Hey guys
I am a returning player and it has been quite some years since I last played Guild Wars, but I'm back on it again. I have a question regarding armor. My character isn't wealthy enough to buy elite armor yet, so i wondered what the second best option could be? I have tried to find the answer, but can't seem to find anything regarding armor 
Elite armor is actually just for prestige. It doesn't offer any functional improvement over the regular sets. All you need to look for is the armor to have the maximum armor level for your profession (80 for warriors and paragons, 70 for rangers, assassins, and dervishes, 60 for everything else). It's typically craftable at 1k per piece (plus materials, which may or may not be significant depending on what you have and what they cost), which should not be prohibitive once you reach the crafter unless you've been skipping a lot of content. Afterwards you can add runes and insignia to improve it further.
The earliest in each campaign you can find crafters for it is Droknar's Forge (Prophecies), Kaineng Center (Factions), Consulate Docks (Nightfall), and Boreal Station (EotN). You'll reach them relatively early in each campaign except for Proph, though if that's the campaign you're in you can always jump over to one of the others (Kaineng is probably the quickest) if you'd prefer to get your armor earlier.
