What is the upgradable Armor about?

I mean what does upgrading it do for you?Is it a basic skin you start with and then you can make it look cooler?Or does this armor give you special slots for something? And if so, wouldn't that be unfair for those who crafted ascended armor / legendary armor already?

I mean, is it really nothing more than skins?Sure, that's an interesting approach, but not that big at all.UPGRADABLE ARMOR!

That sounds really big, yet it's just skins?

My money is on a new skin like we got with silverwastes.

I doubt it will be functionally better because that would involve a gear treadmill, something they always have said they will not do. Even legendary is just a reskinned ascended (plus allowing you to change stats out of combat). Not to mention that not everyone would have it: you would need to own POF (so long core-only and ftp players), get the chapter (so long anyone on vacation), complete the story (so long anyone who does not do that), and then do whatever you need to do to get it (so long whoever).

There might be functionality you can change without making it better but I am not sure what that would be.

It's either skins or armour that builds through the tiers in a similar way the golem backpack collection does until it reaches exotic or ascended

But, like in all the other threads on the subject, we will find out in less than a week

@Menadena.7482 said:

Even legendary is just a reskinned ascended (plus allowing you to change stats out of combat).

Maybe it's like a legendary? You can upgrade it more and more, and when you reached max tier, you can infuse it in magic toilet with insignias to gain the stat change if out of combat thing.

@derd.6413 said:

@Menadena.7482 said:

Even legendary is just a reskinned

ascended

(plus allowing you to change stats out of combat).

Thanks, made the edit. I should have seen that, I blame not having my tea yet.

I cant wait to get the chat codes on this armor to see what the light female looks like.

Well at the start of the game back in 2012, exotic was the gear when it came to armor. And when you got to level 80, you had a lot of karma to burn so buying exotic gear right away was not that hard. Getting to the vendors was actually the hard part in Orr. There was no legendary armor and no ascended armor either.

So ascended gear came with fractals I guess and people generally have that and so there was legendary armor that came more recently. Of course, I have this feeling that legendary gear is a few bridges too far for most people. And perhaps even ascended gear is a few steps too far for a lot of people.

But then, what would they introduce to upgrade if it's regarding to stats? Surely they don't want the gear to become equally or more powerful than ascended/legendary gear.

And then I thought, what if it's cosmetic? Is it gear that by upgrading gets a nicer look. I mean the gear as such in its design is certainly relatively basic, maybe it's a cosmetic upgrade system...

I dunno, I just want to indicate that it could be anything and since there is not supposed to be a gear treadmill in this game the only way I could see it be relating to stats is if ascended and legendary gear also get this upgrade option.

Just hope it's not one of those terrible enchanting systems like Aion has. I really hated getting it to +8 and then failing it resetting back down again.

It 'could' be a set with extra upgrades which only work in the new zones.Like, a series of upgrades where you choose your boons and abilities.But the abilities would only work in the new maps.

Something like..Extra resistance to BrandedorExtra charisma to awakened

@Clyan.1593 said:Maybe it's like a legendary? You can upgrade it more and more, and when you reached max tier, you can infuse it in magic toilet with insignias to gain the stat change if out of combat thing.

That'd be great and has been suggested a few times, having a type of ascended armour where you can add an Insignia (and other materials) to unlock that Insignia's stats on the armour.

It would be a nice half-way to legendary armour. I'd love if these armour pieces acted like that but I suspect it'll be a set of exotics that are upgradeable to ascended armour with more elaborate skins. Kinda like the banner of the commander from last episode and the golem backpack from the previous one. I think the armour will require crafting more than collections though.

Edit: weird I accidentally quoted myself instead of editing, ignore please!

Maybe you can upgrade it by adding more stat-combos to it that you can choose from, as with Legendaries. The Legendaries would still be top dog since you get the graphical changes when going in and out of combat, and off course Legendaries have all stat combo's to choose from from the get go. I would love such upgradable armor. Being able to change stats is a big thing for me, more so then skins.

I also like what Ayakaru said exept that I think for instance Resistance to Branded should work against any branded, not just in the new maps.

Everyone who thinks this is more than a skin upgrade is reading too much into it. At most we get exotic gear which can be upgraded to ascended. I just hope that it doesn't require crafting, that's the main reason why I never bothered with the stellar weapons back in EP1. Make it unlockable through collections and then let the player buy the rest for map currency + volatile magic or add the items required for the upgrade to the meta rewards.

