyone going around talking about how they can’t wait to finally finish armour skin [x] and that points to the fact that the armour in general isn’t very appealing.

Your reply to this is to claim that we should be satisfied with the generic lower level looks, but that’s a poor solution in a game where pretty skins/armour is supposed to be what end-game is about.

Xarog.3172:

kRiza krimos.1637:

Xarog.3172:

So by your argument, if all the legendary weapons looked like drek, the best solution would be to transmute them with rare/masterwork skins?

if legendarys looked like shiyt nobody would go thru pain of crafting them, since they are mostly skins.
Are you saying that legendarys do look like crap?

No, on the contrary, most of the weapons look pretty good; far better than the armour skins.

Which is my point. People actually want the weapon skins. I don’t see anyone going around talking about how they can’t wait to finally finish armour skin [x] and that points to the fact that the armour in general isn’t very appealing.

Your reply to this is to claim that we should be satisfied with the generic lower level looks, but that’s a poor solution in a game where pretty skins/armour is supposed to be what end-game is about.

You do make a solid point. This game is all about looks, I’m surprised honestly that there are not many more sets being sold on the TP for gems. Seriously this game is about looks since they stats are pretty much easy to come by. Everyone wants to look cool, but there should be a vast difference between a new level 80 and a level 80 who has been that way for a while and has gotten that new karma set or whatever set their is to buy.

If we had awesome looking legendary armour I’d be over the moon.
I really want some insane elementalist gear, hopefully it would have some arcane features like Tyrael’s wings : http://tinyurl.com/c47hc5k.
Anyone else want legendary gear?

Actually….

At time of writing, the most expensive piece of exotic armour on the trading post is Aiden’s mask, sitting at just under 16 gold.

On the other hand, foefire’s essence is on the trading post for 559 gold. There are several different non-precursor exotic weapons being sold for over 200 gold.

As far as I’m concerned this is conclusive proof that the armour skins are lacking in attractiveness and that something ought to be done to bring them up to the same quality as the weapons.

I think for both heavy and light armors there are adequate options and some of them are absolutely gorgeous. I would not call these bland at all.

However I recently rolled a ranger and engineer and I can honestly say that I am really struggling to find something unique for them.

At least with heavy and light armors you can mix and match armor pieces quite easily, but with medium armor the whole thing basically consists of the coat and this makes it extremely limiting in regards to what you can do. Certainly in need of a bit more attention.

Xarog.3172:

Actually….

At time of writing, the most expensive piece of exotic armour on the trading post is Aiden’s mask, sitting at just under 16 gold.

On the other hand, foefire’s essence is on the trading post for 559 gold. There are several different non-precursor exotic weapons being sold for over 200 gold.

As far as I’m concerned this is conclusive proof that the armour skins are lacking in attractiveness and that something ought to be done to bring them up to the same quality as the weapons.

That doesn’t prove anything. You strawman’ed and cherry chopped a scenario of choice. Comparing apples and oranges and declaring a winner, is not conclusive by any stretch of the imagination.

My Warrior looks INSANELY better than he did in GW1. I find the art direction a large improvement in GW2 in many areas. Armors including. Barbaric Armor is leaps and bounds above the old Gladiator 15K and it’s just a meesly 1s 50c blue set on TP at lvl 80.

There ARE lots of ways to customize your guy. You have 5 races now. That comes with its own set of issues as armor models have to work with all of them. Particularly headpieces with hairstyles can be cumbersome, or creating a single piece that looks right on both an Asura and a Charr. In GW1 you only had humans. It made it easier, even if their models were different. The dif was a lot less.

And if you really think about it, the variety in GW1 was not a lot. People always complained that there was lack of variety in armors. For example the Ranger all had the same sort of masks on almost every set. Elementalists too also had limited looks. Assassins too. You had a few like Monk and Ritualist who had some unique sets, but there was not a lot.

So in GW2 you get 5 races, the most crazy dye system ever conceived, and as far as a launch product – a hell of a lot of skins: http://dulfy.net/category/gw2/fashion-gw2/

Sad Swordfish.9743:

That doesn’t prove anything. You strawman’ed and cherry chopped a scenario of choice. Comparing apples and oranges and declaring a winner, is not conclusive by any stretch of the imagination.

Actually, I proved that people are willing to pay more for exotic weapon skins than exotic armour skins. Therefore, the weapon skins are in higher demand. Considering all the dungeons and cultural sets also come with weapons, the only logical conclusion is that people like the weapons more than the armour. Which proves my assertion that there is a disparity between weapons and armour in terms of appearance.

