Guide to Winter Events 2013

[HunterAP]

Greetings all.  I'm new here, and I want to go ahead and start pulling my weight, so I came up with a little "cheat sheet," for the Winter Wonderland events.  Feel free to add your own suggestions.

Getting Commodities

• Doff Missions.  Seriously, do them.  Crits net you commodities, non crits do not.  That said, the crits will get you the hard to obtain uncommon commodities.
• Pie Eating contest will net you four random commodities.  (eat 8 pies)
• Winter Wonderland Snowman Invasion will net you up to four random commodities.  I don't know what determines how many you get, but I often get one uncommon for doing these.
• Sometimes opening the Mysterious Package of Cookies and Treats (obtained by completing the Gingerbread Invasion) will give you some commodities.
• If you don't want to waste your time, just buy them off of the exchange.
• Andorian Sleigh Bells (uncommon)
• Bajoran Gratitude Beads (uncommon)
• Terran Holiday Ornament
• Targ Fur Earmuffs
• Bolian Candles
• Vulcan Meditation Incense

Winter Races

• When starting a race, go for that quick burst by hitting sprint.
• Change direction as little as possible, pick your mark and run straight for it.
• When making a big turn (hairpin turn) It is best to stop your forward movement before trying to move in the new direction.  Do this by doing a 180, or turning 90 degrees and using your strafe keys.  Once you have slowed down, pick your new direction and go.
• The little guides on the side of the track are not the disqualification point, the disqualification point is about halfway between the guides, and the flags.
• You can cut some corners, especially towards the end, but watch for those flags.

Gingerbread Invasion

• The little candy piles give you buffs.
• Guns are WAY better than snowballs.
• The best guns are the Flurry, the Hail, and the Snowblower.  The Big One and the Avalance are not worth getting.
• The recipes are located at the green circle on your minimap.  They spawn when the event begins, not during warmup.
• The recipes often have, "secret passages," that you need to find in order to get there.  The first time through the map, you might want to look around for those passages after killing the bosses.
• Typically, one person per map can get the recipe, but you can use the, "loot together," trick to have everyone on the team get it at once.  To do so, just have everyone meet at the package and loot it at the same time.  Don't try this in a pickup group.

Pie Eating Contest

• The max reward is 4 random commodities.  8 pies is your target.  Less than 8 will get you 2 random commodities.
• Look for the small pies, they go faster.
• Wait until one person, or no people are eating pies before you accept the quest.

Winter Wonderland Snowman Invasion

• When this event starts, just head to the lake and start killing snowmen there.
• Just above the center pond where Boss Snowman spawns, there is a wooden deck between the pond and raceway.  Camp there and the snowman will come to you from three different directions. (Wupteedo)

Extras

• The Frosted Boots have a great run speed buff that can come in handy in some non-winter event missions.
• To get a winter tribble, just feed a tribble any winter recipe food.
• The Snowball Mortar will trigger the doff quantum mortar skill, giving you up to four mortars.  (I typically only use this during the boss fights as it has a long cooldown.)
• The winter recipe ingredients can be found at the little igloo camps around the winter wonderland, but only if you are on the winter recipe quest.  (recipes are obtained in the Gingerbread invasion)
• If you bought everything you want, remember that some people go goo goo for cosmetic items.  Use your leftover commodities to buy some of the cosmetic stuff and sell it during the spring/summer for big bucks.

[Elthiar]

Awesome!  Thanks, I'll be using these tips. 

[CAPT Huckabee]

Nice guide.  Although the uncommon ones are feeling more Very Rare on my end.  Seems harder to get this year and the others come in by the truck load.

[Wupteedo]

Totally grand.  Will be spending a lot of time here, so many thanks. 

Tip for Snowman Invasion:  Just above the center pond where Boss Snowman spawns, there is a wooden deck between the pond and raceway.  Camp there and the snowman will come to you from three different directions. 

[Anton Mercer]

It looks like they semi-borked the present fix for the winter invasion and now you can farm it for however long you are in the instance when it borks. I offloaded any doubles I had into the Fleet bank for those who don;t have time for the winter invasion or just want to get the chef accolade

[Anton Mercer]

Got another borked present. I dropped all the uncommon and rare recipes in the bank in the personal gear tab.