Weapon

There are a wide variety of weapons available in Path of Exile. Weapons can be either one or two handed. A single one handed weapon is equipped in the right hand inventory slot, and can be used in conjunction with a shield or a second one handed weapon. Equipping two one handed weapons at once is known as dual wielding.

Properties
All weapons have a number of basic properties, that are listed on the weapon's tooltip information.
 * Weapon class
 * This is the type of the weapon.


 * Quality
 * Quality is a random modifier that increases the damage of the weapon. Its maximum value is 20%.


 * Level requirement
 * Some weapons cannot be used by characters below a certain level. If there is no level requirement, it is not listed.


 * Attribute requirements
 * Weapons cannot be used by characters whose attributes are below a required amount. A weapon can have more than one attribute requirement. The attribute requirements that a weapon has affect some of the other properties of the weapon, listed below.


 * Damage
 * The damage the weapon deals, and the type of damage. This is given as a range, with minimum and maximum values. When a character hits with a weapon, a value is chosen randomly from this range.


 * Attacks per second
 * This is the number of attacks that are performed with the weapon every second, assuming the character does not have a modified attack speed.


 * Critical strike rating
 * A rating that represents the likelihood that the weapon will land a critical hit.


 * Sockets
 * A weapon may randomly receive sockets when it is created. The number of sockets (if any), and how many of them are linked is chosen randomly, and each weapon has a maximum number of sockets that it can receive. The colour of the sockets is also random, but any attribute requirements increase the chances of matching sockets to be chosen.

Effect of attribute requirements

 * A strength requirement increases the physical damage of a weapon, and increases the chance that sockets will be red.
 * A dexterity requirement increases the attacks per second of a weapon, and increases the chance that sockets will be green.
 * An intelligence requirement increases the critical strike rating of a weapon, and increases the chance that sockets will be blue.

Melee weapons
Melee weapons include axes, swords, maces, staves, daggers, and claws.

Ranged weapons
Ranged weapons include bows and wands.

Weapon rarities
Like all other pieces of equipment, weapons come in different varieties of rarity. Higher levels of rarity generally (but not always) indicate a more powerful item, and receive more magical affixes.