Visible Armor

Armor in Tier 1 is simply looted and comes in Plate, Chain, Leather, and Cloth version. There is no visible armor from Tier 2.

Armor in Tier 3 is created using Seminal Luminessence (blue) and Incandessence (orange) dropped from rare mobs. You will need a few things:

Combine the Essence with the corresponding Tinea inside the Cocoon to create Concordant (if you used Blue) or Discordant (if you used Orange) Tier 3 armor.

Armor in Tier 4 is created combining a Medial essesnce from rare mobs and a piece of Tier 3 armor inside a Temporal Molting Cell sold by Zebuxoruk in The Void in E or higher. The resulting Tier 4 armor depends on which colors were used:

The order doesn't matter, a Concordant (Blue) Tier 3 + Orange Tier 4 essence and a Discordant (Orange) Tier 3 and Blue Tier 4 essence both produce Balanced armor.

Alternatively, if you have a Prismatic piece of armor from Secrets of Faydwer you can combine it in a Prismatic XYZ Mutation Nexus with a Tier 4 essence to create a piece of Tier 4 armor and bypass Tier 3 entirely.

Armor in Tier 5 is created combining an Eternal essence from rare mobs and a piece of Tier 4 armor inside a Temporal Molting Cell sold by Zebuxoruk in The Void in E or higher. The resulting Tier 5 armor depends on which colors were used:

Again the order doesn't matter, the only factor is the total of each color used across the three tiers.

If the drops you get don't match your desired end goal you can combine an Essence of any tier inside a Temporal Polymorphic Cell to change a Blue to an Orange or vice versa.

If you change your mind about an existing piece of gear you can "extract" an Essence. Starting in Void D you can purchase Luminescent Culling Vortex and Incandescent Culling Vortex from Zebuxorux. The Luminescent will remove an Orange Essence and the Icandescent removes a Blue, even though it sounds backward. For example if you combine a Tarnished piece of Tier 5 (2 Blue 1 Orange) inside a Luminescent Culling Vortex you would get back a piece of Vested Tier 4 (2 Blue) and an Orange Tier 5 essence. You could then switch the Orange Essence to Blue using the Temporal Polymorphic Cell, then put the Vested Tier 4 with the now Blue Tier 5 in a Temporal Molting Cell to create a piece of Ordained.

If you find it easier to farm a higher tier you can downgrade an Essence by combining it inside a Luminescent Culling Vortex and Incandescent Culling Vortex with a single Chronobine.

Tavid Dennant in the Guild Lobby will give you up to 16 of the containers needed for free. "Luminescent" and "Incandescent" will get you a Culling Vortex for removing essences (the free version can NOT downgrade essences though). "Cell" gets you a Temporal Polymorphic Cell for changing Blue to Orange. "Molting" yields a Temporal Molting Cell used to make Tier 4 and 5 armors and "Cocoon" for your class's Polymorphic Cocoon.

All containers are consumed on use.

Tier 1 raids don't drop any visible armor and the Tier 2 raids drop "Eon Forged" gear, which come in general armor types.

Tier 3 raids (Rathe, Korafax, and Hard mode versions of lower tiers) drop Primeval Luminessence (blue) and Incandessence (orange). You use them just as you do with group versions, combine the Essence with the corresponding Tinea inside the Cocoon to create Concordant (if you used Blue) or Discordant (if you used Orange) Tier 3 armor.

Tier 4 raids (Citadel) drop Coeval essesnce. You use them just as you do with group versions, combine it with a piece of Tier 3 armor inside a Temporal Molting Cell to create the Tier 4 armor.

Once you have a piece of Tier 4 armor you need to loot an Eternal essence from rare mobs in Tier 5 group content. Place your Tier 4 armor inside a Temporal Molting Cell with the essence to create a piece of Tier 4.5 armor.

You can use the same containers as group content to add / remove / change essences to tweak your armor into the desired final form.

If you'd prefer a more visual reference for the paths to reach different armor types, here is a handy flowchart.

The lines are color coded by action: