Can a lower level character wear higher level gear?

Question here from Morgrim Wraith:

Hey Friendly,
I enjoy your blog and your bits on Ravenwood Radio, so when I ran across something mysterious, I thought you might be able to answer it.

I saw someone in Marleybone that was wearing gear that looks like something I'd expect from Dragonspyre. I figured she was helping someone of lower level, or maybe coming back to finish up Kensington.

Anyway, I looked at her level and found it was just 36. Ok, so it's possible to buy Dragonspyre items at the bazaar and stitch lower level stats into them. Then I noticed her hat's level is apparently higher than she should be able to use. The player was gone before I could ask her about it. I've attached screenshots showing what I saw. Is this just a display bug showing the stats of the appearance item used in the stitch process, or something bigger?

Hmm,let's take a look at those screenshots.



Oh, ok, that's the Hat of the Endless. It used to be the best hat in the game for lower levels because it didn't have a level or class restriction. Everybody and their dangerhound was wearing one of those helms because you couldn't beat the hitpoints. A few months ago, a patch made that hat level 45 and myth only . . . pretty much turning it into vendor trash loot. Seeing someone still wearing this hat is like seeing a dinosaur.



It's been a few months ago since that happened, but I remember looking at my characters that were wearing that hat when that patch update happened, and what I remember is this . . . the item was still equipped on my character and was displaying however the hitpoints had gone away. The moment you unequipped that hat was the moment you could no longer equip it again.

What's odd here is that in the screenshot you're showing, this character still seems to be gaining a benefit from the accuracy and damage modifiers on the hat when I don't really think that is the case.

Hmmm, I'm going to forward this message to a friend of mine in the help/troubleshooting department over there at Kingsisle and see if she knows anything about it. It may just be something that's showing up when you gear check someone because as I understand it, until that character removes that hat, it's merely acting as an appearance item and she's really not gaining any benefits from that helm.

Thanks for the question!

Happy Dueling!