Guild Wars 2

I’m looking for opinions based on people’s experience with Abyss and Celestial dyes.

Are they that much better than their lesser components (black or white)?

How do they react compared with the lesser dyes in different lighting situations?

It’s really difficult to tell much of the difference in the light of the preview window. Celestial appears to be a bit brighter than white, but I’m not quite sure it’s 10gold worth brighter. However, I also know that what you see in the preview window isn’t exactly how something shows in the general world.

Are they worth buying (or keeping if you get them as a drop)? Or are they mostly hype?

How the color translates onto the armor piece depends on the material of the armor. Abyss is the darkest black on metal armor, but on cloth or leather I believe there are other dyes that are darker.

If you have metal armor and you want it to be ‘black’ and not ‘old faded black t-shirt black’ then you want Abyss.

I use Mignight Fire I believe it is called on my Necro armor.

It looks very dark, certainly more black that anything else and it is not as terribly priced as some other dyes.

Some armor pieces are just better for overall density of the dye. My first armor set on my Necro was a Karma set from ORR venders and it held dyes very dark.

Later I picked up some other types and a few skins and was baffled at how translucent the dyes were on these sets. A very rich dark purple or black would be light purple and dark grey instead.

Any info on Celestial? Is it more for metal also?

I’m considering putting Celestial on medium armor, but just not sure how it will look outside of the preview window.

Check out the dyealogue.

After wasting 20g on Celestial in efforts to better match my radiant skins, you’re better off with white. You can preview the dye by right-clicking it in the TP, but what you see in the preview window isn’t even close to what you’ll see in-game. People like to defend it with excuses of ambient lighting, but it’s so far off-base even in the most well lit areas, it’s not even worth considering at this point. Save yourself the coin and just go with white.

Dresden.1736:

After wasting 20g on Celestial in efforts to better match my radiant skins, you’re better off with white. You can preview the dye by right-clicking it in the TP, but what you see in the preview window isn’t even close to what you’ll see in-game. People like to defend it with excuses of ambient lighting, but it’s so far off-base even in the most well lit areas, it’s not even worth considering at this point. Save yourself the coin and just go with white.

Yeah, the preview is very misleading :P I say, if you’re going to spend 10g, might as well go 20g though (for white/celestial).

Black can be dark enough for some armor, but on heavy there’s a big difference between it and Abyss.

Midnight Ice is superior and cheaper to Abyss in every way.

My warrior wears MI on her Primeval armour. She had Abyss, and I removed it. It just seemed to destroy all the detailing.

GuzziHero.2467:

Midnight Ice is superior and cheaper to Abyss in every way.

Most of the midnights show their true colors on a lot of armor. They’re not superior in any way :P

… maybe it is because it is early morning, but that didn’t make sense to me.

I am using Midnight on armour. How is that not showing its true colour. It is the colour of the item it is placed on…

Abyss distorts and obfuscates detail in the armour it is used on. I’d happily unallocate my Abyss and sell it in a heartbeat if I could.

I can’t comment on celestial but I’ve got abyss on my main and how it looks really varies with the material you put it on. It’s definitely darker than other ‘pure’ blacks, but it’s more of a matt black than the midnight shades, which have a slight gloss of their ‘true’ colour that makes them look deeper on some fabrics.

So for example on my boots I’ve dyed the leather in midnight ice because it actually looks darker than abyss. (Think of the difference in a real life pair of black leather shoes when you polish them.)

But I dyed the metal parts abyss because midnight ice showed too much of the blue sheen and looked too obviously off-black.

GuzziHero.2467:

… maybe it is because it is early morning, but that didn’t make sense to me.

I am using Midnight on armour. How is that not showing its true colour. It is the colour of the item it is placed on…

You can tell it’s midnight w/e on a lot of different armor, the ice part shows through. Basically everything Danikat said.

I will agree that Abyss can really distort/cover up a lot of details.

Well, to close this thread up, I decided to buy Celestial. I’d have to say that I would better have spent the gold on icy runestones or exotics for the mystic forge.

The attached image is a composit. In one I’m wearing white, in the other I’m wearing celestial. good luck figuring it out. I can’t really complain, I’ve come to expect this sort of rip-off from Anet.

Neural – did you notice a difference in the preview before you purchased the celestial? I am just curious if you can see a difference in the preview that then does not show when you actually apply the dye.

Infernia.9847:

Neural – did you notice a difference in the preview before you purchased the celestial? I am just curious if you can see a difference in the preview that then does not show when you actually apply the dye.

This.

The lighting in those screen shots isn’t great for the dye – you really need light shining on it for celestial to stand out properly – but if I remember correctly the light in the preview window isn’t that great either so you would have gotten the same effect there.

I can’t really tell because they are two different poses, but it looks like the screenshot on the right is Celestial due to the light reflection of the dye. Again, it’s hard to tell since you’re in a shadowy area, so all the light you get is reflected light

White and Celestial have differences in most circumstances. I’ll show a picture of both of them similar to yours.

The differences can be considered very minute, but it is the difference between a pure and non-pure color. Also, since I’m wearing cloth armor, they both show up with more contrast (as opposed to leather/metallic clothing).

Note: I’m not saying Light/Heavy/Medium since each has access to certain items that will dye like others.

Infernia.9847:

Neural – did you notice a difference in the preview before you purchased the celestial? I am just curious if you can see a difference in the preview that then does not show when you actually apply the dye.

Actually the difference in preview was the first spot I started to question things. I had created this thread, and then also looked at some images I cam across on the net regarding celestial vs white when used on medium armor, and it appeared to be a bit more noticeable, which is why I took the risk. If anything, I’ll try and put together some fixed pose snapshots from various times of day and then post them so people can get a better idea of if they think it is worth it or not.
Personally it would be nice if it had a soft glow to it, something similar to the radiant armor skins.
I’ve made virtual clothing for virtual characters for a long time (SL), and white is one of the most difficult colors to pull off correctly. That being said, I would think a dye named “celestial” would have something special to it overall, but..whatever. Lesson learned there. I won’t be buying Abyss, that’s for sure.

Celestial is almost too bright for me on most armors.

It really depends on the armor section and material. On some celestial really pops out in ways that white does not; on others it just serves to wash out detail. Both look very different in low light than bright light and that will likely affect your choice.

In either case the difference is very small. If you don’t have both to compare side by side it’s rather difficult to tell which is which.

I prefer Winter Ice over Celestial. It doesn’t wash out the detail as much and has a glossy sheen in most lighting where celestial is very flat.