Should I move to a 0 weaponskill if I get a legendary weapon?

[James]

I am playing cleric and I keep finding the legendary axe and sword in my runs. Should I switch and begin working on those skills or give them to followers? Thanks.

[LadstonFelisGaming]

There are a few factors to consider: your playstyle and whether or not you’re playing multiplayer.

If you aren’t playing multiplayer, keep them yourself and use them once your main melee skill is maxed. Artifacts make great training weapons because they are unbreakable, and each skill level gives you 2 xp. (Maxing a skill from 0 gives you two levels worth of xp)

Your playstyle should be considered as well since each artifact weapon has a gimmick that makes them better for specific playstyles. Counterproductively, most caster classes have points in Polearm when it’s the legendary mace that most benefits them whereas the legendary polearm is better for tanking. The axe is arguably the best general melee dps and the sword is a boss killer. Use whichever suits your style best.

As for whether you should give them to followers: No. Never.
Followers have no survival instinct at all and will run into combat even if you tell them to stay put. They don’t even attempt to avoid traps or environmental hazards and will constantly die to them. Giving them anything valuable is just asking to lose those items. Keep any and all artifacts to yourself and amongst the actual players in your party.

[OnTheLastCastle]

If the follower dies, you can pick the weapon back up. It seems unlikely the weapon would fall in a pit.

Unless artifact weapons don’t drop from dead followers? I’ve never tried it, but their regular gear I gave them does.

[LadstonFelisGaming]

Originally posted by OnTheLastCastle:

If the follower dies, you can pick the weapon back up. It seems unlikely the weapon would fall in a pit.

Unless artifact weapons don’t drop from dead followers? I’ve never tried it, but their regular gear I gave them does.

In my experience, any followers that have been killed by the environment (usually boulders) will have some of their gear rendered inaccessible either from the boulder resting on the items too early in the game for Push or Dig to be reliably available or from falling into either pits or lava in the later parts, destroying the items.
There’s also the fact that followers can’t swim or levitate over pits, so if they get isolated from you because of holes or liquid and die without you noticing, you lose the item anyway from leaving it on the ground upon exiting the floor.

In general, followers are little more than cannon fodder that will die shortly after recruitment. Their short lifespans and mindlessness means giving them anything valuable is a pointless risk.

[OnTheLastCastle]

I guess. I tend to tell them to wait and bring monsters back to them if I need to. Some die instantly, some are quite beefy and will go forever especially if I can heal them.