My Warrior looks INSANELY better than he did in GW1. I find the art direction a large improvement in GW2 in many areas. Armors including. Barbaric Armor is leaps and bounds above the old Gladiator 15K and it’s just a meesly 1s 50c blue set on TP at lvl 80.

While I agree with you about the gladiator/barbaric improvement, that doesn’t say much because you’re just further proving my point that there’s nothing special about the exotic sets by putting a 1s 50c set on a pedastal and saying that THAT’S what people should aspire to look like.

There ARE lots of ways to customize your guy. You have 5 races now. That comes with its own set of issues as armor models have to work with all of them. Particularly headpieces with hairstyles can be cumbersome, or creating a single piece that looks right on both an Asura and a Charr. In GW1 you only had humans. It made it easier, even if their models were different. The dif was a lot less.

And yet somehow the cultural pieces don’t look particularly appealing either.

And if you really think about it, the variety in GW1 was not a lot. People always complained that there was lack of variety in armors. For example the Ranger all had the same sort of masks on almost every set. Elementalists too also had limited looks. Assassins too. You had a few like Monk and Ritualist who had some unique sets, but there was not a lot.

So because I have plenty of bland choices I should be happy?

So in GW2 you get 5 races, the most crazy dye system ever conceived, and as far as a launch product – a hell of a lot of skins: http://dulfy.net/category/gw2/fashion-gw2/

Cool. So if I make you a set of clothes out of horse manure, but I give you the option to dye it any colour you wish, you’d wear it? I’m not saying the armour is bad, just that an excellent dye interface doesn’t make up for bland armour.

Heavy armor is vast and varied and light armor has a decent amount of variety but medium armor is just sad. I am sure as the game matures they will continue to add different styles/sets for the armor types.

Imo heavy armor has some of the best looks I have seen in any mmo. It is right up there with AoC which has really great looking heavy armor too.

Of course this topic is highly subjective and based on personal tastes.

“This was not the case in GW1. There was a clear improvement on the aesthetic quality of the 15k armour vs. the 1k armour. Most of the FoW armour looked absolutely stunning (Ranger was the one exception due to being the only set that wasn’t symmetrical, though I realise that lack of symmetry bothers me more than most and obviously you can’t please everyone at the same time even IF studies show that humans are visually attracted to symmetry… but I digress).”

I’ll have to disagree there, in contrast to the 15k armour the Obsidian sets were pretty bland to me. Elementalists had some weird bodysuit, ditto with Necromancers but now with spikes! The only set I thought had some design merit was Ritualist.

The armours did symbolize a great deal of work, and weren’t as common as the other sets, so I could see the aspect of the work involved adding a layer of appeal.

Overall, I find a larger variety in the female character armour designs in GW2 than there was in GW1. However, I usually pan most of their male armour designs as being boring since they are more conservative than the females in many cases.

I guess the real question is, what is it in an armour set that makes it legendarily awesome looking to you? what are your choices as the best sets in guild wars 1 (outside of FoW armour)? what are the best from guild wars 2?

I can understand the people wanting new skins, but just saying you want “better” ones makes it hard for them to design it.

I like the dungeon armor skins myself.
I’ve seen quite a few heavy armor users use Draconic to be elegant.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Draconic_armor

Nefaria.7659:

“This was not the case in GW1. There was a clear improvement on the aesthetic quality of the 15k armour vs. the 1k armour. Most of the FoW armour looked absolutely stunning (Ranger was the one exception due to being the only set that wasn’t symmetrical, though I realise that lack of symmetry bothers me more than most and obviously you can’t please everyone at the same time even IF studies show that humans are visually attracted to symmetry… but I digress).”

I’ll have to disagree there, in contrast to the 15k armour the Obsidian sets were pretty bland to me. Elementalists had some weird bodysuit, ditto with Necromancers but now with spikes! The only set I thought had some design merit was Ritualist.

The armours did symbolize a great deal of work, and weren’t as common as the other sets, so I could see the aspect of the work involved adding a layer of appeal.

Overall, I find a larger variety in the female character armour designs in GW2 than there was in GW1. However, I usually pan most of their male armour designs as being boring since they are more conservative than the females in many cases.

I guess the real question is, what is it in an armour set that makes it legendarily awesome looking to you? what are your choices as the best sets in guild wars 1 (outside of FoW armour)? what are the best from guild wars 2?

I can understand the people wanting new skins, but just saying you want “better” ones makes it hard for them to design it.

Let’s see…

I liked the Kurzick elite warrior armour. My favourite ranger armour was the kurzick elite armour as well, although the lace did look a little out of place on the male ranger armour. I liked the Asuran assassin armour, it was my first real assassin armour before my FoW armour.

