I'm playing diablo 3 as a witch doctor, where your primary method of attack is summoning creatures to fight for you. So is there a point to me holding weapons? I find all these weapons saying things like "14.2 damage per second" but seeing as I never use this axe/sword/club to hit an enemy, is the weapon doing anything, or should I just assign my weapons based on attributes such as "+2% chance of finding gold"? Thanks!
They boost the damage of your skills, and give you more stats. Things like: Poison Dart - Shoots a poison dart that does 100% weapon damage. Zombie dogs - Each dog deals 9% weapon damage per hit.
Also, weapons can have bonuses to your primary stats like Intelligence which should help your damage as well.
Thanks, that makes more sense. I was standing there thinking "Wow what a cool rare staff I have! Oh. I'm just shooting darts at people." And yeah, i noticed intelligence because of one of my skills, it improved damage by something ridiculous like 2000%.
Weapon damage is pretty much the primary source of damage for all of your attacks. Also you might notice each weapon have a base attack speed: daggers - 1.50, one handed swords - 1.40 etc. they will improve your attack speed - you'll shoot darts faster or slower depending on the weapon.