History Main / StatSticks

* In many {{MOBA}}s such as ''VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncients'' and ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'', characters can hold a certain amount of items in generic slots, and benefit stackingly from these items even if it makes no logical sense (Although [[SuperSpeed for balancing reasons]] shoes tend to be an exception). This can lead to such ridiculousness as a {{Stripperific}} character wearing two full sets of heavy armor at the same time, a swordsman using a crossbow, or an archer triple-wielding swords, while their attack animation remains unchanged.

* ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' and the ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' series let you have two weapons out at once, one in each hand (shields also count as "weapons" in these games for some reason). Pushing the Y/Triangle button lets you wield your right-hand weapon with both hands for extra damage while your left-hand weapon SticksToTheBack. Some weapons provide passive bonuses when out but aren't all that useful as weapons. Since most people who play these games [[ShieldsAreUseless tend to prefer dodging attacks over blocking them]], they use one of these weapons in place of a shield and just have it stuck to their back all the time.

** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI'': The only stat stick is the almighty Grass Crest Shield, with its effect of increasing stamina regeneration speed. [[ComplacentGamingSyndrome 99.9% of all players have this shield practically fused to their back at the molecular level]]. The remaining 0.1% are new to the game and don't know what they're doing yet. There are other weapons and shields in the game that provide passive effects, but all of them are either also useful ''as'' weapons/shields and therefore don't count, or the effect isn't regarded as being very useful and therefore nobody bothers to use the weapon at all.

*** The Crystal Sage's Rapier is a decent weapon for an Intelligence build with sufficient Dexterity, but for everyone else it's just a RandomDropBooster that you wear on your back. It's especally useful in this regard since it's available very early on, while the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring isn't available until ''much'' later.

Contrast OrnamentalWeapon, when your weapon truly has no use outside of looking pretty.

* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' has Miss Moxxxi's weapons, most notably the Rubi. While not useless on their own, any damage you deal while holding them will heal you for a percentage, including melee and grenade damage. This is especially useful on melee-oriented characters like [=Zer0=] or Krieg, as well as on Salvador, who can use two weapons, one that deals damage, and the Rubi to keep his health up. This also works well with a Cataclysm-specced Maya, who uses skills like Helios and Ruin to add a lot of elemental damage to her Phaselock skill.

* ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' and all the ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' games let you have two weapons out at once, one in each hand. You can wield one with two hands for extra damage while the other SticksToTheBack. Some weapons provide passive bonuses when they are out but aren't all that useful as weapons, so anyone who uses them just has them stuck to their back 100% of the time. You can still equip weapons even if you don't meet their stat requirements (they just harmlessly bounce off enemies doing damage in single digits) and this doesn't affect their passive bonuses, so it's not uncommon to see people with weapons on their back that they couldn't use even if they wanted to.
** In both ''Demon's Souls'' and ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'', weapons can be upgraded to regenerate HP (Blessed) or MP (Crescent in ''Demon's Souls'', Simple in ''Dark Souls III'') over time. Upgrade an extremely light weapon this way, and you've basically got a regeneration ring that you wear on your back.
** ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'': The Kris Blade enhances magic, the Morion Blade gives [[CriticalStatusBuff a huge bonus to damage when at low health]] (which, despite the description, applies to ''all'' damage you do when the weapon is equipped, not just the Morion Blade itself), the Large Sword of Searching is a RandomDropBooster and the Adjudicator's Shield provides substantial health regen.
** ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'': The Grass Crest Shield is sub-par as a shield but increases the rate of stamina regeneration. This alone makes it good enough to cause severe ComplacentGamingSyndrome, as almost every player you encounter will be wearing this shield on their back while two-handing their weapon, no matter what kind of build they have. It's ''Dark Souls II'' equivalent the Blossom Kite Shield is almost as popular. In ''Dark Souls III'', the Grass Crest Shield itself returns, but has basically been abandoned in favour of other stat sticks such as the Blessed and Simple weapons mentioned above.
** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'': The Crystal Sage's Rapier is a decent weapon for an Intelligence build with sufficient Dexterity, but for everyone else it's just a RandomDropBooster that you wear on your back. The Scholar's Candlestick is especially useless as a weapon since it boosts the power of sorcery but has a ''Faith'' requirement (sorcery uses Intelligence, not Faith), and it isn't even very good if you ''do'' meet that requirement. The Old Wolf Curved Sword provides better versions of the effects given by the Pontiff's Eye rings (and stacks with those rings), and its primary use is to be on the back of a Sellsword Twinblades user who doesn't have the Strength required to wield it. The Morion Blade returns with the same effect from before, and the Ancient Dragon Greatshield is pretty much the Adjudicator's Shield with a new paint job.

* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' has a few characters who generally resort to this. Yukiko is both TheMedic and an offensive Fire mage so rarely finds herself using her basic attack. Fittingly, her weapons are ''paper fans'' so this trope is mostly justified. The stranger case is Naoto, who is primarily a magic user despite her weapons being ''revolvers'', so even guns end up being used for this. Teddie's claws somtimes fill this role too, as he's mostly used for his StatusBuff skills and [[AnIcePerson Ice magic]].

