What's the point of Wirt now?

[thaecrasis]

In the original Diablo, and Hellfire, Wirt would always have an item with a guaranteed great enchantment or two and always costing a lot, making the cost to see his item worth it.

In this mod, he seems to just have a random magic item, with no regard to quality of the enchantments it has. So basically he's just Grizwald, but with only 1 magic item, that you need to pay to see.

[Miacis]

Wirt sometimes offers rare (yellow) items and they might be really useful. I remember myself buying some good shield and helmet on my first playthrough as Warrior.
More than that, Wirt can offer items that Griswold can't. These are items with higher itembase. Griswold offers them when you have outleveled them by a big margin, but Wirt has a chance to sell such items as you get to their requirements, I believe. That can help a lot with crafting early on.
Overall, it makes sense to check out Wirt's items every now and then if you are struggling to find good items early on. They could have a lot of good rolls by themselves or you can find a good base to craft.

[thaecrasis]

Oh okay, thanks for the clarification.

[Ugily]

Miacis, I suppose you are correct on your assessment of Wirt's inventory.

However, I have only once found anything of use from Wirt, a +10 all stats two handed sword.

One of the issues with the economy of this mods is that there is very little use of gold except to gamble and repair items. If Wirt would only offer exceptional rare items - no unique or set, then maybe he would be more useful in the economy. Even better, maybe a new classification of enchanted items available only from Wirt may enrich the game. Call it a Legendary class of items that randomly roll properties of rares plus a few properties of crafted, unique, and set items. Properties such as Ignore Target Defense, Infravision, Cast defensive spell, Reduce physical and magical defenses, duplicate a class skill, allow two handed weapon in one hand, generate items that are not normally populated such as crossbows, claws, second hand weapons, artifacts...

Even more.... rings with amulet properties and amulets with ring properties.

[Miacis]

Not to mention that he is located a bit off your usual route which Town Portal place - Griswold - Adria. If you aren't in a desperate need of an item which you can only have access to with buying it from Wirt, you're not gonna check him for items surely. If he was sitting as where he is when you have Butcher quest (at corner of Rising Sun Tavern) he would already have had a lot more attention from player, IMO.