Guild Wars 2

I don’t know who designed the medium armor (or who forced them to design it this way) but they SERIOUSLY dropped the ball. It does not look good at all, and it DEFINITELY doesn’t look like anything an “adventurer,” which is what medium classes are supposed to be (thematically) would ever wear, it just looks inefficient and bulky.

And that’s what I was going for for my main Ranger too :/ I don’t want to re-skin it after all that work, but cmon Anet, ya killin me here.

Can someone PLEASE defend the design for me so I can feel a little better about it?

There are multiple positives.

For one, you don’t have to worry about breaking the medium armor meta while in combat.

For the second, ummmmmm. give me a moment…..

I’ll be back with more reasons later. I just remembered a very, very important chore I need to do, right now.

I really really like it. When the bones are colored with crushed bone and the scales are dyed in a good way it really pops and looks like you’re wearing a dead dragon. Trench coat or not, it’s awesome in my opinion. Then again I just made a thief so I haven’t been used to wearing all trench coats.

They want you to use outfits!

Well you should watch this recorded video during the recent live stream. ArenaNet has said it in the past they want Trench Coats to be the silhouette of Medium Professions. As for the design of Medium Legendary Armor, that’s a different issue…

Strider.5829:

Can someone PLEASE defend the design for me so I can feel a little better about it?

Sure, as soon as you defend every other design in this game and every other one.

There is no skin so good that everyone loves it (nor any so bad that everyone hates it). The more elaborate the details, the more likely it is that someone can’t live with some aspect of it. A lot of people were predisposed to hate medium armor because of the wire mesh that serves as the backbone of all medium armor.

There’s no point in trying to defend any particular skin, because it’s all about personal preferences and artistic design. I can appreciate the artistry even though I wouldn’t be caught dead in 90% of the skins in this game.

I cannot defend the Legendary Medium armor, though if I could I would defenestrate it — preferably from the top floor of a skyscraper. Like many ANet designs, Legendary Armor in its entirety looks impractical and overly ornate.

Tearthy Flame.1463:

Well you should watch this recorded video during the recent live stream. ArenaNet has said it in the past they want Trench Coats to be the silhouette of Medium Professions. As for the design of Medium Legendary Armor, that’s a different issue…

The problem with that is that you can get around it by wearing outfits in PvP and WvW. There are outfits with the silhouettes of all three armour types, so you can even try to fake people out if you’re so inclined.

draxynnic.3719:

Tearthy Flame.1463:

Well you should watch this recorded video during the recent live stream. ArenaNet has said it in the past they want Trench Coats to be the silhouette of Medium Professions. As for the design of Medium Legendary Armor, that’s a different issue…

The problem with that is that you can get around it by wearing outfits in PvP and WvW. There are outfits with the silhouettes of all three armour types, so you can even try to fake people out if you’re so inclined.

Yeah, I think what that guy in the comments said is on point. It’s pretty much a “because we say so” reason. Which is fine, really. Choosing an artistic aesthetic and sticking with it is perfectly reasonable, IMO.

But the “you need to recognize what they are in combat” thing always seems to be made in contexts where it doesn’t actually hold. I’ve seen that kind of thing happen in other games too, though not necessarily out of a staff member’s mouth… where the person will try to say that the design should be as is because of PvP, when there’s already some way in which that reason is torn apart.

Just kind of head-scratching to me. Like why not just say, “Because it’s the artistic aesthetic we want to stick with” and leave it at that.

I can’t believe I say it but IMO the trenchcoat is one of the few that look good on charr. I dislike the idle version, those pants are just weird. I’m ok with the theme, it’s not that bad IMO. Animations look nice. Although it isn’t very fitting for engi, I can understand that you can’t design it to fit all professions.

But Anet come on, even though hiding Asura ears is something I can go with, hiding charr horns is terrible. IMO the headpiece should be designed with these 2 in mind. It’s legendary armor in the end. I’d even rather go with clipping horns and ears.

It continues a trend and does so without shame

The light armor and heavy armor suits the classes that wear it the heavy armor looks at home be it on a guardian, warrior, or Revenant.

Medium armor has a history of tossing thieves under the bus because sure a trench coat makes sense for a ranger and an engineer however it doesn’t for a thief. A theif is like an Assassin, Rogue or Ninja they move stealthily and quickly. In all of Gw1 I can’t think of a single extended coat that assassins used. Yet in Gw2 there flooded with the things barely any armor suitable for a theif and the ones that are will typically be racial.

So medium armor can be defended in that it continues the norm and standard of medium armor of tossing the thief under the bus. This is fashion wars after all and thieves aren’t at every corner showing of their armor for a reason.

Arguably, engineer is tossed under the bus just as much. Yes, the trenchcoat works for an engineer, but a lot of the sets have a tattered, criminal/outdoors look, a duellist look, and/or are accessorised with throwing daggers (which engineers don’t use). I actually have a harder time finding sets that look good on my charr engineer than on my sylvari thief, although admittedly half of that is charr clipping issues.

Ranger works well with most, although a lot of those armour sets have assassin-esque facemasks.

One could justify the trenchcoats on thieves for the reason that most ninjas don’t actually wear the classic ninja garb while on assignments – inconspicuousness. Copying ranger/outdoorsman garb allows them to be reasonably protected while not looking altogether unusual. Of course, this breaks when you put a facemask on top.

