There are offhands that make me feel confused. On the one hand offhands have some interesting/useful properties and are not bad at all, but on the other hand these offhands seem to me not adding much value. It would be great to change these offhands to make it more interesting and valuable in builds.
First one is (legendary and mythical versions) Contagion. The offhand is focused on vitalty and poison & acid damages. It supports Necromancer skills, but grants +1 to all skills in Nightblade mastery and it is confusing. Replacing this by +1 to all skills in Necromancer will provide better support for poison Necromncer based builds and more flexibility. It also would be nice if the offhand get skill mod with 100% Vitality to Acid for RE or grant 50% Vitality to Acid conversion. This will make offhand more valuable for poison builds like Reapers and Witch Hunters.
Stormbringer of Malmouth (credits to Chthon) offhand is the only one item for Necromancer that gives purely Lightning/Electrocute Bonuses for pets. It’s nice, but having conversuion for Necromancer attack skill(s) like Drain Essence will make it useful not only for pure, but also for hybrid summoner builds.
Concerning Contagion, your original suggestion of +1 Necro skills actually sounds better.
There might be some who would want to play Poison based Necro due to certain skills having the damage type. +1 Necro makes things much more flexible
The problem with +1 NB is that there are plenty of items for Witch Hunter and this one is unlikely to ever qualify for BiS which is a shame as that RR is definitely pretty valuable
Similar problems exist with Amarastan Crusher and Misery, neither can ever qualify to be good Witch Hunter weapons but can serve well for other builds if the skill mods and bonuses are altered.
Amarastan Crusher has the potential for Poison based Inquisitors and Misery would serve Poison based Shamans well.
In its current state, the itemization for poison/acid items is too centered around Occultist/Nightblade. While it makes sense for most items to give bonuses to these classes I don’t think all of them should as this way even some very potentially good items would end in the trash can due to underuse.
I don’t see why we just don’t get clothes, shield, and weapon and we just go about hitting things. That would be all the equipment we’d need: hat, shirt, pants, gloves, shoes, block item, attack item, two rings, and a medal.
I mean, why not make everything the same? How realistic is it to block with a book or a skull and expect it to have the same resistance as a shield.
Isn’t that your proposal? To give off hands the ability to block?
Off-hand items are basically spell caster items, they aren’t shields. That’s not their purpose.
If we do that, why have differing items doing different things. Just make everything the same.
Well, I agree with ibugsy - it is really hard to understand what did you mean in your previous post. Probably you would like to suggest to buff caster offhands to be on par with shields. If it is correct, I still can’t get the point why do you think that offhands are weaker or worse compared to shields.
No, I was honestly meaning a offhand weapon like main gauche or swordbreaker dagger and was curious about that.
Though not a casterthingy the thread was worded as suggestions for offhands which I think a weapom used to block exc. dw would be.
There is one more offhand that needs our attention. I am talking about Fiend’s Resolve, both legendary and mythical versions.
This is the only one caster offhand granting attack speed instead of casting speed. According to this thread it is known fact, but nothing was changed after more than 2 years. I propose to align this offhand with other by replacing attack speed by casting speed.