Cowl (hooded) idea to make them a desired item

[Klive]

The cowl armor take up both head and body slot. As a crafted item, this dramatically reduces its usefulness. Most because crafted items major selling point is materia binds and the cowl takes you lose a valuable head slot for more materia binds. I know to was already discussed having head materia able to bind to cowls, but who would still wear it. Still losing a slot for materia.

So I had an idea to have materia bind to gear what take up more than one slot, only cowl so far, makes the materia bonus a little stronger to compensate the loss of a slot. Not much stronger, like 20% or so stronger. I would like to see cowl have a little more desire on the market.

[Holy_Dragoon]

Cowls by themselves are decent items, but losing materia really hurts their usefulness. Usually the stats don't make up for the losses you take.

[Klive]

Cowls by themselves are decent items, but losing materia really hurts their usefulness. Usually the stats don't make up for the losses you take.

Loss of a materia or more is a big difference. I use to wear the cowl all the time but now the stats are not worth it.

[ninesunz]

Cowls should have higher base stats to compensate head&body ?

[Holy_Dragoon]

They actually do compensate fairly well. As a mage, Woolen Cowl has great stats. It surpasses near all single pieces of gear, but I can only use 1 materia slot. With a Robe + Hat I can have 2.

[DoctorMog]

My thoughts,

-Allow all head and body materia's to be melded to cowls (since they count as both)
-Increase the success rate of materia melding (improving the frequency of cowls being 4 and 5 melded, negating the extra materia available for two separate items)

Alternatively,
-Give cowls the ability to remove its hood and wear it just as a body piece. When the hood is down, the stats are reduced to be equal to just a body item. The hood would give the bonus stats of the hood when "up" (and you would not be able to wear a head item when it is up)

[Zantetsuken]

My thoughts,

Allow all head and body materia's to be melded to cowls (since they count as both)
Increase the success rate of materia melding (improving the frequency of cowls being 4 and 5 melded)

Hmmm.. that would certainly make that 5-meld achievement easier to get...

[DoctorMog]

Hmmm.. that would certainly make that 5-meld achievement easier to get...

I edited my post with one alternative that I thought of, sorry Zan.

[Zantetsuken]

Its an interesting conundrum... cowls and materia..

Maybe a good way to deal with it is to give cowls specific materia types with bonuses that other items of clothing can't use.. like +MP regen and +HP regen rate, or reduced interruption on spells.

Cowls for endurance battles, standard robes for fast burn.

That would make them quite popular I think.

[Klive]

SE should do something at least, right now with materia, there is no reason wear cowls other than looks.