The only way to control the look of your armor is to craft it. Crafted sets are frequently used by players as they are leveling or as a supplement to a "dropped set". For example, on my healer I use the 3 jewelry and 2 armor pieces from the Worm Cultist set and the rest of my armor is crafted in the style I prefer from the Kagrenac Hope set crafting stations.

There is also a population of people who use 2 drop sets, sometimes the styles they come in are rather ugly/plain so those people use costumes, polymorphs or disguises one gets from quests. People who use two weapon pieces (dual wield or 1hand+shield) can use 2 drop sets and a monster shoulder/helm pair. My tank uses 1 drop set (3 jewelry and 2 armor) , 1 monster set (head and shoulder) and 1 crafted set. He *could* use another drop set but I don't feel like grinding the dungeons for the weapons and shields (some of the rarest drops) so it's not only easier this way but also I can control some of his style.

If you have the Imperial edition or the Morrowind edition (I think collectors or preorder?) you can right click on armor and convert it to either Imperial style or Morag Tong style. This only works for a) crafted armor; b) non set armor aka trash drops you might use while leveling c) armor sets that come in a variety of racial styles by default like "Armor of the Trainee" set and I think the pvp armor sets that come in the alliance styles but don't hold me to that I haven't tried.

Yeah start researching right away, start with useful traits like divines first and try to get at least 6 traits researched on each piece. First research is fast but the time keeps getting doubled.

Vimora wrote: »

I'm really baffled when it comes to cosmetic looks in ESO. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Here's what you need to know.

As others have said, there's no way (presently) to change the style of a set item.

But you do have some control over your appearance. Consider the following.

Set bonuses come in two types - 5 piece or 3 piece.

You have 11-12 equipment slots (7 for clothing, 3 for jewellery and 1 or 2 for weapons).

If you're wearing light armour, a robe chest piece will cover the leg armour and much of the foot armour. You can also hide your helmet. So this means you can equip a 5 piece set in jewellery (3 pieces), legs and helmet. Then you can craft (or have crafted for you) in any style all visible pieces of armour and weapons to complete another 5 piece bonus.

It's different for medium and heavy armour because their legs aren't hidden. They have slightly less control but can achieve a similar outcome if they equip 3 pieces of jewellery and either 2 1H weapons or a 1H weapon and helmet from a set.

Some useful links.

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Craftable_Sets

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uvlekv_QIvcwTq_fRDBVrFpHzrBy2XmTBviBRNsi5Ic/pubhtml#

There're plenty of costumes(some only sold in Crown Store but many acquired in game) and some disguises that can hide your armor looks of you don't like them

Side note, the set generally considered to be best for healing is Spellpower Cure(which drops in WGT and is Xivkyn style).

If on ps4 NA send me a message on psn(jlboozer), I can craft most set pieces for you free, just supply the materials. Welcome to ESO, if you need help with anything add me.