** For physical characters, there are multiple skills that only attack with the main hand, so you can have the main damage-dealing weapon in their main hand and a Stat Stick in their off-hand using the same principle. The ''Prismatic Eclipse'' is the good example of dual wield Stat Sticks, since the ''global'' increase to attack speed with green sockets is one of the highest attack speed boost available via equipment. There was actually a time where the best melee builds used a weapon with multiple "% of physical damage added as [element]" on the off-hand and used skills that only attacked with the main hand.

** The briefly popular Footwork set up on Monk turned their fist weapon into this. The fist weapon was only there to grant multihitting to the player's kick attacks.

** There was also a period of time where it was common for DualWielding classes to equip a weapon in their second weapon slot that has a chance of hitting multiple times per attack rather than a weapon which does high damage. Due to the way Weapon Skills work in this game this allowed the player to crank out [[LimitBreak Weapon Skills]] (which primarily base their damage on your main hand weapon) at a much faster rate.

** There was also a period of time where it was common for DualWielding classes to equip a weapon in their second weapon slot that has a chance of hitting multiple times per attack rather than a weapon which does high damage. This allows the player to crank out [[LimitBreak Weapon Skills]] (which primarily base their damage on your main hand weapon) at a much faster rate.

** For physical characters, there are multiple skills that only attack with the main hand, so you can have the main damage-dealing weapon in their main hand and a Stat Stick in their off-hand using the same principle. The ''Prismatic Eclipse'' is the good example of dual wield Stat Sticks, since the ''global'' increase to attack speed with green sockets is one of the highest attack speed boost available via equipment.

* In ''VideoGame/DungeonFighterOnline'', the Launcher specialization of the Gunner classes is best equipped with the Hand Cannon category guns. Said weapons are rarely used by a Launcher character.
** The Creator class is an even more straight-forward example of this, as they are best equipped with the Broomstick weapons, but cannot even attack with them.

* ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' and all the ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' games let you have two weapons out at once, one in each hand. You can wield one with two hands for extra damage while the other SticksToTheBack. Some weapons provide passive bonuses for being held but aren't really all that useful as weapons, so anyone who uses them just has them stuck to their back 100% of the time. Since weapons can still be equipped even without meeting the stat requirements (they just do basically no damage), it's not uncommon to see someone with a weapon stuck to their back that they couldn't use even if they wanted to.

** ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'': The Kris Blade enhances magic, the Morion Blade gives [[CriticalStatusBuff a huge bonus to damage when at low health]] (which, despite the description, applies to ''all'' damage you do when the weapon is equipped, not just the Morion Blade itself), and the Adjudicator's Shield provides substantial health regen.

** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'': The Crystal Sage's Rapier is useful as a weapon for an Intelligence build with sufficient Dexterity, but ''anyone'' can benefit from its passive effect as a RandomDropBooster whether they meet the stat requirements or not, especially since it's available long before the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring is. The Scholar's Candlestick is especially useless as a weapon: holding it boosts the strength of sorceries, but it has a requirement of 16 Faith. Sorcery doesn't scale with Faith, it scales with Intelligence, so a sorcerer levelling up Faith ''at all'' is extremely counter-productive.[[note]]The exception being Dark sorceries, which scale with both Intelligence and Faith provided one of two specific catalysts is used to cast them.[[/note]] The Morion Blade returns with the same effect from before, and the Ancient Dragon Greatshield is pretty much the Adjudicator's Shield with a new paint job.

* ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' and all the ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' games let you have two weapons out at once, one in each hand. You can wield one with two hands for extra damage while the other SticksToTheBack. Some weapons provide passive bonuses for being equipped but aren't actually that useful as weapons, so if someone it going to use them, they'll just be stuck to their user's back 100% of the time.

** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'': The Crystal Sage's Rapier is useful as a weapon for an Intelligence build with sufficient Dexterity, but ''anyone'' can benefit from its passive effect as a RandomDropBooster, especially since it's available long before the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring is. The Scholar's Candlestick is especially useless as a weapon: holding it boosts the strength of Sorceries, but its attack damage is almost nothing if you don't have high enough Faith -- a stat Sorceries ''don't use'', because their spells are strengthened by Intelligence. The Morion Blade returns with the same effect from before, and the Ancient Dragon Greatshield is pretty much the Adjudicator's Shield with a new paint job.

** On higher difficulty levels, the player's resistances take a nosedive, requiring the player to find equipment that has the right resistances for the next boss. It's common to equip a weapon not because of how much damage it dishes out but has a juicy +100% resistance to Lightning damage.

** In the [[VideoGame/TorchlightII sequel]], this is common practice for [[SquishyWizard Embermages]], who mainly use spells to deal damage with weapons generally being used for any applicable stat bonuses.