Guild Wars 2

Made a Ranger, been digging through armor sites for a while. Kinda surprised to see that virtually all the armor is shared. Not really a big deal, was just surprised. Anyway, I like the human cultural armor better for medium, but since I haven’t played much, which race do you think looks better in medium armor in general? It does seem like mixing and matching Sylvari armor might be harder with the unique designs they have. So what do you think? I want to play dress up.
What? I do. Don’t judge me.

Male or female? Male sylvari have a problem with long coats going bell shaped from the waist down.

What you might want to do if you have an open character slot is make one of each race and take them in turn to a bank wardrobe tab and start previewing all the armor. Make sure to have equipped dyes that are light enough and different enough in hue to show the armor details. You won’t be able to see how the armor moves but you’ll get an idea of how it fits and how it mixes.

Female. I’ve gone through them for hours at this point at the bank wardrobe, I’m pretty much hung on indecision right now.

I would pick sylvari because I really like the Nightshade coat and Evergreen leggings.

But my main is actually a human female ranger and I’ve found several styles that I think look good on her. Mixing and matching (and hiding/showing helms, shoulders and gloves) can make a big difference.

The problem I’ve found with sylvari is that I always feel like I want to match their clothing to their skin and hair colours, which is odd because I never do that with the other races, but every time I’m changing their dyes or armour I have to remind myself they can wear other colours.

Yea, I know it’s a silly thing to get stuck on, but for some reason it’s making me a little bit crazy. Even knowing race is 99% cosmetic I just can’t decide which I like better. I got perfect names on both, appearances I love on both, but I really want to pick one and level it. I’ll make the other later on as a different class but picking which race should basically represent my “main” is hard for this game.

Personally, I find that I prefer female sylvari to all other species/gender combinations available.

Perhaps it is due to my liking things that glow, or perhaps it is due to their having a great running animation (human female had theirs changed for no reason to an awful, stiff, ‘manly’ one a long time ago), or it may be due to many of their other unique aesthetics.

I do dress-up a lot and I also frequently adjust or overhaul entire appearances of my characters. Kind of the main thing I do in GW2.

Here are some of my medium armor sylvari and human females in case it may help you in making your decision.

Remember, you can always make both, and even many of both, eventually.
:)

Again, I used to really enjoy playing my human females until the running animation change, at which point I abandoned them. However, seeing as you will only be experiencing the ‘new’ human female running animation, you will be less likely to be irked at this change that ruined them for me and you may like (or at least not mind) it.

Who knows, perhaps you won’t like the female sylvari running animation after a while and prefer the human’s.

Anyway, I recommend making both and playing with them to get a feel for the species’ movements to see if that has any effect on your choice before you put a bunch of money/coin/time into fashioning and leveling them.

I hope you’ll let us know what you decide in the end! And please feel free to post pics of your mix-n-match armor after you get yourself fashioned up how you’d like over in the Mix-n-Match Armor thread.

That is a lot of nice outfits, thanks for showing them off. Not actually sure it helps me (you make them both look great), but it’s certainly some inspiration. Both look so good it hurts. You’re right though, I will likely have both races eventually, just not sure which class to use for which. I like the cultural armor for humans and sylvari and those are the biggest differences. I prefer the human armor a little but you can get some really fancy looking stuff with sylvari also. So much torment, you would think this would be the easy part of playing the game :P

You’re also right that there will likely be many of both. Human and sylvari are my favorite races. Really dislike the kitties (armor clipping from heck) and moles (love their personality and story, just…don’t like playing them), and as much as I like norn, I really dislike the norn cultural gear. I’ll still likely make one eventually but not right now.

These are the current two I’m trying to choose between. Yea, low level, low gear, I know. But I love them both. I just want to play one though ^^;; Halp!

Also, ignore the other chars >.> They are in limbo for bday presents for now.

Look at it this way: There’s currently 9 professions, 5 races and 2 genders for a total of 90 possible combinations. There’s a maximum of 96 character slots.

So in the ‘worst’ case scenario you could make every possible combination so you don’t need to choose.

Obviously I’m not suggesting you do that, but it’s worth bearing in mind that if you change your mind later you can make more characters without losing your current ones.

Of course, I just prefer to spend time with a character I plan to keep. Nothing quite as frustrating as getting 3/4 of the way to level cap and suddenly wishing you had played something else. At least to me. I’m definitely playing a ranger human or ranger sylvari as my main, I even have them both created, named, everything. I just don’t know which to go with. Hoping the pics help but…who knows?

Sylvari have a much better dance, and their cultural armor incorporates their skin tone and has dyeable glow pulses. Win?

Unless you’re trying to dye the armor in hues that don’t mesh well with the enforced skin tone parts. Then it can be annoying.

If it’s purely a question of which armor looks better, I’d say human. Tier 2 cultural (falconer’s) is honestly one of my favorite outfits in this game, and I don’t think sylvari look quite right in leather. But my only medium character is a female human, so that could just be what I’m used to looking at.

If it’s a question of race, however, I think the sylvari are far more interesting. I like their personal story, their noble but curious personalities, and their British accents. I’ve got two out of five characters sylvari right now, one of them my main, and I’m considering making another with my extra slot. If you’re planning on doing the HoT story, sylvari have some unique dialogue (and possibly unique chapters – I’m about halfway through right now).

That probably didn’t help much, did it? :-)

Thanks for the replies!

Maybe I should do this instead? Sylvari Warrior, Human Ranger/Necro? That at least gives me one of each armor tier, and the heavy armor on Sylvari seems nice for some reason. Still torn but at least something is coming from all this torment. Kind of having a thought about sylvari warrior, sort like a willow that bends but never breaks kind of thing.

I have a Sylvari warrior and a Sylvari guardian. I agree that the heavy armor is very nice (and has nifty glows). Just make sure to consider what your skin tone will do to the armor. Tier 2 on males has a big blotch at the waist that is a browned version of skin tone, so my male warrior with lemon/green skin tones has to do reds and oranges on the armor. My female guardian in T3 has very dark brown skin so though her armor is in cream and gold she gets a grey area on the lower torso.