@Ayakaru.6583 said:It 'could' be a set with extra upgrades which only work in the new zones.Like, a series of upgrades where you choose your boons and abilities.But the abilities would only work in the new maps.

Something like..Extra resistance to BrandedorExtra charisma to awakened

i doubt they would have that much marketing for a map restricted feature

@Gehenna.3625 said:Just hope it's not one of those terrible enchanting systems like Aion has. I really hated getting it to +8 and then failing it resetting back down again.

I think that's one thing we can be almost certain won't happen, because Anet have never done it and I seem to remember them specifically citing it as one of the things they wanted to avoid. Admittedly that might have been back at launch, because I think it was when they were explaining how the crafting system works, but they still haven't done it. There are collections and items where progressing is random but in all cases the worst that will happen is you don't get the thing you need. They've never had a chance for it to fail and lose the progress you've made so far.

Which is good because I hate that too. My other MMO does that - you have to craft basic equipment and then upgrade it to higher tiers and either you spend more (rare and expensive) upgrade materials to guarantee it will work or you risk destroying the entire item. The main impact of that seems to be that players actually avoid using top tier equipment unless they really need it, which seems like bad design to me.

@derd.6413 said:

@Ayakaru.6583 said:It 'could' be a set with extra upgrades which only work in the new zones.Like, a series of upgrades where you choose your boons and abilities.But the abilities would only work in the new maps.

Something like..Extra resistance to BrandedorExtra charisma to awakened

Depends, maybe you build up the armour along season 4, and utilize it in season 5.Then it's a good addendum to masteries.Most masteries only work in their assigned maps as well.

@Ayakaru.6583 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Ayakaru.6583 said:It 'could' be a set with extra upgrades which only work in the new zones.Like, a series of upgrades where you choose your boons and abilities.But the abilities would only work in the new maps.

Something like..Extra resistance to BrandedorExtra charisma to awakened

then i find it weird they've given us a diffrent mastery

Most masteries only work in their assigned maps as well.

not the ones they've marketed this hard

@derd.6413 said:

@Ayakaru.6583 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Ayakaru.6583 said:It 'could' be a set with extra upgrades which only work in the new zones.Like, a series of upgrades where you choose your boons and abilities.But the abilities would only work in the new maps.

Something like..Extra resistance to BrandedorExtra charisma to awakened

Most masteries only work in their assigned maps as well.

Addendum, not replacement

Depends on the masteries. Many work everywhere. Not all of course.

Also what if it IS a new tier of gear but you can upgrade what you have along with that new set? So someone with legendary would do very little as opposed to someone from scratch. I don't think it is but it would be neat to add another infusion slot. So you could have your agony AND your under water infusions both.

the big question is "upgradable to what?".Another skin? another stats? another tier(exotic to ascedend?).

maybe upgradeable armor is something similar to legendary though it wouldn't legendary. You'd have to instead upgrade your instance to gain access to make this armor. So the armor itself could be exotic but give you legendary stat swapping features. The grind of crafting a legendary set would be shifted to the grind of upgrading your hall and that grind would be something entirely new. (Just an idea)

This concept could also be worked from in many other ways. Having an upgraded instance allows your to craft other things.& maybe new Gen 3 legendaries would be crafted here? In the long run if this were true(it probs not) it might be easier down the road.

I think it would be like the luminous collection as someone else mentioned. You get the base exotic armour which unlocks he skin in the waldrobe, then you are able to further "upgrade" the appearance by doing a collection. I dont believe it would be upgrading an exotic set into ascended because that would make this episode far too beneficial to new players as compared to any LW content before it, and thusly a bad episode to miss out on.

I think probably hoping for something crazy from the upgrade like the animation from the envoy legendary armour is also a stretch.

@"eldrjth.7384" said:I think it would be like the luminous collection as someone else mentioned. You get the base exotic armour which unlocks he skin in the waldrobe, then you are able to further "upgrade" the appearance by doing a collection. I dont believe it would be upgrading an exotic set into ascended because that would make this episode far too beneficial to new players as compared to any LW content before it, and thusly a bad episode to miss out on.

I think probably hoping for something crazy from the upgrade like the animation from the envoy legendary armour is also a stretch.

dident the luminous collection upgrade from exotic to ascended so its not like they havent done it before.EditMy bad you got 1 piece armor box from it.

Why all the secrecy about what the upgradable armor is or will do?

@echolynfan.2049 said:Why all the secrecy about what the upgradable armor is or will do?

So we have fun finding it out when it get into the game next week?