Armors, Runes, Upgrade questions.

[Lauraliane]

Hi :)

I am a lvl 15 Elementalist Mesmer and I just arrived in Lion's Arch. Even though I played quite a lot already, there is a few things which aren't 100% clear:

1) Where can I find more powerful armors ? Everytime I reach a new city/outpost the armors are exacly the same than in Ascalon. Armor 30, + 5 energy and an SV vs fire, water or whatever if the set is pyro, hydro, air or earth. What is the point in that, am I missing something or are the devs stupids ? why do I see people looking for rare craft component even though I haven't seen any NPC crafter asking for those components so far?

2) About runes, I wonder about a few things, at first I thought that we could only put runes on weapons, but I just managed to put a minor heal rune on my boots, so can I put health runes on every parts of my gear and get tons of HP ? or even better can I put rune of + skill (like Rune of Fire etc) on every parts too and get something crazy like + 9 fire total ? is there some kind of maximum numbers runes you can have equiped on your char at the same time ?

3) what do people call "upgrade" ? is it something different than runes ?

Basically what are the general rules about gear in guildwars ?

[garzahd]

1) Everything from Ascalon to LA has L10 armor.
Farmers Market has L13 armor.
Denravi has L15 armor with L17 collectors nearby.
Amnoon has L17 armor with L20 collectors nearby.
Droknars has L20 armor.
(if those names are unfamiliar, it's time to do some more missions :-)
(level numbers are for purposes of armor power measurement, not required to wear; collectors give one piece at a time and only the basic armor types)

2) You may put one rune on each piece of armor. Multiple runes of the same type do not stack. Runes do not go on weapons; other upgrade components go on weapons (bow strings, hammer hafts, staff wrappings, etc.) Wands never get upgrade components, but they can be rare and have interesting modifiers on them.

3) I've seen people use the word "upgrade" when they really mean "buy a replacement". The only way to upgrade armor is with runes. Replacements can be bought any time, of course. :-)