SWTOR: Hooded frustration

I actually found a robe that's red AND gold, win! However, it was unmoddable and had a hood.

I can be such a pussy when it comes to outfits. Often, when I create a character, I already have in mind what colours or type of armour (robes, cloaks or trousers) I want them to wear. No different from Haradwen. In LotRO, Haradwen is a warrioress from Far Harad (hence her dark skin), and she wears the red and gold of her people, as Tolkien described. When I recreated her in SWTOR, I had the same Haradwen in mind, so she was going to be a dark-skinned sentinel, with a red glow in her hair and red lips. Since I thought it would be cool if she'd be a Miraluka - being blind but jumping into fights nevertheless, slashing around with her lightsabers, guided by the force and such - I got her a red with green/yellowish veil as well. In fifty levels, I was bound to find something red to fit with it, right? Turns out I was wrong.

Little Red Hood

Haradwen is now level 35, and there's only one red outfit she's found so far (top picture). That outfit was from somewhere in the twenties and isn't moddable, so the stats are totally crap. It also had another unwelcome feature: it was hooded. I didn't know it at the time of character's creation, but I learned soon enough that almost all sentinel outfits have hoods, and while it doesn't look too bad on the picture above, from behind it looks as if you're controlling a barbapappa. Besides, I really love Haradwen's hair and it keeps nagging me that I cannot see it. Frustration!

Here another outfit I found, this time moddable and, even though not being red, it at least fitted Haradwen's veil. Still hooded, though, and I really dislike the shape of the armour below (not on the picture).

Force the hood down

I was so happy when I found a post by Njessi from Hawtpants of the Republic called Hats and Hoodies Redux. It taught me that it was possible to suppress the hood of armour pieces if one would wear certain headgear. A search through the GTN resulted in a whole list of sentinel-proof head pieces that would get rid of my hood and weren't some sort of hair-devouring cap themselves. I will also post some light and heavy armour versions here, as people playing other classes might have run into the same problem.


Republic

Adaptive armour:

• Devout Overseer's Headgear (galactic command)
• Requisitioned Pummeler's Headgear MK-3 (brown)
• Tribal Hermit's Headgear (galactic command, tier 3)

Light armour:

• Consular's headgear (requires consular or knight)

Medium armour:

• Ablative Plasteel Headgear (white)
• Ancient Ardent Blade's Headgear (brown)
• [Prototype] Fervent Battle Headgear (white)
• [Prototype] Primeval Ardent Blade's Headgear (silver)
• Laminoid Battle Headgear (silver, but with parts that cover the cheeks)
• QorWorks Nea-leather Helm MKII

Heavy armour:

• Reinforced Chanlon Headgear
• Jedi Battlelord's Headgear (visor covering eyes)
• Elder Paragon's Headgear (visor covering eyes)
• Reinforced Mullinine Headgear

Note that this gear looks different on the Imperial side; it typically has the breathing mask cosmetic.


Imperial

Edit (Dec 2016): Up until recently, Imperial characters had to rely on chin holders / breathing masks (think: Darth Malgus) rather than circlets. However, there are now some options available.

Adaptive armour:

• Aftermarket Force-lord's MK-2
• Devout Overseer's Headgear (galactic command)
• Tribal Hermit's Headgear (galactic command, tier 3)
• Lashaa Force Expert
• Shimmersilk Force Expert

TOR Fashion has a list with hood down gear including breathing masks and visors: Tor Fashion: Unobtrusive and Hide Hood filter.

I picked the Ablative Plasteel Headgear for Haradwen. It looked all fine from afar on the preview window, but when I put on my piece...

Horror

... instead of her beautiful veil there were some sort of really ugly black sunglasses! Apparently, you're not allowed to wear a headpiece and a veil at the same time - and it seems they didn't develop any eyes underneath. The suppress-the-hood items work fine on any other species, but if you're a Miraluka you're screwed. (And yes, the sunglasses stayed after I left my ski vacation on Alderaan.)

No, devs, this is what I want my Miraluka to look like. With her own veil and with her own beautiful hair!

I really love the sentinel, it's an amazing class to play and very fun to level. So far I do really get put off by looking ugly, though. Haradwen was my second character I made and I'm sure she would have hit level 55 by now if I could just find her something proper to wear. Secretly, I'm still hoping dear Bioware will implement one of the following:

1. give us that hood-down button everyone has been asking for since day one. But if this would solve too many problems in one go for your style, I would also already be super happy with:
2. instead of the sunglasses, just show the veil when suppressing the hood with a head piece; 
3. offer social head gear that suppresses hoods and have the cosmetic of the different Miraluka veils; 
4. introduce more moddable sentinel chest pieces without hoods. In facts, stop offering unmoddable gear altogether. Nobody uses that leveling stuff if they got a half-decent set of moddable gear.

I don't really care, please just let me wear something nice on my sentinel!

Haradwen's saviour?

I'm really looking forward to the dyes announced to be introduced with update 2.1. There are some things about the system that sound very promising:

• Dyes can be used on the first or the secondary colour of an armor piece. So there are loads of combinations possible.
• There will be 48 different dyes
• The system doesn't exclusively focus on the Cartel market, 20 dyes are craftable (by Artifice crafters).

My hope's with the dye system. I already bought a trash unhooded robe that I can dye red as soon as the patch hits. I don't really like its looks, but it might be good enough for me to get back to leveling my sentinel.