Guild Wars 2

I’m playing a sylvari and I hate the looks of the standard armor. I’d like to get the tier 3 cultural skin but I don’t want to play through to 80 hating my character’s look. Assuming I can afford it, could I buy the tier 3 set, use transmutation crystals to combine it with a lower level set, and then as I level up continue to use the basic transmutation stones to keep the stats up to date as it’s no longer “level 80” gear? Or will I have to use the crystals still?

You’ll be able to use basic Transmutation Stones once the item has been transmuted to a low level item once. The game only looks at the items’ current level, it doesn’t really take into account anything before.

Until you get to level 80 and want to transmute it back to a level 80 item, that is. Then you’ll need Crystals once more.