Offhand Slot: What's It Good For?

[Quintalian]

With Patch 3.2's changes to weapon distribution, including Paladin's sword-and-shield reward pairing, and exchanging WHM's one-handed weapons for two-handed forms, this question is more relevant than ever: what is the deal with the offhand slot? Is there a plan in place for this perpetually empty space on my Character menu?

Currently, Gladiator and Paladin are the only battle class and job that are designed to take advantage of an entire equipment slot. I'm aware of the few smaller, mage-friendly shields that exist, but clearly there have been none added in a long time and this most recent move speaks loud and clear: mages have their hands full, they don't need to carry a physical shield.

Since sword and shield rewards now drop together, why keep them as separate items? Players will use the highest item level option available for each. If both are available simultaneously, there may as well be no difference between having both equipped, and having a single item that functions as both pieces of equipment. Roll both drops together into a single sword-plus-shield item, the same way rogue daggers or pugilist knuckles come in a two-pack.

I realize this suggestion leaves some issues unaccounted for. How would glamours work should someone prefer the appearance of one sword and a shield that doesn't match? What would be done in the case of those few special shields, such as the Skjoldr and the Grand Company escutcheons?

It does still leave the question of what to do with the offhand slot itself. One possibility I haven't overlooked is that in the future there may be another shield-wielding job, which potentially makes the above sword-plus-shield idea moot (though it's more likely such a job would use a different shield type). I'd like to see role-based offhand items fill the gap, so to speak; the straps, charms and trinkets which eventually were introduced in FFXI to make use of the Thrown item slot, for example. This also doesn't preclude shields remaining as-is, of course.

[Shadygrove]

I will admit I was surprised that the ROG daggers came as a set rather than in MH and OH varieties, but still the slot has uses.

THM and CON still have one handed weapons and shields and then there are MIN, BOT, and all the crafting careers.

[Aura_Shurifon]

All non battle class bar fisher use the off hand slot.

[HPDelron]

I think the more sensible solution may simply "Fill" the slot with a duplicate of the main hand icon when using a two-handed weapon or item. You don't have to worry about reworking anything for PLD or Crafters/Gathers other classes don't have an annoying empty slot. However this is a super-small cosmetic problem, and any solution would probably be non-trivial to implement from dev resources standpoint. Not sure it's the kind of thing that really begs solving.