Adjust usefulness of armors.

As it is right now, there are some armors which are considerably better than all the rest if you're a warrior, necro or monk: gladiators, scars, and ascetic. This because they give equal protection as the other armors PLUS extra energy.

That they're, honestly, the ugliest armors in the game don't make things better.

My suggestion is to either drop the AL of these skimpy "armors" by 30% (they'd still be the armor of choice for monks & necros, who mainly rely on magic for protection, but would no longer be heads & shoulders above the other armors), OR to significantly bump the AL of the other, more massive, armors.

Another means of making other armors useful would be to add damage absorption to them, and make the damage absorption local (ie, if you put a pair of knights boots on, your FEET gets damage absorption, not the whole body).

The Knights armor has been an issue since the game first released. Since Anet has seen fit not to adjust it, it is now a "feature" of the game. If you are a warrior without 1 piece of knights armor and you play pvp you are just gimping yourself out of the global damage reduction that it gives.

As far as warrior armor: Plate is more beneficial vs elemental damage, while gladiator is more beneficial vs melee and gives energy to be able to cast 25 energy spells. It balances out basically. Knights armor though it really totally useless as a whole armor set and most anyone using it is for the looks only unless they just don't know about the issues with it not stacking or specific piece damage reduction only.

Also I will disagree that they are the ugliest armor in the game, I think ranger female 15k armor is the ugliest in the game for what you pay for it. There's nothing there but skin.

I think that the gladiator's is over powered - typically you get the lowest, base value of protection with the extra enrgy armours, but for some reason with Gladiator's you get more than the other armours. At 80+10 it would be fine, and would probably still see (much) use. I would disagree about ugliness, excepting Gladiator's it really is ugly, but tattoos and scars (excepting the peants area, that's badly done) look pretty good. Many armours are uglier than those; female enchanter I find just stupid for example. I hate that I need to wear it for energy. I personally would love it if every armour were like FoW armour, so that you could select the mods you want, and wear the combo you like. If you hate the FoW armour for your class you just don't have an option.

Hmm. I didn't know about the damage reduction not being piece specific. I always wondered why I saw so few Ascalon armors around :P.

And I also read somewhere Rune of absorption IS piece specific. :S I guess Anet switched these two absorption rules around.

Well Glad's from Drok's is definately ugly, but take a short walk over to Grotto and take a look at that armor. I think it is much cooler looking than Drok's. Though he boots I always have thought looked like the char is wearing Socks and Flip-Flops.

Armor differences really depends on what you are using it for. I mean the Glad's in my opinion is the overall best armor out there. It's good for running and farming.

You say that like it's a bad thing