I have seen a few pets focused gears with x% chance on enemy death passives, e.g. (Mythical) Bonescavenger’s Deathgrips, (Mythical) Dracarris, Mythical Grim Fate or (Mythical) Black Scourge. These seem to be difficult to trigger, as pet kills do not count as “on enemy death”. I have seen a few topics on this like this or this, but they are 6+ years old, and the game dynamics have changed a lot since. Should these passives consider kills from pets?
Also related topic, but death by other players do not trigger them either. For example, the more tanky characters (like the warlord) cannot trigger the passive often from the Judicator’s Seals set or the (Mythical) Thornhide Legguards, when playing multiplayer and moving together with high DPS characters. Should kills from other players trigger these passives?
I do like the x% chance on attack instead of the x% chance on enemy death, as it promotes active play, not just standing and waiting with pet or tank builds in multiplayer. Although, I believe it changes the mechanics a bit.
The x% chance on enemy death passives are impossible to trigger on bosses, which do no spawn monsters. It is a bit similar to the x% of attack damage converted to health, as it is less effective, if the boss has high resistances and damage absorption. Bosses, who spawn monsters, can help to get health back. x% chance on enemy death passive increases general clearing speed without having to add an Area of Effect skill or impacting boss fighting. It gives more variety to boss gameplay experience and flexibility to balance changes.
On the other hand, some items like the mentioned Judicator’s Seals set has a really situational passive. The healing, offensive and defensive ability buff is useful mostly against bosses. If you needed those buffs for regular monsters, then you could not kill Heroes or Bosses. But against bosses you cannot trigger it, unless the boss spawns monsters. I cannot see this set passive changed in the 1.2.0.0 patch notes, but this had its own topic 3 years ago.
The x% chance on enemy death passives are present only on a handful of Legendary set and item bonuses. I think there are no skills, devotions, rare prefixes, rare suffixes, components, augments, relics or below Legendary items, that have x% chance on enemy death passives.
Proposed changes
Judicator’s Signets/Seals set - change to x% chance on attack, tune it down to 4%-6% offensive and defensive ability
(Mythical) Thornhide Legguards - change to x% chance when hit, add 2-5 second skill recharge
(Mythical) Malakor’s Infusion - change to x% chance on attack
Badge of Mastery - change to x% chance on attack
(Mythical) Black Scourge - change to x% chance on attack, following the example of (Mythical) Bonescavenger’s Deathgrips, skill description update is needed, as Whenever a foe is slain by your hand would not make sense anymore
(Mythical) Dracarris - change to x% chance on attack, following the example of (Mythical) Bonescavenger’s Deathgrips, skill description update is needed, as Inspired by a fresh kill would not make sense anymore
(Mythical) Bonescavenger’s Deathgrips - 1.2.0.0 already changes it to x% chance on attack