I asked on Twitter the other day if people had any questions or specific things they would like to see in a guide, and Walks came at me with the really tough questions:
@DiscGrace What’s your favorite dye color, Gracie? What class has the best armor if I’m only playing for superficial looks?
— Walks (@walkstweets) October 12, 2015
I certainly don’t want to disappoint my loyal readers, and it turns out there’s a lot to learn from these questions!
Costume Basics
Choose your fabulous costume from this menu.
Why wander around Nexus looking like you just picked up whatever you could find off of random monsters you killed? Costume items can be purchased for renown, prestige, or NCoin, or you can mix and match the appearance of any gear you find while playing the game normally!
Open your character sheet (default “P”) and select “Costumes” from the menu on the upper right. This basic menu lets you preview costumes you’ve already made and select which one you want to wear. Free-to-play characters can have 4 costumes, while folks who purchased the box get 6. You can purchase more from the cash shop, up to a total of 12. Changing between costumes can be done at any time and has no cost. But before you select a costume you have to put together a great look for yourself! That brings us to the next step.
The Holo-wardrobe
An empty costume, just waiting for inspiration!
This is where the magic happens, fellow citizens of Nexus. The Holo-wardrobe can be accessed directly from the menu at the bottom left of your screen, or from the costumes tab of your character sheet. The left column is where you will choose and create your costume. The right side shows a preview of your outfit while you’re working. In the center, dye and costume options will be presented based on what you have selected on the left.
Choose your weapon.
When you start, everything on the left will be grayed out or empty, and the preview on the right should show whatever gear you have equipped. To use the “skin” or appearance of an item for your costumes, you must first unlock it. Clicking the “Unlock Items” button in the top center of the holo-wardrobe will bring up a list of all the items available for you to learn the appearance of. You can go through this list, see a preview of each item, and decide if you want to unlock its appearance for your costumes. Note that unlocking an item’s appearance will cause it to become soulbound to you and unable to be traded. As you find new items, you can also shift+right click on them to unlock their appearance. You start with 300 individual item appearance slots available, and more can be purchased in the in-game store up to a total of 850. Items you learn are available across your entire account, for both Exile and Dominion characters.
Oh no, two different duplicate items! Right click and forget the extras to free up space!
Now that you’ve unlocked some fancy items, let’s put them to work. You can change the appearance of any visible gear slot. That means weapon, head, shoulders, chest, hands, legs, and feet. Click on one in the leftmost column of the wardrobe and it will show all the appearances you’ve unlocked for that slot in the middle column. Items are arranged alphabetically, and you can move between pages using the small arrows at the bottom right of this section. Items with an exclamation point symbol are no longer available in the game (but you can still keep using their appearance!). Items with a red “no” symbol can’t be used by your current character. This mostly happens with weapons, since you can’t change your weapon appearance to that of a different class. Alternately, you can click the eye icon next to an appearance slot to hide the display of that item. That option is particularly useful for hiding your helm if you want to show off your cute haircut.
Dyes
I wrote a whole guide to using Dyes and finding new ones! You can find it at Wildstar Core!
Just answer Walks’ questions already
Oh right I was supposed to talk about my favorite color and class for overall looks. My favorite dye color is Northern Lights, which is one of the new ones from Cosmic Rewards. It is such a pretty, multi-hued color, with metallic blues and purples. As for which class gets the best gear, that mostly only matters for your weapons (I love Spellslingers’ pistols and Medics’ resonators so much). Otherwise, just go to the auction house or find a friendly crafter and get whatever you like. You can learn the appearance of items from any class! I like a lot of the medium and light armor, although some of the late-game heavy armor has a great tanky feel to it if you are into that. As much as I like my spellslinger, some of the medic class sets are pretty amazing. Also, don’t forget to think about PvP. Not only are the level 50 PvP sets very snazzy looking, there are also a few nice costume sets available for the PvP currency, prestige. Remember that your holo-wardrobe is shared across your whole account, so you can mix and match as much as you want!
That’s it for today! If you still have questions check out Kelzam’s guide from when the holo-wardrobe system launched, or ask away in the comments!
