Guild Wars 2

Noob here,

I see how transmuting works but where do you find these cool looking weapon skins? or armor?

Do you actually save up and buy the weapon that looks a way you want and then transmute it? Or is there a cheaper way if you only care about the look and not the stats?

Many weapons and armors share skins across a range of levels and rarities, but yes, you do have to get an actual item with a few exceptions. There are occasional skins from special events or sold in the gem store. Also for badges of honor you can get various armor skins in your borderlands keep in wvw.

Mostly you look for the cheapest thing you can find with the look you want, and transmute that onto your stat item.

A little ways into your Personal Story quests, you will be asked to make a decision that will open up one more armor and weapon vendor to you. I don’t want to put a spoiler here, so if you want more info, you can PM me. You need gold to buy from them.

When you are out doing hearts, many Karma vendors offer certain armor types or weapons. Always preview any weapons /armor a Karma vendor has to offer, even if it is below your level or stats. But make sure if you like it that you purchase the right one; heavy, medium, or light. You can’t undo the purchase.

(Many times an NPC involved in an event will turn into a vendor at the end of the event. I have seen some of them offer rings or necklace. )

There are cultural weapon and armor vendors for each race; you will find them in the main cities. They are marked on the map. The weapon skins may not be unique, and might be found in the Trading Post. Weapon vendors takes Karma. The armor vendors has unique armor you won’t find anywhere else, and they sell for gold. (You cannot buy from another race’s vendor.)

There are other weapon vendors about. Lion’s Arch has Karma weapon vendors that sell Lion Guard styled weapons. There is a level 30 zone that has a special weapon vendor as well. I won’t name it here, but you can PM me if you want to know it.

There are special skins in Orr later on, if you do map completion of an Orr zone. These can be sold, and you can find them on the Trading Post. Some weapon skins from special events could be sold, and you might find those on the TP too. You can preview on the TP.

Basicly each skin has only one or two ways of getting it. The method differs per skin you want. Some methods used:

- Gem only: these skins are actually bought as skins wich you apply over an existing piece of equipment and can be bought in the TP (be carefull there are also townclothes wich are more limited in usage).

- Crafted: These skins are crafted by players and are often the most available on the trade post.

- Storyline rewards

- Karma traders (renown hearts and later on temple karma merchants)

- weapon and armor smiths

- Cultural armorsmiths (for gold and unique to your race) and Cultural weaponsmith (for karma, can be any race)

- Order armor and weapons (armor is unique to your order wich you picked at level 29 but can be changed with transmuations gems and stones, ask if you want details bout that process, its a bit long to explain)

- Dungeon armor and weapons, available for dungeon tokens, each dungeon has its specifick kind and they drop as a reward for doing explorablemode of that dungeon.

- Hall of monuments armor and weapons (again skins only, these are a reward for playing GW1 for a prolonged time).

- Map completion rewards
- Mystic forge (afaik weapons, backpacks and trinkets only). They require specifick recipes to follow wich can range from a few hours work to several months of work..

Best thing to do is to find out the base name of the weapon of armor you want. the base name is often without the prefix and suffix.

So for example if an item on e.g. the TP is called ‘Carrion Winged boots’or Winged boots of the Soldier.
The base name is winged boots and the armor name is winged armor.

Besides previewing on the TP and asking players to ping their armor/weapons you can also go to external sites.
http://www.gw2armor.com/
http://dulfy.net/
http://www.gw2db.com/
http://www.guildhead.com/

These are the ones I use most often. when you know the name of the weapon or armor skin you desire you can check the wiki how to get it (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Main_Page or type /wiki in game)

In case of my example, the winged armor set is a crafted armor set for light armor.