Guild Wars 2

I was on my thief I have always thought midnight ice was the best black dye. A very deep black to it on leather and cloth materials. Better than black and abyss which come out a dark grey not a deep black. Now on metal there is a gun metal blue to it which is also cool.

I just took a look at a very expensive gloss black dye in the trading post. Gloss black is 380g I compared that to midnight ice and guess what they are the same color. a nice deep black with a gunmetal blue for metal armor. I was hoping a deep black for all of the armor types not the same as an already established color(which isn’t even considered black)

It may look the same on your monitor(s)/computer set-up, but look different on others.

Some colors are similar, yet look different on different armors (and not just weights).

It’s great, though, to have lower-cost alternatives that are nearly the same, for many.

Hex colors are

• Glossy Black = 1e1c1f.
• Midnight Ice
  • cloth = 000008
  • color-leather = 0F1518
  • color-metal = 011117
• Abyss
  • cloth = 1A181B
  • leather = 1A181B
  • metal = 0F0F0F
• Shadow Abyss
  • cloth = 000000
  • leather = 000000
  • metal = 000000
• Black
  • cloth = 252326
  • leather = 252326
  • metal = 252326

Shadow Abyss is objectively the darkest and black the lightest of these. Aside from that, your game settings, monitor, particular armor pieces, contrasts, and even your own eyesight affect which appears best to you.

Plus, the preview panel does a terrible job of showing off dyes; it often misses hues and such, due to the not-really-game lighting it uses.

There are a couple of websites that attempt to show off the colors better, including the wiki, but I’ve yet to find one that gives me a clear idea of what to expect.

tl;dr Glossy isn’t the same as Midnight Ice, but if you like M-Ice equally (or better), then it’s a steal at under 3g. I collect all the dyes out of obsession, not because the most expensive are necessarily better.

Your computer settings definitely make a difference. I was really frustrated when I finally got my thief to level 80, picked out cool armour for him and dyed it in 3 different shades of black…then my graphics card dyed and for a couple of months it all looked the same flat, matte black because I was playing on the lowest settings. Then I got my new graphics card, re-did my monitor settings and found I wanted to change the dyes around because they didn’t look as good any more.

(BTW yes I know all black armour is lame, but it’s only the one character and he’s a black and white striped Ash Legion thief so it works, and the 4th channel is white.)

Personally I like having a range of blacks to work with, because they do look different depending on the material they’re applied to and I like having the options. Sometimes I love the blue sheen from Midnight Ice, sometimes I want the same material to just be black. Sometimes Shadow Abyss is perfect, sometimes it hides details and Abyss or Black is better.

It’s the same with other colours. I use about 5 different reds on my elementalist, to get the right look across her armour and outfits, and 4 different reds on my necromancer. It’s often only a very subtle difference, but it’s important to me to get it just right.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Hex colors are

• Glossy Black = 1e1c1f.
• Midnight Ice
  • cloth = 000008
  • color-leather = 0F1518
  • color-metal = 011117
• Abyss
  • cloth = 1A181B
  • leather = 1A181B
  • metal = 0F0F0F
• Shadow Abyss
  • cloth = 000000
  • leather = 000000
  • metal = 000000
• Black
  • cloth = 252326
  • leather = 252326
  • metal = 252326

Shadow Abyss is objectively the darkest and black the lightest of these. Aside from that, your game settings, monitor, particular armor pieces, contrasts, and even your own eyesight affect which appears best to you.

Plus, the preview panel does a terrible job of showing off dyes; it often misses hues and such, due to the not-really-game lighting it uses.

There are a couple of websites that attempt to show off the colors better, including the wiki, but I’ve yet to find one that gives me a clear idea of what to expect.

tl;dr Glossy isn’t the same as Midnight Ice, but if you like M-Ice equally (or better), then it’s a steal at under 3g. I collect all the dyes out of obsession, not because the most expensive are necessarily better.

Few questions for my own curiosity. How do you find the hex colors of each dye in the game? And also does anyone know why some so many dyes are actually different colors on different armor weights?

OriOri.8724:

Few questions for my own curiosity. How do you find the hex colors of each dye in the game? And also does anyone know why some so many dyes are actually different colors on different armor weights?

These days, the colors are published via the API. But you can look them up on the wiki, if you mouse over the three colored squares in the top-right info box. (Or click on the “edit” tab at top left, just to the right of the website logo, so you can see the hex values in text.)

The best website for comparing colors and prices is gw2BLTC You can type in a dye name or hex color… or choose from a color spectrum and then search. Unfortunately, it only does a simplistic one-dimension match, and computers use three dimensions to identify colors, so your mileage is going to vary a lot, so you’ll have to take a look yourself.

As to why there are different hex values for some dyes, but not others. ANet hasn’t directly commented on how that’s changed over the years, so we have to speculate. It’s well known that (in RL and on screen), the target material affects the color. That’s also especially true for MMO dyes, for a variety of reasons (based on which pixels pick up the dye, among the many reasons weapons can’t be dyed and armor takes longer to design because it can be dyed).

So early on, it appears that ANet attempted to match all three material effects on screen, probably by using a standard cloth, leather, and metal component and using Photoshop-like tools to confirm. Later on, they probably realized two things: first, that it was a lot of work to design great colors and match them. And second, that it was ultimately pointless, because once those dyes are applied to in-game armor, all bets are off anyhow, since hardly anything uses the baseline cloth, leather, or armor swatches.

In short, it seemed like a good idea at the time (and probably was originally). But later, they decided to use their time on things that would matter to the players more. (Again, I’m speculating based on comments they’ve made and what we know about color.)

Oh interesting, thanks