Lantern of Shadows in shield\off-hand slot

[gareth44]

Hello, everyone. My first time here.
First of all, thanks to the team for the great game.
Second, a suggestion from me. The Lantern of Shadows is quite a useful item, especially for melee chars. Wouldn't it be logical, in my opinion, to make it available for carrying in an the shield\off-hand slot? That should seriously increase it's usefulness...

[szanth]

I like this idea. As it is, I never use the lantern, because I've generally already got something useful in my weapon hand. Like a weapon.

[mageykun]

Personally, I love the idea. Heck, it's one I've had myself.

That said... I think the reason it's a weapon now is to make an interesting choice- do you want a weapon, or free summons? The only time I've found the free meatshields (shadowshields? :p) worth it is in the abyss, where you do more running than fighting anyways. Mele with free support could be unbalanced, though I suppose you are still giving up the ability to use a shield, or better two handed weapon damage output, so maybe not.

Biggest problem I see is that the item acts a double boost to negative energy. A necromancer with the shadow equivalent of two rings of fire, free summon spam, and a hand free to wield something else could definitely be unbalanced.

Maybe you should be able to wield it in either hand, and the effect is diminished if you use it in the off hand? Justify it by saying the neg boost and rate of summoning is linked to the concentration of the wielder, and if you split your concentration it's less effective.

[TGW]

"Two negative spell enhancers" means "you feel extremely numb" for every spell, not a necromancy boost.

[mageykun]

...oh, wait, I see. So "negative spells enhancer" means a negative enhancer of spells, not an enhancer of negative spells. That's some unclear language there.

I guess you can disregard my second paragraph on balance then. The lantern is already unattractive to mages.

[szanth]

Unattractive to the only group of people that would be able to wield it. >_>