Any use for Death's Fathom?

[sergio_cannabis]

Just found it on dlvl 17. quite nice stats but imo is outstanded by rare staffs.

lets compare the most important stats:

death's fathom:

one handed
+ 3 spells
max + 35% spell power
+20 % cast speed
max reduces target cold resistance -30
+ 3 (to random?) spell lvl (mine got frozen orb - which is totally useless)


rare staff:
2 handed
max +2 spells
max + 40% spell power
max +20% cast speed
max reduces 3 elemental resistances -30
max +30 magic (so i think) or 150 mana (so i think)
+ 3 single resistances up to 50% (so i think)
max + 50% all resistances

So in conclusion there is no need for Death's Fathom if you only take the pure stats into consideration. But it's a "one handed staff".
So i thought about it and there are only 3 shields which could be considered useful in some cases.

1) Medusas Gaze = cannot be frozen
2) Fortitude = up to 66% mf
3) Lidless Wall = max 30 magic, max increase mana 10%, max increase cast speed 10%

For me the shields do not give any real advantage to the use of a kickass rare staff. Lidless Wall being the only one giving a nice dmg and safety bonus.
Whereas Medusas Gaze is the only one i could recommend when playing if you need the other slots for other important stats and don't want to use a ravenfrost or other cannot be frozen items. This would be important on dlvls with the "Ice Sorcerors" (forgot their name). But on the other hand with Death's Fathom u only get - cold res. The sorcerors are immune to it on torment at least. So it is of no use at all again...

Overall Death's Fathom has got a "really slight" advantage over a single cold -res rare staff but overall it's not worth it using (especially if you consider the high lvl req of lv 50).

When you are really lucky and it's possible to get +3 blizzard on the item and you also receive -30 cold res THEN it could kick some ass (but again ONLY for cold resistance enemies). But that's really unlikely to get...

So...what do you think? Did I forget something important? Or can u recommend the Staff for any reason at all?

I think it is rather useless at Clvl 50...

[DacianDraco]

The spell is not random, it's always Frost Orb, and a good thing is that most of it's affixes spawn without range, whereas a staff could spawn at a low end range or without a max of 8 affixes, so less chance of a good combination. Anyway on a Necromancer i sometimes prefer to use 1h+shield, just to have extra stats, so it can work until i find something better. But it's not an item of choice it's just meh, and frankly most items are meant to be salvaged anyway.

BTW it's inspired from a D2 wand, like most uniq items in game, and most sets also.

[sergio_cannabis]

I know that it's inspired by D2. That's what really bugs me

In D2 it's the most powerful cold staff by far. Here (like you said) it's just meh...