I liked most of the monk sets, they really made the monk seem like some spiritual warrior or zen disciple.

Most of the other caster stuff was good too, as the armour pieces fit the idea behind each class. The mesmer stuff often seemed like something you could wear to a dress party, while all the necro stuff had some death/pain theme going for them.

Where’s the armour set that makes Guardians look like holy knights? Where’s the Warrior set that looks like it should be warn by the champion of an army?

Instead what you get is to look like a dredge miner or an ascalonian guard from 200 years ago. Or a Lionguard who’s job it is to defend Lion’s arch from invaders. None of the sets have that, “Out of the way, hero coming through!” feel to them.

I’m honestly getting tired of people comparing GW1 armor choices to GW2 armor choices.

GW1 has had, what, 7 years and 3 expansions to add to it’s armor selection?

GW2 has had……a whopping 2 months.

To me, the GW1 original choices were just as bad (if not a bit worse) as GW2 choices are now. Give it time people.

My only gripe with armor, is for example in my story i’m playing with tons of awesome leaf people who have epic leaf armor and plants growing on them, when i’m of the same race, wearing the same armor that every race wears..

At launch, GW1 at least had FoW armour though.

I would never have expected it to all look totally awesome, I was just hoping some of it would.

One thing I really don’t like is that I feel like Anet just didn’t try on some of the light armor headpieces. I mean what exactly is that growth on the side of your face wearing the male exalted headpiece? Why is there such an abundance of tiaras and masquerade headpieces?

Also note that the entire reason they don’t simply update the old armor sets to ingame sets and in stead offer them as gem options is because a large number of the old sets are quite thematically incorrect with Tyria 200 years later.

Would I like my combination of armors from my GW1 ranger on my GW2 theif? No, I don’t think I would. As cool as the 15k drakescale, elite luxon gloves, and all the other prestige bits I had were, they would look simply out of place in Tyria of today. Its immediately obvious when someone is wearing a gem skin from GW1 simply because they’re so out of place.

Does armor need a wider variation? Especially medium? Sure. However fashion has literally changed. I’d like MORE awesome looking variation on the themes we’re already exploring. Give me more awesome/sinister tricorn hats, hoods, and non-trenchcoat gear in medium. Also, can we get some hats that don’t cover or eliminate the hair? Give cloth some more non-robe-or-dress options. Give heavy… well heavy has a nice variation of ornamentation, but how about some more gritty/beat up/used looking sets?

How about more non-cultural cultural stuff like the AC armor. You know, what would armor for a Charr, crafted by Norn artisans look like?

As time passes and the pact against the dragons places these cultures closer to one another, it’s only natural that cultural overlap and trade will continue. Sadly, while its clear the art team is capable of reconciling this, such as with the pact fences and gear in Orr, we don’t really get any armor options that show off cool ideas like ‘So some Asura took solid Norn Metalworking, and added a few techamawhatsahoosits to it’ or whatever.

Clearly a lot more effort what put in to the cultural feel of NPCs in the world than it was in to the small portion of armor we have access to. One can find asuran styled, or charr styles, or norn, or whatever weapons, but if, say, an asura wanted a few bits of norn-ish armor simply because it looks cool, he’s SoL

This makes little sense. Let some culture bleeding and overlapping through and in to the armor designs and you’ll instantly have a lot more options for interesting armor.

I will repost here:

There are 3 different racial armors.
There are 7 different crafted armors.
There are 8 different dungeons armors.
There is 1 karma armor set.

You have 19 different armors to choose from.
(thats 19 light, 19 medium, 19 heavy. this does not include the 12 racial armors that you do not have access to.)

And there may be more armors out there as well. ( Like exotic world drop armor sets.)
And for the most part every armor set has a very unique look/feel/vibe to it too.

Personally I would love to see the return of the Tattoo armors from GW1, I thought they were really ground breaking as an “armor” concept and very aesthetically pleasing:

Underwhelm that!

Yeah, except you look more like a general for Zhaitan rather than the hero of the day. :P

I would like PvE only specific dungeon effects. Something that only works if you wear a FULL set of dungeon armor (including weapons).

I would love armor to act the way of AC weapons with the glow happening at night. Or even turning your character into a ghost version of your race at night. Of course a choice to remove those effects would need to be implemented to reduce lag.

All we need is just a bit more variety, most of the current armors are fine. Mixing different pieces and 400 dyes still gives us much more variety than most mmo’s has to offer. That’s my armor if someone is interested:

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/4844/armoru.jpg

My biggest issue with the heavy armor is that it looks great on males and charr but looks thoroughly underwhelming on the smaller, female models.

