Handwrap

Handwraps are exotic weapons that work by increasing the damage of unarmed attacks. While initially designed as a weapon for Monks, recent Handwraps have been designed to work with Druids in animal forms, melee-focused Warlocks, Sacred Fist Paladins, and other melee characters build around the Razorclaw Shifter Iconic Hero. They deal [1d6] Bludgeoning damage and critically hit on a 20 for double damage. Handwraps can also be converted into Companion Collars to enhance attacks of Artificer / Druid pets.

Advantages

 * Unarmed combat is about 8% faster than using weapons.
 * Handwraps are considered dual-wielding, so they benefit from Two Weapon Fighting and get off-hand attacks.
 * Because all of your attacks come from your main hand weapon, your off-hand attacks benefit from the following:
 * No penalty to attack for being an off-hand attack.
 * Full Damage modifier.
 * Main hand doublestrike chance (Perfect Two Weapon Fighting has no effect on handwraps).
 * Handwraps suffer no damage from rusting or acid, making them ideal for fighting oozes (which will not split apart from a Monk's bludgeoning attacks) and rust monsters.
 * Shintao Monks, Sacred Fist Paladins and Razorclaw Shifters in particular are built around using handwraps as weapons, with all three gaining bonuses to unarmed attack damage as they level. The three also gain unique bonuses:
 * As Shintao Monks gain levels, their handwraps begin to bypass Magic, Lawful, and Adamantine damage reduction (DR), allowing the monks to bypass these DRs without needing to look for handwraps with the right damage type. Handwraps are also one of the few weapons that do not prevent monks from being Centered, meaning they can equip them and still use Ki powers.
 * Sacred Fist Paladins get to treat Handwraps as a Favored weapon, giving them access to powerful enhancements in their other trees that only work on a favored weapon. Like monks, they also gain access to Ki powers for which they need to remain Centered.
 * Razorclaw Shifters gain access to a set of powerful Handwrap-exclusive special attacks. In addition, several of their racial enhancements provide bonuses to Handwrap attacks while using Shifting, the race's special variant of Barbarian Rage.

Disadvantages

 * First and foremost, handwraps aren't designed for every class. Classes without a bonus to unarmed attack damage will struggle to use them effectively, especially if they are a spellcaster class, such as Sorcerer or Wizard, which often hold up poorly in melee. Handwraps also prevent use of a shield, making them an exceedingly poor choice for a tank.
 * Handwraps deal bludgeoning damage, making attacks on enemies such as zombies a bit tougher (see Vorpal Strikes for a way of bypassing this).
 * Handwraps are effectively two-handed weapons; you can only have one pair on at a time, so you can only benefit from one set of enchantments at once. Most classes that can use handwraps effectively also have easy access to enhancements increasing the effectiveness of a pair of one-handed weapons.
 * Handwraps that bypass advanced DR, such as Silver, are quite rare, causing difficulties when fighting monsters with metallic DR (especially at high levels or in raids, where monsters tend to have exceedingly high DR.)

Special Materials
Handwraps with rare materials are included in regular loot tables as of Update 14. Quests such as Devil Assault that can possibly bypass DR of various monsters on all difficulties since summer 2011, with much better drop rate on Epic.

A supreme advantage to the existence of such handwraps is that, unlike named handwraps, these do not bind to character or account and seem to be considered a tradeable, randomly-generated item.

As of Update 14, metallic handwraps of all types appear with much greater frequency throughout the game (particularly in higher levels), retain their metal quality when crafted, and are tradeable.

Alternatively, a range of named handwraps are available which include metallic DR bypass as an enchantment. Three examples:, which are adamantine lined, , which are silver threaded, and , which are metalline and can bypass any metallic DR.

Tips for Using
Since handwraps are very lightweight (in comparison to other weapons), you can carry several different pairs without becoming encumbered, allowing you to carry different sets of handwraps for different types of battle.

Many properties on handwraps will easily offset their limitation as bludgeoning weapons, such as elemental damage, bane damage, and crowd-control abilities, such as paralyzing.

A significant challenge for low-level handwrap users are Iron Golems. Built from adamantine, they have high DR/Adamantine, and are immune to most  extra damage effects. Until your character finds handwraps with Construct Bane, Smiting or Metalline, you may need to carry an alternative adamantine weapon.

A tip vs. Golems: Against orange-named (and lower) Golems, try to Trip your opponent. Trip is one of the few crowd control options Golems aren't immune to, although you will need to get the DC high enough; try using Vertigo and other enchantments and/or enhancements that provide tactics bonuses. This is particularly handy vs Clay and Stone Golems. Metalline Handwraps of Vertigo can be a very versatile option for many immune-to-stun enemies in addition to Golems.

Historical information
Handwraps used to be coded differently than weapons. This proved to be extremely awkward in the long run, causing many headaches and necessitating several sets of workarounds until all Handwraps were converted to weapons in Update 33 (although even to this day, this means that handwraps do not appear on a character's model when equipped.) The below information is from before the update.


 * Since the base damage of monks' unarmed attacks vary with their class level, handwraps are not programmed as weapons by design. [ As a result, handwraps sometimes suffer from some bugs, particularly in unique items and during crafting. Thus, while handwraps may apply enhancement bonuses and other effects, the monk's body is the weapon. Any monk can still be an effective fighter without handwraps equipped (especially Shintao Monks), but, just as a Fighter with a masterwork weapon does less damage, so would a Monk without handwraps.

Properties
Handwraps gain many unique abilities from other weapons, but also are limited in their upgrading due to their design or game design.

Unique
You can find these special properties or handwraps or add the property using the Stone of Change.
 * Force prefix (Found or crafted)
 * Force Burst prefix (Crafted)
 * Bleeding suffix (Found)
 * Metalline (Found)
 * Stunning (Found—this property is shared with other non-ki bludgeoning weapons)

Metalline handwraps have a base price modifier of 5, instead of the typical 3, reflecting their rarity or value.

Missing or New
Handwraps with these following properties didn't exist in the game prior to Update 14, but now appear.
 * Impact prefix
 * Righteousness suffix

The Greater Parrying suffix appears on handwraps (since at least Update 16).

Prior to Update 19, properties such as Vorpal, Wounding and Puncturing weren't found on handwraps. Since Update 19, such effects can be found in named and loot-generated items such as the Ivy Wraps or handwraps with Lacerating property. In addition, the natural 20 rolls that would confirm Vorpal hits often activate many special Monk attacks by way of feats, enhancements or items. An Epic feat, Vorpal Strikes, is also available for Epic level characters.

Non-Weapon Based Enhancements

 * Destruction enhancements from Breastplate of Destruction and Dragontouched Robes don't apply on handwraps, but developer Eladrin stated that it is intentional.
 * Special armors have appeared that add damage augmentation, such as the Garments of Equilibrium.
 * Using the Stone of Change, the Force Damage Ritual and Force Critical Ritual didn't take effect on handwraps automatically once applied, but a work around was implemented by running the affected handwraps through the Stone of Change by themselves . This workaround is no longer needed. Force Damage and Force Critical rituals now work on randomly-generated, alchemical, and named handwraps. No information available as yet if the effect works for Cannith Crafted handwraps.
 * The Ravager Set bonus damage does not work with handwraps. This is.

Green Steel-Weave
Game developers note that there will NOT be Green Steel handwraps implemented,. Speculation for the decision involves bugs that could develop from these type of handwraps, or that the developers believe monks with Green Steel wraps will be over-powered and break game balance.