A skin is the appearance of an item, be it an armor piece or a weapon. The underlying stats remain as you change the skin.
There are a couple of ways to use a skin.
- You may have something that is just a skin meant to apply to an item (eg you bought the Primeval Armor off the Gem Store). With that item equipped, double click the skin in your inventory, then confirm the change in the hero panel. It will cost no charges.
- You may have unlocked a skin, either by using it already or by salvaging or forging or directly unlocking it off an item. It will now be in your Wardrobe. You can click that tab in your Hero Panel then click the item slot you want to change to get a jumble of all the relevant skins you have to apply. Or you can go to any bank (or crafting station bank tab) and click the Wardrobe tab to see almost all the skins the game has to offer you. The ones you haven’t unlocked will be greyed out but you can still preview them. But to apply the skin to an item you still need to do that through the Hero Panel Wardrobe tab..
- Almost every skin you want to apply will cost a Transmutation Charge. You get those through game play, especially by completing city exploration and sometimes by other map completions. You also get some from daily login rewards. You can buy them from the gem store if you really want to but even a whale like me just relies on the supply from game play and occasional Black Lion Chest contents.
It helps that you can buy Outfits from the gem store, one purchase opens it for every alt you ever make on the account, so you can cover up your leveling armor with an outfit and not have to burn charges every time you upgrade.