I have a norn female and remember seeing a norm male with an awesome looking pauldron. i was about to ask where he got it from until i realized that it was the exact same one i was wearing…only 8 times as large. I feel like a lot of the heavy armor is designed to look imposing and kitten, but this only comes across on the larger character models. I really want them to either make some the female heavies looks bigger and more imposing or fully go the direction they’ve gone with the light and medium armors and play up the sexy/feminine aspect (which, i admit, a few of the heavy sets do to a degree).

So either enhance the kittenness of the female heavy armor to compete with that of the males/charr or give us a full-on light/medium armor level of sexy.

The level 80 armour are awesome! i got pretty much full exotic armour (Some karma armour, and some dungeon. Aswell as a few pieces of the rare vigil armour)

here is a picture of my armour

Have you checked out the karma-vendors in Orr? As a thief, I was after a particular look that I saw a mercenary wear in Fort Marimer. Then, I worked to get it and I have exactly what I want.

That said, I think there is not much disparity on armour… I think arenaNet will deliver more. Have you tried previewing the dungeon sets and mix and matching what you want?

I can’t argue about light or heavy armor since I mostly play my engineer or ranger (and seeing others’ armor is kinda hard since mostly it’s all black platemail for some reason), but I have to agree about the blandness of medium armor, there really are so kitten many trenchcoats.

Though, in my opinion, you get that rare gem that stands out, like the crafted noble armor.

I played GW1 since 2005 and honestly hated all of the FoW sets. There was certainly good armor in GW1, many sets I wished were available at max armor. Ancient was probably my favorite type once Nightfall came along.
In my opinion, the GW2 armor matches the excellent looks if not exceeds the looks of the first game. Many sets of cultural armor is stunning and the dungeon armor is excellent. Not to mention crafted armor which I’ve seen but not been able to craft (as I’ve been lazy with crafting xD).
But yes, more armor skins would be good. This is just the beginning, I’m sure we’ll get more armor as time goes on. The game is about 2-3 months old, give it time.

I like some of the armor, but get very tired of the frou-frou female light armor. So fantasy stereotype. I would love to have some dresses, steampunkish looks, skirts, robes, revealing, matronly, etc. Just MORE. And since we can’t pvp in open world, I say let us use costumes and town clothes anywhere. I can’t even understand not letting us dress up for pvp: I mean in a zerg can you REALLY tell anything about the character you are fighting by their clothes?

In a real life full on battle, you don’t stop to assess clothing, you get on with the fight already. Then judge the opponent by skills, not clothing.

We need to be able to make town clothes, armor, etc. that is different. Having all tiers be identical in looks is a huge disappointment. I just bet things will improve as the game ages a bit. Just don’t want too long, Anet. Looks matter in this game.

Xarog.3172:

I’m not asking for extravagent armour per se. I’m actually looking for elegant armour, and elegance is often very subtle.

This.

Oh, what I would give to have my Elite Stoneforged armor or my Mesmer’s FoW armor…

I’ve given it a bit of thought and I think a lot of people have misunderstood what I was trying to say, so I wanted to give it a 2nd attempt :

I do not think the artwork is bad. The artwork really impresses me on most of the items.

But :
Below is one of the dungeon pieces, from Caudecus’ Manor. Note how none of the pieces look under-designed. There is exquisite attention to detail on the chest piece. And at least to me, the marks on the legs and shoulder pieces make it look very much like an old piece of armour that has become tarnished with age. If that’s what they were trying to do, then I for one can’t even imagine a more realistic way one could do it.

No one can say that it’s a bad piece. But does it say “hero”? No, it says, “I got this armour from the attic; it belonged to my great great grandfather.”

This is all fine if you want to pretend your character was is a knight in the queen’s court, or a poor out of luck squire that’s trying to make his fortune with his grandfather’s armour, or a general in Zhaitan’s army. Or a cook. Or like someone whose armour was grown from a seed pod.. I’m glad you all have the choice to dress your characters this way if that’s what you want.

However, not a single piece says, “Out of the way, hero coming through!”. Not a single piece looks as if it ought to belong to the protagonist in a heroic saga. We’re playing an MMO where our characters are supposed to be hero of the day. The story does not happen without us. Yet in GW2 the main character looks just like all the NPCs because his choice of armour can be seen on several NPCs of major or minor involvement in the central plot. If you were drawing the pictures for a story, you wouldn’t make the evil sorcerer antagonist look the part by drawing him in football uniform. Similarly, it’s hard for me to think of my character as the protagonist of his personal story because he just doesn’t look the part. All I’m saying is that the option to do so should be there.