The epic Fashion Wars 2 fight: Christmas Tree vs Practical Use

Many players in gw2 but only 2 (3) ways to play: become a Christmas Tree, full of sparkly infusions and luminescent armors/weapons/outfits or embody the ancient [Metal Knight/Wooden Staff Mage/etc] role. What's your pick?

Depends on the character, and the mood I'm in.

Here's 2 of my characters, I love how both look but they're very different. My engineer has a very practical style, close fitting, hard wearing clothing which wouldn't get in her way, and a backpack I like to imagine provides her elixirs:

While my elementalist is more 'christmas tree' (although I don't recommend you call her a tree to her face):

(And actually she's gotten more extreme since then because I've added the Weaver's gloves with the fire and ice effects, to match her Corrupted and Destroyer daggers.)

Using a couple of shiny things is okay but it just looks horrible when I can't even see the armor because of overstacked infusions.

Well here’s a poll I can get behind. Bits of both for my guys.

I'm tryna live up to my name so its black leather, black metal and black cloth for me :v

neither, i prefer something colorful without turning myself blind.

@Danikat.8537 said:Depends on the character, and the mood I'm in.

Same here. All of my characters have varied looks depending on whatever theme and color choice matches with them. But none of them are sparkly acid trips. Actually, I rarely see characters like that.

My main looks more and more like christmas tree with all the legendary bling available but withaout any facny infusions. On my 9 other chars I go for a more reasonable look, something that fits my headcanon or tells a story about the char. However I try to push the shiny on those chars as well, using expensive dyes and/or rare skins, but not to a point where it makes my eyes hurt or I can't see the character model anymore because of the visual noise.

Depends on the char and the look I’ve made for them. Some are Christmas tree. Some have no sparkle at all. Some have just a little sparkle. For example, I have the Preserved Queen Bee but only use it on chars where I think it fits the look.

"why not both?"

The shiny mixed in with the subtle is the fashion to me.

So I have a very magitech themed thief with Incinerator and HOPE to balance shiny with more basic skins.

I have a more traditional warrior in decorated plate.

I also have a few more cultural themed characters. It’s nice to not always be using the same skins and there’s a lot of variety out there.

Poll needs a 'none of the above.'

I'd like to see some more outfit and/or armor designs that tried to look elegant and attractive without being either suggestive or covered with chains, spikes, flashlights, bones, heat lamps, ribbons, flames, frills, bits of harness, medallions and fireworks displays to the degree that you can't see the character under all the fru-fru. One imagines trying to draw one's weapon, after struggling to find it amongst all the decor, only to die because your sword got tangled up in some of the strapping.

And yeah, I know that there's some adequate stuff in the original armors--if you have a heavy armor character there's lots of nice armors to choose from. But the options for plain-ish middle and light armor tend to be dumpy, frumpy or skimpy. (Fifteen leather trenchcoats, with varying levels of raggedness?)

What this game needs is a few more options for outfits that people might actually realistically wear, that still look good. Like some of the nicer clothes you see on NPCs.

Each their own. We don't go into a fantasy game to expect realism, although realism is nice to further increase immersion through parallels in the different worlds.

I usually mix those two. My thief is very practical while my warrior wears some pretty elaborate armor and the sword of a fallen God so..

Suddenly I feel like making a max-size Norn Guardian and give him full Radiant armor (and Chaos gloves), dyed the brightest, shiniest white, just to blind as many people as possible. They can't look at me if they can't see.

personally i very much prefer simpler, sleeker styles, less cluttered, most armor in this game is ugly to me because it's so damn excentric. and full of fluff.I want more stylized armor, specially for males, that aren't filled with huge spikes and shoulders, and show some skin. (I'm looking at you medium armor)

Sigh, someone doesn't get there's actually another option, and not the third one you included(a combination of both, that would be a fourth option), what about those that just use dyes to be flashy or dark, without infusions and/or luminescent/bright armors).

Only Sith deal in absolutes.