Offhand

Offhand is a term used in game to refer to any limb with a melee weapon that is not the * primary limb. Certain limbs default to a default melee weapon if not equipped with anything, such as hands defaulting to fists. On game start, the primary limb defaults to either the left or right hand, with the other becoming an offhand. Which limb is the primary limb can be set by moving the cursor over the limb on the equipment screen and pressing [Tab].

Classifications of limbs

The table below is to aid in describing what is considered an offhand and what is not:

Limb type	Description	Base chance of attacking per turn	Affected by Multiweapon Proficiency, Multiweapon Expertise, Multiweapon Mastery	Jab eligible1	Flurry eligible
Primary limb	Main limb used to attack. Can be selected on the equipment screen.	100%	not applicable	not applicable	yes
Multiple Arms	lower limbs gained from Multiple Arms	Multiple Arms: (7 + mut Level × 3)%	yes	yes	yes
Hardcoded organic limbs	Stingers, Horns and fork-horned helms	20%	no	yes	yes
Hardcoded cybernetic limbs	Arms granted by helping hands.	8%	yes	yes	yes
Offhand limbs	Every other limb that does not fall into the above categories. See the below section for more specifications.	15%	yes	yes	yes

1. This assumes that the limb is wielding a short blade, unless you are wielding a short blade in your primary hand and a non-short blade in the opposite hand, due to a bug.

Fork-horned helms count as organic because they are being "wielded" by the user's head. If the player obtains cybernetic limbs, Jab will never apply to offhand attacks made with those limbs.

Additional methods of gaining offhands

Despite being called "offhands", any limb that can hold a melee weapon is able to become one.

• If the left or right hand no longer is a primary hand, it becomes an offhand.
• Extra hands (and hand variants) grown from Chimera.
• Beak and Hooks for Feet (D)
• Armor or modifications that make other body parts count as offhands: folded carbide wristblade and any magnetized melee weapon will make the arm slot or the floating nearby slot respectively an offhand.

If the player uses [Tab] to swap primary limbs, the offhand highest in the equipment list will inherit the attack chance of the new primary limb. For example, if the primary limb was swapped from the right hand to Horns on a standard limbed character, the right hand will now have the horns' 20% chance of attacking. This attack percentage is affected by Jab, but not by the Multiweapon Fighting skill tree.

References

This information is reliable as of patch 2.0.206.52.