Question: Logic Behind Holiday/Special Event Item Stats

I’ve searched quite a bit, but haven’t been able to find a specific explanation to my questions. I apologize if this has been discussed before.

Anet, why can’t our holiday items and special event gifts (i.e. candy cane weapons, helmets, shields, etc.) be equivalent to max damage or max armor items in the game?

I just don’t understand what harm would come from this. Yes, I understand this allows low level players the chance to get an item with “end-game” stats maybe a little sooner than normal, but does it really make a difference? It’s not like an 11-22 damage candy cane sword is going give that level 2 W/Mo an edge over someone else.

How many people do you actual see using these items? Occasionally, you will see people wearing their helmets in town, but that’s it. How many of you wish you could “effectively” smack the Lich King over the head with a vampric candy cane axe of fortitude while wearing your pumpkin helmet? Unfortunately, how many of you have trashed or sold these items because they provided absolutely no use in this game other than “static” appearance differences?

Or am I missing something…

Actually, I think it's a good idea to have these items be useless in play. The game would turn into a farce if everyone was wearing their antlers/santa hats/gingerbread foci/etc. into combat.

Nah.

They are holiday items, they are added for fun and games and also something to earn in special events.

I say keep it that way.

The fun maybe

That pretty much sums it up.

Do YOU wear your santa hat all year long, or do you wear it only at special Christmas events? =)

Also the weapons have no requirement

they are powerful for no requirement, I'd love a standard no requirement bow do do as much as the CC bow.

having someone run around with a pumpkin on their head all the time would do my head in I agree.. keep it the way it is, makes it more party like than "this is my Pumpkin helm, its gonna eat you after ive beat you to a pulp with CC sword"

cc gear have no req whatsoever, imagine how loud the PvP-only community would scream if PvE monks had a max 16 AL cc shield that has no req for a swap

Not that I agree that holiday items should have max stats but your reasoning is horribly flawed. They could easily put a req on the items, so your argument is pretty flimsy.

Same goes for this argument:

I actually do use my Santa Hat all the time.. it got my superior smiting on it for my 55 monk


I agree with OP though.. not like that lvl2 newbie can't get a max damage fully modded weapon from his other toon...

I am glad I held onto a few of these, when factions first came out, I used them
on each new toon on the monastery island, came in very handy, and will be using
them in again in the beginning of nightfall.

-Sirshadowrunner

having crappy event items does not make sense either

the thing is, it's a lot of fun getting them (as in doing the special quests and being there when the event happens), but once you get them, you look at them once, then never use them again, and they just take up space at that point. Would be nice if they did serve some useful function without just seeing everyone wearing them all the time, though I'll let a more imaginative person come up with that function

they dont have to do anything... they were gifts and if they didnt have event items to begin with no one would be haveing this conversation period...

don't kick a gift horse in the mouth...

there are plenty other rare and exotic items in the game...

the logic is that they are meant for show not for function... and they are meant to provide no physical advantage or are a limited resource...

I actually used a gingerbread(?) focus for my new mesmer because it was better than any of the drops she'd gotten. She even used the peppermint shield for a little while while I was playing with the warrior secondary.

I use the weapons and shields in pvp sometimes, either for weapon swapping or for unconditional +10 armor. My ranger even uses the CC shortbow for interrupt builds.

There are several reasons why special event items are not maxed out.

1) You would get a maxed out item for no real effort. Think of how you got candy cane weapons, by just playing snowball fights. Do you think that a snowball fight is worth getting a maxed out bow for?

2a) To save a long read: Since special event items are not useful people only use them to look cool, meaning that the demand of those items is way way way way way way way lower than it would be if those items where useful. That means that its not worth farming 250 cany cane swords...

2b) Getting those items is free and easy, plus you can farm them. Lets say i could choose to have a normal max shield or a gingerbread one, i would choose the gingerbread one because it looks cooler. That would mean that making those items functional = lots of people want them. And after the event whts the only way to get them? Buy them. That means that people could sell really easily farmable items for a good price and make a lot of money.

3) How would it look like if someone would run around with a candycane sword in the fire islands? It would make the game look silly and this game is not supposed to look silly but good. Else you would find lots of funny items around...

I wouldn't have a problem with this reasoning if there wasn't such a huge restriction on inventory/storage. I'm a packrat, so I've kept all my christmas shields/focus/cc weapons (I have 3). That's ~12 spaces dedicated to crap that's only useful for about 3 hours, until I get enough attribute points to use a collector's weapon on my new character. The candy cane bow is the only one worth using on a maxed out character.

Even if the weapons did come with max damage, you can't mod them. They'd still end up being worse than Itha's Bow (could a preorder item suck any more than this one?) or any other white you pick up.

The irony here is that I can sell candy cane weapons for as much as 5k each, and a max stat collectors item hardly goes for more than 1k. So for playing those snowball fights, I can ultimately get approximately 5 max stat items. (the caveat being the skins suck. lol)