As of the 7.0 Legacy of the Sith update, the Character Window has gotten a new look. Here we will go over what each tab in the Character Window is for and how to use them.
Gear
On the Gear Tab, you will see a visual of your character that includes their name, your selected current combat style and the equipped gear items, general stats, item rating (iRating) and your light/dark side alignment.
The Item Rating is an average cumulative number of your currently equipped gear. This number helps you decide if your gear is good enough for some content or if you need better gear to do that activity. For instance, when you reach level 80 and can get the 324 gear at the vendor, it isn’t going to be necessarily strong enough to do Master Flashpoints or any Operations, so you will want to raise the number.
The Item Rating compliments the stats to the left. These stats use your item rating as well as your active buffs to give you an overall picture of your stats. You can hit the Details button to see the actual numbers of your Mastery, Alacrity, Accuracy and so on. Most will not need these exact until you reach level 80.
Outfit Designer
This is where you will set the outfit you want people to see on your character. The stats on these pieces make no difference, they are only for looks.
To get to the Outfitter, hit C (by default) and click the “Outfitter” tab. Here you will see a few things that I will explain.
Show outfit not Gear
First, you will see the loadout you have active (will explain later) above your character name and combat class. Below your name is a click box to show the gear you have on as your outfit. So if you have gear on with stats that you like the look of, you can click that button and it will show that as your outfit. Leave the box unchecked to show the outfit, not the gear pieces.
Naming Your OUtfit
Second thing you see as you go down is the list of Outfits. You have 32 slots to fill, each costing a little more as you buy them. You can edit the names by hitting the pencil icon or copy the outfit by hitting the duplicate icon.
Next you will see blank slots and your character in the gear from your gear stats. This is where you add the pieces you want your character to be seen in.
Weapons can be added to give a specific look or feel, regardless of what one you are using as gear. Keep in mind, these are still combat class style specific, so no guns on force users or sabers on techies.
How to Dye Your Outfit
The armor pieces can be from any that you find, whether GTN, vendors, Cartel Market or drops. To dye them, you can place dyes in either the chest piece to dye the whole outfit or in each piece separately to make each one different.
Hitting the Unify Colors will automatically sync all the pieces to the chest piece after they are equipped. You can deselect or select each piece to unify to chest piece separately by clicking the tiny square box in the upper left corner.
The eye symbol next to the head piece will allow you to show or hide the head piece (subscribers only).
At the bottom of that side, you have the option to:
➤ Show Dark Side Corruption, which will change the appearance of your characters to show the dark side corruption, creating a creepy veined, dark eyed look the darker you go.
➤ Enable Dynamic Mount Colors is kind of an interesting one. This one will change some mounts dynamics, example on some their lights would be changed, to match your weapon color crystal of that outfit. Nice little added thing there.
COMBAT STYLE
This tab has only a little on it, but is a very important part of your character build. Here you can see, add and switch to the different combat styles of your character. By default, we all only have one Combat Style, but subscribers have the option to add a second one. (Second Combat Styles will be explained in an upcoming article)
At the bottom of the middle of this screen is the three disciplines of the selected Combat Style. You can freely change between them in any rest zone like a cantina, stronghold or ship.
To the right of this screen is your Ability Tree and list of Abilities.
The Ability Tree is where you select some extra passives and abilities and read what passives your chosen discipline has that will automatically work when you reach the requirements for it. It is a good idea to read these closely and really learn what they do to be able to do the most with your discipline.
The Abilities tab will list all your abilities, both passive and active. Another place that you should read in detail to learn the most of any not listed in the Ability Tree.
Loadouts
Loadouts were added to the game with the 7.0 Legacy of the Sith update. These allow you to save multiple builds for different disciplines, activities, or whatever you choose so that you can quickly switch between them. You have 10 loadouts available.
Loadouts will save the following:
- Combat Style
- Discipline
- Equipped Gear
- Outfit
- Character Title *
- Flair *
- Ability Tree Choices
- Quickbar Ability Layout *
*These are not shown on the Loadouts preview screen.
How to Set Up Loadouts
Your initial loadout is basically set and changes as you level your character. To create a new loadout, click either of the +Create Loadout buttons.
When you click the button, it will first ask you to create a name. You have 18 characters, so try and give it a descriptive name that is short for ease of recognizing it. You don’t need to add the combat style, role or discipline because those will be added automatically.
After you have added the name, the loadout will be created. It will automatically start with whatever you have currently equipped at the time of creating it. Since the loadouts automatically update, you can now just change the pieces and parts you need to have the loadout the way you want it.
The icons are the same as above, the pencil icon for editing and the duplicate icon to make a copy of that loadout.
When to Use & How to Change
Loadouts are good for those that may do multiple roles, need one for operations and one for pvp, or even just to have one of ever discipline you have available on that character.
If you want to switch to another loadout, you select it on the list of loadouts and click the activate button that will appear at the bottom of the list.
**NOTE OF CAUTION: There is no way to delete loadouts at this time, so you can’t make one and then delete it. AND because they auto update and don’t have a way to lock them, you also want to be careful when making changes that you are changing the correct loadout because the change will overwrite the loadout you have selected.
Restrictions to Changing Loadouts
There are a few things that will not allow you to change your loadout.
- Group Instance – You cannot change your loadout if it changes discipline or combat style while in a group instance like a Flashpoint, Uprising or Operation. You can only switch to reassign ability quick bars and ability tree settings.
- Group Finder – You cannot change your discipline once you have entered the queue for Group Finder. So if you queue as a tank and dps, you will only be able to go as one or the other that is currently set in your loadout, you can’t switch if you get the other.
Companions
Companions can be customized in various ways. Some you can purchase customizations and some you can put whatever weapon or outfit you want them to carry on, it just depends on the companion.
The companion tab in your Character Screen interface allows you to set these. You can also change your companions role and see their stats here. You can also access the Crew Skills Panel and the Companions & Contacts Panel using the icons below the Companion name.
More information about Companion Customization will be coming soon.