The real problem, when you get down to it, is that, for the other classes, it is reasonable that the sets will be shared. Some of the heavy armour sets do point more to some professions than others, but at the bottom line, armour is armour. Similarly, mage’s robes are mage’s robes, although some of the more macabre examples are oriented more towards necromancers. For the medium professions, though… well, you can expect the three to have very different looks. Trenchcoats work for rangers and engineers, as you point out… but rangers and engineers will have very different accessories (a ranger is more likely to have knives, collections of herbs, and various tools for surviving in the wild, an engineer is more likely to have potion vials and a more mechanically-inclined toolbelt). Thieves are generally similar to rangers, but depending on what the thief in question is doing, a long trenchcoat may be completely inappropriate.

That said, there are some examples which avoid the trenchcoat look, either as a complete set, or by combining sets, some of which are reasonably high-end (Glorious and Illustrious being high-end examples). So there are other options. This does, however, make the argument that all the armour within a given weight should have a similar look even weaker – it’s a rule that’s already been broken. It does make sense that the first set of legendary armour should follow the trend of the majority of the existing armour of that weight, though. (TBH, the medium legendary kind of feels like an upgraded Arah set.)

Doam.8305:

In all of Gw1 I can’t think of a single extended coat that assassins used.

That’s because their armor’s “thing” was form-fitting leather suits covered in dozens of spikes.

We had a good laugh about the medium set in guild chat the other night as folks previewed the sets. One guildie said it looked pretty good, and then another told him to turn on the combat mode. Reactions were great; it is so terrible.

The idea that trench coats somehow define or differentiate medium armour makes no sense as most light and quite a few heavy armours also have long trench coat like skirts (look at light and medium bladed armour; the silhouette of both is very similar).

Not too mention the fact that the whole concept of identifiable silhouettes went out the window years ago when they added outfits.

Sounds like a “because we say so” to me alright. It may have been the original idea but please realise that it no longer makes sense. Please give us some options here.

Anyway, I main a thief and the medium legendary armour made me OK with the fact that I don’t raid. So I take that as a positive, I think .

No armor set pleases everyone. Even the light set I wouldn’t use on my necromancer because it doesn’t fit thematically any more than medium does for thieves. Some of us would be disappointed no matter what.

Doam.8305:

Medium armor has a history of tossing thieves under the bus because sure a trench coat makes sense for a ranger and an engineer however it doesn’t for a thief. A theif is like an Assassin, Rogue or Ninja they move stealthily and quickly. In all of Gw1 I can’t think of a single extended coat that assassins used. Yet in Gw2 there flooded with the things barely any armor suitable for a theif and the ones that are will typically be racial.

Umm, sorry but that’s just wrong.

Your character is not an assassin or a ninja. It’s a thief. The thief class may have inherited skills from the GW1 assassin but it’s a thief. And thieves want to wear ample clothes with large pockets to hide the stolen goods. The assassination and acrobatics sub-themes fit the thief because the stereotypical fantasy thief runs fast, is hard to catch, and the evil ones are honorless backstabbers, but it’s still a thief, and as such it makes total sense that a thief would wear trenchcoats and other long clothes.

It’s on ranger that the trenchcoats do not not fit at all. When you’re hunting in the wilds you don’t want to be wearing long and ample clothes, that will get stuck everywhere and catch a ton of crap like dead branches, pollen and pine needles and get dirty real fast. Rangers should get wood runner themed gear or something like that.

Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that there are way too many trenchcoats for the medium professions, but to say that we get an overabundance of trenchcoats because of everyone but thieves is ridiculous.

Give it some time, it might grow on you.

The out of combat look is so kitten horrible…. just … no… it’s too radical of a change in comparison to light and heavy.

1) Redesign the out of combat model to be similar to light and heavy on quality standards. Keep the trench coat (against everyone’s best wishes) and dumb down the effects for out of combat. Keep the combat animations the same.

2) Give an option for all legendary armors the ability to keep the combat model while in and out of combat..

The out of combat model for Medium reminds me of pajamas with a weird babies bonnet.

Did anyone honestly think that legendary armour wouldn’t just be a case of ‘high utility but terrible skin’ just like ascended was?

They built it up for literally years. I think everyone hoped to be impressed, but kind of knew it would end up looking like it was designed by a committee.

I just want consistency… if it’s a trench coat then fine… make it a trench coat in the non-combat form as well….

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

They built it up for literally years. I think everyone hoped to be impressed, but kind of knew it would end up looking like it was designed by a committee.

It’s the sort of situation where they may have been better off spending the effort making a variety of other armour sets so players have a better chance of having a few they like, rather than one ultimate set that will be hit or miss with any given player.

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

They built it up for literally years. I think everyone hoped to be impressed, but kind of knew it would end up looking like it was designed by a committee.

The only people that built up the Legendary armor was the players.

draxynnic.3719:

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

They built it up for literally years. I think everyone hoped to be impressed, but kind of knew it would end up looking like it was designed by a committee.

It’s the sort of situation where they may have been better off spending the effort making a variety of other armour sets so players have a better chance of having a few they like, rather than one ultimate set that will be hit or miss with any given player.

This. If they were/are going to implement only one set of legendary armor they are certain to leave a signiricant portion of the player base dissatisfied.

Legendary armor in general doesn’t appeal to me.

I might like the heavy armor if it didn’t transform into that spiky mess, but then I suppose it would be less…legendary? As far as appearances in general though, I’d rank the medium armor higher than the light armor. That crap is just fugly.

It’s really strange for an armor class meant for athleticism you have a general design that goes against it. You’d think a body-fitting clothing without dangling bits would be the ideal medium armor.

I like legendary medium. Didn’t think I will like it but I did after making it. Currently hv a full set of light and medium. Medium being my favorite atm

It removes charr horns.. are more questsions needed?